Oh my. I thought I had published this post before I even wrote about Mermaid Beach, but then I found if lurking, unpublished in the drafts folder! Sequentially, this belongs in between La Paz and Mermaid Beach.......hmmmm....maybe the computer gods are just saying to skip this one.....I don't know!
Finally, a chance for a more sequential post on Cabo Pulmo! My apologies for the confusion I may have caused. When we first got here, we were without Internet and had been without for three days, ever since we left La Paz. I hadn't completed my blog on La Paz and so hadn't posted it yet and then it dawned on me that those of you not in my immediate family may have been worried. At that point we had found a fellow in Cabo Pulmo offering to let us use his laptop to access the Internet at a rather expensive price. We used our precious minutes to inform family of our safety and then I did the quick (and now out of sequence) post on our safe arrival. Since then Bruce, aka "hero of the neighborhood" roamed the few streets of Cabo Pulmo waving the iPad around until he picked up a "hot spot." He found a spot in the street, two houses down; but being the relentless optimist he is, he refused to give up until he found a more comfortable zone. He found one on our rooftop viewing deck, devoid of any shade at all (a precious commodity for most hours of the day--unless at the beach). He gave away our credit card number....yes, I felt rather weak at the knees at first) for one week of access or some quantity of some bits or bytes of data, whichever happened first. A little Internet research assures me that we shouldn't use up our bit allowance in the week we are here, even with my rather long-winded blog entries. (So my knees feel stronger now). We have found it best to type our messages (and blog posts) offline in the comfort of our casita or on our shaded front porch. Every evening after dinner, but before dark and every morning before 10AM we climb to the rooftop, wave the iPad over our heads and hope to hear the "swoosh" of composed messages going out. It is a little awkward, but it IS access from our casita! Bruce is a hero!
We've been in Cabo Pulmo six days already, and it seems like three. Our first two days here were unusually cloudy and cool. But that was a blessing, as that is why the Calgary couple who picked us up 3minutes after we stuck out our thumbs, decided to drive from their Cabo San Lucas winter home to explore the town of Cabo Pulmo. They took us right to our casita manager here. The manager's niece then gave us (and our five gallons of drinking water) a ride to our door. Couldn't have been easier!
The second cloudy day gave us opportunity to explore the trail system of Cabo Pulmo. We had heard last year that the local residents had developed and maintained a trail system into the mountains. I went home regretting that we hadn't had a chance to explore those last year. As luck would have it, the wife of the Internet guy used to be a guide on the trails, so she told us the story of why no maps are available and then gave us directions to the trailheads. We found three trailheads and chose to follow the most inland one. We had heard repeatedly that there were more rattlesnakes showing themselves this year, after all the rains, than ever before. We heard that on the Pacific side as well as here. Being a brazen kid, spending my youngest years in Arizona, I didn't let the idea of snakes hold us back ....even if we did just have Chacos on our feet.
We had no idea where this particular trail led, so it was fun to follow its meanderings, skirting large arroyos, and even, at one point passing by some incongruous tennis courts. We hiked by amazing growths of cactus, around knoll tops and up and down gullies, not really going anywhere in particular, just wherever that trail happened to lead. Since I had offered to go first (be snake bait) I knew I had to be super conscientious about watching the ground in front of me. Everytime I stubbed my sandal toe on a rock lodged in the trail, I was reminded to watch more closely. Shortly after just such an instance, I saw a familar pattern lying across the trail in front of me. My dangling arms instinctively flew out my sides, fingers spread wide, and I heard a single word escape my lips, "Snake!" About the same time I felt Bruce bump my back, I heard, and then saw, the rattle. Grateful it was still slithering and not coiling, I stomped on Bruce's feet in an effort to distance us from the threat. He never did coil, but just stopped with his head hidden in some brush and only his tail visible. He stopped rattling and Bruce wanted to go forward and get a closer look. I'd heard the rattle and that was as much as I wanted to know about that snake. Bruce did go ahead of me for a closer look, but I had already started backing down the trail and soon Bruce was traveling in the same direction. That ended our hike for that day, and we were plenty content to spend the rest of the day exploring our options for groceries and/or for restaurants.
Since then we've had sunny days. Two of them were accompanied by a wind, one day so cool we only spent enough time in the water to discover that Bruce's snorkel had sprung a leak and that the mask and snorkel I had borrowed from Cindy and Vince fit my face much better than our own. The second windy day we found and tested a replacement snorkel for Bruce, but the wind was so busy sugaring everything with a fine layer of sand, that even the water carried a murky mix. Today was calmer and we couldn't help but notice the flocks of pelicans and little white sea birds enthusiastically fishing the waters in front of us. The sea birds flew over in larger groups. Regularly they seemed to drop right out of the sky and into the ocean before rising right back out again. The pelicans soared more predictably, flaring their wings like a skydiver approaching a formation before streamlining their bodies and ker-plunking down into the sea and bobbing back to float on the surface. But don't turn your eyes from them yet. If you watch the one that just surfaced, then after a little bit, you may see him, ever so subtly, raise his beak or maybe give it a quick shake before swallowing down some delectable briny treat. Always after he swallows it down, a quick little wag of his tail-feathers seems to imply the snack was enjoyed and appreciated right to the tip of his tail. While none of the bigger and more colorful fish cared to show themselves to us during the feeding frenzy, the little non-descript minnows were plentiful enough they simply swarmed around us. The sights above the surface, however, were every bit as intriguing as those below. Toward the end of the day I found myself removing mask and snorkel to simply enjoy bobbing in the warm aquamarine waters accompanied by the regal pelicans. Just before leaving water in time to make dinner, I found myself enjoying a spontaneous game of red light/green light with Mr. Pelican. When he bobbed with his back to me, it was "green light" and I would approach as stealthily as I could. When the currents twirled him to face me, it was "red light" and I ceased all movement. I managed to get within three feet of him when something must have told him I wasn't the normal sea creature. Maybe tomorrow I will have a chance to play again, and get even closer.
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