Isla San Jose & Los Islotes
In the sea of mango sunsets we found a peach of a sunrise and a pomegranate of a cliff. The brilliant palette of Punta Colorada on Isla San Jose held a kaleidoscopic cornucopia of delights this morning.
We teetered and tottered along a narrow border of polished fist-sized cobbles at the beach. Exploring further inland, we followed a shade-patched arroyo. We stumbled into puddles of cool air, leftover from the night before, demonstrating how quickly the heat of a desert radiates and is lost once the night falls. Tight-lipped seashells held stories of the past, once they were ocean inhabitants; today they are arid cliff dwellers, embedded in eroding layers of uplifted sea floor. Returning to shore we found bits of fan corals, their lacy designs mimicking delicate petticoat scraps strewn about.
The first aquatic show was under the backdrop of a geologic amphitheater. Snorkelers outfitted in wetsuits, fins and masks jumped into the sea and buddied up with a phantasmagoria of fishy friends.
Our afternoon destination took us to pillars of cow pies stacked in cairn fashion and dusted in powdered sugar. These were the apparent favored roosting sites for the bird life inhabiting Los Islotes. Truthfully, it was volcanic tuff, or welded ash, coated in guano. But you can imagine the cow pies quite easily.
Bug-eyed ballerinas slip knotted themselves into unimaginable contortions. We bobbed as purple, blue and chartreuse buoys, amazed at the agility of the sea lions and their mastery of underwater flight.
Drenched in the saturated colors of the late afternoon, we cruised around Los Islotes. Serenaded by a cacophony of hormone infused males and mood swinging pregnant female sea lions we struggled at times to hear each other speaking. That seems like the best time to be quiet and end our by day listening to the sound of wild beasts echoing across the Vermillion Sea.
