San Ignacio Lagoon & the Gray Whales
All night long we had steamed up north, to the town of Santa Rosalia where we were to take a series of vans to the other side of the Baja California Peninsula, to see gray whales in San Ignacio Lagoon. The town of Santa Rosalia was really established in the last half of the nineteenth century, as a copper smelting town. Copper ore was obtained a few miles inland, and brought into town, where it was purified and sent to other countries, especially Europe. This smelting by the French company “El Boleo” continued well into the fifties of last century. A few years later it still smelted copper ore from mainland Mexico. Today it is a museum.
So early in the morning we were rolling west along Mexico 1, in the direction of the town of San Ignacio, midway in the Peninsula. Due to the El Nino phenomenon, quite a bit of water has been deposited in the desert, and we were able to see marvelous clumps of purple lupines, together with flowering bitterbush. Many other plants were flowering, especially so the creosote bushes, loaded with small yellow flowers.
We drove by the only live volcano in the Peninsula, the “Volcan de las Tres Virgenes,” which erupted last in the late 1800’s. Today it still produces steam, and a large power plant is used there to produce electricity for the small towns in the area. This volcano is also home to a good number of Mexican Desert Bighorn Sheep.
The town of San Ignacio was founded there due to the availability of water, and the presence of a good number of natives there. Today it is a quiet town with a lovely and well kept mission, and an obligatory stop to visit the gray whales in the Laguna de San Ignacio. We rested a while there, and proceeded on our trip west, across the interesting desert. Many flowers there were in bloom, but as we neared the coast, we could really see how difficult life can be for any plant or animal, let alone for humans!
Once at the lagoon, we had a small repast, and proceeded to board a series of pangas, or fiberglass boats, and to be taken into the lagoon proper, where whale-watching is allowed. Here we saw some bottle-nose dolphins, as well as a good number of sea birds. But the master of the lagoon was the gray whale. Yes, we saw great gray whales, mostly females with calves. These small whales were playing with the mothers!
The observation time was soon over, and we returned to the headquarters of the company that organizes these boats and the observations. Here we had a nice lunch, and almost immediately set out to drive back to the town of San Ignacio, where, again, we had a small snack, watched the kids play football and boarded the vans anew for the ride back to Santa Rosalia. The day thus ended as we began our return trip to the southern portion of the peninsula.
