Day 29 - The Gauntlet

Just a short drive (9km) from our campsite was TINY town of La Bufadora.  What makes this scenic town relevant, is a natural "marine geyser", AKA blowhole, that provides oohs and ahhs throughout the day.  The town lies at the end of highway 23, and only locals have access to the town roads beyond.

 Just a few hundred people live there, but hundreds more line up for a chance at some of your disposable green-backs.  It's a virtual gauntlet of vendors selling cheap food, t-shirts, Mexican toys, and prescription drugs.  Yes, that last one you heard right.  Vendors hounding you about buying anything you would or could ever need in the Rx department.

One of my "idiot list" items was to eat a Churro.  I had reservations, since I'm a strict vegan when it comes to food.  After looking at the list of ingredients, I figured they were safe.  Here was the opportunity, so I had a go.

It's basically just a donut.  They're cooked as a long rope, then chopped up into 4" strips, bagged, and served like french fries.  They weren't too bad.  Both Matt and Vicky also had a taste.

We gazed at all the shop fronts, but bought nothing else.  Onto the blowhole.

The only time to see the blowhole is at high tide.  That's when the force of water is greatest, and reaches the highest heights.  Vicky had looked up the tide tables before we left that morning, and we timed our trip accordingly.  Matt had looked at some videos before hand, and said it didn't look that impressive.  It was impressive in person.  So, these pictures will NOT do this natural attraction justice.  You'll just have to imagine being there.

These kid are about 50 feet above the ocean surface

On the highest surges, I did get sprayed with water.

Almost as much as the kids in front of me.

The guy on the right is standing where

 I took the first three pictures above.

He moved right after this picture.  Soaked :)

High tide had passed,

but a few decent sized bursts were still occurring

After this, we looked around the town, then headed down to the shore for lunch and a paddle in the water.  It was a bright sunny day, and the water felt great.  Though too cold for a proper swim.  Vicky was the only one brave enough to go completely into the water.  Her and I also briefly saw a couple of dolphins far out in the bay.  Matt called BS on us, as we only saw them for a short instant.  Did we imagine them?

Ended our day with a beer on one of the patios and took in the scenery. 

Off in the distant ocean we could see whales surfacing, and whale watching boats chasing them.  Great end to the day.