Driving North While Down South

Monday dawned, and Mexican Highway 1 beckoned us out of Loreto, heading to Laguna San Ignacio and a date with destiny, or at least 300 grey whales, which I would call as good a stand-in for destiny as anything. But first, we were driving to the town of San Ignacio for the night, before heading to the whale camp on Tuesday.

That was assuming we could survive the Mexican speed bumps.

Let's just say that speed bumps in the US are nothing compared to speed bumps in Mexico, or "topes" as they are called. Speed bumps in the US are usually pretty easy to see; topes tend to sneak up on you and launch you higher than a hippie on peyote. Don't believe me? If these guys bring it up, well, that says something. (Of course, they want to sell tourists extra insurance, but still.) To put it another way, topes were the one condition where Marina wanted me to drive slower, not faster.

Eventually we cleared the topes and the edges of town and hit the open road. It was a lot of driving past a lot of cacti. Oh, and a bunch of armored trucks carrying Mexican soldiers carrying heavy weapons and wearing ski-masks. You know, out for a casual drive with friends.

I found the landscape a little jarring and stark at first, but by the end of the trip, it would seem lovely. That was even before we drove past Bahia de Concepcion.



It was a day of driving. And then more driving. We stopped in Mulege for gas and a little lunch and wandering--I didn't like the pictures I took enough to post them here--and then a brief stop in the town of Santa Rosalia. Santa Rosalia was noteworthy for three reasons--1) originally established by a French mining company, the architecture looked markedly different than anywhere else in Baja, and there was a classic French bakery; 2) there were masked soldiers standing on the sidewalk with machine guns and a destroyer in the bay; and 3) everyone knows that at least one of the gas stations in town is owned by a criminal, and the workers will try to cheat you. We had to get gas in Santa Rosalia later in the week, on our way back from the whales, and we went to the crowded station where all the locals went.

After Santa Rosalia, we cut inland, away from the water, and drove to San Ignacio, where we would spend the night before the 90 minute drive across the desert to the whale-watching camp.

San Ignacio is a small town around an oasis, in a part of Mexico famous for whale-watching and cave paintings. It has a classic small-town plaza. We strolled around the town in the evening, watching kids skateboarding and checking out the Mission.







It was the sort of plaza where one might feel compelled to lean against a wall picturesquely. And in fact, people do just that.



All the evening would have required for completion was a couple of Pacificos with dinner. Oh, that's right, we did have a couple Pacificos with dinner. Nice.

To be continued, with the drive to the whale camp, and the stories you've all been waiting for.

Part Two: A Fast Boat To Somewhere

Sunday morning, we rose early, walked through the quiet, sunlit streets of Loreto to a small cafe on Avenida de Salvatierra, where we had a delightful breakfast and ordered two sandwiches for our adventure for the day: a tour of the National Marine Reserve park of Bahia de Loreto, or Loreto Bay. Birds were chirping, we had sunblock and hats and water, I successfully asked for the location of el bano, and all was right with the world.

Our tour was via panga, a small speedboat about 10 to 12 feet long--or longer, if that estimate makes no sense; I am terrible at estimating size and distance. We had been connected with a local named Paco Collins, which is a great name. Apparently he is descended from a British pirate who once plied these waters. Or so he said. He could have been messing with us.

The day began sunny and calm, and I wasn't nervous despite being in a small boat on a big body of water. The view of the bay and the shoreline and the receding town and the mountains beyond were beautiful:







Our plan was to motor out to and around an island in the bay, visit a sea lion rookery, and then make our way to a white sand beach for some snorkeling, potential hiking, or sunbathing. Marina conversed with Paco in Spanish, and I was able to pick up a word or two here or there, enough to get the gist. It's an interesting feeling, traveling where you don't know the language, a feeling both helpless and stimulating. It is probably easier when your companion is fluent in the language, though, so you can just stand around and look pretty and not worry about getting lost.

About halfway out, Paco said something that got Marina very excited. She jumped up and looked out to sea. "Whale!"

"What? Where?"

Just in case that bit of dialogue didn't give you a sense of my excitement, here's the video I took. Bear with the first bits of shaky frenzy, and you will see something awesome:





It was a young blue whale, much further in than normal, according to Paco. There were blue whales to be seen in the Sea of Cortes, but usually further out, beyond a distant island. Perhaps the cold waters of an unusual winter were driving the whale closer to shore for food or warmth.

It appeared and disappeared for a while, usually re-appearing at a considerable distance from where it disappeared, a tribute to its speed. We never got very close, but I had a good view of a spout and a dorsal fin. This made me happy, because I had not been counting on seeing a whale until later in the week, when we would go on whale-watching expeditions at Laguna San Ignacio. In essence, this was a bonus whale, which in the abstract could be a useful concept to introduce into our vernacular, I think.

Eventually, we motored on, leaving the whale behind. That's when we met the swarm of dolphins, a group of fifty jumping and diving and swimming in a turquoise sunlit corner of the bay not far from the cliffs of the island. Dolphins love boats, even small boats. We could look straight down from the bow and see them swimming beneath us, their long gray and silver forms clearly visible through the water, and then they would arc up out of the water, their dorsal fins and muscular backs a thing of poetry.

This was about when I fell in love with Mexico and when I fully understood why Marina got so annoyed with a friend of a friend who was contemplating buying a time-share property in a proposed development in Baja that would be environmentally unsustainable and would threaten mangroves and other aspects of the ecology. The silver lining, though, is that this proved the case for equal rights, as even a lesbian can be uninformed and/or self-centered, just like the rest of us.




We circled around the group of dolphins for a little while, to get plenty of pictures and plenty of dolphin time. It was a little surreal, and a lot wonderful, and it felt like my life was an art-house movie, or at least I decided it should feel that way. In any case, it was a profound and happy and exciting experience. I love dolphins.

After the dolphins, we continued around the island, which had dramatic rock cliff-faces, and cacti dotted the top. Then we arrived at the sea lion rookery, a rocky outcropping at the water's edge where dozens of sea lions soaked in the sun and slipped in and out of the water. We kept our distance, as apparently male sea lions can be aggressive. Now, I've seen groups of sea lions before, and not just at the urbanized outpost at Pier 39 in San Francisco, but this was still fascinating. Some were lifting their flippers in the air to dry or warm them, or so we assumed. I would rather assume that than to think they might be flippering us off for disturbing them.




After leaving the sea lions, we rounded the island and came into the shelter of a small cove with a white sand beach, empty and waiting for us. Paco provided a couple of beach chairs. We were first tempted to snorkel, but a combination of cold water and turbidity in the water discouraged that. We actually could see what fish there were better from above. We took some pictures and wandered around some tidal channels before settling down to enjoy the sun for a while.

Eventually, some more boats came bearing tourists and locals, but the beach never got crowded. As the tide went out, some of the other boat pilots pointed to out Paco that he might have made a mistake in how far up the beach he left the boat, which lead to a fascinating moment where I found myself and several Mexican men straining to push a boat back through sand and into the water. You wouldn't think a boat would be so heavy. See if you can pick me out of the crowd.



Before we left the island, Marina and I took a short stroll inland through a landscape of scrub plants, cacti, stones and sand, and a dead scorpion--yes, I kept a wary eye on it for several minutes to make sure it was really dead while we took photos in the vicinity.










Around noon, we were ready to go, and just in time. No sooner did we walk to the boat than the clouds rolled in, the wind stirred, and the water darkened and grew rough and choppy. We raced back towards town, the boat rolling, waves spraying into our laps. At one Paco abandoned the wheel to dive into the bow of the boat to rescue his book and stow it down a hatch. That was interesting for us landlubbers.

As we crossed the bay for Loreto, I kept my eyes peeled for more animals, but now, with the water less than placid, there was nothing but the mystery of rolling waves, dark green and opaque. It was a nice touch of adventure to round out the expedition, with the benefit that we got to take a nice shower afterwards.

Mexican trip adventure was an unblemished hit through the first day and a half. Would it continue? Stay tuned . . .

Beware Mexicans Bearing Time Shares, And Other Adventures In Baja: Part One

One reason why I moved to California from Montana was for the chance to see whales again. That dream has now been fulfilled, although it required a trip to Baja California Sur and Laguna San Ignacio. In and of itself, that would be a milestone in my life, but the trip to Mexico was so much more. For one thing, I now have completed the trifecta in my passport, with a stamp from each signatory of NAFTA--for the record, the US count now stands as one friendly immigration officer, two total bastards for customs officers (apparently if you aren't married, you can't go up to the customs officer at the same time, even if you live together, which is fine, but that's no reason for condescension.)

Flying down the Baja Peninsula was flying over a narrow strip of brown land, rumpled with mountains like someone sleeping under a thick comforter, with the occasional silver flash, like a necklace reflecting the sun, where presumably water flowed in one of the many washes. For the most part, though, the channels were dry and dusty, and I could see long, lonely roads cutting straight across the landscape, arriving at some isolated home. As we got closer to Loreto, though, I saw the Sea of Cortes touching the shore, and the contrast of turquoise, green, blue against the brown land was beautiful.

The airport reminded me of that in Kona, Hawaii, in that it was a small building with lots of flowers in front, and it felt like we were landing in a decent-sized parking lot. It did not take long to pass through Immigration. The first difference I saw between Mexico and San Francisco was that, while the signs were still written in both English and Spanish, the Spanish came first this time.

Through the first door after the customs lady asked me two short questions and had me press a button that lit a green light, I found myself by a desk with two very official-looking locals and white shirts and ties. It seemed like a secondary inspection, and the security officer encouraged me to go over.

They asked me a few questions about how long I was going to be in town, but when they asked me if my girlfriend and I wanted to go to a nice local resort and help them shoot a commercial, I realized these were the time-share people Marina warned me about, so I politely smiled and declined and started backing away, despite the tide of maps and entreaties with which they tried to ply me. We would find these well-dressed people in Loreto's center as well, persistently trying to get us to talk to them, not accepting a polite smile and a no thank you. "Honeymooners, eh?" "What did we ever do to you?" (actual quotes) They hung on like a cold.

I did take advantage of them to get an additional map of the town center, with an indication of how to get to our hotel, to go with the hand drawn map the owner of the Hotel Posada Del Cortes had given us.

I don't speak Spanish, at least nothing beyond some basic phrases ("Donde esta el bano" worked perfectly, but when I asked a waiter for a check one time, he brought butter instead, so something went wrong there). You will understand my trepidation at having to rent a car by myself, without Marina there as a translator, and then driving into town all by myself. Marina had been in Mexico for a few days at a conference, and was coming into town via bus that same day, so she couldn't meet me at the airport.

As with many things I've fretted about in my life, this mountain became a molehill fairly quickly. The representative of the car rental agency spoke English very well, which is no surprise for a tourist industry. He called me "Amigo" so often, though, that I wondered if he calls everyone "Amigo" or just the tourists. The Jeep Liberty we had reserved was not available, apparently, but instead, they gave me a big white Chevy pickup truck. Me and pickup trucks mix as naturally as dogs and grey whales. Yes, I know, I'm from Montana, but I'm a bad Montanan: I've never hunted or skied, and I only fished a few times when I was 10.

The truck certainly felt as big as a grey whale. The highway was empty as I maneuvered out of the parking lot and turned north towards Loreto, passing cacti left and right--that was my "ah ha, Mexico!" moment, or at least one of them. I was a bit cautious, figuring out how the truck handled, and looking for a speed limit sign--my adherence to speed limits would drive Marina crazy, as apparently I was the only one in all of Mexico, including the Mexicans, who paid the speed limit signs any attention; but in my defense, there was a sign that read "Obedezcan los senales" (Obey the signs"), and I was particularly inclined not to speed on the Monday after we left Loreto, when we passed through a military checkpoint and passed several convoys of Mexican soldiers wearing black ski-masks.

Even though I was on high-alert as a driver, I did manage to savor the thought that I was driving a pickup truck down Highway 1 in Mexico, passing cacti and covering three kilometers almost devoid of other traffic. It felt epic, as if I were a combination of Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash. And I managed to cover the distance with no problem, and the hand-drawn map guided me unerringly to the hotel, and I pulled up in front of the hotel in the big white truck as sunset began, and just as Marina was walking up the street, so that pretty much made me a travel star, I think.

We settled in to the Hotel Posada Del Cortes, with a lovely balcony attached to our room, and a glorious rooftop terrace with a view across the city, taking in the tower of the mission, palm trees, a cell phone tower disguised as a palm tree, and the mountains of the Sierra de la Giganta, and from there we walked down the street to the waterfront, or the Malecon.















Looking at the water was soothing. The following day, Sunday, we would be taking a boat trip to one of the islands off-shore, part of a marine reserve, but tonight we just wandered to the water and then back along the Avenida Salvatierra, a pedestrian thoroughfare where children were playing and running. This reminded me of my trip to Mallorca, when children were playing soccer in a wide alleyway, with flagstones and rain. You don't see children playing in the streets like this in San Francisco. On Sunday Streets, yes, you will see families out walking and biking, but that's different. Even somewhere like the Sunset, a more residential district, the streets and sidewalks are quiet, devoid of kids.

Also, I saw the greatest bench ever.



We ate that night at a restaurant called the Singing Parakeet, but that's a subject for a food blog entry, to be posted in the near future. For now, I'll sign off. More to come tomorrow!