george jannini
Active member
- Joined
- Mar 6, 2005
- Posts
- 42
---------Forwarded Message-----------
March 7, 2005
Whales
We left on Saturday afternoon, after the construction crew had gone home for the day, about 1.30 and headed down to Puerto San Carlos for a whale watching trip. We stopped in Loreto on the way for lunch, banking and a little shopping, and arrived in San Carlos just as the sun went down. We quickly discovered that San Carlos gets really busy on the weekends in whale season.
Brennan Hotel, the best spot in town, was full up, likewise Hotel Palomar, so we were reduced to Las Brisas mote- clean, cheap, but not exactly comfortable. <G> They said they had two beds per room, and they did, one double, one single; luckily they had two rooms available!
After checking in, we went to the Los Arcos restaurant for dinner, the food was great. I had the lobster thermidor for 180 pesos, the catch of the day was yellowtail, Peter and Phyllis had that. After dinner, we went back to the motel to sleep...or to try and sleep. <G> The beds were hard as a rock, and there was no hot water, two cats in heat played on the roof most of the night, there were roosters nearby, and the big, steel gate was slid open and closed 4 times during the night. We were glad to get up at 6.30 a.m. and head for the boat launch! We actually arrived early, the little restaurant next door had not yet opened, but a guy in the office came out and made coffee, and once the cook arrived we had breakfast.
We headed down to the launch site, in our own vehicles, a short caravan, making a stop midway, some people from Mexico City popped into a store to buy beer...at 8 a.m.! Our boat was nice, with a cover on top to protect us from the sun, and we had a nice young, bilingual couple from San Jose del Cabo with us, so we were able to get translations of all the info coming from Manuel, our lanchero. (In Mexican a boat is a lancha, so the operator is a lanchero)
It turned out that we were past the peak season..again, so although we saw plenty of whales, none of them approached the boat close enough to touch, but at least we got all the info we needed to be able to pick the ideal time next year. <G> We made a brief stop at Punta Mira beach on the way back to look for shells, there weren't many, but the beach was beautiful with soft, fine white sand. We also stopped next to another boat which belonged to friends of Manuel, they were clamming, and he showed us the clams they were getting, they were huge! They looked like geoducks, and he said they were an aphrodisiac, one look at the siphon tube made it easy to see what made them think that. <G>
After leaving San Carlos, we headed down to Ciudad Constitution, to get some lunch at the El Taste restaurant, and to shop at the Ley supermarket, a chain of stores in Mexico which is owned by Safeway. They had a nice bakery and vegetable department, things we miss in Mulege. We stocked up and headed north again. There was only one roadside checkpoint on the way back, just north of Loreto, a soldier asked us if we spoke Spanish, I said "a little" and he said, in English "get out"! Not sure why we needed Spanish for that. <G> After a quick check, we were on our way again, and we reached home just after 6 o'clock.
Our work crew was back this morning, they finished digging for the footings of our storage building, set in the rebar, and started pouring in the concrete. They went through almost half the 30 bags of concrete we had delivered last week. Peter got our friend Pancho to call the building supply store in Santa Rosalia where I had ordered the other 270 bags we will need, to find out when they plan to deliver it. They said Wednesday at noon, we're hoping they'll come through as promised.
Colette
March 7, 2005
Whales
We left on Saturday afternoon, after the construction crew had gone home for the day, about 1.30 and headed down to Puerto San Carlos for a whale watching trip. We stopped in Loreto on the way for lunch, banking and a little shopping, and arrived in San Carlos just as the sun went down. We quickly discovered that San Carlos gets really busy on the weekends in whale season.
Brennan Hotel, the best spot in town, was full up, likewise Hotel Palomar, so we were reduced to Las Brisas mote- clean, cheap, but not exactly comfortable. <G> They said they had two beds per room, and they did, one double, one single; luckily they had two rooms available!
After checking in, we went to the Los Arcos restaurant for dinner, the food was great. I had the lobster thermidor for 180 pesos, the catch of the day was yellowtail, Peter and Phyllis had that. After dinner, we went back to the motel to sleep...or to try and sleep. <G> The beds were hard as a rock, and there was no hot water, two cats in heat played on the roof most of the night, there were roosters nearby, and the big, steel gate was slid open and closed 4 times during the night. We were glad to get up at 6.30 a.m. and head for the boat launch! We actually arrived early, the little restaurant next door had not yet opened, but a guy in the office came out and made coffee, and once the cook arrived we had breakfast.
We headed down to the launch site, in our own vehicles, a short caravan, making a stop midway, some people from Mexico City popped into a store to buy beer...at 8 a.m.! Our boat was nice, with a cover on top to protect us from the sun, and we had a nice young, bilingual couple from San Jose del Cabo with us, so we were able to get translations of all the info coming from Manuel, our lanchero. (In Mexican a boat is a lancha, so the operator is a lanchero)
It turned out that we were past the peak season..again, so although we saw plenty of whales, none of them approached the boat close enough to touch, but at least we got all the info we needed to be able to pick the ideal time next year. <G> We made a brief stop at Punta Mira beach on the way back to look for shells, there weren't many, but the beach was beautiful with soft, fine white sand. We also stopped next to another boat which belonged to friends of Manuel, they were clamming, and he showed us the clams they were getting, they were huge! They looked like geoducks, and he said they were an aphrodisiac, one look at the siphon tube made it easy to see what made them think that. <G>
After leaving San Carlos, we headed down to Ciudad Constitution, to get some lunch at the El Taste restaurant, and to shop at the Ley supermarket, a chain of stores in Mexico which is owned by Safeway. They had a nice bakery and vegetable department, things we miss in Mulege. We stocked up and headed north again. There was only one roadside checkpoint on the way back, just north of Loreto, a soldier asked us if we spoke Spanish, I said "a little" and he said, in English "get out"! Not sure why we needed Spanish for that. <G> After a quick check, we were on our way again, and we reached home just after 6 o'clock.
Our work crew was back this morning, they finished digging for the footings of our storage building, set in the rebar, and started pouring in the concrete. They went through almost half the 30 bags of concrete we had delivered last week. Peter got our friend Pancho to call the building supply store in Santa Rosalia where I had ordered the other 270 bags we will need, to find out when they plan to deliver it. They said Wednesday at noon, we're hoping they'll come through as promised.
Colette