Isla Sand Jose and Puerto Gato
We waited fruitlessly for a green flash in the morning at sunrise, but the clouds at the horizon interfered with the laws of physics. Yet it was an incredible, colorful dawn, with all the tones of pink, orange and red. We were, at this moment, off the northern tip of San Jose Island, one of the large islands in the Gulf of California. Just like most of the other islands in this large body of water, it is uninhabited, mostly due to the paucity of water.
Our first activity of the day was a series of hikes and snorkeling at this island, at Punta Colorado. The views here are magnificent: wide, high layers of orange sandstone, as well as layers of whitish phosphorite. Into the arroyo we walked, enjoying a good number of interesting plants, such as wild oregano, wild cotton, different torchwood trees and rough agaves or century plants.
By midday we were all back at the ship, and had begun our trip southward to Puerto Gato, on the mainland of Baja California. Here we did hiking and kayaking to our hearts’ content. The desert offered us incredible views of the far-off mountains, and of the oh-so-dry vegetation. At least the desert plants were dry. But not so the vegetation along the shoreline and the flood plains, which was green. Indeed, the bushes of boxbush or wolfberry (Lycium) offered us a good number of small red berries, like little tomatoes, of which family they belong to.
After enjoying all these afternoon sports, we all sojourned at the base of one of the tall hills of reddish sandstone, to have our delicious dinner, followed by a story by Jim, our expedition leader, and William, on the origin of the sun and moon, a story by the Aztecs of Mexico.
