Mexico

Deep in the Catavina boulder fields, tucked into an arroyo, hidden in a grove of assorted desert trees, palms, boojums, and cactus, the mothership rocks in the wind. I open my eyes and I can see dawn has come. It's cold and the sky is heavy with dark clouds. A storm in the desert. Yesterday we crossed the border at Tijuana as smooth as you please. Changed $400 into pesos, got our visas, got out of TJ and onto the toll road winding along high above the Pacific and made our way to Puerto Nuevo for Mother's Day breakfast. We ate at #1 and were the only non-Mexican customers--a good sign. We split a lobster tail, beans, rice, salsa, guacamole, tortillas and chips and coffee with mil and sugar. The coffee had cinnamon in it and was delicious. I had four cups. We both felt a great happiness to be back in Baja, a place we love.

Driving away from the coast we entered into the mountainous Santo Tomas wine region, one of the most beautiful places in northern Baja. Every mile of the drive I passed places I have spent the night, made friends, or had some kind of adventure at one time or another. We stopped in San Vicente and I got a tres leches pastel at a panaderia where I gotten one a few years ago. The same girl was working behind the counter.

It was a long hard day of driving and just before sunset we stopped south of the town of Catavina and pulled into the desert. As soon as I stopped driving my head started spinning and I knew something wasn't right. I walked out into the desert and laid down on the ground for a long time until Bob came and found me and took me back to the car. She drove us back to a place I knew and we drove into the desert under a grove of trees by an arroyo and made camp at dark. I was spinning and freezing cold. She got us in bed and held me close to warm me with her body heat. It was a long night of crazy dreams as though I was feverish. I awoke around 5 AM, still dizzy and feeling very weird. The first thing I though of was New Zealand/Santa Cruz versus Baja and the desert and it occurred to me that places like New Zealand and Santa Cruz, places that are moist and green, give me life. Places like Baja, the desert, are dry and desiccating and suck the life out of me. I have the same experience all of my life in the deserts of Patagonia, Baja, India, you name it--cold dry windy deserts drain me of life; my vata constitution doesn't support them. And places like Santa Cruz, New Zealand, the cool, green places, succulent places, are where I thrive.

Perhaps this will be my final trip to Baja. I graduate in December and maybe we can go straight to New Zealand and I can find a job. Anything is possible.

Punta Abreojos

What Bob and I both love about Baja is the wide open spaces, the lack of development, towns, and people and the nature and waves. But the arid windy desert, the harrowing two-lane shoulderless highway with oncoming 18 wheelers and the ease of getting sick from eating the wrong food or drinking the wrong thing were quickly brought back to my attention in only two days of being back here. I am definitely sick, dizzy and weak and my stomach is a mess, whether from the food or too many desert miles too fast or a combination of things I don't know. We hit the road at dawn this morning even though I was still ill and drove to Guerrero Negro where we had fish tacos at my favorite fish taco stand, filled up with a total of 25 gallons of drinking water and filled the tank. An hour or so later we turned off for a nearly 2 hour long ride through a flat desert wind blasted desert to the tiny fishing village located at Punta Abreojos. A the very end of town we backed in very tightly against a wall on the edge of a cliff dropping off twenty feet to the beach. The wheels of the mothership are only six inches from the edge of the cliff. Very sketchy. We are parked by the lighthouse and it's beautiful. The wind is wild, our tiny niche between the wall and the cliff edge, backed by a tree that hangs over our car and an osprey perched 20 feet away from us is amazing. I have befriended a local surfer who lives in a little house behind us with his wife and child and he is giving us fish he caught. Life is good here. Avanti.

New Morning

I wake up before sunrise to the sound of waves and I am no longer sick. Bob holds me close to her and we stay in bed another hour. Yesterday Bob paddled out and I made friends with a local surfer who gave me the break down on surf and the town. He lives in a little tiny house behind us and runs the water purification plant behind us. The town has a plant that pumps water out of the ocean and filters it until it is potable and supplies the town's drinking water. Diego showed me the different breaks and offered me fresh fish he'd caught. I gave him a loaf of Bob's homemade banana bread. His two beautiful dog's stayed with me. I was so ill last night I fell asleep in the early afternoon and slept through until morning. I heard the dogs growling a few times in the night and it felt good to know we had to big dogs sleeping outside our open doors protecting us.

The last two days of driving Bob and I did a lot of talking about our future, particularly where we'll live. I told Bob that Santa Cruz was perfect for me but she told me she refused to live in Santa Cruz. She told me she felt threatened when I talked about Santa Cruz and asked me not to mention it again. This was a little tough for me because I think of it as my home. I told her I realized I could never live in Baja or the desert. She asked me if I would live in Mainland Mexico and I said I didn't think so. We agreed on New Zealand if we could find work and immigrate there and that we'd consider other places. Possibly Hawaii, Chile, Mainland Mexico, Bali. Bob said that maybe the fact that Santa Cruz was my perfect place and that she would never consider living there was a sign that we were too different and wanted very different things in life. I told her I disagreed.

Today we are happy. The spot we are parked is so beautiful. The weather is cool and pleasant. I feel better. The swell seems to have died and we plan to continue south. Into the desert.

Sea of Cortez

After a morning walk down the beach to check the waves we decide to head on. Our dogs won't let us go and not only follow us through the entire town, trotting beside the mothership, they follow us as we come to speed on the paved road out of town. I feel terrible watching them running at full speed getting further and further behind us but not giving up. I suggest to Bob that we take them along for a couple months and then bring them back but she says no way. So sadly I leave our two new dogs behind. We cross begin to cross the spine of Baja, first arriving at the oasis of San Ignacio and then crossing the high mountains and eventually descending to Santa Rosalia, a favorite town of mine and the location of my second favorite fish taco stand in Baja. We sit in the shaded and lovely town square and eat fish tacos and then stroll up the shaded streets, lined with wooden houses, past the church designed by Eiffel, the architect of the Eiffel tower in Paris, and then up to the French bakery. What makes this town different from every other in Baja is that it was founded in the 1800s by the French who ran the copper mine here. The church, houses and bakery all reflect this heritage.

Putting miles on we eventually come to the beautiful Bahia de Concepcion where I have a favorite deserted beach to camp on. Bob and I make camp on our secluded beach. The water is tourmaline, aquamarine, jade, turquoise--all hues on the continuum of blue--green. There is a rocky island in front of us and mountains and islands in the distance. We swim and then set up the mothership for a relaxing night. This is the first warm, pleasant, scenic spot on our trip so far. I am still tired from being sick but we are both happy. Life is good for us.

Morning on the Sea of Cortez

After 10 days on the road we finally have found that feeling of being at home, of rhythm, of routine. At first the days on the road were endless and draining. Esalen and Big Sur was our only recovery time during the US section of the trip and now, the Sea of Cortez has been the first 'rest' on the Baja section. The stress in the US was mostly due to different agendas between Bob and I. She wanted to get directly to Baja; I wanted to enjoy the US leg of the trip and see friends. And in Baja the stress has simply been the nature of the beast--the desert, the road, the miles. But now we are parked beside a warm and beautiful sea; tonight we arrive at our destination, Scorpion Bay. and we set up camp and call it home for the summer. And we surf. At last.

--