It’s morning at Estero Beach south of Ensenada, Mexico. The guy on the peer just caught a fish, I‘m not sure what it was but he has decided to keep it. Dinner I expect. The waves are crashing white on the sand bar while the birds continue their morning smorgasbord in the tidal bay. I believe I’m late to the feast and that it started a few hours ago at sunrise. I have my birthday binoculars and just spotted a double breasted cormorant. The brown pelicans are getting along nicely with the gulls. I saw a tern yesterday but they are pretty scarce. Mike is inside rustling up coffee on his traveling barista, we’ll be moving on today, north to the border.

Yesterday morning I entered the bathroom to brush my teeth. I went for my tooth brush that was sticking out of my dopp kit. Right as I laid my hand on the brush a cockroach ran down the handle and into my bag. Yikes, they move fast! I took a breath and said to myself, you just need to accept things like this. You are staying at a nice hotel in the middle of the desert.  I zipped my bag shut (blocking the escape route) and walked out onto the veranda, sure enough when I unzipped the bag he came scurrying out. I almost missed him but the story ends with a satisfying crunch on the tile.

OK, so we are in a new hotel not in the desert. Can you believe this toilet paper display? We’re afraid to go the bathroom. Also the Kleenex presents certain challenges.

Ignacio Springs Bed and Breakfast

I’m sitting under a date palm next to our Yurt that is called “The China Wall”. It is tastily decorated with Chinese things, has a giant king size bed, and 2 kimonos hanging in the bathroom. If I turn the other way I look out onto Ignacio Springs, it is early morning and the ducks, egrets, and herons are looking for their breakfast. Yesterday I took the kayak up to the beginning of the springs where the landscape turned into a forest of wild palms and thick reeds along the banks. This place smells really good; fresh and wild. It sounds nice too, palm leaves scraping against each other, reeds whispering along the bank. The ducks who are small and black with white beaks make a racket if I get to close, the egrets give me the eye ball, and the frogs serenade all day.

Mike just came out and asked me it any dates fell on my head. (We’re careful of coconuts but probably pretty safe with these dates.) We strolled along the banks of the lagoon to breakfast. This is the kind of place where you don’t need to comb your hair before breakfast or probably any other time. Breakfast is a family style event, all homemade down to the fresh squeezed juice, bread, jams, fruit, eggs, meat, what we call “farm to table” in Fort Collins. I think that’s a stupid phrase in Colorado but it seems to work here.

We had breakfast with a scientist who is studying the springs. This is an oasis and very much unaffected by the surrounding world during the last 8,000 years. It is an eco-system in itself. He is studying fresh water tilapia and bull frogs. The problem being that the government decided to introduce fresh water tilapia some years back and they are now 90% of the fish population, leaving only 10% of the natural species. I’m not sure what’s going on with the bull frogs but I don’t think they are supposed to be here either. This is a very kind and concerned man. We are lucky to have such folks looking out for us.

When I think of Catavina I think of the crazy Boojum tree. They look like giant upside down carrots from a Dr. Seuss book. I also think of my friend Ben who goes there to climb the boulders. Catavina indeed, is quintessential Baja, showing off it’s unique and diverse population of desert plants, boulders, heat and sun. There is a special “dry” in Catavina and during our drive thru the Valle de los Curios we drink in the dry as much as the bottled H2O. The last time we were in Catavina we camped way out in the desert. It was like being in some kind of wacky cowboy movie. In the evening a kid came strolling along pushing a wheelbarrow. He sold fire wood. We bought some and made a great fire.
This time we stopped at the Mission Inn. It used to be a Desert Inn and fortunately got bought and spiffed up a bit. After admiring the desert for most of the day we were ready to take full advantage of this most excellent oasis. It was too cold to swim but we sat by the pool in great big Mexican leather chairs and talked about this truly amazing piece of the Baja.

After dinner in their rather nice restaurant we strolled thru their sculpture garden and outer desert. Another big claim to fame (personally I love the Boomjum) is the nearby Cave Paintings. These drawings by the ancients have proven to be quite popular and are repeated by every generation, you know, coffee cups, T-Shirts, postcards and the lot. I imagine those guys would be pretty pleased to see their simple images carried through the ages. HA.