 By Steve Schwartz
New York, New York
Great is an intriguing word: a great meal…a great movie…a great car. And so is best: the best vacation …the best computer… the best airline. But the word only…now only trumps them both. It’s a word to conjure with. As in: “There’s only one place in the entire world where 40-ton gray whale
mothers and their two-ton babies come up alongside your small
boat: to be…petted.”
I first heard about the Gray Whales of Baja’s San Ignacio Lagoon when Dick Russell told my wife Sarah Jane (his literary agent) that he wanted to write about them. Then, after reading his fascinating "Eye of the Whale" (Simon & Schuster, 2001), we dreamed of seeing them for ourselves. Since Dick was preparing to go again with a few friends, we asked if we could tag along.
Because of what I’d read in Dick’s book, plus everything he’d told us about his four previous trips, I set my goals (impossibly?) high. It would really be fabulous, I decided, if four things happened: if I could see a whale … see one close enough to look her in the eye … actually pet one on the head … and, holy of holies, maybe even kiss one on the nose.
Although it’s possible to fly to the lagoon in a small plane, we decided that driving would add to the adventure, so we rented a car in San Diego and off we went.
* * *
“The Baja Peninsula has the Pacific Ocean on one side … the Sea of Cortez on the other … and mountains right down the middle. It’s about 80 miles wide and 1,060 miles long -- so long, in fact, that it changes from a Mediterranean climate (in Ensenada near the top) ... to a Tropical one (in La Paz near the bottom).”
-Dick Russell
* * *
 Note: It’s about a 538-mile run from the border to the lagoon, and there won’t be a store in sight for most of it. So before you go, pack the following: a case or two of water… whatever snacks appeal to you … and anti-bacterial hand wipes for on-the-road cleanups. Also, you’ll need your passport … a Spanish-English phrase book wouldn’t hurt … and be absolutely sure you check your spare tire and jack. Very soon into this trip you’re going to find yourself in places where you do not want to be stuck with a flat.
Day 1: San Diego to San Quintin, 204 miles. Sea. Mountains. And one of the best meals you’ll ever eat. We left San Diego right after lunch and took Route 5 south, stopping at San Ysidro (the last town in the US) to gas up and change dollars into pesos. Then we drove across the border into Mexico and picked up Route 1 toward Ensenada. This road is lovely because it curves along the Pacific coast and reveals a succession of post card vistas: misty cliffs, with beautiful waves crashing into the shore.
However, this changes once you pass through Ensenada, and you begin to drive through a very different landscape, one that’s stark, forbidding, barren, and unforgiving … or (depending on your sensibilities) … impressive, dramatic, striking, and imposing. There are long stretches here (and throughout the trip) that you don’t want to drive at night, plus, the road drops to two-lanes, and continues this way all the way to San Ignacio.
These two lanes traverse arrow-straight desert road that undulates off into the distance and disappears over the horizon ... and twisty-turny-mountain road where you can find yourself stuck behind a phalanx of gas and cement trucks, 18-wheelers, caravans of senior-driven campers, busses, and ancient pick-ups. And if you think all these vehicles have gathered to keep you from that great meal I mentioned in San Quintin, who am I to argue.
But … in the early evening, we arrived.
If you’ve traveled in Mexico, you probably have an image of what a “town” looks like: a pretty central square and church, with shops and houses fanning out from there. Poor perhaps -- but picturesque. The towns along Route 1 to San Ignacio, however, don’t look like this at all. They are simply rows of stores and shacks along both sides of the road, looking more like strip malls than anything else. Maybe just as poor -- but certainly not picturesque.
We drove through town to a sign that pointed right, to the La Pinta Hotel. The hotel sits on Santa Maria Bay with rooms that look out onto the water and a rather dramatic beach. And although the hotel design is a bit perplexing (outside cement walkways that go nowhere) and the room décor odd (colored pressed-glass decorations) the hotel is perfectly acceptable: there are two rock-hard double beds, reasonable showers, and a restaurant and bar.
Best of all, though, you’re less than a five-minute drive to Cielito Lindo. Although this is also a hotel, you’re not here for the rooms -- you’re here for the food. Don’t even bother looking at a menu. Walk in, sit down, and order a margarita or Negro Modelo beer and the house special: cracked crabs. When you’re just about finished with your drink, the waiter will return and place in front of you a large platter piled high with meaty cracked crabs in a delicious, oily, red sauce.
You’ll probably work through a dozen or so paper napkins and get sauce all over yourself -- but it’s worth it. This feast costs only eleven bucks, and if you don’t think it’s one of the best meals you’ve ever eaten, then perhaps you should stick with Chicken McNuggets. (My only complaint is that tortillas do not accomplish the sauce-mopping-up-job that French bread would. So when you’re packing your road food, you could maybe throw a loaf or two in the trunk.)
* * *
“New born Gray Whales are nearly pink, later turn a dark gray, and can have distinctive white or brown markings. Mature grays are mottled gray, black, and white. They have enormous heads with scattered patches of white barnacles. Their very broad flukes (tails) measure 10-12 feet across and weigh 300-400 pounds, and their tongues weigh an amazing 1.5 tons. They live in small pods, and grunt, click, and whistle to communicate with each other. They reach sexual maturity at about eight years and can live up to seventy-five. Gray whales were called ‘devilfish’ by the early whalers because of the fierce battle they put up when hunted. Today, there are probably some 26,600 of them in the Eastern Pacific.”
-Dick Russell
* * *
Day Two: Morning. San Quintin to Cataviña. 116 miles. Stark. Mountains. Boulder fields. Machaca burritos. From here to Cataviña, Dick told us, we would be driving from the beginning of nowhere … to the middle of nowhere … to the end of nowhere. So after breakfast, we drove back into town to get gas. This part of the trip is mile after mile of mountains, and even though the highway is amazingly well marked (they let you know when a curve is coming … when a dangerous curve is coming … and when a really dangerous curve is coming), you never want to let your attention wander. Because of the drop-offs.
There are drop-offs on both sides of the road that vary from a few inches, to a few feet, and more. And by the way, those little roadside crosses and monuments you see aren’t only indications of religious faith, they’re also memorials to loved ones killed in car crashes on those very spots.
Turns out there are more varieties of cactus in Baja than any other place in the world, and during this stretch of road you will pass hillsides that look like botanical garden displays. Cacti even line the tops of the hills, like soldiers standing guard duty. There are also boojum trees along here, tall thin things with skinny branches and trunks that are wider at the bottom than at the top. Boojums can grow as tall as telephone poles, and the early Spanish called them cirio (candle) after the handmade tapers on the alters of mission churches. The Anglo name, however, came from an Arizona botanist who first saw one in 1922 and immediately named it after the strange and mythical creature -- the “boojum” -- in Lewis Carroll’s Hunting of the Snark.
This is also fertile ground for the cardón cactus, the world’s tallest. Cardóns can reach nearly 70 feet and weigh as much as ten tons. Some are believed to be more than 200 years old and, in Indian lore, they take on human characteristics and move around at night when people are sleeping. You know you’re nearing Cataviña when you come upon a remarkable sight: granite boulders as far as the eye can see, looking as if enormous giants scattered them all over the ground, and piled them up into small mountains. There are small ones the size of grapefruits, and enormous ones that would take two construction cranes to budge. Scientists say the boulders were formed by the wind, blowing over the granite -- like sandpaper -- for millions of years. These fields go on for miles and I’ve never seen anything even remotely like them.
Then you arrive in Cataviña and although it’s nothing more than a small widening of the road, there are three very important things here: the only gas for about a hundred miles either way … a La Pinta hotel with restaurant and restrooms … and the Café La Enramada.
Even though there’s no actual gas station, what’s here is memorable. There’s an old man with gas cans (leaded and unleaded). You tell him (or point) to what you want and he grabs a barrel … a gas can … and a length of black hose. He drags the barrel over and plunks the can on top so it’s higher than your car. Then he sticks one end of the hose into the can, sucks on the other until the gas starts flowing, and jams the hose into your tank.
After gassing up, we had every intention of eating at the hotel, but Sarah Jane announced a change of plans. Apparently, she’d wandered over to the café and met some interesting people. And what followed was something that seems only to happen when you’re on the road (or maybe only when you’re in Baja). The café, though modest, has an inside dining room and a pleasant, covered outdoor eating area. The exterior walls are boojum wood (which has an interesting vertical grain and is as “holey” as Swiss cheese).
We sat down and Sarah Jane introduced us to Tom VanDevender, Mark Dimmitt, and three of their colleagues from the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. They were in Baja doing a plant-life study, and during our conversation, they offered three additional only’s: The boulder fields we drove through? Only found in Baja. The tall, skinny boojum trees? Only found in Baja (with a small population in Sonora, on the mainland.) The cacti and plant life? One hundred species only found in Baja. And incredibly, as the conversation progressed, it turned out that both Tom and Mark had worked with a scientist who is a client of Sarah Jane’s (!) And that took a moment to sink in: guys from Arizona … us from New York … connected by this one man … in a small café … in the middle of Baja … at the same time. And just as I was speculating about degrees of separation, Eve Ewing walked over to say hello.
Eve turned out to be from the San Diego Natural History Museum and her connection to our adventure was equally improbable. Eve Ewing’s father was the first man to fly scientists to the San Ignacio lagoon to see the whales (!) And by the way, there’s again no need to look at a menu: order the machaca burritos (shredded, spiced beef) and some cheese quesadillas for the table. Terrific.
* * *
“Each year, Gray Whales undertake the longest migration of any mammal. They journey from their summer feeding grounds in the arctic to their winter breeding grounds in Baja. This is a 12,000-mile round-trip that goes from the Bering Strait, through the Aleutian Islands, past British Columbia, and along the coasts of Washington, Oregon, and California to three shallow lagoons in Baja. The whales stay in the arctic for 2-3 months then leave in October, and take 2-3 months to get to the lagoons. They remain in Baja for
2-3 months, and then take the same 2-3 months to return north. The whales travel close to shore most of the time, swimming at about 5-miles an hour and, typically, mature whales won’t eat (or sleep) during the entire trip.”
-Dick Russell
* * *
Day Two: Afternoon. Cataviña to Guerrero Negro. 145 miles. Long. Boring. A border.
This drive is tedious because it’s a very long stretch, and also because the landscape (until San Ignacio) is just a variation on themes you’ve already seen. But we finally arrived, and gassed up at the Pemex station before the border. Guerrero Negro is the crossing from the State of Baja California into the State of Baja California Sur, and Dick told us to put our watches ahead an hour. It seems that although we’d been traveling south, we’d also been traveling far enough east to be on Mountain Time.
We drove on, and a few interesting things happened at the border itself:
-
A man in a uniform walked over to Dick’s car, confiscated the apples he and his friends had been munching on, and fined him ten pesos. (The same man didn’t seem at all interested in the pretzels and chocolate Oreos on the back seat of our car).
-
Then someone else came over and requested another ten Pesos so a man in a mask and protective suit could spray each of our car’s four wheels with (Insecticide? Water? Beats me). Then a third man asked if we had Mexican Visas. Since we didn’t,
we were ushered into a small building, asked to fill out some forms, and told we had to find a bank and pay $22.00 to get them stamped. It just didn’t seem worthwhile to ask why we couldn’t pay right there.
(So now you know to get a visa or tourist card before you set out. But if you don‘t, you can go into town now and get it over with: drive down the main street a few kilometers to the bank on the right, just past the canal.)
* * *
“In order to eat, Gray Whales can dive down some 100 feet to the ocean floor, and stay for 30 minutes. Then they turn on their right side and suck up great quantities of mud and water, which they filter through 160 pair of short, smooth comb-like baleen in their mouths. The baleen trap the small bottom-dwelling creatures they feed on: small fish, crustaceans, squid, plankton, and other tiny organisms. At the end of their stay in the arctic, they will have built up a 10” layer of blubber, which they will live on for the duration of their round-trip journey.”
-Dick Russell
* * *
Day Two, Late Afternoon: Guerrero Negro to San Ignacio. 89 miles. Scruffy. Dusty. A surprise. Great breaded clams. These 89 miles are scruffy, dirty, and dusty but then, without warning, you turn a curve and see an enormous grove of palm trees. San Ignacio is an oasis town, but there’s no hint of it. The landscape doesn’t get a bit greener … then a bit more … then a bit more -- it’s nothing … nothing … nothing … BOOM -- palm trees everywhere (planted by Jesuit missionaries over 300 years ago, and fed by an underground river).
The town itself is about 2 or 3 kilometers off the main road and you drive through this amazing palm grove until you get to the La Pinta; with décor as odd as its San Quintin sister, but again with large comfortable rooms and … only a three-minute drive to Rene’s for dinner.
Rene’s serves fresh-caught fish and local lobster, but (I know I’m getting doctrinaire) you should order breaded Pismo clams all around, plus an order or two of scallops in garlic for the table. And say hello to Victor, the elegant and personable owner.
Note: there is an interesting lodging alternative to the hotel, and that’s the San Ignacio Springs Bed and Breakfast, run by Gary and Terry Marcer, a Canadian couple who fell in love with the area. You stay here in Yurts (circular, domed, portable tents used by the nomadic Mongols of central Asia). But before you wrinkle up your nose, these Yurts couldn’t be more modern or comfortable. Each has a large bed, hand-carved furniture from Mexico City, plus a night table with touch lamps. There are windows and screen doors, and there is even a Yurt large enough to accommodate a bed, dining table, couch, standing floor mirror, bookshelves, and a microwave. The B&B is right on the San Ignacio River, and has outdoor patios, kayaks, fishing, and lovely shower and restroom facilities.
* * *
“There are typically 150-200 whales in the 60-square mile lagoon at any one time. The first to arrive in late December/early January are the pregnant females … then the mature breeding adults … and finally, the year-olds. Mature females can give birth once every two years, and single calves are born after a 12-13 month gestation period. Another gray, called an “auntie,” sometimes helps the mother when a calf is born. Newborns are 15 feet long, weigh 1500-2000 pounds, and are nursed for 7-8 months on milk that is 53% fat (ten times richer than cow’s milk). Calves need this fat to build up their own layer of blubber for the long trip north, and by the time they leave Baja, they will have gained about 1,000 pounds.”
-Dick Russell
* * *
Day Three, Morning: Town to the Lagoon. 37 (on a road you won’t believe) miles.
After breakfast you might want to spend a little time exploring San Ignacio. Father Francisco Maria Piccolo founded the town in 1716, and the lovely old mission church on the square was completed in 1786. Its walls are made from volcanic rock that’s four-foot thick, and this is one of the reasons the church had remained standing and virtually unaltered, throughout the years. San Ignacio is also the starting place for trips to the cave paintings of the Sierra of San Francisco, paintings some 800 - 1,000 years old, done by a people whose name is lost to history. You’ll find stores on the square that arrange excursions.
After sightseeing, check your spare and jack again, then steel yourself for what’s coming: 37 miles of washboard road that go from dreadfully awful … to extremely awful … to indescribably awful. In addition, you have two options: go slow, take 3 hours, and have your insides shaken out … or go fast, take 1-1/2 hours, and have your insides shaken out. (Are you getting it that the only constant is having your insides shaken out?)
I started out at a cautious 5-10 miles an hour but Sarah Jane suggested we try going faster. I soon discovered that at 35-40 we were able skim over the top of some of the bumps. (Dick, bless him, already knew this and had disappeared in a dust cloud less than 5 seconds into the trip.) You will have to discover for yourself how fast you’re comfortable driving, and much rattling around you think your car can take. Finally, water blessedly appeared off in the distance and, feeling shaken and stirred, we reached the lagoon and turned left.
* * *
“In February of 1972, Pachico Mayoral, a fisherman, had the first encounter with a friendly gray whale. A gray approached while he was out in his boat. He was frightened, but the whale stayed alongside. Then … Pachico petted its head. I don’t know what finally compelled me to reach out my hand. The moment I touched the whale for the first time, I felt something incredible. I lost my fear. I was amazed. It was like breaking through some kind of invisible wall. And I kept touching. That moment I compare with when my first child was born. It leaves a deep impression in my heart. Local legend holds that Pachico taught the whales to interact with people. And until science can explain their behavior, this will just have to do.”
-Dick Russell
* * *
Pachico lives in the second house just after you turn left. He figures prominently in Dick’s book so we stopped to say hello. Pachico came out of his house, embraced Dick warmly, and greeted the rest of us. He has a heavily-lined, ageless face (60? 70? 80?) and would have been Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea had the writer met him. Looking at Pachico, I absolutely believed he taught the whales to interact with humans (and, in fact, would have believed anything mystical or spiritual anyone said about him).
If you’ve just gone to the lagoon for a day trip, you can go out with Pachico and see about his special relationship with the whales for yourself. But since we were staying overnight, we reluctantly said our goodbyes and headed for Maldo Fisher’s Campo Cortés, another thirty minutes or so down the road.
Day Three, Afternoon: Campo Cortés. Howling wind. First whales. Campo Cortés is comprised of eight or nine sparking white tents (each with two cots, sleeping bags, and rugs covering the sandy floor), an outhouse and shower, and two palapas (thatched buildings with roofs of woven palm leaves encased in wooden frames). The smaller palapa is the kitchen, and the larger the dining hall. As we ate lunch, we could hear the wind picking up. Although it’s always a bit windy at the lagoon, this was beginning to sound like more than a “bit.”
When you think of Baja, you probably think of heat and sun, but during the months the whales are there (January - February - March) the weather at the lagoon can vary from sandals, shorts, and t-shirts -- to heavy socks, woolen sweaters, and rainproof windbreakers. Pack with these variables in mind or you could be very uncomfortable. Also, pack layers so you can put some on or take some off, and be sure to bring a flashlight or two (with new batteries). Campo Cortés will send you a checklist. Pay attention to it.
We set out with Maldo in one of his pangas (open, 7-9 passenger boats traditionally used by lagoon fisherman). It was cold and wet -- and the wind was causing pretty heavy chop. Now I’m a city kid, but it was soon apparent even to me how masterful Maldo was in handling the boat. He was minimizing the waves as much as possible but, despite his skill, this was getting to be cold-water-in-the-face-unpleasant. Just as I was really beginning to question what the hell I was doing out there, we saw our first whale. She did a spy hop; she raised her head out of the water -- like she was standing on her tail -- and checked us out. I even got a fleeting glimpse of her eye.
* * *
"The eye is so big, and you sense an intelligence in it, that these are creatures who have knowledge and understanding that we’re only beginning to appreciate.”
-Christopher Reeve, as quoted in
Dick Russell, Eye of the Whale
* * *
Then another whale cruised by in the near distance. And one did the insurance-company-TV-commercial shot; slipping into the water and showing us the full breadth of his tail. Then a baby came near the boat, and a mother and another baby swam close by. This pair looked like they wanted to approach us, but hesitated because the waves were just too rough. If anything, the wind picked up even more, so Maldo took us in.
Day Three, Night:. Campo Cortés. Dinner. Sky. Tent. We were all cold and disappointed when we got to shore. And although the wind continued to howl, the staff built a warm fire in the middle of the palapa, we had margaritas, and ate a wonderful dinner prepared by Maldo’s wife of chicken mole, tortillas, guacamole, beans, and salad. Then Maldo showed a video he’d made on the boat a few days before. Every gray whale in the western hemisphere seemed to have gathered for the delight of this lucky group of passengers.
Cynical New York me secretly believed this was an edited highlights reel, but even so, given our frustrating afternoon, I wasn’t sure watching this tape was such a good idea. Had all the friendly whales grown tired of humans? Would the wind howl again tomorrow? Would we see anything closer than we did today? Would we get to pet anything?
Finally, it was bedtime and, flashlights in hand, Sarah Jane and I headed toward our tent. Then I saw the sky. It stopped me right where I stood. I’d never seen a sky like this. If you live in a city or anywhere near one, you just don’t.
We were miles and hours from any kind of electric light, and the heavens were astonishing. Countless, unimaginably bright stars. This sky was a participant in my life. Right in my face. It was a presence I couldn’t ignore and it was everywhere I looked -- from horizon to horizon. I had a sense of how ancient peoples must have felt when they looked up, and it made me feel all the clichés I would ordinarily snicker at: astounded, awed, astonished … inconsequential, irrelevant, insignificant. This sky wasn’t a planetarium show, it was the real deal. Amazing.
I wanted to keep standing there, but it was too cold and the wind was just too strong. So I went into the tent. Sarah Jane was already bundled up in her sleeping bag. I’d never even set foot inside a tent before … never been in a sleeping bag … and certainly never contemplated sleeping under the roof of one while encased in the other. But I did have some idea of what to expect, sleep-wise. And I was right. I don’t think I slept at all because I remember the exact moment the sides of the tent stopped flapping. The wind had died down. I smiled.
Day Four, Morning: Campo Cortés. The whales (oh my) the whales. Having slept (Badly? Sporadically? At all?) had its compensations. As I saw the world brighten through the canvas walls, I staggered out in time to see sunrise on the lagoon. This sight didn’t match last night’s sky, but since my terrific-outdoor-experiences list was extremely shot, it made it, no sweat. Plus, I was delighted to see I hadn’t hallucinated the wind abating. It was relatively calm. So we had breakfast and were in the boat by 9:30.
It takes about 20 minutes to get from camp to the whale-watching area of the bay and when we arrived, Maldo stopped the boat and, with the motor idling, looked around. Dick told us that the whales are drawn by the sound of the motor, but there was nothing. A few minutes passed. Still nothing. Then Maldo moved to another location, relatively near by. Nothing (and I really began to regret watching that video). Nothing. Nothing. Then … everything.
You hear that a mother gray whale can be forty-feet long and weigh forty tons, and you smile and nod. But you have absolutely no idea what this means until mama and a baby swim toward you and mama’s back breaks the surface of the water. It’s huge. And it takes your breath away. And you hear about how the whales of San Ignacio come over to your boat, and you smile and nod. But you have no idea what this means until mama and baby continue to swim toward you, then turn aside or swim under the boat. (Sometimes mama gives it the gentlest nudge to let you know she’s there.)
These animals could crush the boat like a toothpick -- but they don’t. They could overturn it in an eye blink -- but they don’t. They could ram you and not even feel it -- but they don’t. Or they could just avoid you like every other species in the wild -- but they don’t. And when you begin to realize this, and also begin to realize you don’t have the slightest feeling of threat, you begin to sense the mystery and miracle of this experience.
Mama resurfaced very close to us and spouted. Grays spout often (making a noise that sounds something like chufff) and when they do, you can see a rainbow through the fine mist. As the mist covered us, Sarah Jane said: “This is like being blessed by holy water.”
We began to see whales all around us … and it soon it resembled a kiddy beauty pageant: proud mothers eagerly showing off their beautiful children.
Whale mothers introduced us to their babies (and there simply isn’t another word for it). The babies come alongside to be petted (there isn’t another word). Some mothers taught their babies this behavior (no other word) by nudging them toward us, or swimming under and floating them up. And the babies played and showed off (no other words): they swam upside down … rolled over and over … swam on their sides -- shoving, splashing, bumping, and raising up their heads to get a good look at us.
The babies’ skin is soft and rubbery and one even opened his mouth so someone could stroke his gums. There was a magical 15-minute period when six whales surrounded our boat, with the babies swimming over each other vying for our attention (OK, so you come up with a better word). The whales enjoy being petted, they enjoy interacting with us. If they didn’t -- they just wouldn’t do it.
One baby in particular, with a distinctive brown patch on its side, seemed to like us very much. A few other boats were in the area so he would go over for a moment to investigate, but then come back to us time and again.
I kept petting this baby and couldn’t help wondering about his journey north. I very badly wanted this baby to travel safely, to live a long life, to mate, and to return to San Ignacio again and again. But Killer whales lay in his path, as do Makah tribesmen in Washington State, allowed once again to hunt grays.
I became attached to this whale and this isn’t the kind of thing that happens to me: to new age people, yes. To earthy-crunchies, yes. To tree-huggers, yes. To me, no. Until now. This 2,000-pound creature made a profound impact on me. One I won’t soon forget.
Just as it was time to go back in, one of the babies swam away from us on his side, with a flipper sticking up in the air. As he swam, the flipper swayed back and forth, looking nothing less than a wave goodbye.
At some point in your life you probably said: “This was the most amazing experience I’ve ever had.” But you know … you can’t ever say this sentence again until you experience the Gray Whales of San Ignacio. No other experience is the “most amazing.” This one is. And although we use words to communicate, words pretty much fail here. This encounter is beyond their power. However, when you and people close to you experience the whales for yourselves -- you won’t need words. All you’ll have to do is look at each other … and smile.
So I got to see whales (well over a dozen). I got to look whales in the eye (at least five times). I got to pet whales (many, many). But I didn’t get my kiss.
Next year.
* * *
“The Mexicans say the Gray Whales are ‘tame.’ Yet they are not domesticated. We did not break them as we might a horse. They tamed themselves -- to come to us, their time-honored enemy, in the place where they give birth. And, mysteriously, it feels as if this is how it should be, how it used to be. The commonality is primordial. We are molded of the same clay.”
-Dick Russell
* * *
-
Eye of the Whale, Dick Russell. Simon Schuster, 2001.
-
Campo Cortéz:
Toll-Free Telephone: 877-560-BAJA (2252)
Email: info@bajaecotours.com
Web-site: www.bajaecotours.com
-
La Pinta Hotels:
Hotels in Ensenada, San Quintin, Cataviña, Guerrero Negro, San Ignacio, and Loreto
Toll-Free Telephone: 800-800-9632.
Web-site: www.lapintahotels.com
-
San Ignacio Springs Bed & Breakfast:
Gary and Terry Marcer
Phone messages: 011-52-615-154-0333
Email:mail@ignaciosprings.com
|
Or jump straight to:
Dick Russel
James Dorsey
Rick Harbo
Steve Schwartz
Heather Somers
Emily Celino
Rick Armon
Paula Walker
Sharon Anderson
Marie Dalcourt
Peter Brueggeman
Steve Macial |
