moving piem

Diving sites in Cabo Pulmo

Jesse, who I hosted me in La Mision, contacted me as he was driving south towards La Paz. He arrived one or two days later and we went together for diner with friends of him. With couch-surfers Eduardo, from La Paz, and Matthew, from Chicago, we went to camp on the beach.

The weather had been a bit rough for the last few days, and several divers were already waiting for the sea to calm down to go diving. We showed up the next morning and Mario told us we should be able to go!

We just had enough time to eat breakfast and learn how the delicious Agua de Jamaica is made, from the fresh plant to the final product.

The two 40 minutes dives were amazing! We saw a school of skipjacks (jureles), meros, stingrays, and even spotted a bull shark (tiburon toro)!

No! Don't touch me!

Dominic, who I had met a few days before cycling down Baja, found me easily in La Paz. He had arrived the day before, and was proposed me to go snorkeling with the whale sharks. Let's go!

The whale shark is the largest fish living on this planet! It leaves for about 70 years, and it likes to cruise the Sea of Cortez, just one mile away from the Malecón.

Jorge took us there with his little lancha, and soon we were jumping in the water next to an impressive shadow. The first two times, the shark was going too fast for us to follow him. We touched him briefly, but we were told only later, no touching! Oops. ... more

Arturo taking us to the sea lions

Maria and Dani, from Spain, came to visit us one evening. They were curious about the bicycles, and went in for a chat. They had arranged to go diving the next morning with our next door neighbours, the diving club. Maria really wanted to do this dive, a special one: diving with sea lions.

“Can I join?!” I asked right away. The next morning, we were boarding La Encantada with Arturo and Sergio for a one hour ride to La Lobera, just a few miles North of La Paz, next to Isla Espiritu Santo, for two immersions of 40 minutes each, just near the colony of sea lions.

Arturo explained us carefully to let the lions come to play with us, instead of us going to play with them. Adults should be avoided, especially males, since they can inflict severe bites. Juvenils of the year, only a few months old, are the curious and playful ones. We were lucky, and about half a dozen of them came checking out our fins, smelling our hair, and biting our hands. ... more

Morning after the rain

I had planned to stop for a week or two to get some work done, working remotely as a freelance developer. For the first few nights, I was camping in Miguel's garden, but Miguel soon proposed me to stay at his shop. So I had my couch in a room full of bicycles, roller skates, and ... longboards! And of course all the tools I could ever need to tune my bike. All of that at twenty meters from the beach. A dream!

So for the next two weeks, I would be opening the shop in the morning, attending the early clients to rent them bicycles or some other wheels. And in the afternoon, I would go get some more work done, connected from some café on the Malecón.

Brewing freshly grounded coffee, chatting with Miguel and his friends, sharing lunch at the market, swimming in the sunset, skateboarding at dusk on the Malecón, star gazing from the desert... After eight months travelling, working my eight or ten daily hours was not hard in such conditions. ... more

Going down towards the Sea of Cortez

I woke up in a beautiful field of date palms and went to get breakfast in the center of San Ignacio. Here I met Rodrigo, a cyclist from Mexico City. Rodrigo has been cycling from Ushuaia to Mexico, then flew to Alaska and started cycling South. After only 8 months on the road, he was just a few weeks away from getting back home and completing a 30,000km journey.

I left one hour after him, towards Santa Rosalia. After a few hours across the desert, I was looking down over the Sea of Cortez, on the East coast of Baja California, for the first time. In Santa Rosalia I went to check the church designed by Gustave Eiffel and met Rodrigo again. We installed our camp and shared diner next to the beach.

After a solid breakfast, we took the road. South of Santa Rosalia, the road goes by the village of Mulege before reaching reaches Bahia Concepción, a large and well protected bay in the Sea of Cortez where whales like to stay. Rodrigo went faster than me. After going pass a few beautiful beaches, I could find no sign of him and decided to sleep on the beach right at the end of the bay. ... more