 TheMulegé oasis |
| Rio Mulege (Rio de Santa Rosalia) Historic photo from Wixipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muleg |
We anchored off Playa Santispac in Bahia Conception and Mel and Ann picked us up Friday morning. An interesting thing happen on the way to shore, which I will tell you about in a bit.
The river valley of today's Mulegé was discovered in 1702 by a Jesuit priest who eventually built a mission there in 1754. Heroica Mulegé is the town's official name. This came about due to incidents during the American-Mexican war 1846-1848 when the people of Mulegé and surrounding settlements along the Pacific coastline defeated the Americanos (Gringos) who were attempting to take over Baja.
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| Historic photo from Wixipedia: Rio Mulege & Santa Rosalia Mission http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muleg |
Today the river valley looks very different. There have been three 100-year floods in the last 10 years. Our friends' main house has been flooded to 9 feet and they have lost buildings as well as a large amount of their waterfront property. Each of the owners at Estrella de Colombia has built a casita (a little house consisting of bedroom and bath) above the flood plain.
Above are the three owner casitas. To the left is the floor, all that remains of a little riverside rental casita that was at the front of their property. The dirt and gravel road that services all the homes and businesses to the end of the river keeps moving back farther into the property.
The Mexican government removed most of the mangroves that used to line the river banks (as seem in the historic photos) and started building a malacon along the north bank of the river from town to the rivers outlet. The entire Baja peninsula is an area with one of the lowest precipitation rates in the world. What little rain there is usually occurs between December and March. The Mulegé watershed however, is very large and when it does rain the water that flows thru Mulegé is tremendous! The first section of the malacon was totally destroyed the following rainy season. Despite this, the second portion was built. We saw it when we visited in March 2011. It looked very nice with sidewalks, metal benches and lights; it was landscaped with palms and bougainvillea.
The Mulegé Malacon April 2013
View away from Mulegé towards the sea.
Access to the malacon from the road that comes from down town Mulegé.
The river channel is shallow and the malacon took up a big percentage of the carrying capacity. This only forced the water to rise to a higher level. I find it hard to believe that the Mexican government doesn't have a hydrologist on staff. Anyone with a basic knowledge of rivers would have known this would be disastrous. I wish I had before and after pictures to share of the homes that were on the south side of the river before the floods (mostly Mexicans live on the north in simple homes while Gringos live in "The Orchard" on the south bank). After the first some Gringos rebuilt - who would expect another 100 year flood? Most have learned the lesson and are trying to sell or have just abandoned their property.
Well enough about the malacon and the destruction; what is left is still wonderful.
The property that our friends own used to be an orchard full of mangoes, grapefruit, and banana with a variety of palms, some cactus, jacaranda and a couple of Fire Trees (beautiful flame colored flowers). Our friends have added bougainvillea to create a shady patio area in front of the main house.
Relaxing in "paradise". They feed the birds so the yard is full of White-winged Doves and little ground doves, brilliantly colored Bullock's orioles, Gila Woodpeckers, hummingbirds, dazzling Vermilion Flycatchers and Northern Cardinals. The last two days a covey of quail came through. The last few days we had to duct to avoid the orioles that where flying low at supersonic speed!
Greg enjoyed reading in the shade and occasionally glancing out over the bougainvillea.
The view from the kitchen while I used my computer was another treat. To the right is a beautiful large specimen Blue Agave.
One morning Greg was the first to enter the kitchen and he discovered that we had had a nocturnal visitor. The main house has iron grill doors that let the air and critters in. The creature trashed the table and ate an avocado, neatly cleaning the seed and the inside of the skin. The next night we tried to bury the fruit under a weighted bowl but found nothing but avocado skins and an empty cantaloupe rind the next morning. Losing the cantaloupe really bothered us. That night everything was put into the oven. Fortunately the trespasser couldn't open it. When Greg entered the bath he got a surprise - there were little raccoon prints all around the toilet seat! Someone cleaned it before I got a picture.
Rod decided that it was a good time to fly his kite so we headed down to the malacon.
The first attempt resulting in a crash landing in the river. It didn't take long for the kite to dry out in the hot sun though.
The one remaining bench is in front of Estella de Colombia. Very convenient for kite viewing. Passersby enjoyed it too.
Osprey are abundant in the Sea of Cortez and they were nesting everywhere! The Mexicans have started building nesting boxes on top of power poles to protect the wires (and maybe the birds).
Nests ran all along the river and along the road leading to Bahia Conception.
"Going to the beach" is a popular activity with out friends. When we told them that we had seen a whale shark as we dinged to shore at Santispac Beach they absolutely had to go there. We picked a palapa at the far end of the beach and next to us was a fellow in a pickup. He introduced himself and told us that he could take us in his panga to see the whale sharks, snorkel sight see or take pictures for 300 pesos per hour (approx $30). Ann got very excited and in no time all of us but Mel piled into the panga eager to find whale sharks!
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| Santispac Beach Bahia Conception |
Within 30 minutes Cicho, our guide, had found two whale sharks in another cove. Within seconds Rod was pullin' on the snorkel gear. I was close behind. Rod and I caught up with the shark and swam "eye ball to eye ball" with it about three feet away. The shark was relatively small at between 15 and 20 ft. When I reached out to touch its dorsal fin it objected and sped away, slapping me with its tail in the process. We climbed back into the panga and Chico went into pursuit mode. We caught up and this time Nita joined us in the water. Ann and Greg got some really good views of the whale shark from above.
For you shark scardy cats, whale shark's mouths are huge but they only eat plankton. You can see one of the ramora (cleaner fish) attached to the lateral fin in the picture below.
As if swimming with whale sharks wasn't enough excitement - we went to the circus!
As we were driving into Mulegé Mel and Ann pointed out the circus tents just outside of town. When we got to the house Mel and Rod were like little boys jumping up and down chanting "We're going to the circus".
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| Nita (L), Rod and Greg (R) heading to get tickets. |
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| The kids, and adults, checked out the animals waiting for the circus to start. |
The camels were amusing while they were manipulated their water tank with their lips in an attempt to get at the water. The tiger got us all real excited.
This pretty lady, the ticket taker, really had Ann's attention with her eye rhinestones and glittery red lips. Ann saw her in town a few days latter with a little baby and her husband the Lion Tamer. A baby - hard to imagine considering how tiny she was. We thought that she would be a tight rope walker but she just looked pretty and sold glow sticks to the crowd.
The obligatory pony act. After the cute little guys walked around the ring, one remained and children came down to have their pictures taken on the pony. Besides the ponies there were the camels and bears.
The bear and lion trainers doubled as clowns. This act with three guys from the audience was hysterical even though we understood very little of the Spanish. The guys were supposed to act in a certain fashion - here it was "seexxxy". Sex with a rubber chicken? I don't know.
Now I am not a fan of circuses. I don't like the idea of keeping animals in little cages and forcing them perform, so my conscience was telling me that I was being bad and supporting something terrible; but I went because most everyone else was so eager to go. The tiger act was the finale. It was more than the usual act of lions standing on hind legs and growling. These cats appeared to have been declawed but definitely had all of their teeth and looked very well fed. At the end of the lion act the lion tamer walked up to the lion right in front of us and kissed the lion on its nose. As he was talking to the lion, the lion placed his right paw on the man's left shoulder. He brushed the paw off and continued talking. The lion then placed his paw on top of the man's head and stared into his eyes!
It really looked as if these overgrown pussy cats were well-fed household pets. |
| Nice kitty. |
After this incredible visit to Mulegé I don't know what to expect next year!
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