After two days in San Diego,shopping, enjoying the sun and acclimatising to the 8 hour time difference between London and the West Coast of the USA, we joined the group from Wildlife Worldwide for our trip to Baja California to see the grey whales.
After a continental breakfast, with the freshest of danish pastries, we headed off on a bus to the US / Mexican border about half an hour away; the trail through immigration and the very modern customs hall took about half an hour after which we rejoined our bus and were on the road again heading for Ensenada. This was where our plane(s) were departing from. The airport was seemingly a military one and everything was searched before our luggage was put on the plane. The group was divided between the three planes taking us (7+7+13) We were on the first one, a very comfortable Cessna business jet, which took 7. We left just as the other planes were landing and arrived in San Ignacio just over two hours later - landing on a very sandy airstrip right by the lagoon. We had a drink and biscuit then after initially waiting for the others we, at the suggestion of the owner of WW who arrived to greet us,Chris Breen, we headed off to check out camp and familiarize ourselves with our basic but cosy cabin which would be home for the next 6 days. The others finally arrived a couple of hours later so we were glad we were shipped to camp first! The lagoon was a great place for birds - Brandt's geese, willet and marbled godwits were right outside our cabin.
At 5pm (ish- Mexican time) the bell rang and happy hour began, I tried a very nice margarita with tortilla chips, salsa and guacamole, while watching whales in the distance and a much closer coyote who was walking around near camp. We had been instructed not to leave things outside our cabins as the coyotes would make off with them.
After dinner we had our first talk by the naturalist and filmmaker Mark Carwardine who was with us; it was a general introduction Baja California. At the end it was 9ish and everyone wended their way for an early night after trekking to the 4 loos and using the washrooms. Snuggled into our warm sleeping bags we were set fare for a very comfortable night.