February 22 to March 6, 2017—Mulege To San Ignacio to Bahia Asuncion to Guerrero Negro
Returned to our old spot in Mulege, a tiled patio in a small permanent gringo community, in the village. Ate at Danny’s tacos, still our favorite dining spot in Baja. Took a failed day trip to Punta Chavato which my old Baja sailing book said had a great shell beach. The pavement ended about fifteen miles from the beach and turned into the usual unreliable dirt road—sharp rocks, soft sand. It would have taken us over an hour and a half to cover those fifteen miles. Turned about and made a return trip to Playa Requison to walk to the little island that lies just offshore there, but the tide was higher than usual and covered the sand spit that provides access to the island. Another fail. Found a little trail to walk above the beach then drove the few miles back to Santispac so Brenda could visit her little chihauha Lucy that she missed and that probably missed her. But the restaurant was closed and the dog and rightful owner nowhere around. We learned later that Ramon and Lucy were in Mulege while we were in Santispac looking for them. Three fails, in one day.
After a couple days in town we relocated to a cheaper, more rustic campground a little outside of Mulege, Campo Huerta Don Chano. Nice hiking here–to the seafront a mile down the road, to a remote beach over a ridge, and I took two long hikes in the arroyo behind the camp, climbing a 300 foot ridge to cross over to a different riverbed. Local legend says that two pirates are buried back in the arroyo and supposedly there is a rock with a pirate face painted on it back in the pirate days. I find it hard to believe that anyone would bother to bury a couple of pirates more than a mile from the waterfront, but the locals seem to believe it. In another example of the Mulegean embrace of the unlikely, the Mulege museum exhibits a plain aluminum sphere about four feet in diameter. The guide says it is a satellite that fell into a local farmer’s field one day in the 1980s. I don’t know what the object is but a satellite I doubt; it wouldn’t have survived reentry for one thing. But I suppose it could have fallen from a plane, a part of some military surveillance gear or something. I started to read Garcia Marquez’s A Hundred Years of Solitude to get acquainted with the literary notion of “magical realism” that is used to describe a lot of Latin American work, his in particular. I like the idea of the style more than actually reading it. Dream sequences in novels turn me off—fiction is such a “cheat” to begin with, the author having the authority to create a world from scratch, that asking me to buy into a dream sequence on top asks too much, and this book of Marquez’s reads like an extended dream. There is a sweetness to it, and a feeling evocative of Mexico, but I turned away about a third through.
Our Canadian friends and their Canandian friends showed up in Mulege, surprisingly. Mark and Val just passing through, Geoff and Wilma staying a night in Don Chano. But the latter couple headed south to catch the ferry to mainland Mexico from La Paz and M&V were making a forced march back to Ontario to see to their dog Ozzie that had taken seriously ill. (In fact, they left Mulege on the 27th and arrived back in Port Severn on March 5; that’s what Mark calls “firewalling it.”) Hang in there Ozzie.
There was a fiesta at Don Chano’s. A resident gringo sprung for a band and a pig roast to celebrate some milestone birthday and invited the whole camp. Carlos built a five cinder block- high roasting pit about five feet long and three feet wide, and parged it with clay he fetched from back in the hills. Then he and his brother shaved down the rough triangles of old growth wood growing on the lower few feet of the date palms around the camp, enough to fill the fire pit halfway up. They layed on some thick mesquite wood, fired it up, put the 180 pound cerdo on a roasting tray and put some sheet metal covering over, later taking a lot of the hot coals from inside and putting them on top of the metal. Total elapsed time from digging the footer for the fire pit to serving pig to a hundred people, 32 hours (eight hours cooking time). The band was a standard electric pop combo, alternating Mexican songs with American oldies that had a Mexican connection (La Bamba, some Buddy Holly numbers, Wooly Bully) or American songs that they could Mex up. (The only American band that I have heard played in many places throughout Baja is Credence. Baja appears to have a thing for CCR.)
We left Mulege with a little sadness after five days. We had enjoyed the town so much that we felt that maybe the best was behind us. We learned over the next few days there was no need to worry about that.
Pictures in and around Mulege
[Bouganvillea in bloom below the Mulege prison.]
[the canyon behind Don Chano camp is a mishmash of rock types. These above were found within inches of one another and represent eight different forms. The hills are punctuated with different types of gypsum, which was once mined here. A spear-type, a sheet form, and a red-tinged gyspsum below.]
San Ignacio
The mission at San Ignacio was built in 1749 to the same design and by the same hands as the mission at San Javier that we visited. The exterior of Ignacio is more interesting, and the wood carvings on the doors suggest some indigenous motifs, Mayan or Aztec. In front of the church is the town square, about the size of a basketball court, surrounded and shaded by giant Spanish Laurel trees, their trunks painted white about six feet up. Small shops selling crafts, food, or notions surround the square on three sides. It is a peaceful, quaint town that welcomes the gringos that gather to take the whale-watching tours that originate from here but really doesn’t care if they don’t come. The tour buses drive forty miles from the town to the Pacific and put everyone on pangas to go out and touch the gray whales.
We took a spot in a small, no-service campground on the outskirts of town. Our site was on the edge of a beautiful spring-fed lagoon about fifty yards across. On the other side was a date palm forest and, a little beyond, a five-story bluff of volcanic rock. Our end of the lagoon was home to a white duck, a couple dozen green-footed red-eyed coots, one pelican, some egrets and herons, and a small assortment of other waterfowl. They cruised the calm green water, diving, grooming, courting, and, in the case of the coots, occasionally fighting. The pelican cruised at about twenty feet, looking powerful; when he spotted prey he dangled his legs down, spread his wings and looked altogether goofy. If he caught something, which he always did, he put his beak up straight and gulped it down his gullet, looking now inelegant. Then he would cruise a little bit looking graceful as a swan, and become airborne with one or two strokes and look mighty again. Powerful, goofy, inelegant, graceful—repeat. Across the lagoon a horse, belled with a small iron bell, clanged around in the palm forest nosing up dates.
Hilda Suarez that managed or owned the campo let us borrow her canoe for a few hours, after some mutual pantomiming. We paddled (with the one long, thin, wooden boat oar provided) to the head of the lagoon, disembarking there to explore. We found the head of a small irrigation canal, made of cemented stone, that runs over a mile to the town from a fresh water spring. The Jesuits helped the townspeople build this acequia in the early 1700s, before they built the church. The acequia terminates in a pool in town behind a restaurant where we dined one evening. From this large stone pool, about five feet deep, the water is diverted to two different agricultural fields on the outskirts of town. What a small marvel, to be so old and still so useful.
As evening came on I began to get uncomfortable that we were the only ones in the camp. We had always been in places where others were camping. I was getting ready to deploy my security regime, consisting of a piece of wire about the gauge of a good quality paperclip stuck in a hole in the inside of the door handle which would prevent someone from opening it. Actually it would only momentarily discourage someone from opening the door; a persistent turning of the door handle from the outside would easily dislodge or bend the wire. But three other vehicles entered camp just before darkness and calm was restored to what was one of the most tranquil and Edenic camps we had enjoyed. We stayed three nights. One night, a Saturday night, a large group of locals came to party in the camp. They played loud traditional Mexican music on a sound system. For hours the night was filled with the sound of children laughing and shouting. Their voices echoed off the bluff across the lagoon. At about nine the children must have been all sent off to bed as it was only young adult voices for the next hour and a half. They all laughed and carried on, and at one point everyone sang along to some bittersweet ballad about lost love or homesickness. We fell asleep listening to them. The next morning Hilda came to pick up all the trash and there was one green Dos Equis beer bottle floating upright in the middle of the lagoon.
Adios San Ignacio.
Bahia Asuncion
We were heading to Guerrera Negra (“Black Warrior” – don’t ask me), a town we had stayed in one night before and which we did not particularly like. Brenda searched the Baja guides and found a diversion for us, a ninety minute detour to the Pacific coast to a little town called Bahia Asuncion.
The road, straight as an arrow, went through some salt flats and a huge ranch called San Ramon. Spring had come to the interior of Baja since we were last in this region seven weeks ago. The road was lined with intense expanses of wild flowers—small purple, orange, yellow and red blooms amid the cactus.
The road climbed steadily as we approached the sea. The vistas back toward the center of the peninsula and the mountains were vast and unpeopled. As we descended to Asuncion a dense fog was pouring from the Pacific over the tops and down the sides of the mountains behind the town and the large offshore island at the entrance to the Bay. It was striking, and we later learned that the fog had rolled in only once before like that in anyone’s memory, many years before. We found the campground that was said to be in town, but it looked derelict and abandoned. This is not an uncommon occurrence; our guidebook is five years old and the Overlander website had no comments about this camp later than six months before. Businesses rise and fold quickly. I went into the adjacent hotel to make inquiries. The hotel was a nondescript two story concrete affair, twelve rooms on two floors. I waited outside the open door of the tiny office while the manager registered a guest, a process which entailed an extended discussion about agricultural policy, inquiries into the well-being of the individual members of the extended families of both parties, and analyses of various social and political issues around the globe. When my term came the discussion was brief. “Is this the campground Serena?” “Si, el campo de Juan y Sherri.” “Are you Juan?” “No.” He then drew me a map to the home of Juan and Sherri, on the bluff above the town. On the way there the fog tried to rise up over the bluff from the Pacific, trailing along the road we were on. Brenda spotted whales spouting in the Bay below and we watched for a while. I walked over to the house and was told by a resident caretaker that the derelict campground by the hotel was indeed the only campo in town. I told her the water wasn’t running there (I had tested it) and they said it was a town-wide problem, that the water came from Vizcaino seventy miles away and was unreliable. So we went back to the open, scroungy lot behind the hotel and set up camp. We saw whales close to shore and watched as they drew even closer to the shore. People started coming from the town to line the shore because, as we soon learned, it was, like the fog, remarkable for the whales to come in so close. They were breaching and thrashing a quarter mile offshore a half mile down the beach. Calving, someone suggested. It was the right time of year for the whales to birth, but it had never been known to happen in Asuncion Bay. Plumes of water were being ejected from numerous whales, near shore and in the distance. A sea lion popped out of the water right in front of us on the beach. The sun was going down. Another camper pulled into the lot before nightfall and we helped them get settled.
Walked the beach the next day and arranged to go out with our fellow campers for Sunday dinner. A short walk away was Bladdy’s, a restaurant under a palapa attached to a waterman’s house. There was a family event going on there and they apologized that they couldn’t serve us. They recommended a place down the street, Mary’s Loncheria, which was closed. Some guys on the streetcorner suggested Bladdy’s. I told them there was a “fiesta de familia” going on there and they nodded sagely and suggested Mary’s Loncheria which was six feet away. “Cerrado” I reported. They walked down to verify, nodded sagely, then told us, I think, to cross the street, go onto the beach, walk up the beach, and there would be a place. And there was–a part of a person’s house like an enclosed porch with a frond roof; four tables, no signs and no other customers. The two women, sisters I guessed, happily started turning the place into a restaurant, calling up their niece or granddaughter to come over and help. The short menu listed five entrée options (shrimp, lobster, fish, beef, chicken) and they were out of three of them. I had fish fried to within an inch of its life, Brenda had a delicious fish soup Veracruz, our new friends had grilled fish. Salsa and chips, beans and rice, vegetables and avacodo, salads, French fries, four beers, a bottle of Lambrusco–$7.50 per person. While we were eating I saw some whales, maybe a half mile out, thrashing the water. Our campmate Greg grew up in Vancouver BC on the shore and knew from marine life. “Those are orcas,” he said and immediately one nosed straight up out of the water, white and black. Even I could tell they were not whales. The sisters were glad we stopped by. We were glad we stopped by.
Guerrera Negra
The wind was fierce driving back from Asuncion. Crossing the salt flats the wind had whipped the salt ponds into surfactant that blew across the highway like snowballs. We drove three hours to GN, arriving about six hours ago. We went into town to try and find some cat litter. We had run out in Asuncion and I went into town and bought some laying mash, i.e. chicken food. It makes a passable kitty litter. The lady at the checkout gave me a funny look. Maybe she thought I had a chicken in my camper. Or maybe she thought that I thought it was breakfast food. Here at Mario’s RV park in GN I just finished a generous helping of fresh local lobster, I’m sorry to have to tell you, and two margarhitas, before writing and posting this entry. Remember, kids, don’t drink and blog.