9-06-16

Trip Details

Location: La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico

Weather: Hurricaney, high of 78

Herpers: Dāv Kaufman, Jeff LeClere and Jim Scharosch

Account by: Jim Scharosch

Photos by: Jim Scharosch

Well, it was hurricane Newton day. The main part of the storm was supposed to hit us at noon. We woke up to high winds and rain. They let us come down for breakfast, which consisted of a lunch meat ham sandwich on white bread. We got to watch the wind blow the palm trees through the large window in the lobby. Internet and TV got knocked out during the night, so news was slow. I could still text, so I got updates from Laura as the day went on.

The roads had a foot of water flowing through them. Very few cars were moving as we waited for the eye of the storm to hit us. The red arrow in the photo below points to where we were.

The good news was that the damage from the storm was fairly minimal. We saw one road that had a ten foot sinkhole, and a lot of debris scattered from trees, but overall the storm didn't cause a lot of damage to buildings. As soon as the rain let up, we headed out to try to find our target species. Our first stop we struck out, but at the second stop, Jeff yelled out "BIPES" and we were soon admiring a Five-toed Worm Lizard (Bipes biporus)

They are crazy, amazing little creatures. Seeing one in the wild made it worth riding out the hurricane.

We also found this little House Gecko (Hemidactylus frenatus), which is an invasive introduced species in Baja.

We managed to find a place that was serving dinner, then we went back to the hotel. We decided not to road cruise as the temps had fallen enough to make the roads very cool.