February 15, 2019

February 15, 2019

This morning we woke in San Ignacio. We started our day by walking to the river that flows past the village. It is more of a lake than a river and both sides are filled with date palm trees. Not native to the Americas they were imported and propagated by the early Spanish colonialists.

Since Scammon's Lagoon has more whales than San Ignacio, we drove the ninety minutes back north. Unfortunately the weather seems to have turned on us and it is breezy and overcast. We even got a few drops of rain. We explore Scammon's Lagoon again but the waves bounce our little Panga boat around. The whales must not like the conditions either as none are interested in greeting us. They mostly just cruise right past. One highlight is capturing a half-dozen flukes or whale tails on camera. They make for dramatic photos. Interestingly the fluke is also used to identify individual whales. Each one is uniquely speckled with barnacles.

Like yesterday just before heading back to shore, a mom and baby approach our boat. They cavort with each other around our boat. They stay just outside our reach while they turn and roll. Aimee and I are wondering if this is how they nurse or maybe they are just playing keep-away around the boat. The adults are massive, the size of a bus and covered with barnacles. Around the boat they surface slowly like a submarine. The young are not only smaller but are almost devoid of these parasitic barnacles.

After this third whale cruise we are ready to retrace the long drive back north. While eating two burritos for lunch we make it as far as Catavina for the night. It is dark by the time we pull into this only source of light in the desert.  

Our group meets in the Cantina for a pre-dinner celebration of Mexican culture. We have a margarita with chips and a spicy green salsa. We then have a couple shots of Tequila, an alcohol fermented from the core of the Blue Agave that grows widely here and in our own yard in Tucson. Having trimmed them (with great difficulty) I can’t imagine having to harvest them by the thousands on a Tequila farm.

We have a couple birthdays to celebrate so somebody pulls out a Pinata and we have a good laugh watching them try to bust it open while blindfolded. We finish with a dinner of tacos, tiny Chimichangas, Quesadilla, refried beans and guacamole.