More Mexico . . . . . . . and Whales !!!

On our second day in Baja Mexico, we left El Rosario and continued South to Guerrero Negro which is about 1/2 way down the peninsula to Cabo San Lucas.  












The day was beautiful and the drive was great.  There was very little traffic and we had the road to ourselves.  That was nice because there were some very rough patches of roadway with lots of potholes, and since we didn't have anyone pushing us from behind, we were able to just slow down and enjoy the drive.

The road is 2 lane blacktop and at times has very sharp curves.  The lanes in the roads are also very narrow and don't have shoulders so there is no where to go if oncoming traffic happens to drift over into your lane.

That is the reason we decided to make this trip in our car instead of our motorhome.  When we tried the trip several years ago, we found it was too scary to pass oncoming trucks because our mirrors would miss by only inches as the oncoming truck would pass us at full speed.

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We passed several motorhome caravans headed South and they must have been amazed at how narrow the road felt when oncoming trucks passed them.



There were sharp curves at the end of long straightaways and we found many roadside memorials to people who apparently didn't make the curve.

These were all obviously lovingly cared for and were very sad.



They did serve as an excellent reminder to slow down and enjoy the ride.

As we continued South from El Rosario, we came to the area around the town of Catavina.

The road winds through a beautiful mountainous area that had miles of giant cactus and huge boulders.



When we say miles of cactus, we mean MILES of huge cacti.



And when we say huge cacti, we mean HUGE!!

Suzie is 5' tall.  How tall is that cactus?

As we hiked through the beautiful desert, we were glad it wasn't summer because this looks like great snake country.  We didn't see any and figured they must be hibernating.  Good thing !!

There were other serious hazards to watch out for.







Some of the cactus were so sneaky that you didn't even know they were there until you got back to the car.



We continued our drive Southbound and took a side road to Bahia De Los Angeles. This was our first glimpse of the Gulf of California.



Bahia De Los Angeles is a sleepy little village located on a beautiful bay.  It looked like it would be a great place to fish or jet ski or snorkel but the day we were there, the water was cold (winter) and the wind was blowing so it was just a picture taking day.





After we looked around Bahia De Los Angeles, we drove back to the main road and continued on to Guerrero Negro.

Along the way, we encountered numerous "Vados" which is the Spanish word for dip.  Many of the vados had water running through them and some had a portion of the pavement washed away so this was another reason to just drive slowly and be prepared for anything.

We came to only one vado that really worried us.  When we got to it, there was traffic stopped going the opposite way and they really seemed worried about if they could make it across or not.  

Finally, one of them took off his shoes and waded out into the stream barefoot and determined that it could be crossed.



After they all crossed, they waited to make sure that we got across safely and then we all continued on our way.  Everyone we met along our journey was friendly and helpful and we really enjoyed each of our encounters with them.

They seemed to enjoy it too and would always smile and be patient as we struggled to communicate with them with our broken Spanish skills.

We would frequently encounter people, especially kids, who wanted to practice their broken English skills and it was fun to share words back and forth.

We continued on to Guerrero Negro which marks the boundary between the states of Northern and Southern Baja.

The boundary houses a military base and you can see their huge Mexican flag from miles away.



We stayed at a great hotel called "The Halfway Inn"which is just outside of town.



The room was very large and we had a nice quiet night there.  It cost $27.00 U.S.



 The next morning we drove into the town of Guerrero Negro and looked around.  We decided to stay a second night and so we checked into the Malamirro Hotel.  It was $27.00 U.S.

 

As we were checking in, we noticed a sign advertising whale watching trips and we asked the desk clerk if the whales had arrived yet.

He told us that they were here now and that he could arrange a whale watching trip for us for the next day.

The forecast was for windy and cooler weather the next day so we told him we would wait and see what happened.

Then we headed off on a drive to check out the town.

One thing led to another and the next thing we knew, we were on a dirt road winding through the salt flats South of town. 



Guerrero Negro is known for 2 things, whale watching and salt production.  We had found the area where huge diked off ponds were used to hold and evaporate sea water to produce salt.  

This is the largest salt producing facility on the planet.  It produces over 9 million metric tons of salt every year.  That equals about 19,841,607,000 pounds of salt.

The facility covers about 33,000 hectares, which is about 81,545 acres.  

As we continued to drive around, we saw this sign.



Well, who could resist . . . .  if we just take the left fork in the road and drive another 18 kilometers, we will be where the whales are.  Maybe we can even see one swimming around out there.

We continued on down the road, marveling at the extent of the salt flats until we came to the end of the road.

The road ended at a large parking lot with several small buildings.  One was a visitor center for Ojo de Liebre Coastal Lagoon.

Speaking of Spanish, I spoke to the guy in the visitor center and I THINK he told me that we didn't need to make reservations for a whale watching trip through the hotel but that we could just sign up right there for a trip.

I THINK I told him we would like to go out on a trip but he said that it was a slow day and it could be several hours before enough people showed up to fill up a boat for a trip.

We decided to just walk around and check out the place

Outside the visitor center was a huge skeleton of a Grey Whale, or Ballena Gris as we say in Spanish.



We walked out to the pier and we could definitely see whales spouting off out in the distance.








As we were looking around on the dock, Suzie saw a large number of people walking around on the porch of the visitors center.

We walked back up to the visitors center and it turns out these people also wanted to go see the whales so we all bought tickets for $775 pesos each (about $38.00 U.S. each).

Then we all put on life jackets and walked down to the 24 foot Pangas. 



Pangas are home made open topped, flat bottom boats about the size of a lifeboat that turned out to be perfect for whale watching.



We headed out into the bay to see what we could see.



It was a beautiful day and very calm.  

Before long, we started seeing whales.



They looked huge, even from this distance.

The tour guide/boat captain kept up a steady narration of what we were seeing and everyone seemed to be getting a lot out of it because they kept laughing and commenting.  The only problem was it was all in Spanish and we have no idea what he said.

It didn't stop our enjoyment of the trip though because everywhere you looked, there were whales.

The tour guide motored the Panga slowly through the water and tried to get us closer to the whales.  He was very careful and we realized that he loved the whales as much as we did.

The hardest part of being the photographer on this trip was having the camera ready and pointed at the right spot when the whales decided to surface.  It seemed like I was always looking the wrong way when another one would pop up, take a breath and then be gone.

Then, I just happened to be pointing in the right direction when a mother and baby came up right next to the boat for a breath.

As we drifted among the whales, we saw a really interesting behavior.  There were hundreds of whales all around us.  

Every once in a while, one whale would emerge slowly out of the water and just watch us for a few seconds and then slip back into the water.

You never knew when it would happen or where it would happen but one time I was pointing the camera in the right direction and caught one in the act.

We also saw several whales breaching . . . . . jumping quickly out of the water and then splashing down onto its side, making a huge splash.

I never did get a picture or video of this behavior.

It was very calm and quiet out on the water and every once in a while a group of whales would glide by, slowly breathing as they passed.  

It was an amazing sound and very peaceful.

At times they were very close to the boat.

This was a Mom and her Calf.

We saw one glide right under the boat and was close enough to touch but when everyone rushed to the side of the boat, it started to tip way over and so I didn't get a picture as I was hanging over the other side of the boat with the guide as we tried to get the boat level again.

I don't think the boat would have turned over but the guide did a real quick, harsh blast of Spanish to everyone that I think told them to not all go to one side of the boat at the same time.

All in all, it was an amazing boat ride that we will never forget.

After about 1 1/2 hours on the water, it was time to head in.  It was hard to imagine those huge, peaceful whales just idling around out there 24 hours a day just doing whatever they do.

Once on the beach, we toured the visitor center and found a diagram that showed us the types of whales that migrate to the Mexican waters.  

After watching the giant Gray Whales (Ballena Gris) up close, we found out that when we travel over to the Gulf of California we might get a chance to see Ballena Azul (Blue Whales)

When you look at the diagram, you can get an idea of just how much bigger the Blue Whale is.  We can't imagine being in a boat up close with one of those.

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After the visitor center, we headed back across the salt flats.

 

Back in Guerrero Negro, we had another fantastic Mexican dinner and then spent a quiet night in the hotel.

More to follow soon.

We hope you get a chance to get out there and see some interesting things.  

Tom & Suzie

A new adventure begins !!!

Hello again,

We ended the last chapter right after we got our motorhome back from the shop after extensive repairs were made at Findlay RV in Las Vegas.

We left Las Vegas and drove to Laughlin, Nevada for a short, shakedown cruise.  Everything seemed to function correctly during the drive so we pulled into an RV park and spent the night testing everything we could think of, looking for anything that didn't work correctly after the repairs.  So far, everything seems to be working correctly.

The next morning, we loaded up and drove a short distance down the road to Fort Mojave, Arizona where we checked the motorhome into an indoor storage facility.

Then, we jumped into the car and headed off on our next adventure, something we have wanted to do for many years.

We drove to Southern California where we met up with the great staff at the Discover Baja Travel Club.

They held our hand as we made preparations to drive our car from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas in Baja Mexico.

It turns out you can't just go to Mexico anymore.  Even if you just want to go to Tijuana for the day, you now have to obtain a tourist entry permit called an FMM before you can legally go into Mexico.  Obtaining this permit can be a very time consuming event.

One way to do it is to drive to the border where you park the car and walk to the immigration office.  Once at the office, you show them your passport  and fill out the FMM form.  (Form is in Spanish and sort of hard to figure out).

After you get the form filled out, they send you to the bank which is in the same building where you pay around $24.00 per person for the permit, which is good for 180 days.  The form is free if you will be staying less than 7 days.

Then you take your receipt for payment back to the immigration office where they stamp your passport and your FMM and your receipt for payment and you are on your way.

Another way to get your FMM is with the assistance of Discover Baja Travel Club.  We chose that method because the last time we went to Mexico, the immigration office and bank ordeal took over 2 hours of standing in various lines.

All we had to do this time was e-mail Discover Baja Travel Club a picture of our passports, drivers licenses and the information from the FMM (in English) along with a credit card and they did everything else.

They were also able to get us a good deal on auto insurance with the same info for the FMM plus a picture of our car registration.

After taking care of the preliminaries through e-mail, we visited their office the day before we crossed into Mexico and picked up all of the paperwork we would need to have a successful passage into Mexico.

While we were at their office, we spent over an hour picking their brains on everything we could think of to ask about our upcoming travels.  They had lots of answers to questions that we hadn't even thought of and were a great help in boosting our confidence about driving into Mexico.

The next day (January 20, inauguration day) we drove across the border from San Ysidro (just South of San Diego) into Tijuana.

We still had to take our FMM cards into the immigration office, but since we already had everything filled out and paid for, it just took a minute for the immigration officer to stamp our passports and FMM's and we were on our way.

We were really surprised that there were no lines because we expected to see a line of movie stars around the block fleeing the US as President Trump was being sworn in.

Must have been the weather because even though it had been beautiful weather in Nevada and Southern California the whole time we were there, it was pouring down rain on the day of our crossing.

This was the actual border into Mexico.



Prior to crossing into Mexico, we found a free download of a map supplement for our Garmin GPS that shows many of the highways and city streets in Baja Mexico and that really helped our navigation throughout our trip.

Once through the border (no conversation with border guards and no searching), we followed the GPS, the highway signs and the well written instructions from Discover Baja Travel Club and went directly onto the nice toll road to Ensenada, bypassing all of the Tijuana city streets and traffic.



About 45 minutes after crossing the border, we started getting into the outskirts of Ensenada.  It continued to rain hard.  We went through several toll booths as we followed the toll road and all of the people working the booths were patient with us as we dug out the correct change.  

At the first toll booth, Suzie handed me a fist full of Mexican coins that we had left over from a trip to Mexico several years ago.  I held out my hand full of coins to the lady in the toll booth and she picked them up and then started laughing and then held up one of the coins and shouted to the lady in the next toll booth and then they both started laughing.  

Finally, our lady handed me back all of the coins and started wagging her finger at me and speaking rapid fire Spanish with a big smile on her face.   

She finally stopped to take a breath and I was able to ask her to slow down. 

We finally figured out that the Mexican money we had given her was no longer valid and had been replaced by newer, different coins.  We paid her with new, paper money we had obtained from our bank prior to crossing the border and that solved the problem.

This is a view of the coastline from the toll road.



Prior to entering Ensenada, we saw this giant statue.



When we got to Ensenada, even with the rain, the traffic was horrible and we really got our first dose of the Mexican method of driving.      




It turns out that things like center lines and stop signs are just suggestions and no one but us seemed to be paying much attention to them.

They do have respect for traffic lights and their lights have an interesting phase that our traffic lights don't have.  First, the light turns green.  After the normal length of green light, the green light starts to blink, which signals the approach of the yellow light.  Then the yellow light and then the red.  The blinking green is very helpful in planning whether you should start slowing down or just keep going.  

The prudent move is to start slowing down because you want to be stopped before the light turns red because all of the cross traffic drivers are anticipating their green light and they are going to shoot into the intersection a millisecond before their light turns green.



We wound our way through Ensenada and continued south because everything we heard and read about safety in Mexico indicated that as soon as you get south of the border area and Ensenada, you will be safe.

On the south side of Ensenada, we found and visited a Walmart.  It looked a lot like our Walmart's until we looked more closely.

These Walmart's had all of the things we expect plus motorcycles, huge piles of automobile tires and all kinds of things we never see.  When we went to the fruit department, we couldn't believe the prices.

We saw tangerines and oranges that were priced at $17.00/kg.

We have an App on our phone to help us convert the value of Pesos (which also use the $ symbol to represent Pesos) to Dollars and when we did the math it turned out that the fruit was 81 cents per kilo and a kilo is 2.2 pounds. That makes this fruit 36 cents per pound.  We are eating a lot of fruit on this trip.

Next door to the Walmart was a McDonalds and we ate there just to see what the difference would be.  No difference except the price.  We got two Big Mac combo meals with fries and drinks and the total was just over $5.00 US.

As we traveled south from Ensenada, we kept hoping that we would leave the rain behind but that didn't happen right away.  We passed through numerous small villages and towns and we were amazed at how primitive they still seem to be.

The highway is paved with asphalt and is in generally good condition but there are no shoulders on the highway, and in the towns, there are no curbs or gutters and, in fact, no pavement except for the main highway traveling through the center of town.

It has been our experience in the past that these towns were very dusty due to the traffic traveling on the dirt roads next to the highway.

On this trip, things were different.  There was MUD everywhere.



The towns all use an effective method to get the speed of vehicles down and keep the speed down as the vehicles enter and traverse the town on the highway.  They have installed "Tope" here and there on the highway as it passes through town.

What is a "Tope"  



It is some form of speed bump that goes across the roadway.  Some are marked and some are not.  Some are painted bright yellow so you can see them and slow down before you tear the bottom of your car off and some are not painted and look just like the rest of the pavement.



The prudent thing to do is SLOW down and that way a hidden bump won't sneak up on you and give you a whiplash.  

This system seems to really work because everyone slows down as you enter the towns and stays slow until you exit the town.  The Tope are considered "Sleeping Policemen" because they are always on duty and are very effective at keeping speed down.

As we continued south, we started to see massive agricultural communities.  We didn't realize how much agriculture was here and assumed that we would just see lots of desert.  Wrong!!

Not only did we see huge fields of crops, we also saw miles and miles of greenhouse like structures that seemed to be made out of shade cloth.



These things were huge and went on for what seemed like a continuous mile at a time.  Then there would be a small roadway and then another mile long greenhouse.  Not only were they very long but there were rows and rows of them that must have been a mile deep back from the highway.

We found that the roads on the first part of our trip were in good condition and the drive was very pleasant, even in the rain.

We did go through a lot of construction areas where they were improving or repairing the highway.  They have a lot of techniques and equipment that are different from what we see in the U.S.

One thing we noticed were a different style of cone.  We are used to seeing orange barrels or thin orange tubes but in Baja, we saw a cone that was different.  

When I mentioned this to Suzie and asked her why they would have this shape, she said "They must be Mexicones".



We drove south as far as the town of El Rosario where we stopped to spend the night.  It rained all day and was still raining when we arrived at our motel, "Baja Cactus".  Because of our membership in Discover Baja Travel Club, we received a 10% discount, so our room was right around $22.00 for the night.  

We were not sure what to expect for $22.00 but we were pleasantly surprised.

King size bed, nice, clean bathroom and huge tiled shower.







After putting our stuff in the room, we waded through the mud in the driveway and street to the little restaurant/bar next door where we had our first Mexican dinner.



It was delicious and very inexpensive.



I know I keep talking about prices so maybe a short explanation is in order.

We all can relate to how much a dollar is worth and how much it will buy.

In Mexico, things change.

The exchange rate, the amount of Pesos that equal a Dollar was     $1.00 U.S = $20.34 Pesos.

We found an App for our phones that helps with the conversion and it looks like this.



A dollar converts like this



Pesos to Dollars look like this.



The menus show all prices in Pesos so we are constantly using our phones to not only translate the names of the food so we know what we are ordering but we use the phone to figure out how much it will cost.

When we have been buying dinner, the bill has been coming to around $180.00-$200.00 Pesos.  

At first, it looks like a lot but then you put it into the phone and it looks like this.



Two wonderful meals with drinks.

You get real bang for your buck right now.

We slogged back to our room and got ready for bed.  That is when the adventure really began.

It had rained all day and was also very windy and cold so we had turned on the heater in the room before we left for dinner.  The room was just starting to warm up when we got back.

I sat on the edge of the bed and took my clothes off and headed for the shower.

What a shock as I walked past the front door on the way to the bathroom.  There was a pool of water that spread from the 1" gap between the bottom of the front door and the floor and the wind was hitting the door full blast and shooting the rain under the door and into the room.

That woke me up!!

The shower was very nice and by the time I headed back to the bedroom, I had forgotten about the flood and walked right back through it.  Boy . . . . . was that cold!!

I got a towel and mopped up the water and then used that towel to plug the gap under the door.  That is when the wind started blowing into the room through the gap between the windows and the window frame.  It made the curtains billow into the room it was blowing so hard.

We both jumped into bed after our showers and were quietly reading our books when the lights went out.

When the lights went out, the heater turned off.

After a few minutes, the lights flickered back on for a moment and then went out again.

This went on for a while and then we started hearing lots of yelling in Spanish out in the rain as people seemed to be trying to figure out how to turn the power back on.

After an hour or two, the lights were still off and it was getting cold in the room.  We were comfy under the blankets and were just about asleep when there was a knock on the door.

Uh-Oh !!!

Another knock and then a voice saying "Señor, open the door".

UH-OH!!!!!!

I tippie toed to the door and stepped right back into the flood that had crept back under the door.

Again . . . .  "Señor, open the door".

I told the man I would not open the door and then he told me that they had determined that all of the guests running their heaters at the same time was blowing the circuit breakers and he needed to come in and turn off the heater.

I told him I would turn off the heater and he went away.  I could hear him knocking on other doors and requesting entrance and being refused but apparently the heaters were the problem because after his visit to all of the rooms, the power came back on and the rest of the night was uneventful.

We awoke first thing in the morning to sunshine streaming through the window and no wind howling through the cracks by the window.

We slogged through the mud to our car and we were off on day 2 of the adventure.

More to come soon,

Get out there and have some fun!!!

Tom & Suzie