Sierra la Giganta and Sierra la Laguna

We first noticed la Giganta driving south along the coast out of Conception Bay.  The mountain range grew out of the desert and had been running parallel to the sea since the Bay.  We found a road up to Mission San Javier that looked interesting and headed into the mountains. 

The road was better then expected.  The map had it labeled as an improved two track road, but it had been recently paved and was clean and smooth.  We assumed they improved the road for tourism since it wasn't far from Loreto.  However, we saw maybe one car on the roughly three hours we were on this road.  What a shame, because this was an excellent detour with spectacular views.

That picture just does not do it justice, the road hugged the cliffs and mountain sides the whole way.  In places we could see all the way back to the Sea of Cortez.

Arrived at a small shrine just before the mission.  Small, quaint worship building tucked back into the mountains.  Cool place, really nothing else up here.

While we descended down the road back out of the mountains, I opened the map trying to find a place to camp for the night.  This was not as easy as you think.  You try reading maps and books on a twisting mountain road without getting sick!  One location I noticed, and that Chuck had heard good things about, was Agua Verde.

Agua Verde lied on the Sea at the end of a dirt mountain road that crossed la Giganta.  Seemed simple enough.  It was so much better then that though.  This was perhaps one of the more scenic drives I have ever been on.  We exited off of HWY 1, split a couple of peaks, then started the winding road to the coast.  Holy crap there was no room for error.  The dirt road crawled along the sides of the mountains dropping 300ft plus into gorgeous ravines off its edges.  I didn't have a wide enough angle lens to really capture this range.  The whole drive I was just in awe.

I was actually unable to get a good picture of our road (since if I stepped out I'd fall 400 feet) until we were nearly down.  But you get the idea.

After riding along the coast for a few miles, we finally reached the fishing village of Agua Verde.  The town consisted of about six ranch homes and a restaurant that we cautiously avoided.  But we were able to find a spot on the beach to camp.  Everything setup I spent the evening watching sea lions and dolphins play in the small bay and the sun fall behind the mountains behind us.

We were getting close to land's end now so the swells and waves were getting larger, even on the sea side.  The next morning we debated putting the boats in but decided to push on south instead and packed up.  We were spoiled by the glassed over water from the rest of the trip. 

Ran into some local traffic on the road out.

After the white knuckle drive back through Giganta we were again at a decision point. I pulled the books and maps back out.  Again, the only real disappointment we had in this trip so far was the lack of reptilian wildlife we had seen.  Now that the only non-biologist member of our party was no longer in the caravan, we decided to try to chase down some lizards.  I had gotten snubbed with rock lizards earlier in the trip (remember the photo of the green lizard head peaking out between the rocks), but there was an endemic species rock lizard only found in the cape region of the peninsula.  We even were able to come up with a locality that we had a good shot of spotting them.  So we headed back south on HWY 1 toward Sierra la Lagune National Park.

Turning off the pavement at the town of San Antonio (sans Alamo) we dropped down through Sierra la Laguna bound for the arroyo at the the bottom and a place called San Antonio de la Sierra (creative huh?)  We arrived in late afternoon and a prime time to look for wildlife. What a great place we stumbled upon.

The first thing we noticed getting out of the truck was the bird life.  The surrounding area had been very brown and apparently in the middle of a decent drought.  Wait what?  I thought I was in the desert?  Sierra la Laguna was something totally different then the various habitats we had camped in thus far.  The cardon cactus, boojum, and ocotillo have now been replaced with oaks, and cottonwoods.  The birds were apparently congregating in this arroyo that was still relatively green.  I couldn't get any good pics because they stayed in the large canopies of the deciduous trees (including the freaking Scott's Orioles again!), but we added like 12 new species to our trip total in one evening.

Chuck was on bird patrol

I was trying to keep a keen eye out for the San Lucan Rock Lizards.  It didn't take long before I spotted a juvenile on a large boulder.

Now this guy was pretty cool looking, but he wasn't mature and was lacking the striking colors of the adults.  I saw a couple of LARGE adults but they just weren't allowing me anywhere near close enough to get a hand on or get a decent photograph.  I was losing light so I called it a draw and we set up camp in the bottom of the arroyo.

I set up my cot directly under a large cottonwood tree, and watched a ringtail make his way down the arroyo.  Well sometime during the night something started peeping in the tree above me.  It was like a metronome but would change its rhythm every 30 seconds or start accelerating violently.  Sometimes there would be two metronomes competing with each other. 

What the heck is that noise!

Chuck dug out his spot light and we lit up the cottonwood.  After scanning for several minutes we finally found the biological metronome that was keeping us awake, it was an owl about the size of a softball. It was an elf owl!  If it wasn't so freaking cute I probably would have thrown a rock at it to shut it up.  Eventually he stopped establishing his territory and went silent for the night.

The next morning I was out after the lizards hard. I was not satisfied with a naive juvenile.

Success!



So happy, one of the animals I was really hoping to see this trip.  When he finished biting me, I made sure to get plenty of photos.  And holy cow, look at this lizard! (another geek out).

Just wow, what a colorful lil animal.

A successful morning.  We packed up camp and headed out for our final campsite of the trip, los Barriles.

Conception Bay

We met an interesting fellow at the camp in San Ignacio.  Jens Reuter pulled in last night and camped adjacent to us.  Only next to the Tacoma, he parked and unpacked his bicycle.  We had dinner and a couple of beers with Jens.  This man is living the dream.  Jens is from Frankfurt and was sitting in his home in Germany when he decided, "hey! I want to learn Spanish, and I want to see South America."  His solution was a bike ride.... from Anchorage to Argentina!  He quit his job and is devoting a year and a half to his quest.  I was thoroughly impressed (especially after seeing HWY 1).  I would have liked to have visited with Jens more but he was off to see the whales himself the morning we were leaving.  Here's a link to his blog (will have to do some translating) velomerica.de

After a quick shower and a nice morning watching the birds we headed back out towards the Gulf.  The plan was to find a spot on Conception Bay and be a beach bum for a couple days.  Rough life huh.

We did stop in Mulege to look around and pick up some provisions (BIMBO snack cakes, beer, fish tacos, the normal). 

It was sunday and the church was standing room only

It was just a short drive down to Conception Bay from Mulege.  We had done a lot of hard miles the last couple days and it was nice to have a relaxed day (not that I regret it, the roads were fantastic!). 

Conception Bay is a fairly well known spot.  It's a large and narrow bay which keeps it pretty sheltered from heavy swells and bad wind.  The far side across the bay doesn't see that much traffic.  Would be a nice trip to kayak and camp the whole bay.  Next time!

Selected a beach called El Coyote and nestled camp vagabundo back against a cliff and under the shade of a mesquite tree.  We had gotten pretty good at setting up and tearing down camp by this point. We could have tortillas on the stove, Pacifico open, and boats ready to launch in 15 minutes.

The wind was kicking up some waves that first afternoon, so we were content to sit on the beach and enjoy our Pacifico.  As the afternoon waned though, the wind stopped and it glassed out.  We were lucking out with our beach weather.

Not too shabby for sitting under a mesquite tree.

The next morning was still glassed over, and as you can expect I jumped in the yak and headed for the nearest island.

This island was considerably larger then the one at Alcatraz.  I was also noticing some new bird life!  Priority one however was to scale this island peak!  We found a nice beach on the far side of the island, pulled the boats up and hiked up the peak dodging the soaring Frigate Birds along the way.

Ok that's enough landscapes.  I scampered down the peak spotting a few common side blotched lizards on the way.  Back at the kayak, I began to slowly paddle around the island.  I saw something perched along the cliffs and tried to sneak in for a picture.  It took me a while to sneak up and realize what was huddling on the white wash.  Exactly what every secluded warm island needs...Boobies!  The blue footed kind of course.

Boobies are amazing birds!  If you have ever seen any nature documentary with a school of fish swarming out in open ocean with birds tucking their wings back and torpedoing into the water feeding.  More then likely those birds were boobies.  We would watch the birds feed from our beach on Playa Coyote as they hit the water at top speed like a missile.  Very cool, plus they have BLUE FEET!  This species is ubiquitous of Ecuador and the Sea of Cortez is pretty much the furthest north you can regularly see them.

I paddled around to a small rock out cropping and saw Brown Boobies too.  He's cool, but there is just something about blue feet.

I was able to sneak right up on some of the birds on the rocks.

Brown Pelican (starting to come into breeding colors)

These Brandt's Cormorants would almost let me come up and touch them.

Snowy Egret doing his egret thing.

Several cool birds around camp too.

Gila Woodpeckers had been common since Patchen's

 Verdins were bold and made themselves at home in our camp.

 Orioles just never make it easy! (Hooded Oriole)

 Grey Thrashers are an endemic species only found in Baja

 Vermillion Flycatcher

 and the ever circling batman shaped Frigate Birds

On the 8th I went out for one last paddle and we packed up camp.  Michael would be leaving us this morning.  He was headed back north to setup a pit for a motorcycle enduro in the next couple of days.  He was a great resource to have with us.

"Old Man and the Sea"

We reluctantly left Conception Bay and drove into Loreto for lunch.  I really like Loreto.  There were a few more tourists, but that seemed to be the growing trend the further south we went.  The town was just really nice.

 Lame pose!

From this point we literally opened up the map consulted a few books and tried to decide our next step.  We ended up turning the Tacoma towards Sierra la Giganta.  With a name like that, how could it not be spectacular? 



Road to Whales!

We realized pretty soon that we would not be able to make it to our whale camp in one day, it was just to many miles and we had no reason to push ourselves that hard.  The weather had been wonderful so we decided to aim for San Francisquito, a nice beach to camp, on the gulf side.

We had heard about an old jail still standing out in the middle of the desert.  This just seemed out of place, apparently it was supporting a mining camp here that was working the nearby mountains.  I guess every community needs a good drunk tank.  Still, it was just odd stumbling across this jail cell out in the middle of the desert with nothing around for miles.

No matter how many photos I take, I can't get over the landscape.  Every direction for the majority of this trip just draws the eye in.

We didn't stop much that day, trying to cover some country.  We camped short of San Francisquito at San Playa Raphael.  The camp at San Playa was packed full of local fisherman when we pulled in.  Despite them offering us the international sign for beer, we figured it'd be better to camp just north and out of sight on the beach. I wandered up a nearby arroyo looking for wildlife that night, nothing cold blooded just a coyote.  It seems we are still feeling some lingering effects of the harsh early weather.

We had an uninvited visitor in camp that night, a wild burro wandered in and bayed right where Michael was sleeping.  It took several minutes to convince myself it wasn't just Michael snoring.

The next morning we got out early determined to make it to the Pacific.  Made a stop at San Francisquito,  just ridiculous......

 (Chuck in deep thought) 

From here we finally started crossing the Peninsula. We stopped at a random Pemex to fuel up (around 2.65 a gallon!) and grab a bimbo snack. Then turned towards San Ignacio. 

San Ignacio is the last town before you cross the salt flats of the Pacific Coast, but just outside of town we hit the security checkpoint from hell.  Even the cut plywood cut out seemed to be in a bad mood.

The Mexican military puts up these checkpoints throughout the country and the can vary from just a "where are you going?" to searching the entire vehicle.  This checkpoint was pretty thorough, taking everything from our driver's license numbers to blood type.  They did a fairly extensive shake down of the truck as well, which is always interesting since it's packed to the gills.  An hour and a half later, we made it to San Ignacio.  This town's economy has a huge investment in tourism with the whales.  I'm curious how the recent unrest will effect tourism, not to mention the fact that every hurricane that hits the peninsula absolutely pounds San Ignacio.  Took some photos at the mission in the town square.  Nice town.



Didn't dwell long in San Ignacio though, we had a long and rough washboard road out to the whale camp.  It didn't take long outside of town to descend down to the salt flats.  These flats stretched for MILES in every direction.  I thought the northeast part of the peninsula was desolate.  No vegetation whatsoever, only the occasional brackish pool to break the landscape.  Let's see Bear Grylls make it out here

After many miles and over an hour of solid washboard we arrive at the whale sanctuary.  We pulled in at Antonio's whale camp. Antonio was one of the first guides to take tourists out to see the Grey Whales, it seemed like a silly choice to consider any other guide.

Antonio was recently partnered with a larger eco-tourism group, but the camp was still rustic.  You could rent a small cabin or tent, with a wash basin shower... OR you could be the rejects and set your cot up in the parking area using a Power Wagon as a wind block.  Two guesses which group we were.  We were the B class society.  The camp was completely full, and most tourists had made a trip for the primary purpose of seeing the whales and taking other tours out into La Laguna.  Most well dressed, well equipped and smelling nice from a sun warmed hot water shower.  We on the other hand were not allowed shower access, did not receive the complimentary mugs, and were asked to stay in our own separate pavilion (probably for the best since I had not had a freshwater shower since I left Arizona).... just the way I like it.  The camp had a nice skeleton of  Grey Whale collected out on the beach.  Even standing next to it, you still can't get a handle on the size of these animals until you see one breathing right next to you.

(Vertebrae is the size of my waist!)



We were served a great Grouper dinner in our separate pavilion, we just figured it was special treatment for camp "Vagabundo!"  then tucked behind the trucks to get out of the wind for the night, and man can the wind blow on the western coast. 

After a quick breakfast we headed for our boat in the morning.  Antonio would actually be our guide!  Now I have to say this, if you ever get the opportunity to go see the Grey Whales in Baja DO IT.  Its an absolutely incredible experience.  The whales migrate into La Laguna, to mate and raise their calves.

The three of us and Antonio headed out in our small panga, and as soon as we got half a mile or so from the coast I could already see spouts.  The closer we got to the mouth of the Lagoon the more spouts I could see.  Whales in every direction.  You could walk across the Lagoon and never get your feet wet.  When we arrived at the prime observation area we saw instant activity.  It didn't take long to figure out what was going on, mating.  I'm sitting 50 feet away sometimes of a couple of giant male whales chasing down a female, absolutely incredible to watch.  Even Antonio had his camera out documenting what we were fortunate enough to see.

We observed whales rounding 3rd base for almost thirty minutes, often close enough that the spray from their blow hole would saturate my camera lens.  The only down sound, if there is one, is that with the all the fiesty behavior the cows were very cautious with their calves.  Often the calves are so curious they come right up to the panga's like a child saying "look at me look at me!" and its not uncommon for the whales to bump the boats or for tourists to touch the whales.  The cows were much more cautious today.  With about 15 minutes left in the area we did have one whale approach us on his own accord.  It was incredible.  This giant animal would just suspend underneath our boat tail protruding from one end and the head submerged just inches from my touch out in front of the boat.  It would even pass under us waving its flipper just barely out of our reach then rolling to get a good look with its baseball sized eye.  Incredible! My pictures do not come close to capturing what an experience it was.

(Ya we were close)

(Just kept rolling and twisting inches below the surface and our boat)

Just amazing!

Time with the whales is pretty well regulated so not to over crowd them during this sensitive time in their biology.  I was very impressed with the way they handled it.  So, after 45 minutes our time was up and we had to head back.  I could have easily spent all day watching these animals, and the last whale seemed like it could have done the same.

We drove out of the whale camp with the intention of crossing a Mountain Range in the center of the peninsula, finding a secluded mission on a peak, and dropping into La Paz tomorrow.  At least that was the plan.  We soon found out that mapped roads don't always exist anymore, and roads often appear that are not on the map.  This can make OCD map reader like myself a little frustrated.  Even with setbacks this was a spectacular road as far as scenery was concerned.  This is the Mexico I absolutely love, small ranchos with small gardens nestled along an arroyo in the mountains.

Narly road!

We were making good progress and figured we would make the mission at the top of the range by night fall, until we hit San Alfonso.  San Alfonso was just a small dot on our map, which generally means a small rancho with usually one, maybe two homesteads or ranch houses.  San Alfonso was no different in that respect, the ranch house did however sit right on top of our road, complete with a fence all the way across the canyon bottom.  We walked up to the house and were greeted by a nice woman and her two children.  We showed her the map and the road we were on, she definitely understood our broken spanish.  However, she would not admit that the road went passed San Alfonso (and couldn't explain how to get to the mission for that matter).  We tried being as nice as we could be she wouldn't have it, so even though we could see or road up the arroyo behind the ranch we had to turn back for San Ignacio to camp.

We found a campsite right on oasis in the middle of San Ignacio and set up camp.  The frogs were calling that night! I could hear the same tree frog we saw Santa Maria de Los Angeles, and American Bullfrogs.  Unfortunately bullfrogs have been introduced in several oases on the peninsula and had gained a foothold harming native species.  It was still nice to be able to sleep with the frogs calling.

(You have to at least give it credit for being an incredibly successful species)

The next morning was a bit cool with a breeze coming off the Pacific, but the light was beautiful on the Oases and the bird life was great.

Coot

There were a couple different species of orioles and warblers that I really wanted to photograph but they seem to have a way of knowing when the camera is around my neck.  Especially the Scott's orioles that will sit on the branch in front of me until I get a camera out.  So you're going to have to trust me, they were attractive looking birds...

There was even a shower for us in the morning, holy crap!  This was a camp not suited for los vagabundos!