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

Four little kittens lost their mommy and they began to cry!

Today Favorite Maid came to me and said that her cat Romina, who was spayed on Tuesday, had a marble size lump below her incision. From what I thought she described, it didn’t sound too serious, but I told her I would call the vet and see what she recommended. Dr. Sellers didn’t answer her phone the first few times, so Esperando and I went off tile shopping for Casa Abeja. This took several hours of looking at and purchasing tiles. When we got back to Casa Abeja the tile guys were there and we showed them what we bought, and starting discussing layouts and getting their ideas for the kitchen and the bathroom.

Right in the middle of all this brainstorming, I heard the mewing of a tiny kitten. A lightening bolt struck, and I suddenly knew that Penelope had given birth to kittens that I had no knowledge existed until this very moment. I hear kittens, I said, racing away from the tile meeting and following the squeaky mewing. As I began to search for them, I calculated they had been abandoned for five days since last Tuesday when we took Penelope in to be put to sleep. I followed the sound of the mewing and sure enough there were four tiny white kittens in an abandoned yard, so tiny, so trembly, so covered with fleas, so hungry, and way too young to be afraid of me. Oh my, four more kittens. I wonder if this is what you feel like when you find out you’re going to have quadruplets?

I ran back into the house and grabbed the box we had brought the tile in and said to Esperando, “I just found Penelope’s four kittens.” We entered the abandoned junk-filled yard, so full of trash, and in the corner by a stash of rotting planks these poor tiny things had crept out into the open from their little den. Obviously they were starving. When they saw us they all started to mew together. Both of us gathered them up, and I took them down to the guesthouse and in a daze, poured some milk in a saucer hoping that it wasn’t too late to save them—four more kittens. Three of them seemed clueless but the fourth climbed all the way into the saucer and began to drink. The maid grabbed up one clueless kitten and with a syringe began to put milk in its mouth, and so on with the next until they were all eating voluntarily. What am I going to do with four more kittens—someday cats? This time when I called, I got a hold of Lorraine and she told me to bring them down to see her. Mike and I discussed maybe having the kittens put down, but decided to wait and see what Lorraine thought about their chances for survival.

When we got to Mulege she looked the kittens over and called one of her volunteers to come help her manage the kittens so that she could attend to Romina. It turned out the cat would need to be reopened because she had either herniated or had an abcess. When I got outside the kittens were gathered around a gruel of water and canned dog food, scarfing it down again. They had serious flea issues and were anemic from loss of blood. Lorraine agreed to keep the animals overnight since we didn’t have the time to stay as Esperando was working.

Later that afternoon Lorraine called, it seems Romina had developed a very large sterile abcess from an allergy to the suture thread, but would be fine. The kittens had all been washed, were clean and sweet and now we think all of them have been spoken for! Gosh what a hot commodity. What exciting news! Hallelujah!

How to know when a day stinks

Today was the day I took Favorite Maid’s cat Romina for spaying and feral outside kitty Penelope for killing to Veterinarian Lorraine Sellers in Mulege. I felt not unlike the Grim Reaper. Lorraine’s last surgeries were today. She will be leaving for California in 8 more days.

We were at last able to capture the white cat Penelope who had developed a huge growth on her head. When I described the cat’s condition to Lorraine last time I saw her, she asked me if Penelope had any white on her head and then she said—ah, often white cats can get cancerous growths on their heads. Penelope displayed bizarre behaviour such as hissing at me sometimes while I fed her, but I could see her behavior was radically changing lately to the point she that was constantly hissing and even fluffing up her tail in anger but still pursuing me to get the food. It was getting to the point that she was menacing to feed. I told Esperando that I thought she needed putting down. We’d made several attempts to trap her in the past, but she never was around those times. It was as if she had an inner sense that told her not to show up on a given day. This time she was easy to catch. When I shut the door on her, she immediately started hissing and her companion Mrs. Moustache raced away, but came back to hang around the crate and talk to her friend when we went back inside.

At the appropriate hour, I packed Romina and Penelope into the car and off we started to Mulege. I had not noticed Penelope’s crate reeked of cat urine. In any event once I got into the car and started away, I almost gagged. I wasn’t looking forward to this drive. I wasn’t 20 minutes down the highway when my next act as the Grim Reaper was to murder a roadrunner. As I drove into a deep dip, he was flushed onto the highway. He couldn’t gain enough altitude and smacked into the windshield. None of this seemed very propitious. It was a beautiful sunny Baja day, but an increasing crappy one for my state of mind.

I was still feeling rotten about the roadrunner, when Romina started crying and scratching at her crate. Now Penelope joins her and both cats are meowing, although I think Penelope must have a tumor in her throat too, as her meow is very hoarse. It seemed odd she was no longer just hissing, that she now remembered how to meow. I thought, ok, they have both been really calm until now, but were tired of being in their crates. I made reassuring nice person noises hoping they would calm down again. Then our already foul air is permeated with a richer essence of hot cat poop. Poor Romina is in a tiny crate and can’t distance herself from her excrement. She keeps trying to bury it which makes the truck even smellier. It struck me then, this is what they mean about ‘stirring up shit.’

When I arrived at the clinic I apologized for the smelly state of my charges. One helper put Romina into a different crate and handed me the filthy carrier like it was all my fault. Lorraine took one look at Penelope and agreed she was a goner. Poor kitty! As it turned out, they found several more tumors developing on her head; I think her body was probably riddled with cancers too. So maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing, perhaps she has been spared more suffering.

Veterinarian in Mulegé

One of the difficulties living out in the middle of Baja is finding a good veterinarian when you need one. Thank God for Veterinarian Lorraine Sellers and her pet clinic in Mulegé, BCS! Lorraine lives in the Oasis RV Park and dispenses medications and advice at her clinic to those who bring their furry friends in to see her. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays she performs spays, neuters and other surgeries while her great volunteer staff help to maintain the calendar. Everything is paid for on a donation basis.

We were lucky enough to find Dr. Sellers recently just after her recent return to Mulegé to help us with our Australian shepherd Dash who had been diagnosed in Santa Rosalia by the local vet as having an obstruction in his intestines. That vet’s solution was to give Dash a antibiotic shot which he managed to screw up so badly that Dash was yelping and twisting, the syringe needle came off the hypodermic in Dash’s flesh, was bent when extracted, and the vet’s assistant quickly attached a muzzle to Dash’s head, though to his credit Dash didn’t try to bite the vet or snarl at him while all this was going on. When we got through with the second attempt at the shot, I came back to the house and called Esperando at work with the news. Both of us did a little reading up on the subject and were sufficiently frightened to take the hour’s drive south to seek a second opinion from a rumoured gringa vet living in Mulegé.

The Oasis RV Park isn’t signed, but it is right on the south side of the estuary and there were a sufficient number of gringos around to keep giving us directions. After we found her and she examined him, she opined that Dash just had a bad tummy from eating too many wrong things, something at which he is really good. She patched him up with some pills and he is much better now, except the during his convalescence he somehow twisted his leg painfully so I took him back this morning and now he is taking doggie arthritis pills to boot. She also gave me some medicine to feed Dash to solidify his poop. That comes in a squeeze out hypodermic looking contraption that you can put directly into his mouth or on his food. As I approached him with this large white syringe he started backing up and running away from me. Too many recent sour experiences left a bad impression on him!! It was only by calling out, “Dash, cookie! Dash, cookie!” that he would let me close enough to nab him. Ah, but the first bite of Retrosyn beef-flavored Canine 3R Gel administered through initially clenched teeth was an instant hit—maybe we will have even reversed his new-found nervousness at seeing a syringe!

If you're going to see Dr. Sellers, there’s something of an animal rescue group there and you could end up with a really cute new puppy or kitten! On our last trip we saw a beautiful purebred adult black lab looking for home as well. And if you're just driving through she can give your new pet the rabies shot it will need to get across the border.