Taking a vacation from our vacation - how's that for decadence? We had a great time.
We left San Jose del Cabo on Friday morning and drove up 400 km to Ciudad Constitucion (Constitution City) near Magdalena Bay where the Gray Whales spend the winter. The first night we stayed near town in our own private campground. It was clean and groomed and had two pools, flush toilets, showers… and no people! We couldn’t figure it out. But we didn’t complain.
In the morning we realized we didn’t have a disposable camera for taking out on the boat so we stretched our Spanish to the limit looking for some place to buy one. We finally found a camera store where he didn’t have a disposable but had a camera kit on sale for 200 pesos ($22.50) including 3 rolls of 24 picture film. What a deal! Then we went out to Peurto Lopez Mateos, a village on a narrow strait where we took a two hour boat ride along the strait where we saw 40 – 50 whales and a few dolphins. The water was actually so calm that we were able to use the good camera as well as the cheapy. That night we stayed in a motel and ate in a restaurant because we were feeling lazy after all that sun.
Next morning we went to San Carlos, the village on the Bay itself where we took another two hour boat ride into the bay. Unfortunately, we didn’t see as many whales there as we had seen the day before although we got some better pictures as the sun was positioned better. We didn’t see any whales breaching either day. Eventually, we gave up on the whales and went to look at sea lions and play on the sand dunes. The sand was SO soft - as fine as flour! We were off the water fairly early in the day so drove to La Paz (200 km) where we ended up in a church-camp type campground and stayed in a dorm for the same price as putting up the tent. And we used the camp kitchen for making dinner. We weren’t completely alone this time – there were some RV’s in the RV section.
The next morning we headed down the East Cape, planning to snorkel in the Cabo Pulmo National Park, on the reef there. Unfortunately it was very windy so I wimped out. We drove the back roads down to San Jose, taking all afternoon. When we stopped on one beach to walk to the point, what did we see? A whale breaching – 3 times! It was the first time we had ever seen a whale from the shore. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a camera ready so you will just have to take our word for it.
We got home late on Monday, vegged Tuesday and spend today doing chores. Life is good.