Baja Road Trip – Guerrero Negro to San Ignacio

Monday, January 4th – Guerrero Negro to San Ignacio

Our alarm is set for 6:30 with breakfast scheduled for 7:00 A.M. and our whale tour at 7:30. John and Will look a little bleary eyed from a long night in the bar and the cook hasn’t arrived so there is no breakfast. The day is overcast and it is raining. Our whale tour is postponed an hour and we have serious misgivings about going at all. The cook arrives and after huevo ranchero’s and coffee everyone feels a bit livelier but we decide to cancel the tour. We pass an hour in our rooms and at 9:00 A.M. drive to the security checkpoint where we hope to get our tourist visas but the office is closed. The morning is not off to a very good start. 

There isn’t much to Guerrero Negro but I read in the guidebook that there is a cafe worth visiting that is just down from our hotel. We pass another hour drinking remarkably good cappucchino’s, check e-mail and Facebook and watch the rain drizzle down. Around 11:00 A.M. the sun begins to break through the clouds and we set out driving towards San Ignacio. We look for the turn off to Laguna Ojo de Liebre, where the whale tours originate, find the turn off easily and drive the well graded dirt road towards the lagoon. About five kilometers in there is a guard station where we register our names and our vehicle’s license plate and are waved on with vague directions to the lagoon. The alien salt flat landscape is starkly beautiful. Low clumps of foliage are lightly dusted with sand and salt and the compacted dry sand is etched with evaporated water ripples. Stagnant pools of water are a stained and iridescent with various mineral deposits; red, ochre and green. We drive 15 kilometers on the wide and well graded dirt highway, keeping a look out for the whale logo and arrow when we come to forks in the road.

We arrive at the lagoon, park our car next to one of the other two cars in an immense parking area and walk to the staging building to investigate our whale tour options. One can go on a 1 1/2 hour boat tour out in the lagoon for $45 each. The clouds are still threatening but we decide to give it a go and I buy 4 tickets for the tour. We carry our life vests out the narrow pier and climb aboard a large open panga. A Mexican family of 6 buys tickets right after us and are with us on the tour. I am hopeful that we will have a whale encounter of an awesome kind but we are too early in the season. We motor out across the flat water of the bay, our boat washboarding roughly as it speeds over the water. On several occasions the thump is hard enough to hurt my back but nothing that 3 Advil doesn’t cure. We do see whales and get fairy close to a few, but the stories told by friends of ours, of mother whales with their babies coming right up beside the boat do not unfold. Nevertheless, our nearly two hours out on the water is pleasant, it does not rain and we are happy to have taken the tour. 

Whale Skeleton – Laguna Ojo de Liebre

On our return drive across the salt flats to the main highway we stop several times for Will to examine the unusual plant life of this ecosystem. A sight that I am getting used to seeing is Will down on the ground, butt in the air, examining a flower or seed through his field lens. He points out an especially beautiful plant; the crystalline ice plant, a peachy rose colored succulent with delicate sprays of star like flowers.

Will and John Examining Plant Life

Crystalline Ice Plant

We power onto San Ignacio stopping for a very late lunch in Vizcino. The restaurant is very cute and we leave full but the the food is not inspired.

Lunch Stop in Vizcino

Lunch Stop in Vizcino

Because of our late start, we arrive in San Ignacio at 5:00 P.M. and stop at Beans and Rice Motel to ask about accommodations. I am not impressed with the bare bone drafty rooms and suggest that we drive into town to investigate other options. We drop down into sleepy San Ignacio, an oasis of palm trees clustered along the river. We pass by the Canadian run San Ignacio Springs B and B and are fortunate that they have a family room available with two queen beds, a day bed and a separate sitting room. Because we own a house in Baja she extends us a 10% discount so the rate including taxes and breakfast for the 4 of us is $U.S.114.00. Except for Art’s bicycle, we have packed lightly and we are unloaded quickly. It is a short distance into San Ignacio in search of dinner. At the suggestion of our B & B host, we go to her daughters restaurant for dinner. Tootsie’s Bar and Grill is tucked away on a back street off of the Zocalo. Because of our late lunch, none of us are terribly hungry and John and Will share a quesadilla. I order a beet salad which is an uninspired plate of overcooked, pickled beets, not what I hoped for or expected. Art orders a different salad and unfortunately none of us are impressed with our meals.

Tootsie’s Restaurant, San Ignacio