To see Tom and Jan's trip to Asia 2012 see tomjanasia.blogspot.com: Travelin' with Tyler in Tortuga

Walking the beach at Cabo Pulmo (East Cape)

Now that Tyler has joined us, we headed for Cabo Pulmo which lies south of Los Barriles about 30 miles. The first part of the drive was on pavement but the last 6 miles was of washboard dirt, which made the ride seem farther than it was. Ol Tortuga does great on the highway, but we've been reluctant to take her on the back roads of Baja. This penninsula has only the main highway paved, and just about everything else is dirt and gravel. Even in the small towns, only the main one or two streets are paved and the rest left lumpy and rocky. Riding in the noisy, rock and roll back, I finally took refuge in the over-cab bed to escape from the noise and jostle.

Full Moon rising at the Solstice

We had been to Cabo Pulmo about 12 years ago with the Wells family and it was interesting to see that not too much has changed around there, except the addition of several little hotels. There wasn't much to the dusty little town except about 4-5 dive shops, three restaruants and one little "store" where you could get water and a few grocery items. We finally figured out where to stay by riding our bikes down the beach until we found another motorhome and asked about staying in the area. After finding "Ricardo" the owner and paying our $5 per night (and trying to figure out who was going to keep the ONE key that opened the gate to the fence) We found a concrete pad to pull up to and make a camp looking out on the ocean. We spent three days here reading, snorkeling, walking, painting, looking at the full moon and soaking up the sun.

Jan finds time to paint

Cabo Pulmo is a biological reserve with the only living reef on the Pacific coast, and it is within close reach of the shore. The coral seemed a bit beaten up here, but it still supports a lot of tropical fish which were fun to swim with. I really enjoyed the copious amount of tiny silver fish that would encircle you in a "fish cloud" and almost become disorienting with their group swimming and swaying.
We returned to Los Barriles and the RV park for civilized services of laundry, hot shower and an evening in the hot tub, then left the next day for La Paz 2 hours to the North. We spent the afternoon walking the Melacon along the waterfront, eating shrimp tacos in a little taquaria under the palapa roof and being among the Mexican families come to celebrate Christmas in the town. Finally we found what I would call the feeling of "Mexico" in the larger city of La Paz. It was relaxed, and had a market, an old town, and pretty walkway along the bay, decorated with whimsical statues and sailboats out at anchor.

Camp on the Bay at Cabo Pulmo

Driving north 20 km for the free camping beach at Tecolote, we camped by the same family from White Horse Canada that we had camped by in Cabo Pulmo. As the sun came up we awoke to a fantastic natural phenomena the next morning. Literally hundreds of Pelicans came out of nowhere to join each other in a chaotic feeding frenzy along our shore. (Tyler even got up to check it out) They were diving singularly and in groups , hollering, crashing into each other flying up and diving again. This went on for about 20 minutes and all of the sudden it was over and the pelicans were flying off in all directions to be mostly gone within a few minutes. I took some video which I may try to post, if it doesn't take all day to download from our marginal internet connection.

Pelican feeding frenzy near La Paz

On the day before Christmas, we headed on down south to Todo Santos and were surprised to find a four lane highway for most of the way down. We had been to Todo Santos in the 90's and at that time it was just finding it's feet as an Art Center. Now there are a dozen galleries, a theater and the streets have been cleaned up. It still has a nice feeling to it, even though there are quite a few more gringos present. (Jim, we tried to look up Barb Perkins, to find out that she has turned her bar into a Mexican furniture store. She still owns the building in town and lives upstairs, but we weren't able to connect with her this time. We'll get back there sometime and I'll look her up.) We found a trailer park about a 15 minute walk down a dirt road from town and plopped down the Tortuga under a palapa for Christmas and a few days hanging out in the area. The main activity on Christmas Eve was at the central church with a procession and a mass held at midnight. The trailer court happened to be next to a statium where a big party was being held (we found out later) and the music and noise went on all night long, still strong at 6:30 in the morning. The cresendo came at midnight with home-made, VERY LOUD, "bombs" going off by the dozens. We were happy to hunker in Tortuga and wait for daylight.

Catching whales along the Melacon in La Paz

We spent the next three days around Todo Santos and the beaches, mostly at the surfing beach at Los Cerritos about 12 miles south, returning to Todo Santos for the evenings. The new highway has cut off a lot of access to the beaches (Las Palmas where we used to go was hard to get to and is now privately owned.) We found that much of Baja is up for sale and there are a lot of hotel and condo developments along both sides of the cape. A lot of the free camping places are now private. You can still camp on the beaches if you can get to them, as it is a law that all beaches are public in Mexico. If you can find access, much of it is still miles and miles of deserted sand and ocean without many people at all.

Christmas Day in Todo Santos

We had a nice Christmas day, opening a few presents and walking out to a pretty lagoon by the bay where Tom spotted some whales at sea spouting and there were lots of shore ducks in the water. That evening we searched around for a place to eat Christmas dinner and found that most everything was closed. We did find a little taco restaurant where a bunch of Mexican families were eating and filled up on a bunch of delicious tacos de pollo. More parties were held around the neighborhood, (one by the local police we found out later from the park manager) again with loud local music and general hubbub that lasted into the dawn. We fell asleep to the live bass ompah of mariachi which pounded through the brain all night :-l
Our last day and night with Tyler, we spent at the Los Cerritos beach. Tom talked Tyler into taking some surfing lessons. He did really good and was able to get upright and catch several waves into the beach during his lesson. I think his kayaking and snow boarding experience helped him out there. Since had the board the rest of the day, he decided to try his luck with the bigger waves.
He got hammered and maytagged several times, but I think he had fun trying anyhow.
We took him to the airport on the 28th and he is back in Seattle getting ready for the next difficult semester of math and physics. It was a lot of fun hanging out with him here in the sunshine. We are at Los Barilles for a month. So if anyone gets a bug to come on down we have a spare couch for company!
Feliz Ano Nuevo!
Jan and Tom