Baja Diary 2000



The Baja sun climbs above the mountains


Dear J---:

As I was preparing for the camping trip to Baja you had asked me to make a few brief notes to give you some idea of what things are like in the desert. You wanted to know about food, water, animals, insects, heat, snakes, and contact with other people. You especially seemed curious to understand just what it is that takes me back, year after year, to that same desert spot, some 5,000 kilometers from home.

I decided the best format would be a small day-by-day account detailing events and activities, and I will probably include some reflections and musings as will seem necessary to put things into context.  These reflections may appear like so many random, colored bits of fabric, but I hope to include enough of them to form an interesting quilt.  You must understand, of course, that these musings will be subjective, but they will let you sense how I perceive Mexico.  It is impossible to describe objectively a complex country and society because we filter things through eyes that have been conditioned by our own cultural backgrounds and sensitivities.  Having the computer along will make the writing task very easy and pleasant.



Sunday, June 25, 2000

Had hoped to get away early in the day, but it was after seven in the evening before everything was duly packed.  There are so many things to think about.  Called Marilyn before crossing the Blue-Water Bridge.  Was shocked to find the lowest gas price in Port Huron at $1.99 per gallon.  At today's rate of exchange, this is equivalent to $2.99 CDN, and since a US gallon is 3.7854 liters, this means 79 cents Canadian per liter.  Should have filled up at home, where it was down to 74.  Oh well!  Decided to confine speed to a maximum of 110 kph (68 mph) and to not use the air conditioner.  Turns out that between Waterloo and San Diego the car delivered an average of 41.7 miles to the US gallon, or 50 miles to the Imperial gallon.  On one tankful it got 45 miles to the US gallon, or 54 to the Imperial.  Quite impressive.  The winds appeared to be favorable most of the way to San Diego, and this is quite unusual.  Westward summer trips across the Midwest often turn into constant battles against strong head winds.  The weather certainly was different this year, with those constant and record-breaking rainfalls in southern Ontario, and by the looks of it there had also been plenty further west.

The first night on the road was a tired time.  Had to pull into many rest areas to sleep, but failed to nap longer than 10-15 minutes at a time.  Late coffees are not a good idea.  Might have been wise to spend the night at home and to get an early start Monday morning.  Hindsight is a remarkable thing and often a bit annoying.



Monday, June 26, 2000

There had been heavy traffic all night long, like an endless conveyor belt of tin cans, large and small.  Had hoped to skirt Chicago before the morning rush hour, but because of the frequent catnap rest-area stops, hit Chicago right smack during hell hour.  Got past relatively easily though.  Found it wise to keep well back from the cars ahead to allow time to react to some astonishing potholes right in the high-speed lanes.  Not only are you aware of potential damage to your own car, but you can hear and see the tailgaters ahead of you drop into them.  Makes you wonder what would happen if they lost a tire, a wheel, or even a ball joint.  All the ingredients are on deck for a nasty, multi-lane, 40-car telescoping pileup.  Such pileups do occur, and it's easy to get sandwiched in the middle, even if you keep a safe distance from the car ahead.  

Again, with surprisingly many catnap stops, made it to North Platte, Nebraska in decent time for a good sleep.  I feel a sentimental attachment to that place and always make a point of stopping there, at the least for gas and food.  Headed into town and found a nice place.  Should mention that the further west I got, the lower the gas prices became.  In North Platte it was down to $1.69, equivalent to 67 Canadian cents per liter.  



Tuesday, June 27, 2000

Before leaving North Platte, I washed the car and did some shopping at the local Wal Mart.  At home I had been unable to find our trusty and much-traveled snakebite kit and so was anxious to replace it.  Just so happened that they were fresh out of snakebite kits.  Seems there had been a run on them lately.  This conjured up ominous images of hissing snakes slung from cactuses and draped around bushes in the desert.  With a weak smile I remembered just such a hissing snake hanging in a bush beside the road when Ted and I took a walk up to the little shrine on the hill, back in 1998.  It was the first time Ted had been that close to such a big snake and it still makes him shudder.

That particular snake encounter didn't bother me terribly, probably because I vividly remember the summer of 1990, the very first time I camped at the special Baja desert spot that I had discovered the year before.  I had just finished setting up.  It was such an idyllic place that I felt it was as close to Paradise as mortals are allowed to come.  Filled with such thoughts I decided to take a stroll in the late afternoon sun and followed the trail out to the sandy, little-traveled San José Lighthouse road.  After walking along the road for a few meters, I was startled to hear a loud rushing sound, much as if a large, rusty spike had been driven into a truck tire.  I stopped.  The rushing sound stopped.  After a few seconds I moved, and the sound started up again.  I looked around, and to my great horror saw a large rattlesnake on the road.  It was about 10 feet ahead of me, all coiled up, with one end up in the air, but I don't recall whether the head or the tail.  It was a huge snake, the thickness of my forearm, and it appeared to be at least six or seven feet long.  I didn't actually measure it, and possibly it looked bigger than it actually was; such is the habit of monsters.  I backed away carefully and the bone-chilling noise stopped.




2000 - Encounter on the road


To someone used to nothing larger than ordinary earthworms, this was a truly stunning experience, and it shook me profoundly.  The feeling of aversion, revulsion, and actual fear simply did not fade away and it was still very much with me later when I settled down for the night in my tent.  Reflecting on the awful encounter, I began to see that I should be grateful for the experience.  It was a warning that there were indeed snakes, but there was also comfort in the realization that the snake warned me that I had come too close.  

Ever since that day, snakes are very much part of my thinking when walking through the desert.  I shudder when I remember how for all these years on my visits to the Baja deserts I used walk here and there without a care, looking down only to avoid sharp cactus needles, and how I would clamber onto rocks to get a better vantage point for a photo, and how I used to love climbing on the huge rock piles near Cataviña, with never a thought of snakes.  How tempting it must be for a snake, sunning itself on a large rock, when a hand appears before it.  When I next called Marilyn I told her that I had found paradise, complete with serpent!

And then there is another memory.  It was December 1972, the month of the terrible Managua earthquake.  It was the year before Mex 1, the Trans-Peninsular Highway, was completed, and the entire family was on a trip to explore the Baja peninsula for the very first time.  There was Liza, the eldest, who had just turned five.  Wayne was three, and Tim had just turned one.  Marilyn was six months pregnant with Ted.  In those days, the pavement ended at El Rosario, yielding to a bewildering number of trails, most of these heading in the direction of Guerrero Negro.  Some of the trails were rough, and occasionally Marilyn would have to get out of the car to move some of the larger rocks while I attempted to move the car slowly so that it wouldn't be damaged from below.  Tim didn't like it when his Mummy walked ahead of the car, insisting that she carry him.  So you can picture the situation  -  a six-month-pregnant woman, carrying a one-year old, walking ahead of the car, frequently bending down to move some large stone.  Only one of these stones still has a place in our memories, it was the one that had a 12-inch sleeping snake under it when she picked it up.  She called me, showed me the snake, and then replaced the rock carefully.  How calm she was.



December 1972 - Bath time near Punta Prieta, Baja California.


Funny how one memory triggers another.  In 1985 Marilyn and I got to know an American couple who had built a house in the desert, about 15 miles from where we camp.  It was an interesting house, with electric solar panels and a solar-heated shower.  "Rafael", as the Mexicans called him, would, as often as once a day, drive his truck around the house on the sandy driveway.  He explained that if a snake trail crossed the tire tracks, he would know that a snake had headed towards the house.  Quite ingenious.  When he told us this, I saw Marilyn react almost imperceptibly, but after leaving the house she picked up a big stick and carried it in an aggressively defensive manner.  I had to smile because she so looked like the woman in Johnny Hart's cartoon strip BC who likes to beat up snakes with a big stick.

All these memories paraded through my mind as I walked through the North Platte Wal Mart, looking for a snakebite kit.  The store had expanded tremendously since I was last there four months earlier, back in February.  On the north side of the store they had added a full supermarket, fresh produce, meat, and all.  Got a case of pop and, on impulse, bought a 12-pack of fudgesicles that were on special.  By this time I was confident that the little fridge was working extremely well, but the fudgesicles would be the ultimate test.  I had been monitoring the little 'Magic Chef' by watching the ammeter.  It would run for about six minutes, and then rest for 10.  This meant it was running 6 minutes out of 16, or about 38% of the time.  Surprisingly, the timings in the lab had been similar, but the fridge was now in a much more hostile environment, with the sun occasionally shining directly on it.  This made me optimistic that the four solar panels could probably carry the electrical load in the desert, but then the heat hadn't hit yet at all.  The temperatures were still very moderate, and back in 1998 the daytime temperatures in the desert were a sustained 45°C (113°F) for an entire week.

Reached Denver by mid afternoon.  There was much highway construction with a lot of detours that lacked reassuring signs.  I was looking for I-70, which leads westward into Utah, and in the absence of signs followed my instincts, but got lost, heading out of town in an unknown direction.  Tried to navigate by the sun, but it jumped around all over the place.  Furthermore, the sun was still fairly high in the sky and it was hard to tell which way the shadows were pointing.  I thought how nice it would be to have a proper compass.  I tried to stay calm by noting that this was a good way to see new parts of Denver.  Swelling rush hour traffic, however, is not a good time for sightseeing.  

Come to think of it, Denver always appears to be in the middle of rush hour, sometimes even in the wee hours.  I still have vivid memories of once entering Denver on I-70 back in 1997.  It was after midnight, but the traffic was heavy, with a lot of tailgating.  I was in the passing lane and the right lane was packed with swiftly-moving traffic, with not much space between the cars.  In the right lane was a Cadillac with a bicycle on the back.  The Cadillac hit a bump, and off came the bike.  The car behind, which had been following closely, ran over the bike, and so did the car after that, and the one after.  There must have been at least 12 cars that ran over that bike because none could see it coming.  One can only wonder how much damage was done to all those cars in those few seconds.  Tailgating must surely be one of the worst evils on the roads.

Anyway, somehow I managed to get back onto I-76 on which I had arrived from Nebraska.  Not a little put out, and miffed, and thinking unkind thoughts about self and about the Denver public officials, who seemed to be stingy with road signs, I decided to simply follow I-76, come hell or high water.  Before I knew it, I-76 led directly into I-70.  Oh well.  The moral is that you shouldn't turn unless a sign tells you to do so.  This, unfortunately, doesn't apply everywhere.

From I-70 I spied Camping World, a huge camper-supply store.  I had stopped there many years ago, on my first Baja camping trip, to buy a long and wide 12-volt fluorescent light and also a little chirping gizmo that was claimed to keep flying insects away.  All it ever seemed to do, however, was attract 9-volt batteries.  

While I don't know what my unconscious intentions were, I had told myself that I would simply go in there to see what was new, without biting.  Well, I did see a nice altimeter that was good up to 15,000 feet.  The old one had trouble over 10,000 feet and six years earlier I had accidentally crushed it under the front seat.  It had been a useful device that accompanied us on many a trip for many years, telling us when to advance and when to retard the ignition timing, and it gave us a good feel for the topography of Mexico and Central America.  It was sorely missed, and I reasoned that the $24.99 for a decent replacement wasn't all that bad, especially after living without one for the past six years.  

I also saw some new Siemens solar panels.  They were bigger than our four 55-watt Siemens units - about twice the size, and were rated at 100 watts, but at $899 they seemed very expensive.  I did notice, however, that they appeared to be based on different technology - so possibly there is some evolution in this area.

I also saw Canadian-made Koolatron solid-state thermoelectric coolers.  One particular Koolatron model caught my attention.  It was made in China and had just appeared on the market.  It was a freezer chest, about the size of a large picnic cooler, with a compressor designed for 12 volts, but at 56 pounds it was heavy, and it cost $749.  A sticker on the outside claimed that it could maintain things frozen at outside temperatures of up to 48°C (118°F) at a modest average current of 2.5 amps from a 12-volt source.  My Magic Chef draws 8 amps from the 12-volt battery while active, but with a 38% duty cycle this implies an average of 3 amps.  That Chinese unit really did intrigue me, and I wish I could have heard it run, gauge its performance, and learn more about its design.  I have a feeling that I came across a significant new product, potentially of great interest to long-distance truckers, RV owners, and yes, to campers.

The technology in some of the other products in the store was impressive.  There was, for example, a satellite TV antenna that automatically tracks the satellite while you are on the move in a camper.  It cost $2999.  I suspect it has a GPS and a compass built into it to find the satellite, and then some sensitive electronics to stay locked on.  It would be nice to know how it works, and how well it works.

And then, for $999 there was an 18" satellite dish on an 8" table-top stand.  You stop your RV, set the dish on a picnic table, push a button, and the thing finds your satellite, all by itself, using a built-in GPS and compass.  The thought of watching commercials in a camper does not appeal, but the technology is stunning.

The poor always get shafted.  For them there was a humble, manual 18" table-top satellite dish at $99.99, and for another $12.99 they threw in a compass for pointing the thing in the approximate direction, and then there was a signal gauge for fine adjustments for another $42.97.

Well, the electronics aisle kept drawing me back because I had also spotted an electronic compass for $44.99.  In the past I had tried various floating-ball compasses on the dashboard, but always gave up because of random readings, especially when things like headlights and heaters were turned on.  I was aware, however, that some digital compasses could be calibrated accurately and I had heard good reports, and then I was, after all, just recovering from driving all over hell's creation without being able to find the four cardinal points.

Yes, I did buy the electronic digital compass.  You calibrate the thing by finding a fairly-level parking lot where you drive the car through two full circles, preferably not observed, because people would think that you were going in circles.  It appears to be highly accurate, and I am very greatly impressed by its quick response, its accuracy, and by the technology.

I reached Green River, Utah by Tuesday evening, and since the Las Vegas Whiskey Pete reservation was for Wednesday, I stayed in a humble motel in Green River.  As they say, once the lights are out, most hotels are much the same.  To underline this, I had a most refreshing sleep.  The place was most humble but still cost $35 ($52 Canadian).



Wednesday, June 28, 2000

Left Green River.  The hop to Vegas would be short.  Stopped in Richfield, a nice little Utah town near the intersection of I-70 and I-15.  One of the supermarkets had cherries on special at $2.99 a pound, but their favored clients (everybody) got them for 99 cents a pound.  I bought three pounds, asked for permission to wash them in the store, and headed down the highway with a trail of cherry pits in my wake.  What a feast.

The heat started in southern Utah, and it was about 42°C (108°F) in St. George, just before the Arizona line.  I had stopped at a rest area and found, to my great delight, that the fudgesicles were still solid.  By now my tongue was a bit raw from eating so many cold fudgesicles.  Surprisingly, the fridge's duty cycle had not increased significantly, and now I was confident that it would do well in the desert.

It was even warmer in the Virgin River Canyon, where the temperatures reached 45°C (113°F).  Gas at the north end of Vegas was $1.59, or 62 cents Canadian a liter.  Vegas was rush, rush, rush, like always.  The traffic through the city on I-15 is so fast that the driver can't risk looking left or right, killing any desire to stay in the city proper.  This is really unfortunate because the imaginative, sensational, garish, and daring architecture deserves to be savored.  They would be wise to lower the speed limit through the city.  It would be good for business.  

Anyway, I got through the city and about an hour later reached Whiskey Pete's just inside Nevada, next to the California line.  Whiskey Pete's is part of a complex of three major ventures operated by Primadonna Casino Resorts.  It's on the south-bound side of the highway.  On the other side there is Buffalo Bill's and Primm Valley.  There is also a huge outlet mall.

Since I arrived early, I decided to take the shuttle across to Buffalo Bill's.  It has some interesting decor, but it certainly lacks the class of the Virgin River Casino or of the Goldstrike.  Whiskey Pete's itself isn't quite up to the standards of these latter two places, but it is several notches above Buffalo Bill's, and at $18 a night, who could possibly complain.  The people are friendly and I had a generous room on the 18th floor that might be ranked four star, with a king bed.  It was quiet up there, and restful.

At Buffalo Bill's I stopped at an inside McDonald's for a hamburger.  The fellow at the counter was chewing gum that he snapped noisily. It looked like green underwear tumbling in a dryer and I informed him that this was entirely unacceptable.  He looked stunned as though this had never occurred to him before, but the next time I saw him his jaws were parked.

There was also a video arcade, with all sorts of huge game machines, many of them requiring the player to annihilate some opponent.  I noticed an elderly couple.  The man sat before one of these machines.  It was his task to drive a tank and to pulverize targets that kept popping up in random places.  His wife stood beside him and she was nearly hysterical, shouting orders at him.  Seems that he missed too many enemy targets for her liking.  She was attempting to remote-control him to make him a deadlier fighter.  When the game was up, she rushed over to the change machine, came back, deposited a number of quarters, brushed him off the seat, and took over the controls.  She wasn't so hot and soon lost all her tanks.  Her husband just stood by smiling gently and let her lose the war.  These two had attracted quite an audience, which now was beginning to thin out in the face of her disgrace.



Thursday, June 29, 2000

Left Whiskey Pete's around 10:00.  It had been a highly-pleasant stay and I certainly intend to return on my way home, should the timing be good.  By the time I hit Baker, the temperature was already near 43°C (108°F) as announced by their huge thermometer beside the highway.  Because there was plenty of time to get to San Diego, I turned on to the road leading to Death Valley and drove into the desert to do some rock climbing.  The idea was to catch more sun to prepare me for Baja.  I reached Barb's house in San Diego around 20:00 and received a warm and gracious welcome, as always.

In 1978 the entire family visited Baja.  It was a nostalgic trip because now there was a good highway where, six years earlier, we had slugged it out non-stop for four days and nights on unmarked trails.  It was in 1978 in La Paz, near the southern tip of Baja, where we first met Jack and Barb Haskell, both retired teachers from San Diego, California.  We struck up a warm friendship that, unlike so many holiday friendships, has endured over the years.  Jack died several years ago and we still visit Barb whenever we come near San Diego, and on two occasions Barb has visited us in Ontario.




1978 - at the southern tip of Baja


Friday, June 30, 2000

It was a restful night.  After Barb got up we went out to her little garden and picked oranges for breakfast.  We then went down to Mission Bay Park for the morning walk, on which about eight others joined us.  Before we launched out, one of the men drilled and contorted us, until each muscle had been activated several times.  We walked a total of five kilometers, and I found it hard to keep up with Barb, who is in amazingly-robust health for a woman approaching 86.




Saturday, July 1, 2000

Happy Canada Day.  While picking oranges, we saw Barb's neighbors, Barb and Don, at their breakfast table.  They had just returned the evening before from a whitewater-rafting adventure.  We invited them for supper that night, and they seemed pleased to accept.  We prepared a Mexican meal consisting of avocado in wine vinaigrette, home-made frijoles refritos (refried beans), Managua salad with sweet onions, and chicken tamales.  For dessert we had mango melocotón, served porcupine style, and topped with sugar and lemon.  All was good, especially the Managua salad, but those blasted tamales, which had been bought, were terrible.  They were awful, hard as rocks, and one had virtually no meat in it.  They had been bought in good faith, and how is a body to know?

After breakfast, Barb and I had gone shopping for the evening meal.  We went to a little fruit stand on Morena Boulevard where we found some nice tomatoes, mangos, and Hass avocados.  The bill was a bit of a shocker because the avocados were $1.50 each.  If you need two, you always buy three, because invariably one is bad, which was indeed the case, but you don't know until you open them.  This lamentable situation is mostly due to those blasted people who go around pinching avocados and then putting them back in the pile.  At Mexican markets you often hear 'if you bruise it, you buy it', and it would be nice if this could somehow be enforced.  There is an art to gauging the ripeness of an avocado without bruising it, but the thoughtless appear to lack this finesse.  The little bit of stuff came to over $8.00 but I kept smiling as I paid, glad that I hadn't grabbed a whole bunch of avocados the way I often do at home.

We then went to Ralph's and to Albertson's to buy pop for my 16 days in the desert.  Ralph's had the pop and it was reasonable.  It has to be diet pop, because in the heat it apparently takes more water to handle the sugar in the pop than there is water in the pop.  Don't know whether this is true, but it sounds quite plausible.  Furthermore, on a hot day you drink as many as eight or nine cans of pop, and there might be up to 150 Calories per can.  Simple math indicates that you would end up with an extra 1350 Calories a day that you don't need, and after two weeks you might have to wheel your triple-X gut out of the desert on a wheelbarrow.

I bought 96 cans of diet pop, which would give me, if I stayed 16 days, 6 cans per day.  Each can holds 355 ml, for a total of 34 liters, weighing 68 kg, or 150 pounds.  That weight, equivalent to an extra person, sure added to the load already in the car.  The muffler now only had a little more than 3 inches of road clearance and that's always a concern, what with those ubiquitous speed bumps in Mexico, and with that rutty and sandy road that leads to the desert campsite, with its nasty center hump.

The muffler business isn't quite so serious as might first appear.  On my Honda Civic the thing is mounted transversely, relatively close to the rear wheels.  With a bottomed-out suspension, when the rear wheels go up, the muffler follows right along.  This clever bit of design allows you to clear some monstrous speed bumps without scraping.  In addition, over the years we had learned that you approach really nasty speed bumps very slowly and at 45° to ensure that you clear them gently.  If you approach the nasty ones head-on, and if your car is loaded down, it is not uncommon for the car to get stuck on top of the bump, like a teeter-totter plank, and this can attract the curious in large numbers.  Funny thing, these memories awakened by such musings.  What curious threads lead from soda pop shopping to speed bumps and then to Mexico!

My first contact with Mexico was back in 1956 when, as a teenager, I hitchhiked there.  It was the Christmas holidays and I left Midland in Ontario early one Wednesday morning.  By Saturday evening I was safely tucked away in bed in a little hotel in downtown Monterrey, in the Mexican State of Nuevo León.  Midland to Monterrey in three and a half days was quite something in the 50s, and it would have been difficult to get there any faster in your own car.  In those days much of the American Interstate Highway system was still in the planning stages, and a lot of the travel occurred on two-lane roads that took you right through the middle of towns and cities, both large and small.  

What made me hitchhike to Mexico?  In truth, Mexico was far from my mind when I left Midland that wintry Wednesday morning.  In those days Hollywood had managed to established itself as the focus of North-American culture and my goal was to visit Hollywood.  At a Buffalo AAA office I exchanged my $29 Canadian for $30.74 US.  A gentle young woman provided me with a map and laid out the best route.  I was to go to Canton, Ohio, and from there south-west to US 66, which would take me right smack into Los Angeles.  

Route 66 was the magic east-west highway, leading ever larger crowds of exuberant, optimistic, and increasingly affluent travelers right into the Pacific sunset.  Cars were getting bigger, with ever more imaginative applications of chrome, and there were the early sproutings of fins.  Route 66 was surely the biggest hot-dog alley in the world, lined with motels, the newly-emerging fast-food restaurants, and plenty of large and small billboards, including the clever and ubiquitous 'Burma Shave' ditties that were served up, one line at a time, on a series of six or seven small signs, 200 feet apart and nailed to trees, fences, and posts.  In those days, few objected to the thick forests of billboards because they spoke of all sorts of exciting things beyond the highway, endowing the traveler with magic vision that made the highway seem infinitely broad.  In Oklahoma there were little signs on telephone and power poles admonishing people not to shoot at the insulators, and many of these little signs had holes shot through them.  The admonition must have been effective, though, because most of the insulators appeared to be intact.

I had left Buffalo during the early afternoon, and by eight at night, after a series of many short rides in rapid succession, arrived in Canton.  Two events became woven into my memory.  Four men wearing overalls offered me a ride; there were four lunch pails in the car and the mood was jovial.  They told me victoriously how they had sneaked out of the steelworks way before quitting time and how their buddy was going to punch out their timecards at five.  I felt quite uneasy upon hearing this confession, and I often think back to it whenever there is talk about destructive foreign competition in the steel industry.  They obviously weren't bad fellows because, after all, they had stopped for me and they appeared to be generous.  They were probably just unaware, like the rest of us.

The other memory is connected to the first.  The four kind truants now had a problem, namely that of getting home too early.  They had to kill a few hours, and this was to be accomplished by bar hopping.  And so we stopped at a bar and it was there that I saw my first color television picture.  At the time I was not overly impressed because the picture was full of interference and the colors were weak, but the event became a reference point.  I can still see the picture.  

In those days, people who couldn't afford a color television had other options.  One of these consisted of a sheet of clear plastic, green at the bottom, fading into a brownish red near the center and then assuming an intensifying blue as you approached the top.  You attached this sheet to the front of your black-and-white picture tube and you suddenly had a color TV set, just like the rich.  It worked impressively well for nature scenes in westerns, with the green prairie at the bottom, reddish-brown mountains in the distance, and a vibrant blue sky above.  On the other hand, it often ruined close-up kissing scenes because it gave the two participants green chins, reddish-brown cheeks and lips, and strikingly-blue hair.
 
The rich could also afford large TV sets, and for a while it seemed that the poor had to be content with their tiny screens, but this inequitable situation was soon redressed in the form of a huge rectangular plastic magnifying lens that you set up a few inches from the small picture.  You then seated your viewers strategically on the other side of the lens and, presto, you suddenly had a large TV picture, just like the rich.  Marilyn and I once saw this in action at a small hotel in Guatemala back in 1968.  We had noticed a group of guests sitting in a cluster, all staring into a large rectangular hunk of plastic resting on a special stand.  I then saw the tiny TV set on the other side.  Such delicious human ingenuity always makes me smile.

It seems that I am drifting further and further from the diet pop purchase, and even from the hitchhiking adventure, but in a lifetime of memories events are no longer strung out sequentially in time.  They are more like grapes that one plucks from their little stems, one by one, and places them in a bowl.  They are all there, but now stripped of their original spatial relationships.  And so it is with memories.  They are still there but no longer attached to the ribbon of time.

I stood at the south end of Canton when a large transport truck came along.  Even in those days truckers weren't to pick up hitchhikers, but this truck stopped for me.  The driver was young, and a light shone in his eyes.  Bound for some place to the east of Knoxville in Tennessee, he had a long drive ahead of him.  On hearing my destination he suggested I change my route to take advantage of the long ride he could offer me, and I gladly accepted.  He seemed to be a happy young man, and before long told me that he could hardly wait to get back home to be with his wife and child.  His happy anticipation seemed to grow with each mile, and this blessed individual still lights up a special corner of my memory.  He still looked happy after the long night, and when we rolled into Tennessee he told me a lot about his state, about how secluded, isolated, and backward it was until the Tennessee Valley Authority tamed the big river and became the catalyst for momentous change.

Our ways parted about 100 miles from Knoxville and now began a series of short rides.  I vaguely remember a car full of friendly teens who took me a few miles, and then there was a ride with a salesman who, after a few minutes, started talking suggestively and asked whether I had ever seen dirty magazines.  When I didn't respond, he reached under the front seat and pulled out a handful and opened them and held them under my nose.  I was still quite innocent and naive in those days and wouldn't look, whereupon the rest of the ride proceeded in cold silence.

The next ride became one of those pivotal human intersections that affects the flavor and shape of all subsequent events.  A black Cadillac pulled up.  It was driven by a man of about 45, accompanied by his son, who must have been around 20.  Both were quite formally dressed and both exuded a friendly and cultured air.  After the obligatory small talk and questions about my destination, the father looked at me in the rearview mirror and wondered out loud why anyone would want to go to Hollywood.  The son thoughtfully nodded in agreement and seemed to shudder at the very notion.  I have often thought back to that moment and feel that these two were way ahead of the times.

After quite a pause the father suggested that if I really wanted a great experience, I should head south to Mexico.  The son joined in and both shared with me their great affection and respect for a country they obviously admired and which had been a virtual blank in my mind.  It was quite a short ride, but by the time we parted my focus had shifted from the western point of the compass to the southern tip.

All this had happened within about 20 hours from Canton.  I hadn't slept at all since then, and now I became very tired.  The remaining memories of the day are hazy, but a few fragments survive.  I recall getting a ride through Knoxville, and then being picked up by a middle-aged man bound for Nashville.  I was so relieved at the thought of the long ride that I promptly fell into a very deep sleep.  The only other thing I remember is that the car had stopped because we had arrived in the west end of Nashville.  I mumbled an apology for sleeping instead of keeping him company.  He smiled and took hold of my overcoat and reached into the back seat, brought up a box, opened it, and said, 'look, I bought exactly the same coat for my son for Christmas', and sure enough he had.  It was after midnight and all traffic had ceased and I was out in nowhere.  I sneaked into a barn and had an uncomfortable night in the straw.  

The next ride was with a young army fellow who took me all the way to Memphis.  He drove an older red Chevrolet convertible with an automatic transmission that intrigued me no end.  In Memphis I hopped on a city bus and requested to be let off at the west end.  The driver, obviously a kindred spirit, asked me in a low tone whether I were hitchhiking.  When I nodded, he told me, again in a low voice, to sit over there and that he knew a perfect spot for getting rides and that he would drop me off there.  Kind people do occupy such a very special place among the memories.  It takes so little to be kind, and the impact is so lasting.  How little we reflect on this reality.  

Right after I stepped off the bus, along came a 1948 Plymouth.  It was driven by a young Mexican, probably in his early twenties.  He was on his way to visit an aunt who lived in McAllen in Texas.  McAllen sits right on the Mexican border, opposite the Mexican town of Reynosa.  What incredibly good fortune.  He also considered himself fortunate because he now had someone to share the driving.  We took turns driving and sleeping, and made wonderful time.  The car, however, burned oil, and we had to stop between fuel stops to replenish it.  It really pleased him that I was on the way to Mexico and he insisted that I join him for supper at the house of his aunt, a very gracious and kind woman.  Before supper I had a refreshing bath and picked the last of the prickly Nashville straw out of my clothing.

The supper sticks out in my mind because the aunt served, what appeared to be delicious pieces of deep-fried chicken.  Well, it sure didn't taste like chicken, and I was informed that I was eating goat.  When we eat new kinds of meat we are forced to think of what it really is we are eating, and the thought of eating a little goat quickly numbed my appetite.  Somehow it bothers me less when I eat little chickens, little cows, and little pigs, an issue that I find difficult to resolve.

After supper I was driven over to Reynosa, where Mex 40 starts for Monterrey.  Within seconds a car stopped.  There were two men in the front and I sat in the back.  There was no verbal communication because of the impenetrable mutual language barrier.  One interesting aspect still lingers in my mind, however.  The driver's companion was let out on the outskirts of Monterrey, and the driver was now alone in the front, with me in the back seat.  He became visibly nervous, and actually seemed to be afraid of what I might do.  It was frustrating not to be able to communicate, but he seemed to relax as we drove into the downtown area, and he suggested a nice little hotel where I ended up staying.

During this first visit to Mexico I saw something interesting - the Mexican implementation of the speed bump, known as the túmulo or as the tope, the latter pronounced TOH-pay.  You approach a town and the sign advises you to slow down.  Next thing you know there is a speed bump right across the road, and if you hadn't slowed down appropriately, well there is always a mechanic close by who will align your car, or who can be asked to replace the ball joints the following day.  It's a common mistake northerners tend to make during initial visits to Mexico, but it's truly amazing how quickly you learn.  

Some towns place two or even three speed bumps in series, just a few feet apart.  What an exciting event when a speeder notices too late.  There is usually a fierce screeching of brakes, immediately followed by the sound of something metallic being kicked about two or three times.  The locals who hear the commotion rarely even bother to look because there is a certain sameness about it, but you often notice an involuntary smirk flash across their faces.

It must be mentioned that nowadays Mexican speed bumps aren't what they used to be because you now get a lot more warning.  As you approach some towns you might see a sign that reads topes 1000 m.  After 500 meters another sign warns topes 500 m, and 400 meters later topes 100 m.  Sometimes, and this probably for the benefit of the dull witted, there might be a sign right beside the tope reading tope, along with a prominent arrow pointing right at it.  Anyone who gets stung after such warnings certainly had it coming, but there is always the unsuspecting first-time visitor who has no idea what on earth a tope is.  For such individuals the tope signs often carry graphics in the form of two adjacent upside-down letters U, looking much like voluptuous breasts, especially after some village clown adds the nipples.  It's not hard to imagine an unsuspecting visitor smiling benignly at what is assumed to be local graffiti just a fraction of a second before the full meaning hits home.

Even dogs seem to understand that topes represent a zone of safety.  It is here that they cross the street because they know that most cars slow right down to a crawl before climbing over the bumps.  You also find people crossing the streets near the topes, and street vendors find them to be choice locations.

Lately I have noticed that sometimes topes are advertised, but do not really exist.  The sign alone is sufficient to slow down the most hardened speeder, because you never know whether there is, or whether there isn't, and if there is, well, you should have slowed down.  I was amused recently to see a tope painted on the pavement.  It did look mighty real and appeared to be effective in slowing down traffic, but this would work only for out-of-towners.

We have had our share of tope encounters, but one was truly memorable.  One night, in July of 1972, I was traveling with two of my children on Mex 190, near the isthmus city of Tehuántepec when I noticed a little round sign by the side of the road advising a maximum speed of 50 kph.  I thought it odd that the highway speed would be so suddenly and so drastically reduced on the open road, without even a house in sight.  Well, my musings were rudely interrupted when we briefly left the pavement, propelled into the air by a nasty tope.  We had to stop to rearrange the interior of the car.  Seems that there was a bus stop in the vicinity.  Still haven't figured that one, but it teaches you to mind speed signs.

And so you can see why loading 150 pounds of pop into the car raised the issue of Mexican speed bumps.  It could be reasonably asked, of course, why I would buy the pop in San Diego, 550 km north of the desert campsite.  The reason is that diet pop hasn't been all that successful in Mexico and it is still hard to find.  Some diet colas are beginning to appear in the stores, but they tend to contain caffeine, and after nine cans of caffeinated diet pop you would probably lie awake in your tent all night counting the rings around the moon.  I well understand the Mexican attitude towards diet pop because, until I started camping in the desert, I shared it completely.  Why spend good money on something that has absolutely no food value.  But then, it is said that 'new occasions teach new duties'.  How true.

While shopping, Barb and I also found some lovely Bing cherries at Albertson's, ironically the same chain where I had bought the cherries in Richfield, Utah.  Again they were $2.99 per pound, but their favored customers, including everybody, got them for 99 cents a pound.  That's a nice little trick Albertson's use.  It is obviously in response to the tactics many other stores use where you have to show a discount card.  It's a nice way of doing business and at the same time thumbing your nose at the competition who require people to carry discount cards.  This clever little tactic always makes me smile.



Sunday, July 2, 2000

Today is voting day in Mexico.  It is a momentous day because it now appears quite possible that Vicente Fox of the National Action Party, the PAN, might become the next president after more than 70 years of rule by the PRI, the Institutional Revolutionary Party.  It could even be argued that the PRI's roots really go back to 1916, when the dust from the 1910 revolution began to settle out.  

I had promised Lisette, our daughter-in-law, that I would visit her Tijuana family by about 11:00.  It's less than an hour's drive from San Diego to Tijuana and I left Barb's house around 9:30.  Stopped in San Ysidro, the little border town on the US side, to buy some pesos and to purchase car insurance.  I was a bit apprehensive about the traffic in Tijuana, because it can be hellish at the best of times, and today was voting day.

Mexican political cycles last six years, because a president serves for six years and then cannot be reelected.  These cycles are known as sexenios.  Because of the great authority of the Mexican president, each sexenio bears his unique stamp.  Looking back over twentieth century Mexican history, one can clearly see prominent political fractures that coincide with the fault lines delineating the sexenios.  For the past seven or so decades, many of these sexenios were almost like independent historical epochs, with one world abruptly drawing to a close and a new and unpredictable period sliding into place.

On the surface this seems like an odd system, but it is not foreign to the Mexican psyche.  When the Europeans arrived in Mexico in 1519 they found a system, in place since at least 1325, or possibly much longer, in which the universe operated in fixed 40-year cycles.  Every 40 years the sun's tenure came to and end and a new 40-year cycle would start, but only if the sun were appropriately appeased.  The end of one cycle and the beginning of the next was always marked by a night of very great anxiety and resignation.

When one thinks of it, all political systems headed by powerful individuals operate in epochs.  We speak of the Elizabethan age, the Victorian period, the Hitler era, the Stalin years.  The only real difference is that the lengths of such epochs are unpredictable, drawing to a close only with the demise of the leader.  Well, the time periods of the Mexican epochs have been completely predictable for a very long time, and considering the lack of continuity from one sexenio to the next, it is difficult to fault the people for attempting to shelter whatever wealth they had managed to accumulate during the sexenio drawing to a close.  And so, a feverish selling of pesos in favor of American dollars or some other stable currency often marks the end of a sexenio.  The result is predictable; the peso drops and the outgoing president is blamed.

The ones who benefit the most, of course, are those who have ready cash to shelter.  Once the peso has dropped, they can buy them back at bargain rates, often doubling their holdings overnight.  In that environment the American dollar looks like the magnetic north pole, drifting a bit over time, perhaps, but nevertheless a solid reference point on a stormy ocean.

On my first visit to Mexico in 1956, a dollar was worth 12.5 pesos and it had been solid for many years.  It was still worth 12.5 pesos when Marilyn and I spent our honeymoon in the country in 1966.  By 1972 there were disquieting signs of instability, and by about 1976 the peso had begun to slide to 17.50 per dollar.  Within a short time it hit 23, then 28, and by 1982 it took 45 pesos to buy a dollar.  

It was either July or August of 1982 when all hell broke loose.  We were in Mexico City, on the way to the Yucatán.  I had gone to the bank to buy a considerable sum of pesos, at about 45 or 47 to the dollar.  That same evening Jesús Herzog, the minister of finance, appeared on television to announce that we were in the middle of a financial crisis, and within 24 hours people were paying over 90 pesos for a dollar.  The worth of our little bundle of Mexican money had suddenly dropped by 50%, but Marilyn was remarkably stoic about it because she felt we were sharing in the suffering of the country.  

Ten years later, near the end of 1992, people were paying something like 3,350 pesos for a dollar.  Someone who had lived a frugal life and who had managed to accumulate 10 million pesos in the bank would have been considered rich in 1970 when these savings could have bought $800,000.  By 1992, however, the 10 million pesos would have been worth less than $3,000.  

In December 1994, right after the Salinas sexenio ended, there was another serious blow as the peso suddenly lost another 30% overnight.  This unexpected disaster saddled the incoming president, Ernesto Zedillo, a gentle and level-headed man, with an incubus that has burdened him throughout his presidency, now drawing to a close.

And so, where do things stand in the year 2000?  Well, the peso had been dropping steadily over the past eight years, and stood at 9,300 pesos to the dollar when I bought some on voting day, July 2, 2000.  The 10 million peso savings would now be worth only $1,182.

It should be mentioned that at the end of 1992 Mexico issued a new currency.  The unit was given the name nuevo peso which means new peso.  One new peso was worth exactly 1,000 old pesos.  And so, on voting day July 2, 2000, a dollar was worth 9,300 old pesos or 9.30 new pesos.

The value of the peso around the time of a changing sexenio is a good indicator of the people's level of confidence, and this is why I paid very close attention.  I found it significant that the gap between buying and selling of the peso was small.  In San Ysidro, on the American side, for example, you got 9.30 pesos for a dollar, and if you wanted to buy a dollar, it would cost you 9.65 pesos.  This is considered to be a modest spread, and reflects an acceptable profit margin for such transactions.  This might be interpreted to mean that on this voting day, July 2, 2000, things looked calm and stable from the US side.

That same evening I did some shopping at the Gigante supermarket in Ensenada, Mexico.  There they valued the dollar at 9.90 pesos, a sign of slight unease about the election results, but within a few days it was back to 9.30, the same as on the US side.  Let's remember, however, that although the vote is over, the horses won't be changed until December 1.  A lot can still happen, and let's also remember that the PAN has no experience on the federal level and that it will inherit most of the PRI bureaucracy.  There certainly won't be dramatic changes overnight, and the PAN may find itself so badly fettered by the existing realities it inherits that it might not be able to govern effectively at all.  They might well find themselves ousted in 2006 before they can effect any meaningful changes.  Whatever happens, the system ultimately will have to be reworked to introduce significantly more continuity from one sexenio to the next, and this can only happen at the expense of the current almost-absolute presidential power.

Quite contrary to my expectations, Tijuana was astonishingly calm.  The traffic was light and slow, and for the first time ever I enjoyed the luxury of looking around while driving through the downtown areas where I saw huge lineups at various polling stations.  At the gate of the residential compound I announced myself as a relative of the Flores Family.  The guard did a bit of a double take but quickly lifted the gate.  If he didn't already know that the Flores family have gringo relatives, he does now.

I should put some of this into context.  As mentioned earlier, when we first visited Baja in December of 1972, Marilyn was six months pregnant with Ted, our youngest.  It was a rough and tough four day and night, non-stop journey down the peninsula because Mex 1 was only partially complete.  Because of this early exposure to Mexico, Ted's full name is Edward William Cuauhtémoc, the third of these names in honor of Cuauhtémoc, the last Aztec emperor.  Ted has always felt very much at home in Mexico, and I suspect his psyche is at least half Mexican.  He speaks Spanish fluently.

In September 1994, after completing his first year at university, Ted lived for a year in Torreón, a desert city in the Mexican State of Coahuila, where he taught English at the grade-school level.  In Torreón he came to know Lisette Flores Trejo who was then a Business student at one of the 26 campuses of the Monterrey-based university at which I had taught the year before.  Lisette's family originally came from Mexico City, but her father's job took him to Tijuana, where the family now live.  By September 1995 Ted was back at university in Canada where he completed years two and three, but during that time the romance between these two young people blossomed.

In August 1997 Ted was back in Mexico to teach English, but this time, for obvious reasons, in Tijuana.  He returned to Canada in the fall of 1998 to complete his last year at University.  Early in 1999 Ted and Lisette were married at a civil ceremony at the Kitchener city hall.  The witnesses were the two mothers.  Lisette then returned to Tijuana with her mother and during the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend of 1999 they were officially married at a church ceremony in Tijuana.  The civil ceremony, in this case held in Canada, was necessary because under the Mexican constitution the church is not permitted to perform the legal portion of the ceremony.  Both families were fully represented in Tijuana, and Barb was one of the honored guests.  Lisette and Ted now live in London, Ontario where Ted is a representative for a drug firm.

In Tijuana Lisette's mother Laura, her sister, also Laura, and her brother Mauricio had been waiting for me.  Laura junior told us that Tiffany, the little toy poodle, grew all excited when I drove up, as though she knew who it was, and when I greeted her she piddled all over the tile floor.  Mauricio was ready for the spectacle and cleaned up behind her with a wad of toilet paper.  He made excuses, explaining that she was obviously excited to see me.  I had read recently that such canine peeing should be regarded as a real compliment because it means that the dog is hugely fond of you.  I find this somewhat surprising because Tiffany and I hadn't spent all that much time together in the past, the little pooch always preferring Lisette's company.  But then, of course, Lisette now lives in Canada, and who really knows what goes on in a little dog's mind, and so I decided to give Tiffany the benefit of the doubt and to view her outpouring as compliment rather than insult.  To add to the humor of it all, in Spanish a poodle is known as a perro de aguas, the literal translation of which is dog of waters.

We then all drove over to Uncle Roberto's house where we spent a few calm and pleasant hours.  Laura senior went out and returned a little while later with lots of good prepared food, and we had quite a feast.  I left around four, Mauricio guiding me to the Ensenada Toll Road.  It must have been around six when I got to Ensenada, a bit too early to turn in and so I headed for the Gigante store to stock up for the desert.  I bought fresh milk, baked goods, Bimbo bread, Bimbo toast, a pound of butter, zarzamora jam, and three liters of ultra-pasteurized milk.  I still had a couple of pounds of cherries in the fridge, and so saw no need for more fresh fruit.

It should be explained that fresh bread is abundantly available in all the stores and bakeries, and so are crusty rolls and all imaginable kinds of pastries.  You can also buy sliced white and brown and multi-grain bread in plastic bags, and it looks just like at home and seems to keep for a surprising length of time.  The brand that has been around for as long as we have known Mexico is Bimbo, and hence the earlier reference to it.  You can also buy your white bread already toasted.  The slices are nicely browned and completely dehydrated and therefore keep indefinitely.  They taste good, especially with butter and jam and fresh cold milk.  It's a wonderful institution because it lets people, who might live far away from stores, buy bread to last for several months.  

During our early encounters with Mexico we noted that fresh milk could be found only in large urban centers but excellent powdered whole milk was abundant, and you could also readily find condensed and evaporated milk in cans.  About 30 years ago we became aware of a new product, with a shelf life of several months, known as ultra-pasteurized whole milk.  For example, the three liters I bought in Ensenada on July 2 were said to be best before September 17.  This milk is sold in foil-lined one-liter rectangular cartons and needs no refrigeration until opened.  

In the traditional pasteurization process the milk is heated to 63°C (145°F) and kept there for at least 30 minutes.  At this temperature the taste of the milk is not altered appreciably and most of the bacteria are killed, or fail to reproduce.  In a different approach, the milk is heated to 72°C (162°F) for 16 seconds.  You can appreciate that the pasteurization of milk is a marginal process in the sense that if the temperature is not maintained for the required time, some of the organisms survive, the milk sours readily, and it might even be dangerous to drink.

During ultra-pasteurization the milk is flash heated, under pressure, to a surprising 138°C (280°F).  It is then rapidly chilled to slightly above freezing and sealed into sterile cartons.  The taste gets altered slightly in the process, but it is a very pleasant taste that grows on you, and it allows you to carry milk wherever you go.  The cost is virtually the same as that of fresh milk.  People who travel in Europe have found that in some parts ultra-pasteurized milk is sold to the exclusion of fresh milk.  A few years ago it also appeared in Canada, but it was shunned.  I haven't seen any in Canada for a long time, although I suspect it can still be had.  For some reason our four children never came to appreciate it.  

Fresh milk can now be had almost everywhere in Mexico.  Generally it is of exceptionally high quality and a real treat.  It appears to be especially good in Baja, where some of it comes from Vizcaino, about half way down the peninsula.

The shopping proceeded smoothly and it was still early, therefore I decided to head south rather than spend the night in Ensenada as originally planned.  I got as far as San Quintín when I thought it advisable to stop for the night at the Motel Uruapan.  The US July 4 weekend was on, and most of the little hotels were full.  I had thought of staying at Motel Sinai in El Rosario, 60 kilometers further along but considered it too risky because they too might be full and it would have been the last chance.  



Monday, July 3, 2000

The Motel Uruapan in San Quintín was unpretentious, but the room was clean, comfortable, with hot water, and furthermore, it cost only $13 a night.  There was an attached comedor (dining room) and I decided to go there for breakfast the next morning.  The two women who worked in the place were a couple of exceptionally unfriendly-looking individuals, sour and almost hostile, so much so that it spoiled my breakfast.  Certainly they couldn't possibly have expected a tip, and I didn't disappoint them.  I thought that maybe they weren't terribly fond of gringos, but their own nationals who ventured through the doors weren't received much better.

It's only about a 60-kilometer hop from San Quintín to El Rosario so I arrived there before 11:00.  I stopped at one of the supermarkets and filled the six water jugs and bought more fresh milk and a few other little things.  Now these collapsible water jugs hold 20 liters each, which means 20 kg, or 44.4 pounds.  And so, the already heavily-laden car was burdened with an additional 266 pounds, like an additional two persons.  I was now carrying 416 pounds of liquid, if you include the pop, and you can then add another 20 pounds for the milk and butter and eggs and other purchases.

Before leaving El Rosario, I called Marilyn.  Since a call from there costs 15 pesos a minute, which is $1.61 US, or $2.42 Canadian, I spoke for just one minute and asked Marilyn to call me back.  This way I was charged only two pesos, or about 20 cents, per minute.

It was another 120 km from El Rosario to the San José Lighthouse road, where I would leave Mex 1 to head straight into the desert.  I must say that Mex 1 was in extraordinarily-good shape all the way from Ensenada; actually the best I had seen in years.  There were no major potholes, and much of it was freshly and smoothly paved.  There were fewer topes, and the ones that remained I attacked at 45, clearing them easily.  The only unknown now was the 12 km stretch of sandy, rutty, and washboardy San José road to the campsite cutoff.  There were tense moments, especially through the long stretches of soft and heavy sand, but never once did the car scrape nor did it ever lose traction.  

When I came to the little 500-meter long campsite path itself, I was prepared to have to do some pruning as in all previous years, and the work gloves and the pruning clippers were ready, but I found to my surprise that such was not necessary.  The growth on either side of the road didn't come close enough to threaten the car's paint.  It had been two years since I last camped there, and yes, I had then trimmed the bushes back quite a bit, but I would have expected greater growth by now, but I apparently still benefited from the previous pruning.  There were plants on the path itself, of course, but we usually just run over these, knowing they cause no damage underneath.  They do make threatening noises as you pass over them though, but they spring right back to attention as soon as the rear bumper clears them.  

The campsite itself was also a surprise.  It was still as clean as I had left it, and no vegetation had invaded.  There were surface twigs and things, and several dried cow pies and a bushel of dehydrated horse apples.  The idea of taking along the leaf rake was a real winner because within minutes the place was spic and span.  I inspected the sleeping-tent site.  It was completely clear of tarantula, snake, and rodent holes, although the wider area around the campsite looked like a sieve, and so the sleeping tent was quickly set up in its usual spot.  You certainly don't want to put a tent with its plastic floor over a little mouse's front or back door because how could you sleep with a clear conscience knowing that the little thing were trapped beneath you.

The area where we usually erect the large 11' x 11' screen tent was also free of holes.  I recalled that back in 1998 Ted and I had set up the screen tent in its usual spot, not noticing that its perimeter incorporated a tarantula den, and obviously an inhabited one, for it sported the telltale white gauze with which the tarantula covers the entrance during the daytime.  It should be pointed out that the screen tent has no floor and so the tarantula was not buried alive.  

Marilyn had taught me not to fear tarantulas, and so I thought we could coexist, which we did.  Every evening, right after sunset, the gauze would disappear, and you could see the hairy legs in the hole.  Within about 20 minutes the entire tarantula would sit on the ground, beside the hole, waiting for hapless insects to come its way.  It would sit there about three feet from my left leg while I worked on the computer, or read, or ate, and it would not bother me in the least, but then I took great care not to bother it either.  I felt that my bright overhead light worked to its advantage because it attracted insects.  We lived like this, quite harmoniously, for the two weeks I spent there.  Sometimes I offered it food, and even water, but it never accepted any of my generosity.  I checked for that particular tarantula hole, but this year there was no longer any hint of it.

Although the traditional spot was clean and ready, I was reluctant to set up the screen tent because there were too many bad memories from years past.  The tent had always been set up with two sides facing east and west, and the other two north and south.  Two years ago it was particularly hot.  From about 07:00 to 12:00 the sun would beat in through the east screen wall, and it would then torment you through the west screen for the rest of the afternoon.  It got so bad that I resorted to draping blankets and sleeping bags over the east wall during the morning hours to keep out the sun, and then moving these to the west wall for the afternoon, a real nuisance.  

Actually it would have been a tolerable solution if it hadn't been for these powerful winds that occur each and every day in this part of the desert.  The nights are quite calm, and so are the early morning hours, the only safe time to burn the trash, but around 10:00 they start blowing out of the west, reaching their greatest intensity during the afternoons.  Some of the gusts must surely reach speeds in excess of 60 kph and the screen tent then becomes a sail, pulling at its moorings.  Anything you attach to the walls to shield you from the sun enhances the sail effect and invariably the end result is a screen tent shredded after just a few days.  We always left Canada with a new screen tent but never once did we bring one back, they all ended up in the El Rosario garbage dump, in tatters.

Experience is a good teacher, and this year, instead of simply buying the same old screen tent, we looked for one with roll-down sides on all four walls, to shield against the sun.  Often, when you know what to look for you find it, and sure enough such a tent went on sale the week before I left home.  It suddenly occurred to me that if the tent were set up on the east side of our massive cardón cactus, the cactus would provide afternoon shade, and furthermore the cactus would probably act as an effective break against the afternoon winds from the west.  And so I checked the east side of the cactus.  Amazingly, there was an area large enough to accommodate the 11' x 11' tent without a single animal burrow.  There were a few shrubs, but these yielded to the pruning clippers.  And now this huge tent sits on a clean, firmly-packed, perfectly-level, and sandy floor, almost too good to be true.

The east flap is lowered each morning, and it keeps out the sun until noon, after which it is again rolled up to permit the wind to blow through the tent.  The cactus then takes over and shields the tent from the afternoon sun, so there has been no need at all to deploy the west flap as a sun shield.

As soon as I opened the box I recognized the tent; the same people who had produced all the earlier ones also made this one.  The roll-down flaps had been added, and the wall opposite the zipper door was also supplied with a zipper so that it too can now be opened.  The color of the screen sections was changed from a light gray to a bright bug-repelling-yellow material, a seemingly clever idea.  But basically it is still the same shoddy tent as I soon found out, for when I tried to set it up, three of the roof-support loops immediately frayed and let go, a very nasty omen.  But up it went, and even with the missing loops it survived the afternoon winds without becoming airborne, probably thanks mainly to the cactus.



The "work" tent





The "sleep" tent


The new location of the screen tent is such a vast improvement over the old spot that the human comfort level has increased by an order of magnitude.  I cannot comprehend why such an obvious step wasn't taken earlier, but such is the human learning curve.  It should have been ever so obvious to us, long ago, that in the hot desert you must take advantage of all available shade, especially when offered in such abundant quantities as by our giant cardón cactus.  As far as the screen tent itself is concerned, the jury is still out on whether it will make it back to Canada or whether it will end up in the El Rosario garbage dump, like its several predecessors.  

By the time the sun was about to set, the solar-panel frame had been assembled and the four panels were mounted.  It was a good time to set up the power plant because I was able to choose a spot that would be free of shadows during the late afternoon and it was also easy to orient the frame properly relative to the sun.  Memory and some mental calculations suggested that the sun should be able to hit the panels unobstructed during the morning hours, and that the shadow of the cactus would not interfere as the sun passed overhead.  The batteries were connected, the 60-Hz power supply was attached, and the overhead lights for the two tents were installed and connected to the 60-Hz supply.  At the time I didn't feel like lifting the fridge out of the car, and so I simply ran a long extension cord to it.




The four 55-watt Siemens Solar Panels and the two deep-cycle batteries.





The Charge Controller.


The air mattress was inflated and it was then that I realized the wrong one had been brought.  This one is deficient in each of its three dimensions since it is too short, and too narrow, and too thin, but at least it doesn't leak, and to a large degree this compensates for its deficiencies.  Actually it is surprisingly comfortable, but you do turn over very carefully so you won't fall off, although the three-inch drop would probably go unnoticed.  That first night I didn't sleep all that well, likely because the air mattress was more confining than the king-size bed at Whiskey Pete's in Nevada.  Each time I woke up I realized how cool it had become.



Tuesday, July 4, 2000

Happy Independence Day, USA.  Checked the thermometer.  The overnight low had been 13°C or 55°F and at home the furnace would have come on automatically to make rising more inviting.  Brewed a pot of coffee and enjoyed toast with butter and zarzamora (blackberry) jam.  It was around 06:00 and the sun was just preparing to peek over the low eastern mountain range.  The morning hours were spent raking the area, with the sweepings accumulated in several large piles.  Again I say, what a good idea, this leaf rake.  Marilyn smiled at the thought of raking the desert, but then it hadn't been Marilyn who cleaned up the campsite over the years, moving cow pies and horse apples and sticks and dead vegetation aside to create, over time, an ideal spot.  It must be admitted, however, that it seemed almost ridiculous when I took the rake apart and stuck it in the trunk.

I then removed the old 120-volt, 1000-Hz power supply from under the hood of the car and attached it to the solar-panel batteries; the 60-Hz supply had been connected the evening before.  The older supply is quite powerful, with the ability to handle well over 1000 watts, but because it operates at 1000 Hz rather than the standard household 60 Hz, it can only run things like the coffee perc, the toaster, the hair dryer, the tea kettle for boiling water, a heating pad, ordinary incandescent bulbs, and the curling iron whenever Marilyn comes along.  Most compact fluorescent lights don't like it, and neither does the little refrigerator; it has a rotary compressor that expects to be driven at 120 volts and a precise 60 cycles per second.

By this time it was about 10:30, and the temperature was approaching 29°C (84°F).  There was a light wind and things were shaping up well, with everything in its place.  The screen tent had obviously been oriented well the night before because when the east flap was rolled down, the sun was shut out completely.  

I then took a little break and walked the three quarters of a kilometer down the path to the big mesquite tree where the fellows from Rancho Santa Ynez sometimes spend a day rounding up some of their cows.  Relatively-fresh horse apples seemed to indicate that they had been there fairly recently.  They come about once every 8-12 days, or so, and they know my campsite.  They even refer to the big cardón cactus as Hart's cactus.  Their spot was nice and clean, and the usual litter of broken lawn chairs, aluminum cans, tin cans, and glass bottles was completely gone.  I was impressed.

Rancho Santa Ynez is about 25-30 kilometers distant by road, although I suspect that the crow distance would be no more than 18, if that.  They come with a 1-ton truck with a horse or two on the back.  They drive down to their spot, unload the horses, and go to work, and sometimes you see them leave several hours later with the horses again on the back with a cow sandwiched between them.

Those desert cows are no ordinary cows.  They are tough as nails, and they manage to find enough food to survive, seemingly without a single drop of water.  I know that once I pull out they will again occasionally congregate at my campsite, because they leave tortilla-shaped evidence behind, but I never see them.  I hear one or two calling in the distance, usually well after dark, so I know they are around.  What a remarkable breed they must be.  I once heard that in this sort of environment each cow needs a foraging area of many square kilometers to find enough food, but looking at the vegetation, one can only shake the head in awe.  The desert is bone dry.  I don't see how a cow can survive in the heat without water, and yet I don't see how they possibly have access to water.  It's a puzzle, and I must discuss this with the fellows from the ranch the next time they come by.

There is another interesting fact about these desert cows.  You sometimes see them right beside the highway, just a foot or two from the pavement.  Mex 1 is not wide, and there are no shoulders, and seeing a cow right beside the pavement can be a shocker as you round a curve, but you can have almost complete confidence that it will not step onto the pavement.  You see large transport trucks coming within inches of these cows, but the cows don't flinch.  They seem to know that the pavement is for trucks and cars and that they must keep away.  I also find it astounding that the cows seem to understand that normally the cars and trucks stay on the pavement and therefore represent no danger to them, even if they do come very close.  It's an interesting phenomenon and it might be convincing evidence of natural selection; any cow with a genetic predisposition for loitering on the pavement won't be around long enough to reproduce.




A desert cow beside the highway


One of my students had asked me to perform an experiment to satisfy her curiosity.  I was to dig a fairly large and deep hole in the sand and stretch a plastic sheet over the opening, sealing the edges down with sand.  She had heard that the sun, beating down on the sheet, would cause moisture from the sand to condense on the sheet.  You could then place a bowl at the bottom of the cavity and catch the drops; it was claimed that you might end up with a gallon or more a day.  I had heard similar accounts for many years but I had never tried it, probably because I felt it wouldn't work in this desert, although it might in certain environments.

If it did work here it would be absolutely wonderful, because I already have abundant electricity; if I could also produce my own water, it would be strongly tempting to move here permanently.  Well, I dug the hole and stretched a plastic sheet over it, and made sure the edges were sealed down airtight, and guess what - not a single drop all day!  The sheet didn't even mist up, but at least it is being tried, and that's what counts.  For the sake of the poor cows I dearly hope for some success.  I'll leave it up for a week.

During the afternoon I tried to get some accurate indication of the fridge's duty cycle and so I sat in the screen tent and read.  On a sheet of paper I would record the time whenever it came on, and when it clicked off.  The problem is that this fridge is so quiet that you can barely hear it, especially while the wind is blowing, and so I connected a big light bulb to the motor.  I recorded the times the bulb went on and off but there was no surprise; the fridge would still come on for about six minutes and rest for ten.

While connecting the bulb, I dropped a screw in the sand.  I used the magnetic tip of the screwdriver to locate it, and afterwards when I tried to wipe off the screwdriver, the material that clung to it wouldn't come off but simply rearranged itself.  On looking closely I noted that the things clinging to the magnet were like small iron filings.  This discovery was so intriguing that I put about two cups of sand in a large bowl and added quite a bit of water.  I then stirred around with the magnetic tip, and it would come up looking like a Buckingham Palace guard with the bearskin hat.  About a level tablespoon of the material was separated out in this manner, and I shall take it back home to have it looked at.  There appears to be a tremendous amount of iron in this sand, but the thought of anyone digging up this desert to get at the iron is too awful to contemplate.

The sun vanished behind the western hills shortly after 7:30 and it immediately began to feel chilly.  I flipped over the solar panels to face east for the morning and decided to turn in.  I had brought along a book of Japanese short stories and after washing up crawled into my nest and read, and read, and read.  These stories are quite something, no more than 20-25 pages each and they really seize your attention.  The motifs center on the classical dilemmas of man and woman and unforeseen circumstance but often there is an unexpected twist with lots of glimpses into the Japanese psyche and religion; the style is gentle and vivid.  After the book was put away sleep came easily and the dreams were in slow motion and ever so relaxing.  It was one of the best sleeps I had enjoyed in a long, long time.



The sun, captured in the batteries during the day, shines at night



Wednesday, July 5, 2000

What a wonderful and restful sleep.  When I got ready for bed last night the thought of doing anything major today was not appealing but after that incredible sleep there was a lot of energy.  

At some distance from here, at the top of a steep hill, there is a small shrine beside the road.  It is a little white concrete structure, with a turquoise roof, about 4 feet tall, three feet wide, and no more than two feet deep.  You certainly couldn't go inside because it is too small.  On the back wall there are several religious pictures, and often there is a small vase of flowers on the little step-like altar.  The inside of the shrine, pictures and all, appears to be covered with a layer of oily soot from the smoke from all the countless votive candles that had burned on this little altar over the years.  You find at least one candle burning whenever you get there, sometimes two or three, and the little place always exudes the sweet, thick smell of hot bee's wax.  The candles consist of thin-walled glass containers, shaped like large, tall water tumblers with straight sides, into which bee's wax has been poured around a central wick.  On the outside you often find some sort of religious image.  There is something almost eerie, after not having met a soul on the road for hours, and after not having seen anyone for days, to find burning candles when you get there.

There is one aspect that has always troubled me and that I find difficult to resolve.  The outside of the shrine is a mess.  To its left there is a huge pile of broken glass from the votive candles, you see lots of graffiti on the nearby rocks, and there is plenty of garbage strewn around.  It appears to be so contradictory but there is probably some sort of symbolic significance to this.  It should be mentioned that this situation is not at all atypical; you could almost say that it is quite common.

The location of the little shrine suggests that people stop to give thanks after getting their cars or trucks up this really ugly and rocky hill without ripping parts off the undersides, or, if they are headed the other way, to pray for help in getting down without incident.  To put things into perspective, if you did incapacitate your vehicle on that hill, you would be in dire straits.  It is very hot in the day time and often very cold at night and it is many miles from nowhere.  Whoever travels the road seems to do so in the very early morning hours or after sunset to avoid the midday heat, so you might have to wait at least 12 hours and possibly even a day or two before any help arrived.  Pretty serious business, especially if you have little ones with you.

Over the years we have made it a tradition to walk as far as the shrine at least once each time we camp here.  You know that if you have made it to the shrine and back, you've had quite an outing, and you think of it as a respectable feat because it can be challenging to walk on the sandy road.  According to the GPS, the direct distance is only 5.1 kilometers, but if you follow the sinuous road, it is more like eight or nine.

Anyway, right after breakfast I suddenly decided that this would be the day for the long hike.  I left just before ten and got back after two, but it was a hot day with the temperature hovering near 40°C, which is 104°F.  Fool that I am I had chosen the hottest part of the day and was surprised at how much it took out of me.  At one point on the way back I checked the GPS, which indicated 4.10 kilometers to the campsite.  Half an hour later I checked again and it said 4.15 kilometers.  The road was obviously skirting the campsite in a huge arc at this point, and the distance from the camp had actually increased a little.

That little shrine has always intrigued me because it, and countless similar ones, seems to say so much about the Mexican religious psyche.  When the Spaniards arrived in 1519, they were astonished at how daily life was so inextricably interwoven with, and centered on, the polytheistic religion.  The Aztecs and their vassals found Christianity attractive, and not incompatible with their own religious concepts.  Very quickly Christianity put out surprisingly robust roots, and over the centuries the religious institutions became more and more powerful, wealthy, and exploitive.  In 1858 Benito Juárez, Mexico's first all-Indian president, made a dramatic move against the church when he nationalized all of its properties, curbed its temporal powers, and made it illegal for convents to accept novices.

For a time there followed great political instability, then a lengthy period of stable dictatorship under Porfirio Díaz during which the church regained some of its influence, but then the 1910 revolution erupted.  A new constitution was drafted at Querétaro in 1916, and curbs on the church's activities became entrenched.  Clergy were not permitted to vote and they were no longer allowed to appear in public in religious garb.  In effect, they became political outcasts.  There was even some talk of writing into the constitution that a priest should not be allowed to celebrate the Eucharist unless he could prove he were married.  

During the constitutional assembly some delegates went so far as to advocate that it should be against the law for women and priests to meet alone in a confessional.  Insofar as anti-church sentiment is concerned, the records of the 1916 Querétaro constitutional assembly are absolutely astounding.  The church and the clergy were vilified in a manner that we cannot begin to comprehend in Canada or the US.  Some of Mexican States even passed their own severe laws against the church, and during the 1920s priests were actually shot if caught in some of the southern states; all the churches in parts of the south were literally utterly and completely destroyed, the ruins still bearing accusing testimony.  The worst time for the Mexican church was from 1924 to 1928, during the term of President Plutarco Elías Calles.  Doña Josefina of the Rancho Santa Ynez claimed that President Calles, the archenemy of the church, died in San Diego, California after requesting that a priest administer the last rites.

This story, if true, seems to reflect a Mexican reality.  In private you are very pious, but on the political scene you attack the religious institutions outrageously, and this is why the Pope's first visit to Mexico was watched so carefully.  At the airport, President José López Portillo received the Pope respectfully, even somewhat warmly, but did not greet him as a head of state.  The really significant subtext, however, was that the Pope appeared in public in religious garb, contrary to law, and the large crowds, who cheered him deliriously, duly noted this fact.  It was a symbolic gesture, fraught with intense meaning, and it marked the beginning of a softening attitude on the part of the state toward the church.  Probably unnoticed up north, a really significant aspects of the July 2, 2000 vote was the fact that, for the first time in modern Mexico, clergy were allowed to vote.

We once gained a glimpse into how the church coped in the face of such official hostility.  For the month of July 1977 we had rented a house at the southern end of Mexico City.  We would frequent a wonderful bakery within a block of us, and after a few visits we had noted that only women appeared to work there and that all were dressed the same, a brown skirt, and a darker knitted cotton sweater.  One night Marilyn said that she thought we had come upon a convent.  In retrospect, that's probably exactly what it was.  How could anyone have objected.  The dress looked civilian enough, and if you had met one of these women on the bus you might have thought she were simply, but cleanly, dressed.  If you had interacted with her, you would have noted that she seemed unusually warm, open, and friendly.

The ruthless anti-church feelings must be understood as a violent reaction against the church's very great power and influence over the centuries, a power frequently abused and shamelessly exploited.  Instead of serving the people, the people were serving the church.  The pious vows of poverty were often an insult to the poor because convent life, more often than not, guaranteed relative ease and luxury, removed from the harsh realities of the outside world.  There were remarkable exceptions, of course.  One need think only of the two priests, Hidalgo and Morelos, who championed the rights of the poor, and thus ignited the 1810 revolution with all its excesses.  But then, aren't piety and revolution clashing ideals?

As has so often been the case in the past, and in so many different societies, the Mexican church was frequently on the wrong side of social upheavals, and thus thwarted equitable consensus and resolution.  Unfortunately such realities are sometimes only recognized in historical perspective, but when revenge comes, it cuts deep; we saw this in Russia during the upheavals of the Bolshevik revolution, ironically also around 1916, when the church was nearly extinguished by force.  In the late 1950s we also witnessed a major anti-church reaction in Québec.  In typical Canadian fashion, however, there was no violence and no bloodshed.  Almost overnight the people of Québec simply turned away from the church and began to ignore it.

The Iranian clergy would do well to study these lessons of history diligently; in that country there are already signs on the horizon of a terrible day of reckoning after which the clergy will have lost all temporal power.  But then, isn't this the way it should be?  Religious institutions, in order to be faithful to their calling, should have no temporal powers whatever.  Instead they must be the conscience of the people, upholding simple truth and justice.  Upholding truth and justice and simultaneously wielding temporal powers are mutually exclusive.  It must be one or the other.

As a result of the anti-church excesses, many Mexicans, especially those in rural areas, received very little formal religious instruction for many decades, and religion reverted to more archetypal forms of which the countless little shrines are examples.  These manifestations are interesting, not entirely monotheistic, and not unrelated to Buddhist practices.  

In Mexico, personal religiosity is often very close to the surface and it can make individuals highly interesting, warm, generous, often surprisingly resigned to their stations in life, and sometimes it makes them take astonishing risks.  Until a couple of decades ago it was very common to see large trucks on the highways with statements on the rear bumpers, such as God be my Guide, or God is my Destiny, or My Road leads to God, and many would have crosses painted on their grills.  Often you would see trucks stopped at little roadside shrines, and it gave you a feeling of warmth to share the roads with them, especially during the night.

When you look closely you realize that the old Aztec religion is not dead but seems to be incorporated into the foundations of the new, a fact that emerged with such startling symbolism when the Aztec calendar stone was discovered in the foundation of Mexico City's Cathedral.  Is it not also well known that many, if not most, of the stones in this massive structure came from Aztec temples that stood nearby?

There appears to be a touching reciprocal relationship between heaven and earth, so beautifully exemplified by the story of the Virgin of Guadalupe and also by the events surrounding the Aztec rain god Tlaloc.  To the north of the Aztec city of Tenochtitlán, which is now downtown Mexico City, there is a rocky prominence that stood above the lake level, and it was, and still is, known as Tepeyac.  On Tepeyac there was a temple to a goddess known as Tonán, or by her reverential name of Tonantzín.  Tonán was a sort of mother goddess with no single, primary function such as all the other deities had, and in this sense she was a concept that leaned in a monotheistic direction within a highly  polytheistic religion.  Once a year there was a feast in honor of Tonán.  Her temple floor would be covered with grass and flowers, and people came from far and wide to eat sacred tortillas and to drink from a sacred spring on the site.

After the fall of Tenochtitlán there was bottomless grief and a feeling of hopeless desolation and dejection, not only because a culture had fallen, but also because the old religion had been overthrown.  One day, the story goes, an Indian named Juan Diego walked near the site of Tonán's temple when the Virgin Mary appeared to him, identifying herself as the Virgin of Coatlacope, a Náhuatl name incorporating the word serpent.  She asked that Juan Diego see Bishop Zumárraga in Mexico City to relay her request that a chapel be erected at Tepeyac in her honor.  

When Bishop Zumárraga heard Virgin of Coatlacope, he understood it as Virgin of Guadalupe, and the name Guadalupe was well familiar to him from Spain.  A church was built, and if we observe Tepeyac on the feast day of the Virgin of Guadalupe, events are not at all unlike those in the days of the feast day of Tonantzín, with grass and flowers covering the floor of the church.
 
The psychological implications and the interplays are fascinating and the Virgin of Guadalupe personifies the bridge between the old and the new religions.  The place she occupies in the Mexican psyche must not be underestimated and it can be fully understood only in this fascinating context.  The linkage between Tonán and the Virgin Mary is not uncommon.  In the Mexican State of Puebla, for example, there is a town called Tonantzintla, a town famous for the Sanctuario de Santa María de Tonantzintla!

Whether the story of the appearance of the Virgin is based on fact or fiction can only be decided on an individual basis.  Those who view her as fact interpret the event as a loving and gentle gesture that came at a critical time and bound up some grievously deep and painful wounds.  The ingenuity reflected in the chosen name is simply astonishing for it meant one thing to those from one culture, and something entirely different to those of the other, and yet both converge on a common religious concept.

The Virgin of Guadalupe has been part of the Mexican religious psyche for almost 500 years, but the rain god Tlaloc reappeared much more recently, probably only within the past 60 years.  Tlaloc was the Aztec rain god, and one of the two large temples in Tenochtitlán was dedicated to him.  Long before 1521, when Tenochtilán fell to the European conquerers, there existed a statue of Tlaloc, hewn from a huge monolith.  The statue was 23 feet tall and weighed 168 tons.  The invaders had heard about it but they were never able to locate it.  They must have wondered how something so massive could possibly be hidden.

It seems that more than 400 years later a farmer was plowing his field near Texcoco, across the former lake from Tenochtitlán, when he came upon this incredible statue.  It was unearthed, and in 1964 it was moved to Mexico City where it now occupies a special place of honor in front of the Anthropological Museum.  Apparently the day Tlaloc was moved into Mexico City there was an incredible downpour.  It is claimed to have been the heaviest rainfall since records were kept.  Those who choose to view this event as a gentle and loving gesture find themselves greatly enriched.




Tlaloc, the Aztec rain god, in front of the Anthropological Museum in Mexico City - 1978


Thursday, July 6, 2000

Again slept wonderfully well.  Had to drink a great deal after my return from the big walk in the heat yesterday.  After breakfast burned the garbage on the usual spot on the road and after that walked down to the rock garden where I climbed around a bit and took lots of pictures.  

I had noticed some strange animal prints on the path, so when I came back to the campsite I thought that I would also check the trail leading out to the road.  I was surprised to see tire tracks other than my own, and when I followed them for a bit, saw that they lead right through the ashes of the morning's garbage fire.  Because I had been down by the rock garden, I hadn't seen or heard any vehicle, but someone had definitely driven past very recently.  

I assumed that it was probably the fellows from Rancho Santa Ynez who had come to check on their cows, but when they hadn't returned by late afternoon, I decided to go down to their spot to say hi.  The tire tracks led right past their mesquite tree and headed in the direction of the dry river bed.  Curious now, I followed them for several kilometers, but gave up when the sun dropped low in the sky.  Judging by the width of the tire marks, by the deep imprint they left behind, and by their relatively wide spacing, I concluded that it must have been a fairly heavy truck.  I now suspect that it is possible to drive along the dry river bed and that this might well be a shortcut down to the highway, probably coming out close to Cataviña.  So it probably wasn't the Santa Ynez truck after all, but someone coming in from the San José lighthouse on the coast, taking a shortcut to the highway.  It had occurred to me to hop in the car to see where the tracks led, but there was some pretty soft sand along the way and I would hate to get stuck way down there with nobody to help.  That idea has been shelved for now.

There were some pretty nasty winds during the afternoon, and I fear that the tent will come down if I don't fix those frayed loops.  That's planned for first thing in the morning.

At home, when Marilyn had helped me gather up and pack the dishes and utensils, she was able to find only one of the two Melamine plates that we had been using for years on our travels and in the desert.  No matter how hard we looked, we couldn't find it; it seemed like a real mystery but this afternoon it suddenly dawned on me.  When I came down here in 1998, Marilyn had sent along a hummingbird feeder because when she had been here with me in 1996 there were hundreds of hummingbirds.  You could hear them coming and they would hover close to your head for a few seconds and then take off at right angles.  The feeder sounded like a splendid idea and after Ted had helped me set up we made the appropriate sugar solution, primed the feeder, and hung it from a cactus.

No hummingbirds came around, but before we knew it the feeder had attracted some bees.  And then there were more bees, and then more.  Before long, the bottom part was one thick cluster of bees.  I thought to myself that what these bees were really after was water, so I set out one of the two Melamine plates and put water on it.  Within minutes there were hundreds of bees and they were pushing each other into the water, and some drowned.  To address this problem, I made islands of arrowroot cookies on the plate.  They got nice and soggy and the bees could sit on them and soak up the water.  That worked beautifully, but it attracted ever more bees.  Within minutes of the plate being set out it looked like the center of a large sunflower.  The plate had to be topped up often with water, otherwise the cookies would dry out and bake on like clumps of concrete.

Within a couple of days so many bees had been attracted that it became necessary to set out two plates, and both received very heavy traffic.  Well, one night I drove up to El Rosario to get supplies.  I came back late at night, and the first thing I noticed was that one of the plates had disappeared.  I never found any trace of it, but I assumed that a coyote had come along, and when the cookies wouldn't come off, the coyote simply took the plate.

The bees were now conditioned to receive water.  Soon after the first sun they would come swarming around the tent asking for their water, which they would always get, many times a day.  The plates would always be kept wet.

Having so many bees around inevitably leads to accidents.  I recall three and a potential fourth.  On two separate occasions a bee sat at the back of my foot, and when I took a step, it got caught between me and the shoe.  Both times I got stung.  The third time was the day of my departure.  A bee was sitting on the zipper of the tent, and I brushed against it with my bare back, hurting the bee.  I got stung.  While packing the car, I was drinking a can of pop and I was just about to take a swig when I suddenly thought I shouldn't because I had my suspicions.  I poured the pop in a cup, and sure enough a bee had fallen in and was kicking about.  Had I drunk from the can, it might have been a spiked drink to remember.  And so now I can tell Marilyn what happened to that Melamine plate.




Friday, July 7, 2000

A sewing kit had been brought along.  It consists of a plastic tray with 16 little spools of thread, each a different color, four needles, four buttons, a useless pair of tiny scissors only a doll's finger would fit, and a thimble, also too small for even my little finger.  There is also the standard wire loop for threading the needles, an ingenious device you appreciate more and more the older you get.

With proper scissors I trimmed the frayed loops along the roof edges of the tent, reinforced them and sewed them back on.  It didn't take all that long, and the repair looks quite satisfactory and appears to hold.  Who knows, that tent might yet make it back to Canada instead of ending its days in the El Rosario landfill site.  I didn't worry too much about color matching, but instead really laid on the thread, two spools in all.  It took a lot of force to push the needle through the thick corner material, but because that useless little thimble didn't fit, I punctured both thumbs several times, drawing blood.

After four days here, only a little more than one 20-liter (5 US gallons) bag of water has been used, which is surprisingly little.  It's amazing how you learn to be frugal with water.  At this rate the six containers should last about 18 days.  At least once a day there is a thorough wash-up when even the socks get done.  Occasionally people will inquire delicately about how you can keep clean under those conditions, and the answer is that it is easy.  You pour warm water into a medium-sized washbowl, add a few drops of shampoo or liquid dish detergent, you then take a couple of sheets of strong paper towel and start scrubbing from the top down.  The last thing you wash is your feet.  You also use paper towel to dry yourself, but by the time you get to that stage, you are already mostly dry from the breezes.  It doesn't take much water to wash your hair, especially if you dole it out carefully, even if you rinse it thoroughly, but out here you certainly don't wash your hair every day.

As implied, instead of bar soap it is much more convenient to put a few drops of shampoo or detergent in the wash water.  I don't like liquid detergent because it tends to dry your skin and makes it more vulnerable to the sun.  The shampoo appears to be much milder in that regard and you also smell prettier, as if this mattered out here.

It may sound a bit ridiculous, but if you let the wind dry your hair, you end up looking like a straw doll Raggedy Andy.  If, on the other hand, you use the hair dryer while you comb it dry, you look a lot better after, and it tends to stay that way for two or three days.  My philosophy is that if you've brought a hair dryer there is nothing wrong with using it.  Of course the sun is still drying your hair, only difference is that you chase it through the solar panels first.

I learned long ago not to use cloth towels and washcloths because it is hard to keep these clean.  Paper towel, with wet strength, is the ideal medium for washing up and for washing dishes.  When you are done, you wring it out, and put it in the garbage box to be burned the following morning.  The piece that acted as the towel during the previous wash-up can become the washcloth for the next.  Similarly, the sheet of paper towel you used to dry dishes can become the dishcloth next time around.  It's nice to use a cloth towel though to dry your hair.  I go through at least one large roll of paper towel a week, and about one box of facial tissue.  The tissue is important, because your nose tends to run quite a bit, especially when you drink a lot of liquids.  The massive temperature fluctuations probably have something to do with it as well.

You once delicately and indirectly inquired how you cope when nature summons you behind a cactus.  It's simple.  You take with you some tissue, a couple of sheets of paper towel, and a bowl of soapy water.  You emerge a few minutes later squeaky clean.  It's like having your own bidet, just like the rich.  



Saturday, July 8, 2000

I had last called Marilyn on Monday, on my way through El Rosario and had promised to call again within a week.  Today I decided I would head back to El Rosario on Sunday, a day earlier than agreed, to call her.  The only thing missing here at the campsite is the ability to call home, and you do miss the contact.  Satellite phones exist, and they certainly work, but the cost is still prohibitive.  I'll keep putting it on my wish list.  El Rosario means The Rosary.  It is an interesting place, about 350 kilometers south of Tijuana.  It was here where the pavement ended back in 1972, our first time in Baja.  

Baja is the feminine form of bajo, meaning lower.  The word has the same root as the Italian basso, and the English bass.  When all of California was still part of Mexico, it was divided into Alta California or Upper California, and Baja California or Lower California.  Alta California is now known as California, and Baja California is often simply called Baja.  It is a skinny peninsula, a few dozen miles across and about a thousand miles long, sort of a longer version of Florida, but on the other side of the continent.  Seems that geographically it once was part of mainland Mexico, but the San Andreas fault apparently helped split it off.  The warm body of water between it and the Mexican mainland is known as the Sea of Cortez by northerners, but many Mexicans, who don't like to commemorate Cortez, call it the Gulf of California.

By 1972 we had come to know Mexico from top to bottom, and from east to west, but we knew absolutely nothing about Baja.  We had heard all sorts of inaccurate things, for example that the place consisted of dense and steaming jungle with natives, still unaware of the outside world, running around naked.  And so, instead of heading for Veracruz or Oaxaca, as we usually did at Christmas time, we decided to explore Baja.  El Rosario was just a little place in those days, at the end of the pavement.  It was a kind of diving board into the unknown, once you left it, you were on your own.

All I remember about this first visit to El Rosario is that in the late afternoon we stopped at a little store to buy a few things and to exchange some dollars.  There we met Mamá Espinosa, a kindly middle-aged woman.  Mamá Espinosa is one of three well-known women in Baja, but unlike the other two, her fame isn't due to large holdings of land.  Instead it comes from the contact she has had over the years with countless travelers and adventurers who still remember her fondly.  At this time she is the only one of the three still living.




Mamá Espinosa's Restaurant is still in operation.


We drove all night long on some horrendous and ill-defined trails, some sandy, some rocky, and some scratchy, but by dawn we had arrived in a stunning region.  Huge boulders surrounded us, some the size of houses, extending as far as you could see in all directions, decorated with strange and beautiful cactus shapes.  It looked like a magic world, unlike anything we had seen before.  We had arrived at Cataviña.  The going was slow, however, because the trail was rough.  We were weary and hungry, and then we saw a sign that announced Rancho Santa Ynez one mile off the trail.  The little path leading down to the ranch looked even worse, but we decided to go.  

It was there that we first met doña Josefina, the mistress of a huge domain, a widow.  She served us a good breakfast, and we had a chance to wash up and chat with her.  In later years we visited her on several other occasions.  She was a strong-willed woman, with clear ideas and uncompromising ideals.  She was part of the old Mexico.  Our contacts with Santa Ynez continued over the years, and it is the cows of Rancho Santa Ynez that I hear in the late evenings from my tent.  Doña Josefina died about 10 years ago, but her memory lives on in many of us with whom she had contact.




Doña Josefina in 1978


Mex 1 was completed near the end of 1973, and to assist travelers, the government built four new hotels along the highway, each one called El Presidente, the name since changed to La Pinta.  One of these hotels was constructed at Cataviña, about two kilometers from Rancho Santa Ynez.  It is an exceptionally-beautiful and well-maintained hotel, a real jewel in the desert, surrounded by those magic rocks.  The reason the hotel was built on this site is that a water vein, originating in the eastern mountains, crosses the desert here, following the course of a dry river bed.  You don't have to dig very deep to find that water and occasionally it can be seen on the surface in places.  It not only supplies the hotel, but also Rancho Santa Ynez, and the American couple, "Rafael" and his wife Pat, depend upon it as well.



1978 - The inside hallway at Hotel La Pinta at Cataviña, formerly Hotel El Presidente


One night, about 15 years ago, our son Wayne and I visited doña Josefina.  She told us that before the construction of the hotel the government asked for permission to use her airstrip to fly in building supplies.  In return they paved the one-kilometer road leading down to the ranch, and they improved and paved the airstrip.  They then tried to convince her that she should turn over the airstrip to the hotel because of the work they had done on it, and when she refused, they became more insistent.  She informed them that she had placed dynamite all around the airstrip, and under it, and if they ever took it away from her she would blow it sky high.  She also reminded them that Baja is very long, and that there was plenty of room for them to build their own airstrip.  They backed off.  

This kind of tough assertiveness is characteristic of these strong-willed women who play such a unique role in the Mexican psyche.  They rule their domains with the unquestioned authority of a queen, and they are surrounded by loyal men who feel honored to serve them.  Often even the government will back down in a confrontation.  They appear in real life, in Mexican history, in Mexican literature and in the cinema.

Marilyn and I got to know the third of these famous women only briefly.  It was doña Aída who lived on a beautiful and large and isolated ranch, many miles off the highway, up in the hills on the way to the observatory.  I am told that she too has since died.  We never learned too much about her, but we are told that she also stood firm in the face of great adversity during her lifetime, and that she too came out the better in confrontations with the authorities.



Sunday, July 9, 2000

All excited about calling Marilyn tonight, and also a bit apprehensive because all sorts of things can happen in a week.  I treated myself to a good scrubbing and washed my hair.  During the day I reflected on all the changes that had occurred in El Rosario since 1972.  It had grown considerably.  There must be well over a thousand people living there now.  They have several supermarkets one of which is quite respectable.  Electricity arrived a few years ago, and now they even have push-button direct-dial telephones.  The place still has the atmosphere of a frontier town which, of course, it was for many years.  Numerous people have become part of the 200-channel universe, as evidenced by the small pizza-size dishes.  Mexico has its own direct-broadcast satellite.

On the way through El Rosario last Monday I had noticed large signs advertising some evangelistic event, and I noticed several people walking around with bibles under their arms, and it wasn't even Sunday.  At the little hotel from where I phoned, the manager of the dining room was reading a bible when I walked in.  All this intrigued me, because everything I had noted suggested major Protestant influences, something that usually meets with considerable resistance in Mexico.

I thought I would leave camp around five, get there by seven, which would be ten at home, and Marilyn would probably still be up.  Well, at five o'clock I heard a motor, and when I looked up, saw a little pink truck with two young fellows driving past the campsite, heading down the hill where the Santa Ynez truck usually goes.  I didn't know them, and they weren't from the ranch.  This, plus the tire tracks I found on Thursday, adds more support to my suspicions that a new path may have been broken, leading out to the highway, but so far few appear to know about it.

Seeing the little truck, and knowing that I would be gone for more than six hours, with all my worldly possession out in the open, filled me with slight unease and I decided to wait a bit longer.  I got away a little after six.  It sure felt good to get back on blacktop, and about half way to El Rosario a woman flagged me down.  They had tire problems on a huge SUV and they couldn't get the wheel off because their tire wrench was a bit too big and had rounded off all the edges on one of the lug nuts.  Contrary to my expectations my tire iron did fit, but the nut was too far gone.  Several other people also stopped, and all sorts of things were being tried, but everyone who tackled the nut left it looking even more mangled.  The people had a little boy sleeping on the front seat, and they were bound for La Paz.  It was quite a pathetic situation.

After about half an hour a lot of people had stopped and I was able to disentangle myself.  I now worried that the gas station and the supermarket would be closed because it looked as though I wouldn't get there before nine.  The supermarket was still open, and so I quickly did my shopping but got only one jug of water because I still had four full ones left.  The gas station was of the 24-hour kind, so it too was open.  I then headed for the hotel to phone.  By this time it was 9:30, after midnight at home, and Marilyn would surely be sound asleep, but what choice was there.  It is a 260-kilometer round trip between the campsite and Rosario, and that's like driving from Waterloo to downtown Toronto to make a phone call.

During the afternoon I had looked for something in the glove compartment and came across the little Canada Direct phone directory that lists 800-type numbers in many countries that give you access to the Canadian telephone network.  I decided to try it.  From here you dial the Mexican 800 number 01-800-123-0200, and within no more than 2 seconds you are in Canada where a Bell computer voice invites you to enter your Bell calling-card number and the number you wish to call.  Was I ever impressed.  I let it ring four times, and then hung up, because I didn't want the answering machine.  I then re-dialed, and Marilyn picked up on the third ring.  The poor woman had indeed been sound asleep.  We talked for 25 minutes.  She seemed reluctant to let me go, and that was a nice feeling.

I wasn't really hungry, but I thought I should have a properly-cooked meal, and so I went into the empty dining room.  Again the owner was sitting at one of the tables reading his bible.  After the meal, and after some pleasant chit-chat, I inquired whether there were Protestant churches in Rosario, and he said, oh yes, and rhymed off at least seven.  It quickly emerged that in El Rosario there are two types of people, namely Christians and Catholics.  When I delicately suggested that maybe Catholics might also be Christians, a fiery anger shot through his eyes and he began to preach, calling the Catholic Church a whore with the blood of the martyrs dripping from her lips.  At this he made Dracula-like gestures as he spit out the words.  When I tried to soothe him he simply got more agitated, and when I suggested he was being judgmental, he started quoting extensively from the Book of Revelation.  I suspect that he might be the leader of one of the local groups because he waxed rather eloquent, with the words flowing freely and colorfully.  I was left with the distinct feeling that all was not well in El Rosario and that this sort of dogmatic shouting was not unusual.  It filled me with a profoundly sad and sick feeling and I feared that if a bunch like he got together, you could easily find yourself in a difficult situation.

On the way back to camp I reflected on how tolerant our Canadian society had become, but then I remember that apparently in the late 1920s such shouting matches between Protestants and Catholics did occur, very publicly over the airwaves, until the government stepped in and put a decisive stop to it.  These ugly incidents are said to be the reason why it is so difficult to get a license for religious broadcasting in Canada.

Sure had a lot to think about on the way back.  The people with the wheel problem were gone, so they must have managed to get the mangled nut off somehow.  I was watching for them because I was prepared to offer them some food.  Didn't get back until after one in the morning, and it was so cold that the heater was needed in the car.  During the night it went down to 6°C (43°F), the coldest night yet.  Nothing had been touched during my absence.  



Monday, July 10, 2000

The night had been cold and it was difficult to get comfortable.  Over breakfast I kept thinking about the night before and about all the changes that were occurring in Mexico, a peculiar manifestation of which was that singular encounter at the restaurant.  With some annoyance I mentally chastised our media for the inadequate and shallow treatment they accord this country.  When we do hear or read something about Mexico, more often than not it is cast in a very negative light.  There are silly references to tequila, cerveza, tamales, siestas, mañana, and centavos, reflecting the extent of our penetration of Mexican culture, and then we get the inevitable stories about political corruption, about poverty, about kidnappings and about drugs.  Rarely are we presented with insights into the culture, the dynamism, and the history of this most unusual society.

In 1993 I was greatly privileged to spend a sabbatical year in Monterrey to teach at one of the private universities.  I arrived early in January, just when the students were about to register for the new semester.  The first thing that struck me was the high degree of computer involvement in the process.  The students walked through a large room at which dozens of tables had been set up, each with a computer.  These computers were all networked together and in communication with the university's large mainframe.  Everything appeared to be going smoothly and quickly, seemingly without confusion.  At the end of the line the students received a print-out, confirming their registration, along with a timetable and a receipt for the fees.  It was an impressive sight

Even more impressive was the fact that this university consisted of 26 campuses, strategically located throughout the country.  The entire system was networked together via satellite in such a manner that lectures on one campus could be attended by classes on another, and special lectures could be broadcast to industry, or to workers on an oil rig.  

There are many problems in the country, to be sure, but there is also the potential for some very big thinking such as we normally associate only with Americans, and our Canadian tendency to belittle Mexico will set us up for some rude surprises in the future.  1994 was the last year of the Carlos Salinas presidency, a sexenio of momentous change that went almost unnoticed in Canada.  The country saw the construction of an impressive network of superhighways, along with an astounding upgrading of the telecommunications infrastructure, with thousands of kilometers of new optical fiber laid, and with hundreds new switching centers incorporated into the network.  It seems to me that Canada, a world leader in telecommunications, became only peripherally involved in this extraordinary activity when it might well have been at the very center.

During the Salinas presidency Mexico literally pushed its way into NAFTA through tireless diplomacy and lobbying, fully aware that there would be a painful and harsh period of transition.  The country had been prote