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Published: February 10th 2015
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We left Cabo Pulmo to make the 3 hr. drive to La Paz, the capital of Baja Sur, population of about 250,000. The only reason La Paz was on our itinerary was it is one of the best places in the world to see whale sharks. The season generally runs from October to February so we kept out fingers crossed that we would see the tail end of the whale sharks. La Paz is a mediocre looking Mexican town with a nice malecon running for a few miles along the waterfront. I had read that there is a small amount of cartel violence here (1 murder a week) but if you are not involved in any part of the drug trade then you should have a safe visit. Once here we read that they have 2 murders a week but that is a significant improvement from what they have been experiencing in recent years. We saw a large presence of police ranging from Federales, to some special government police that allegedly aren't corrupt yet, to local very corrupt municipal police. On one hand I was reassured by the large police presence, on the other hand I felt a bit nervous because
they obviously felt there was such a need for so many. Knowing we would be spending most of our time in the water and out of the hotel I found a very cheap very crappy "backpacker's delight" hotel, Pension California ($20). It was 2 blocks from the waterfront in the center of town and had hot water so we were happy. It was by no means one of the worst we have ever stayed in but there was lead paint sloughing off onto our bed, we could see through the towels they were so threadbare and Dennis found a bloodstain on his pillow. We quickly found some boats along the waterfront advertising whale shark tours and jumped on for a quick 1 hour trip ($28) after meeting a really friendly old man named Hector that seemed to oversee all the boats. The whale sharks are found in an area of the bay only about a 10 minute boat ride from the main beach. During the winter the juvenile whales hang out in the bay where there are no predators and plenty of plankton and krill they can fatten up on. The water was choppy and the sun was getting low
on the horizon which made for some difficult conditions I thought to spot any sharks, but our captain and guide quickly began yelling and pointing and shouting at us "arriba, arriba" while pointing into the water at a dark area. Our guide jumped in and we quickly followed him, feeling like paratroopers, not really sure what to expect aside from his warning "stay away from their tails and no touching," not exactly sure what would happen if we violated either.
As soon as I put my face in the water I saw that I was less than 2 feet away from a large dark mass with white spots which I quickly realized was the largest creature I have ever seen in the ocean (or land for that matter), and boy was he was moving fast. Dennis and I paddled as hard as we could to keep up with this beautiful behemoth who was effortlessly and gracefully cruising at least 10mph. At some point I swallowed an entire snorkel full of sea water in my excitement, huffing and puffing. Once we all lost him and could no longer keep up we got back on the boat and did it all over
again. We ended up seeing 2 or 3 different juvenile sharks during our brief outing, each measuring at approximately 30-35 feet long, apparently small as the adults can reach 75 feet. It was such an incredible experience swimming (or rather sprinting) with these gentle giants and decided that if the weather cooperated with us we would have to go out again in better conditionsWe continued our search for the best fish tacos in Baja and found the winner thus far, a small cart on the street right outside our hotel door, and for about $1 each it will be hard to beat.
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