Still no Wifi to post photos (using tethered iPhone for this written part.
Trying a third time 2/11 and going back to enter photos. (do you remember dial-up?... that modem sound? Well this is similar...I keep looking for the rope start.
Day 3 (Feb 3) arrived on another bluff looking out on the Pacific. The west coast is dramatic especially with the bluffs down to a rock strewn beach with wild pounding waves that are que estruendoso! all the time. I wear ear plugs at night! This part of the trip is both exciting and a tad nerve wracking as y’all haven’t a clue where you are going and still, being the first few days, one needs to get supplies. Crossing the border there are restrictions so you have to buy things in Mexico. Support the local economy!
Drinking water. We could not find a source for it to refill our 20 gallon tank before crossing the border as the region of southern California was under a boil water restriction due to the heavy rains. Bummer. So we arrived with minimal (5 gallons). There are places in Baja to get bulk purified water but their hoses are not compatible (I brought my hose too) so I have to make an adapter in the next few days (fun watching me with my limited hardware Spanish …I feel so bad for them as I see their pained expressions trying to figure out what the hell this illiterate gringo is saying. I was able to describe a 2 part epoxy and everyone was thrilled! Until the hose adapter is made we have to use plastic water bottles being consumed and discarded and we know where they will end up….right now it’s too painful to describe.
BEER: Having left behind US craft brews and IPA’s, there are wonderful German type lagers… like Bud. I wanted Modelo Negro, a tasty beer. Each time over 4 days I have been thwarted in procuring said beer. Either it is not in this last delivery, señor or worse I find it but not allowed to buy it due to the time of day. No beer before 10 AM. even I will not be seen waiting 1 1/2 hours to do so! Maybe tomorrow!
As I type this we are on another bluff further down the west coast and yes the surf is deafening. Luann is asleep as is Lucy and I am clattering away (they can’t hear me due to the sea)…. night 4. We have left behind, we think, the frenetic pace of the northern roadside economy supporting the vast agricultural enterprises of thousands of greenhouses going on mile after mile growing cherry tomatoes and strawberries. An immense operation. We have just transitioned in the last thirty miles to a desert clime and there is scant human presence between towns. So off the highway 1 on a sandy track toward the sea and boondock camp again. Full moon rising in the east as the sun set into the sea. (and me without my Modelo Negro!) .
One final note that gave me, Luann and Lucy pleasure today (besides us getting to take a shower) was driving out 6 miles on a flat sand beach at low tide …way out on a point…. and letting Lucy off leash to run back and forth to us separated by a few hundred yards. Her first run in a month. She wanted to knock me down and whip my ass… and I let her do so just a bit! She is having her own cultural shock as US dogs live a very different life than the packs of barrio dogs who sleep in the road and are free to cause havoc. She has had a few melt downs as they surround and jump up on our truck with her going psycho right back.
We are off on day 5 through El Rosario to a place we hope to camp on a remote beach (if we can get in to it) and relax to relieve the travel angst. (hopefully with a MODELO NEGRO!!). stopping at El Rosario for desayjuno at Momma Espinoza’s started a long time ago by a woman who just passed away in 2016 at 109 years old. Plans change (heuristic boots on and all laced up) … off to travel the length of The Valley of Cirios, named for the tree that grows pretty much only within the valley. A tree that can reach 20 meters! and it is mostly a trunk with tiny slim branches sticking out all over its height covered in tiny leaves. It is also call the Boojum Tree taken from the Lewis Carroll’s poem “The Hunting of the Snark”. Some say it looks like a Dr. Seuss tree. Cirios means wax candle as that is its shape. There are Saguaro-type cacti 40 feet tall named Mexican Giant Cactus by the thousands and a tree called Baja Elephant Tree. The beauty got the best of us and we pulled over to scour the Gaia offline topo-map for an old road in off the route 1 which has climbed 2000 feet since this morning and is as windy as the California US coastal route 1 (only there are no guardrails or pull off shoulders and the drop offs are nuts. Lo and behold we were delivered onto a sandy track into the boulders and cacti. What a find. Like one of those Hollywood westerns of the perfect southwest desert scene.There are mountain lions, bobcats, mule deer, big horned sheep, fox, snakes and lizards in great abundance (hence the ever ready marine air horn …and a diaper). It looks like a botanical garden, pristine. Another great boondock site.
And so we get the bonus of an early stop to pop up and putter about taking photos, using the Seek app to ID plants, let Lucy sleep on a sand mat in the shade (it is 82º at 3:30). I will have time to get the digital camera on a tripod and set it up to take prolonged exposures of the dark sky hopefully tonight. We are indeed lucky to have the time to stop. Baja California is 900 miles long and the roads make it a slower drive. I hate driving all day and then pulling in around dark…then repeating. Driving a few hours or until it looks good and stopping is a great luxury. We have no major time restrictions for the first time ever.
I have to mention a few things I have avoided mostly out of a liberal desire to not offend the local culture. But it is the elephant in the room. Trash (“basura”). In the 70’s the throw-away-culture came to the 3rd world brought to you by the big corporations as progress, instead of providing a responsible built in recycling of what has been the most worldwide trashing of global environments. In 1979 in Paraguay they had already been given plastic bags and plastic palm oil containers which could not be reused nor redeemed. Every possible waterway, alley, gutter or street was strewn with plastic. Then came the lata (can) for beer. Until then beer was sold in 22 oz bottles in wooden crates which one brought back (as we used to do) to be washed with caustic soda and reused. There was great pride in my neighbor’s voice as he showed me the new beer can … Look señor, you can drink it then throw it away!” just like in the movies. Within a year most roads were nearly paved in flat cans.
Forty years on all one has to do is travel to 80% of the world’s population and witness the sea of trash choking every inch. Profit without responsibility should not be allowed. If you make money by screwing somebody it is fraud. Why not this? I have painfully framed my photos to avoid the mountains of trash. I did this as I wanted to just show what is naturally pretty here but I would be remiss in not recognizing this calamity. We see trash (litter is too small a word) everywhere. But what slams your senses is when you turn a corner out of town to see the open dumps, mountains that ‘throw-away-produces’ and a mile on either side the wind has enlarged the area to look like it is miles long. Not buried, nor burned and there for 500 years if you are a Bic lighter (great idea huh) 1000 years for a plastic oil can. (They had a display at the Big Bend Nat.,TX of how long this crap lasts). It just makes you sad, embarrassed to be human. We here in the US don’t have to live with it for the most part, but we are mostly responsible for it, and now China too.
2/7
We traveled south 150 km from the great cacti campsite south of Rosario to Santa Rosalillita. A tiny village on the Pacific which was going to be transformed into a modern shipping facility to accept large ships ferrying trucks/container with goods which would then be driven across the peninsula to the Sea of Cortez and there to the mainland. It was 80% built along with a real road, electric power lines etc. At that point the project was abandoned leaving the village hopes for modernity dashed. It at least has electricity which it did not before.
Five Km before the village is a gravel road (rocks and holes!) hugging the coast northward through an uninhabited area known as the Seven Sisters. It can be approached from the north but would require an even longer 4WD crawl. It took us 3 1/2 very slow, very rough, very anxious hours to get to this bay where we are camped luckily without anyone else as crazy as we are to get here.
The Seven Sisters are series of seven right point breaks, which if you are a surfer, would have you drooling. Very big waves, scary crazy big that roar in and whomp the shore (If you were numb enough upstairs to actually wade in, you would be ground into a gooey ball). Currently with an offshore stiff wind making the wave crests curl back over the tops. It was all I could do not to (ok I did) break into Hawaii 5-O theme song (“book’em Dano”)! Actually I spent a good 10 minutes doing that tune with great enthusiasm!
There are Pelicans, Cormorants, some kind of small, what looks like a diving duck, terns, and maybe a frigate?
After setting up we were both shattered from the drive, we went about the chores needed to get done before we sat down and couldn’t get up. I took the trash and ‘wag’ bag out, from the day before, and placed them on the ground 10 feet from the camper on the edge of the drop off to the rocks below on the shore, leashed Lucy and took her out for her constitutional, 5 minutes. Luann was inside but with the screen door open. I returned to find the bags shredded and contents scattered…. a wily coyote had been watching for the opportunity and took it. One needs to be diligent !
Current plan is to stay here two days then head back (on that bone rattling road) to Santa Rosalillita, then south again into southern Baja ( a different time zone so we lose an hour). As of this moment the idea is for us to go to San Ignacio. Hopefully to stay over 2 nights, Luann goes on a Whale (Grey) watch as they are migrating and me to chill out with Lucy and get this way-behind blog organized and if possible posted. We will have been without cell or civilization for 5 days. Wi-Fi non existent.
Life in a submarine
Hola amigos! Nice to see you are on the other coast. Sounds powerful and with much to see, not counting the basura. Hope you get a nice cold Modelo Negro soon and can put your feet up for a bit. Adios.🌵🍺
ReplyDeleteLove the photos (I checked back), renews my interest in going back. Yes the trash is depressing and overwhelming. Looking forward to the next post (no pressure tho).
ReplyDeleteRob, Luann, Lucy, Amazing trip, sites, pictures, stories... Thanks so much for sharing all the detail and congrats to you for finding a way to record this in relative real-time to capture all your insights. Stay safe, keep on enjoying...
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