BajaNomad

Mysterious Magdalena Ruins, March & April 2012 Baja Bound newsletters

David K - 3-16-2012 at 09:36 AM

It is an interesting short sidetrip, between Santa Roaslia and Mulege, Part 1:
http://www.bajabound.com/bajatravel/mysterious_magdalena_rui...

[Edited on 4-26-2012 by David K]

David K - 3-25-2012 at 02:56 PM

I am hoping that Russ gets in there before it gets too hot and takes some of his great photos of the ruins and the mission-age pila that I didn't get to... (just a short distance west of the ruins).

Pescador - 3-25-2012 at 03:59 PM

We have run up there a half dozen times and it is a really fun site to explore. The road above San Jose de Magdelena got washed out from Jimena but now has been reponed. There are lots of Wild Fig roots that cover the rock faces in the canyons and it is really beautiful. Most people were coming in from the Mulege valley side for the last couple of years, so it is great that the other side is reopened.

On the last trip we noticed a dead animal hanging from a tree and it looked like nothing I had ever seen before. When I showed the pics to a local, he explained that it was a type of fox that is seen sometimes in the backcountry. It had the color of a skunk, but a much longer nose and the body was definately not a skunk. He told me it was a fox that is especially fond of chickens and eggs and the ranchers that live back there shoot every one they see and they like to hang them in the trees as a warning to the others.

There is also a road that takes off from very near there and it goes up to the very top of the mountains where you can see the Sea of Cortez to the East and the Pacific Ocean to the West.

David K - 3-25-2012 at 06:28 PM

Was it a babisuri?




(above photo taken on Isla San Jose by Alejandra de Baja)

LaPazGringo - 3-25-2012 at 06:49 PM

Or a coatimundi?


Mexitron - 3-25-2012 at 08:04 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by David K
It is an interesting short sidetrip, between Santa Roaslia and Mulege:
http://www.bajabound.com/bajatravel/mysterious_magdalena_rui...


Nice article David!

David K - 3-26-2012 at 10:54 AM

Thanks Steve... I will be doing a story on the 'other' Magdalena ruins, next month!

Pescador - 3-26-2012 at 04:25 PM

Neither, David, it was a fox that is black with white spots that kind of resembles a skunk or Civet Cat in coloring. I have only seen one in the headlights so I should have taken a good picture.

David K - 3-26-2012 at 07:00 PM

Thanks...

4x4abc - 4-1-2012 at 09:58 AM

it's a ring tailed cat:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring-tailed_cat

David K - 4-1-2012 at 11:27 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by 4x4abc
it's a ring tailed cat:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring-tailed_cat


Yes, that is the English name... Babisuri is what the Baja people usually call it. The one in Alejandra's photo seems to have a extra long tail!

David K - 4-16-2012 at 01:27 PM

The next article should be out soon, and it is about the 'other' Santa Maria Magdalena, discovered by Choral Pepper and the Erle Stanley Gardner expedition of 1966... 35 miles by road from Bahia de las Angeles.

David K - 4-25-2012 at 06:30 PM

The next article has just been posted on Baja Bound's newsletter... and is a follow up to last month's Magdalena mission mystery!

The Santa Maria Magdalena shown on Jesuit maps and lists (north of Santa Gertrudis) may have been what Choral Pepper, Erle Stanley Gardner and others found in 1966... and we re-visted in 2009: http://www.bajabound.com/bajatravel/mystery_at_las_animas.ph...