Settling into Life in Baja

Today we woke up to a wonderful, cloudy day. We had Spanish classes for 3 hours, and it was fun because we played games that were engaging and pushed our learning skills. Today, our plans changed because it was cloudy and rainy. Instead of swimming in the ocean, we did a cliff hike along the ocean.

During the hike, our guide Axel presented to us about the new hotel that threatened to ruin the local fishermen’s livelihood. He said that the fishermen had only this one beach in Todos Santos where they could fish from, and the hotel tried to kick out the local fishermen to build their hotel. There was a legal battle and protests. The end result was the hotel was built, the fishermen were allowed to stay, and the hotel agreed to buy some of the local fishermen’s fish.

    

Later during the hike, Joel gave the students some assignments to ask Axel in Spanish. Mine was to find out how sea foam forms in the ocean. Thanks to him, I found out that leaves and other organic matter get smashed by the waves against the rocks making the sea foam in the ocean. In the process of learning this, I also got to practice listening and speaking in Spanish.

 

After the hike we went to the beach to do some reading and writing in our journals. The waves were distracting because of how far up the shore the water came, and some of us got wet. That beach can be scary to look at because of the double trough system below the water. Because of this, we don’t swim at this location. To finish the day we had a great gratitude meeting!

-Isaac