We woke up early on our first full day in San Ignacio, with high hopes of going to see some gray whales. I took a cold shower that lost half of the already weak pressure when the guy coughing up a lung on the other side of the wall turned on his shower half way through mine. It reminded me of some cheap-o hostels I’ve stayed at…
After we were all ready we drove into the small town of San Ignacio, and on the way in we stopped at a little brightly colored cinder block building that housed the office of El Padrino Tours. As we turned off the paved road to the little building we couldn’t help but notice the middle aged Mexican fella facing our truck while taking a leak. He zipped up his fly and headed over to greet us. We didn’t shake hands, but Carlos was super friendly. We explained that we wanted to go see the whales and he told us the cost. The town of San Ignacio is in the center of the peninsula, but a dirt road leads west all the way to the Pacific and one of three lagoons where gray whales travel each spring to have their babies. We had decided on San Ignacio because it supposedly had the most friendly whales and we wanted to get as close to them as possible. Guerrero Negro has a lagoon about an hour and a half north (closer to the US), and it has supposedly the most whales in it, but they don’t come up to the boats as often. The third lagoon is several hours further south and we didn’t want to drive any more.
We’d read that the cost of a whale tour in San Ignacio’s bay was about $40, but that means you have to take your own transportation over an hour and a half’s worth of Baja dirt roads. I’ve spent several days on Baja’s backroads and knew that would be a considerable task. El Padrino wanted $210 to drive the 3 of us to the bay and back, plus it included the 2.5 hours on the boat and lunch. Since Dave brought his 4WD truck we asked if they could arrange just the boat tour and they said that would be $45 each. We asked if we’d be alone on a boat and they couldn’t say.
The other thing we wanted to do was see some of the rock art in the area. We’d read about everything from 3 day mule packing trips into the desert to see some way off the beaten path to 400 meter walks to see some that weren’t very impressive. Carlos quoted $140 to go about an hour down the road and then hike for 15 minutes to a cave to see some, or we could pay a total of $150 and go see some better ones that were over two hours away by van and then an hour and a half hike into a canyon. We decided to do the bigger and better option for an additional $10, and then try whale watching the next day.
We paid the $150 in US dollars and hopped in a van with Carlos, who not only sold us the tour but would be our driver for the rest of the day. We took off towards La Cueva Pintada (“The Painted Cave”), which was about 45 minutes south on Hwy 1, where we turned off north on to a bumpy dirt road. By the way, all the rock art in this area of Baja is actually part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We road on the badly washboarded road for almost 2 hours, passing only 2 little homesteads with some goats and cattle; the few places we passed by were literally in the middle of nowhere.
Eventually we came to a clearing and right in front of us was a large fenced off area and about three dozen people partying! They had Corona and Tecate beer canopies erected and everyone was really dressed up in a Mexican cowboy sorta way (vaquero style) – cowboy boots, nicely pressed jeans, gigantic bronze belt buckles, pressed flannel shirts and cowboy hats. It was a rural wedding!
We pulled up to one of the 3 houses surrounding the party and we all hopped out of the van. It was a little awkward. Carlos led the way through a little plywood “gate” and we walked up to a family sitting around a table with a tiny chihuahua guard dog wearing a sweater. We signed in on a little booklet they had laying on the table, and I noticed that the previous visitor to the site had been there on the 22nd of February, six days prior to our visit, and everyone on the two pages I saw was visiting from California. This place doesn’t get many visitors because it is so far out of the way. 16-17 hours south of San Diego, then 2 hours on a bad dirt road, and still another hour and a half hike into the desert.
After we signed in Carlos told me (in Spanish of course) that we just had to wait for the guía (guide). Apparently this tiny community out in the sticks has a list of about 15 “guides” on the wall of this home, and they rotate each time a visitor shows up so the wealth is spread amongst the community. This is a great idea because I’m sure there isn’t much flow of currency to these people, and they have every reason to protect this UNESCO site that’s in their back yard. After about 10 minutes these two little guys come walking up from out of the desert, and one of them was our guide, Guadalupe. If you look on the sign near the door where we waited for Guadalupe, you’ll see a list of all the village’s guides, and there are only 3 last names between them all. Also, the keys to the gate that surround the actual cave hang on the wall to the left of the door; Guadalupe grabbed the keys and hopped into the van as soon as he arrived.
We drove up towards the mountain for about 5 minutes and then stopped. We jumped out, all of us took a pee break amongst the cacti beside the van and then we followed Guadalupe on a very rudimentary trail into a canyon. Carlos stayed behind, Guadalupe led, I followed him, Dave’s grandson was behind me and Dave was in the rear.
I won’t bore you with details of the hike, but I will say that Guadalupe is a tough old bird. He is a hell of a hiker. He was wearing these homemade leather boots without socks and never slowed down during the entire hike. I asked him at the end how often he does it and he said he’s been hiking up to the cave for over 30 years but takes visitors about twice a year (this would mean about 60 groups visit a year if the 15 guides rotate and each one takes about two trips in a year). The only drawback to Guadalupe was that he was a bit funky. I’m sure it was because he lives in the middle of a desert without any utilities, so if he showers it’s probably in a puddle during the couple of days a year that it rains. Another main item about the hike was that I was good for the first hour, but the final 30 minutes kicked my butt. You scramble almost straight up the mountainside, trying to get secure footing on patches of scree. I had to stop to catch my breath almost every 30 feet, but eventually I made it to the top.
I won’t say it wasn’t worth it because $50 to go into the middle of the desert and meet people in this tiny community who survive on basically nothing, and to arrive on a wedding day, was awesome on its own. It was cool to walk through the desert and see all the impressive cacti up close, and the paintings were mildly interesting. I wouldn’t do it again, but I’m glad I did it once. Guadalupe said the paintings are 5000 years old, and given the dry climate I can see how something like this would last forever. I thought one of the drawings was a cow, but cattle hadn’t been introduced to North America 5000 years ago and Guadalupe told me it was a puma. He said he’s seen puma in the mountains on several occasions.
We slid down the steep part on the way back down, then basically ran back to the waiting van. We drove Guadalupe about 2 minutes closer to the village but he told Carlos to stop because he’d walk, and that was the last we saw of Guadalupe. Oh yea, I drank about a liter and a half of water during the hike but Guadalupe opened his little canteen twice and each times only took a small sip.
After the LONG drive back to San Ignacio we went to dinner in town right on the square at a place Carlos recommended, then we checked out the 19th century mission that’s also on the main square. Dinner was excellent (lemon buttered scallops and plenty of Tecate beer). They were having a service at the church, but an older lady who was some kind of caretaker greeted me and told me some of the church’s history. We also setup to meet at El Padrino in the morning and take their van to the lagoon based on the fact that instead of $210 it would cost us $150 since they found another 2 people to go and share the cost with us.
Dave and I sat in the gravel parking lot of the Baja Oasis Motel that night, drinking cold Tecates and telling stories. We also went on a shopping spree to find cigarettes, but they were almost impossible to find after 8pm on a Sunday. The 3 stores that sold them were either completely out or only had menthols.
Here are the pictures from our day of hiking:
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