Visitor Transitions

Cathryn’s sister and brother-in-law Anne and Eric flew home over the weekend after spending time with us here in Los Barriles. We loved seeing them and sharing fun Baja activities, including dinner together at our campsite their last night here: fajitas, salad, margaritas – the usual. It was a mild night, and we sat outside under the stars after dinner.

The next evening our next-door neighbors, Don, Patty and son Pete had us over for an outdoor visit after dinner, and we enjoyed getting to know them – a rare East Coast couple from Pennsylvania who have been here since November. Nice folks with lots of interesting stories.

Former co-workers Park and Martha (we retired 4 years ago, but ran into them at a Christmas party a couple months ago and re-connected) arrived yesterday to spend a week here in Baja. They’re staying at Palmas de Cortez a mile away, the same place Anne and Eric stayed.  We met for dinner last night at Costa Azul, a new restaurant for us that will be a “keeper” on our list for future night’s out.

Today we drove Park and Martha to the hot springs outside the town of Santiago, a lovely place we discovered last year and wanted to return to. See the link HERE We soaked in the water and had a picnic lunch on the rocks.  Today was the first day the thermometer broke 80 degrees (83 actually), so when we came back to our trailer in the afternoon and found Doug and Jill, our Canadian travel buddies, had arrived at Playa Norte from La Paz, the six of us sat outside for a beer and had to extend our awning to create some shade – WOW in February!

Day in La Paz

We’re having a great visit with Cathryn’s sister and brother-in-law, Anne and Eric who are visiting from Houston this week. Today we made a day trip to La Paz, a 2-hour drive, one of our favorite cities on the Baja. It’s a large (200,00+), middle-class, authentic Mexican city that deals nicely with tourists, but is definitely not a “tourist town”.

It’s situated on a huge bay facing the Sea of Cortez and has a 5-mile  Malecon (waterfront sidewalk) lined with restaurants, shops, galleries and the like.  We had lunch at our favorite place, “La Fonda” and walked 3 or 4 miles to see the sights.

As we’d already eaten both breakfast and lunch out, we were not hungry for dinner, so the 4 of us returned to our campsite, sat outside by candle light, and enjoyed  a lovely bottle of wine Eric brought along and finished up a few leftovers from last night’s dinner.

Back in the Groove at Los Barriles

Part of our Baja history in past winters is that we start our day in our pajamas in our Lafuma chairs on the beach with a cup of coffee, watching the sun rise.  That’ only happened a couple times so far on this trip for various reasons. Today, for the second time since we arrived in Los Barriles, that’s how we started our day. It was gorgeous, and the truly weird thing is that, completely unexpectedly, Cathryn saw the famous “Green Flash” when the sun broke the horizon. We’ve always heard this described as a sunSET phenomenon, and we’ve never seen it before, but it was, without question, a definitive Green Flash that lasted only a second or two, then disappeared.

Cathryn’s sister and brother-in-law, Anne and Eric from Houston, flew into town yesterday and are staying at Palmas de Cortez, a wonderful hotel on the beach in downtown Los
Barriles, only 1.6 miles from where we’re camped. We picked them up this morning and drove up the Buenos Aires arroyo (see HERE here from last year’s day here) for a stop at the waterfall, followed by a walk up the spectacular granite canyon to a picnic spot on the gigantic granite boulders by the stream bed.

It was mostly sunny and 77 degrees, a nice respite from the 40-ish cold weather Anne and Eric left behind at home.  We clambered over huge boulders and teased Anne about our taking her “mountain climbing and cliff rapelling”.

Afterwards we returned to Playa Norte where we’re camped and gave Anne and Eric a tour of our 5th wheel trailer and the campground facilities, enjoyed a margarita and some pistachios while visiting, then took them back to their hotel.  We’re thrilled to have visitors from the U.S. and are enjoying being back in Los Barriles where we spent so much time last winter.

Back in Los Barriles

After 2 nights at Rancho Verde, where it was peaceful, quiet and we found solitude, we’ve traveled 30 miles down the road to Los Barriles, one of the two major wind sport meccas of Baja, where we spent considerable time during our last two winters.

Last year we rented a house for six weeks but discovered we missed being on the beach, even though it was only half a mile away, and we had a nice view of the Sea of Cortez from our roof-top palapa. A link to Casa Verde is HERE.

So this year we’re back at Playa Norte RV (a link to our first stay at Playa Norte is  HERE), directly on the beach, watching folks with their sailboards and kitesails in the afternoon wind. Life is easy here: we have a beachfront view, electric, water and sewer hook-ups, laundry facilities, and yes, even internet that works quite well in the nearby office, and acceptably well right in our trailer, though not good enough for Skype.  And on top of all that, the cold front of the past week has dissipated, and today it hit 77 degrees!

We plan to spend about two weeks here where we’ll be joined by family from Houston, then friends from Seattle.

Check-in SPOT Messenger

Latitude:23.70189
Longitude:-109.70087
GPS location Date/Time:02/07/2011 10:54:50 PST
Click the link below to see where we are located.
http://fms.ws/4C_sH/23.70189//-109.70087
If the above link does not work, try this link:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=23.70189,-109.70087&ll=23.70189,-109.70087&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1

Living in an Aviary

We woke this morning to a cacophony of bird noise! This place is inhabited by hordes and hordes of birds, most of whom we sadly failed to identify, but which include many, many hummingbirds. It was 30 degrees at 6am (and 48 degrees inside the trailer, as we left an outdoor storage hatch open all night, allowing cold air to enter beneath our sofa).  But the sun rose, the sky was blue, the birds were happy, and so were we. There was no wind, and by 10am the temperature broke 60.

So off we went on a hike up the dirt road above the campground into the hills.  We covered about 4 miles, cresting a hill and stopping for lunch on a large, smooth rock in the shade. There was nothing terribly unique about the walk, but it was mighty peaceful and pleasant.

Afternoon found us back in our campsite (68 degrees) reading books, napping, and hanging sections of oranges in the adjacent trees to feed the birds. It was hilarious watching the larger birds taunt the smaller ones in a race to peck at the sweet juice from the oranges!

We’ve enjoyed our quiet time here, a change from crowds of friends at the beach, and are ready to move on to Los Barriles tomorrow.

Moving On

After 10 great days at Playa Juncalito near Loreto, we’ve moved on. For the past three days, the weather turned cold, for Baja anyway, and even after we moved off the beach and into the palm grove, it’s still been windy and cold (temps 32 – 58, with winds 15-50 mph).  The forecast was for more of the same into next week, so we decided to try something new.

We wrapped up our time at Juncalito by inviting Jill and Doug, Greg and Debbie (our Canadian travel buddies), Tom and Cindy, and Al and Linda (our beach buddies we first met here at Juncalito three winters ago) all to come to dinner at our camp spot. We had no idea how complicated it is to do a dinner party from a tiny trailer with no hook-ups!  But we served shrimp fajitas with home-made salsa and guacamole, rice, beans, and an avocado-tomato-cilantro salad (some dishes contributed by others), built a huge bonfire, and partied for 4 hours. It was a great way to wrap up our time at Juncalito with these 8 nice people.

We’re now 250 miles south of Loreto, 50 miles south of La Paz, and only 20 miles north of Los Barriles, at a campground called Rancho Verde. You can see from the pictures  where it got its name. If you click on the spot message below, you’ll see where we are.

Our plan is to stay here a couple of nights before we move on to Los Barriles where we will be joined by visitors from the U.S. for the next 10 days.  While we’ve spent quite a bit of time in the area on previous visits, we’ve not explored this particular sub-area. There are supposed to be some great trails into the hills directly from the campground. The birding is supposed to be special as well. We’ll take our bird ID book and see what we can see in the morning.

Check-in/OK message from Bob and Cathryn SPOT Messenger

Latitude:23.76224
Longitude:-109.97945
GPS location Date/Time:02/05/2011 15:45:09 PST
Click the link below to see where we are located.
http://fms.ws/4CSYF/23.76224//-109.97945
If the above link does not work, try this link:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=23.76224,-109.97945&ll=23.76224,-109.97945&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1

The Weather Outside is Frightful!

We’ve heard on our Sirius radio and via email from friends and family that the weather in the States has been frightful. We’ve heard: minus thirteen in Boulder; 18 in Houston; an ice storm in Dallas, and minus 37 in Bozeman. Well, we’d like to report that here in Baja we’re enjoying mild weather in the 70’s, but that would be a lie!

This morning we heard it was 39 degrees in Loreto 12 miles to the north, and 44 in Puerto Escondido 2 miles to the south.  The high today was only 58, and at 5pm it’s already back down to 50 degrees!

To make matters worse, we have steady winds of 25-30 mph, and for hours at a time it’s blown 35 mph or more; the peak reading we heard in the marina was 43 knots!

We moved off the beach this morning and back into the palm grove where we’re somewhat protected from the wind, but it’s still chilly. For those of you planning to visit us in Los Barrilos in the next couple of weeks, we’re happy to report that things are supposed get back to normal Monday.

So what do you do in Baja when it’s too cold and windy to sit on the beach?  Doug, Jill, Debbie, Greg and the two of us went to Loreto to have lunch at a great restaurant, “Islas”, then the women got pedicures at a place nearby while the men got their vehicles washed by hand ($3.50) and went shopping for dinner ingredients at a nearby fishmonger’s in preparation for a dinner party tomorrow night.

San Javier Mission and More Petroglyphs

We drove 32 kilometers west off of Mex 1 into the mountains to the 18th century Mision San Javier, at a lovely village. This mission and the one in nearby Loreto are the only two missions from this era that are more than foundations. A few others have been re-built, but this one is an original.

We had a very tasty lunch (60 pesos, or $5.00 each) at the only open restaurant, and were the only visitors anywhere in the village. We wandered through the olive grove and along the aqueduct for a while.

We visited San Javier last year, and you can find a more detailed description and photos HERE

On the way back down we stopped at a small oasis and viewed more petroglyphs. These were not dated, so we don’t know how old they were, but predated the missions by centuries.

Can’t Get Enough of Those Whales

What is it about whales? Everywhere we go, we’re on the “hunt” for and are mesmerized by whale sightings. At home on Puget Sound (Washington state in the U.S.A.), we have occasional orca whales swim past our beach in the winter, and in the vicinity while we’re on boating trips in the summer. On a 2008 trip to South Africa we were thrilled to find hundreds of Southern Right Whales not far east of Capetown. On a summer 2009 boat trip up the Inside Passage between home and Ketchikan, Alaska, we saw many species of whales, in large numbers, and were excited every time. During each of our two previous winters in Baja, we stopped on the Pacific side for a day trip to see gray whales who give birth in the Baja lagoons, and last March went on a day trip in the Sea of Cortez to see some of the world’s few blue whales.

Today we did it again. Fernando, who works at the Whale Museum in Loreto, has a panga (Mexican fishing boat, usually 24-26 feet in length) and takes up to 5 people out to see the blue whales when they’re in the vicinity, usually January through March. We went out with him last year, and enjoyed it so much we proposed to Doug and Jill that we go again this year. .

Sadly, today we saw blue whales at such great distance that it was only their enormous blows (spouts) and one tail fluke that we can claim. However, we did find two adult fin whales in the area and were able to view them at close range for close to an hour. They were 45-55 feet long according to Fernando, have a small dorsal fin, and were in such a shallow channel of the Sea that they were unable to make deep dives, so we saw no spy-hopping, breaching or tail flukes. But their blow holes are enormous (as seen in the photos), and as always, we were in awe. We saw lots of other whale spouts (Blues, and probably fins, humpbacks or grays) in the distance, but not other whales themselves.

Today was windier than normal, and Fernando was uncomfortable enough at one point that he was uncertain we’d continue the trip. We were in 4-foot waves with whitecaps and spent 6 hours on the water. Following seas heading south back to port were pleasant, but otherwise it was a bit exciting in our little panga!

Speaking of Excitement On The Panga

After banging around in the panga for an hour, Bob pulled his camera out of the backpack to get ready for the whales when we found them. This is what he found:

His UV filter was shattered! Apparently during one of those bone-jarring crashes following an unusually large wave, the lens crashed into something else hard in the backpack. Even with the lens cap on, the UV filter was destroyed. The good news is this is actually the primary purpose for which this $40 item was purchased, to protect the main lens. So a $40 filter was ruined, but an $800 lens was saved.

So here is the question for day: Do you have a UV filter on your DSLR?

Check-in/OK message from Bob and Cathryn SPOT Messenger

Latitude:25.86128
Longitude:-111.54366
GPS location Date/Time:02/01/2011 11:08:01 PST
Click the link below to see where we are located.
http://fms.ws/4B5nP/25.86128//-111.54366
If the above link does not work, try this link:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=25.86128,-111.54366&ll=25.86128,-111.54366&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1

1000 Words Is Not Worth A Picture

Our blogging software, Live Writer is having “issues” so it will not publish a Post that includes pictures.  Soooo, for the moment we have posted some word-only posts. Everywhere there is a large blank space in the blog, imagine a photo.

Bob’s working on a solution or an alternative. We’ll repost with the photos when he gets it all sorted out.

Another Rough Day

 

We woke up late today after our late night at Tom and Cindy’s dinner party (we were in bed by 9pm) to a sunny and cloudless sky. After coffee on the beach, we took the kayak out for a couple of hours. Today’s destination was a circumnavigation of a small island about a mile offshore.

From out there, we got a great view of the whole bay and the Sierra Las Gigantas.

 

While paddling/pedaling around the island, we ran into Doug and Jill who were out for a morning of fishing in their Zodiac with their dog Lua.  This afternoon we drove to town to collect information about a possible boat tour to see the blue whales we hear are in the vicinity.  We saw them last year, and they were spectacular.  HERE is a link to that day.  Now if we can rally enough participants to share the boat costs, we’ll schedule another whale trip.

Saturday update

We are happily camping on Playa Juncalito about 12 miles south of
Loreto, where there is a restaurant a mile away which has internet.
Unfortunately we're having technical diffculties with "Live Writer",
the program we use for blog posts and haven't been able to put up our
most recent two posts. We'll keep trying. Meanwhile, we're having
fun kayaking, re-connecting with friends on this beach, eating
delicious mexican food and trying to arrange a private Blue Whale
watching boat trip. Life is good, and we hope all is well with all of
you. It's still sunny and 70s here.

Take care,
Cathryn and Bob

Party on the Beach

Cindy and Tom, our next door neighbors here at Playa Juncalito, decided to throw a dinner party since it was Friday night. Despite the unusual clouds and coolish (high 60s) temps, the dinner was held outside. Cindy and Tom served up delicious (marinated for 24 hours) carne asada, fresh home-made salsa and guacamole, just-cooked tortillas, rice, spicy beans and pitchers of margaritas.

There were 12 of us in attendance including our Canadian travel buddies Doug and Jill who arrived here yesterday, the day after we did. Tom built a fire, turned up the music, and for the next four hours we partied on the beach. At one point there was a rainbow across the entire bay, and the seals were playing offshore.  Everyone (except for us, of course) had their dog in attendance, and they (the dogs, that is) were almost entirely well-behaved. Most of the people were too.

Kayaking Without Going in Circles

 

Bob has spent considerable time over the last four years looking for the perfect dinghy to use both at home and during our land-based travels. We’ve tried something new (to us) each year.  Last year it was a porta-bote, a folding 12-foot dinghy with a 5hp motor. We also brought along a cheap inflatable kayak. You can read about our frustrating and amusing day of going around in circles HERE. 

 

This year we brought a double Hobie Kayak that can both be paddled like a conventional kayak, or pedaled with flipper-like devices that pass through the hull and are powered by pedals like on a bike. It works great, and Bob, who really doesn’t enjoy paddling and currently isn’t running because of recent knee surgery, pedals happily. Cathryn, who is already running two days out of every three, instead paddles, getting an upper body workout.

 

We went out this morning in absolutely flat water and kayaked for a couple of hours. We explored the north end of the bay and saw a number of small tropical fish, starfish and sea urchins, even a few small coral heads, on the sand below our boat.

Playa Juncalito, Take 5

 

Here we are, back at Playa Juncalito 12 miles south of Loreto for our fifth visit. We stopped here both southbound and northbound each of the previous two winters, and though we’ve never said it out loud, even to each other, it seems this is really our favorite beach in Baja. Loreto is not our favorite town (Mulege is), though there’s lots to like about it, but we love this simple unadorned beach. We sleep to the sound of noisy waves crashing on the shore. There’s enough sand to walk a couple of miles. Kayaking is good in the mornings before the wind comes up.  Fishing is good too, according to other campers on the beach who are inclined to spend their mornings that way. This beach is not part of a town, so very rural, and has hiking available in the staggeringly beautiful Sierra Las Gigantas just across the highway on which the pink and coral lights of sunrise are so spectacular it aches.

 

Playa Juncalito borders a bay about a mile wide and deep, so there’s land in the vista on both sides of our campsite and islands offshore to provide visual interest. On top of all that, our first time here we made friends with Carl and Chris (American and Brit) and spent several great afternoons sailing on Carl’s boat. We also made friends with Tom and Cindy, folks from the U.S. who live here on the beach about eight months each year, and Tom’s brother owns a very successful restaurant in Loreto.  We met Bill and Tey (American and Belizean) who own a palapa-house on the beach in the tiny village next door and had dinner with them several times, and we joined the Puerto Escondido (Hidden Port) Yacht Club at the semi-fancy port a mile south. So we have connections here that have lasted through the many months we’re away, mostly via email, but we also visited Chris and Carl overnight at their cabin in Canada on our way to Alaska last May.

 

Today we arrived to find only five other RVs camped on the beach, in sharp contrast to previous trips in which there were at least 30 (and we got one of the least attractive spots to set up unless someone else left and we moved into their spot later). Today we had our pick of spots so set up next door to Tom and Cindy who have already been here since October.

The pelicans are dive-bombing out front, the beach is as gorgeous as we recall, and we had a quiet happy hour by ourselves with one beer and our books this afternoon. The weather, as usual, was mild and mostly sunny and in the 70s.

Check-in/OK message from Bob and Cathryn SPOT Messenger

Latitude:25.83214
Longitude:-111.32997
GPS location Date/Time:01/26/2011 12:54:11 PST
Click the link below to see where we are located.
http://fms.ws/49AFM/25.83214//-111.32997
If the above link does not work, try this link:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=25.83214,-111.32997&ll=25.83214,-111.32997&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1

Good-bye Bahia Concepcion

Today was our last day at Bahia Concepcion until our expected return sometime in March. After 5 nights here, we’re ready to move further south, so will depart Wednesday morning.

Today we went into Mulege once again to check email and buy groceries, sat in the sun and read our books, took another 2-mile beach walk, and bought more vegetables from a beach vendor.

For an hour before the sun went down, we played another game of Bocce Ball with Jill, Doug, Debbie and Greg.  Last time, Bob and Cathryn were on the winning team along with Jill – tonight Debbie, Greg and Doug prevailed. Again, it made for lots of laughs and fun, and we’re considering asking one or more of our kids to buy us a Bocce Ball set for our birthdays so we can add it to our “toy collection” before next winter’s trip to Baja. 

As a final note: we got up Wednesday morning to depart, and who should greet us in the bay just off the beach but a pod of 25-30 dolphins! They put on a great show, breaching, spy hopping and staying in the vicinity for a good 20 minutes. Jill, Doug, Greg and Debbie jumped in their kayaks to join the fray, but our kayak was already loaded on top of the Arctic Fox, so we watched from shore. A nice way to end our stay here. 

Dinner on the Beach

As has been our practice when we’ve traveled the Baja alone  previous winters, most evenings the 6 of us get together for cocktail hour(s), then go our separate ways to our individual rigs for dinner and what’s left of the evening for reading/blogging/movie watching.

Last night we gathered at our camp spot for margaritas, and our conversation was interrupted by two local fishermen returning from the day to pull their panga out of the water at the adjacent boat ramp. Greg, Doug and Cathryn wandered to the water to ask what they’d caught, but none of us knew the word “caracol”, and even when they opened their buckets to show us, we weren’t sure what we were looking at. 

It finally became apparent these were a most unusual snail, they gave us a dozen, and Debbie and Cathryn disappeared into our kitchen to sauté them up with garlic, lemon juice, pepper and butter. We probably won’t buy more, but all agreed it was an interesting addition to our repertoire of Bounty From the Sea.

Next we all wandered to Doug and Jill’s rig where tables and chairs were set up on the beach, Bob plugged in his iPod and mini speakers, Jill lit candles, and Debbie cooked chicken in the oven, and shrimp, lobster and more barracuda in her wok, while Jill prepared a salad of avocadoes, tomatoes, cucumbers and feta cheese.

We had a feast on the beach next to a fabulous campfire courtesy of Greg and Doug, with the dark sky glittering brilliantly with stars (what makes stars appear to sparkle, anyway?). Unusually late for us (9:30), we announced it was Baja Midnight and retired to bed back at our own campsite. 

A Walk and A Short Hike

Today was the day to test Bob’s knee which is recovering from arthroscopic surgery done December 1 to repair a torn meniscus.

We began with a two mile walk along Playa Santispac, a nice flat and firm surface.

Later in the day we went on a hike with Jill, Doug, Debbie and Greg up an arroyo across the highway and into the hills in search of petroglyphs which Greg and Debbie had stumbled across on a previous Baja trip.

 

 

Final verdict: Bob’s knee did just fine, with no ill after effects!