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British Mensa Travel Special Interest Group |
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Wet Guide to Mexico by Fiona Willis Leaving the airport to be greeted by lashing rain is something you expect to encounter when you set back to England, not when you've just arrived at your far-off destination. However, the weather in San Diego on 14 February 1998 was little short of terrifying. (It's probably something to do with the palm trees, whose foliage looks like it's being whipped about by a hurricane virtually all the time.) Thankfully, San Diego was simply the meeting point for our party before we set out on the expedition of a lifetime; a week or, a boat in the Pacific Ocean, exploring the flora and fauna of the Mexican Baja coast. So we'd be able to escape the storms that were raging through California. Perhaps. The staff in the burger bar next to the boat landing didn't exactly fill us with confidence; when they heard that we were planning to depart that night they first broke out into laughter and then, on seeing that we were serious, gathered round our table and started wishing us luck with worryingly sincere tones. The combination of having never been further than the Farne Islands on a boat, spending more hours than I care to remember getting on and off planes at various stages of the night, and being convinced that it was at least twelve hours past my bedtime while everyone else thought it was about 7.30pm served to numb my brain somewhat. This was good because otherwise I would have been very scared indeed. As it was, I sat like a zombie through the interminable hours of disconcertinglv long-winded safety announcements, instructions and introductions. At half past five the following morning, our party of thirty-two awoke, almost instinctively, to watch the sun rise over the lslas Todos Santos. Our boat, the 88 foot long, 14 cabin Spirit of Adventure, had brought us through the storm while we slept. Admittedly, the sleeping had been somewhat disturbed by wave-induced dreams. I had dreamt of repeatedly bungee jumping off a tower block, and others of the party had had similar experiences. The cabins were so compact you could hardly see them, and, while surprisingIy comfortable for what they were, they had caused numerous bruises as the enormous waves threw us each into the bunk above. As I ate breakfast and befriended some of the thirty-odd Americans, we watched the port of Ensenada grew larger in the distance. This was our only view of Mexico really, as everywhere else on our journey was miles from anywhere. Ensenada was not exactly the colourful, sombrero-filled, taco-loving place that forms a person's usual mental image of Mexico. Fortunately, we only had to go through the customs procedure before we could venture into deeper waters and start the real adventure. The mysterious powers of El Nino prevented us front making the scheduled stop at Todos Santos. Indeed, they prevented us from doing pretty much anything for about twenty-four hours. The leader of the two Oceanic Society naturalists who were acting as guides told us to expect a bit of "rock and roll" as we headed out of Ensenada, but I would have killed for a nice bit of Vivaldi by lunchtime. Only the Stugeron prevented me from joining over half the party on the tiny deck, competing to see whose face could most closely match the turquoise colour of the sicktags - and the fact that I couldn't make it to the deck without falling over! (Although the designers had thoughtfully fitted handles just about everywhere.) The only thing my parents and I could manage was sleeping, so we did so; from early afternoon until five-thirty the following morning. Everyone, including the crew (two naturalists, a cook and assistant, a captain and three basic crewmen) was beginning to wonder whether we would just spend the whole week feeling ill and staring miserably at the grey sky and grey, billowing sea. However, we were lucky. The sun came out as we reached Isla San Benitos by late morning, and landed in a tiny bay. The skiffs were lowered from the top of the boat and we were taken in groups of five or six to the shore. Here was the beginning of the game invented by the three crewmen, known as "get Fiona really wet while keeping everyone else dry". Very amusing. Oh indeed. But dry land had never been so welcome, even if I was soaked up to my knees. San Benitos was an amazing place. The town, such as it was, stood in one little cove sheltered from the wind and waves. The huts were temporary, ramshackle but colourful, and the Mexican men stared placidly from their benches as we sat on the beach and put on our walking shoes. Vast elephant seals and decrepit fishing boats lay everywhere, and a big, bounding dog appeared from somewhere and befriended me. Apart from the seasonal fishing settlement, which was really no more than a dozen huts, a chicken run, a bar and a tiny church, the island was basically undeveloped. We split into two parties, one to climb the slopes to the lighthouse, and the other to view the natural assets of the island. A rookery of elephant seals lay ten minute's walk along the cliffs. Despite the repulsive smell and the sight of rotting pups (the bulls unwittingly kill them with their enormous weight) this was a wonderful experience. Their big soulful eyes stared up at us as we snapped through hundreds of metres of film. The party consisted of everyone from professional photographers through to the jolly New York women with their cheap disposable cameras, but no-one could fail to produce beautiful pictures here. The female seals, at least, don't have that awful boot thing on their noses, and they look terribly appealing. Our party then trekked around the island to the awe-inspiring views of the windward side, where waves bigger than our boat lashed the sun-soaked coast. The cook had prepared us each a packed lunch which we sat and ate on the top of a hill while our leader, the second of the naturalists, did his best to answer every one of the bizarre questions that was thrown at him. Some hours later, we re-boarded the Spirit of Adventure. As I was in the first skiff back, I made a positive sprint for one of the two showers. Only a brave few had used them so far and even when we were at anchor it was all I could do to stay standing! The cook, against all the odds, had prepared not only another brilliant meal, but a plateful of blueberry muffins, while we were ashore. That man was a wizard, I swear. By late afternoon, we were on our way again, heading towards our real destination, Laguna San Ignacio. At one point, the captain discovered on his radar that there were three or four enormous whales in the sea about a hundred metres from us. From the front of the boat (is that the stem? Oh, I don't know these technical terms) we were able to see that they were blue whales, the biggest creatures on Earth. Even though we only caught a glimpse of them we were struck dumb. It was calm enough that evening to drink cold beer and sit outside, watching the stars. As I'm sure anyone who has been truly away from man-made light pollution will know, it seems like a whole new sky when you stare at it through real darkness and our boat's light was the only illumination for maybe a hundred miles in the direction of the shore, and thousands of miles out into the ocean. By now, everyone on the trip felt really close, and we talked and laughed with one another until what seemed like well into the night. Actually even after the naturalists' slide show about seals and dolphins, it was only eight o'clock. Everyone except the crew, the naturalists and I decided not to watch a video, but to go to sleep instead. The Tuesday morning brought us to the lagoon. One man, who had been sleeping upstairs in the living room (due to claustrophobia, I think), told us he had seen the famous green flash at sunrise. Apparently this is where a weird refraction of the light causes the horizon to turn green at the moment of sunrise. So of course, the next morning we all got up early (aargh, five o'clock!) and, indeed, we did witness this bizarre phenomenon. Now I know what the trainers are named after About a mile before the lagoon entrance, we started to see whale spouts - hundreds, honestly. (If anyone saw the Channel 5 programme about San Ignacio in early August, let me tell you that was not done with zoom lenses, and you really do see that many whales in that amount of time. However, most of that programme was monochrome fuzz to me!) We had to cut the engines, not only to get over the dangerous sandbar that shelters the lagoon, but also to avoid a pregnant whale, who swam right underneath our boat! For the rest of the day, all of the Wednesday, and most of the Thursday, we spent our time doing the real whale-watching. This involved getting into small six-seater pangas run by a Mexican co-operative in the lagoon, all strapped up in our lifejackets, and whirling around the open water looking out for the grey whales. We had been taught all the different moves that whales make so, for instance, we knew that if we saw one 'breach' we could expect at least one more fairly soon. This allowed us all to have our cameras ready. A large proportion of our films were wasted on shaky pictures of 'sea and bit of froth where whale just went under' as our timing was not exactly perfect. On one of my trips, our panga was lucky enough to experience the phenomenon of the 'friendly whale'. He swam so close to us that each of us got to pet him. So what do whales feel like? Imagine expanded polystyrene covered in a layer of silk - strangely soft, if you avoid the barnacles. Each time we went out (a few hours at a time), not only did I inevitably get soaked, but we saw something else amazing; a baby whale, an enormous turtle, a jumping dolphin. It was like a show had been laid on for us. We had a sense that we were really privileged, as there is a limit of two boats the size of the Spirit in the lagoon at any one time, and boats are only allowed in when the whales migrate there to mmate or give birth, which is a maximum of a month every year. So hardly anyone has seen this fantastic sight, of hundreds and hundreds of whales, swimming, jumping around, and, er, doing what whales do, all over the lagoon. We took a trip ashore to the sandy beach on the edge of the lagoon (where no-one had been for about a year), and again here was a wealth of wildlife to be seen. However, the best bit of that day was not the wildlife but the margaritas in the evening! The sunny Mexico evening was the perfect backdrop as we sipped the margaritas, watched the stars again and then enjoyed the second of our two (very welcome) nights at anchor. The Spirit was an incredibly comfortable, well-equipped boat. The cabins were below deck, and the ddeck itself was one room which served as living room, dining room and library, with a very compact kitchen wedged in a corner, and the two bathrooms at the end. Somewhere on the boat I'm sure there must have been a fruit farm, as the cook kept serving up beautifully fresh fruit for breakfast right up until the last day, and thirty-two servings of strawberries after dinner one night in the lagoon. The tortillas, enchiladas, steaks, salads, pumpkin pies and fudge brownies were so good they would have been considered wonderful had they been cooked in a large, well equipped kitchen on shore, let alone a tiny and steadily swaying corner. My only complaint about the kitchen is that, on the night that we were travelling to the lagoon, a wave struck us sideways and caused all the contents of the kitchen (all made of metal) to collapse onto the floor directly above our cabin. That scared me quite a lot. As we reluctantly left the lagoon on the Thursday, we saw a little shark, a bright orange pancake-like sunfish, and two albatrosses. We were also joined by a school of dolphins playing at surfing as we cut through the water. We stopped later at an uninhabited cove on the island of Cedros, where the more agile of us basically me, my father, the naturalists and one other man) climbed the dried up river bed in search of the alleged waterfall. We found it, after a lot of fairly rocky precarious climbing, but it was only a trickle. However, the seclusion and beauty of that high-up point on Cedros will remain with me as one of the most awe-inspiring places I could imagine. The island was also a gardener's dream, as I found out when my dad hijacked my camera and used the whole film on pictures of plants. The skiffs also took us around the pans of the island's coast where sealions, osprey and all sorts of wildlife live. The sealions were like kittens and played with the ropes from our skiff as if they encountered humans all the time! Being in a skiff, of course, I got soaked - surprise, surprise. Unfortunately, it became stormy again that evening and carried on being very choppy all night and all of the next day, as once again we bypassed Todos Santos, being unable to stop there. Again I agreed to watch a video with the crew and the naturalists but, for a really good joke, one of them put on some horrid film about people dying in a storm at sea. I made him change it. On the Saturday
morning we re-entered the United States, had a customs check and exchanged
addresses with everyone. For any wildlife lover, I really recommend this
type of holiday. It was the kind of experience that very few people share,
and you also gel a real sense of achievement at having endured all the
sea travel (except one elderly couple who left at the lagoon and got flown
home from some remote part of Mexico, having been very seasick all the
way there). All the people on the tip with us will now be friends for
many years, even thought they all live in America, as we were all so thrown
in together to enjoy the brilliant parts and endure the stormy parts!
It is a very expensive holiday (my Mum won it, ha ha!), but well worth
it. Just don't try going shopping in San Diego afterwards, because people
give you funny looks and wonder why you're bobbing up and down in a sickening
fashion as you walk. |