Tijuana Gringo |
Michael Thomas |
Friday, 29 Diciembre 2000. |
My back to the sunset, I stand on the shores of the Gulf of California, the Sea of Cortes, or should I spell Cortez, like Earl Stanley Gardner? Bla bla bla.
On the shores of the Vermillion Sea.
Look, another name for this gulf. Hee hee.
But, what's this... the sun setting behind the land, not into the water? Now that's a change, for me, pacific boy. The sun gone behind those peaks, and their shadow mountains stretch out over the water and rise up into the sky. Sparkling turquoise sea turns sullen grey in winter evening. At the ferry dock, the lone boat sits waiting its departure tonight. I might cross over to Guaymas and be in another land... but....
No. This is a trip into Baja California. The light fades into darkness. I walk back to my hotel, passing slowly by flickering holiday lights, storefronts, houses.
I think I like Santa Rosalia. The town stretches along the bottom of a canyon, barely a few blocks wide, a twisting serpent of a town, shedding its skin on the mountainside, its backbone ribbed with curious old colonial architecture that looks like something out of the French tropics... city hall, el palacio municipal, is a charming ramble of veranda and huge windows that silently speak: oh man it must be HOT here in summer! But in this mild December, everything seems totally mellow. Glad am not August, oh yes!
Woke up in the rumbling bus before dawn. We were leaving the last valleys and emerging onto the vast, flat Vizcaino desert. An hour or so later we came to the state boundary marker between Baja California and Baja California Sur -- the giant eagle monument, with its military camp huddled around its feet. We ducked off the transpeninsular into the town of Guerrero Negro -- famous for salt flats and whale breeding lagoons.
After twenty minutes at the little bus station there, we rolled back onto the road again, and spent all morning crawling across the flat desert where mirage mountains flickered above the horizon, visions of floating peaks, islands in the sky. At last we came closer to the mountains. They put down roots to become real.
Stopped for five minutes outside the valley oasis of San Ignacio -- famous for its mission and palms away from the highway. Local taxi and two or three cars waited hopefully for the small group of passengers who climbed down here. Then we went on, through more canyons and mountains toward this other sea, this gulf of California, and this rusty old coastal mining town.
One must cross beautiful, beautiful territory to get here, if you like desert, And I DO! Baja California is truly one of the strange and wondrous parts of our world. Maybe I can help you link.
The towering, silent volcano beyond Ignacio, its ancient fields of chocolate lava, the strange and twisting plants, and I remember I missed a great, GREAT deal last night when I slept -- all of Cataviña -- hope I see that when I return home next week!!
But now I am here. In a ratty old hotel with hot water, private bath, and reasonably comfortable bed. Kind of place that would be a dump in a large city, but here is actually rather charming. All kinds of travelers dropping in for the night. Mexicans, Europeans, Americans. I walked around and looked at several places before choosing this one. For price and location it serves me well.
Had lunch nearby before I checked in. Chatted with a gringo couple driving in a hurry from Los Angeles to La Paz. Ay what a waste to hurry like that. I have spent the day walking and napping, catching up on all the sleep I really didn't get last night. Pretty soon I'm going to think about dinner, but wait....
Something catches my ear....
Someone is chattering in English in front of my old hotel, and... I'm going to go meet them, I think. Yeah. Bye.
Later. Just back from dinner with a couple of travelers, Ben and Fred, a Brit and a Yank, staying in my hotel just a couple doors away. Good looking pair of profesional men from opposite sides of the Atlantic who are just kicking it in Baja California for New Year's. They met several years ago, traveling, and often hooked up since to journey together.
Before eating we walked a few blocks around, looking for a good spot. Asked a local woman in front of Gustave Eiffel's church (yes, that Eiffel). She pointed us down the street. We ate well, with beer and tequila and "good groceries" -- as my stepdad likes to say -- and splendid rambling conversation. Fred's an executive assistant to the director of a cable network in New York, and Ben is an attorney in London.
More important: you must know by now that conversation is one of my Favorite pastimes. I had some rather good chat tonight. Nothing intense, just broad and mellow and witty. Fred's from back east but knows the coast, and has a nice sardonic sensibility. Ben speaks pretty good Spanish, too, in addition to the usual English humor we yanks find so... well, yes, minister, if I dare say it, "interesting." Heh heh.
Want to chat? SO, reader, WHY DON'T YOU EMAIL ME RIGHT NOW!?!?!?!?!
Sorry. Sometimes I get a little... anxious.
Fred and Ben are headed south tomorrow. They've offered me a lift to Mulegé. Be a damn fool to say no, eh? So it is decided. Tomorrow I'm going to Mulegé, barely another fifty miles south of here. Am told it's much more interesting and charming than this mining town, but....
*sigh* this Santa Rosalia place has its charm, too. I am curious to see how Mulegé compares.