Back in August we bid on and won a 10 day stay in a casita in Los Barriles, a small town on the Sea of Cortez on the Baja peninsula. It was donated by Chris and Christina Geyer, former Wallowa county residents and their casita has become a home away from home for a number of Wallowa county residents. They were fantastic hosts, with loads of advice and cerveza and they put up with us disappearing for days at a time. And there were so many places to go!
We started off by catching the last day of Carnaval in La Paz, about an hour and half from where we were staying. The last parade night was Tuesday night and we were lucky to catch it. Fat Tuesday was a very literal description of the night, with booths serving piles of savory tacos, delicious gorditas and the most beautiful candy displays you've ever seen and so much more. Not surprisingly, we ate as much as possible!
The floats in the parade were amazing. Carnaval meets Roman gods seemed to be the theme. I won't bore you with all the floats, just the best ones!
We stayed in La Paz the next day for a kayak/snorkel trip that we caught last minute. While the kayaking was for an incredibly short amount of time, we did get to see dolphins and whales, swim with some sea lions.
From there we used Los Barriles as home base, seeing as much of the Baja peninsula as we could. We made it to Cabo Pulmo, a beautiful national park with great snorkeling, mostly empty beaches, and a restaurant that served amazing squid and shrimp tacos. We made it here 2 days and I know we could (and hopefully will) spend more time there in the future! Keith even saw a sea turtle while snorkeling!
We made it to two hot springs in one day. El Chorro was a bit of a surprise. It was crowded when we got there, so Keith went for a short hike and I hung out and read. By the time he got back, the place had cleared out and we got in the little rock pool that was warmer and then I freaking lost it! As soon as we got in there I felt this weird tickling on my back. I was being eaten by fishes! While Keith was totally fine this, I could not handle it for the life of me! I was laughing so hard at how ticklish this was I just about fell out of the pool.
There was also a side trip to Todos Santos, a cute place with a bunch of at galleries, delicious margaritas and where we got to see a few not even a day old baby turtles that were going to released into the sea later that day. And a day or so lounging on the quiet beaches of Punta Pescadero.
There was so much more than this and still so much more to do. I really hope we go back, actually I'm sure that we will! Next time, hopefully we'll have more time and our own sea kayaks!
