Oh boy.
So much in the past weeks.
I finally met my whale!
We left San Diego early Wednesday morning.
First stop, get through border security.
Visa paperwork filled out, passports at the ready, bus prepared to be scanned.
And done. Pretty quick and easy.
The plan was to drive to a small airport in Ensenada,
board a charter plane and arrive at a runway a short drive from camp.
It's about two hours drive from San Diego to Ensenada, not counting the border stop.
So there were a couple stops to break up the drive.
First stop, El Miridor, a viewpoint on the ocean side of Baja.
It is a gorgeous spot to walk around, use the facilities, (bring tip for TP!), and
stretch our legs before we continued to Ensenada.
At last in Ensenada, we have an easy sandwich lunch,
with some time to spare to enjoy this lovely garden park.
So, off to the airport, right?
The weather changed our plans.
It rains about 2 or 3 days in desert climates, and we found those days!
It was raining, hard, in the San Ignacio region (our destination),
which meant our runway was washed out and unsafe to land on.
These whales are tired.
Ha!
So, the new plan was to have us land instead at a paved runway at Guerrero Negro,
then pile into two large vans and drive three hours to camp.
In the driving rain.
The smaller airports were military bases, and all of
our stuff was X-Rayed and dog-sniffed and inspected several times.
Ready for a long drive.
We did get a fantastic dinner at a campground about an hour and
half away from Campo Cortez. Complete with tasty margaritas and
some seriously delicious homemade food.
It was here I also made use of the available WIFI to
get one last message to my family about where I was.
I lost all cellular and internet contact after we left this campground.
Once we were ready to go, in the dark, and in the rain,
we again piled into the vans, said goodbye to cell service for a few days,
and bounced and sloshed our way through a half-washed out
dirt road into camp. Really. It was a trip.
We arrived at about 10:30 pm, and our fantastic
camp guides and staff were ready for us.
We were given the rundown about the toilet situation, hand
washing stations and cabin assignments, and off we went to try
to settle ourselves enough to get some sleep.
Come back for Part Two, where we see the whales.
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