I was thinking about all the postings that we have done while here in Cabo San Lucas and most have been centered around our family and us. Well, there is a lot more to share with you. With the presence of whales clearly seen from the shores all around Los Cabos, it adds additional excitement to the sea from late December through March every year. The tell-tale spray of water shooting from a surfacing whale blowhole, excites the imagination of what is below the water. “Whales, the mammals of the sea, (called cetaceans) are remarkably related to land animals like cattle, antelopes, pigs and hippopotamuses. They have common ancestors from millions of years ago, that are unlike present day groups.” Last February we had the opportunity to drive from Seattle to our destination of Cabo San Lucas. After crossing the border from California to Mexico, we decided to stop off in the little town of Guerrero Negro and camped the night in the back of our van. We awoke early the next morning and left with a small group of people out into the bay to be with the whales. The female Gray Whales that are there were going to either give birth (calf), or had already given birth, and then there are the whales, male and female, that were a year old. All others stay out in the deeper waters for mating. In the waters of this cove, the whales are more active and they seemed to be all around us, so our guide shut the motor off. We just sat there watching all these beautiful mammals of the deep, surfacing, blowing, and spy-hopping (that’s were they just rise straight up until their eye comes out of the water) . It’s interesting because they just seem to look around, check us out, and then slide back into the water and disappear once more. Sometimes they would break the surface and jump high out of the water and flip over onto their back and splash this huge wave. But THE BEST is when you get the chance to MEET a FRIENDLY WHALE !!!! A friendly whale is a whale that finds YOU interesting as well, and will slowly come over to the boat to scratch it’s self on the bottom of your boat (the Gray Whale has patches of barnacles or lice that itch a lot). After awhile you hope they will just come up to the boat so you can have the PREVILAGE of touching and stroking a 35-50 foot Gray Whale….. These are the same whales that summer in the Artic seas and then travel here to the Baja. This can be up to 12,000 miles round trip and takes about 2 ½ months each way. These are the same whales that are now in the waters around Los Cabos (Lands End) and are what so many of us tourists are keeping our eyes to the sea in the hopes of getting a glimpse. We know that all we will probably see is just the water “spout” or possibly a huge tail pointing skyward….it’s all worth it.
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26/27 January ’04, Mon & Tuesday. The last full day for Mary and Lois before heading back to Seattle. They wanted to take in Todo Santos for the day so we all jumped in the car after breakfast and headed North. Todo Santos is just getting ready for their Art Festival at the end of this month. It was all very enjoyable and somehow in all the walking of the streets, Lois and Mary found some “great buys” to take home with them. After making it back prior to dinner it was decided that we would all get ready and head over to Romeo and Juliet’s for an Italian dinner. Lois told us “right up front, THIS IS MY TREAT” and who was I to say differently? Thank you Lois….. Well the last day has arrived so we were off to the beach for breakfast and the last of the “sunbathing” prior to getting back to Seattle (WHO ORDERED THE BREAKFAST MARGARITAS LOIS?). A funny thing happened on the way to the airport….. or was it that we found out about it just as we arrived AT the airport? Let me say this about that….”Mary, I do forgive you, and not a word will ever be spoken on this again !!!). Mom (Lois) and Mary are off and JOELLE HAS ARRIVED !!!! A 40 minute drive back to the condo, a 2 minute change of clothes and we are off to the Sand Bar to get the last rays of the sun on our bods (boy is Joelle ever white…) and have that first cerveza, cheeps and salsa. HMMMMM GOOD !! Sunday, 25 Jan ’04, The sun is out bright with a light wind that is keeping it just a little cooler than we would like. At 9:30am, we (4of us) jumped in the car and off we went to breakfast at The Bungalow’s Bed & Breakfast. Like I mentioned before in my journal, it is a special meal that Estella puts together (banana nut mango pancake) and this one was no exception . After breakfast, we headed off to the Pedregal beach. Keeping our eyes out to sea, we were lucky enough to see and be entertained by the gray whales with their blowing and breaching as they made their way on to Alaska. It had been along time for Lois to take in the Pacific side of Cabo so, we decided that would be a good side trip before going to Juancho’s Sand Bar & Beach Club for the day. When we arrived at The Sand Bar we picked out our beach chairs, found the sun, ordered lunch, and mucho margaritas, and settled back for a long visit with Doris, Juancho, (their dos ninos) Louisa and Max. Of course Lois (Great Grandma) and Mary (Louise’s sister) had their chance to barter with the beach vendors in the purchases that they had to have before going home. Each day has to come to it’s end and this is no exception as we headed back to our condo. Now feeling that we needed just that little bit more we decided to stop at Mariscos and pick up (para llevar) cerviche de pescado to take home with us…..boy is that good !!! Saturday, 24 January 04. From what I understand there was a great Surprise Birthday Party back in Seattle. Happy Birthday again Mikleane and Happy Birthday to Ric as well!!!! Waking up this morning we found that we weren’t washed away overnight and the sun was shining bright and warm. I took advantage of the morning sun and spent some time lounging around the pool looking for a little color to my body. We have additional company coming this afternoon….Louise’s sister Mary will be here until Wednesday and then she will fly back with Lois. Tomorrow we will all go over to The Bungalows Bed & Breakfast and enjoy one of the famous gourmet meals that Estella serves. The BEST !!! Mary arrived on time and had to rush and push her way through all the timeshare, cab hustlers, and those of us just standing around looking for a familiar face in the masses. We had a barbecue of chicken for dinner and I made from scratch my version of margaritas. Not Bad if I must say so myself. Tomorrows weather looks great so I’m expecting beach time with a Pacifico. Thur. 22 January 04. We awoke to a slightly overcast morning so we decided to go up the coast line to Cabo San Jose after breakfast. It is amazing, we made the trip to San Jose in about 30 minutes or less and the first thing that we HAD to do was stop for a Latte (or a cup of coffee) and something sweet to go along with it……what is this, it must be the fresh clear air that makes you do something like that. During coffee, we made plans (adjustable) that would take us to the beautiful Cacti Mundo-Los Cabos Botanical Gardens. They had species of cacti that have never been seen in collections that have been open to the public. What a real treat that was….absolutely beautiful. Next on the list was a short trip to El Estero Historico de San Jose (the historic San Jose Estuary). Unfortunately, this wonderful estuary was drained into the Sea of Cortez during the last summers hurricane. Now that the sea has started to put the sand back into position to block off the fresh water from going out to sea, the estuary is slowly filling again. There was still a lot of bird life there and we had a good time watching them fish and dig into the sand looking for that little micro of what ever it is they feed on. Well, there must have been a wonderful aroma coming down wind because the next thing I knew we were heading into San Jose cento to do some window shopping and LUNCH ANY ONE? What will tomorrow bring? Well tomorrow arrived and so did the RAIN !!! About 2-3" over night so we packed up and went to the movie !!! Wednesday and it is the 21st of January. We were up early and made the place spotless as we had company coming for a visit…..Louise’s mother Lois was arriving early afternoon from Seattle so we went to the airport to pick her up. I dropped Louise off at the door as I went off to find a parking space. In joining her in the lobby and looking until there was no one left to come out Louise looked over to me and didn’t look too good. Have we lost her here in a Mexican airport (and us with no telephone or no address) or did she miss her flight? After a little while I decided to check outside and there she was in her powder blue jacket and pant outfit (looking great!) off on the apron with her hand clutching her bags and looking up the street…”I was just going to wait until you got here cause I thought you might be running a little late” (what, ME?????). Well I want the rest of the family to know that she made it just fine and is in good hands (we’ve already had our first Margarita and chicharronis). 20 January 04, and we have a slight overcast morning so we decided to jump aboard a bus bound for Todo Santos after a light breakfast here at home (already I’m calling this condo “home”, can you believe it?). We really are feeling comfortable and getting into the groove of doing what feels good at that moment. You might feel that we would just run down to the bus station, buy a ticket, wait for the bus and you would be on your way….not quite! The lady behind the counter took us outside and very politely told us that the bus we wanted was available just across the 4 lane highway and it would be by momentarily. Sooo, we carefully made ourselves walk across this street with many cars, trucks, taxi’s, and buses finding us to be fair game as they were barreling down on us all at once. After finding ourselves safely there we thought we might confirm what that kindly sole told us about this being the right spot for the bus we wanted. There was 2 ladies that said no it wasn’t the right spot so , we asked 2 men, and they confirmed that it wasn’t right and they decided to take us to a different bus station about 2 blocks and 2 additional 4 lanes of traffic that we had to find our way through to get to it. Well, an hour later we were on our way and had a wonderful time walking the streets, businesses, coffee shop, “The” Hotel California, and having some wonderful seafood tacos. Todo Santos over the years has turned into a beautiful little town with lots of wonderful shops, restaurants and great art galleries. It has the feel of an Old Colonial town and has become quite an agricultural cultural center with many organic farms producing fruit, vegetables, and herbs. Most of these will find their way to the finest markets in the US. We spent about 3-4 hours there and then were back to finding a bus back home. Not much trouble finding the bus but, when we stepped on we immediately found that ALL the seats were taken and they were already standing in the isles for the hour plus trip home….Oh well…it still was a great time. Sunday & Monday, 18 & 19 January 2004. Met with Doug and Bonnie and went to breakfast at Momma’s in Cabo. Very good food but, the prices were SOOOO HIGH that it kind of took the specialness out of the morning. Live and learn…. We didn’t let any grass grow with our disappointment because we headed out for a drive to “El Faro Viejo” (the Old Light House). We have been there a number of times and it is still something special to see and do. Very special. Another reason for going to the light house was to see if the wind was blowing enough to fly kites or Doug’s new plane (not yet). One of the additional attractions from that location was we could view were they were filming Brad Pitts new movie “Troy”. We had to hurry back to meet with a family that we have known and enjoyed enormously for along time. Nacho and Rocio and their daughters were coming by and we were going out to have a long awaited lunch together. We had a lot of catching up to do. Maruja (10) is just a wonderful and most beautiful young lady, Maryanne (2) is a very special and pretty young niña, and their 3 son’s are all off to far reaching places…Chino (16) is in Japan studying, Lynn (21) is New York working with jumping horses with hopes of making the Olympics in the future, and Juanro (26) is Mexico City singing and playing music (a true love). After our visit and a very enjoyable lunch we went back to the condo and caught up on some work with our site and finished a book as well. Monday we went to the Internet Café after breakfast and then off to the beach for a “Day In The Sun”. No burns but we did get enough sun to show a little color. GREAAT!! Saturday, January 17, 2004. You grab a bucket, go down the 3 flights of stairs, fill the bucket with water from the swimming pool, GO UP 3 flights of stairs 3 TIMES and ALL she says is “THANK YOU !!!” . Well that was this morning and all that has passed. After breakfast of coffee and a “food bar” we splashed on some sun screen and donned the back pack and headed out to the “peoples market” just to see what they had to offer this morning. Following the earlier lead (no water, no shower) and continuing the uncertainties of the day, we found that we were 2 hours too early for the market….darn ! Well we had heard about some trouble that occurred on the day of the first heavy rain storm. A couple of sail boats and a large pontoon raft had washed up on the shore so we decided to walk to the beach and check this out. Well let me tell you, I forgot about all my problems (no water, no shower) when we saw that boat laying on its side with a hole in it’s bottom (one had made it back to water). Not good !! The person who owns this craft is camped right next to it in a small tent and all “her” belongings strung out beside it drying out. Not fun !! The fortunate part of this is that she wasn’t physically hurt and her dog (a Pug) is doing just fine as well. On the other side of today, we met a couple (while we were having lunch) that had just arrived by the ‘QE 2”. They were from Barcelona, Spain and had traveled across the Atlantic, through the Panama Canal and had just stepped off the ship to talk with us. It has and will continue to be quite a trip for them as they head up the coast tonight to San Diego and Los Angeles. I understand that some of the passengers will go all the way to Alaska. Boy you have to love the food a lot to stay on board that long. Well, back to “trekking” the beach, stopping for a cervasa (2, it was Happy Hour), seeing our buddy Eddie and then making it all the way home to find “WATER’ !!!! Thursday Jan 15th saw us off to the Internet Café just after breakfast and then back to being a laid back kind of day. We both have good books underway that we are well into so we spent hours digesting all they have to offer. Now that doesn’t mean we didn’t put in a little pool and walking time, seeing as the weather has co-operated with a nice sunny 78-80 degrees. As far as our walk, we left the condo and walked out dirt roads and found ourselves deep in the barrio of Cabo San Lucas. It was a very interesting walk, a lot of wonderful people that happen to have a lot of dogs that were all sleeping. You see, they sleep during the day so that they can all BARK AT NIGHT…. We Love it and wouldn’t change a thing! One thing that we used to really enjoy early each morning, was the rooster crowing….we just don’t hear that at all now for some reason. Could be they are all for sale in the meat market down the street (just kidding). I was just told to light the barbecue for my famous barbecued chicken breast along with quesadillas y salsa. |
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