BajaNomad

The Start-Home to Las Animas

Fatboy - 6-28-2005 at 09:51 PM

Between June 10th and the 20th we went on a camping/kayak trip with our two children, ages 7 and 10, in a Jeep Wrangler (yeah, we are nuts!). What follows are my updated journal entries for the 10th through the 13th. Because of the lack of standard format it will probably be a little difficult to read at times, hope you all enjoy it anyways...

TUESDAY JUNE 7th 2005
Debbie and the kids left Anderson on Tuesday the 9th at 10:30 am and got to Coalinga at 4:30pm in the Jeep

FRIDAY JUNE 10th 2005
Coalinga Departure 8:17 am
WEATHER-Overcast/Fog?
5:00 pm
Traffic Jams and bank searching caused just of tension. Found bank and are on our way, hope to make it before dark to set camp or else round two will start.

Lunch off of 5 in L.A. Border at 6:50, short line at the border. We crossed at Tijuana, short wait to cross only about 20 minutes. Tijuana driving was crazy as usual, people cutting people off, making three lanes out two, nuts! Outside of town there was one section with the terrible smell of sewage.

It was dark by the time we got to Ensenada.
Tried two hotels, one was full and one was too much money, before we stayed at the third one because Debbie needed to use the restroom. It was a nice room even if it was a little pricey at $65

Ensenada hotel (Ensenada Inn) around 9PM.
Long day, 8am to 9pm, everyone tired and grumpy (adults at least).
$65 for hotel
Jeep ran fine-had to move kayaks a couple of times

SATURDAY JUNE 11th 2005
LOCATION Ensenada
WEATHER-Overcast
428 MILES
Gigante shopping
Leave Ensenada 11:00am
Gas El Rosario 140113
Ate at Mission Taco, bought some painted shells for the kids.
220 pesos 36 ? L
It was at dusk when we turned off at the junction for Bahia de los Angeles, we even had some drizzly rain on the way south of El Rosario.

We are taking a break and it is overcast and cool. About 30 miles out of BOLA the wind was blowing like mad, pushing the jeep all over the road. On some of the gusts I thought that it might flip us over.

Made it to BOLA at 8pm stayed at motel.
Another nice motel, again $65 a night. Very nice rooms, no TP in the toilet and no hot water till about 8am in the morning.

Very windy

Stocked up on supply and after driving through the wrong part of town where we where told, ?no road? and we stopped at Diaz?s for directions before we found the correct road out of town. We where heading for Las Animas.

Now that we are on the correct road we drove past the ruins of the town of Las Flores where there is still one or two old buildings remaining, some dark red, almost burgundy slag heaps from the old mines and some graves. They could have been the graves of the Daggetts, some English sailors that jumped ship around the 1880?s or ?90?s, we should have stopped and checked them out.

The scenery was great through the valley outside of town. You have mountains on both sides while the valley floor is covered with tall Cardon cactus.

We stopped after driving for about one hour out of BOLA where another road forked off towards the south, where there was another grave. It is hard to imagine people living here. 40 miles from anything, no signs of water other some dry washes, nothing, nowhere!

Back in the jeep and after winding our way the mountains to the east it wasn?t much longer before we were at the turn off to Las Animas. This is a single track through the desert, weaving in and out of the vegetation and every now and then dropping down and following a wash for a short distance before popping back up to weaving in and out of the cactus.

We where starting to wonder how much longer when we finally came to a small hill with glimpses of the gulf up ahead. After another mile or so we came out on to a large empty lagoon with dunes keeping the gulf from flooding it any longer.

We passed several camps looking for a quiet, secluded camping spot. We drove out to an sand spit and crossed the entrance to another lagoon. This one floods with every high tide and we were lucky that we reached it at low tide. There was only 20 feet of water to cross and it was only a few inches deep, in the dry spots you could look down and see hundreds of little crabs scurrying away from the jeep. The trail led on between two low hills where people were already camped so we headed west on the north facing beach looking for our spot.

After reaching the end of the beach there was a narrow trail leading into the rocky hills where I hoped we would find a spot. Shifting into four low Debbie wheeled up and over a small hill where the track ended and we where forced to turn around. We selected a spit in about the middle of the beach back along the way we came about ??s of a mile from the nearest other camp.

After setting up camp it was only mid afternoon so we had plenty of time for walking the beach and hit the water. It was just a little on the cool side but just about perfect. Debbie was afraid of the ocean and would only go in up to her knees. Justin on the other hand had no problems, he is afraid of sharks in the shower at home but here there was no worries.

SUNDAY JUNE 12th 2005
LOCATION BOLA
WEATHER-clear/warm/windy
Leave at 8:23 am
Camped at Las Animas
Nothing special just kicked it after driving 1186 miles in the last 2 ? days.


MONDAY JUNE 13th 2005
LOCATION Las Animas
WEATHER Sunny/Warm/Afternoon wind

Seen Bioluminense last night-way cool!
O.K., as far as visual experiences go seeing Bioluminense ranks right up there at the top. One time I saw the Northern Lights and they are simply amazing, yet here was something just as amazing. I had read about Bioluminense in several different places and had hoped to be able to see it on this trip.

We are camped at Las Animas, which I was told translates to The Spirits. We have set up camp on the dunes above the waters edge with a long, gently curving beach in front of us where we had spent the day sea shell hunting, swimming and building sand castles.

It was probably around 9pm that night, maybe even later, when I walked to the edge of the dunes from where our camp was setup after taking some long exposure pictures of the kids. The pictures were a lot of fun to take, I would pose the kids and tell them that when I say ?go?, to move around. With good use of the spotlight to light them up it was possible to have them appear in several spots in the same picture.

We had taken about ten pictures of them goofing off when I walked to the edge of the dunes to watch the waves break on shore in the moonlight. At first I thought it was moonlight on the white crests of the waves as they broke on the beach, but it was too bright. Too bright is not exactly right either, the larger waves crested with a flash, almost as if someone had shined a blacklight on them, the same way you would see a white Tee Shirt glow in the dark from one.

You could watch it advance down the beach since the waves were hitting the beach at a slight angle. After calling everyone over and having to calm Justin down from being upset because he could not see it since I had shined the spotlight in his eyes while taking the pictures, we all walked down to the beach to check it out up close.

Even though the moon was only halfway on its monthly journey to a Full Moon it cast so much light in the clear desert air with no city lights or air pollution to obliterate the millions of stars out that I wished that for this one night that there was no moon out.

On the white sand beach the moon was bright enough to cast your shadow. We were able to walk on the beach with just the moonlight to light our way.

At the waters edge we watched the oceans natural light display, with each breaking wave it would light up and down the beach, marching from right to left in front of us as we stood there in awe.

Up close it was more of glowing dark green color. Here and there you would see the water glowing as these little plankton gave off their light for no apparent reason at all.

Throwing sand or splashing the water caused hundreds of them to glow and light the surface of the water with a pale green light wherever the water was disturbed. Throwing seaweed in was one of the best ways to enjoy the light show.

The glowing plankton was in the sand, the seaweed and the water and with every disturbance they would flash on for a few seconds. If you placed your hands and arms in the water, when you pulled them out they would be speckled with glowing dots for several seconds while you moved and twisted your arms to watch them glow against the darkness of your wet skin.

Watching or splashing it was amazing to watch, you could even see them in a handful of wet sand picked up at the waters edge. We spent a fun and exciting hour watching, playing and talking about it that night before going to bed in our camp at Las Animas.

Went Snorkeling today.

Justin and John were in the water forever today as Samantha and I searched every inch of beach for seashells. She is quite the awesome child, very giving, very loving and extremely LOYAL to those she loves. She also tries to keep the peace. During our day together we spoke of many things but what hit me the hardest was when she said that she was enjoying our mother daughter time. Makes me cry a little that I didn?t realize how much it meant to her.

Back to John and Justin, they played together for hours in the water. Justin has no fear whatsoever and John was more child like than I have ever seen before. Every time he saw a fish or stingray or whatever he would POP up and yell to Justin ?look Justin, look it?s a ---!!!? DS.

TUESDAY JUNE 14th 2005
LOCATION Las Animas
WEATHER Warm/Sunny/Windy Afternoon
Kayaked with Debbie & Kids to Island
Went to BOLA 4-5 hour roundtrip.
Ice-Aqua ect
Power steering Res. Came off ?muffler mount broke. Saw dolphins jumping, fish jumping when we came back.

[Edited on 6-29-2005 by Fatboy]

[Edited on 4-14-2006 by Fatboy]

Ken Bondy - 6-28-2005 at 10:01 PM

Fatboy (somehow I doubt that) I really enjoyed this. Thanks for posting this dynamite trip report.
++Ken++

Fatboy - 6-28-2005 at 10:05 PM

My screen names is from our cat!!! So don't read too much into screen names. I will post the middle in the next couple of days...

Bruce R Leech - 6-29-2005 at 07:04 AM

sounds like you had a nice experience with your family in Baja Ca. that is what it is all about . your kids will remember that trip all there life. and be better people for it.

Mike Supino - 6-30-2005 at 06:01 PM

How about a discription of the cast of characters?
Like who is who.

Fatboy - 6-30-2005 at 06:59 PM

I, Fatboy AKA John, wrote 80 percent of this and Debbie my wife wrote the remaining and the kids were along for the fun.
As to whether or not they will remember it is yet to be seen. In 2000 we went down for a little over a month and our daughter who had her second birthday on a beach somewhere remembers nothing of that trip. Our son was 7 at the time remembers some, but not much. We remember though and between the pictures, journal and memories of that trip we will be able to share them with our children at a later date.

going2baja - 7-1-2005 at 10:12 PM

Hi all, 1st time post here. Learker for a little bit. Dave K turned me on to this site - what a pleasure! I have spent a lot of time in the Las Animas area working for the Eco Lodge located one point to the North and I just love this area. The fishing, kayaking, snorleking, whale watching and just plain hanging out is some of the best on the planet!! I have seen a pod of Killer Whales within a 1/4 mile of the fish camp and have had pods of Fin Whales eating within inches of our kayaks and pangas. This is a wonderful place any time of year. I REALLY hope you did a little clamming while camping - you were camped on one of the best spots in all of Baja.

Thanks for the report - I knew it would be a good one wehn I saw the title.

Tim.

Ken Bondy - 7-1-2005 at 10:18 PM

I need some geographic help here. I am very familiar with a little islet just north of Isla San Jose called Las Animas. It is one of the best divesites in the world. But I am not quite sure where Las Animas is on the peninsula. I could probably look it up on the Almanac or the AAA map but am feeling abnormally lazy tonight so could someone help me with this?

++Ken++














=

Sharksbaja - 7-2-2005 at 12:42 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Ken Bondy
I need some geographic help here. I am very familiar with a little islet just north of Isla San Jose called Las Animas. It is one of the best divesites in the world. But I am not quite sure where Las Animas is on the peninsula. I could probably look it up on the Almanac or the AAA map but am feeling abnormally lazy tonight so could someone help me with this?

++Ken++


Ken, it is the next large bay south of BOLA, it's just around the corner.

going2baja - 7-2-2005 at 08:57 AM

Ken, I'm sure you have dove Cabo Pulmo, but if not give it a try. Don't go to the large turist outfitter - try the small one around the corner by the ocean. Taco's next door and great prices. The boat driver even let our Lab ride in the panga while my wife and I dove! Also the large Island off Loreto has had some unbelievable fish!

Tim.

Ken Bondy - 7-2-2005 at 10:27 AM

Thanks Sharks. I got it pegged now. I had a brain fart and forgot about it.

going2baja I have dived Cabo Pulmo many times, the first time was probably 35 years ago. I have never actually stayed there (Pulmo or Frailes), all of my dives at Pulmo were off of pangas from either Punta Pescadero or Rancho Leonero. Pulmo is nice, in my opinion a little over-rated. It is often described as the "only living coral reef in the Sea of Cortez" which makes for interesting hype but is fallacious. There are living coral reef structures all up and down the east cape from Bahia de Los Muertos to Cabo San Lucas. The living coral reef off of Punta Pescadero is IMHO much larger and more interesting than Pulmo. But Pulmo is undeniably a very nice dive.

The islands off of Loreto (the big one is Carmen) are among my favorite divesites in the Sea of Cortez. I really like diving the little close one, Coronado. But Carmen is so big that its best sites may not be discovered yet. Danzante, just south of Loreto, also has some nice sites.

++Ken++