Baja California - La Paz, walk and the Whale Museum

George and I learned in Merida, 3 1/2 years ago, that its best to be active in the cooler mornings and take it easy in the afternoon. So, after coffee and a quick breakfast I set out to walk to the centro. The roads seem to be a simple grid so I walked East towards the water.

The sidewalks are inconsistent, appearing to have been made as each house was built, some cement, some tile, some gravel etc so I had to watch were I walked when I really wanted to be looking at the beautiful flowers, shrubs and trees lining the streets.

Quite a few of the intersections have these 4 way stops but it is just a suggestion, everyone rolls through them.

On top of a telephone pole. I think it is a cactus wren but I'm not sure. It was thrush size.

I finally reached the water and found myself in a rather scruffy part of town for the last couple of blocks.

The road ended with beached fishing boats and pelicans on the left

and a shipyard on the right.

A little further along was a marina with a dive shop where I checked out the price of a few of the things I might like to do here; snorkeling, swimming with whale sharks and swimming with sea lions. Not sure I can afford to do it all.

The marina had some pretty fancy, large motor yachts and

some serious cruising sailboats with their solar panels, windmills, zodiacs and gas cans.

La Paz isn't like Cabo, no high rise resorts, just the malecon for walking, biking, rollerblading, jogging etc and 2 or 3 story hotels, restaurants, tour operators and all that a city needs apart from the tourists. With the mountains in the background and the sea in front.

La Paz is situated on a deep bay off the Sea of Cortez, protected on almost all sides by land. It is on the east coast of the Baja Peninsular. The first "tourists" were the Spanish but it really didn't get going until the Jesuits set up missions on the peninsular in the late 1600s.

A garbage can on the malecon

There are sculptures scattered along its length. Most pay homage to

the marine life.

This is the Tsunami Watcher. As the San Andreas Fault goes down the middle of the Sea of Cortez (and Baja is sliding North in relation to the rest of Mexico which is sliding South) he might have the right idea.

I was just thinking that I would like a place to sit down and maybe have something cold to drink when I came across the whale museum which distracted me from those thoughts.

It cost me $12 US (seniors rate) and wasn't very big.

The volunteer guides more than make up for that. Orca markings.

The person selling the tickets apologized that there was no-one on shift today who could give me a guided tour, in English , but the staff in each of the rooms gave it a good try and written  Spanish is not that difficult to figure out. A turtle skeleton.

There were skeletons, organs, replicas and videos (many in English). Whale skeletons.

Replica of a Leatherback Turtle. Although the museums main focus was whales there were also rooms devoted to turtles, dolphins

and sharks.

It was interesting and nice to get inside into the cool but I was now really thirsty and hungry. I walked towards home and found a cocina economica on a side street. I ordered, from the board on the wall, a quesadilla with chapinones y queso but got what looked like a pinini (still had the cheese and mushrooms I was after though) and a bottle of water. From there I took a taxi home (cost about $4 CAN) . It was getting quite hot and I had been walking for about 4 hours.
At home I decided to get the first sketch of the holiday out of the way (it tends to turn out badly) as I haven't sketched since Spain in April. Oh yes, one in Ashtabula, Ohio in July.

I think this art form was around before the Zentangle craze.