day one day two day three day four day five day six

The brains behind the operation, C. Darrin Hulsey, woke us at 5:30. We brewed up some Peet's coffee, threw our gear in the car and hit the road. The dark, windy roads leading out of Puerto Vallarta were not the greatest for our stomachs, but as the sun rose and we viewed the beautiful landscape around us, our excitement grew.

We stopped in Barra Navidad for breakfast around 9 am. It was a nice seaside tourist-friendly town. I decided to have a 'traditional' mexican breakfast dish of Molleta con queso. My choice of breakfast had Darrin laughing for hours.

	photos of the Baja boys enjoying our first breakfast of the trip.

Around 11:30 am, Tom Near found our first herp under a brink at a Pemex station: an introduced gecko.

We lunched at about 1:15 that afternoon at a small town. We sat next to the beach under thatch roofs to keep the sun off. Darrin and i had whole fish (possibly a wrasse the icthyologists determined by ripping its head apart to look at the jaws) and Tom had shrimp. We were amused by some large teids running around - either Ameiva or Cnemidophorus, but we couldn't catch them, so I'm not sure which was which.

That afternoon we saw our third herp shortly after crossing into Michochoan: a large spiny-tailed iguana, Ctenosaura pectinata. Darrin dropped me out of the car and turned around, but the lizard was just far to fast for me, and there was no way to park and chase it further into the forest.

We arrived in the town of Playa Azul shortly after 6:15 that evening. Walking around town we ran into some kids with a headless snake. It looked like a young boa constrictor, but it could have been many things, and it was pretty beat up. Back at the hotel Hemidactylus frenatus were running near the wall lamps. I took some photos while Darrin mixed up the formalin for the coming fish catching.

	introduced gecko
	Darrin: road warrior