Winter 2006 - Loreto to LA Bay

Oh, where to begin describing this glorious day. A short 60 mile drive brought us to the shore of the Sea of Cortez at Bahia Concepcion. We selected El Requison from among many beachfront campgrounds. We are parked along a beach, ten feet from the shore with mountains rising out of the water all around us. The family parked next to us is from Switzerland. After nine months traveling in a small RV through Canada, Alaska and Mexico, they are headed north to Vancouver and a plane ride home.

We drove back into Mulege to get groceries, internet access and some souvenir shopping. On the way, we stopped at another beach campground with a highly recommended restaurant. We had a superb seafood lunch. Mulege was small (3,111 inhabitants) and not too interesting, although we accomplished all of our errands. On the way back to the campground, we stopped to take pictures of our camping area from the high cliffs. Back at the coach, we sat out on the beach reading and, as the sun went down, we lit a campfire. After a while, our Swiss neighbors came by to chat and tell us about the bioluminescence they had seen on previous nights here. Sure enough, about 8:30, the small waves lapping against the shore, lit up. Each small wave was accompanied by a greenish glow. When fish jumped out of the water, a bright glow appeared where they landed. Carl walked into the water and the water around his feet glowed. When he splashed the water it lit up in thousands of little spots. When he walked out of the water, many of the small bioluminescent critters clung to his hands and feet, glowing as little spots until they faded. What a wonderful place. It is easy to understand why thousands of people winter on the beaches of Baja!

On the beach in Baja. Today we are determined to do nothing but relax. We spend the morning sitting on the beach reading and soaking up the sun. After lunch we walked along the beach and hiked to the top of a nearby hill for great views across the bay and back towards the sandspit/RV parking area. We debated whether this walk would constitute “doing something” but it only took an hour and we were back sitting on the beach. This was very nostalgic, recalling the years in the late eighties when we visited the Virgin Islands with Don & Sandy Shapiro. It sure does not seem like 20 years ago! Late afternoon we heard a commotion and wandered over to discover the first parade of the Olympic torch for the 2010 winter games in Vancouver, Canada. There are several rigs here from British Columbia and aboot ten people in simple costumes walked up and down the beach holding a flashing safety strobe. Too much tequila perhaps?

After supper we sat out as the sun set, revealing a sliver of moon following the sun towards the horizon. We enjoyed another campfire and marveled once again at the bioluminescence in the bay.

Carl was up at 6:30 to photograph the sunrise. It was glorious (check out the pictures on the web site). After breakfast we sat on the beach trying to decide if we would do anything today. We finally decided to visit the town of Loreto, about 70 miles to the south. It is a pleasant town of about 7,500 with the distinction of being the first Spanish mission on Baja. The missionaries, Jesuits and then Fransicans, made maps, studied the fauna and flora, created dictionaries of native languages and translated Catholic prayers into these native languages. Their goal was to “save” the native people and convert them to Catholicism. Sadly, they also brought small pox, diphtheria and other infectious diseases for which the native population had no immunity. In less than 100 years, the native Indian cultures were literally decimated, i.e. only ten percent of the population remained.

Loreto has many businesses geared to American tourists. We checked email at an internet café, had lunch in a restaurant with a bilingual menu and toured the mission church and museum with mostly bilingual displays. However, this is still Mexico. We stopped for a cold drink but couldn’t get change because the power was out and they could not open the register. When we got to the market it was the same story, long stationary checkout lines waiting for electricity. With power restored we made our purchase and went to buy gas, as did everyone else in town once the power came back on!

Back at our beachfront campground we had supper, splashed briefly in the bioluminescent water and settled in for a quiet evening.

Still beach bums. We decided to spend another day on this beautiful Baja beach. Our goal for the day was to do nothing and we succeeded. We bought some scallops and carrots from a truck that drove on to the beach. Later we chatted with some of our neighbors, mostly from British Columbia and decided on a pot luck dinner. Everyone was bringing a scallop dish since we all had bought them fresh this afternoon! Butter and garlic scallops, tequila scallops and sesame scallops; yum, plus a delightful assortment of veggies. The other two couples were from Vancouver, BC. Both men were retired firefighters and one had come to NYC with his crew immediately after the terror attacks of 9/11. It was heart wrenching as he described that the greatest need was for firefighters to attend funerals of the more than 300 FDNY personnel killed and the many funerals he and his crew attended.

When it got really dark we showed them the bioluminescence and we splashed in the glittery waters for a while. When we tired of the glowing water, we looked up and enjoyed the glowing night sky with “billions” of stars. It was a delightful evening.

We leave the beach today L but first we walked along the water looking for birds. We spotted a pair of Magnificent Frigate birds sitting on a cactus and a California Gnatcatcher flitting in the shrubs. We also found the Mangrove Warbler in the same spot he was in two days ago. As we walked back to the coach, we noticed that about 100 feet of shoreline was stained a bright orange-red. One of the local boys said it was the clams laying eggs but we were dubious. We packed up, bid goodbye to our new friends from BC and hit the road shortly after ten. We were driving all the way back to Guerrero Negro, about 200 miles, so we can go on another whale watch tomorrow. The first 60 miles was a slow twisty trip along the shore followed by the “Hill of Hell” climbing north from Santa Rosalia. It was slow but nothing big was coming down the hill. The rest of the drive was a flat featureless desert. Once settled in to the same campground we used on the way south, we got more pesos, shopped and reserved a spot on tomorrow’s 8 AM whale watch. As we were doing some late afternoon chores around the coach, we heard the insistent calling of an Osprey and looked up to find a nest atop a power pole less than 50 feet away. We never had a campsite with an Osprey nest before!

We chose to go on the 8 AM whale watching trip for two important reasons; it is less windy earlier in the day and the 11 AM trip is sold out. Up at 6, we arrive in time for an informative presentation about the whales before we board the bus. There are six adults in the boat on this trip and it is much rougher than the one last week. We spent the entire three hours in the mouth of the lagoon in the three to four foot Pacific swell. Of course, we endured all of that bouncing and rolling because that’s where the whales were. Hundreds of them! Often, we had three mother/calf pairs around the boat at once. One calf raised his head out of the water within five feet of the boat. It was another awesome trip. It was rougher and harder to get good pictures due both to the motion and the fact that, since we could not safely stand up, we were often blocked by people in front of us. No complaints though; we spent three hours surrounded by these beautiful creatures.

After the whale watch we went to the internet café to catch up on email, got another 5 gallons of drinking water for our upcoming three days on the beach, and went birding along the sand spit at the end of town. Back at the coach, Carl read emails while Sandy defrosted the freezer. A simple dinner and some time listening to the Academy Awards brought an end to another fantastic day.

It started out as a day of surprises, some good, some bad. As we headed north on Mex-1(you remember, the nine and a half foot lanes for our ten foot wide motorhome), Carl spotted a car followed by a big truck, both with flashing lights; a wide load convoy. Oh, boy, this is going to be fun. We were both going very slowly and squeezed by each other at about 10 mph. Ten miles later he spotted another wide load, this time a 10 foot wide piece of heavy equipment on a flatbed. As they approached, Carl spotted a rare wide spot in the road, pulled off about two feet and stopped. That earned us a big smile and wave from the truck driver as he passed. Eighty miles north of Guerrero Negro we turned east towards Bahia de Los Angeles. Now for some pleasant surprises; a smooth, newly paved road for the entire 42 miles! We missed the turn to the campground since the book described a dirt road- now this has been paved as well. We started out expecting 42 miles of rough road and three miles of washboard dirt. We found 45 miles of smooth pavement and 50 feet of dirt into the campground where we got a site facing the beach for $10! The mouth of the bay is studded with islands of different sizes; very picturesque with lots of birds. After getting set up we walked several miles along the beach then visited the turtle research station where two Mexican biologists raise injured turtles brought to them by fishermen. They have Green , Loggerhead, Hawksbill and both species of Ridley Sea Turtles there. Several years ago they released a loggerhead turtle with a radio tag. This intrepid traveler swam 6,500 miles to Japan, confirming scientists belief that all of these turtles nest in the western Pacific and swim across the ocean to feed; a long way for a meal. We are now back on Pacific time and the sun set early so we had dinner and a quiet, short evening.

A 5:30 alarm setting got Carl outside to photograph the sunrise. It turned out to be one of the most beautiful he has even seen. As an added bonus, behind him he sees a dawn rainbow arching over the mountains. It is gorgeous but it also means there is a lot of moisture in the air and soon the west wind picks up and a rain squall blows in off the Pacific. Back in the dry coach he goes to review and print some of the photos.

Later in the morning we hiked along the beach then down the dirt road again watching the birds. We saw an exquisite Rufous Hummingbird male that was brilliant red and orange.

After lunch we chatted with the couple in the next site, full timers originally from Minnesota, though he grew up in the Springfield area and attended Lowell Tech, now U Mass Lowell. Quite the small world. Later we went for a run as the air cooled off in the late afternoon. Dinner and an evening with winds strong enough that we brought the slides in to keep the awnings from flapping around brought an end to another fabulous day.