Osprey - 5-21-2011 at 05:07 PM
Baja Nocturne
Sometimes it takes countless trips to all parts of Baja California in the daytime to get a really good look at all it has to offer. Having said that,
what about the Baja nights? Over time adventurers grow bold enough to stumble about after sundown to find out what’s on the other side of the magic.
May I report, for you and me, a little of what lies just beyond the gathering shadows?
Baja has the Georgia springtime fireflies that children capture in mason jars but ours are in the water and much more elusive. We can watch but we
cannot capture. They aren’t flies or bugs or beetles, they are plankton; not hundreds but googles of them lighting up the shallows. You need only move
your hand through the waters in the darkness to be constantly thrilled by the emerald light show. One of the best ways to enjoy the special show in
the shallow waters of Bahia Concepcion is to run, swim, gyrate with your naked sweetheart with such a frenzy that the tiny animals light up, like a
time delay film, all the personal paths and holes and tunnels in the water of your movement as though you were painting with radioactive jade. You
stop, take a breath, hug --- total darkness without a hint that the magic was there.
Around Loreto you make your own bait before false dawn and as you leave the beach in the panga, if the timing is right you will be treated to fire of
another kind. As your boat tic, tic, tics across the bay in the darkness, the sound of the motor, the bow wave excites fish of every kind, turtles,
tiny bait fish and unseen monsters of the deep to speed away from your small craft while leaving behind majestic tunnel-trails of bioluminescence.
If you spend a day on the mountains you’ll love the easy lifestyle of the families there but should you stay for dinner you’ll catch that strangely
different light in the canyons just at dark that seems to leave behind a quiet when it leaves that is complete. It fills up again around the fire as
the children play. The ranchero who showed you the corrals and plants and animal tracks by the stream now holds an aboriginal light in his eyes – he
sees the same change in your eyes and you might make the connection that you are both touching on the big time-line graph, both jammed together in the
slot that shows the next small jump above hunter-gatherers.
You might have just enough brandy and mineral water at a quinceanera to pick up a guitar and play and sing for the few hardy souls that lasted under
the trees and lights, the balloons and streamers till nearly dawn. Somewhere in the night, as the children crept away for their beds, the night, for
you brandy revelers, took on a new meaning, a celebration of music and dancing – survival, staying power for those caught in the special lambent globe
the grape spirit forms right from the cup. In such a state I have seen the many glorious Van Gogh halos pulsing from the street lamps of our little
village. (His stunning Road with Cypress and Star)
Sometimes the darkness has its own sound. Waves lapping make a darkening rhythm, the faint flutter of diving poor-will feeding near the shore seems to
help pull down the black curtain. Wind fluttering against your tent or camper reminds you the special darkness has brought you the precious gift of
solitude. You can still get lost in your own secret place in this little part of Mexico – the kind you remember from your childhood, your place in the
barn loft, the garden, the safe, quiet serene place where you were the master of darkness.
In the raw desert I have shared the darkness with the great horned owl, the babisuri, the civet cat, the coyote, the carpenter bee and all the bugs
that whiz and whirl and sting and bother but I will take the darkness any way it comes. When there, I think about the early ones and how they must
have had to hunker down and stay put as soon as the shadows lengthened – most of the desert could be a killing field for those unprotected who might
have been driven to flight. For most of us pilgrims the darkness is a place we store what we need, close at hand, to survive till first light.
They used to tell us kids “There’s nothing in the dark that wasn’t there when the light was on”. That’s not entirely true but what is there in this
part of Mexico is unique and irreplaceable.
So, come on down. I’ll leave the light off for you.
Natalie Ann - 5-21-2011 at 05:18 PM
Thank you, Jorge.... really, thank you.
nena
Skipjack Joe - 5-21-2011 at 05:22 PM
One of your very best, Jorge. Ranks up there with "Rain" that you wrote a few years ago.
As a photographer, I realized several years ago that one of baja's greatest magic was the play of light and dark that occurs every morning and evening
across the land.
Marc - 5-21-2011 at 06:00 PM
I thought Hemingway died years ago.
This is true art!
[Edited on 5-22-2011 by Marc]
dtbushpilot - 5-21-2011 at 08:30 PM
Good job jorge, thanks.....dt
mulegemichael - 5-21-2011 at 08:44 PM
really..really, george...nice.
Ken Bondy - 5-21-2011 at 08:57 PM
Magnificent Jorge. Bravo.
Iflyfish - 5-21-2011 at 10:12 PM
I could see the luminescense, the darting fish, the air....I was there. Thank you! What a wonderful piece. You captured it like no one I have ever
read.
Iflyfish
MitchMan - 5-22-2011 at 11:25 AM
Osprey, you have a gift.
wessongroup - 5-22-2011 at 11:44 AM
Thanks again..
Pescador - 5-22-2011 at 01:58 PM
My late wife was deathly afraid of leaving before light at San Lucas Cove where you had to negotiate several shallow area, a spit of land, and a wreck
all in the same trip, but once you were free of the cove and into the open water, the light show started. It was a magical time of the morning and
not only did your boat wake light up the night, but as Jorge has reported, the fish running away from your boat started their own little light trails.
So as Jorge so magically does, he brings back the childhood delight of the mornings and the magic.