Mother Nature’s Son.

Marina Topolobampo can be a rather noisy affair. Every single day in the late afternoon, a mile of trucks starts queuing up to get onto the Ferry to La Paz. The city won’t ever be in lack of supplies. It was the same ferry that carried us across the Sea of Cortéz to Baja California Sur in a most comfortable way. Safely tucked away in our bunk beds, we hardly noticed that we were moving at all. 

In La Paz, we loaded the Chevy with all of our dive and kite gear and we hit the road for some serious road tripping. Expectations were high. Expectations were about to be exceeded.

The fabulous Carretera Federal 19 is smooth as silk and hugs the Pacific Coast all the way down to San Jose del Cabo. Big skies above, a wide expanse of blue beyond and whales cruising along. We stopped several times to watch them spout far away in the distance. In San Jose del Cabo we picked up a slightly jet lagged son before continuing the journey. This time up the East Coast on the Carretera Federal 1 , aka Carretera Transpeninsular which actually reaches all the way up to Tijuana. 

On the most southern part of this carretera, “silk” is replaced by sand and red headed vultures and birds of prey were warming up on top of cactuses before taking off to the skies. The Sierra de la Laguna was shrouded in a blue haze and kept its secrets hidden. Not one mountain lion in sight, although we sensed they were up there!

The arroyos were wide and dry and told stories of rivers past. But the desert itself was amazingly green and full of fragrant yellow flowers.

All of a sudden, a bright red bird with an elegant tail flashed by and made us hit the brakes. It was too fast though to get it on camera. But later on we saw its image embroidered on the towels of our cabin in Cabo Pulmo: it was a red cardenal. Some believe that when a red cardenal crosses your path “it is sent to give you inspiration and empower you to create a reality that is in alignment with your dreams.”

Our stop in Cabo Pulmo blew our minds. This federally protected national marine park is a UNESCO world heritage site. And that’s where we went snorkeling and diving. On our first dive to a shipwreck our guide gestured to settle down on the sea floor and wait. The water was rather murky, and the soulful song of the humpback whales turned it into a Zen like out-of-this-world experience. My mind started drifting and that’s when the first bull shark casually appeared around the corner, and then another one and another one …… They were rather big. They also had the habit to sneak up on you when you had your back turned. But the one that came straight at me had me duck just in time to avoid a head on collision. Or so it certainly seemed to be the case to my agitated brain. 

On the second dive we had the privilege to be caught up in a huge ball of thousands of jack fish. They gently spiraled all around us and when we approached, they broke the circle to give us way of passage. Once inside the ball, they closed the ranks again and kept on swirling. Mother Nature’s Son – who also happens to be our personal photographer- positioned himself floating on his back inside this silvery spectacle for the perfect video and lost all sense of direction in doing so. He felt dizzily awed.

This same ball of fish we witnessed being scattered by a hunting dolphin during our snorkeling trip. That’s also when we joined the male sea lions for their afternoon dip in The Sea. They had recently arrived after having traveled down from La Paz where the females are staying behind with their pups. Apparently, one doesn’t always need magic mushrooms to create a reality in alignment with dreams. A single red Cardenal will do just fine.

December is also the season of “El Norte”, the wind that roughens up The Sea and powers up the kite. So off we went to La Ventana, where Father and Son could ride the waves in unison while splashing & spluttering Mama was repeatedly being reassured by her overly excited instructor on how brave she was. “You are doing great Viviane! Let’s try that again! I am not bs-ing you. Take a breath and do another power stroke ocean side.” He kept shouting from atop his jet ski. It was obvious that I had become his pet project. So, I gave the kite another jerk, got on the board, fell off the board for the zillionth time and got washed under by the waves and the wake of the jet ski as the instructor hurried closer to the scene.

Bahía de La Ventana, where Kite is King, bougainvillea and cactus flowers bloom and poetry is written on hurricane battered walls.

Tonight we will be on our way back to O2 in Topolobampo. This time we will be ferried across in Pullman chairs, because the cabins were all sold out. We are also starting to plan the second part of our Baja California Sur expedition. But not before we will have introduced Margareta- the owner of Marina Topolobampo – and her son Javier – aka our private driver- to a traditional Belgian oven dish of endives with ham and cheese. After all, they celebrated My Captains 65th birthday with us, bringing bottles of Mexican Chenin Blanc from the Valle de Guadalupe, delicious self-made crab tacos and a lot of Mexican cheer. Treating them in return with some Belgian “hesperolletjes Jeroen Meeus style” is the least we can do.