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One of the most unusual ecotourist attractions of the Baja Peninsula is the opportunity to encounter Gray Whales, up close and in small boats.

Gray Whales are bottom feeding baleen whales sometimes referred to as “mud suckers” because they take in a great mouthful of bottom mud and express the water with their enormous tongues through the baleen. An adult is roughly 45’ long and 35 tons, living up to at least 70 years. They feed in the Arctic, but breed in the lagoons of Baja California and spend most of their lives migrating back and forth. The population along the western coast of North America is stable and healthy at about 27,000 individuals, although they are extinct in the Atlantic.

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The first day out was in the lagoon of Guerrero Negro on a very blustery day. It had been a somewhat rough van ride out on dirt roads and then one of those thud-thud-thud rides out to the area of the lagoon in which whale encounters are permitted under tightly controlled conditions. An association is run by the outfitters to facilitate this small tourist industry consistent with protecting the whales.

The big payoff for us was when Amanda got to “say hello” to one of the whales. We, of course, attributed it to our wonderful job of singing and whistling and splashing water to encourage the whales to come to the boat. This curious “friendly behavior” (by the whales) was accidentally discovered some years ago by a terrified fisherman. Before that, people referred to the whales as “devil fish” because of the many lives lost in whaling days when the whales resorted to self defense. Given the extreme ages to which some whales are known to live, we were hoping that we wouldn’t encounter a methuselah with a long memory.

The whales will scrape their backs against the sea floor apparently in an attempt to dislodge barnacles and sea lice. We’ve now learned that they appreciate a good scratching on their skin, something only humans can help with.

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The next day was a gorgeous one with very little wind, making for a smoother time on the water. San Ignacio Lagoon is considerably smaller than Guerrero Negro and is where the history of whale encounters began.

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Try as we might, we only got close to the whales and didn’t establish contact on our second day out. But, we did come home with some exceptional memories of some extraordinary fellow creatures.

We hadn’t appreciated just how much food is grown in Baja California. We passed vast fields of produce wedged among the ever present mountains. Speculation about why this field (above) was allowed to go to seed ranged from it being a field meant to produce seed to wondering if a contract for the crop had somehow fallen through. The truly surprising thing, however, was that the white in the background of the photo isn’t a body of water. It’s crops being grown under cover. Again, mile after mile we passed extensive fields of white, of white tents overstuffed with growing plants.

The farming community of San Vicente has a little museum. Many community members contributed the artifacts that said something about the lives of their families. The history of the iron pieced together from what was left from everyone’s grandmothers and great grandmothers reminded Jim of the row of irons left behind by his grandmother in her summer kitchen, including the ones that fit into the surface of the wood burning stove.

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La Bufadora

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Being a surfer, Hiroki was very helpful in letting us know when the next series of big waves would rush the shore and push water deep into the rocks and up and out in a big water spout. It’s one of the largest marine geysers in North America. Vendors line the road to the sea spout like the way to a religious shrine, selling all sorts of food and souvenirs.

The Sonoran (?) Desert

It seems odd to call it the Sonoran Desert when half of the desert lies in the states of the Baja Peninsula, but it has no other name except “the desert.”

The desert in Baja is, we’re told, the most biodiverse in the world. This is not difficult to believe. The variety of plant life is startling. Each time we entered the desert we would see communities of plants of every description, many of them exotic even for desert plants. From the Elephant Tree, the Cardón, and Boojum Tree (Cirio) to the Ocotillo, there are plants found nowhere else.

The Boojum Tree (above, far right) has a double literary inheritance. An American naturalist was camping in the desert with his son who had been reading Lewis Carroll’s “The Hunting of the Snark,” a tale of people hunting a Snark (which may turn out to be a highly dangerous Boojum). The fantastical and creepily sinister look of the Cirio plant apparently caused the son to keep referring to the plants as Boojum, a name that stuck. And, of course, anyone who sees a Boojum Tree thinks of Dr. Seuss. It’s that simple. What’s not simple is tracking down any confirmation of the story we heard that Dr. Seuss, in fact, was a visitor to the peninsula and that the trees were an inspiration for some of his illustrations. If it’s not true, that would be sad, don’t you think?

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The Cholla is one of the more dangerous plants in the desert, as it seems to attack passersby without provocation. Not only will the slightest touch will embed a barbed thorn, but the plant seems to spread by the segments that break off very easily and start more little devils growing in a path.

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Cave Paintings

On a rainy day we climbed through the rocks up to one of the more accessible caves with Paleolithic paintings. Other caves with paintings +/- 9,000 years old can be seen, but take a day to get to through very rough terrain and a day to return, making it a three day commitment.

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The estimated age of these paintings is 700-1,000 years. The pigments used are not local to the area of the cave. They aren’t as well rendered or nearly as large as older Baja California cave paintings, but did remind us of some of the very old cave paintings in Spain.

When we arrived in Ensenada, we followed Angel’s recommendation (San Diego Uber driver) and took an Uber about 4 miles from our hotel down the coast road to a restaurant overlooking the ocean, instead of using the vouchers for the hotel restaurant. If you come for the food, you have to take the chances you get to sample it. After our order was taken, another waiter came over to explain that our original waiter really hadn’t understood what we wanted to eat and he would help us (nonexistent Spanish only getting us so far). The portions were generous, so we had ordered too much food (and the new waiter kept us from ordering even more). The seviche was the highlight, followed by octopus and smoked tuna tacos. Everything was delicious and Jim really enjoyed his stuffed fish filets with three different sauces. The staff were disappointed we refused a doggie bag, as were our mates from the tour when we got back to the hotel and described our dinner.

Down the coast from Tijuana, Ensenada is a town of about 500,000 frequented by large cruise ships. In fact, it has a history of being a playground for wealthy Americans. The former Riviera del Pacifico casino is now a city-owned social and convention center. It was quite glamorous back in the 1920s and 30s when the Hollywood set came to play and the boxer Jack Dempsey was the manager. Rumors that it was owned by Al Capone were never confirmed. As you can see in the old photo, the casino used to sit right on a beautiful wide beach. Now it is several blocks from the water and there’s no beach, as a harbor was built instead.

When the casino fell on hard times and closed, the property was abandoned and became derelict. Thieves scavenged almost anything of value. The lone chandelier to survive that humiliation was this one. The thieves couldn’t get it through the doorways because it had been fabricated on site.

Our guide Hiroshi (native Ensenadan) used a topographical map at the social center to explain our trip down the peninsula, 700 miles as the crow flies (but we’re taking a bus). The lagoons we’ll be visiting to see the Gray Whales are primarily on the Pacific side.

From Encenada we went out to the wine country.

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We visited two wineries. One small, the other midsized. The ambiance was enjoyable, the wines not as much. We all have different preferences (thank goodness).

Among the settlers in the Guadalupe Valley was a colony of Russians who considered themselves to be Spiritual Christians and who were called Molokans or milk drinkers by their Orthodox neighbors (they consumed dairy products during Christian fasting periods). Somewhat more than 100 of the families who fled persecution around 1900 and began farming in the valley.

The Molokans rejected the formalities and institutional structure of organized religions, focused on a spiritual and individualized practice of religion and elected their own councils of leaders. Their descendants in the valley have retained artifacts and mementos and family names, although none of the religious practice. But, they still make borscht. In the shop next door they were selling cheeses.

Among the gifts of the Native Peoples of Mexico to the culinary world is the cacao plant and its many uses.

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Two operations were demonstrated. One was the making of mole from grinding sesame seeds, a pulp of several chiles, raisins, almonds, and chocolate. The other was a chocolate drink made by first grinding the cacao bean itself (removing the husk) and adding sugar and spice. The wrist action was truly impressive using the traditional metate. However, our expert uses a blender for everyday cooking.

Prior to heading across the border to Tijuana, Dr. Iglesias spoke with us about the border as a coherent region in which the fact of the border is the driving force in the lives of many regional residents. The imbalance in resources creates a dynamic in which the Tijuana residents adapt to provide the San Diego residents with the goods and services they desire, with hundreds of thousands of people crossing the border in either direction daily. While most academics study the border region either from the perspective of the U.S. or of Mexico, Iglesias calls herself a trans border specialist and strives to understand the border from the perspective of both cultures. Indeed, the integration of the border region is striking even from our brief visit. Although one of our Uber drivers was from Ukraine, more were from Mexico and one was from Ensenada (where we would be visiting). This last driver has started his own tourism company and gave us a restaurant recommendation in Ensenda (which turned out to be excellent).

Once over the border, past the imposing steel barrier and cleared land sealed off with another imposing steel barrier, we made our way to a market in Tijuana to enjoy the sights and smells of fresh produce and wonders for us to try to identify.

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Another key to understanding the border is that Tijuana and Baja California are melting pots of peoples and cultures, with immigrants coming from all over the world, from the Chinese and Japanese to Germans and Italians or, more recently, Haitians. People are not just refugees, but also come for the more sophisticated enterprises funded by foreign companies.

After a lunch featuring a Caesar Salad from the restaurant originating the same (Caesar’s Restaurant), we went to the Tijuana Cultural Center and the Museo de las Californias to view the permanent exhibits on the history of the entire peninsula from prehistoric through modern times.

Balboa Park

San Diego’s Balboa Park was created from the infrastructure built for two expositions, the Panama-California Exposition of 1915-16 and the California Pacific International Exposition of 1935-36 and includes over 15 museums, plus the zoo.

It’s a wonderful place for strolling, but must be packed during tourist season. The buildings are wonderful examples of Spanish style architecture.

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The Spanish Village Art Center is a funky complex with 37 working studios representing over 250 local artists. We chatted for quite a while with a silversmith who is obsessed with all the different weaves one might use for silver chains. She learned her craft from a Native American custodian at her public school in Wyoming when she refused to continue taking Home Ec.

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This Moreton Bay Fig tree was planted sometime before the first of those expositions and its canopy is roughly 150’ across. For understandable reasons, they’ve put a fence around it to help it survive for another hundred years.

The Waterfront & the USS Midway

After wandering the Gaslight District and Downtown, we knew we had to make our way to the waterfront before leaving San Diego.

Commissioned one week after the end of WWII, the USS Midway was the largest ship in the world until 1955. It saw action in the Vietnam War and Desert Storm and was decommissioned in 1992. Its home port was Yokosuka, Japan, and was too large to go through the Panama Canal. In 2004 it was brought San Diego and became a privately run museum.

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Fortunately, there were tours and helpful volunteers (all retired Navy) to explain how this thing worked. On the left are the steam engine room controls that determine the power going to the propellers, whether the power source is diesel (this ship) or nuclear. In the photo to the right, the controls left of center are the fine tuning for speed. Make no mistake. This thing could move. In fact, you could waterski behind it.

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We took a tour of the Island, which is the structure on the flight deck with both the navigational controls and the operations center for takeoff and landing of the aircraft. On the left, you can see the Launch Status Board which was maintained with a marker on glass, writing backwards so that the officers in charge of flight operations would always have current information available to them.

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At launch with the use of a catapult, the plane would go from zero mph to 170 mph in 3 seconds, or less. Planes were launched every 90 seconds. The Corsair fighter plane was a workhorse of WWII (would not have been on the Midway).

To say that the San Diego Zoo is a special zoo is like saying that the MET is a special art museum. All comparison fails. For one thing, everything opens just a little earlier than promised. Having just arrived from the east coast, we arrived before opening time and found ourselves among the first visitors and spectators for what’s apparently the daily release of the macaws to take their stations around the 100 acres of zoo.

There’s What You Expect

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San Diego has plenty of what you expect to find in a zoo, only they are more visible and accessible and in generously sized enclosures that can make you forget that they are in captivity.

Conservation at the Heart of the Zoo

One of the best known (tentative) successes of the rescue of species from almost certain extinction is that of the California Condor. They were extinct in the wild in 1987 when the remaining 27 individuals were rescued and brought into the San Diego and Los Angeles Zoos. In 1991 they were reintroduced to the wild and remain one of the world’s rarest bird species with 463 individuals either in the wild or in captivity. The infamous use of DDT, lead poisoning from consuming wild carrion (the condor being, of course, a scavenger), and electrocution from landing on power lines are among the causes leading to the critically endangered status of this largest bird of North America that can otherwise have a life span of 60 years.

The critically endangered Amur Leopard comes from a small area overlapping Russia, China and North Korea and benefits from another conservation effort in which the San Diego Zoo takes part by breeding this world’s rarest big cat for eventual return to the wild. The Chinese and Russians have both set aside substantial acreage, although it’s expected that it will be the grandchildren of a pair of two year old cubs born at the zoo who will join the effort. The population needs to be large enough that breeding in the wild can occur with individuals not overly related.

The Snow Leopard, from Central Asia, is also endangered and, along with the Amur Leopard, is unusual in being a Leopard from a cold climate. As part of its adaptation to the cold, the Snow Leopard has an enormous thick tail with which to curl up and which helps with balance in its rocky environment. This couple (they’re hoping they’ll breed) had to be moved away from the Amur Leopards after the birth of the Amur cubs because they found the scent to be wildly disturbing.

Okapi are endangered in the forests of the Congo due primarily to the hunting, logging, farming and mining by armed rebels.

From the beaches and coastal waters of Southern Africa, these penguins are endangered due a a lack of food resources and appropriate nesting areas (a common problem with bird species).

These endangered Coquerel’s Sifaka from the dry forests of Madagascar are fascinated by their visitors.

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In 2016 the Giant Panda was reclassified from being Endangered to a “Conservation-Reliant Vulnerable Species.” Of course, they’re adorable and a big attraction in the few zoos permitted by the Chinese government to breed them.

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We all know the story of the vulnerability of the Polar Bear due to expected habitat loss from climate change. These bears were rescued from the wild when they were orphaned. They have a special low fat diet to accommodate them to the climate in San Diego where lots of body fat would make the heat a problem. They’ve come to enjoy lettuce and hard boiled eggs as treats. Conception is a puzzle the zoo is still trying to unravel.

More than a Zoo

The zoo not only creates a natural environment for its animal guests, but grows the specific plants required for the dietary needs of the animals such as particular varieties of bamboo that no other animal may eat.

The docents also make the zoo a unique experience.

A large number of enormous aviaries are throughout the zoo, many of which you enter to experience the birds.

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Whether endangered or not, some animals are just fun to watch.

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