Month: January 2017

January 14 to January 20, 2017—beaches; desert; ; kamikaze drivers; roads curving along the base of, or over, mountains by the sea

Guererro Negro

 

Guerrero Negro is on the Pacific. It is a one industry town, the industry being salt making. It is a fairly large burg of 10,000 people surrounded by 100,000 acres of salt evaporation ponds. We arrived at Malarrimo RV park and shouldered our way into the crowded lot in the dark, in the rain. The establishment consisted of a very nice, linen tablecloth restaurant in a dirt parking lot surrounded by about thirty extended parking spaces which were the campsites, a three room building containing two crummy showers and one crummier toilet, the whole surrounded by a ten foot cinder block wall painted white. The next morning, after a night of heavy rain, there was a lake in front of the restaurant that stayed for two days despite attempts to snake out the drain and an open sewer in front of the bath house.

The main street of the town had several intersections flooded to a depth of a foot. Drivers delighted in plowing through at full speed and throwing water onto other cars, pedestrians, storefronts. The back side of the town was a warren of dirt roads lined with hovels; two bars and ten stray dogs per block.

Our site cost the equivalent of ten bucks a night and the restaurant and bar were really very good and equally inexpensive.

Coming out of the restaurant the first night we ran into Mark and Valerie, our Canadian friends who parted from us a week before and five hundred miles ago in San Felipe in their monster diesel truck while we were caught in the gas crisis.

Alan was not confidant that he could communicate his welding needs to the local craftsman and decided his repairs could wait a little longer. We all took a drive out to a nearby lagoon to see if the whales had started arriving yet but the dirt road to the beach, wending through the salt flats, got narrower and messier with each kilometer so I decided to make a five-point turn while I still had the room. We later learned that the whales, gray whales, had not yet arrived to mate and spawn in the lagoons around Guerrero Negro.

 

Whaling is a big part of Baja history but even more so in this town. The restaurant was filled with artifacts and memorabilia of the whaling scene of the 19^th century.

Hung around for two nights and headed back to the Gulf Coast in a three vehicle caravan that we have maintained for a week now.

The roads here have been overall good. For long stretches of Highway 1 there is no shoulder and the road is built on the top of a ridge, so any momentary inattention that causes a wheel to go off the road would send you down a precipice. Occasionally there is a major flaw in the pavement, and we have had to brake for herds of goats or wandering cattle. A surprising number of drivers are suicidal. If I were to tell you of their stunts (passing at high speed on a blind curve or approaching the crest of a hill–cars, gas trucks, commercial buses) you would accuse me of exaggerating. These guys have great faith in their deity or a great desire to meet him.

Stopped for lunch in Santa Rosalia, a town established by a French copper mining concern in the 1800s. The hulking rusted machinery of the enterprise remain where the French left them when they were expelled during the Mexican revolution, the success of which is celebrated each year as cinque de maio. The buildings are wooden frame buildings, unlike the adobe and brick of the rest of Baja, and the has a European feel. The town church was designed by Gustave Eiffel and shipped from France, and there remains a French bakery in town.

Mulege

Mulege was our destination and we reached it late afternoon. It is celebrated in Baja history as the site of a successful repulse of an American force, led by Winfield Scott, in the Mexican American War. It wasn’t much of a battle but being one of the only successes of the Mexican army in that conflict it is a source of pride.

It is an idyllic, oasis town. A healthy river nourishes the date palms that cover the town. Dates were harvested here for export into the 1970s but the dates are inferior to majoul dates from the middle east and the harvest is no longer worthwhile. We stayed three nights in a camp in the center of the town (population 3,000) and enjoyed the ambience, the friendly people, the delicious food. There is a museum of sorts in the old prison, a large fortress overlooking the town on a hill. It was in use into the 1970s, always a low security facility where prisoners, men and women, were let out during the day to work and called back to the prison in the evening by the blowing of a conch shell horn. A nearby mission is worth visiting also, an imposing 18^th century structure of locally-fabricated concrete and stone with walls four feet thick. We had our laundry done in town overnight, two Ikea-bags full for fifteen dollars, washed and folded. Alan got his frame welded with the help of a translator.

We ate at Dany’s taco stand every night. It doesn’t make sense to cook in mexico when a full meal can be had for four dollars.

Coyote

We drove down the coast an hour to Coyote Beach on the Bay of Concepcion. Parked feet from the shore, blue-green clear water, porpoises and whale sharks offshore. No electricity or water, $5/night; vendors come by every few minutes selling peeled fresh shrimp $7/pound, blankets from Oaxaca, pastries, laundry services, etc etc. A nice cantina a mile away with an acoustic duo playing and singing sweet Spanish melodies.

Alan and I climbed a good ways up the hill behind the camp, an arduous and probably unwise adventure but we escaped major injury and felt proud. Mark inflated his thirteen foot boat and caught a bunch of fish for dinner including a 24 inch snapper and several foot-long trigger fish.

Then he took Brenda and Betsie out to the islands that dot the bay and have pristine white sand beaches hidden in coves. And they also went to the hot springs that bubble up into the gulf alongside the cliffs. Frigate birds. Vermillion flycatchers.

[View of Coyote Bay about halfway up the mountain I climbed.]

And bioluminescence. I noticed the beach at night was silver bright like mercury when it hit the shore ten feet in front of us. Then someone down the beach shrieked and we saw that wherever the water was disturbed, by hand or by the movement of feet, it glowed brightly with the light of countless jewel-like particles. Freaking amazing.

Mark, Alan and I went out fishing and cruising the islands on the third day. Mark decided it was too much effort to deflate and reinflate his boat so we spent the morning figuring out a way to attach it to his camper. When we got it lashed on we headed south, past a friendly military checkpoint, destination: Loreto.

January 7 to January 14, 2017—San Felipe, San Luis Gonzalez, Guerrero Negro

 

Passed through two federal checkpoints en route to the west coast of the Gulf of California. They are looking for people smuggling guns from US, among other things. They are intimidating—a half dozen guys in fatigues, some with their faces covered, some with automatic weapons. At the first stop they held us maybe five minutes, going into the Scamp and poking around. The next checkpoint was more relaxed and the found something amusing about the Scamp. I think I heard the Spanish word for “egg” being bandied about.

Route 2 runs around the head of the bay, most of it within twenty miles of the US border, I think. After rounding the head of the Bay and heading south we came into a small town, the name of which I missed. I wanted to get gas but didn’t recognize that the line of cars up the block were queued up for gas. I had to circle through the town and found another Pemex station with a shorter line. The attendant “forgot” to clear the previous purchase from the pump until I moved my eyes back and forth from him to the pump. He cleared the counter and pumped half a tank. This proved to be a timely purchase; if I hadn’t stopped I would have arrived in San Felipe (SF) near empty at the start of the gas crisis.

We took a spot at in SF at Club de Pesca on the edge of town, within walking distance. Thirty dollars American per night, at a spot on the beach with a concrete patio and a palapa, a palm-covered area to sit, dine.

 

 

Within a few minutes of our arriving another couple arrived in a Itasca, a camper mounted on a dual-wheel Toyota frame. They were from California, Alan and Betsi, and we have become fast friends. Betsi and Brenda have opinions and preferences (hot showers) in common, Alan and I tend to see the world in the same light. On the other side of us were Mark and Valerie from Ontario where he has some kind of marine salvage business. He has a heavy truck rig, a monster pick up with a Cummins engine, with a camper, a sixteen foot inflatable boat, and all kinds of gear for off-roading. Mark is a big dude whose friends call him Shrek and between the three sites we had a cool little scene going.

President Nieto of Mexico had proclaimed that he was going to end the subsidization of the price of gas in the country and let it rise to market levels. The first installment of his plan went into effect while we were entering Mexico. Overnight the price of gas went up 20%. The price of a gallon of gas was now equivalent to a day’s earnings under Mexico’s minimum wage. The populace was furious as there were simultaneous raises in the price of electricity. Protestors, like the ones we had seen in Sonoyta, were blocking access to stations. Some stations in the more radical states of Mexico were looted, some were torched. More significantly for us, protestors in the border town of Mexicali took over the Pemex transport depots and blocked shipments of gas into the state of Baja. (For a time they even took over the immigration checkpoint and waved everybody through). The upshot is that there was no gas in San Felipe for almost a week. None. Incredibly, there was no official statement on the situation. None. There was only rumor, in person or on the internet. For five successive days every Mexican I asked about gas said, “Maybe tonight, definitely tomorrow.” Manana, in other words.

But being stuck in San Felipe is not a bad thing. We could walk into town for shrimp or fish tacos at $1 apiece (the fish taco was supposedly invented in SF). We could buy a six pack of Tecate at the camp store for $4. We had good company and a fabulous setting on the beach, mid to upper 60s everyday. Things we so cheap it didn’t make sense to cook but go to restaurants for every meal. In the evening the local troubadour Guillermo found us and serenaded us with his lovely baritone and his banged-up, bittersweet-sounding nylon-stringed guitar. There were very few other tourists in town so I really think he looked around town to seek us out, such appreciative listeners and good tippers.

 

 

[I always cut the heads off dieties in pictures.]

The beach at SF was like the Bay of Fundy in that the geography of the sea floor and the height of the tides cause the sea to recede a great distance at low tide and come almost to our palapa at high tide. Sightings here of seals, dolphins, fishing boats (until they ran out of gas) and the frequent appearance of a Mexican navy gun ship(enforcing a net-fishing ban on the San Filipeans because they almost devastated the vaquetos porpoise with their carelessness).

 

I had half-a-tank of gas, not enough to make a run for the border or try to make the next town south with great confidence. Shrek made a run for it south on Wednesday because he had a healthy supply of diesel and is an adventurous sort. He was to report back on fuel conditions as he went but for reasons I now understand I got no reports (no telephone or internet connection.) Gas returned to SF on Friday and we caravanned south with Alan and Betsi.

Bahia de San Luis Gonzaga

We drove south three hours through the desolate, beautiful desert and then the beautiful, scary mountains. We missed our turn for Papa Fernandez’s campo and passed through a military checkpoint with no hassle, then realized our mistake and doubled back through the military checkpoint again. They were cool.

Papa Fernandez’s son, I’m guessing, took our money and gestured over the hill to the beach. He looked at my Maryland license plate and said “mucho camino.” Took me a minute to comprehend. “yes, a lot of road.”

Over the hill we found palapas right on the beach, at the base of a high hill, no electricity or water, $15/night. We were the only campers on the whole cove.

We explored around the next day (the weird eroded cliff caves where Brenda heard singing, the beachfront filled with beautiful rounded stones in three colors and shop-quality seashells) then headed out. I couldn’t get traction over the hill going back and made a barely-controlled slide backward about twenty feet. Back on the beach after a few scary minutes I found a less steep approach. We crossed back through the military checkpoint with the same guards who just waved us through like old amigos.

We drove about 90 miles south, stopping at a roadside shack for fish tacos, and at the little town of Puertocitos for gas.

Then we drove the roughest 26 miles of road I’ve ever been on. Our guidebook was dated 2012 and said that the highway south should be completed in a couple of years. Well, it ain’t. This was bone-and-kidney-jarring camino of washboarded sand and big rocks embedded in the road. You could not take your eyes of the road right in front of you except to check how close you might be to the edge of the cliff face or if another driver was approaching fast from behind or approaching in a cloud of dust from ahead. After an hour I was exhausted. After another hour the cats were acting sick and Brenda was cursing. A little while later Alan broke some welds on his truck frame causing the carrier that was attached on the back and his bumper to bounce too much and too low. We transferred the weight (water and gas cans) to my carrier and motored on. We made it to the highway and decided to go to Guerrero Negro, a larger town that might have services he needed, rather than the picturesque but otherwise barren town of Bahia de Los Angeles. We arrived after dark and are here now, in Malarrimo RV park, about which anon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

January 3 to January 7–Old Mexico

Crossed the border at Lukeville AZ into Sonoyta, Sonora, Mexico without incident. In fact we didn’t even stop—there was no one to give us the order to stop on the Mexican side of the border. I assumed the border check station would be further on but it never appeared. The border station turned out to be hidden away right at the crossing gate; not spotting it at this time wound up costing us half a day of driving.

I crept along at the posted speed limit through the dusty and busy main street. One minute after arriving in Mexico a guy in a banged-up pickup passed us on the right at five times my speed, kicking up a cloud of dust and scattering pedestrians.

In the previous days the federal government raised the tax on gasoline, increasing the price by 25%. The common folk were enraged. In Sonoyta we saw groups of cars and trucks with anti-government messages written on their windows in soap gathered around the Pemex stations (the national gas company Pemex is the only vendor of gas). When we returned to Sonoyta two days later there were balaklava-clad soldiers armed with automatic weapons in armored vehicles throughout town. The protestors had tried to block access to the Pemex stations by circling the wagons. In other cities Pemex stations were torched.

We drove ninety minutes to the east coast of Gulf of California, Puerto Penasco (a.k.a. Rocky Point, aka The Arizona Riviera.) We chose the RV park on the outskirts of town, the Reef, which proved to be a good choice. The in-town camps were crowded, noisy, surrounded by concertina-wire-topped fences we later learned. It was very nice, right on the beach, uncrowded, quiet, a bar, a restaurant, and a store on premises.

Vendors came along the beach peddling gaudy wares. Small fishing boats worked the water in front of our campsite. We went into town several times. At the farmacia by the railroad tracks the lady filled my prescriptions from the containers I presented or the names I had written down. No scripts to show (no English spoken) and it cost me a few dollars less than refilling at the Leonardtown CVS.

There are 20 pesos to the dollar. Seems weird, of course, to be peeling off 500 peso notes to buy less than 100 dollars of groceries. And things are inexpensive in Mexico. A pound and a half of some of the best shrimp I’ve ever eaten, peeled and deveined, for $8. Six pack of Tecate for $4. Fish tacos and corn/cheese/poblano pepper tamales for a buck apiece. (Altho I am still dreading that  yesterday’s tamale will turn on me.)

Mexican cities are a carnival. Everyone is outside, colorful decorations everywhere, hand painted signs for the endless number of little shops on the malacon, each store blaring some manic Mexican music that my son memorably described as sounding like “music from a circus on the moon.” Guys walking around selling cotton candy on tall sticks, traffic and pedestrians darting around in the most disorderly fashion, laughter and shouting and car horns.

The back streets show the direst poverty—ramshackle shanties, dirt streets, flooded intersections, unowned dogs always in sight. And in these residential streets the same mad music and colorful decorations.

There were gunshots in the desert outside our campsite one night but I’ve heard lots worse in New York and Baltimore. The seaside geology eluded me—slabs of gray and pink granite next to friable slabs of concretized fossils of marine life (volcanic tuff?), feet thick, then a stretch of what appears to be hardened lava. A couple of small hills along the shore, mostly covered in sand, and a scrubby desert behind us stretching to the distance.

We needed a tourist visa which I had intended to get in Sonoyta at the border station which I never spotted. I assumed we could get one in Puerto Penasco but that turned out not to be the case. I left a message at the airport office thinking they must issue them there but after two days and no reply we had to drive the 90 minutes back to Sonoyta. After some searching around we found the proper office and got our documents. When I got back to Penasco the airport responded that, yes, they could issue tourist visas.

After four nights here, on a Friday, the ugly americans started showing up, with 4-wheelers, booze, loud music. Despite the prominent signs saying the Mexican Dept of the Environment had put the area under a burn ban they started up fires along the beach. Fireworks were bound to come on Saturday so we hitched up and drove from Puerto Penasco  5 hours around the Gulf of California to a point directly west, San Felipe, Baja California.

 

 

December 27 to January 3, 2016­/2017—Adios New, Hola Old, Mexico-wise

 

Left Albuquerque with reluctance. Reluctantly, because, after all, our grandkids were there. Not only that, Tom had a world class collection of wines and liquors (he still has the collection; just smaller quantities of each), the pantry was full of delicacies, and we had our own separate quarters in a stand-alone house in Hillary’s yard. These structures are known as casitas in New Mexico which translates as “a place to put the old folks until we need it as a party space for New Year’s Eve.” Just joking; it was time for us to get on the road. We were not moving around enough.

 

I had a guy working on the Scamp during the month we were in ABQ. I didn’t get an estimate as he came recommended by a neighbor of Hillary’s who I know and like; I just told the RV guy what I wanted done. As the day of reckoning drew near I began to worry about just what he might charge for the minor but numerous repairs. Anything under $800 would make me pleased, but I could imagine him charging as much as $1,500. The total freight was $792, so I started the year on an $8 high.

Drove a little ways south to Elephant Butte State Park in New Mexico (NM). A beautiful place, $14/night, spacious well-appointed campsites like all of the NM state parks we have visited. The park, which is not called Elephant Butt, is the largest in NM, built around a 40 mile long reservoir. The reservoir is created by a dam on the Rio Grande built in the 1930s by Civilian Conservation Corps. On one hike we found what must have been their camp dumpsite—a patch of desert about half mile from the dam, off road, strewn with ancient browned tin cans that had been opened with those knife blades that chew a can open one bite at a time.

Truth or Consequences NM is the town nearest Elephant Butt park. It adopted the name after a dare by the TV show of that name. Previously known as Geronimo Springs, the town has numerous spas built around the hot springs which bubble to the surface here. Like so many small towns throughout the country half the storefronts are vacant and a small group is trying to make a go of it by offering “artisanal,” exotic or hipster goods. We wish them luck everywhere. If they prosper there will be a multitude of cool towns to dawdle in. TorC has a decent if rather scattershot collection of artifacts in their museum; worth an hour of time and the admission charge. It’s all railroads, mining, fabled gunslingers, Indians, and whorehouses in this part of the world.

Met a fellow resident in the RV park who grew up in Chicago and, as a kid, carried the great Hubert Sumlin’s amplifier to a gig. Later he played brush drums for folk records made at Chess Studios, went to San Francisco in the summer of love, then became a musician in his own right as drummer for a band called Daddy Long Legs which found success in England in the 1960s-early 70s. He made me copies of their first two albums, which according to the interwebs are desired by vinyl collectors. Stylistically they are all over the lot but it is professional, solid musicianship. He was a nice guy who told me lots of stories about the blues and rock musicians he knew. He told me Sam Leigh couldn’t tour with the Butterfield Blues Band because the pistol he kept in his waistband discharged accidentally and shot off his left testicle.

 

It got pretty cold at night in Elephant Butt, but Zach had bought us a small electric heater for Christmas which worked silently and effectively. A great quality-of-life improver. Elephant Butte Lake State Park is grand.

We moved further south in NM in search of warmth, to a state park within sight of the Mexico border in Columbus NM. This was the site of the last armed incursion by a foreign army into US territory. Pancho Villa raided the town of Columbus in 1916 and scores of people were killed in a fierce battle before Villa was repulsed. General “Blackjack” Pershing was dispatched with an army to track Villa into Mexico but was recalled after nine months. Villa had at one time received US support for his revolution but Pres. Wilson withdrew that support. Later Villa accepted arms from Germany who sought to complicate the US military posture at the outset of WWI but Pancho’s revolutionary movement collapsed and he retired to his home state of Chihahua and lived as a wealthy landowner before being assassinated in 1923. There is a museum at Pancho Villa State Park where I learned all this. New Mexico has very nice state parks but this one was rainy and cold so after a breakfast at Irma’s we headed west.

 

Bisbee, Arizona

Bisbee, AZ, site of one of the great copper mines and a tourist attraction. We took a spot at the Queen Mine state park right in town. Toured the Queen Mine, a one hour foray into the adjoining mountain on a miner’s cart, the tour led by an experienced miner.

The Queen Mine operated from 1870 to 1970 and drew 8 billion tons of copper out of the ground, through underground tunnels and then open pit mining. Also 3 million ounces of gold and 30 million of silver. One early owner of the mine lost his one-tenth share wagering, drunkenly, that he could outrun a man on a horse. The RV park only had room for us for one night; the next night was New Year’s Eve and Bisbee is a party town. We went up the road a little ways to Tombstone.

Tombstone, Arizona

Tombstone is completely hokified but fun to visit. Lots of authentic period-looking characters walking around, failed actors for the most part I discovered, strutting and spitting in character and always on the verge of a gunfight. The gunfights start in the dirt street but move into outdoor theater spaces where you are expected to follow and cough up a few shekels. All men walk differently in Tombstone, it’s impossible not to do so. The word “testosterone” is derived from the name Tombstone. When all is said and done there are authentic remnants of the “old west” to be found in the town. Many of the establishments are in the original buildings and the Bird Cage Theater was shuttered in 1930 and the contents left untouched until the late 1950s when it was cracked open like a vault and its elaborate furnishings restored with a light touch.

It was New Year’s Eve. Our tradition of recent years has been to retire early on December 31, like all the other 364 days. Brenda upheld the tradition but I went into Tombstone and bought one hundred dollars of chips to enter a Texas Hold’em poker game. Every member of my family across three generations with one exception is an accomplished gambler the exception being me. I have played poker in maybe a dozen friendly nickel-dime games in my life and never in anything approaching a professional game. Tombstone seemed like a good place to try my luck. The game took place in an 18^th century bank building turned holstery (as in a place where leather holsters are made) owned by the dealer, Rico. One professional table and six players, all men older than me. They were mostly Tombstone businessmen including the holsterer, the newspaper editor, the tobacconist, and the guy who ran the RV park we were staying at. Talk was strictly game-related, no idle chitchat. They called me “Maryland” as in “What’s it gonna be, Maryland?” I had only studied the rules of Texas Hold’em on the internet for an hour before the game. They were tolerant of my ignorances and occasional faux pax. After an hour and a half I bought another forty dollars worth of chips to replenish my dwindling supply. Two hours later I had won two big hands and a string of small ones and came out, after 3.5 hours and a $140 buy in, only twelve dollars down. I felt like I had made a decent showing and I had a good time in this period setting in a historic town with nice gents and I made it home well before midnight.

 

Why, Arizona

A long drive after Tombstone, on route 10, crossing below Tucson in a ferocious wind and rain. Turned south after Tucson onto a long, lonely highway that went passed Kitts Peak Observatory.

 

[Not a mesa but a mountain disappearing into a cloud. Geronimo surrended a few miles from here at Skeleton Canyon, ending the Indian Wars. Geronimo kept popping up in our travels, going back to Ft Pickens in Florida where G was imprisoned.]

On this 100 mile stretch we saw maybe 25 vehicles and 20 of them were DHS Border Patrol. We took a spot in Coyote Howls RV park, $20/night with full hookups. Stayed two nights. The camp guy told us how to get through the barbwire fence at the end of the dirt road so we could walk around in the desert. The RV park had thirty spots and most of them were reserved for the winter by Coloradans, British Columbians, northern Arizonans and such. We joined them around the fire at the camp managers site in the evening—drinks and story-swapping. We spent a day in Organ Pipe National Monument, a vast park protecting a representative segment of the Sonoran Desert and the rare organ pipe cactus. Parts of the park are a UN-designated Biosphere Reserve meaning it represents a unique and significant natural ecosystem. It is staggeringly beautiful in places. The Ajo mountain road, 20+ miles of dirt path, was as striking to me as Yosemite. To re-strike a common theme here, it was made remarkable by the fact that we were the only ones in it. The 20-some miles took hours to navigate, not just because the road was rough but because every twenty yards the vistas and scenery changed to something more beautiful. We saw two cars parked at trailheads and no people the whole route.

 

Large parts of the park were closed for eleven years owing to immigration and smuggling activity and the death of a park ranger in a shootout. The closures ended two years ago altho there is still a fair amount of immigration activity in the area. A humanitarian group puts out barrels of water marked by tall purple flags at distant spots in the desert for unprepared travelers. There is a campground at Organ Pipe but without water or electricity. (The organ pipe cactus looks like a set of organ pipes only when it dies and the skeletons of the multi-stemmed cactus are revealed.)

[These are the principle cactus types. Foreground in prickly pear, talls ones saguaro, between them the low one is cholla, and left the organ pipe.]

 

Our original plan was to drive back to Highway Ten, continue on to California, cross into Mexico at Calexico/Mexicali and head straight to Baja.  This would have involved some backtracking but would allow me to refill my meds in US. But here we were only twenty miles from a small border crossing at Lukeville/Sonoyta. We decided to go into Mexico from here in Arizona and find a place en-route to Baja on the east coast of the Gulf of California and hope I could fill my RX in MX. Continue reading “December 27 2016 to January 3, 2017–New M to Old M”