Easter in La Paz

Semana Santa was really crowded in La Paz because most people only had to work two days that week so a lot of people came here for a long weekend. You could see a lot of people camping on the beach and the Whale shark area was filled with boats taking tourists. 

We had the Easter weekend off and used the time to go Paddle boarding and to Balandra Beach. If you walk around the corner at the Mushroom rock at the beach you come to a part of Balandra that is usually less crowded.

Paddle Boarding on Easter Weekend

The famous Mushroom Rock at Balandra Beach

The next week Sanna, Andrea and I did a hike on a mountain at the end of the Malecon. From there you have an amazing view over all of La Paz. We left kind of late so it was completely dark when we went back down but it was so worth it for the view we got.

The view from the top of the mountain

Last weekend we went diving to Los Islotes again. The sea lions were really playful that day and one of them kept biting my fins so it was lots of fun! Also Pontus and Sanna finished their advanced Open Water course that day and are now certified.

Sea lion playing with us

On Monday Sanna and Andrea left to go back to Sweden so now it’s just me and Pontus here. They had a great time here and I miss them already. Right before they left we counted all their encounters and they got to swim with 94 Whale sharks in the four weeks they've been here! J

Sanna and Andrea at our favorite salad and juice place

I’m leaving on Saturday so I’m hoping for a lot of Whale sharks during my last days. I had a great time and hope to be back one day!

Laura

Manolo, Pontus and Darren on the reasearch boat

Il Festival de las Raices

This past weekend we participated in “Il festival de las Raices” in el Mangle. It was a nonprofit festival where we had a stand presenting information about the whale sharks. At the festival there were a lot of different people offering all kinds of organic foods and local products. They had a big opening ceremony with people dancing traditional dances and playing drums which lasted for hours.

It was a great event for kids, since there was an entertainment program for them all day. We got the kids for one hour at 12pm. After Darren gave a short introduction about whale sharks we had all kinds of games and activities prepared.

 We played the game “pin the tail” in the whale shark edition as pin the fin, had a ball game where the kids threw balls through a big whale shark mouth, a big picture with outlines of sea animals for the kids to color, face painting and a contest for the best whale shark made out of clay. The winner of the contest won a pencil with a whale shark shaped top. The kids seemed to have a lot of fun and time flew by.

 

On the same weekend Sarah and I went diving. The first dive was at Los Islotes where we got to play with the sea lions. The second dive was at a ship wreck. We got do dive inside the wreck, so we were a little nervous at first but it was a lot of fun, especially because we brought a lamp and so could get a better look at everything inside. When we were done with the dives we had lunch at a beautiful beach. After that day Sarah got her certification as an advanced open water diver.

On Monday night it was both, Sarah’s last night and Andréa’s birthday so we went to Harker’s for dinner. It’s the same place where you can rent kayaks and paddle boards but they also have a nice restaurant.

After dinner we went to a bar that served Mezcal, it’s a traditional Mexican spirit kind of like Tequila. We all got different kinds and some of them were really smoky. A lot of people eat grasshoppers with their Mezcal here so we ordered some just to try it. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, they were just really crunchy and tasted like salt and spices, kind of like chips.

Sarah and Tobias were the first people I met here so we were all sad when she left, especially our dog Pepe. Safe travels!

Laura

Hello and Goodbye

These past two weeks have been busy ones!

On the end of February, we welcomed Laura, a girl from Germany studying biology. 

That week was both Darren and Laura's birthdays. We gave Darren a Donald Trump piñata that he thoroughly enjoyed. We had to get it special ordered since the shop had run out of them as they were very popular. Laura had special visitors from home surprise her and we went out for a dinner to Bandido's, where they cook their burgers on the hood of a 50s era car.

We headed out one day for an afternoon at Balandra, which was Laura's first time there and Tobias' and mine last time there. Everyone visiting La Paz should go there at least once, it's very beautiful. I really hope they don't develop it. 

Last Saturday, Tobias, Laura and I headed down to Cabo Pulmo to stay overnight and do some dives the next day. We stayed in some nice bungalows called Eco Adventures Cabo Pulmo. We went diving with Cabo Pulmo Watersports, who were great. The visibility was alright, but better than what I've heard it's been lately. On the first dive, we dove around a wreck, excitedly hoping for a bull shark, but alas didn't see one. The second dive we swam with a school of 1000-2000 big eye trevallies. It was a surreal experience!

This Monday we welcomed 3 more volunteers from Sweden - Andrea, Sanna, Pontus. So this week was full in the volunteer house! 

Wednesday the six of us volunteers and Manolo headed up to Magdalena Bay in the hopes of seeing gray whales. It's nearing the end of the season and the wind was pretty strong that day, so unfortunately we didn't see any. But we did see dolphins, a sea lion and nice birds in the mangroves.

Today we are losing one of our volunteers. Tobias is heading back to Sweden. We've enjoyed having him here these past 6 weeks and he was my first volunteer buddy. As well as my dive buddy - we completed 5 dives together in the past month. We're sad to see him go. Safe travels back to Sweden and best of luck in the future!

Sarah

Orphanage Visit

Part of Whale Shark Research Project's mission is to get involved with the community to promote conservation and environmental stewardship. One of the audiences we like to reach out to are children, to help them understand from a young age why we need to help protect our planet.

Last Friday, we visited an orphanage down the street from the volunteer house called Ciudad de los niños. The orphanage is connected to the church Santuario de Nuestra Señora de Guadeloupe.

The kids we visited with were between 6 and 14 years old. Right off the bat, they seemed pretty excited that we were there, with a few of them coming up to us saying hello and asking what we were doing there.

Manolo started off by talking to them about whale sharks, asking if they knew what it looked like, if anyone had seen one before, how big they thought they were. The kids were all shouting out answers, not afraid of being shy. We had a tape measure that Manolo held one end and Tobias started walking back with the other and we told the kids to stop when they thought how big a whale shark was. They were really surprised when Tobias walked all the way back to 20 meters and they could see just how big our spotty friends can grow.

From there, we moved to our first game, which was to throw a ball through the whale shark's mouth. Each ball had a fact about the whale shark written in Spanish that the kids had to read out first before they could attempt to throw the ball. Some of the facts were 'a whale shark's throat is the size of a tennis ball,' 'whale sharks don't have any bones' and 'the whale shark's only predator is humans.' The mouth that they had to throw it through was a piece of cardboard that we painted and cut a hole through. If the children were successful in throwing the ball, they got a piece of candy. 

The candy, of course, was a huge hit and each time the kids were grabbing bigger and bigger handfuls. Even one of the nun's got in on the action and was sitting in the shade licking a lollipop.

When the candy was exhausted, we played a game of whale shark tag. One person was the shark and everyone else was plankton. Once you were tagged, you became a whale shark eating all the plankton and the last plankton left won.

We brought along a whale shark puppet that Nicole, one of the previous volunteers, had sent as a present. One of the girls really attached to it and we had to kindly ask for it back before we left. On a similar note, one of the boys really like the whale shark mouth and decided to wear it around.

We did a game of limbo, where each kid had to crawl under the bar as a different animal. We tested the kids telling them they couldn't pick the same one twice and they started getting creative, saying orangutan and sea horse and such. 

Next, we did an activity with an ocean and beach scene. The kids waited in line to pull something out of the bag and had to decide if it went in the ocean or went into the basura (trash). Some of the kids were jokers, putting the animals in the trash (no!!). Others weren't too keen on pulling trash and ran to queue up again so they could put an animal in the ocean.

Just like that our time was up and we said goodbye to our new friends. I think they were genuinely interested in us being there and teaching them about the ocean. I hope they appreciated our time there because we were really happy to spend the afternoon with them!

Sarah

700 Encounters!

Hello friends,

We are officially over 700 encounters for this season (which started in October)! We reached this benchmark on Thursday (February 18).

And our lucky little friend was a new shark that we had not yet encountered this season. We decided to name him Baluu, after our beloved Pepe Baluu - Steph's new dog.

Poor buddy is a little banged up

Unfortunately the circumstances of this encounter were a bit disheartening. The clients, Tobias and I were swimming by ourselves with the shark, when three other boats joined up and all dumped their swimmers on top of us. We swam back to the boat, seeing that there were too many people. The shark became visibly harassed, trying to exit the area, but the way the boats were positioned seemed to trap the shark between them and the shore. There were way too many swimmers with the shark - around 12 to 15. This could be dangerous both for the shark (it could try to swim off and run into an engine) or the swimmers (the shark could swim off quickly by whipping its tail which could hit a swimmer).


Just a friendly reminder to everyone out there that there should only be one boat per shark and no more than 6 swimmers and one guide. We want to keep our sharks of La Paz Bay happy and healthy! 

Do you see the 700? Sarah, Manolo & Tobias

Sarah

New intern from Sweden

Hey everyone! My name is Tobias. I'm 27 years old from sweden, and i'm the new intern for 6 hole weeks! I arrived on the 1 of february so a have been here 3 weeks already, the time here is going fast!
My first week here, i was to no use. With a Fever and cold i was most of the time in bed for recover my self, i was ill almost the whole week, i was human again on saturday, so it was not a good start for me. But during that week, i learned a lot about the organization, about Whale sharks, my work, and the city of La Paz. Both Darren and Sarah introduced me well about everything and helpt me When a was ill, so big thanks to both of them! I timed good for a Carneval that was going to be in the town, i diden't know there was going to be a "Jippo" (Swedish) in the center of La Paz! They had all kinds of games you could play, Sweet thing to eat like, Gorditas de nata, Churros m.m! They had different stages where all from kids to Local band was Playing, and then the parade, With the tema "Greek Gods"!
My second week though, was much better, throughout the whole week! I think we have seen more then 20 Whale Sharks, mabye 10 dolphins and something i have never seen befor, Mobulas. It is a sort of Mantaray that jump in the water! Darren told me that when they do jump, it is usually a lot of fish to eat nearby, so they jump of excitement, so Happy over food hahah!

I Hope that rest of my weeks here in La Paz will be as amazing as the second one, or better!
Thanks for now, and see you soon!
Adios

Carnaval comes to La Paz

Starting February 4, the malecon (boardwalk) in La Paz completely transformed. The malecon is normally a pretty busy area; a main traffic thoroughfare and popular with runners, bikers and rollerbladers. But when arrived, it became twice as busy.

Photo credit

Brightly colored tents popped up everywhere selling Tosti Locos and Tosti Elotes (both popular fast food dishes featuring Tostitos chips), Gorditas de Nata (kind of like a pancake with chocolate, fudge or condensed milk), breads, tacos and my personal favorite: churros. Other tents featured games, where unsurprisingly once you thought you had won there was always some trick that they don't tell you until after. There were moon bounces, inflatable games, mechanical bulls, haunted houses, and rides. I tried the mechanical bull and stayed on for approximately 10 seconds. Then there was a 12 year old kid who went on after me and stayed on for at least 2 minutes. What can you do. I also went on a ride where you load on one end and then wait at the top, about 80 - 100 feet in the air while the people on the other end load. Then you are spun around in both directions for about 5 minutes. It was pretty fun but scary when you're at the top looking over La Paz and you look down and realize the ride is perched on a trailer. 

Each day, Carnaval typically started from 4 pm when they would shut the street to pedestrian traffic only. At night there were different groups of music playing, from smaller acts such as the 'One Direction of La Paz' to bigger ones such as Los Angeles Azules. There was one main stage where the bigger acts performed and a couple smaller stages throughout the malecon for banda shows and other performers.

The main event of the Carnaval was the parade (defile) which lasted for three days. The first and busiest parade was on Sunday, which also happened to coincide with the Super Bowl. Manolo, Tobias (new volunteer!) and I watched the game from Harker Boards which was a great spot to watch the parade go by simultaneously. The theme of this year's Carnaval was Las Musas de la Alegría' or the muses of happiness, which was an ancient Greek theme. Most floats featured paper maché columns and temples with muses or gods, including Dionysus, god of wine. Most of the women and men in the parade wore togas and garlands in their hair while dancing along to Mexican music. Two of the floats had the Junior King and Queen of Carnaval and the King and Queen of Carnaval with embellished dresses and huge decorated wings. One of the cutest floats was a band of young drummers playing along to Back in Black by AC/DC. Other floats didn't seem to make a whole lot of sense, such as the one of adults and children dressed up like stuffed animals and teletubbies.

The crowds have since died down, but some of the tents still remain. Although it seemed like today a fair amount were packing up. It was fun to be able to experience La Paz during Carnaval, but I'm also ready for the malecon to return to normal :)

Sarah