Today take a shared excursion driving 2-hours northwards into the El Vizcaino Biosphere Reserve. Situated in the central part of the Baja Peninsula, this enormous reserve stretches all the way from the Pacific Ocean in the west to the Gulf of California (Sea of Cortez) in the east.
With an area of over 2.5 million hectares, this World Heritage Site is the largest and most diverse wildlife reserve in all of Latin America. The animals and plants of the park have adapted themselves to the region’s extreme desert conditions, with little rainfall and intense winds. As a result, this ecosystem has produced thousands of endemic species of plants and animals found no where else in the world. The Vizcaino is the habitat of the desert bighorn sheep, mule deer, pronghorn antelope, four species of sea turtles and dozens of resident and migratory birds, including ospreys, cormorants, herons & gulls. Over 500,000 migrants overwinter in the coastal pacific region. There are also many marine mammals living along the coast and in the inlets, including elephant seals and sea lions.
We continue to Guerrero Negro, with its huge salt production plant, to Ojo de Liebre, which is one of the most important breeding grounds of the Pacific Gray Whale (commonly known as the California Gray Whale). Every winter thousands of Gray Whales migrate here from their feeding grounds in the Bearing Sea and Alaska to mate and bear their young, as they have done for thousands of generations.
On arrival we board a small panga boat for a whale watching boat ride on Scammon's Lagoon. The boat ride takes about 2 hours and may be quite wet, depending on weather conditions.
Note: Wear a jacket as it can get cold on the boat and take a sun hat, binoculars, sun glasses, sunscreen and camera.