Baja Bits & Pieces – Sorry You Couldn't Come Along

Fountain in Mulegé on the way back from lunch. We grabbed a quiet spot for a phone call. Love the swans!

One odd thing about blogs is that you read them (or perhaps should read them) backwards, but no one does. There’s no beginning and (you’re thinking) no end. But, it’s the blogger who’s left with tasty tidbits that haven’t fit into any of the stories that have been cooked up to try to make sense of what we see. So, here are some of those tasty bits and pieces.

Spiny Lobster at Victor’s Restaurant in San Ignacio.

Trying desperately for a decent segue, we offer our first taste of a spiny lobster. We were talking with Antonio, our van driver for the run out from town to the lagoon in San Ignacio and learned that he also ran a restaurant on the square and, yes, he would make ceviche for us if we gave him an hour’s notice and, yes, he had some lobsters. Keeping it short, it was fun and they have an earthy taste halfway between a Maine lobster and a blue crab. They were big for spiny lobsters according to independent witnesses.

Town Square, San Ignacio. The cafe is one of Antonio’s competitors.

San Ignacio is, of course, an oasis town where the native Blue Fan Palms thrive, but also the even more abundant Fig Palms. The figs are so abundant they’re fed to the pigs and the dogs eat them on the street. The bacon is, of course, well regarded for the flavor imparted by the figs.

Water is a dominant theme when trying to understand the Baja Peninsula or the entire southwestern region of North America. Consistent with what Amanda and Ken learned when exploring the canyons of the southwest in the US, water usage is a zero sum game where the numbers keep getting smaller. The Colorado River no longer empties into the Sea of Cortes and the large delta it used to feed is no longer a delta, all with implications for the quality as well as the abundance of water. Of current interest is the fate of the vaquita, a small (5’ at most in length) porpoise that lives only in the Sea of Cortes and has been reduced in numbers to perhaps 10 individuals, where the water quality is a big concern in addition to the loss of these mammals in gill nets or for their very valuable swim bladders on the black market.

In the 1970s, after Highway 1 was constructed to connect the towns down through the peninsula, the government constructed hotels to provide a place for travelers to stay. That’s why each hotel in which we stayed was instantly familiar. We knew how to find the dining room and where to find the electrical outlets in our rooms. They are now mostly privately owned and some have had some updating, although not the Halfway Inn, a wonderful time warp. They are well constructed, roomy, and comfortable. Plus, the people are nice.

It’s hard to beat this desert sunset out of our window at the Hotel Misión in Cataviña.

Pearl, La Paz. Pearls are the claim to fame of La Paz. One from La Paz graces the British Crown Jewels and you can search for photos of Queen Elizabeth II wearing her crown with a very large one dangling from it. It was a gift to her by a man from La Paz. She later visited to find out where it had come from.

Fuente Ice Cream, La Paz. Jim had the mamey ice cream. It’s one of those regional fruits we’ve never heard of. Not bad, but not a repeat purchase. Amanda had a scoop of prickly pear fruit sorbet and one of corn ice cream, both of which earned a more enthusiastic response.

Folkloric Dance Group from local university, La Paz. Actually, quite good with costumes from the various states whose dances they performed.

White Pelicans, Guerrero Negro. We also went by the salt lagoons with a glimpse of the operations of a large sea salt business co-owned by Mitsubishi which holds the patent rights to a lower sodium sea salt.

Yellow-crowned Night Heron
Typically bashful gull

Brown Pelicans in full attack mode off Loreto.

Dawn, Loreto. Our favorite town on the peninsula. Very nice & low key.

Thanks to Sheri Shaw for the photo of the Road Scholar group. After 12 days on the road together we were still pleased with each other’s company. Among the advantages of joining one of these trips are that someone else does the driving and the planning and the cooking and the driving.

Adios for now.

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