Hola Everybody:
Once again hope this finds you well. I promise that this will be the last instalment since our trip is coming to an end. Stan is homesick and I must admit that I'm feeling a little homesick myself. Eating in restaurants and staying in hotels sounds good theoretically and it is good, for a while, but my stomach is now starting to rebel and the anonymity of hotel rooms is starting to grate a little. Nevertheless we have had a very good time since leaving San Ignacio. We arrived in Guerrero Negro and visited the town. G.N. is mostly famous for its whale trips and salt. In the interim we discovered that Mexico is the largest exporter of salt in the world. Something for you to ruminate on. Since we had already gone whale viewing and that watching salt dry, literally, (they have tours!) was not in the equation we only stayed one night. We did have a fabulous seafood meal of jumbo shrimps (scampis) and fish at a very reasonable price. We have been eating a lot of seafood and very little meat.
The next day we left for what we thought would be Rosarito but it didn't really capture our fancy so we pushed on for Ensenada. We arrived quite late and it was dark and we didn't have a place to stay. Stan was hungry and grumpy so we parked and went for a bite to eat. We soon discovered that Ensenada has a booming trade in....VIAGRA! Yes Viagra, there is a pharmacy on just about every corner and I suspect a lot of now "horny" white, elderly male gringos walking around although we didn't see any. I suppose they were out there lurking somewhere, the trade must be lucrative since it's so heavily advertised. The tag line in Spanish is "Esta noche puede ser tu noche" which means "Tonight can be your night"....
O.K. besides being the viagra capital of Baja Norte Ensenada is also a fairly big port where a lot of cruise ships come calling. There was one when we arrived and another one showed up a few days later. Ensenada is also a fantastic place to sample seafood. They have the best seafood market I have ever seen in all of Mexico. The choices are quite staggering and the prices very reasonable. They also have a lot of simple restaurants which serve all matters of seafood. We had raw oyster for about 5 dollars the half dozen. They were very yummy, I don't want to say "runny". I really enjoy raw oysters so that doesn't turn me off at all.
We also went to a fancier restaurant where I had coconut jumbo shrimps and Stan had lobster, the Pacific kind, without the claws, which is called langouste. We shared so we could both enjoy the dishes. It's the most we've ever paid for a meal in Mexico but it was definitely worth it.
In our never-ending quest for the perfect whale encounter we booked a trip for the following day but this time on a much bigger boat. While our whale encounter wasn't quite as perfect as we might have liked, our dolphin encounter was totally magical. We started spotting pods of dolphins shortly after departure and thereafter we were in dolphin heaven. There must have been hundreds of them in huge schools. They were everywhere, having lots of fun swimming ahead of the boat and beside it. They were so close we could clearly see them right into the water. At one point about 20 or 30 of them all jumped out of the water in unison, it was truly an unforgettable sight and it really warmed my dolphin heart. We did see three whales but we never got that close. Still whales are always an incredible sight and we followed them for a while. The weather was perfect, no wind and no clouds. A glorious day all in all.
Today we drove to San Felipe which is on the Sea of Cortez. It's a cute, little town but like everywhere else it's rather empty of tourists. The whole place seems kind of of sad. There are stores, restaurants, hotels all basically sitting empty. It does get rather depressing. Americans have been scared away because of the narco wars. They think Mexico is one big "shoot em up", Of course the economic crisis has not helped matters either. We've had a wonderful trip. We know that a little bit of winter will still be waiting for us but we also know that we've been incredibly lucky to miss what is turning out to be a very, very cold winter so not reasons to complain. Hope you've enjoyed reading about our escapades and like I promised this is the end, at least for this trip. Hasta luego,

Josiane

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