Baja week of 3/13/12

We've had a busy week at the ol Onda Rocks casa! Tues night we held a "Murder Mystery dinner with Mike, Elaine, Danny and Linda Peterson, and Roger and myself. Turned out I was the 'murder' and no one 'caught' me! But it was fun and we will try to do one more before we leave. Thursday I painted while the rest of the Koehns were off for an off-road Jeep ride. Saturday was market day with folk dancers, lots of local vendors with good food and produce. We bought tickets for next weekend's play. We also enjoyed some fresh bakery treats! That night we went to dinner at Tio Pablo's with some Irish entertainment added to the evening. Yesterday, Sunday, we travelled to El Triunfo, a village of about 400 people for their annual Arts Festival. Lots of people poured into the little town - they were not disappointed! Music, food, arts and crafts as well as exhibitions of dancing and puppetry. We also visited a local home that is 200 years old. It was so beautiful inside and we could see the conservation work being done to keep it in wonderful condition. The dining room table was one solid piece of granite and long enough for at least 12 people. The family was extremely proud of the home, as well they should be... it is wonderful. The Petersons went along for the day. Later we met them at a local restaurant for a quiet dinner. One of the usual (unusual for us) things that happened the night of the 17th was that the power went out all over town and stayed that way until early the next morning. No mochas or latte's for us the morning of the 18th! Roger and I went into town to have our usual coffee fix, BUT the local spot was without power and only had coffee-pot coffee, so we made do with coffee and scones... that's life in Baja! Happy trails...

Whale Watching in Bay of Magdalena 3/6/2012

We took an overnight tour to the Bay of Magdalena, north of Constitution. We were told there were many whales and "babies" in the bay. This trip is one of the items on "bucket list" of things I really wanted to do. We have seen PBS National Geographic films on these whales and the area. Our first outing was Tues afternoon. We went out for about 2 hours; 6 of us, our tour guide and the boatman. It was amazing! A large whale (Momma?) and 'baby' came right up to the boat. We were all able to touch a whale, get a face full of whale breath, and some of us wet from slapping, blowing whales! We were in the long inlet of the bay, which is about a mile across at it's widest point. We saw adults w/ babies, singles and some small groups of whales, many at very close range. Octavio, our guide took us out again just before sunset to bird island and up to the sand dunes. This was an added bonus to the regular tour schedule. Dinner that night was at the hotel, which is clean and very simple. But the dinner was excellent, lobster, grilled shrimp and a filet of halibut, plus rice and vegetables. We all crashed pretty early after hours on the water and meeting the tour at 6 a.m. Wednesday morning it was a breakfast of scrambled eggs with chiriso and pancakes, with fresh bananas and oranges. Then 8 a.m. we were off to the boat again for our morning whale tour. No close up touching encounters that morning, but we saw so many astounding displays of whales, fins, tails, jumps and spins, we were all yelling in excitement. Trying to learn how to use the camera on my phone was a riot... I had to delete many video of the floor of the boat, my knees, Roger's shoes etc. But I did manage to get some great shots of the whale activites... now the challenge is to get those video on the blog. That may have to wait til next blog! Many things about how the camera/Picasso works are still a mystery to me. So we are still having adventures... and hope you are too! Happy trails...

Baja 3/3/2012

We had another nice day at the Farmers Market here in Los Barriles. The Folklore Dancers were the entertainment. They are a wonderful troop with beautiful costumes. You can see Roger met a couple of the performers. The market has a wonderful assortment of things to see.... food, produce, art work, music and dancers. We also stopped at two garage sales ... on the beach, under the trees, they are still 'garage' sales. On another note, yesterday we were without power and water for most of the day. This happens (water) couple times a week; power is not usually a problem, though we have had a couple of other outages. Anyway, we decided that rather than sit in the dark we would go into town and have dinner at the only restaurant that we knew had a generator. Could be that 'town' had more power than further out neighborhoods. But no doubt we were w/out power, so dinner in town was a good idea. Tonight we are going to a "Story Night" at Caleb's, a favorite spot. This will include dessert and several 6-8 minute stories, read by their authors. Mike and Elaine went last year and really enjoyed it. Next week Roger and I will take off on an overnight whale watching trip to the Bay of Magdalena. Very much looking forward to that! Had to include photos of recent paintings and one of a kite boarder. Winds have been pretty steady here and not good for kayaking.... but the kite boarders are loving it and they are fun to watch. Hope you are enjoying yourself where ever you are... happy trails...