Guerrero Negro or Black Warrior*

February 20th, 2007
Google Earth Guerrero Negro

Guerrero Negro and Ojo de Liebre Lagoon

It was a bit of a battle to find anything to do in this town. Self-proclaimed greatest and most abundant salt producer of the world, nay universe, this little town boasts something like 150 million tons of salt production a year (I don’t think they’re paying any wages to the ocean nor evaporation which I think should get a little more credit as silent partner) so now you know where that salt on the rim of your margarita comes from. While the town isn’t too much to speak of the bay and lagoon are quite amazingly beautiful; surrounded by an estuary the bay is almost completely rimmed by a sand dune barrier that is separated from the land by two miles of the Ojo de Liebre Lagoon (eye of liberty). The estuary hosts a plethora of migrating birds while the lagoon is the official and perhaps only annual mating and rearing environment for gray whales. And it just so happens that February is high mating season (seems that gray whales stick to the Roman calendar replete with St. Valentine’s Day).

Martin had tagged along for the ride since he’d never visited Guerrero Negro and since he wanted a small taste of a bigger town after Bahia de Los Angeles so we all found a nice and cheap hostel (recently the name had been changed from hotel to hostel according to the proprietor who boasted of having many more guests although she didn’t mention if she’d actually changed the prices accordingly). We settled in and took some much needed showers before heading out for a little nightlife which never materialized so we walked around looking for a bit of trouble but ended up hungry instead. A few taco stands and bacon wrapped hot dog carts were eyed and passed over before we came to a popular seeming taco window. Two different types of meat sizzled on the grill and we each ordered one of each type after a long drawn out questioning and repeating of the name of one of the types of meat until we gave up decided on gastronomic guesswork to figure it out in the end. We came to the conclusion that the Mystery Meat was not settling very well and didn’t really taste like the beef she had sworn it was. We headed back to the hostel the worse for wear.

Josh struck up a conversation with the proprietress while we beat it back to the room and left him in charge of finding a bar for us to go that night. An hour and a half later Josh returns. Instead of finding something for us to do he had been dragged into a car with his new friend Soraya and her drug dealer for a cruise around town. They took him to all the sites and explained their history and importance all the while smoking a joint which they proffered and he declined citing the probability of being pulled over by the Mexican police (nonexistent). So Josh got to have all the fun as we suffered from Mystery Meat Syndrome. Although one good thing did come from his trip; Soraya explained what part of the cow we had eaten…

Josh and Martin Drinking and Driving

Martin Pepper and Joshua Drinking and Driving

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The next day we saddled up the motorbikes and road out to El Faro Blanco (the white lighthouse) at the end of the estuary and took some pictures at the point before heading back so that Martin could catch a ride with our friend Tony from Bahia de Los Angeles who was provisioning in Guerrero Negro that day. We rushed back and he bought us some lunch and gave us some good advice before they bade us goodbye, “Always Shield Your Sword!”

Joshua and I wanted to get a bit closer to the whales but also didn’t want to pay for a whale watching tour nor another room for the night so we headed out to the dunes to camp for the night. Although we didn’t quite make it all the way out we did camp under an old wind-generator and heard strange sounds all night that could have been whales our the remnants of the Mystery Meat.

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Camping under an abandoned wind generator.

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Brushing the next morning with beer - seems we'd run out of fresh water...

In the morning we packed up our first night of actually camping (pretty cold and uncomfortable by the way) and headed out of town for what looked to be an easy jaunt to Bahia Tortugas…

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A typewriter that we found on the beach; now it's what NTMD is being composed on.

What NTMD is now being written on...

*Named after a wrecked whaling ship that was part of the slaughtering of thousands of whales for their oil after Captain Scammon (the lagoon is also known as Scammon’s) discovered this lagoon and its paramount importance for gray whale mating.