Land's End
After posting our updates and doing some grocery shopping in La Paz, we stopped for our first restaurant meal of the trip. La Paz is a large city with lots of one way streets and stop signs and we had fun trying to find the restaurant.
When we finally found it, seafood cocktail and crab salad were on the menu and they hit the spot perfectly!
We were soon on the road again and heading for Todos Santos. A quaint town occupied by artists and expat Americans, it started originally as a town for fishermen and sugar mills. The fishermen are still there but the sugar mills have been replaced by tourist shops.
Entering Todos Santos we officially arrived in the tropics as we passed south of the Tropic of Cancer.
Outside of town where the fishermen bring their catch, the beach is very steep. The fishermen have to learn how to judge the waves and bring their boats in to the beach at the end of a set. They judge the waves and gun their engine heading straight into shore. If they time it right, they hit the top of the wave just in time to throw the boat up onto the beach. It was absolutely thrilling to watch them.
We then headed south toward Cabo San Lucas. With the Pacific Ocean on our right, we could periodically see whale spouts. Deciding it was a good time to look for a place to camp, we took a couple of wrong roads (washed out by the October hurricane) before we found one that took us to a small bay where whales were cavorting off shore. There was one whale playing in the surf right off the beach. Unfortunately he was right in the glare of the setting sun, too. And by the way, it was a gorgeous sunset.
After arising to a glorious sunrise, we climbed out on a nearby rocky point to see if we could see the whales any better. There didn't seem to be as many as the night before but there was one close in that kept spyhopping and waving his tail at us. Sorry to leave, but knowing that Land's End awaited us, we pressed southward.
Heading south we stopped to see if any Loggerhead Turtles had come ashore to lay eggs. There is a small reserve run called Asupmatoma at KM marker 111 that protects a stretch of beach for the turtles. Unfortunately for us, we were told that the hurricane last fall disrupted the turtles and there were none to be found. The caretaker did tell us that the Green Turtles are expected to come ashore, but not until August!
At about 11:00 this morning, we reached the southern-most tip of Baja!
Contrary to popular belief and tourist magazines, the southern-most point of Baja isn't actually "Land's End" and the famous arch. The title goes to a small beach a couple of miles west of Land's End that's found just below an old lighthouse. The is the beach at Faro Viejo (Old Lighthouse). See our photos and the panoramas!
| We celebrated our milestone by toasting ourselves with Gatorade and by getting temporarily stuck in the sand. How appropriate! After extricating ourselves using the shovel attachment on our Maxx-ax, we further celebrated our success by having lunch at "The Office on the Beach" in Cabo. Teeming with tourists, it is the perfect example of what Cabo San Lucas has become. |  |
A homogenized Mexican town full of Americans. Everyone speaks English and the restaurants charge American prices. Fun for an afternoon, but not the Mexico we came to visit.
Now heading north, we are currently camped on a beach on the "Eastern Cape". The dirt road is 55 miles long and follows a beautiful and rugged coastline. Tomorrow we will continue north toward Cabo Pulmo which has an offshore reef system to rival any in the world.
