The wind rocked the trailer all night, and was still strong in the morning. Two ravens were checking out the trailer in the morning, then foraging nearby. They were finding lots of small things to eat, perhaps grubs. After breakfast, I went of a walk near where I camped. I walked up a small arroyo with a sandy bottom. I am noticing some new flowers blooming here. In fact, nearly every time I stop along the highway, there’s a new plant or a new flower.
The cactus here are very dense—and across the highway, there are some immense cordons (photo). There is a great view from this camping spot of a desolate mountain range called La Asamblea. This side of the mountains is a broad plain, densely forested with cactus. This is one of the most scenic parts of Baja I have seen so far. The cirios here are taller, more bushy, and more densely packed than further north.
As I drive south across the plain, something like a Joshua tree begins to appear, and later, elephant trees become common. Eventually, past the side road to Bahia de los Angeles, the cirios start to look yellowish and their arms are more twisted. For a while the road goes along the top of a ridge; I can see the shine of the Pacific far to the west. I stop for a rest at a large cleared area, but it turns out to be a garbage dump. There are lots of very twisted and fat elephant trees among the garbage, and beyond the dump the trees are very nice, without the garbage. Then the road descends, and I’m getting closer to the ocean. Eventually I’m down on a flat, barren plain not far from the ocean, along which I drive for many miles. I’ve gone through a few very desolate and depressed-looking small towns, without even gas stations. Many of the small establishments, little groceries or restaurants, are closed.
This last stretch of highway has been a sad affair. In recent years, they buried a fiber optic cable along the highway, and they didn’t bother to re vegetate it or in any way control the erosion. So now where the cable goes up steep slopes, it has become horribly eroded. These scars, plus the wide strip of desert that they scraped to gather together gravel to build up the road, has created a great gash across the desert. Everywhere, there’s garbage along the highway. And yet Baja is so empty and beautiful, wild and vast, that this destruction hardly makes a dent. This central part of Baja is a huge national park, and they probably have about two rangers. I have seen a few signs asking travelers to respect nature, and heaps of earth to block access to some jeep roads into the desert, but nothing more to protect it. People are doing everything they can to ruin it, but Baja bats last. The bad economy is probably causing a lot of people to leave the central desert.
When I arrived in Guerrero Negro a bit after dark, I left the highway and drove through town on the one long main street, till I got to a shore area. From here, marshes begin, and a dirt road leads to the port. There’s some kind of utility building here with a bright light, so I’m camping here for the night. A car goes by about once every 10 minutes. One guy stopped and asked me if I had a beer or coke, and if I wanted to go fishing in the morning. I told him no, I didn’t have those things (which was true), and told him to go to a grocery store. After a few more words, he left without hassling me. I’m wondering what to make of it. It’s always best to give Mexicans the benefit of the doubt. I imagine that he may have been a fisherman, coming home thirsty, and really was just looking for a friendly drink for his thirst. And on top of that, hoping to hustle up an unexpected opportunity to guide a gringo. Perhaps the request for a drink was an opening to make the pitch. After I sent him on his way, I felt that I had been a bit unfriendly, inhospitable. But his arrival was unexpected, and I was a little nervous.
I know you readers think I’m really nuts to even be here camping on the edge of town, in Mexico—but on the whole Mexicans are good people. I’m sure there are bad ones, but I doubt if this is their beat. Crooks who want real money wouldn’t be looking for it in Guerrero Negro. Tourists worth a real ransom wouldn’t be camping at the edge of Guerrero Negro.
Today was the first day I felt hot, in late afternoon when I was sitting in the internet place.
Wednesday 3/17
It’s a little after sunset, and I’m sitting in the deepening dusk, inside the trailer with the lights off. There’s a deep red strip above the western horizon, with Venus bright above, and a bit higher, a very new moon. In the distance, across 20 or 30 miles of tidal estuaries, are mountains in shades of purple and blue. Before the sun set, everything was in soft colors of yellow, orange, pink, red, brown, purple and blue, soft and hazy because of the salt in the air from the surf far to the west.
I just stepped out to look at the moon with binoculars—you can see the dark side, and craters on the sunny side—and four young Mexicans approached me to talk. I offered them the binoculars. They are late teens or early twenties, two men and two women, sweethearts. They came to see the sun set. Two are named Antonio and Brenda. Antonio says he’s a fisherman. They are friendly but talk fast in the way of people who aren’t educated, or have never had to learn a foreign language. They look in the windows of the trailer, and are very impressed.
They also asked if I had a coke for them. I now suspect that offering someone a drink is just a sign of desert hospitality. I offered them a beer, but Brenda wouldn’t let Antonio have one.
I’m about 8 miles out of Guerrero Negro, on a dirt road that goes on a causeway into the vast wetlands here, to a sort of makeshift port. There are one or two hovels here, for people who watch the boats pulled up on shore, so I feel safe.
Today I went whale watching. I got up early, at 5:30 am, because when I went over the 38th parallel into Baja California Sur yesterday, I crossed into Mountain Time. So it was really 6:30 when I got up. I had to go find a tour to see the whales.
I went to Mario’s Restaurant, which looked like a great place, with a huge thatched roof and a sand floor, because the book said they didn’t require reservations. They didn’t have other people to fill a boat, so they sent me to another tour operator. I arrived just in time, and rushed to throw my stuff together—with no time for breakfast. The tour cost $50 for 3 hours with lunch, plus tip.
There were eight people to our boat, plus the driver, Xavier. It was powered with a 75 hp outboard; our armada of 5 boats sped out at high speed. We went many miles to the mouth of Scammon’s Lagoon. It’s a national park, and the whale watching is highly regulated—so I couldn’t kayak here. It’s a good thing I didn’t try, because the distances we traveled were large, and the current strong. After a while, we saw some distant spouts, and headed for them. There were always pair, a mother and calf (born this year). At first, you don’t see much—just their backs come up, and their spouts. In the distance, one or two breached. But then one of the boats found a pair that were more “friendly,” and 3-4 boats converged on the whales. The whales slowly swam under one boat after another, coming very close, possibly scratching their backs on the underside of the boat. A few times, the mother or calf turned on their side, so you could see their eye looking up, only a foot under the surface.
Head of a mother gray whale in Scammon's Lagoon.
The boatman said: ”Touch, touch!...” meaning we could touch them. Everyone on our boat (except myself and the boatman) rushed to the side the whale was on, nearly tipping us over.
This disaster was repeated again and again, with everyone crowding to the same side as the whale. Being a kayaker, I couldn’t see myself being the last one to go to the same side, causing our boat to capsize. So I got a bit annoyed, because the others were “hogging” the whales. Finally I got my chance, when the whale came up on my side. I rolled my sleeve up, and put my hand in. I touched a baby for sure, and maybe a mother, too. I can’t remember. They feel like supple leather, and they are sort of blubbery—naturally. When you pat them, as I did, their flesh sort of wiggles or ripples, because of the fat. I put my finger on the calf’s lip, but he didn’t open his mouth. Good thing. They have what look like barnacles on their heads—but they aren’t barnacles, because they are soft. Possibly they are sponges. Sometimes they put their flippers out of the water. They were very calm and placid, never aggressive. Once, one exhaled breath right next to me, so I had to shield my camera from the mist. I could smell its breath—sort of marine-like—but not really fishy.
This is different from the whale watching off of Cape Cod, because here you get really close to lots of whales, they all have calves, and you can touch them.
We could spot individual differences among the many whales we saw. Some had big white splotches on their backs. The boatman said that they were attacked by sharks, who took mouthfuls, and implied that the larger splotches might be where sharks took a bite. He said that earlier in the year, fishermen had seen six sharks attack a calf and kill it.
I was a little annoyed with the other people in the boat. Initially because of the way they unbalanced the boat—but also, here by the seals, one of the men shouted at the sea lions, half of which responded by diving off the buoy.
The tourists were all from the Netherlands--the men about my age, and two women. Several of the men were very tall and overweight, so it mattered when they all ran to one side of the boat.
After we returned, I talked to two of them. They were the leaders of a tour—they had a business, with a warehouse in Los Angeles, where they keep a number of motorcycles, Harleys and some very expensive ones. They organize motorcycle tours to Baja, all the way to the tip and back, and have two vans that carry people’s gear. A two week tour, including air fare from Holland, but excluding gas, is a bit over 2,000 euros. An interesting way to go.
They asked me where I was from. I said: “Wisconsin—do you know where that is? “
“Of course we do! Harley’s are made in Milwaukee!”
After the tour, I went shopping for groceries, then drove out to the port. It was about 8 miles on a rough road, but the huge wetlands here are very impressive, with lots of birds.
There are miles and miles of salt evaporation ponds, started by the Japanese but now half-owned by the Mexican government. This is the largest salt production facility in the world. It’s hot and windy for evaporation, and there’s less than an inch of rain a year. They make a gazillion tons PER DAY, and haul it to barges on huge trucks, each towing three trailers loaded with salt. The salt is loaded onto barges, then transported about 50 miles to Cedar Island, where they load it onto oceangoing ships. The lagoon is too shallow for big ships.
There are lots of osprey nests on telephone poles, plus special poles with platforms for the ospreys. The government is serious about protecting the ospreys—when ospreys built a nest on one of the salt barges, the park authorities said they couldn’t move the barge till the chicks are fledged. I could see the nest on the barge.
When I arrived at the port area way out in the marsh, I found a devastated, abandoned old salt-loading area, little more than a huge flat-topped mound of earth and some pilings. There are eight fishing skiffs (called “pangas” here), pulled up on the beach. There is a family fishing off the old wharf, mother, father, and two sons. There is another family of six gathering small scallops (about 4” in diameter) on the tidal flats nearby.
After taking a nap and late lunch, I decided to walk on the tidal flats, since low tide was approaching. No one should miss walking on salt flats at low tide!! These are huge, designated by the UN as something really special.
I was watching the birds—there are two or three species of large sandpipers—and very numerous. I could stand fairly close, watching them feed. Their bills may be 6 or 8 inches long, and they stick them deep into the sand, probably pulling out marine worms. They are finding lots to eat, getting a morsel every few seconds, but I can’t see what. Their flight is beautiful, and when they alight on the sand, it’s with such a soft, precise little running step. And when they do alight, they take to feeding within about a second. Not a moment to waste.
I saw a tractor pulling a wagon in the distance, so I walked over. Six men were harvesting oysters from an oyster-farming operation. They were cleaning them, and loading them into bags and onto the wagon. The foreman (who wasn’t doing any work) offered me a raw oyster. I’m sorry Liz missed this rare treat—but don’t worry, I have some oyster breath for her. It was very salty and slippery. I wouldn’t say the taste was that great, not something I’d kill for. But I suppose you can develop a taste for them. I’m sure some lime juice or salsa would help, and probably some tequila too. But all I had was the salt air, and the birds, and the sun.
I hoped the raw oyster wouldn’t kill me, since I know that they can concentrate pollutants. But the water here was crystal clear, and we were far from town. So I may yet survive. In Baja, people haven’t yet overwhelmed nature. But I hear that the American whalers almost drove the grey whales to extinction more than a hundred years ago. Luckily, the whales are making a comeback. What a resource they are now for the Mexicans!
On the flats, I saw many strange shells, and even a small octopus, trying his best to slink away in water only about an inch deep.
The funniest thing about the oyster men was their oyster dogs. They had two young black dogs, apparently siblings, and an older brown dog with very short legs. All mutts—I don’t think there’s a single pure breed in Mexico outside of the capital. The young dogs were very frisky, investigating me somewhat belligerently, until I started to make friends with them. Imagine, dogs defending their territory—the salt flats and oysters.
At one point, the three dogs took off running with amazing speed and purpose through the rows of oyster racks, and after a while, I saw they had caught a cormorant, and were harrying it. Eventually they killed it, but didn’t even bother to eat it. Just killing for sport.
The older dog seemed unhappy—perhaps he was tired, cold, or thirsty—and so he remained just inches from his master, while the man worked. I’ve seen sheep-herding dogs, but this takes the cake—oyster hounds.
So now it’s dark, and I’m in the trailer, listening to the waves lap, and the distant roar of surf. Otherwise, there’s not a sound--the birds have all gone to bed.
Before the sun set, I watched some California gulls find a fish. One tough gull was keeping the others a bay with a show of bravado. But before he started to eat, a raven who had been watching flew down. Ravens here rank way above gulls, so the gull just dropped the fish with a look of resignation—then the raven picked it up and flew off. Not a “gracias” or anything. Some birds have no manners.
These are the same California gulls that hang out at Mono Lake near Yosemite, eating brine shrimp and salt flies. This is where they spend the winter, in a somewhat similar environment, including even the brine shrimp in the salt production ponds. In my American way, I thought “California” in the gull’s name referred to Alta California—but they spend as much time here in Baja California. It’s fun to see the other half of their life.
Thursday, 3/18
Today when I got up, the wind was light, so I decided to go kayaking. My goal was to paddle across the inlet to the immerse field of sand dunes between my location and the Pacific Ocean. It wasn’t clear how far this was—it looked like several miles, possibly more. There was quite a bit of current in the channel, but I made the crossing in only 10 or 15 minutes. It turns out that the dunes looked a lot further than they were. There is absolutely no vegetation on the dunes to give them scale, hence the mistake. Then I paddled several miles towards the opening to the Pacific, hoping to see some whales. Our guide had said yesterday that sometimes there were whales in this bay—but I never saw any. I stopped and walked in the dunes for a while, and took photos.
All ready to paddle... where's the water?
I admired the many strange patterns and ripples in the sand.
I ate lunch, then dragged the kayak to the shore for the trip back. The wind had increased to the point of a few whitecaps, but I never had any difficulty, and I was able to paddle against the currents. I briefly paddled into some of the mud flats looking for birds, but only saw a few herons.
As I approached the shore by the trailer, I noticed a strange pattern on the shore. When I got closer, I was amazed to find that this pattern was made up the bodies of many hundreds of shorebirds, all facing the same direction. They were sitting on that particular shore, because it was out of the wind. There were four species: from very large (size of a crow, with extremely long pink and black bill), down to robin-sized, all sharing the same space. They were mostly sleeping at high tide—the time they can’t feed—and a few were preening. Back in the trailer, I watched them with binoculars, probably the best opportunity I’ve ever had to watch shorebird behavior for such a small distance. Gradually, as the tide went out, they began to wake up, and preen, bathe, and eventually start feeding or fly away.
They were all extremely tolerant of each other, even of the different species. No aggression whatsoever. The little ones walked among the big ones, which towered over them. But once they started feeding, they got a bit more competitive. A few bold ones chased other ones away from their feeding spots. The second-largest was the most aggressive—often they attacked the largest species.
In late afternoon, the two couples I had talked to yesterday showed up, and the guys asked if I had beer. Yesterday I picked up a six-pack, so I offered them some, and we talked for a while. They are divers that go after the “chocolate” clam; they wear wetsuits, and breathe air delivered by a hose from a compressor on the boat. They work in the mornings. Antonio is 23, married, with two kids, and Jorge is 18, with one baby (and unmarried).
Jorge is 18 and dives for clams, using an air compressor.
Where the kids were, I didn’t find out. I presume with grandma. They had planned to go fishing, but didn’t bring a fishhook. They asked me for one. While the two guys drank beer, Brenda went out looking for a fishhook, and eventually found one lying on the beach. So they went fishing after all—but didn’t catch anything. For bait, they used a snail they found. They had plastic line, two heavy lead weights, and the hook Brenda found. Antonio whirled the weights above his head like a sling, then let the weights fly. They flew out about a hundred feet into the water, carrying the hook and bait.
After they left, I went for a sunset paddle back to the sand dunes, then settled down for supper and reading.
I’ve been talking to the “oyster dogs,” and trying to make friends with them. They are not your Gringo lap dogs—they are pretty wild and free. They are very cautious, but I’m beginning to make headway. Another few days there, and they would be my friends.
Friday, 3/19
Not much happening today--got up, took photos of 1,000 large shorebirds resting just below my trailer, packed up and put my kayak on top. I noticed the oyster dogs carrying something black, playing tug of war with it, then gnawing on it. I thought it might be another cormorant they had killed, so I looked at it with my binoculars. It turned out to be one of my kayak booties they had made off with! One dog was using it for a pillow. I retrieved it without any damage, fortunately. It's always good to be observant.
As I was leaving, the Mexican Army came in with two high-speed patrol boats on trailers--possibly part of the drug interdiction efforts. Maybe they had a "tip" from the predator aircraft.
Then I went grocery shopping, where I had a delightful conversation with the checkout girl, who tried her English on me, and the packer girl (age 13). It's interesting to observe differences in behaviors here. A beautiful little girl (dad said her age was 4) was "rearranging" all the candy bars by the checkout, lining them up in neat little rows. No demands for "candy" or the other frenetic behavior you'd see of kids in the US. She was incredibly peaceful and calm, and self-directed. The chances of seeing behavior like this in a US supermarket would be about zero. I'm not sure what's behind it--possibly less stimulation of all kinds, and more attention from parents and extended family.
Then I went to have a late lunch at Mario's restaurant, where I had a fillet of bass with garlic sauce. After working on the internet here, I'm off to points south.
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