Point Lobos with Papa B

It was a gorgeous Indian Summer day here in beautiful Monterey so Papa B and I decided to go down to Point Lobos for a hike. (For those of you who unfamiliar with the concept of Indian Summer - it's a phenomenon that occurs in the Northern Hemisphere marked by warmer than expected weather in late-September-November, we definitely experience it here in Pacific Grove).  

Point Lobos is a State Natural Reserve a bit down the coast from Monterey.  We headed down and parked just outside of the park and walked in.  There were many people out today, it's Saturday and a clear day - it's great to see so many people out! 

We walked through the trees, it was a bit cooler than out in the sun and a little darker.  After some time, we saw blue and turquoise through the trees.  Although I have grown up on the Pacific Ocean, I find it amazing how diverse it is - it amazes me every time.  It's completely variable depending on the weather, the lighting, the time of day, the tide, the wildlife, etc.  Today was especially spectacular.  

The ocean through the trees 

Gorgeous cove!

Looking across to Carmel, Pebble Beach and Pacific Grove

p-r-e-t-t-y

We admired the ocean, told jokes and "hello-ed" people as we passed them on the trails.  Going around a little cove made me think of "Island of the Blue Dolphins" a book we had to read in the 4th grade.  It's about a Native American girl that lives on an island off the coast of California.  I haven't read the book in over 10 years but I guess the imagery stuck in my subconscious.  

This is what reminds me of "Island of the Blue Dolphins"

There were scuba divers preparing to go out - how cool!  I wonder what all they see down there?  

We were lucky enough to see a vulture fly by overhead, its wings spread magnificently with the ends sticking up like fingers.

The water was pretty calm, when the waves were well behaved, the water looked super smooth and the sun reflected brilliantly off of it.  

It looks like glass, doesn't it!

At one point we sat on a bench and admired the coast.  There were rose petals all around the bench and Papa B said there must have been a girl here reciting "he loves me, he loves me not."  

I love seeing the crushed abalone shells in the ground, their metallic color always catches the light just right and reflects up at you.  It's like a silver, green, pink, purple color.  

Broken abalone shells, can you see the metallic coloration?

Eventually we came upon a little cabin with whale bones around it.  One rib was about the length of my height!  There was also what looked like the hip bone of a whale and the vertebrae of a whale.  On the side of the cabin was framed baleen - the filter in the mouths of baleen whales.  (S)He consume a huge volume of water that hopefully has lots of krill in it, the whale then pushes the water out but the krill are trapped in the whale's mouth - dinner! 

Whale bones!

It looks like where the vertebrae would connect, but I'm not too familiar with whale anatomy...

Whale ribs, vertebrae, fin and baleen 

Next we went around a different bend and encountered some deer.  It is rutting season for the deer here.  That means they are mating.  This usually happens right before daylight savings time and there is a drastic change in their hormone levels.  They behave abnormally, more agressive, and if they don't move out of your way - you should get out of theirs.  We saw three young males and clapped at them, they looked at us a bit and didn't budge, we went down a different trail.  

We came upon another bench overlooking another little cover.  There were three seals resting on the rocks.  

Seals on the rocks! Can you see them?

Looking across to Carmel 

We admired from afar and eventually had to get down to the water.  Luckily there was a bonafide trail and we slowly made our way down to the rocky beach.  I quickly lost my shoes and socks and tried to run to the water, it was difficult to do on a non-sand beach.  The water was refreshingly cool.  It was low tide and so there were uncovered rocks filled with sea anemones.  You can't really see them unless you're looking because they are closed and have bits of sand and rocks stuck to them.  I touched them just to watch them shrivel back - I hope I wasn't harming them, they're just so amazing, and I couldn't help it!  

Rocky beach :)

Sea anemones!  They close up during low tide

More sea anemones 

We eventually walked back to the car, retracing our footsteps.  If you are observant enough, you can notice slight changes in the light, coloration, etc. in the trails that you walked in not too long before.  There was the same creaking noise from a tree when we walked back as when we had walked past the first time.  It would stop as we walked by and pick up again after we were past the tree.  I therefore am convinced that it was an animal but my dad claims it was just the wind causing the tree to creak.  

Boat ride on the Gulf of Aqaba

We decided to take a little boat cruise on the Gulf of Aqaba.  We took a "cab" to a bigger boat that was two-storied, the lower deck was glass, so you could see the sea underneath and the top was open.  It was beautiful.  The weather was perfect, in my opinion, the sun shining, and we were out on the water, the colors of blue changing as you look out to the horizon. 

Leaving the hotel, on a water "taxi" to the boat

We passed several docks and kids playing in the water, they saw us pass by and jumped up and down waving and squealing at us.  I was so surprised to see the water speckled with light purple jelly fish!

purple jelly fish in the red sea

We sat on the top deck listening to music and chatting with the other passengers.  After some time, we were called down to the lower deck to see the coral reefs through the glass bottom of the boat. 

Captain of the boat plus the Jordanian flag

View of the coral reef from the glass bottom boat

Coral

There were tons of fish of many different colors, feeding off the coral.  It was beautiful! It was quite amazing how the schools of fish move together as if they're one big beast, something startles them and it appears as if the beast flinches! We saw a sunken ship, the coral was growing on the ship.  Really amazing how life can exist in even the most unexpected of environments. 

The boat was parked and we were told that if we wanted to swim, we could.  I love the water and couldn't wait to get in.  I stripped down to my bathing suit and got to the edge of the boat but freaked out.  There were jelly fish everywhere!  I went and asked one of the members of the crew if the jelly fish stung, can't they be poisonous? He reassured me that these jelly fish are perfectly safe to swim with and even touch.  Ok.  I dove in the water and it was refreshingly cool.  Salty.  I guess that was to be expected, it was a sea but I'm always surprised by salinity.  I was Dodging jelly fish, even though I had been told that they were benign, I couldn’t help but steer clear from these creatures.  I got out of the water and it stung.  There were 2 hoses with shower heads attached to them coming out the back of the boat. I rinsed off, hopped on deck to grab a snorkeling mask and got back in the water.  

There was a different type of jelly fish in the water! It was clear, oblong and had a some fluorescent color that appeared to move from around in a circular fashion, from cell to cell down in its center, like Christmas lights.  I wasn’t going to touch it either.  I swam out towards the coral reef, the water changed from warm to cool depending on the depth of the water underneath me, what a sensation! I spotted a huge school of  tiny fish, the group parted for me to swim through.  Zebra striped fish fed on the coral, orange and red fish, bright yellow fish and green fish.  I went back to the boat, I wanted dad to come snorkel, he’d never been.  He wasn’t too keen on the idea so I started to swim back out to the coral reef when I heard a big splash behind me, one of the crew members had put on a mask and flippers and had come out snorkeling.  He motioned for me to follow him, and showed me how to swim with my body as flat as possible so as to not rub up against the coral when the water covered the coral by just about a foot or so.  He showed me all sorts of cool fish and coral, then he did a flip in the water and dove down to the bottom of the sea, releasing all the air from his mask.  How cool!  When he came up for air, he explained how to do it, and we dove down to the bottom to look at the corals and baby eels that were sticking out of the sand.  I swallowed a bunch of sea water and swam to the surface.  I motioned to him that I wanted flippers, he went back to the boat and got me flippers, I put them on and was able to swim with more force.  There was an opening in the coral, all of a sudden the water got really deep and at the bottom of this gap was this yellow coral that resembled a rose.  It was beautiful, we dove down to check it out.  

Every once in a while I would hear small splashing sounds, I would look up and there would be small fish jumping out of the water, to avoid being eaten by a bigger fish.  At one point, we swam by a jelly fish and I squealed underwater.  He looked at me and grabbed the jelly fish with his hand, I quickly swam away shaking my head.  Eventually I got the courage to touch the little critter.  It felt slimy and stiff, like uncooked chicken breast.  I hope I didn’t hurt it by touching it.  He would cup it in the palm of his hand and push it around in the water.  Eventually it was time to go back, everybody else was done snorkeling and it was time to eat lunch.  The crew had prepared a lunch for us while we were out snorkeling and swimming.  They had made fish (hamour, also known as grouper) in curry sauce, meat kebobs, chicken kebobs, rice, a Greek salad, cole slaw, hummus and babba ghanoush (like hummus but made with roasted eggplant instead of garbanzo beans).  The food was delicious and tasted even better after a couple hours of swimming in the sea.  We sat on the deck, in the sun eating and chatting…life is great.

lunch

Sunday Excursion

Last year when I lived here, almost every Saturday morning, we would get together, our group, Sally y los intocables (Sally and the untouchables), to go for a hike and then have lunch. The schedule was, meet up somewhere, or rather, they pick me up in my apartment in the city and we drive somewhere on the outskirts of town, in the mountains, to Portugal, we would have a coffee at a café and maybe a cookie or something, we would find a restaurant and tell them that we would be back for lunch, sort of making a reservation and then hike for some hours and come back to said restaurant, have a huge meal, and then maybe walk some more in the afternoon, go to some monumental site in Galicia, have another coffee or soda or tea and then come back home.

Now that I´m back for a visit, the group got back together. They picked me up at the hot springs that are along the river Minño, I was there having a dip with my Spanish mom and her friend. We went to a different river, and now to be totally honest, I don´t remember exactly which. It was SUPER hot, unbelievable. And dry. This is very unusual for Galicia. We walked along the river and went for a little swim, it was very very cold but very very worth it. It made my heart skip a beat...or two, but how amazing, to feel so alive, to feel, period.

Typical bridge in Galicia

We saw some people fishing and bees were buzzing everywhere, it was beautiful.

We made our way back to the car and drove to a restaurant nearby at which had made reservations. On the way we stopped in search of a bar to have an apperative, we didn´t find anything open but we did find a beautiful church from 15th-18th century.

Statue in front of the church, also typical style of Galicia

We waited for some friends who were meeting up with us. We sat on the patio, in the sun and had a beer. A San Miguel Especial, which was delicious. It was darker than the normal San Miguel, and awesome. We had lunch. A mussle filled empanada made with a corn flour, rather than the typical wheat flour, red bell peppers filled with scallops and cod croquetas, croquetas are balls of any type of meat or fish, breaded and fried. For my entreé I had grilled hake with boiled potatoes and a little salad. The others had various cuts of pork or different fish. The bread was wonderful, like always, soft and hearty. Of course we had wine, a red Ribeira, Ribeira is a region of Spain known for its wine. After lunch, I was so full I couldn´t even have dessert...I know, I know, me, no dessert!

View from the restaurant

Afterwards, we went for another little walk along a different river. We took another swim in the water. Again, freezing but worth it. There was a lookout to a waterfall, on a big old rock, which was quite comfortable for my nap.

We finished our walk in the little village where we had parked the car, see photos below for images from the village, a church and the alleys. In the village there was one café. We stopped in to have a soda. There were old men playing cards at a table in the shade outside. Inside there were more old men playing a different game of cards. The café sold all types of things, toothbrushes, oranges, milk, and drinks, food, etc. We sat on the stairs of the neighboring house and watched three little boys jump on a mattress that had been left out as garbage. It was an 8 year old boys dream come true.

We then went to Castro de San Cibran de Las. A castro is the ruins of an old settlement. These castros were strategically made on the top of a mountain for defensive purposes. It was incredible, it is said to be from the 5th and 6th centuries B.C. See images below.

Lastly, I leave you with art. Below is an image of a rock along the river that was carved by someone. I can´t quite tell what it is of though....

;-)