So, our final day in Mexico. It was probably the best day so far, barring seeing Forever Twelve play. We had a lovely breakfast in a sidewalk café, then wandered down to the harbour and watched the loud sea lions for a bit before boarding the boat. The day was sunny and the breeze was cool, so we wore our bike jacket liners and it was perfect.

To get to the good part, we saw three grey whales! We followed them for a while, watching them surface and blow, sometimes flipping their tales. We could see them as blue outlines beneath the water. It was hard to get pictures, because digital cameras don’t auto advance, but Ken did get at least one mini movie and we can frame grab a great tail picture from that.

On the way back, three dolphins joined us and swam along with the boat at the prow for about a minute. That was just thrilling to watch; it brought tears to my eyes. We also saw two seals or sea lions in the water, and went close to a half-sunken boat in the harbour that all of the sea lions live on.

Now, so far on this trip, I had been fanatical about sunscreen. Even if we were just going out in in the shade, I put it on, and made Ken put it on, too. But for some reason, we just didn’t do it today. I have no idea why. By the time the boat was headed back to shore, we knew we were going to pay for that.

We had lunch at another outdoor café (across the street from the one where we had breakfast, in fact) and then hopped back on the bike to go see La Bufadora, a natural waterspout a few miles south of Ensenada. Alas, the spout only spouts when the sea is roiling, and we had calm-as-glass. The “town” at the very tip of the peninsula is an odd stretch of connected shacks on either side of the road, with a small store in each shack. Parking was $2 or $3, which was ridiculous, so we drove back up the peninsula, stopped by the side of the road, and watched the sun set over the ocean.

We went back to the hotel and freshened up, and eventually wandered out to a restaurant that, from the guide book’s description, sounded very cool—and it was, in spades. La Esquina de Bodegas is in an old brandy distillery converted into a wine shop, art gallery, and restaurant. They still have the big vats, dials on the walls, etc. A metal spiral staircase winds up to a second floor, and behind some massive two-story doors of metal bars was a two-story wine case. The food was excellent, on the pricey side without being expensive. I had a Greek salad and chicken, Ken had steak chipotle, and we split a chocolate mousse and an excellent bottle of Chardonnay; in fact, we bought another bottle in the wine shop as we were leaving.

What was really amusing is that when we got up to leave, we saw the BajaProg poster on the wall.

The next day, we checked out and headed home. We took the non-toll road, which took us up into twisty hills, but also along the coast, which was hazy but gorgeous nonetheless. The border crossing was crowded, but we got through fine, and stopped for lunch (a Mediterranean café) in San Diego. We took Hwy 1 the rest of the way home, through all the ritzy coastal towns.

And that was our trip to Mexico.