Along the Coast to Playa Tecolote

On yet another hot, clear afternoon, we took a drive along the Sea of Cortez to the small seaside resort of Tecolote. Along the way we saw a diverse range of habitats. Above is a look back toward La Paz.



The water is so blue here. Much like the ocean views we saw in Australia, the shorelines here are white sand and the water is clear and blue.

But driving inland a mile or less, we find desert covered with cactus. This is not just any ordinary cactus. Not only is it everywhere, it is truly huge.

The Todo Santos web site has a good discussion of these huge plants. They are not saguaro cactus as many (including us) think. These are the largest cactus in the world, the mighty Cardón Cactus.

Pachycereus pringlei, or what we refer to as the Mexican cardón, has an interesting relationship to insure its survival in the dessert conditions. A symbiotic relationship with bacterial and fungal colonies on its roots allows the cardón  to grow on essentially bare rock even where no soil is available at all, as the bacteria can fix nitrogen from the air and break down the rock to produce nutrients. Even the seeds of this cactus packages symbiotic bacteria. These cacti have a few other desert survival tricks up their spiny sleeves. It possesses an extensive, shallow root systems which quickly capture the brief, but torrential rains of the region. A large cardón may store over a ton of water in the fleshy, pulp-like tissues of its trunk. In order to support this considerable weight, the immense cactus has an interior framework of hardwood vertical rods, lightweight, yet extremely strong, which act to stiffen the ribs. 

 And just to set the scale of the size of some of these "beasts", consider that

Some of the largest have been measured at nearly 21 meters (70 feet) high and weigh up to 25 tons. The majestic trunk of these cactus can be bigger than a compact car at 5 feet in diameter. 

We saw some cruise ships floating about, although none of them seemed to be especially large.

When we arrived at Tecolote, we found a white sand beach bordered by the cerulean sea and framed by Isla Espiritu Santos in the distance.

The "town" consists of two bars. At the larger one, we has a seat and sipped a cool drink while we watched...well, nothing. We just sat and enjoyed the breeze and watched people play in the water and walk along the beach. This fellow below wanted to sell us a wooden painted fish.

This blurry guy (I decided it was a nice look) was selling kites.

And the sea is as calm as a bathtub.

It was warm out here. The temperature was about 35 C. I remember that as a kid, I'd play in the ocean for hours in heat like this and never give it another thought. These days however, not so much.

The road dead-ends at Tecolote. Facing inland from the beach we see the sharply rising mountains that are common to the interior of the peninsula.