In the midst of the author?s booksigning at the Pyramid hotel south of Rosarito beach a couple of weeks back, we were gearing up to the shared meal
late in the day. Mary Ann and I were talking with a few friends in a group and a pal and his wife ask if we?d all like to run down the beach a mile
or two to see their home.
?It?s not far from here.? He said. And we set off for a visit.
We piled the group of us into Vaca Blanca and followed directions until we arrived at what seemed like a tiny beachfront community of mostly smaller
tourist homes. But, leaving the highway towards the water it became obvious that the grouping of homes was not small at all. Nor were the individual
homes. There must have been several hundred houses tucked onto this hillside beachfront. We wound our way down the bluffs and were directed to a
particular road, then a specific house, parked and exited the truck and were welcomed by our friends to the house that had been in their family for
two generations.
I have, in my 62 years, never seen a warmer, more charming place. It was two stories; the downstairs was packed with a kitchen, small hall, a room
with an elevated bed, a living area and much more. The upstairs was similar minus the kitchen, again with an elevated bed. It turns out the beds
were elevated to allow the grand ocean view while still in them.
But it wasn?t the arrangement of rooms that was striking, it was the attention to detail that had gone into the aging construction, and the warmth of
the appointments. The size of each room was relatively small, like you?d expect at a beach house anywhere, but their arrangement was totally
functional and accommodating. On every wall, paintings and small family photographs were hung; creations, some artistic, some rough hued were
suspended. A door stop was handmade by our friend?s father as were a table top of broken tile and other warm items. Character was represented there,
in as many forms as it could take.
We sat, us friends, for a while on the upper deck overlooking a rocky coastline with major breakers smashing into spume in front of us. Our host told
us of the history of the campo and his family home. His dad had put his heart into the place and it showed and it was partially passing down a trail
of years to his son and his family. You could touch the warmth; the unique woods and finishes, the floors, the low and heightened ceilings and the
personal touches. Everywhere you looked were signs of the love that had been put into the place.
Alas, we were due back at the Pyramid for dinner and all sped there. During the evening we continued the festivities. They ended in a tequila
tasting where Jose Cuervo Tradicional won. It had cost NP 351.00 for a liter bottle. It was recommended by another friend on a Web board.
The small sips of Tequila did their work and before long we were wearing down and then in bed, talking about the filled-to-the-brim day. Mary Ann was
soon asleep and I was reading when I thought about the home we had visited.
There are many mostly-American communities thriving on Baja?s ?Gold Coast.? There are as many white-plastered magnificent domiciles as you can count,
developed inside whitewashed protective walls with cemented roadbeds and all the amenities. The carefully arranged art and beautiful sculptures in
those abodes and wonderful. But are they Mexico? Do the fancy lifestyles allow us to change from or simply relive what we have further north?
What I want is the change, the comparison of lifestyles. I don?t want the same things on two sides of a border. I want to live the difference. I
know that is true with my wife and our children. They want it also. So I guess I can call myself, in some small way, successful.
You know you?re in trouble when a friend?s house gives you a feeling of success. But what?s what it did.
Mike
Baja Bernie - 5-5-2005 at 09:43 AM
Campo Lopez???? A magical place even in this paradise.
Bernie
Mike Humfreville - 5-5-2005 at 03:47 PM
I don't remember the name of the campo. Pescador - 5-5-2005 at 06:35 PM
Mike, your insight and perceptivity amaze me. You really hit the nail on the head. On this side of the border we want things bigger and more to make
some kind of statement. I fall in to that as I look out my window of our log house that overlooks a lake in the Colorado Mountains. It is small but
we looked for a long time to find a place that met our desires for a house.
But when we started getting more time to spend in Baja, we looked at several houses and quickly came to the conclusion that having one of those
houses in Mexico meant, painting, fixing, maintaining, worrying, fretting about Chubascos, fearing that we might be broken into, and all of the other
joys of ownership. After looking long and hard at ourselves and what it was that we really wanted, things started to become clearer.
Up to that point we had always stayed in a pickup camper with a tarp addition and that was great as long as we were on the road and traveling from
place to place in Baja. We also had to try lots of places out to see where the match was made for us. We did not like the noisy and boisterous
attitude of most of the gringo enclaves where the fun activity of the day was to see who could drink the most and act the worst. We also did not like
the "touristy" areas like Loreto and Cabo San Lucas. For us fishing was very important and we tried up and down the coast to find the most likely
spot where our luck would be good some of the time. And finally we wanted a place where there was some sense of community and a place where we could
feel like we were among friends. We wanted a place where we could interact as much as we wanted to with the locals and where they felt they could
interact with us as much as they wanted to.
So we ended up buying a used trailer and putting it on the edge of the water in a protected cove. I worked my tail off building a porch and covered
kitchen. We are happy that we can have our friends over for dinners and campfires where we get out the guitars and play a little music. One of our
friends was visiting one night and he made the statement that he really liked another area not too far away from where we were, and when I answered
that it just wouldn't work for me and that I could not connect to the people or the layout, he quipped that, comeon, if you could afford it you would
have a house there too. Little did he know that I could have written a check for any one of those houses there but that in doing so, I would have
gotten away from what it was that I was "looking for" in Baja. So at least at this point in my life, I am happy with what we have created and look
forward to spending a lot of time in the new place.
Great Story Pascador!
Mike Humfreville - 5-5-2005 at 07:08 PM
Couldn't agree more. While I haven't lived in the part of Baja I was writing about, I've spent enough time on the "gold coast" to know that Americans
respectfull of the locals are well accepted. When we enter a community by having to buy the nicest house on the block are we really joining in or are
we dominating?
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.Skipjack Joe - 5-5-2005 at 10:12 PM
Quote:
Originally posted by Mike Humfreville
What I want is the change, the comparison of lifestyles. I don?t want the same things on two sides of a border. I want to live the difference.
Amen! I share your desire and I think many of the people on this website do also. There are basically two kinds of tourists: (1) those who welcome and
like to immerse themselves in the alien culture and (2) those who want as little change as possible in their travels and try to find enclaves where
they feel at home. Most people on this board have been traveling to baja for years when baja was there in it's raw form.
A couple of years ago I was staying on Chrsitmas Island in the central pacific and saw a cruise ship make a stop. The islanders brought all their
handicrafts to the pier. The passengers disembarked on to the pier, shopped a bit, took a few pictures, and back they went. Nobody even bothered to
even walk to the end of the pier and take a look at the village, much less the island. The villagers themselves also went through a transformation.
They put on costumes which I never saw them wear before and pretended that this was their native dress, only wearing it long enough for the tourists.
The whole thing was comical.
Actually, my biggest beef against globalization, as I understand it, is the loss of what you speak about. My fear is that globalization, if it does
occur, will reduce our world to a single homogenous culture where all nations and cultures will merge into one. A utopia that I can do without.
Skipjack Joe
Mike Humfreville - 5-5-2005 at 10:52 PM
A shrinking world is a worry to me too. And it's a valid reality at least in my mind. We need more individuality rather than commonality, socially
anyway. I'm glad you had the experience of Christmas Island when the tourists left. It's eye opening. Mary Ann and I had a similar experience in
the Canary Islands. We were there on our own for some time while others flew through.
While I know most of us appreciate both sides, we have all pretty much chosen one or the other. Folks gripe about Cabo and Rosarito and San Felipe,
but those are places we all visit from time to time and find a need for. Others of us enjoy the outback and escape from the pressurized lifestyles of
El Otro Lado. I'm glad we have both, but I sure like it when that tourist ship you described pulls out of port.
