Cabo San Lucas

Welcome to Mexico!  Spring Break is a good window to travel for us - not too hot in the tropical destinations and still cold at home.  We would normally go to Hong Kong, but there is a wedding in the fall and we didn't see ourselves going twice.  We looked around at options and Cabo San Lucas bubbled up to the top for reasonable price and low effort - Helen wanted a week of all inclusive stay.

Our resort was built in a number of phases and is currently building out the "Timeshare" phase, but thankfully they weren't pushing the timeshare angle hard.  Our resort doesn't actually have beach access - the beach is rocky and the current can apparently be really strong.  I was surprised that the lack of beach access didn't really bother either kid.  If you followed the tides, it might actually be a good place for snorkeling (A snorkel tour by boat once unloaded very close to shore) but it's hard to risk things like that when you are on vacation.

There are three large lagoons on the West Coast on Baha where grey whales come to have their babies and hang out for the winter.  The closest to Cabo is Magdelana Bay and we found an overnight tour that would take us up to see the whales.  It's a long van ride up (there were 8 guests and 2 guides in our tour) but we made it to the bay in the early afternoon to go whale watching.

We drove for kilometers trying to find grey whales, but had no luck.  Apparently even a few days ago there were a dozen plus mothers and calves in this bay, but the whales don't post a schedule and they were gone.  This is an El Nino year and a lot of regular animal migrations such as the whale sharks in La Paz are off their schedule.  We drove north of the entrance to they bay and found a large group of bottlenose dolphins (or they found us) and the played around our boat for a while.
 

 
We are limited by the sun so as they evening got closer, we turned around and headed back to town.
 

The next morning we went out to try and find any whales outside of the lagoon area.  The captain tells us that the Moms and babies generally stay in the lagoons but there are often more whales just outside of the lagoons.  The water outside of the barrier islands is significantly rougher and our little boat was kicked around as we went out looking for whales.  Any time we slowed down, birds caught up with us, hoping we would be throwing away fish bits.

We eventually gave up and headed back to the lagoons.  We found a pod of Bottlenose dolphins that liked to follow our boat (and rode the bow wave for a bit)

Our resort is a few km from town, but our resort has a shuttle bus that runs every two hours.  There is a large marina in Cabo that seems to be the epicenter of tourist fleecing which includes a large mall.  Our resort had a number of "sister restaurants" included in the meal plan so we stopped in for lunch and a walk around.

 
Claira did actually do some shopping - she found a silver pendant with a bright blue opal inlay.  We almost ripped off the jewlery store - I had Peso's in my wallet so while we negotiated in USD, I accidentally converted as CAD (12:1) instead of USD (16:1).  The jewelry shop worker figured it out later and came out to find us as we walked back.  My bad - we paid the difference.

Before I left, I found a company doing nature tours of the Cabo San Lucas/San Jose Del Cabo area.  They have a variety of tours but need at least two people to sign up before they run a tour.  I was lucky to get a third spot on a Sunday morning trip to the Estuary in San Jose Del Cabo - the same place that was one fire when we first flew in on this trip.  Pick up was 6:45am at our hotel and we filled a small Nissan.  The two other birders were also guys - a binocular birder from Alaska and a photographer birder from the Midwest.  I brought a tripod because I get tired of carrying my camera all morning.

Our first stop was the estuary which is actually more like an oasis - fresh water happens to come out of the ground here just before the ocean.  There isn't much circulation but the wading birds didn't seem to mind.
 
 

The estuary is an intersection between palm trees, fresh water ponds and beach.  Our guide has been to this location so many times that she knows which birds to find in which trees. 
 
 

The pond side grasses are their own habitat.  Our guide spotted a few Lapis Lazuli - a bird we get in Vancouver.  Surprise to me - these birds are in their winter plumage so they don't look like the breeding plumage I've seen before.   We also got our first Baha penisnula endemic - the Beldings Yellowthroat.
 

 
The water itself is another habitat - there were more than a dozen egret in the grasses and more birds in the water foliage.

 
We talked from the pond area to the beach/ocean side of the estuary.  There were Turkey Vulture in circulating and an American Kestral looking for a snack.
 

I was dropped off at the resort by 11:30am with lots of time for the rest of my day.  On the way back to the room, I noticed some iguana's sunning themselves on the rocks.  I thought they might be invasive but doing some research when I got back, I found out these lizards may have been introduced by the first nations people that lived in Baha thousands of years ago.

 
When you first leave the airport at San Jose Del Cabo, the first thing you are thinking is "wow, is the ground transportation situation there designed to rip off tourists (we pre-booked a suburban at a good price).  The second thing you are thinking is "wow, there are a lot of really great cactus out in those fields!"  I kept meaning to take some photos of them but the resort is landscaped.  One morning I went for a walk to less developed field near by and took some photos of the cactus.  There is a large cactus that catches your eye - the "Mexican Giant Cactus".  These tall cactus often have holes from woodpeckers and woody like lower parts.  You can see some buds near the top where they flower.

 

When I started walking around in the bush and it turns out there is a bunch of different kinds of cactus growing out here.  I found two distinct species immediately - Chain-link Cholla and Galloping Cactus - both species that try to cover large areas.  I wasn't expecting so much diversity - If there was a nature trail and more time, I'm sure there is a lot here to explore.

 
All good trips come to an end and I really didn't spend enough time taking photos of the resort.  Perhaps a reason to go back another time!