Baja
California is just far enough away from Newport
Beach that you can forget where you came from,
but close enough that you remember how to get back
there. That’s
what I like to say at least. For Geoff, on the
other hand, who lives so far south in San Diego
that he could easily make the Duty Free shop at
the border his neighborhood grocer (assuming they
carried anything but alcohol, perfume, and pork
rinds), Baja California is just far enough away
that you can’t really
go there on your lunch break, but close enough
that the thought crosses your mind at least once
week. In either case, Baja has been gnawing at
us lately. We’re curious about the tapering
stretch of land that extends below California on
all the maps we’ve seen since 5th grade geography
classes, and we have keys to cars that are just
aching for some foreign dirt- a pretty dangerous
combination. Surfers speak of Baja with a quiet
deference reserved for movies like Endless Summer
and Endless Summer II. They tell of roads on cliffs
that hug the coastline and overlook perfect Pacific
surf breaks below. They talk of campgrounds that
perch above the cliffs, down winding roads that
branch off from the main highway. They mention
fish tacos and tell stories that start out with
opening lines like, “there
is this sweet point break that forms perfectly…” and
end with lines like “…and that’s
when I yanked my buddy’s thigh out of the
great white’s jaws so I could beat him over
the head with it for stealing my last wave.” Sea
kayakers, who have yet to have an entire movie
devoted to their lifestyle, tell us of quiet bays
and islands to explore on the calm, clear, waters
of the Sea of Cortez side. They warn against driving
at night, and tell us to watch out for bad roads
with cliff drop-offs and semis.
“Okay,” I think, “fish tacos, bad roads, fish tacos,
cliff drop-offs, fish tacos, fish tacos, fish tacos.”
“Okay,” Geoff thinks, “point break, semis, point break,
night driving no-no, point break, point break, point break.”
We’re ready.
Between the two of
us, Geoff and I have enough gear to man an entire
YMCA outpost. Strapped to the top of the Ford Explorer
is a 21-foot long banana-yellow double sea kayak
and an 8-foot long red surf kayak with two bold
white racing stripes that run down the center.
Other stowaways inside the car include two climbing
helmets, one paddling helmet, three paddles, two
pairs of climbing shoes, rope, harness, chalk bags,
and 40 pounds worth of other assorted climbing
gear, two pairs of hiking shoes, one boogie board,
a snorkel, facemask, fins, and more Dave Matthews
CDs than Napster ever witnessed the exchange of.
We are clearly optimistic about our vacation. We
don’t have a set itinerary,
but we know we want to climb some, paddle some,
relax some, and eat lots. In our six days of vacation,
we decide we will drive the approximately 130-mile
width of Baja from Ensenada to San Felipe to explore
both the pounding Pacific waves of western Baja
and the sedate Sea of Cortez of eastern Baja. In
between these two destinations, we will detour
into a national park and perhaps fit in a climb
or two. It’s here that experienced
Baja travelers will chuckle. Kim and I made the
rookie mistake, despite some warnings, of underestimating
drive times in Mexico. Between getting lost, Roads
that are sometimes more like trails, and the occasional
military checkpoint, driving in Baja takes MUCH
longer than you’d expect. As such,
we did do more driving on this trip than I would have
liked, but oh well, chalk it up to experience.Driving
into Mexico, there is a fence at the border of Mexico
and the United States that is easily visible as you
make your way towards Mexico 1D, the toll road that
hugs closest to the cliffs that dip into the Pacific.
And what with all the American immigrations laws that
have become more stringent in recent years, it is not
the least surprising that this fence is as foreboding
as it is. The fence is about 20 feet high, the highest foot of which
bends back toward the Mexican side, laced with barbed
wire. Mounted floodlights on nearby poles on the American
side aim towards fence as if it were a molar to be
extracted in a dentist’s office- minus the issues
of National Geographic in the waiting room lobby. None
of this is particularly surprising. It is, of course,
a border. And as borders go, it’s pretty
innocuous looking when you remember things like the Berlin Wall, and
in more ancient times, The Great Wall of China when
it served as something other than a kitschy souvenir
stop lacking adequate handicap access. So driving along,
you think, “hmm…a fence…a high
fence…with
barbed wire…hmm…interesting…” And then a bird
flies by or something distracts your attention and you turn to your left,
away from the blurring image of the fence on your right. And when you
turn back, in a master feat of Houdini, the fence is gone. Since you
aren’t
driving, you crane your neck back to the stretches of road that your
45 miles-per-hour-Mexican-police-fearing SUV has passed. And sure enough,
there was a fence. There was a foreboding 20 feet high fence laced with
barbed wire….that just stops. In the middle of nowhere, it stops.
It ends, as though it were the villain of a Sci-fi thriller that all
of a sudden decided to stop and pet the golden retriever in the background.
Or Darth Vader stopping his battle with Obi Wan Konobe while Luke watches
on just so they can all go out for a microbrew. It just doesn’t
make any sense. And as we drive by a 3-story high bust of Jesus, followed
by an equally larger-than life-sized bust of a perky topless woman that
follows just a few miles down the road, we realize that none of it has
to. And that is the beauty of traveling.
In
a campsite along Mexico 1D, we dine on abalone
and jumbo tiger shrimp bought from
the nearby Ensenada Fish Market, and cooked to a succulent light
orange over the blue flames of a trusty camp
stove. The fish market is held next to a
marina of docked boats and occupy the length
of about 8 open air tent stalls that line
one side of what could either be a large
alley or a small road, depending on your
mood. The market isn’t
particularly large, nor is it particularly charming- except for
the fact that glistening squid tentacles
sprawl languidly next to fish heads destined
for the perfect seafood soup. Well, that
and the prices are a quarter of that found
in the States.
Ladies manning the Taquerias on the other side of the alley shout
out to us as we browse recent seafood catches, “Fish taco?
Fish taco, Senor?”
I shake my head at every stand and keep walking but Geoff is much
more gracious me. “No thanks, but I’ve already had lunch.
No thanks, we just want to buy some fish,” he replies every
few steps.
About
$6.60 worth of tolls south of the border is Salsipuedes,
located just north of Ensenada. Salsipuedes is a
surf spot that, as Geoff tells it, happens to have
a beach bottom conducive to almost perfectly consistent
breaks. So perfect that if you really wanted to,
you can paddle out without so much as getting your
hair wet if you just cut through the deep area found
only 8 feet or so south of the waves’ point
break. The waves aren’t very large, but
they are consistently clean and make for good long rides back onto
the pebble beach, which can be pretty painful if
you haven’t quite
mastered the ancient art of G.T.H.O.O.T. (getting the hell out of there).
Mastering the delicacies of the GTHOOT technique aside, the Salsipuedes
break is beautiful. In the wide expanse of blue waters that cyclically
swell up to meet the sky, there are only eight or so surfers sharing
a wave break. A miraculous feat considering $6.60 worth of toll distance
translates into only a 50-minute drive from San Diego- if even that-
and no stretch of beach containing any semblance of a wave from San
Diego to Santa Barbara seems to see fewer than a couple dozen surfers. Geoff
gets up at dawn and surfs for hours, while I mainly slay dragons and
discover the new penicillin in my sleep. When Geoff comes out of the
water, salt and sand speckle his face and his grin is so deep that
it spills out into the folds near the corners of his eyes.
“Hey, how was the surf?” I ask.
“Mmmm, reef break…” He responds.
“So it was nice, huh?”
“…reef break…”
“Did you have fun?”
“Ahhh, reef break…”
It was super nice surfing there. Such a nice break, and the
kind of wave, that were it in California, would be packed with territorial
board surfers twenty five deep, and battling for a wave would be nearly
impossible. Instead, there were more than enough rides for everyone,
perfect head-high conditions (big enough to be fun, not so big as to
be scary), and a pleasant vibe. Several of the boardies asked about
the boat, and when a big set came through, and I was one of the only
ones to get in position to take the wave, I got a “swe-e-e-e-t” from
the line-up as I took off. Nice.He
tells me his arms feel like they are going to fall off but in the four
hours that he’s been out there
riding, he may have caught more rides than during his entire 2 year
tenure as a christened surf kayaker (tenure being the point after
which you pay $30 to have custom stickers made to say “Surf Kayaking
is NOT a Crime”). “Well, maybe not more rides. That could
be an exaggeration,” he adds, “but not by much.” Indeed,
he tells me that the rides were consistent, and though they weren’t
the highest that he’s surfed, they were the cleanest, breaking
in just one point and spreading down the coast until the depth of
the beach swallows any formation of a wave. And sharing the beach
with only a handful of other surfers couldn’t have hurt either.
Geoff and I are looking
for a goat trail. I can’t even remember
the last time in my life I saw a goat, much less a goat trail. Nevertheless,
our eyes are peeled for any sign of a goat trail, whatever that could
possibly be.
We’ve stopped school children, still dressed in their white tops
and navy bottoms, as they walk home from school on dusty roads country
to ask “Donde esta…” and then point wildly to a 5
page climbing pamphlet we have in our hands. “Arrampicare?” I
say, pantomiming climbing up a wall. At this point, I imagine the children
think I am either (1) stuck in a box and can’t get out, or (2)
unintelligible and weird because not only am I a bad mime, “arrampicare” is
not the Spanish word for “climbing” as I had hoped. That,
or Mexican schoolchildren make it a common habit to stare blankly at
weird lost Americans that drive on dry dusty mountainsides with kayaks
in tow. We drive around the hillside, around scattered shells of houses
that promise to be constructed and fields of cars that have been deconstructed.
We ask a man with no front teeth and cataracts that make his eyes look
a hazy gray if he knows where the “You Are Here” arrow on
our pamphlet map was inadvertently left out. When we finally find the
goat trail, as our climbing guide instructs, it is a small and narrow
hike able trail (even without the goats) that cut into a hillside and
lead to upward jutting rock cliffs. Geoff can’t take his eyes
at what appear to be some good, really good crack climbing. And as
we stare out into the distance to make out what the base of our climb
should be, gray clouds roll in and drops of water start to litter the
ground around us. So much for finding the goat trail…
It’s
3 or 4 in the afternoon. So far today, I surfed for 4 hours, drove around
forever to find a gorgeous climbing area, then bailed due to rain, had
a great lunch in Ensenada, and we’ve now decided to
head for a National Park, it’s described as having Joshua Tree
like boulders, while the maps show a large lagoon, and it’s up
at 7’000
feet or so, in one of Baja’s little known alpine pine forests.
Only 60-70 kilometers from Ensenada, I figure we’ll head there,
camp, and explore in the morning. Turns out its not that easy. It’s
pouring rain, and the next hour or so of driving is terrifying, I’m
driving in heavy rain, gusting heavy winds, I’ve got a 21 foot
kayak on the roof of my big square SUV, so I’m being blown all
over the place, and pavement in these winding hilly roads with scary
drop-offs is apparently expensive, as they’ve engineered the roads
to be approximately a ½ inch
wider than the wheel-span of my car. Passing Semis cause heart flutters,
and, not helping my mood, Kim keeps exclaiming “WOW, there’s
like three rusted out cars at the bottom of that drop-off!” .
When we reach the small town that is our turning off point, I feel
the drop in my adrenaline, a feeling I normally only notice after a
hard climb, or a scary stretch of whitewater, not a drive.So
only 20-25 Kilometers to go, we start bouncing down dirt roads in the
desert of Baja. The roads wander and branch like tree limbs. There
are signs to the National Park, but in some kind of cost saving measure,
they only put them at every 7th or 8th intersection. Which means at
the other ones, you guess. We used the sophisticated method of navigation
known as “the Road MORE
traveled” and it actually seemed to do us pretty well, although
we still greeted each road sign with a celebration including dancing
and animal sacrifice. We spotted a shack, and stopped for directions.
Maps drawn in the sand get us back on track. After hours and hours
of driving, and splashing through deeper and deeper puddles, we make
it too the park, and camp. Smoked marlin and 3-cheese risotto for
dinner. It’s raining hard, so we spend the night in the truck. We
wake to a gorgeous view. Surrounding pine trees and rocks are gorgeous.
Looks like it could be a cool place to explore and climb, but it’s
far too wet, so after driving around a bit, and some hiking and scrambling,
we leave. Inexplicably, we find a quick road out, and 40 minutes
later we’re on the highway
again! Seems we took the long, LONG way there…So it’s
on to San Felipe and B. De Gonzaga.
“Cuanto tiempo a Bahia de Gonzaga?” How
much time to Bahia de Gonzaga, I ask the man who has just sold
us an avocado, an onion, and six eggs for about a buck fifty. “
“Como------------------…..” he asks me.
What’s he asking me, I wonder. At this point, I can either try
the other phrases of Spanish that I know and tell him: (1)“Pungo
mas Coke por favor” (please add more Coke, for all the useful
times in your life that your Mexican rum and Coke contains too much
rum) or (2) dos billetos por favor (which could result in someone giving
you either two tickets or two breadrolls, I don’t remember).
Instead, I respond with the universal phrase, “Huh?”
“Como-------------------….” He asks me again.
“C-u-a-n-t-o t-i-e-m-p-o a B-a-h-i-a de G-o-n-z-a-g-o?” I repeat
a little slower and a little louder than previously.
The man turns to a boy by the door and shoots something out in more
rapid fire Spanish. The boy sticks his head out the window and returns
saying, “Truck.”
“Dos oras,” the man turns back to tell me.
Two hours? It takes just two hours to get to the Bay of Gonzaga? According
to the Lonely Planet, travel time to the bay along the road we are
about to embark upon may take up to 4 hours, although that too is all
too dependent on road conditions. Okay, so two hours it is. A
hint to Baja travelers, if they size up your car before telling you
how long it will take, the road will suck. Really really a lot.Three
and a half hours later, we are still winding around the dark roads
that curve down to the Bahia de Gonzaga going just 25 miles and hour.
We hear an ocean in the distance and the sound of the washboard-laden
road below us, "Kuh duh kuh duh
kuh duh kuh duh." "Good thing we're in this SUV and not my little
Corolla, huh?" I say. "Yeah," Geoff agrees, just as a little bare
bone Corolla even older than mine whizzes by us on the narrow road.
We look at each other and continue driving. Apparently the two-hour
drive time that the grocer gave us was the DWC (driving with cajones)
time and clearly not something I would have been able to stomach.
There is no light to guide our way, only the high beam of our car
to light the painted six-inch white rocks that act as road barricades
on the more heinous turns. "Good thing they've got that pebble set
up on the side of the road to keep us from swerving off the edge,
huh?" Geoff says. "Yeah,
ingenious," I say. Below us, the roadside plummets into the darkness
that descends into the ocean, which is probably a good thing considering
that our experience on winding Baja roads thus far has taught us
that at the bottom of most of these turns are rusted out car carcasses,
either stripped or burned to a skeleton like a turkey at the end
of Christmas dinner. A total of 4 hours, a half unscrewed roof
rack, a fully unscrewed pair of sunglasses, and a misaligned steering
alignment, and a late-night makeshift overnight camp next to an
open field (that later turned out in daylight to be a small-plane
landing strip) later, we arrive at Bahia de Gonzaga. The one store,
one hotel/restaurant, ten-house and ten-Cessna, retired American
ex-pat town (which may be stretching the definition of a town)
lines the edges of the bay. Calm waters lap onto the sand, such
a contrast from the crashing waves of the Pacific. The waters are
almost glassy in their calm, and so clear that we see our toes
in even thigh deep water. The beach drops so slightly that even
50 feet into the beach, we are still wading in only thigh deep
water. Around us, are dry rocky islands that dot the panorama,
and the occasional jet skis that zigzag through the bay. We share
our stretch of the beach with three other tents and near-permanent
beach RVs (with their wheels removed) that have each staked their
claim nearly a quarter mile away. In a kayak, we explore the bay
and wander up to the rocky island edges. The islands are rocky
outcrops with barnacled edges. We paddle over a shallow area that
extends from the mainland to a nearby island. In low tide, the
shallow waters recede and a footbridge of sand emerges. As we kayak
around the bay, we see some fisherman in a small boat going about
their business.
"Geoff, I'll bet we could buy some fish off of them if we asked," I say,
hungry for fish even though that's mostly what we've eaten for the
last few days.
"Okay, you do the asking," Geoff says.
We paddle our double kayak
over to the little boat where two men are busy filleting manta ray.
They work fast and without waste, throwing the extra carcasses back
into the water.
"Hola. Se vende pescado, Senor?" Hi, are you selling fish, sir, I ask in
my makeshift Spanish.
"Manta ray," he replies.
"Si, si, ma se vende pescado?" Yes, yes, but are you selling fish, I ask
again. He then shows us the fish that he and the other man are fishing.
"Cuanto?" How much, I ask.
"Uno, dos, tres?" he replies.
"Si, si, cuanto?" I ask again.
"No, no," he shrugs off.
"Muchos gracis, Senor," we say in awe. Next thing we know, he has three
fish in his hands and is looking for a spot in the kayak to put the fish.
He gives us the fish, and shrugs off all of our thank-yous. "Nada," he
says, it's nothing. "Muchos gracis, Senor," we say again. We return
to camp and enter the sea for a swim. The water is calm and the shore,
in its low tide, extend at length in only waist deep water.
"We should go clamming," I jokingly say to Geoff.
"How do you do that?" he asks.
"I don't know. I think you just get a shovel and you dig in low-tide sand," I
reply.
"You mean like this?" Geoff says, holding up a three-inch clam in his hands.
"Oh my God! How did you do that?!?!"
"I don't know. I just dug around in the sand and found it," he says, holding
up another clam in his hands.
I race over to him and sure enough, he's got a couple of clams in his
hands. "That's amazing, Geoff!"
Geoff finds one and then another, his hands fill up with clams and
soon enough, I become the clam caddie, following him around as his
loot of clams fill up. I dig around too, but have no luck. Geoff amasses
twenty clams, even throwing away the young'ins, while I struggle to
find two.
"I am Hunter-Gatherer," he grunts, as the sun sets around him.
"Yes, Hunter-Gatherer, you wanna call it quits soon, its getting cold," I
say.
That night, Geoff makes an appetizer of clams and an entrée of
onion-garlic sautéed fish. We eat like kings on the generosity
of fisherman and sand.
"Good job, Hunter-Gatherer," I
tell Geoff.
We
leave Bahia de Gonzaga earlier than planned, the following morning
storm clouds loom and the wind whips through our campsite, so we
head back up the road to San Felipe. We shop for trinkets, and find
a restaurant that has heaping plates of clams for $2. Another fun
night on another gorgeous sandy beach, followed by shrimp omelets
for breakfast, and all too soon it’s time
to head home. We drive back through Mexicalli, and search in
vain for the “China Town” our guidebook promises. Finding
only a few grungy restaurants, we take a pass and get in line
for the border. A fabulous vacation, and over far too soon.
Luckily, we only visited a tiny part of Baja, so there is still plenty
more to explore. Once I get my truck fixed.
