Baja, Mexico

 Here's a disorganized list of notes and some pictures from our trip to Mexico at the beginning of the month!   This trip used up the Alaska Airlines tickets we had for a San Francisco trip that didn't happen in April 2020.  Thank you to my parents for staying with the kids and to the kids for not catching covid right before we left.

• We noticed some dust in the air while we were driving and then there was a forceful whump as the wind and dust hit our car, that we both heard and felt.   Something in the car beeped a few times, but no lights went on.   We realized it must have been a dust devil but still don't know what it was that made the car ding.
• We saw one rattlesnake and it was dead on the road, which was fine by me.  It was a western diamondback from what I could tell, with 4-5 black and white strips just before the rattle.  Hiking in snake territory makes me nervous.
• Out hikes smelled strongly of mesquite, which I'd heard of but never smelled before.  It kind of reminded me of maple syrup, which I don't particularly like.
• We drove across the Tropic of Cancer a couple of times.
• We took two hikes.  The first was up around a dry stream bed and the hills on either side, just north of Los Barilles.   The second was right near the Cabo Pulmo Marine Park.  Two pitbulls and a lab were running down the road on their own as we parked.  I was nervous at first and the two pitbulls even jumped in our trunk while roughhousing, but they were not aggressive towards us.  The lab and one pitbull joined us on our hike and it was kind of fun.  I also worried less about the snakes when the dogs were running ahead and crashing through the brush.

hike 1

hike 2

• Our hotel was in Buena Vista, which we picked because of the nearby windsurfing opportunities.  We only had two full days and the first day was too calm to go out.  The second day was too windy for our skill levels, but we tried.  Actually we decided to just get one board and take turns, but Jack went out first and couldn't get upwind at all really so after he struggled for an hour I passed on it.  It was fun to watch the kite surfing there.

• Before we caught the plane back we swam and played some pool volleyball, which was fun.
• I was embarrassed to learn that Mexico's official name is Estados Unidos de Mexico, rather than just Mexico.  Spanish class let me down!
• The future finally reached us on this trip and for the first time we had cell phone data on an international trip (through Google Fi)!  This means we weren't reliant on wifi, which wasn't readily available, and we also were able to follow the kids a little bit.  Dd's daycare sends notifications and we also saw doorbell rings (including D coming home).  It also helped with navigation, of course.   
• Credit card payment was flaky (slow, unreliable) or un available in most places and we didn't drink the water.  We did eat raw veggies from restaurants though, because we read that they are washed with filtered water.
• We snorkeled in Los Barilles and in Cabo Pulmo Marine Park, where it was a little more windy than we would have liked.    We saw lots of stripy yellow, blue and black and white fish and a california needlefish.   From the shore we saw large jumping Pacific Manta.

• While we were driving we saw what seemed like a display of force by the police.   About ten police trucks in a row drove past us, many with officers standing in the back holding large guns.   They didn't have sirens on or anything so it seemed like a display.
• People were quite nice.   We were in a very small town most of the time.   The only tourist snare we encountered was guys telling us that we needed to take a taxi to our budget car rental place, even though we had been told that there was a shuttle.   There was indeed a shuttle and the guys didn't even register on the scale of the pushiness we experienced in parts of Morocco.
• The food was great!  I'm a relatively recent convert to tacos and they did not disappoint.

• We spoke some rusty Spanish.   I couldn't remember "afuera" (outside) and I ended up saying "quiero comida ahora" (I want food now) instead of  "quiero comer afuera" (I want to eat outside), but hopefully I was convincingly unsure enough to not sound rude.