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| Espiritu Santo Island |
This weekend was a long weekend in our company due to the Day of the Constitution. We added an extra day to it and spent 4 days in La Paz from the 31st of January. We had two “missions” during this trip: to see whale sharks that we missed in Cancun in June due to terrible weather and to see whales. To this we added a half-day tour to Espiritu Santo Island by the recommendation of the travel agency – which was worth it, as we not only spent time in a beautiful beach, but had a good one hour swimming and playing with sea lion babies. So, finally this long weekend was all about animals.
We left Friday afternoon after taking our dog to a pet hotel (that he loves as the hotel has a huge garden where he can run around, not to mention the other dogs he can play with). There is one hour time difference between Mexico City and La Paz, so although the flight took two hours, we gained one. On the first day we just headed to the hotel and rested. La Paz is a small yet cute resort town. It is not yet “touristicated”, so not many tourists (mainly americans), the prices are still low and there is no such “tourist-catching” as in Cancun or Los Cabos.
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| melocon - the beach side of La Paz |
The center (where we stayed) has a nice atmosphere and is only a few blocks from the seaside, the “melocon”. This part is where the main restaurants, bars are located. I really liked the long pavement along the beach where you can find several statues and benches, so you can easily enjoy the sunset or just watch seabirds catching fish. There is also a small string of sandy beach with parasols along this pavement. I don´t know how it is in summer, but now that the sea is cold, there were only a few people using this beach, so there might be no big fights for a spot on the beach even in summer – although being in the heart of the city.
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| Zocalo, the main square |
The next day we left early (6am) in the morning to go and see the whales. From tripadvisor, I selected a tourist agent where we booked everything for the 2 days. They picked us up at the hotel and until drop off in the afternoon everything (food, entrance fees etc) was included. Unfortunately, I haven´t checked the HP of the tourist agency and wasn´t aware that the ride to the whales would take 3-4 hours. First the road was interesting (all dry, waste land with small bushes and cactuses), but after about an hour of the same view, it got boring. Without any books, we finally played scrabble from our iPhones…
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| the view in Baja California |
Although the ride wasn´t that bad: we have seen fish eagles nesting or stopped by for breakfast in Ciudad Constitucion or for coffee break, so about every 1 hour there was some “action”.
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| fish eagles |
Finally, about 10am we arrived to the bay of San Carlos. We had to wait about 20 minutes for our boat, but as there was a big “2014 Grey Whale Festival” (with mobile amusement park and souvenir shops), this 20 minutes was even short. When our boat came, we put on the life jackets and headed to the sea! Actually it is a bay, called Magdalena Bay on the Pacific-ocean side where the grey whales return every year to give birth and raise their babies. Apparently the high concentration of salt in the bay, the gentle waves and the protection of the bay are ideal to raise the babies here. Although it is said that gray whales also breach (jump) as the humpback whales, we haven´t seen such a performance from them here. (I guess because of the babies.)
Instead, we could experience the gentleness of these giants closing up to the boats, letting people pet them etc. I don´t know why they are doing it (not sure even if they can feel if we pet them), but it was amazing just to think that this animal that is about 3-4 times bigger than the boat and way much heavier, stronger, could rip the boat into pieces like a toothpick, but instead, it closes up so gently that there is not even a bigger wave to disturb us in the boat, raises its head for us to be able to reach. I was lucky to be able to pet a baby even for the first encounter. The whale mom and baby were “giving service” to another boat when they came to us as well before heading out to swim and the baby was on my side, so I could touch its fin. It was incredibly smooth!
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| petting time... |
The pattern of the 2 hours whale watching was mainly as follows: following the whales from a distance as they swim; in every 10-15 minutes they stopped to rest – this was the opportunity when they came close to us or we could watch the mother and the baby playing in the water; they started to swim again.
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| ...and swimming time |
There were many boats in the bay, but also many whales so mainly there were 2, max.3 boats for one whale. We encountered at least 3 whale families, so I guess it has much higher probability to find one than in the open ocean. (However, out in the ocean you can see breaching or can find humpbacks while here only grey whales. On the other hand, there is not much possibility to pet on in the open sea, I guess.)
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| a baby coming up close |
After petting them, following their elegant swim and watching them to play, on the way back to the docks, we stopped by at the sand dunes on the shore. This whole peninsula is a very dry region and all you can find is cactus and small bushes (just imagine a cowboy movie), but in this area there was a small part of real desert – sand, sand and sand. Although that day was very cold and cloudy, the sand was nice and warm. I can imagine that in a sunny day one wouldn´t be able to walk barefoot there… After taking some pictures (and my husband playing in the sand like a child) we headed back to the docks.
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| desert in Mexico |
It was time for lunch! Just a few minutes from the docks we had our amazing seafood lunch – a combo of lobster, shrimp and fish with vegetables and rice.
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| yammi! |
After the delicious lunch we headed back to La Paz and our hotels. Finally it was around 7pm when we got back to the hotel, but the way back was far quicker with full of memories…
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| sunset in the beach of La Paz |
The next day we had a bit less tight schedule (at least in the drive time) – in the morning we were picked up at 8am and we only went to the marina of La Paz: to Costa Baja. This was a beautiful, modern place (a marina, golf club, hotel, condos all in one place) just outside of the city. It rather resembled to Los Cabos with its luxurious finish than to the modest, local and rather cute than luxurious La Paz. There was the office of the tourist agent where we picked up our snorkeling gears and wetsuits (as the water was 20 degrees C) and headed to the boats.
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| the marina of Costa Baja |
As the weather was really windy that day, our captain had to change the usual program: usually the tour leaves in the morning to the whale sharks and in the afternoon to the sea lions, but due to the weather the captain changed the order so we could reach the island as well. So, first we headed to the Espiritu Santo Island.
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| the view on the way to the Island |
The wind was strong, the waves were huge and I had to stay in the front of the ship because there was no place left in the back – so, for me the way there was bumpy, windy and wet. Usually it takes about 1.5 hours, but due to the bad weather it took over 2 hours. Even so, we stopped in a bay when we reached the islands and were told that we might not be able to go to the spot where the sea lions are. Fortunately, our captain was good and we could reach the rocks where the sea lions were resting.
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| finally we arrived to the sea lion colony |
Maybe due to the bad weather, maybe it was normal, but there were only 2 other ships, so there was not a big crowd (actually, we were the biggest group there). After a short briefing how to deal with the sea lions (don´t get close to the alpha males; the females and babies tend to play with people etc.) I took a deep inhale and splashed into the cold water. It felt cold only until we have encountered with the first sea lions – after that, I just couldn´t feel anything else, just the joy and to be with these animals.
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| floating in the water |
Basically we moved together with the lead of our guide – we first went into a small cave where we found 2 babies. One of them played “dead”: sinking down to the bottom then floating up slowly, completely immobile.
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| into the cave |
They let us to touch them, pet them as well. I have to emphasis that both the whales and the sea lions are not fed by the people to get them “tamed”. It is simply their nature – in the end of the tour, one baby sea lion (they were born in May-June, so now they are about 6 months old, about 1 meter in length, soft and bouncy like a rubber-ball) came to us to play – it came to cuddle up to people, bit softly our hands and wetsuites like a puppy, teased the divers making their safety stop… it was just like a little puppy!
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| this little fella came to us to play |
Although the males (they were about 2meters long, quite impressive to see them in the water!) did not care much about us, they neither were aggressive. One of them just came (swam) face to face with me (as it was quite big, I was afraid for a moment that it would be an alpha male), it just ducked in the last minute and swam away. But the females and the babies were glad to play with us – although the female didn´t let them to be touched, they swam up close imitating us, then swam away and closed up again.
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| a female "showing off" in front of me |
Some of them were scratching their ears or sides inside the water perfectly bending their bodies into a circle, floating – they looked like a brown life buoy.
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| life buoy |
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| airplane |
After about an hour (which seemed like 10 minutes to me) we went back to the boat and headed to one of the beautiful beaches of the Espiritu Santo Island to have lunch. The edge of the island is lacerated - it looks like as a giant had taken bites from the land – which creates beautiful, white sanded beaches and shallow, emerald green water in the bays.
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| unfortunately, the color does not come in this picture as it was... |
The turquoise blue sea in Okinawa or in the Caribbean is beautiful, but so far this was the most beautiful color of a sea I have ever seen! (Not to mention that it is so transparent that the boat or the birds look like floating in the air.)
After spending about an hour in the beach (which was totally private, only for us – there are so many of such beaches in this island that every boat can have its own private beach) having sandwiches, fighting with the hornets for our drinks and food, looking around the beach (as it is a National Park, it is prohibited to walk around in the vegetation except the sandy beach), we headed to see the whale sharks.
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| rock formations on the island |
I was curious how (even such a big fish) could be found in the vast ocean. Turns out, they more or less stay in the same place, so after our captain checked the morning spot of the whale sharks on the radio, we only had to search for about 10 minutes to spot one. To my surprise they were closer to the shore than I imagined (about 100 meters?). Our captain spotted the first (smaller, about 4m long) shark eating plankton. As they are far shyer than the whales or sea lions, our guide already told us the “strategy” and rules that we had to follow. So, we jumped into the water and started to swim fast to get close to the fish (by law, the boats have to stay at least 5 ms from the whale sharks). However, the visibility was terrible (it was less than 5 meters), so we really had to get close to see something. Unfortunately, the shark got scared and escaped. So, back to the boat and look for another one. We spotted out another one (they eat on the surface, so from above if you see a huge black spot, that´s a whale shark). Into the water, dashing to the shark and trying to keep up with it. This time, I could see a part of it, but I have to tell you this was not I had imagined. These tours are announced as “snorkeling with whale sharks”, so I imagined snorkeling like when you snorkel to see fish among the corals. Forget it! This was a tough swimming exercise! Although in the documentaries and in aquariums they seem to swim slowly and elegantly, for a human to keep up with them, one has to dash in the water! Fortunately we had the snorkeling gear, so I didn´t have to take care breathing among the waves, but even so, I got a nice muscle ache for the next day.
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| our best capture of the whale shark |
We took 4 chances: as the first fish escaped (I only saw its hind fin above the waves), our guide changed strategy and took only half of the group (4 people) at once. Me and my husband went with the first group and could see a part of it (a fin and its very unique spots). Then it was the 2nd groups turn. I wasn´t fully satisfied as I couldn´t grasp the hugeness of this fish from that segment of a glimpse, so I was lucky when we were told that for the last time everyone can join. And this time I had luck. It was a 5-6 m long one (still small, as these fish can grow up to 25 meters!) and as I got to the other side of the fish, I was all alone with it. I just had to keep up. So, I could see fully from its head to tail and got really happy to join this tour: I fell in love with these animals since I´ve first seen them in the Osaka Aquarium and always had dreamed of seeing them in the wild. Apparently Mexico is one of the best places to spot them as they are feeding, breeding here so it is quite predictable when and where they are.
One thing was interesting for me: in the water the fish seemed greyish with white spots, while in the pictures it is always blue. I guess, it is due to the color of the sea, but it is a great camouflage for the whale shark. (It seems that the white spots (one big reason for the popularity of this fish) are for camouflage as well.)
Completely satisfied and fully charged with great memories, we arrived back to the marina around 6pm.
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| sunset in Melocon |
Turned out, we selected the best day of this long weekend for the sea lions and the whale sharks as both the previous and the next day was cloudy, gloomy. I am sure the color of the sea or the 2 hours boat ride hadn´t been so nice if we went in a bad day.
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| in front of a humpback statue... |
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| and we have marmaids and dolphins, too, of course! |
On our last day we just strolled around the “malecon” part of the city and had a great lunch in a nearby seafood restaurant. Another advantage of the locality of this place – despite this restaurant was had full panorama to the sea, and it´s delicious kitchen and modest prices, it had plenty of seats even at dinnertime.
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| restaurant with seaview |
For more pictures, click here!→Whale watching
