I left Guerrero Negro mid-afternoon and headed south. I was crossing the Vizcaino Desert, which gets an inch or less of rain a year. There were no cactus most of the way, and in most places not even the small yucca trees. Just a ground cover of sparse bushes. The peninsula is pretty flat here, and also most of the way to the eastern coast. It wasn’t especially windy, but with the sparse ground cover allowing dust in the air, and the surf on the coast putting salt in the air, the air was pretty hazy. I couldn’t even see mountains in the distance. It was flat, flat, flat, and boring. I went through one moderate-sized town, El Vizcaino.
Just after sundown, I stopped at a gravel pit, on the side of a mesa, not too far from San Ignacio. I was able to get a ways off the highway. Wind again rocked the trailer all night. In the dark, there were absolutely no lights of any habitation to be seen, and from my elevation, I could see miles to the south. All I could see was the occasional car or truck on the highway, about one every 5 miles. All in all, not a very interesting day.
In the middle of the night, a magnet on the wall above my head finally lost its grip, and fell, smack on my head. It’s lucky I didn’t have a gun under my pillow, or there would have been some holes in the trailer come morning.
The best part today was watching the shorebirds up close. I forgot my bird book, so I’ll have to identify them from my photos. There was a small one, about the size of a robin--probably a “turnstone.” We have turnstones come through Wisconsin on migration, but we don’t get to see them do “their thing.” Well, here they were, running along the high and dry part of the beach, turning over every clam shell, plus some rocks. There wasn’t anything to eat under most of them, but I did see one turnstone get quite a large and tasty morsel. They also turned over relatively large stones. All this with a very efficient flip of the beak. They must have a pretty strong neck. At first, they were mostly turning over clam shells that were face down. But later, I saw them turning over ones that were face up. I imagine that they turn over nearly everything on the beach—and then flip them all the other way after a while. No respite for the little bugs and crabs. I won’t bore you with what the other species were doing.
Saturday, 3/20
I slept late, sleeping right through my alarm, while I was dreaming about studying for a test. I work so hard in my dreams that I deserve every minute of vacation that I get.
After about an hour, I arrived in San Ignacio. It’s a laid-back little town, everyone says, with the best mission church in Baja. It’s also a take-off point for ecotours, such as whale watching at San Ignacio Lagoon.
The old mission in San Ignacio is the finest one in Baja.
San Ignacio is absolutely charming. You take a side road into town, and pass through large date palm groves, located in a shallow canyon. There’s even a little lake, where the stream has been dammed up. Then shortly you arrive at the charming little town square, with lots of big, outreaching shade trees overarching all, and then the ornate mission church. This is an absolutely timeless Mexican town. Really nothing has changed in a century, except some superficial things, like the few cars parked about, the internet café sign, and the boys playing video games on in a sidewalk arcade. But it’s totally quiet and peaceful. There was so little going on, and so little traffic, that I pulled my trailer right up to the edge of the town square, and parked there under a big shade tree. The birds were chirping, and everywhere you go, there’s a chorus of doves cooing. There are palm trees here and there, and orange trees. I started photographing some Mexican children, and made friends with them by showing them their photos. Then I showed the boy the inside of my trailer.
Mexican kids are very open and trusting.
Mexicans love children, on whom they lavish lots of attention and care. The children are very open. I was able to quickly make friends with these kids, aged from about 5-13. In the US, they have probably been instructed by their parents to strictly avoid strangers. And if they didn’t avoid me, I would have probably been reported as a pedophile. What have we lost? Trust—the very fabric of society.
The local constable passed by on foot. I spoke to him, and asked him if I could camp here for the night. He said I could, and that it would be “very tranquilo,” and he would be nearby, so not to worry. Right on the town square! He was a very handsome and gentle guy—not a tough cop at all. He even spoke some English.
I wandered around, taking some photos. Then went to my trailer to make a Mediterranean garbanzo salad. I had been putting this of for several days—because it seemed like a big operation in the trailer. And it was, sort of, because among other things I had to carefully wash and disinfect the tomatoes, green onions, and peppers I had bought in Mexico. Now this probably wasn’t any more necessary than at home, since it’s pretty likely a good share of our vegetables come from Mexico anyway. Also, I was afraid of making a mess of the trailer. The tomatoes were very juicy, and when I sliced into one, a big spout of juice shot across the trailer, and hit my camera. That’s precisely why I had been putting off making the salad.
I had lunch parked next to the town square, sitting in the trailer.
But finally I finished. I had lunch in the square, listening to the birds, sipping a beer, and finished off with fresh-baked date bread, made with locally-produced dates right on the square. I also bought a quarter of a “pay datil.” I knew “datil” was date, but I couldn’t imagine what “pay” was. On further investigation, it turned out to be “pie” in English--pronounced in Spanish just like in English.I was thinking of going to talk to some of the old men sitting around the square, and maybe offer them some gringo guacamole. But I couldn’t quite get up my nerve, though I know they would have been happy to talk to me.
The dog was wearing a sports jersey.
There I was in paradise, but I had run out of things to do. You can only eat so much date pie in paradise. I reasoned I could always come back on my way north, so I headed out of town. And paradise is no good without my woman.
I passed the very impressive Volcan Tres Virgenes, and passed over the divide.
The Three Virgins Volcano. I could only count two.
Not long after, I came to the famous serpentine downgrade the guide book talks about. It was impressive, but not the terrifying thing people talk about. There was a wrecked semi at the bottom of the canyon and a number of roadside memorials, but I paid no attention.
Start of the notorious downgrade to Santa Rosalia.
Funky Santa Rosalia has frontier French architecture.
There’s even a small church built from iron by Eiffel, the guy who designed the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The town is vibrant, with colorful buildings and delicious smells wafting from every restaurant. The town is in a small canyon where it opens onto the Sea of Cortez. The landscape north and south is extremely barren, but the Sea of Cortez is very, very blue.
I headed out of town and south As the sun set, I pulled off on a dirt road heading inland to the town of San Jose de Magdalena, about 5 miles inland. After half a mile, I found a place where I could pull off and get some distance from the dirt road. It was a good thing I could get away, because a number of cowboys were coming down the road to the main road, hauling horse trailers. Perhaps there’s a festival somewhere nearby, with horse events. These guys were dressed up in full cowboy regalia. After I was settled, some more pickups headed down the road towards the main road at high speed. I had crawled up the road at 10 mph, but these guys were doing maybe 50 mph. These must be the pickups you see in the ads for the football games--the pickups flying through the air. I imagined these were cowboys from San Jose, headed for weekend fun in Santa Rosalia. Luckily, I’m out of reach of their dust plume.
I got my chair had opened a beer, sitting outside. I’m far enough south now so that it’s hot during the day and balmy at night. I watched Venus set behind a mountain, and the stars come out. The mountains in the west were silhouetted by electric blue twilight. The moon is so bright, that even though it’s still just a crescent, I feel I could almost read by it.
Some observations on Mexico
It’s so hard to get here the way I did. And then, when you’re here, you can only look at the stars for so long. If only we could be transported to any place on earth, and stay there for an hour—and do this whenever we wanted. I suppose that’s why we go to the movies. You get not only the stars, but a plot and a romance, as well.
I also wish that all North Americans could experience the real Mexico. In the US, we tend to see Mexicans as an underclass. Some North Americans go a step further, and think that they are doing something illegal, taking something from us. But all the Mexicans in the US want is the same opportunity our ancestors had, the chance to work hard and get ahead.
When you are in Mexico, they are no longer the underclass. You see the vibrancy of the culture, and how much Mexicans enjoy the simple pleasures of life—which Americans sometimes seem to have lost.
The lack of opportunity here leads to something you seldom see in the US. Twice I’ve seen youth—once at a gas station, and once in an office—who seem to be virtually asleep on their feet.
The root causes of Mexico’s poverty can be traced in part to the fact that the land has been plundered for longer than in the US—exploitation started over a hundred years earlier in Mexico. Catholicism here and the Pope's opposition to birth control led to overpopulation which further stressed the environment. On top of that, Mexico is mostly desert. Mexicans have a traditional outlook which leads them to accept things as they are and have always been done. While this may lead to personal happiness, it’s not necessarily good for the economy. Finally, in Mexico, a much larger percentage of the native population survived, leading to the problems of a repressed underclass.
Corruption has also held Mexico back, but let’s put it in perspective. Corruption has to do with who you identify with, who you give your loyalty to. In Mexico, family and friends are valued most highly—so you always try to advance yourself, your family, and friends. In contrast, North Americans, lacking such a tight network, instead give their loyalty to more abstract entities, such as citizenship, professional standards, or corporation. But the US seems to be devolving to a more Mexican concept of corruption--our bankers feel it’s OK to steal from the people, as long as they give the bonuses to their own class or corporation.
I’ve been reading “The Forgotten Peninsula,” by Joseph Wood Krutch. He traveled by 4-wheel drive the entire length of the peninsula in 1959, about two years before I first did the same thing for the first third of Baja. It’s not especially well-written, but its fun to learn what I would have seen if I had completed my first journey. He also throws in fascinating quotes from earlier writers, so you can also see the peninsula as it was in, say, 1860.
I learned that the “Padres” who first established missions here should all be dug up from their graves and tried for genocide. The Indians died like flies from introduced disease. One Padre wrote that, although the Indian children were dying in droves, that was OK, because that way, they could go to heaven before they had sinned. Today, we lament the fact that the vow of celibacy must contribute to priests becoming sexual predators. But in those days, celibacy led to an astonishing lack of empathy with dying children. If those priests had been fathers, I doubt it they could have been so cavalier about the death of children.
Sunday, 3/21
It's now about 6:00 pm, and I've driving all day along the coast of the Sea of Cortez. It's been hot and windy and dusty, so the air isn't clear. The wind is from the North (an El Norte), so there are big waves in the bays. I passed and checked out the towns of Mulege and Loreto, plus Bahia Conception and Bahio Loreto.
Bahia Conception.
Loreto Bay--even more beautiful.
Conception Bay is about as big and beautiful as San Francisco Bay, before any population. These bays ae incredibly beautiful, but also very barren. But I didn't stop to paddle, because it was too rough. Perhaps on my return. There was one place where I had to wait a long time for road construction.
Boy, this is a long way down here! I'm starting to get tired of driving! The problem is the dusty air, and things aren't so green in the south. Long ago I passed the southern limit of the cirio trees.
I stopped at a little hole-in-the-wall internet place along the highway in the town of Insurgentes. They have four computers. Everyone was sitting around talking like a family reunion . Speed is very slow. A microwave and an old coffee machine (no coffee) constitute the "cafe" part of "internet cafe."
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