Scenic Highway 1 to Big Sur

View from 17-mile drive near Pebble Beach

This past weekend Esperando and I set our sights for Paso Robles and a little wine tasting adventure in a region with which we were not familiar. We drove down Highway 1 with a diversion through 17 Mile Drive at Carmel, and then on south down Highway 1 to Big Sur where we had never been before, stopping for a delightful lunch on the deck overlooking the river at Big Sur River Inn.

Hotel guests enjoying the lawn chairs set into the cool stream.

After eating Esperando trotted over to the Valero gas station to see if they sold diesel fuel, but they did not. On the way out of town he checked at a different gas station and same story. They thought the nearest diesel fuel was about 40 miles down the road at Gordo, or maybe Ragged Point. Thinking we had enough to get that far we traveled on enjoying the breathtaking views of California’s rugged south coast. Looking at the craggy coastline and steep mountains reminded me of the Kingston Trio song, South Coast:

Chorus:

South Coast, the wild coast, is lonely. You may win at the game at Jolon,

But the lion still rules the barranca, and a man there is always alone.

My name is Juan Hano de Castro. My father was a Spanish grandee,

But I won my wife in a card game, when a man lost his daughter to me.

I picked up the ace. I had won her! My heart, which was down at my feet

Jumped up to my throat in a hurry- Like a warm summers' day, she was sweet.

(Chorus)

Her arms had to tighten around me as we rode up the hills from the South.

Not a word did I hear from her that day- or a kiss from her pretty red mouth.

We came to my cabin at twilight. The stars twinkled out on the coast.

She soon loved the valley- the orchard- but I knew that she loved me the most.

(Chorus)

Then I got hurt in a landslide with crushed hip and twice-broken bone.

She saddled our pony like lightning- rode off in the night, all alone.

The lion screamed in the barranca; the pony fell back on the slide.

My young wife lay dead in the moonlight. My heart died that night with my bride.

Romantic, sad, life in another time but the place is still the same. Although artists and tourists flock to Big Sur and the breathtaking views along Highway 1, it is still a very isolated place and doesn't change. There is no room for new construction between the sheer cliffs and tiny slices of valley. It is so amazing that a stream can even find a place to run along parallel to the highway and then create a spectacular waterfall that drops thousands of feet into the ocean for a brief glimpse as you barrel along the road.

Beautiful Highway 1 out in the middle of nowhere.

At Gordo we pulled over, but no fuel; same story at Ragged Point. Esperando continued on down the highway, me snapping pictures nonchalantly. Ahead of us a road grader was working on the side of the road and Esperando rapidly pulled off the highway in front of him. Out he bounced from the car and approached the driver. In the secret language of men he managed to buy enough fuel for us to continue on down the road to Cambria where we would be able to fill the tank.

Now just why might you want to name this 'Ragged Point'?

What an amazing drive, but you better have your camera pointed and ready at all times because you won’t have the opportunity for that second shot. And if your vehicle uses diesel fuel, make sure your tank is full before you start the journey.

Cowboy country

Last weekend Esperando and I took a short spin over to Watsonville, a small farming community on the central coast of California just south of Santa Cruz that was featured recently in Sunset Magazine as a getaway destination for strawberry picking and its great beach.  We drove along winding roads through wooded coastal glens of sunlight and shadow to break out onto waves of rolling hilly farmland that is Watsonville. Besides major crops of strawberries, we saw row after row of lettuces waiting to be picked. I only vaguely remembered driving through Watsonville on my way to Carmel in past times. I was always so eager to get to Carmel and shop, and Watsonville was just in the way.

You will see this kind of view from any narrow road in Northern California leading to the coast once you get away from the houses.

 

This time Watsonville got its full due. We drove around and took photos of farm acreage, took the very photographic road to the beach lined with old Monterey pines, but turned around because we didn’t want to pay to get into the beach.

A great swooning Monterey Pine looks a bit lonely in the midst of the strawberry fields

Back in town, around the town square we saw a large Hispanic population enjoying the afternoon in the park like you would see in anywhere in Mexico. I surfed on my Blackberry phone to figure out where we might eat and we settled on a popular Mexican restaurant, El Alteño, I supposed stealing its name from ‘Alta California’ versus ‘Baja California’ but I don’t really know. I guess we needed a Mexico fix having been away from Baja now for the last 2 months. The food was so-so, but the streets were full of Hispanic cowboys wearing Stetson hats. After lunch we went next door to a western clothing store and Esperando bought a fancy shirt while I photographed the Stetson hats on their display. One hat was marked for sale for $400. I guess if you are a wealthy farmer you wear an expensive hat, not a Rolex.

This fancy hat is waiting for a home.

As we rambled along we drove by the Redman House, a beautiful old Victorian home, facing the highway, that had seen better days. It had been set up on blocks and looked like plans were afoot to move it elsewhere. A little investigation on the internet revealed an interesting history. Designed by renowned architect William Weeks, this huge home was built for James Redman in 1897. When the James Redman family died out in the 1930s, the house and property were sold to the Hiraharas, one of the first Japanese-American families to own farmland in the nation. Unlike other Japanese families, the Hiraharas managed to retain control of their property during the WWII period of internment. Only in the late 1980's was the land leased to a strawberry grower, the home abandoned and left to deteriorate. The house was added to the National Registry of Historic Places to hinder demolition while the Redman-Hirahara foundation pursued funds for preserving and restoring the property. It seems the plan was to make a small farm around it and make it a visitor’s center, leaving it in its current location. The foundation had owned the home until September 2009, when it lost it to foreclosure. Now, without access to the site, the group continues to toil, working on plans and waiting for what will come next, though it doesn’t know what or when that will be. If you are interested in donating money for a worthy cause this one certainly deserves some attention.

She greets the Pajaro Valley's visitors and passersby like a grand lady fallen on hard times. The interior of the home was finished in eastern oak, birds eye maple and natural hardwoods.

How I spent my Easter Vacation

Esperando and I just got back from a 4-day fling to celebrate Semana Santa. This holiday is to Mexicans here in Baja what the 4th of July is like for USA folk: a holiday with beaches and partying, it's a true spring break. The Mexicans crowd the beaches to camp and just before they arrive all the remaining gringo snowbirds in trailers flee. We crammed in as much as we could in four days. First we drove to Playa Santa Inez to see how our favorite beach fared. It was still mostly empty. Where our truck was parked a lot of big ugly beetles had aggregated to feed and mate. They were scary looking even though they showed no interest in us. I never could find them on the internet.

These ugly beetles were about an inch long with red heads.

We continued on to La Serenidad Hotel in Mulege because we wanted to eat dinner again at Ray’s Place; it is always so welcoming and magical. After another swell dinner we drove back to our hotel. It was vastly under occupied with about five big Mexican families and just us. The children were relatively well behaved and it was very quiet at night. We were pleasantly surprised as we expected loud partying late into the wee hours.

The whole scene changed when we drove into Loreto for a 3-day stay at the Inn at Loreto Bay. Although the hotel wasn’t full, one entire wing of at least 100 rooms was occupied. We were probably one of about two other gringos couples staying there. We went into town that evening to eat at Mediterraneo. The town was alive. All the locals that weren’t tailgating on the main drag were cruising in their vehicles, mostly with beer. Our waiters watched all the action from the second floor balcony.

Back at the hotel we quickly discovered that our room was badly situated. It was under a Jacuzzi and a passel of children who ran it at warp drive and dragged the patio furniture around making loud scraping noises on the ceiling continuously. Outside the teenagers were cruising around in the golf carts and playing bumper cars with them. The grownups were in full party mode by the pool. It was very noisy. When the noise finally died down at 1 pm and peace reigned, I thought they would sleep until noon and we will be able to get some rest.

I don’t know what possessed the restaurant staff to start playing loud rap music the next morning at 6 am; it was totally uncalled for. Of course it got just us gringos out of bed as teenagers, children and party animals can sleep through any kind of noise. Esperando went to the front desk to organize a golf cart to move the scuba gear from the parking lot to the beach for a dive, but was told they were only available for golfers. We commented on the children we had seen driving them the previous day and were told that would not happen again. They would be happy, they said, to drive the scuba equipment to the beach for us. The murky water from the high wind the previous day put Esperando and Flaming Mike off the dive until the next morning. In the meantime a large aggressive looking black dog I will call Devil Dog raced around the beach going from palapa to palapa. When he approached our palapa, Dash acted like he wanted to tear his throat out.

This little boy in oversized shoes wandered into a group of people and took their towels away. No one stopped him.

We were able to change rooms to something more quiet. That night we went out to eat in town at the restaurant 1695 (so named for the arrival of the first missionaries to Loreto). Their food is excellent. We hadn’t intended to spend so long at dinner, but we were having such a good time that we shut the restaurant down. When we entered our new room at Inn at Loreto Bay, we discovered one of the dogs had torn a gaping hole in the sheer drape. Now that we were on the ground floor they could see everything through the sliding glass doors. Our guess was another dog or person got them excited. Surprisingly it was extremely quiet all night, we hadn’t realized that so many of the party goers would be leaving during the day.

Is this the beginning of curtain demolition?

The next morning Esperando took the dogs out and Devil Dog showed up again. It turned out yesterday’s doggie disagreement meant nothing now because all the dogs liked one another. When we took our morning walk Devil Dog reappeared and Dash ran off with him. Another large dog joined them and little Lupita started jumping on my legs to be lifted to get away from them. After that the big dogs began to rough house and she got bowled over a few times, then tried to bite one on the nose repeatedly but with no effect. I finally took pity on her and started to carry her. Devil Dog and Dash were inseparable. But when they started mounting each other trying to establish who was dominant, we decided Devil Dog needed to go elsewhere and Esperando drove him off by throwing rocks. Now Lupita was horrified by even small dogs that approached us on the beach.

Devil Dog - coming and going, just plain trouble

By the time we got back to the palapas it was time for the dive. Esperando and Flaming Mike struggled into their dive suits like a couple of seals trying to put on their skins. Then they waded off into the calm water and disappeared. When they finally surfaced an hour later neither of them thought was the dive too exciting. Because the time had changed to daylight savings that day (we are still on the old U.S. daylight savings time here), it was now time to check out. We went to our room and gathered up all our belongings to hit the highway home. The dogs were completely worn out from their beach frolics and slept all the way home. The torn curtain added another $30 to the bill, but it was worth it.

The Sunday Drive

Several Sundays ago Esperando and I took a drive down to Buenaventura Beach to dine at Mark Burbey’s fine establishment. We took our dogs along with us for the ride. We had a great time soaking in the sun and enjoying view of the Sea of Cortez while we waited for our order of cheeseburgers to cook. Mark makes some killer cheeseburgers, especially in this part of the world. Lupita and Dash enjoyed pal-ing around with his dogs, and Lupita even found a potential husband—a willing Chihuahua gentleman who seemed quite smitten with her. Unfortunately we do not plan for her to have any puppies. It seems Chihuahuas can actually require a Caeserean section as their birth canals are so tiny—and the veterinary care here cannot support that kind of effort.

Several other gringo couples were hanging out at Mark’s as well. It was from them we learned of the art exhibit taking place at Playa Santispac at Ana’s Restaurante on the beach. So, on our way back to Santa Rosalia we stopped off at Santispac to see what was happening at Ana’s which flaunted a full parking lot. The restaurant was wall-to-wall paintings and people. We chanced upon a booth representing the P.A.W. Veterinary Clinic currently scheduled for construction in Mulege. The clinic is planned to open in December 2010 and will be staffed part-time by three gringo veterinarians with a focus on spay/neuter services several days a week to manage the local animal population. It seems that although Lorraine Sellers, that kindly soul, could not return to run her clinic in Mulege (having been wiped out yet a third year by hurricanes, this time Jimena), she left behind the seeds of change for other Mulege expats to keep an animal clinic running there.

I talked to Debra Valov who will be the Office Manager at the new clinic, once it is up and running. A group of about 20 ongoing volunteers are in the process of raising money to finalize construction and build out this new facility which will be just off the highway near the Pemex station on the south side of town. They are currently seeking donations of money and goods. I decided to sign up to volunteer at the clinic a couple of days a week which is in need of bodies to help with every aspect from front desk work to prepping animals for surgery or tending to them afterwards. This is Baja—you never know from one minute to the next what will happen on a Sunday drive.

To donate to P.A.W. Veterinary Clinic:
Debra Valov, Office Manager
615 153 0587 (Mulege)
510 658 4656 (USA)
ecomujeres@aol.com (donations are accepted via Paypal)

Mark Burbey
Restaurant/Bar Playa Buenaventura
Call using a U.S. phone: 1-760-666-2648
Call using a Mexican phone: 01-615-161-1077
email: bajabuenaventura@hotmail.com

Hurricanes and kittens

Yesterday Esperando said to me, ‘Ah, here comes Hurricane Jimena.’ At that point, Jimena was beating off the coast down by Acapulco, too far out to sea to be much of a threat. She was so far away I didn’t expect to hear anything about her for another week. Today a day later, Jimena is imminently nearby and will be here tomorrow night. She is currently projected as a Category 4 hurricane which sounds pretty awful. The news is that La Paz got a lot of water yesterday. San Carlos on the Pacific is the targeted landfall; they got whopped up last year by Hurricane Norbert. It seems unfair they should have two such nasty weather events within 8 months of one another. We have to develop a wait and see attitude, we are far enough up the peninsula that often hurricanes fall off their projected path before they make it this far. In any event I have ordered lots of flashlight batteries and 5 big jugs of drinking water just in case we are left without water or electricity. I have told the girls that if it is raining tomorrow morning when they get up not to bother coming to work. We were to have a full guesthouse, we have told people about the hurricane and flights will probably be cancelled. I just don’t want to have to look after a house full of people with no electricity (i.e., no water or lights), no household help and no cook!

Yesterday before we knew anything about impending hurricanes we went to the beach at Punto Chivato. We went to the shell beach as I hadn’t been there for at least the last 7 months and thought the time might be ripe for good seashell gathering. The first time I went there, about this same time last year, there were millions of beautiful whole shells carefully stacked upon one another in a cache near the rocks. Yesterday the tide was extremely high and the first 15 feet of surf was churning brown dirt. On closer inspection it turned out to be a masses of seaweed grossing up the water. It looked very unappealing and since the shell offerings weren’t particularly auspicious, we got back in the car and drove to Santa Inez in hopes the water would be more swimmable. There were bits of seaweed floating here and there too, but nothing like it had been at Punta Chivato. The water was inviting although the surf was rough. There was enough of a breeze that we could sit on the beach under the umbrella with a foray out to the surf every 20 minutes to cool off again. So we spent the morning frolicking in the waves, Esperando tried out his new kayak but found the surf too rough for it to be very enjoyable, then we ate our lunch (downed with a few beers) and rested between swims. ‘Is it true that you shouldn’t go swimming after you eat, that you might get cramps?’ we asked ourselves and decided it was an old wives tale, but when we got home we just had to look on the internet. It is just as we suspected, not true. If you are of a certain age look back on all those times as a child that you had to wait out your lunch for an hour before you could go back in the water. Isn’t it a shame that you had to mind then?

My friend, the mother of Don Diego, was here visiting me the other day and mentioned that she needed a kitten for her ranch. So I asked the girls if they knew of any nice kittens that might be available and immediately they said, ‘oh yes there is a beautiful white kitten with blue eyes that hangs out where my brother works.’ When they tried to grab it, it apparently scratched everyone and they couldn’t catch it. I fear I may be giving my friend a bunch of trouble and that this kitten is not very tame. She is coming by in an hour to pick it up, and I am still waiting for it to show up. I hope this works out for the best, in that no one has come with the kitten by now, my gut feeling is the kitten is not cooperating with the whole business of being caught.

I remember last time we had a weather event, it was last August when Tropical Disturbance Julio came through. Esperando and I spent 24 hours mopping up the house as water came in from every direction, first from one side, then when the storm shifted, from the other. It was pretty exhausting. Since then we have taken some measures to make the house more waterproof, but who knows.

Loreto to Cabo Pulmo

Our vacation is not proceeding smoothly, but rather in fits and starts. When we left Loreto 3 days ago I got the grunge from something I ate at lunch, I thought. In retrospect I believe that one of our houseguests who thought she had bad food had a 24-hour stomach bug and passed it on to me. In any event we stopped in Loreto for lunch at La Mision, a new luxury hotel there and were offered a terrific lunch buffet. I ate far more than I had intended to including lasagna; enchilada suiza; little strips of fajita meat; these delicious ground meat gorditas in a deep fried pastry which you topped with salsa, fresh chopped onions and cilantro; ceviche; and a wide selection of desserts including fruit, flan, buñuelos, various pastries and cakes. After stuffing ourselves we continued our journey, 4 hours south to La Paz.

I was so full from lunch, I began to think I was going to throw up before we would ever get to our destination. I just chalked it up to something bad in the lunch and way too many solid days of driving. By the time we got to our accommodation for the evening, Casa Tuscany, all I wanted to do was crawl into bed and go to sleep. Our hosts, a delightful couple, Patricia and Ken Bonner (respectively from Australia and New Zealand) were quite chatty and I hoped I wouldn’t pitch it all in front of them before they showed us to our room 30 minutes later. I had no desire to go to our favorite restaurant, Las Virgenes. Fortunately our hosts had provided a very decent bottle of wine with the room and Esperando wasn’t hungry either. He sipped some wine and read while I cratered. In the morning I still hadn’t recovered, I felt better but now had diarrhea. Fortunately I recovered after a dose of Lomotil.

We ran a bunch of errands in La Paz, including retrieving a dresser drawer that had been repaired from shipping damage; trying to get a scuba tank filled (but without enough time); buying a few groceries at Walmart; and checking to see if a red enamel/stainless steel GE stove was still available at El Ferry (an appliance store) for Casa Abeja. I had seen the stove 5 months previously. At the time it was drastically marked down, I assumed because of its color. Esperando was sure it would be there, I was sure it wouldn’t and my jaw dropped to the floor to still find it, although without any price on it. Turns out someone had bought it, but returned it since one of the burners didn’t work. We told them we would be returning in a week and would buy it if they could get it fixed by then. This is Mexico, we’ll see if anything happens.

After that, we got back on the highway for Cabo Pulmo, which turned out to be 2 ½ hours distant. I had set up a 3-day stay for us at the delightful El Encanto de Cabo Pulmo, a private home comprised of a small main house, separate loft with balcony (where we stayed), and small casita. The house was designed by artist Diane Varney and every detail is beautifully finished and furnished Mexican style. She has planted an interesting garden of desert plants and many native trees which support the abundant bird life of several species of doves, cardinals, orioles, some small olive colored flittery birds and a desert lark. Cabo Pulmo itself is a national marine park, Parque Marino Nacional Cabo Pulmo, noted for great diving. It has the only coral reef system in the Sea of Cortez. Interestingly most of the tourists we’ve encountered here are Italians.

After lunch yesterday, Esperando caught ‘the grunge’ and fell ill. This morning he was feeling not 100%, but in the way of men went off on his dive anyway. Turns out the first two dives were good, but Esperando was too ill to make the last one.

Cabo Pulmo is an unusual place. We think the population must be about 200 with quite a few Mexican families. It has very little in the way of a grocery store, 4 restaurants, 5 dive shops, a host of beautiful gringo homes running on solar cells and well water. Although quite isolated it still manages to generate a cacophony of noise Mexican-style—generators humming, roosters crowing, peacocks mewing, birds chirping, children screaming, metal pans clanging, trucks rattling by, car alarms screeching, cars honking, cars revving by some with radios blaring, dogs barking, horses neighing, hammers tapping, electric saws roaring, and workmen constructing new homes hollering at one another—because of its small size every noise takes on a life of its own and rivets attention during its broadcast.

We have been eating at El Caballero. The meals are simple but tasty and the young waiter makes a truly great Margarita. Tonite we took the steak we had planned to bbq, but lacking the means for doing so they prepared it for us. Medium rare turned out to be pretty much well done, but still it was tasty.

The daytime temperature has been about 95F (although we think it topped 100F today) and since the generator is down we have no air conditioning. Other than living in the warm waters of the Sea of Cortez, taking a shower every couple of hours is the only way to cool down for a few minutes. Fortunately there is a fairly steady breeze after about 10 am (I say that as I sit here dripping prespiration in the shade). Our bedroom has a ceiling fan directly over the bed—and mosquito netting. I have already sacrificed a good portion of my ankles and legs for mosquito nourishment—they must be Aztec mosquitoes as they are quite a bloodthirsty lot. At night all the stars in the heavens and the Milky Way light up the night sky and are visible from our fine balcony location. We started out saying this place is way too remote, we could visit here, but we could never live here, but now we have added Diane Varney’s lovely home to the list of places we would buy to retire to—but just for 4 months every year—and not in hot August.

Tranquilo

Spring has finally arrived in the Baja, the days are warming up pleasantly but the nights are still cool. The garden at Casa Boleo is full of Easter lilies which are starting to bloom. We have a whole flower bed full of them opening up. The mango trees all have little tiny mangoes on them no bigger than a pea right now. The birds are everywhere looking for things to feed their babies. Yesterday I saw an industrious couple of sparrows busily peeling bugs off the radiator grill of a parked truck. And suddenly a peculiar kind of a bumblebee has resurfaced that is called a moscaron. They are big and black and in constant motion zooming around at slow speed. I have never seen one land on anything. They are territorial toward one another. People here tell me they have a really mean bite, but only if bothered. They are about half the size of a hummingbird.

Esperando and I drove up to Loreto with Sweet Pickle to spend Easter weekend and celebrate our anniversary. On the drive there we detoured to Santa Inez to see if our favorite beach had been invaded, but all we saw was a couple of families and lots of empty beach. I guess the road is too long and bumpy, and what with no services such as minimarts or little restaurants it doesn’t draw the same crowd. We drove back to the highway and sure enough all the beautiful beaches were as advertised, a tent city of Mexican tourists packed in as tight as sardines for Semana Santa. I must say it looked like everyone was having fun, we have never seen these beaches so crowded even when the gringos took them over earlier in January and February (which has the very worst weather—cold and lots of wind and blowing sand, crazy gringos).

When we got to Loreto we walked through an open house at the Inn at Loreto Bay. It was a 2 bedroom, 2 bath condo with beautiful architectural detail, a small outdoor patio downstairs, and upstairs a nice outdoor kitchen with plenty of rooftop space for entertaining. We meet some nice people on the beach that spend half the year there and the other half in the U.S. It sort of bothers us the idea of living in a gringo enclave, but so far everyone we met connected with that property seems really nice. We were ready to buy in, but can’t afford it right now, we’re still pouring money into the Casa Abeja remodel.

That evening we drove into Loreto and had a nice dinner at El Mediterraneo on the Malecon recommended by Ray in Mulege. It has a great atmosphere and an excellent wine list. We shared the paella, I don’t believe I’ve ever had a paella that I fell in love with, even in Spain. This one was full of great shellfish but still didn’t do the trick for me. What was fun was watching all the cars cruising by from our second story perch. It was a regular bumper-to-bumper promenade of just about everyone: cops, army guys in jeeps, beer drinking teenagers packed in truck beds, grandmothers in Toyotas and dogs on their way somewhere.

Semana Santa

Yesterday we went to the beach at Santa Inez. As we drove out of town there were several indigeous women, sitting in front of the church making palm crosses. It was a really great Kodak moment but my camera wasn't ready. The beach was really deserted. There were miles and miles of beach just all to ourselves. Other times we’ve seen one or two couples off at a distance. You can't imagine how lovely it is to have such a beautiful beach and no one else to share it with. We discussed the possibility of spending our anniversary night next week by camping there, however it is very hard to gauge two important aspects: how strong the wind might be blowing the sand on that day; and whether there will be lots of drunk Mexican campers crowding the beach with boom boxes and fireworks.

The wind blowing the sand can be pretty unpleasant and there is no way to get away from it or minimize the grit in the face effect when the wind is up. Yesterday we finally went up in the dunes to get a little protection from the wind so that our tuna salad wouldn't have that special crunch that only sand can add to it. The trouble with the dunes is the stickers and cactus, once you become dune protected you are right up where the cactus are growing and they are seriously prickly. We encountered some nasty very large stickers that attached themselves to Dash and our blanket. I sure wouldn't want to experience stepping on one. You would never get all the spines out of your foot. Finally the sand and wind found us in the dunes as well, so we left. It’s a good thing as I got home I was fairly burned and would probably have been a crispy critter in just a little more time. That wind hides the feeling of all the sun that you are getting.

The drunk Mexican campers is directly correlated to the fact that the next two weeks are the time that most Baja Mexicans take off for Semana Santa (Easter) holidays. We are told by those in the know that it is best to stay clear of the beaches then just for sheer noise and rowdiness. Apparently these are not the locals but visitors from Tijuana and northern Baja. We don’t know if anyone goes to Santa Inez during this period or whether they head farther south to Bahia Concepcion, an idylic bay surrounded by 4 or 5 white sand beaches close together with easy access from the highway. We certainly saw a good 100 cars passing us going south on the highway, fully loaded up with vacation gear and full carloads of people. None of them were turning into the road to Santa Inez, but they’ve got the next few days to take over that beach too.

When we got back to the house we were sitting in our bedroom and heard an odd chanting clacking noise from the street. It was not identifiable, so Esperando went out to see what it was and called me to come look. Apparently as part of Semana Santa the Yaqui Indians (and other repentant Catholic persons) have a sort of penitente celebration where they dress in costume and wear masks with deer or other animal heads or even devil or witch heads. They have on a girdle of jingle bells, and carry a stick in one hand and a machete in the other which they clack together repetitively as the walk along chanting. Some of them parade in groups of 10 or so downtown, but the main event is at a stadium near town where they have a whole assemblage. I found a youtube.com video of the event from last year



This morning we went early into town to run some errands and saw the church had been all decorated up with palm fronds and crosses. The Navy is out on the pier practicing maritime music with bugles and drums--so I guess maybe we have a parade coming too. This week promises to be interesting.

Exploring Baja

It has been quite a weeks vacation whirlwind. We completely filled up our camper shell in San Diego with purchased construction supplies and food goodies; retrieved the Brainy Blonde at the airport; and started our trek back down Baja via the Valle de Guadalupe, Mexico’s answer to Napa Valley. We sampled the wines at Monte Xanic (best whites) and Adobe Guadalupe (fantastic reds) and had dinner at Laja, a touted gourmet restaurant. The night was spent at Adobe Guadalupe (http://www.adobeguadalupe.com/), Don and Tru Miller’s beautiful winery, inn and estancia in the heart of the valley. The next morning we had a lovely breakfast with Don Miller as he cajoled and scolded his six Wiemerriner dogs to eat their respective breakfasts and not go stealing one anothers. Then we trouped out to the stable for a viewing of week old Wiemerriner puppies (very cute!) followed up with a horseback ride through the vineyards. Just an hour on horseback reacquainted me of lots of muscles I hadn’t used since the last time I got on a horse twenty years ago.

The next destination of Catavina allowed us time to stop and eat lunch at El Rey Sol, a French Bistro of long standing and shop for more wine in Ensenada. We overspent our shopping time and had to step on it to get to Catavina before it was seriously dark (no night driving here, too much livestock on the highways!) The next morning we spend wandering around the desert taking cactus photos, visiting an abandoned marble (alabaster) mine— and our big adventure of the day, an excursion to Coco’s Corner, a jaunt off the highway on an “improved” dirt road that ate tires. We never did find Coco’s Corner (we think a pit stop for the Baja 1000 race) as the map was misleading, but we did get a flat tire and were delayed for several hours while Esperando ate dirt and bashed himself with the tire jack. He finally got a very uncooperative tire off the truck; it had looked like we might not be going anywhere soon.

On we traveled to Guerrero Negro for organized whale watching at the Ojo de Liebre lagoon, only to be blown away by strong winds that canceled that part of our itinerary. That did give us time to get the tire replaced and purchase some Pacific scallops. We also discovered the splendid Malarrimo Restaurant at Guerrero Negro which showcased a terrific meal and walls of used fine wine bottles autographed by passing Baja 1000 participants from previous years. That afternoon we drove on to San Ignacio hoping the winds might not be so awful and that we could see whales there. In fact, they had also cancelled their whale watching, so we came home to spend the night and unload the truck and went back to San Ignacio the following morning.

Luck was with us and we were able to go whale watching at last at Ecoturismo Kuyima. It was a little disconcerting to be in such a small boat and be surrounded by so many whales, most of them mothers with babies swimming and blowing. Some of the bolder adult whales would skyhop, raising there heads up out of the water about 12-14 feet so they could view the boats following them and lure us on to keep after them. Another favored antic was blowing large bubbles near the surface and leaving a trail of them for us to follow as well.

We spent a few days here in Santa Rosalia, then had another fine meal at Ray’s Place in Mulege, this time spending the night in his cute and comfortable cabins. Finally we drove on to Loreto and eat some good dinners at Canipole and Pacha Mamam. We cooked our bodies in the sun at the Inn at Loreto Bay. As the Brainy Blonde pointed out, with all that inactivity we were reducing our carbon footprint.

Christmas is coming

TorOur Christmas tree arrived last week. Esperando told me we would be getting a Torote Blanco or Elephant Tree, a native Baja California tree which the local population has traditionally used as a Christmas tree. It has a thick gray-green trunk with peelish bark and pinnately compound green leaves with kind of a piney scent but is shaped like a regular tree and bears no resemblance to a pine tree. We have seen some very large ones, but ours is about 6 feet high. Esperando told me he had asked the Cactus Kid (the mine has to tag and relocate thousands of cactuses as part of its environmental requirement, hence a cactus specialist familiar with the over 30 varieties of local cactus) would be bringing a tree to our house. I said, why don’t we have him bring it in early December instead of now? We were driving around in the car at the time running errands. Ok, he said, I will have him bring it later. But when we got back home the tree had already been cut down and moved into the room. When you want stuff to happen here fast it never does, but when you want to delay things it doesn’t work that way either.

So it is sitting there staring me in the face, naked. Then this weekend we went out looking for gourds so I wouldn’t have to invest any money in Christmas tree ornaments. The mine has quite a number of gourd plants here and there and we drove along stopping every now and then and only taking the ones that had dried out. We ran into a Mexican mine employee who is known to us, and he wanted to know what we were looking for. When we said ‘gourds’ he smiled and said, ‘oh for Christmas ornaments.’ We said yes. Then we went on our way. We have also been combing the beach for clam shells and sea urchins. I plan to take the whole and spray paint them gold and silver and add a little glitter.

The next day we drove to the Pacific, a three hour drive over dirt roads, to find out about the whale watching at Laguna San Ignacio. We saw lots of boarded up cabins and found out that whale watching runs from January through March. We dipped our toes in the water and sat mesmerized by the gentle surf and warming sun while we ate our peanut butter sandwiches. Then we drove back to San Ignacio, a tiny town with a lovely tree shaded plaza and an old mission church. We went into a general store off the plaza and the owner asked us if we were American citizens. We both got pretty excited because we thought he said American cheese, and we thought he was going to sell us a nice cheddar. In fact he wanted to know if we were in favor of Obama's election. He said of the 100 people that have driven through on their way to vacation all but two were in favor of Obama. He thought our election was a really good thing for the world.

When we got back to the house there was a huge bag of gourds waiting at the front door from our mining buddy. The next day in the grocery store I saw him and thanked him. How many did you find he asked? Oh about 20 I said. (I was looking for the dried out ones). I found 52, he said! -- Now I have way more gourds than I could possibly ever need and I doubt there will be any future gourds as the seed source has been drastically depleted. Still it was a very kind thought of his to supply me with all these gourds.

A Day at the Beach

Yesterday Esperando and I spent exploring the beaches at Punto Chivato. Clever Esperando went to Google Earth to look for a beach that someone had told him about north of where we usually go. From Google Earth he could pretty much tell what road to take to get us there—thank you Google Earth! The road was windy and rocky, and it’s a good thing we had 4-wheel drive. At the beach, the waves were wild and wind driven. The sight of the raw power of the ocean was awesome. We thought the storm might have washed stuff in, and we did see lots of dead puffer fish. This beach is has rocks and shell fragments instead of sand, but interestingly these have all been worn to smooth ovals with the heavy action of the surf. So you have these beautiful polished fragments of rock and shell collected in large masses to rake through. I call this beach Rock Beach.

We spent about an hour walking around and taking pictures, then went back up over the hill to the beach we know that I call Sandy Beach near the Italian hotel, Posada de las Flores. This beach has very fine pale grey sand and some nice shells. The storm had wiped the beach clean as a slate. This beach is on a kind of mini peninsula, and it became apparent that the surf had washed over the entire little peninsula during the hurricane. All the shells had been washed to the other side of the peninsula and were strewn across the sand by the tide. Lots of them were older worn out shells that must have been submerged for some period of time as they were green or grey and not very attractive. We had our lunch there as the ocean was much calmer on this side.

We thought about going home then, but I remembered there was supposed to be a great shell beach on the southwest end of the development, so we set off in that direction to see what was at the other end. We found the last house in the development and took the road to it. As I have said previously this community is the kind of place people come to stay for about 1 month each year, so here are all these nice homes sitting around empty. Its kind of sad. Anyway, we drove down to the beach and got out to explore another fine beach. This one had lava flows and potential tide pools on the left side and a beautiful sandy beach COVERED with shells on the right side. I picked up about 10 perfect murex shells, a fragile and intact pinshell, and some I don’t know. It was a pretty incredible event—nothing like going shopping for free!

We finally decided to head for home and got back on the highway; it was then we saw how strong the wind was and how churned up the sea was for it. Hugh white caps topped the very dark blue water. The wind has continued all night and the temperature has dropped dramatically—it was 70F as a low last night and we could sleep comfortably without air conditioning or fan! Apparently this is normal fall weather here. Today it is even more windy if that is possible, and fine dust is filtering into the house through windows and the doors. Ugh!

Surfing with the cardons

Monday has returned as it always does and the Texican has taken off to Vancouver. Oh woe, sad me—abandoned! Just one house guest, I hope we don’t get tired of each other.

Yesterday Esperando and I had a fine day at the beach at Punto Chivato, a gringo colony of about 50 nice vacation homes on a secluded beach south of here set back from the highway. We had looked at it when we first arrived as a possible place to live. The Architect who remodeled Casa Boleo has built quite a few homes there and gave us a tour of one of them back then; that is how we ended up having him remodel Casa Boleo. We thought about getting a house there facing the beach, but the houses are really close to the surf and we were worried the house might get wiped out in a bad storm. Also it is only seasonally occupied and I didn’t much like being so isolated when Esperando was at work.

The drive there normally takes 45 minutes, but it took us about an hour because the dirt road was badly washed out from the effects of Julio. Picture this: we are driving along the road thick on both sides with cardons (big cactuses that look like saguaros). We can’t go very fast as the road is really rough. All of a sudden 50 vultures perched on top of the cardons in front of us spread their wings to sun simultaneously. It was quite a sight, but the photographer was too slow to capture it.

There is a very upscale Italian hotel there (the owner is Italian and the hotel caters to Italians) which we thought to have a look at, but the owner greeted us as we drove in and told us it had closed for the season and wouldn’t open for another 6 weeks. He told us where to find the beaches. They were very nice small beaches with soft fine sand and pleasantly warm water. The dog went with us, he got quite worried when I started wading out to sea. When I got out far enough to squat down and be totally submersed, it was too much for him and he started out to save me. He doesn’t like getting wet as a Lab would, so I stood up to show him I was safe, and he turned back around and went to the beach.

One of the interesting sights was the cardons that had been uprooted and washed onto the beach from the storm and were rolling around in the surf. Instead of your usual driftwood there was cactus driftwood, something a bit different.