Baja Vacation Part II

Day 4:
Superbowl Sunday, we headed north of La Paz to an island called Espiritu Santo. We left downtown La Paz by boat and just a couple minutes into the trip, encountered a lost grey whale. La Paz is on the Sea of Cortez which “dead ends” up towards the US-Mexico border, so not good for a whale that is heading north and should be over the Pacific side.

As we continued towards the island, we saw dolphins and sea lions swimming in the ocean.

Once at the island, we motored along its eastern edge. The island is pretty barren even for a desert. There were few cactus and main just very small shrubby vegetation, most likely to do the fact that in addition to having to endure the hot, dry conditions, its sea side proximity also leads to a very salty environment as well.

Just off the northern tip of the island is another small island, home to a colony of sea lions. Thankfully we had rented wet suits since the water was a little cold. We went snorkeling and saw a bunch of fish and as we were getting ready to leave a sea lion swam up to us for a good photo opp.

This poor guy has fishing line wrapped around his neck.

Then we headed to the West side of the island and to a shallow bay for some beach time and kayaking before heading back to La Paz where we literally stepped off the boat and into a bar across the street from the beach just in time to catch the opening kick off of the superbowl.

Day 5:
Leaving La Paz, we headed south towards Cabo San Lucas, but 1^st stopped in a small artists town called Todos Santos.

Arriving in Cabo we were bombarded by bars, tourists, and prices in American dollars.

Day 6:
In the morning we rented a glass bottom boat and headed to the Land’s End, a rocky point that sticks off the end of Cabo. There’s sea lion colonies, lots of fish, tons of pelicans, and a rock formation called Los Arcos (the arches). We spent the rest of the day laying on the beach.

Day 7:
Heading further east, we checked into a hotel and spent the last day of the trip poolside and ocean side, enjoying another beautiful day in Baja.

Mexico City Markets

Before picking my dad up from the airport on the 26th, we visited a couple of the Mexico City markets (Merced, Sonora, Jamica, and an artesania market La Cuidadela). Merced is the biggest in the city, Sonora has medicinal herbs and other things to ward off illness, and Jamica is the flower market.

Poblano Repeat: Tecali and Cantona

The weekend of the 24th was spent revisiting a couple places around Puebla: The ex-convent in Tecali and the ruins at Cantona. Both have been on the blog before, but as a quick refresher, the ex-convent is just that, an old convent that now has no roof, but you can wander around what is left of the structure. Cantona is a fairly newly discovered set of ruins that has only been open to the public for about 15 years and is actually the largest (in terms of sq km) set of ruins in all of Mexico, stretching over 12 sq km.

TECALI

CANTONA

Pico de Orizaba (in the above photo) is the largest peak in Mexico, and can be seen from Cantona on a clear day.

Beach time in Acapulco

I am lucky enough to have a stepfather with a time share in Acapulco during part of January, so I headed down to see him and his wife, Victoria for a long weekend. This was the first real time I've spent at the beach since coming to Mexico (other than going to release sea turtles).



One of the main highlights of Acapulco (a very touristy area) is the cliff divers, which no matter how touristy it is, its still an impressive feat as they dive not only off a super tall cliff, but also into a very narrow cove, all from a cliff that actually angles outward, meaning they have to push out far horizontally to even make it.