We arrived in Cabo Pulmo, and our spirits were instantly raised. The town was one road, which ran along the shore, with a dive shop, a bakery, a restaurant or two and a handful of small hotelsWe arrived in Cabo Pulmo, and our spirits were instantly raised. The town was one road, which ran along the shore, with a dive shop, a bakery, a restaurant or two and a handful of small hotels. It was lovely and unspoilt. We had a quick scout round the hotels – all of which were out of our budget – and began thinking we would not be able to spend the night, when our new friend, Memo, saved the day.
We had been talking to Memo at the Dive shop about hiring snorkelling gear, and when we told him we couldn’t afford any of the Hotels, he offered us his tent, complete with blankets and pillows, for a minimal fee. Brilliant!
We booked ourselves on a boat trip with him for the afternoon to go whale watching, snorkelling and swimming with sea lions, grabbed a bite to eat, and met him on the shore to head out onto the open sea. The trip was fantastic. We had beautiful weather and great visibility under the water, I got up close and personal to a few sea lions, had a lovely swim over some shallow corals, seeing beautiful fish dart by beneath me, and even were rewarded with sightings of a half dozen humpback whales right up close to the boat. As a special treat, Memo took us to his favourite place to swim with a shoal of Tuna-like fish. This unnerved me slightly, we got off the boat, swam a few metres, and there they were, thousands of these silver fish, swimming all around us, and as I looked down, there was a tunnel of them stretching as far as I could see.
I took a deep breath through my snorkel, turned, and swam back to the boat. I had really felt like an intruder!
Back on land, we pitched Memo’s tent up on the beach, went and bought some supplies from the shop-which was really the living room of a local resident crammed with tinned food, biscuits and sodas-and with nothing else to do, went to bed.
Our sleep that night was fitful at best, but with morning came the sunrise from over the sea, directly in front of us. We sat up in the door of our tent, and watched as the sky grew lighter and the sun became stronger and fiercer.
The tent packed up and returned to Memo, we were off again, back along the bumpy dirt track towards La Paz and the ferry that would take us to the mainland.