Punta Mita

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Margaritas at El Dorado

Wednesday, January 22, 2014 in Mexico, Punta Mita | 1 comment

The whale watching trips out of Punta Mita generally run about three hours, so if you go out in the morning, you get back around 1 and are starving. And thirsty.

Fortunately, there are several nearby solutions to this problem. While there are no great surfing beaches in Punta Mita, there are several close by. Like El Faro and Buros. And wherever you have surfing beaches, you have surfers. And surf shops. And tattoo stores. And places to get street food that is cheap and full of beans and rice and cheese. This is true of Punta Mita as well.

If you’re feeling like something a little more classy, then you walk down to Tino’s and you get his justly famous pescado zarandeado, which is a whole red snapper, marinated in chiles and lime and soy sauce and then grilled so that the skin is charred (and delicious) and the meat is sweet and juicy.

photos by David Lansing

photos by David Lansing

I love this for dinner, when you can dress up a bit and take advantage of the sunset. But it always feels a bit extravagant for lunch (particularly when I’m in flip-flops and wet swim trunks). So I prefer to go next door to El Dorado, a typical Mexican beach restaurant where people sit on yellow sling chairs right on the sand and tend to spend two or three hours ordering pitchers of margaritas and bowls of thick guacamole while staring at the ocean and loosing track of time.

At least, that’s what I do.

And I don’t think I’m alone. When I went there earlier this week, there were three young hipsters zoned out in the sling chairs next to me and mid-way through my first margarita a young bearded dude who, no doubt, is the lead singer in one of those sensitivo male bands, like Bon Iver or Fleet Foxes, turned to me and said, “Señor”, (I love that–a gringo calling another gringo Señor), “¿Cuándo es?”

When I told him it was a little after two, he sat up straight in his sling chair (sort of) and said, “Shit! We’ve been here for four hours? I think I was supposed to get together with Dog for lunch.”

And then his two female companions (one of whom, I think, was sound asleep, though it was hard to tell for sure because of the dark sunglasses), giggled.

“We should get our tab and head back,” said Mr. Sensitivo.

There was a pause. And then the prettier of the two yawned and said, “Screw Dog. I say we order another pitcher of margaritas.”

A girl of my own tastes. 

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Humpbacks: Part II

Tuesday, January 21, 2014 in Mexico, Punta Mita

Ty and I weren’t the only ones on the Punta Mita Expedition’s panga. There was also Carlos, the captain, who had an uncanny sense of knowing where the big boys would be coming up to breech well before we even knew there were any whales around. And there was a family from Michigan, staying at the nearby Four Seasons Resort, that nearly drove me crazy. Actually, the two little girls—Jackie and Natalie—were fine. And Nancy, the mom was very cool as well. It was Dad I wanted to toss from the panga (and I don’t think I was the only one).

photos by David Lansing

photos by David Lansing

Okay, he said he was from Michigan but I’d be willing to bet a case of Coronas that he was originally from New Jersey. Just the accent alone screamed Jersey. And I heard a lot of it because the guy would not stop talking. I could probably tell you his whole life history if I hadn’t stopped listening shortly after Carlos lifted anchor and gunned the boat towards the Marieta Islands. And then he started asking me a million questions—where was I from, what did I do, where was I staying.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. What really drove me crazy is the way he kept yelling at his two girls. “Jackie…JACK-ie. Ovah heah. You’re missin’ it…one just jumped. Jackie, you’re missin’ it.”

Non-stop. As if it were even possible to miss seeing a 50-foot whale launch itself out of the water maybe 20 feet in front of you.

At one point we got into the middle of a giant school of acrobatic pantropical spotted dolphins. I mean like hundreds of them. There were dozens running in front of the panga. There were hundreds on either side of us. It was a friggin’ river of dolphins. They’d leap way out of the water. They’d do flips. I mean it was a circus show out in the Bay of Banderas.

There was nowhere to look where you wouldn’t see a dolphin, even if you tried. Yet here was Jersey Dad screaming, “Natalie…NAT-a-lie. Ovah heah! A dolphin just jumped. You’re missin’ it, Nat. Look! Look ovah heah!”

The guy was crazy. But Natalie and Jackie, who were like 7 and 8 years old, were very cool about things. They just totally ignored their dad. Like they never even heard him. Which, believe me, was impossible.

Finally, I think everyone—the humpbacks, the dolphins, even the frigate birds—got sick of Dad because they all cleared out. Leaving us with nothing but a calm sea. At which point Jersey Dad took a nap and Carlos headed us back towards Punta Mita.

And I swear, I have no idea how the rope to the anchor got twisted around Jersey Dad’s leg. I guess it’s just lucky one of the girls spotted it before Carlos threw it over. But don’t you think it’s odd his wife didn’t notice it? Especially since she was sitting right next to him on the panga?

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Humpbacks off Punta Mita

Monday, January 20, 2014 in Mexico, Punta Mita | 1 comment

Crickey! That’s the word that comes to mind when a 50-foot humpback whale weighing something like 40 tons comes flying out of the water right in front of you. Actually, I think crickey is the word Ty used. I said something more along the lines of Holy Shit!

I’ve spotted whales all over the world, from Maui to New Zealand, but I’ve never seen anything like the performance put on yesterday morning by a pod of tail-slapping, spy-hopping, lob-tailing males off Punta Mita in the Bay of Banderas.

photos by David Lansing

photos by David Lansing

According to Ty, who is both a naturalist working for Punta Mita Expeditions and a professional nature photographer (check out some of her amazing shots of breeching humpbacks, spinning dolphins, and flying manta rays at Drifting Seas), we were in the middle of what is known as a competitive group of males fighting for the attention of a single female (who, as far as I could tell, was unimpressed by the boy’s theatrics).

These big ol’ bulls charged each other and you’d swear you could hear their massive bodies slamming into one another just beneath the surface. Sometimes a pair of big ol’ boys would come up out of the water together, their bodies wrapped around each other like football lineman right after the snap.

And the sounds they made. Not beautiful lilting sounds but more of a belligerent sound of underwater horns preparing for some great battle. Like this:  whale1

It was fascinating but also a little scary. I mean it was like being in the middle of a rugby scrum. I could only hope that while they were slamming into each other all around us that they were at least somewhat aware of the presence of our panga.

Very brutal in some ways. But god what a show they put on. 

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