Tuesday, 13 March 2007, Cabo Pulmo to San Evaristo, Baja California Sur, Mexico

I was up before the sun with camera in hand again. While I was on the beach I saw a couple of dolphins down the shore a ways. I tried running to get close to them to take some pictures with them and he sunrise, but after running about half way, I realized it was a futile, and exhausting effort, so I stopped and wandered back towards camp.

After breakfast, we packed up camp and hit the road for parts north. We took the main roads and highway back to La Paz, stopping a couple times along the way. Our first stop was the Church in the little town of El Triunfo. The church was both beautiful and colorful. It was built in the late 1800's after an economic boom from the silver mining occurring in the area. We spent a fair amount of time exploring the church before moving on.

As we drove along, I noticed that many of the area cardon pelons were flowering, so I radioed ahead to Chuck to stop at the next convenient pull-out. As it turned out, the next convenient place also had an interesting roadside shrine embedded into a giant fig tree as well as some beautiful flowering cardons.

After the shrine and cardons, we headed on in to La Paz, where we refueled, filled up our auxiliary tanks, and went to the store to resupply on water and other miscellaneous items. While Chuck and Marisa went in to do the shopping, I stayed at the trucks to watch our gear and to re-arrange some of the gear I had on my rear bed platform. While waiting around for Chuck and Marisa to return, I watched the back-up cops diligently do their duty. For reasons not entirely known, apparently the shopping center hired a couple of guys to wander around the parking lot helping people back out of their parking spots. They had whistles, and would blow them in a rapid series of tweets when it was clear for a person to back out of the space. It was rather bizarre and entertaining. I guess people don't back up well in La Paz.

After the store, we continued north up the coast towards San Evaristo. The drive up the coast was stunning, with great views of the bay, and then the Sea of Cortez. The first part of the road was interesting in that the road was getting reclaimed by nature from both sides. The cliffs on one side were claiming one side of the road, and he waves were undercutting the other side of he road, so that at times, the road was only one lane wide.

The road eventually left the coast and would return periodically, or would at least get high enough to provide expansive views of the sea. We saw virtually no other vehicles on the road, but did see some great bird life, including some brown pelicans, which have to be one of my favorite birds to photograph. There is something about pelicans that appeals to me.

We also passed by large expanses of a wonderful green conglomerate, often sandwiched between layers of a pinkish conglomerate. I'm assuming they were laid down in alternating periods of aerobic and anaerobic deposition.

The road went fairly high up into some seaside mountains, and it was an absolutely gorgeous journey. Some of the steeper parts of the road had been improved by paving the road with concrete. In one spot, even the concrete apparently didn't help, because we saw a large flatbed truck hanging over the side of a steep hillside with only one set of wheels still on the road. It didn't appear to have been there long, and I assume that someone had plans to extricate the vehicle from its precarious position. It would have certain death to vehicle and occupants alike had the vehicle gotten any further off the road than it did.

As the sun approached the horizon, we discussed our location and our intended destination for the evening. Instead of trying to push on into the little village of San Evaristo, we decided to try to find someplace before reaching the town. It would mean we wouldn't have to backtrack to get to the road over the mountains the next morning as well.

We passed by one nice looking beach because it was in a highly visible location from the road high above. I saw a little two-track road leading down a canyon towards the sea, and we decided to see where it lead us. It dumped us off at a small, beautiful little beach that showed signs of a fair amount of human occupation (probably local fisherman). No one was there when we arrived, and company didn't seem likely for as long as we would be there, so we decided to stay, making provisions for an easy departure should one have proven necessary. Chuck was somewhat nervous about the place due to all of the signs of people staying there, but I wasn't terribly concerned. I figured it likely only got used by the locals, and that they probably wouldn't know what to do with a tourist if they found us. I should add that there had been some cases of violence against gringos in Baja in the months leading up to our trip, so both Chuck and I were a bit more on edge than we otherwise would be. In the final analysis, I felt quite safe everywhere we went.

What we found at the fish camp were lined walkways, shells arranged in patterns, an "Impeach Bush and Cheney" postcard tacked to a tree, and a stone and ceramic oven that someone had constructed. It was quite interesting. Marisa, however, was enraptured by the beach itself, which was replete with all kinds of beautiful shells and other natural bric-a-brac. She spent a good deal of time combing the beach for treasures while Chuck and I set up camp.

We had a pleasant evening at camp with a nice fire. After dark, I wandered down to the water to see if there was any bioluminescence to be found. There was a fair amount to be seen in the surf and amongst the turbulent waters around the rocks, so I called Chuck and Marisa down to see it. We watched the bioluminescence for a while, then started wandering around the tidal pools in search of other wonders. We found little fish, crabs, star fish, sea slaters (Ligia oceanica or Ligia pallasii), and other interesting items.

Back in camp, we had an invasion of hermit crabs which was interesting. We also found a couple of scorpions right in camp, so had to be cautious when moving items around.