Although we have enjoyed warm, sunny weather, the northern part of the desert has received a fair amount of rain in the last month so the desert is green and the wildflowers are abundant. There are Century Plants, Cirios (Boojum Trees), Yucca Trees, Barrel Cactus, and a variety of other desert plants and yellow, orange, red and purple wildflowers. So lucky to see this beauty in the desert!

The drive from Guerrero Negro to Bahia de los Angeles was spectacular! We were all stunned by the beautiful wildflowers blanketing the desert. Another pleasant surprise was the road -- much better than Mex-1.

As we began our decent to the "Bay of L.A." we got our first view of the Sea of Cortez and the islands. Another stunner. We stayed in Daggett's RV park, right on the beach. Even though there are no hook-ups, this would rank very high on my list of favorite parks. There are defined RV spaces, each with a palapa and fire pit. And ... hot showers!! I've gotten so accustomed to cold showers that a hot shower stands out as a highlight!

Fortunately for us, the water was calm and the wind wasn't blowing much. We had a great beach walk down to the lighthouse and enjoyed collecting shells. (Dave has been very patient with my shell searching).

We had a nice group excursion to the local museum, a gallery, the onyx church, and a viewpoint overlooking the area.

We met some folks with an inflatable double kayak (something we may have to add to our inventory) and they offered to let us try it out. Once again, we had the thrill of kayaking with a small group of dolphins. It doesn't matter how many times you do this, it is always magical!!

This new caravan is a great group of people and they have really bonded during the trip. We only get to be with them for a few days, but they are sure to be fun!!

We had a great Margaritaville Happy Hour and potluck, complete with moose burgers, a bon fire and a few songs around the fire.

We loved the Bay of L.A., although we realize our conditions were nearly perfect and it wouldn't be as pleasant when the wind picks up.

This caravan group was very prompt and lined up and ready to leave ahead of time! We have a total of 9 RV's in the group. The drive started out beautiful but became less beautiful as we approached Guerrero Negro. We expected this as we remembered it to be dry and flat on our way through in January.

We left the tourquoise waters of Bahia Concepcion, passed through Santa Rosalia on the Sea of Cortes, the steep and windy mountainous road passing by the Tres Virgenes Volcanos, then through the desert palm oasis of San Ignacio. We decended down into the flat Vizcaino Desert, with the vegetation becoming more sparse as we traveled. The desert runs down the Pacific side of the peninsula, nearly to the tip. There is high salt concentration which limits the growth of vegetation. In fact, Guerro Negro is home to a huge salt mining enterprise.

We had an unexpected surprise on our desert drive, and there were beautiful purple, orange and yellow wild flowers in bloom, scattered among the cacti.

We arrived at Mario's RV Park, a parking lot behind a palapa restaurant. Guerrero Negro wouldn't be our favorite place to stop unless we had time for whale watching. It is a fine stop-over if you're tired and need a break, or for whale watching, but otherwise I'd keep going in the future.

We spent over two weeks at Playa Santispak and are sad to leave the beach today, but we got in one last kayak trip before packing up. The wind was picking up early, so we headed back behind the beach to a mangrove lagoon. It was very cool (and well protected) and we saw lots of beautiful herons, including Yellow Crowned Night Herons, Great Blue Herons and Little Blue Herons. We noticed at one point that the water was steaming, and when we felt the water it was steaming hot (literally)! There is a natural hot spring flowing in to the lagoon.

We checked into the RV Park at Hotel Serenidad (in Mulege) and then took a cab in to town to do laundry, buy groceries and have one last lunch at our favorite little restaurant, Dany's. We will miss this place, too.

We think this area is the "sweet spot" of Baja. We started feeling right at home in this community. While plenty of tourists pass through (mainly in RV's) and there is a pretty sizeable group of Americans who live here half of the year, the town isn't defined by tourism. It still feels like a small Mexican town. The area is very "tranquilo", people are friendly and lively, and it was a great place to call our home base for the last month.

We met up with our new wagon masters (Larry and Janet) and some of the folks from the caravan. They seem to be having a great time together and should be fun travel partners.

There are many islands within view of Playa Santispak so every day we would go kayaking and explore. One of our favorite islands had a beautiful sand spit, beach with lots of shells, and pretty decent snorkeling right from the beach. There are a lot of sting rays, so I get freaked out by them and stay close to Dave. The most interesting sighting was the Cortez Angel Fish. Beautiful!!

One of our other favorite beach vendors was Jose. We met him a week or so ago when we went out on a panga ride to tour the beaches and snorkel. He also has a double kayak that he rents, and he sells water. So we used all of his services and were probably some of his best customers ever, as we rented his kayak every day.

Today was very special, as it was hot and there wasn't a breath of wind. We decided to paddle out further in the bay to explore an island that had caught our eye. As we approached the island I saw the splashing of dolphins just a bit further out so we kept paddling until we were in the middle of the pod of dolphins. They were swimming all around us and even under us. This was a first for me to just sit in the middle of them, in silence, and enjoy their jumping and playing. Pure magic!