San Ignacio stop12

February 28 and again the dogs slept all day and barked all night. When that didn’t happen the roosters were crowing. It was a nice campground except it was unbelievably tight quarters. We heard the first leave just before 6. Jack’s vintage motor home had been running a little hot so he wanted to travel when it was cool especially since he knew we had the roughest climb back up. He did fine. The two bad points of the day were Alex and Arlene broke down. They are in Mulege since their Suburban transmission may have to be replaced. They broke down about 40 miles out of Loreto and another two families drove on to Mulege and found a campsite for them. Then they dropped their trailers and went back and got the trailer while a wrecker got the Suburban. They are bedded in. The other misfortune was Norm. As he pulled into the Rice and Beans Campground (neat name!), and was directed to turn up the hill to circle for his parking space, he scraped against a rock wall. Winston was directly behind and lay on his LOUD horn. Luckily he realized even though Dick was telling him to come on up that Winston was leaning on his horn for some reason. Judy and I carefully guided him back so there was no further damage but his bay door in front of his tires was badly scraped. We all got parked in another tight campground. As is so often the case, the electric was unusable for the motor homes. The household type outlet had no ground and showed burn marks. The electrician came and Winston asked about the amount of power. Some had readings as high as 151. We usually run from 110 to 125. The electrician said it had always been that way and never even fixed the ground wire. We later learned that they have no ability to step down power and so they start in town with unbelievable amounts and then push it out to go as far as it can. Many of the Airstreamers did not hook up, others were creative. They did such things as hook heaters on one of the 110 outlets outside to overuse power and get it down to usable by the time it got inside the unit. Others strung a number of cords together to get it down. It was quite warm so we had to use the generator for the ac. We had supper in the campground restaurant. It was different – either chicken or shrimp soup and tortillas. The dessert was an awesome date pie although one of the sons said it was cheese cake.

March 1 was the day that the first half of the caravan was going on the Whale Watching Tour. They left bright and early in vans for Antonio’s out at San Ignacio Laguana. We had a free day. Since it was Sunday and no one could find a church that spoke English a number of us held our own special church – it was probably more meaningful. We talked about Psalm 90 and how fortunate we were to be alive and well. After our church we drove with Dick & Judy and W.D. & Martha were with John & Judy toward San Ignacio and found a nice looking hotel that had a restaurant. No one was inside but a nice man said the kitchen was cleaning up from a big breakfast and they would fix us something. Afterwards we found phones to use except I had left my phone card back at the motor home. On we went to the center of town. What a nice small town. The plaza was so cool with trees that had to have been many, many years old. The leaves looked like privet hedge but they were tremendous and kept the area so cool. We wandered into the hardware store and found a lime squeezer – now we needed to buy limes. The next stop was the mission. It was one of the nicest ones and showed pictures of many of the missions in Baja California. We were surprised how many we had seen. It was so cool inside. The most interesting looking store that carried things we gringos might want as souvenirs was closed since it was siesta time. Most stores do close from 1 until 3 each day. They open about 9am and close at 7 or 8 pm. We headed back toward the campground after a stop at the Premix for gas and next door there was a Mercado (grocery store). It is always fun to wander and see things they carry and guess at what is in some of the containers. Pictures do help since the Spanish certainly doesn’t. Another quick stop was made to buy water. Often it is sold in 5 gallon containers. Sometimes you take the container and pay a deposit until you bring it back. Other times it is in a plastic container. It is run through a reverse osmosis process so it is usable. A good game of joker was going on so I joined in.
I had a pork roast so Judy and I started checking to see those who might be interested in getting together for supper. We ended up with 20 of the 22 in front of Tom & Penny’s trailer since they were on the upper level where there was a slight breeze and it was a little cooler. It became a spur of the moment pot luck.
Afterwards there was a lot of dog walking going on. We were taking care of Noel, Bruce & Enid’s dog. Since Bruce is hearing impaired he has Noel, a black lab trained to help him with the phone and door as well as smoke and carbon dioxide detectors. He demonstrated what she would do. If it was a danger sign she would insist he go to the door, if it was the phone she would indicate where the cell phone was. Sally had her hands full with Dunbar, Mickey, Clara, and Lucky as well as her own two dogs. Bruce will take care of Rusty and Streamer while we are on the overnight.

March 2 and it is our day. The 22 of us left at 8:30 in the vans driving the dirt roads to Antonio’s. For some reason it reminded me of going to the Tundra Buggies in Churchill when we were on the Polar Bear Caravan. However the weather certainly was different. As soon as we unloaded the other group left in the same vans and we dropped our backpacks in the dinning room and off we went on our first whale watch. And what a whale watch it was! There were 8 of us in each boat – small pangs. We had our life vests and zoom we went across the bay passing other small settlements, sometimes only tents. Since it is whale watching time for only 2 or 3 months it seems to be a big business. When we got to the area after about a 15 minute ride there were 10 boats the same size there.
Immediately we began to see blows. It was awesome. Then we began to see whales. I have no idea how many but we were twisting and turning in the boat trying to see them. Then we would suddenly realize there were none showing so we move a little ways where there were blows. We saw groups of two, we saw mother and baby. Finally a baby came close to the boat and all except Winston like feeling a catfish skin. We had been told where not to pet, such as the blow hole and flippers. The baby really seemed to enjoy it and stayed with us quite awhile. We had been told that for some it was a “life-changing experience” to pet the whales. The time passed so quickly – 2 hours out with the whales. Then we headed back. We had lunch and then I think everybody napped. We had chosen our rooms, we were told to find an empty building. Each building was off grade, about 12 by 12 with full or 2 twin beds, a dresser and a hanging down light cord. The dresser had a bowl to wash in. The outhouses were just that – one had a whale head on it and another had whale tale. We quickly got the knack of going, putting water from a bucket in and flushing. It worked like a charm. Being on the water is exhausting. We had a free afternoon so there was lots of card playing and joker playing going on. Some took walks, some read books, and some just talked. Supper came and more games followed. It was early when everyone wandered to their bungalow. Sleep followed soon even though all wondered about the distance to the outhouses in the middle of the night. When we made our trip we found that the sky was brilliant with stars. We were lucky enough to have a building near the water. There was a cool breeze blowing and it was good sleeping.

March 3 and breakfast was early – 7:30am. It was Mexican eggs with refried beans and tortillas. Actually it was quite filling, I just can’t quite get used to beans for breakfast (and every other meal). We had one more chance for whale watching. Some chose not to go. They had had enough the day before. Jack had fallen on the coral rocks after getting out of the boat and David had gone down on top of him. David said he was too sore. Judy and Penny decided to cancel because the water did not look as smooth as it had the day before. I must admit it was rougher going back and forth but once we got out it was an even better day. There was mating, there was spy hopping, there was even breaching. We were the only boat close when one whale flew up in the air and flipped over. He did this four times and it was unbelievable. What fun creatures these grey whales are. They were so playful and lovely to watch. Many had barnacles on their backs. Indeed it was a wonderful experience. We zoomed back to the camp and prepared to make our return trip over the bumpy roads. The dogs were glad to see us. We made a quick trip back into the town to see the store we had missed and I had an opportunity to try to call Katie to wish her Happy Birthday. She was working but we did catch Shawn. I ended up buying a shirt for 110 pesos or about $7 American. We had our driver’s meeting out in the parking area near some trees in preparation for our move the next day.