Day 4 - Agua Verde — Doug & Travis Are Going Places!

Day four brings us back south to Bahía Agua Verde. It’s a bay not far from where we spent the 2nd day, but seems quite a different environment (part of this may just be that the weather is quite nice today).

After breakfast, we join guide Kelly for a skiff tour of the bay. It’s very pretty and there are tons and tons of birds everywhere. Kelly is very animated and gets excited with each new type of bird we spot. She’s brought along a camera with a huge lens and gets some great pictures while we’re out there. Doug gets a few good pictures and lots of pictures of fuzzy things that may be flying birds. We end up seeing blue footed boobies, oyster catchers, white and brown pelicans, red tailed hawks, ospreys, various hummingbirds and then lots of other “tier 2” birds (Doug’s words). We get lots of detail on how pelicans, hawks and osprey hunt and saw pelicans feeding right and left. Near the end of the skiff tour, we watched an osprey hunting and Kelly provided play-by-play. When the thing finally struck and caught a fish, Kelly got so excited I thought she might fall out of the skiff. It ended up being a really nice morning.

The bay has folks living both on the beach and in a small village nearby (one of the options for the day was a trip into the village). The cruise ship invites kids from the village onto the boat after lunch every week to play games, eat snacks that the pastry chef has made and take a tour of the ship (we presume it’s different kids each time). They seemed to be having a great time.

After lunch, we headed to the beach to go on a burro ride up into the mountains. Somehow, Uncruise met this family years ago and once a week during cruise season, they bring a bunch of burros from their ranch, which is a two day ride away. They spend a day taking folks up into the mountains, then down into some salt flats, along the beach, and then finally over another small peak and back down to the original beach. Then they pack up and ride the burros back two days to the ranch. We’re on the last ride of the day so I’m guessing the burros are sick of carrying tourists around all day. Despite that, we’re each assigned one by one to particular burros. Doug is the first to mount up and rides Titanic. Travis is paired with a burro who ends up near the back of the pack. Travis doesn’t remember his name, so we’ll call him Juan Game (John Doe in Spanish). Several folks pretty quickly decide that they are excited about the path we’re headed up or being on the burro. One drops out before we even leave and a second turns around pretty quickly when we start up the side of the mountain (mountain is a stretch - it’s more of a hill, but is quite steep). The rest of us plod along, seemingly with little ability to control our burros. Titanic really wants to be at the front, but the number two spot is taken by his apparent arch enemy, who is not going to let us pass no matter what. Every time Titanic starts to make a break for it, he’s nipped at pretty aggressively and backs off. Meanwhile, at the other end of the pack, Juan Gama stops to eat constantly. He wants to be near the end of the pack, but definitely does not want to be last. The group plods along on our burros with a handful of rancheros from the ranch dispersed among the group. Pretty quickly, they all start to serenade us. At the front of the pack, Doug is hearing what he assumes are traditional Mexican cowboy songs. Back on the boat, we discuss the singing and Travis shares that the young cowboys near the back are singing Mexican hip/hop songs! Our path takes us over quite varied landscapes. We pass over several large/steep hills, cross various sandy dried mangrove type areas, through one area that seems almost tropical (it’s completely covered with palms and has a small pond in the middle of it), stroll along a rocky beach, and finally up & down another steep hill. It’s a nice ride but I think most of us are a bit saddle sore by the end.

We head back to the ship in time for cookies and happy hour (hurrah!!). We don’t have to select activities for tomorrow as everyone is going to see gray whales in Bahía Magdelena. Instead, we get a short concert from the ranch owner. He’s on board with his guitar and plays a few traditional songs for us. He’s better than most of his crew.

After another great dinner, we have a talk by guide Mareth, who tells us all about the gray whales we’ll be seeing tomorrow. We learn about their annual migration from Alaska down to Mexico, feeding, breeding, and what the mother/babies that we’ll hopefully see tomorrow are doing.