Pappy Jon - 3-19-2006 at 07:53 PM
That morning I slept in getting up with the sun. From my camp at Conception Bay I explored north up the bay to see what it looked like. I had extra
time today since my plan wasn't to drive very far. The trail followed the bay and I did learn a new plant or two. The tree was notable. A great
candidate for a desert courtyard. Evergreen. Obviously very drought tolerant. Salt tolerant too. So I look at this tree. It has dried flowers, but
nothing to help figure out what it is. Then, I find more. In bloom. So again I work on identifying this tree. The flowers are weird. Are they really
all boys? No girl parts, interesting. Then I find another tree. All girl parts. In the botanical world it's called dioecious, or "two houses," which
means there are separate boy and girl plants. Still, I'm stumped with regard to family. So I cheat, pull out Roberts, start flipping through the
pages, and there it is. In the ... uh? Caper Family? Capparaceae (aka Capparidaceae)? With bladder pod and those other stink weeds? Entire leaves in a
family dominated by palmately divided leaves? Sure enough, it's Palo San Juan, aka Forchammeria watsonii for you arm-chair botanical types. I take a
few pictures and imagine what it would look like with more water and better care. Wonder how fast it grows? Anybody seen one of these in a garden,
public or private?
I turn around to the highway and continued south, stopping in Loreto for lunch at a small taco stand. My first fish tacos of the trip. They were good,
and I was hungry. Just south of Loreto I was told about a place called Agua Verde. The road was described as twisty, and steep. It was, though nothing
hard or difficult. I arrived at the rancho at the bottom and continued on to look for a camp spot. I checked out a few spots and settled on the site
marked Camp 3 on the KML. This was a nice beach camp, but that night the wind picked up. I heard later that a storm went through California. Around
1:30am my tent picked up around me and sand showered down through the netting. The wind had pulled out all the stakes and was trying to move me to the
Gulf. I decided to abandon the tent and move to the truck, but not before the wind picked up the tent, with me in chase heading for the water. This
was the worst night of the trip. The next morning I dumped sand out of everything, and load the truck. I take the road further down to check out the
village of Agua Verde. Agree it's very nice, and decided to head back to the highway, drive down to Cd. Insurgentes for fuel, then come come back to a
place called Santa Marta.
Well, I don't know where I went wrong, but I never found Santa Marta. I was on a good road, as the map shows, when all of a sudden it started
switch-backing down steeply into a canyon. I just kept blindly following along, dropped into the canyon, drove down the canyon, and ... what the?? The
trail t-boned into another graded dirt road at a paved vado (wash crossing.) So I pull out the GPS and .... ya ready? I had looped back around to Agua
Verde. My truck was sitting on the track I made earlier that morning. This road was NOT on the maps I have. So what do I do? I backtrack. Back up this
twisty, steep road, and try to figure out where I went wrong. I wander around and finally decide I'm not camping on the beach tonight (from the KML I
wasn't even close), and make camp under a nice mesquite in a cow clearing (no cows, thankfully). This is Camp 4 on the KML.
The wind was still that night and I went from the worst night of the trip to one of the best. No crashing waves to lullaby me to sleep ... but the
thrashers, ash-throated flycatchers, white-wing doves, gila woodpeckers, and the rest of the Sonoran ensemble made up for it the next morning. Ya, I
miss the desert. The real desert. Not that thing in Albuquerque they call desert. This, THIS is the real deal. I was starting to feel not only back at
home, but starting to relax, like I'm on vacation or something. Wait, I am.
The next day I'm up early and pull out of camp with the sun coming up in my rear view. A stop in Cd. Constitucion for fuel; and a huge bag of oranges
(hey, they looked good right then) for a cheap 60 pesos. Must have been a 50 pound bag, or certainly felt that way when I unloaded them that evening.
No wonder the guy had a kid load them for me. He sure didn't make them look that heavy. Anyway, I'm driving down the road and I'm trying to figure out
what I'm going to do with a ton of oranges. Then I remembered the kids I saw at one of those remote ranchos riding their bikes around. For the rest of
the trip I was giving them away. If I saw life at one of the many ranchos I passed, I stopped and handed out a handful. If I saw more than one life at
the rancho, I reached for another handful. I gave them to construction workers in the middle of no where working on a culvert. In short I gave almost
all of them away. I did manage to eat lots, and they were good. Not those picked-early, rock-hard, dry-inside, giant-fruit they feed us in the US. No,
these were small to medium, major juicy, ultra-sweet, and ok, they had seeds. So what? These were the kind where you just can't eat one. I finally had
to keep a wet rag on the shotgun seat to keep my hands from getting sticky. Ya, they were good, real good.
I need to describe the ranchos. This is remote country, and a poor part of the country. These ranchos revolve around two industries ... fishing or
ranching. The ranching was either goats or cows, sometimes both. Fish camps were always on a beach. Ranchos were in the interior. Both are very
primitive. "Facilities" involved an out-building. Electricity was rare. Running water was usually by gravity feed from a tank on the roof, but this
was not the rule. In some cases I had no idea where the water came from. I did see wells straight out of those western movies. Some ranchos are near
natural water, oasis. When natural water was available there were sometimes lush gardens, even though the homes were marginal. Date palms, citrus,
figs, lots of figs, bougainvillea were common around these places. But, they were the exception. The folks in the interior are poor. Many times there
were several vehicles parked out front. Some on their sides, some upside down, none with motors. These are poor people. But, they are happy people.
Those kids I saw on bicycles were living very shanty, but they were happy. I am a stranger and they smile and wave. I met an old vaquero (cowboy)
riding on a burro on my October trip. We passed paths in a very remote part of Baja, he on his animal, me in my truck. He was wearing the traditional
attire of thick leather chaps. Me in my shorts. Polar, very polar. He spoke no English, me poquito Espaniol (actually, less than that). He smiled, I
smiled. I often think sometimes, that maybe, he was the richer man.
From there I drop down Mex 1 to Las Pocitas and take the good dirt road toward the Gulf. This is Camp 5 on the KML. The country was very remote, but
the roads were good. Tomorrow La Paz.
Frank - 3-19-2006 at 09:05 PM
Now thats the kind of post that keeps me on the Nomad board. Thanks Pappy! Im waiting for the next one.
bajajudy - 3-19-2006 at 09:51 PM
Amen, Pappy
That is a wonderful story. The oranges were a great idea. One of my first lesson in giving came from a Mexican family that we shared a beach palapa
with many years ago. There were 6 of them and three of us. They had 10 oranges. They split them in half and put huichol sauce on them and sent the
kids over with our portions.
Sharing is what it is all about.
Cant wait to read the next installment
good stuff pappy...
eetdrt88 - 3-19-2006 at 10:17 PM
good for the soul...these kind of baja tales keep me going in between trips south
kcabo - 3-24-2006 at 04:56 AM
Pappy Jon, you rock.