Skip the Hotel California.

December 26th, 2011

Today we made the 2-hour trip across the peninsula to Todos los Santos, the folk art hub of the Baja and the location of the Hotel California (made famous by The Eagles). On the drive you gain quite a bit of altitude and the temperature is cooler, but the vegetation is much lusher. The mountainsides are covered in skinny trees that look a bit like eucalyptus and there are a lot fewer cacti. The cacti that you do see are still in flower, their tops ringed with bright white blooms that kind of look like those fluffy Halloween angel halos from a distance. The scenery is an pretty decent consolation prize for the carsickness you will inevitably feel driving the serpentine curves of a Mexican mountain road. Take a Gravol before you attempt it, and maybe a shot of tequila to calm you down since there are points where the road turns to one lane on a blind corner. There also may be cows everywhere.

On the way up, you will drive through San Antonio and El Triunfo, both old colonial towns with warped cobblestone streets and brightly-painted plaster houses. El Triunfo seems to be the more popular of the two, because as we were enjoying the echoing silence of the colonial church a busload of tourists came in with a shouty guide who urged them to go next door and buy stuff from the folkart shop. Even so, it is apparent that El Triunfo has seen far better days: Gold and silver were discovered there in 1862 and a mining operation began but was cut short when a hurricane flooded the area. One of the remnants of its heyday is a 35-meter smokestack designed by Gustav Eiffel. At its high point El Triunfo was home to over 10,000 miners, now it is home to about 320 people. There are a lot of ruined brick buildings and vacant lots overrun by chickens. Nevertheless, its location nestled in the crook of a mountain is really lovely and it is certainly worth stopping at.

We passed a military checkpoint before entering the outskirts of Todos los Santos. They give those guys some very serious artillery—my guess is that they don’t want any incidents in such a tourist-heavy area. Bad PR.

We had lunch at a place called Fonda el ZaguAn, which was more expensive than what we had gotten used to in La Ventana, but served possibly the most delicious fruit smoothies ever. They had to have made it in some kind of wizard blender because smoothies are so rarely this good. Delicious fish tacos, too.

If you plan on buying folkart in the Baja, then Todos los Santos is absolutely the place to do it. Every block has five or six stores packed with traditional pottery, metalwork, woven stuff, and carvings. However, because there are so many stores, you can often find the same piece or similar in several places and, if you hunt, at a better price. So if you fall in love with a tin nicho or a fabulous silver pendant, DEFINITELY have a look around first and come back to it. Walking out of a store happy with your ‘one of a kind’ purchase only to find one you like more at a lower price next door is nothing short of a bummer.

That being said, talking to shopkeepers is an excellent way to practice your Spanish. Because Todos los Santos is so touristy, the majority of them will be very patient with grammatical fumblings or switch into English if you’re really having a hard time. Mom and I spoke to the young owner of a pottery shop for almost an hour. He brought us up to speed on Mexican current affairs as well as world news while rocking his tiny new baby in a stroller.

 The beach is around a 15 minute drive from the center of town and is weirdly difficult to find. Max and dad drove what felt like all over the southern Baja trying to find the damn thing due to poor directions. To my understanding you have to actually leave town, drive around the little mountain and take the big road down. The Pacific here is cold enough that you would have to wear a wetsuit, and not really swimmer-friendly. The waves are around six and a half feet high with a wicked undertow.

Close-ish to the beach you will find the The Hotel California. It’s the main artery in an out of Todos los Santos, but isn’t anything terribly interesting. Unless you are a huge Eagles fan or are interested in their extremely overpriced ‘Hotel California’ tequila, don’t waste your time. It’s a hotel. What is interesting about it is that the hotel was built in 1947 by a Chinese immigrant who changed his name from Mr. Wong to Don Antonio Tabasco (hilarious) in an effort to trick the locals into thinking he was Mexican. You can find the rest of the hotel’s piecemeal history on their website.

Spanish Vocab of the Day

Grifo—Faucet

Mexican-specific vocab of the day

Nopal—Prickly pear cactus

Tiny gecko! Watch where you step in the morning, these guys like to hide in the grooves between tiles.

Interior of an old colonial church in El Triunfo.

The exterior of the same church.

Crosses on the wall of Cafe El Triunfo.

Bougainvillea grows everywhere in Baja. For some reason it is far more vibrant in colour here than anywhere in the northern hemisphere. 

Outside an artisan shop. Wares are commonly displayed in this way.

Masks made by the indigenous people of the southern provinces. Apparently they are carved of palm wood and all the paints are handmade. 

Holy masks, Batman!

7 months ago 1 note

Feliz Navidad

 December 24th, 2011

Not much to say about today. El Norte was still blowing as strong as ever so we spent most of the day taking shelter in the house.

We went to Coya for that Christmas buffet thing with John, a city planner from Chilliwack that my parents had met on the beach. He is a super interesting guy and a great storyteller, and all through dinner he regaled us with funny anecdotes from all the places he has traveled.

This was the first non-homemade Christmas dinner that Max and I had ever had and honestly we both felt a little wistful about it. The food was awesome though, especially the turkey. We couldn’t figure out why it was so good until the chef came by and Mom asked what his secret was. Apparently he not only deep-fried the turkey to make it magically delicious, but frequently uses the oil from the deep fryer to power his biodiesel car. The man drives a Turkeymobile.

December 25th, 2011

Merry Christmas to my Christian readers, Happy 5th day of Hanukkah to my Jewish readers, and Happy Sunday to everyone else. Once again, little to report. It was less windy today and warmer, I think El Norte is moving on. A quick advisory: Do not go walking in the bush here. Everything is prickly. Low-lying aloe plants can inflict small but itchy wounds on the ankles. Speaking from experience, here.

Spanish Vocab of the Day

Cebolla—Onion

Mexican-specific vocab of the day

Huitlacoche—Corn smut fungus. This fungus is considered a delicacy in Mexico and is more valuable than the corn it grows on!

1 year ago

La Paz and goat bones.

December 23rd, 2011

Took another walk in the desert today, it gets hot pretty quick when you’re out of the wind here so it was nice to take off our hoodies and sweat a little. Suspicious vulture activity led us to a field of dessicated goat carcasses—Dad speculated that it was where the local farmers dumped the remnants of animals butchered for food as there were too many of them to have just wandered into the desert and died. My family pressed on but I stayed to photograph the carcasses. They lay half-buried in the dust, hollow eyes gaping, curled up on themselves like Inca mummies. The sand began to blow pretty hard so I collected some clean jawbones and walked back. The sand is light in colour so the sun glares right off it and makes you squint; it’s a good idea wear sunglasses and tie a scarf around your face to keep the dust out.

Upon returning to the house we saddled up to go restock. Driving into La Paz is a dusty affair. If the windows are left down, dust will collect in the corners of your eyes, your hair, between your teeth, between the pages of books. A good way to keep entertained on the drive is to listen to Mexican radio. The radio hosts always speak in the most dramatic voices, as if ‘traffic and weather together’ is the most exciting part of their day.

We wanted to look around the La Paz harbor but the wind was freezing cold. We then went to look for a panaderia that had been recommended to us, and stumbled across a covered market. I love markets, they’re always a combination of fascinating, beautiful and gross. This one contained the usual fare: sickly fluorescent lights humming over dark cuts of beef tongue and slippery piles of bloody meat laid out for Christmas. Fish on ice with eyes that glitter like dimes underwater. Walls and walls of cheap acoustic guitars, snakeskin cowboy boots, and Looney Tunes knockoff stuffies, all the corridors jammed with vendor carts piled with fireworks and sweets. It can be overwhelming at times, especially with Christmas rush at full swing, but if you want to experience how people really live and move around in Baja California, you have to check out this market. From street along the harbor it’s about eight or nine blocks up the hill on a busy street, right next to a courtyard with a big shrine to the Virgin.

Driving back from La Paz at night is a less dusty but far more harrowing escapade. Besides the occasional drunk and swerving driver, people’s livestock just wander into the road because there are no fences to contain them. Cows are terrible pedestrians and we had a few near misses involving us screeching to a halt and trying to slow our heart rates while the oblivious bovine stared sweetly at us with its big dark golfball eyes.

Spanish Vocab of the Day

Fugaz—Fleeting

Mexican-specific vocab of the day

Hablame—Call me (In most of Latin America you would say ‘llamame’)

This is what wind blowing at 30mph looks like. 

Vulture activity leading to goat bones.

Eeeewwww…

New thorns on a cactus.

Blankets and baja jackets for sale in La Paz.

Colourful buildings in La Paz.

“Mariguana”

Outside the covered market.

Fruit vendors.

A couple out for a walk. 

Sunset on the way out of La Paz. 

1 year ago

Rockin’ around the…something something…

December 22nd, 2011

I saw a roadrunner this morning and said “meep meep” to it. I think I might have offended it.

Mom and I went on a jog down the desert road that parallels the beach. We met a nice Californian snowbird named Jo who gave us some tips on what to do on Christmas. According to her, most of the inns around town hold a fiesta of some variety so the best bet is to go party-hopping. There were also several events that happen in the days before the 24th, including a ‘Christmas Concert”. Early as it was, it soon became too hot to jog, since we were out of the wind. Around here it’s a good idea to rise early to beat the heat if you are going to be out in the desert, or beat the wind if you’re planning a little water time.

Later, we went to check out a small local market that a local trinket-seller had told us about when we were exploring the campground the day before. He had made it out to be a very sizable market that sold wonderful fruit and fresh fish, a place where all the locals went to shop. Upon arriving we were sorely disappointed—it was three tables littered with the usual tourist trinkets. The same man was there with his wife and three children who looked as if they might disintegrate of boredom. After picking through the trinkets we returned to the house for a rest and a snack of the ubiquitous sweet Mexican bread. Mom laid herself out on the sand in the yard in an attempt to stay lower than the wind. I was listening to woodpeckers and quails fussing in the bush when Max came walking into the kitchen singing the Space Odyssey theme and carrying a coconut that he had managed to husk all by himself without cracking the inner shell.

We went for a walk through town in the evening and stopped by what was said to be the fanciest restaurant in town, a place called Coya, to check it out. We spoke to the chef, a really nice guy from Hood River who sort of stumbled into the job after the former chef (an allegedly difficult man) left. He told us about a buffet dinner and performance thing that was happening on Christmas Eve and we said that we’d be there. 

Following Jo-From-California’s recommendation, we then headed to Flying High to check out the Christmas Concert. I ordered my second margarita of the trip from the bartender, a heavily pierced, purple-haired girl from Idaho sporting a Santa hat and a Tank Girl tattoo on her arm. She seemed rather out of place, though it could have been her outfit—wearing six-inch strappy bondage heels in a place where the terrain consists predominately of soft sand seems kind of counter-intuitive. As Dad waiting for his drink and I was trying to get Max to finish mine, a gringo wearing a poncho emblazoned with the colours of the Mexican flag came shambling up to the bar. He slapped his hand down, said “Barmaid, get me a whiskey” and, after looking her up and down, remarked “you’re looking very conservative this evening.” This earned a laugh from her. “Yeah,” she said, “I dressed down for tonight.” A ragtag group of people, both white and Mexican, moved onto the stage and the show began. The Mexicans looked a bit like they had been press-ganged into the affair by the cheery emcee, a voice teacher from the states. She led the group into “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” and promptly forgot the lyrics. She might have been plastered, but it was hard to tell in the poorly-lit palapa. After that disaster, a European woman got onstage to play some ragtime carols on a little Casio and had to restart each song about 4 times. Dad started looking like he might suffer a seizure if he was made to bear the ‘show’ any longer and so we left. On my way out I took a photo of Tank Girl, who had picked up a lugubrious-looking hound puppy and was going around telling everyone how soft it was. As we fled we caught the sounds of what may have been the only good performance of the night, a guy in all denim who sounded like Willie Nelson.

We came back to discover that our cat friend had gained a rival/paramour, a leonine tomcat with sharp ice blue eyes. I will say this: there is no animal that embodies rejection more completely than a female cat skittering away sideways from an advancing courtier, a look of terror plastered on her dainty little face. The tom, unfazed by this, consumed all the food and milk we had laid out for her and proceeded to follow her all around the house, much to her chagrin. She finally managed to lose him by running around to one side of the guest house, where she waited for a while before cautiously coming back. However as soon as she rounded the corner he was there and she slammed on the brakes, gave a sad little meow and skittered away in terror again.

Spanish Vocab of the Day:

Mano—Hand

Mexican Slang of the Day:

Órale—“Wow!” or “Okay!”

The guest house.

The Thursday craft market.

The trinket vendor’s children, looking very bored.

Miss Kitty’s tormentor.

Max with the fruit of his labour in hand and the enemy husk lying defeated at his feet.

 

Inside of a fresh coconut.

This guy sounded like Willie Nelson.

Tank Girl and Sad Puppy.

1 year ago

Alfonso Sexy Dance

21st December, 2011. 

We drove into La Paz to resupply this morning. We were warned that first impressions of La Paz are often bad: It is ugly, dirty, overcrowded, and packed with huge American superstores. For the most part, this is true. It does have its redeeming qualities; for example an indoor market and cheap prices on tequila and photographic film ($2.00!) at the local Walmart but those were revealed to us on our second supply run, which I will address later. 

Back in La Ventana, Max and I went down to the beach for a quick swim, and in my haste to get into the water, I stepped on a dead pufferfish. There are tons of them washed up on the beach; I believe what happens is that they get into the waves, puff up from the stress, at which point they don’t have much control over their movements, and get thrown onto the sand and are damaged. It’s a horrible thing to see them rolling and gasping on the sand, their little round eyes drying out in the sun. It doesn’t matter if you try and toss them back into the water; the waves will always bring them back to shore. 

Here you must fight the temptation to walk around barefoot due to various nasties (cactus spines, scorpions, burrs, and of course, dead pufferfish) that may be lurking in the sand. The water here is clear and beautiful but not terribly warm, and a lot of people prefer to go swimming in a ‘shortie’ wetsuit. However, as long as the wind is down swimming is very pleasant.

The wind picks up very quickly here; often in a matter of an hour. As soon as it does, the kiteboarders and windsurfers begin popping up until both the water and the beach is thick with them. While Dad and Max were out on the water, Mom and I walked around town a little. Up on the hill, someone was ringing the church bell for mass. People on the street here always say hello, or at least smile in greeting; a behaviour not so prevalent in the bigger cities. The rhythms of life are slow, based around the wind and the water. Day-to-day, short glimpses and images stay with you and form into a sort of collective amoeba of memory: A wizened fisherman meticulously mends his ten-metre net by hand. A group of children go rattling down their driveway on plastic tricycles. A woman sweeps the front step of her tienda, ignoring the sound of dogs yapping at customers pulling up in road-roughed pickup trucks. As the wind dies, the kiteboarders come in and are replaced by low-flying pelicans, scanning the shallows for fish. An amateur DJ spins records atop the local kite school building, backlit by the setting sun. A kite instructor rides sidesaddle down the beach on an ATV, watchful of her charge, communicating with him via waterproof walkie-talkie. It really is a beautiful place.

In the evening, we stopped at this weird place for drinks called Villa Paraíso. Upon pulling up, it looked as if it were closed so we sent dad in to check. He was informed by the bartender that it was in fact open, and so we went in and wandered around a little. It was very surreal; the place had all the trappings of a nice all-inclusive, but was completely empty save a few startled-looking staff. On the lawn beneath the palm trees were those reindeer statues made of wire and Christmas lights and a sign proclaiming “Let it snow!”.

We found the restaurant empty of souls, with rock hits of the late seventies and early eighties blaring though the sound system. We sat down in the back, and the bartender came up to our table and introduced himself as Raul. He seemed very excited to see us. We ordered a few margaritas and chatted for about ten minutes before all of a sudden, the lights were shut off. It seemed the cleaning lady had thought the place empty and started to close up. Snatches of frantic conversation were heard as Raul realized what had happened, and the lights flickered back on. A man in a toque  and a winter jacket with a missing tooth came up, grinned at us, and turned on another light— by that I mean he screwed in a naked bulb on the wall a little tighter. At first we thought he might have been a janitor, considering the lightbulb thing, but he must have been the maitre’d since he then brought us the menu; a whiteboard with the following scrawled in marker:

PASTA CON CAMARONES

PESCADO CON PASTA

SALAD CON BEEF

We asked if they had any appetizers and nervously he said yes, they could bring us ‘chicharrones de pescado’ i.e. deep fried fish with tortillas and fixings.

The margaritas were very strong and very tasty and we quizzed each other on the songs playing.  After a few rounds of tipsy music trivia, we realized that the food was taking forever to arrive. Just as we were talking about leaving, Alfonso (toque guy) came with it. He admitted that they’d had to run to the restaurant next door and ask them to prepare the food since their own kitchen was already closed. It was so sweet! I have never seen a restaurant be so accommodating. The chicharrones were filling and delicious. On our way out we ran into Alfonso again, and he told us to come to the Christmas party that they were planning, if only to see his ‘sexy dance’ that he does if he’s not too busy with the kitchen. If you have time, I really do recommend stopping by Villa Paraiso. They may be disorganized, but they make up for it in heart and are a pleasure to chat with. 

Spanish Vocab of the Day:

Red—Net

Mexican Slang Word of the Day:

Cohetes—Fireworks

image

Taking a dip!

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It’s too cold to swim without a wetsuit when it’s windy, so if you want to go, go early, before the wind picks up. 

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Carrying a kite is a cumbersome endeavor.

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A fisherman mending his net.

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“Drop by drop, the water is drained.”

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We found a puppy. The puppy found mom’s scarf. 

1 year ago 14 notes

First Forays into Cardónland

19th December, 2011

Waking up at three o’clock in the morning and stumbling through the dark with minimal bags into a taxi where the driver starts the conversation with “I’m not actually supposed to be driving this van” sounds like the beginning of nefarious shenanigans. Truth is, we were taking the first steps of a fourteen-hour journey to Mexico. Wait, that makes it sound worse…

La Ventana, our destination, is situated on the eastern side of the Baja California peninsula, about two hours north of Cabo San Lucas. The name La Ventana actually refers to the bay; the village itself is called El Sargento. It is mostly populated by fishermen and tienda owners, plus the sizeable population of windchasers and ‘adventure snowbirds’; retirees that migrate here during the cold months to take advantage of the sun and the wind. At times the white people seem to outnumber the Mexicans in town, though that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t brush up on your Spanish before heading down. Many of the locals speak very little English.

The closest city is La Paz, a small city of around 250,000 people. It takes around 45 minutes to drive there, and is the best place to resupply as the only food shops in El Sargento are “mini supers” or tiendas; little convenience stores run by families that tend to only carry the essentials i.e. bread, eggs, and obscure brands of tequila with names like “Lobo Salvaje” (Wild Wolf or Savage Wolf) and “Vertigo”.

I am traveling with my parents; my father the windchaser, my mother the ever-patient windwife, and my younger brother Max; seventeen years old and turning into a bit of a windchaser himself.

After catching our six A.M. flight to San Fransisco, we transferred planes and flew into Cabo San Lucas, the booming tourist hub of the Baja California. Upon arriving at the rent-a-car, we noticed that on the rental agreement, under type of car, was written “Chevrolet Chevy”.  Apparently in Mexico, such a car exists, and it gets very good gas mileage. A two-hour drive northward through the desert eventually deposited our travel-worn, stinking bodies at Rancho del Toro, a small property belonging to our friend Vince. He was allowing us to use the place as he was needed in Vancouver to man his store during the hectic Christmas season.

The property used to be an acre of hostile, prickly desert scrub before Vince cleared it and built the house, though he left the towering cardón cacti intact, as some of the specimens are well over a century old.

A bit about the cardón cactus:

The cardón is the world’s largest cactus, some specimens reaching 21 metres (70 feet) high and weighing up to 25 tons. A cardón may live to be over 300 years old and can hold up to a ton of water in the fleshy tissues of its trunk. The vertical ribs on the trunk and arms allow them to expand like an accordion to accommodate more water. As the cactus ages, the trunk and lower branches develop a woody grey ‘bark’ and no longer replace shed spines. It is easy to mistake the cardón cactus for the similar-looking saguaro cactus, which actually does not grow in Baja. (Info from Blueroadrunner.com)

 20th December, 2011

We woke up early this morning and had a small breakfast of muffins from the local panaderia whilst sitting on the roof of our kitchen. Woodpeckers hammered away at the cacti and someone who lives in the bus across the way played Christmas songs on the alto saxophone. The sun was warm and the wind had just started to rise, not quite strong enough to disturb the clear waters of the bay.

The wind here is more or less a constant, and plans for the day are at the mercy of it. Every so often a strong, cold system called El Norte will move in, blow furiously for three or four days, and then move off. Because of the wind, (and, of course, it being winter) it can be a lot cooler here than one might expect from the desert, especially at night. Most of the people wander around in windbreakers and jeans, even breaking out the toques and gloves at times.

We went for an exploratory walk down the beach and I stopped to watch some brusque and leathery old gringos gut a fish and throw the ropes of intestines to a group of silently waiting pelicans. One of the fishermen handed me a head to feed to one. I knelt down and held it out to a young pelican, who was eyeing the treat sideways. He shuffled a little closer, but was too shy to take that final step forward and snap it up. He kept flapping his great break in obvious distress and stumbling back when I moved, so I gave up and threw it to him. The fisherman who gave me the head turned out to be a construction worker from Colorado who lives and fishes in La Ventana during the winters when there isn’t work to be done at home. Whilst cleaning blood off his knives in the shallows, he told us of the tuna and marlin that can be caught further out in the bay during the hot months.

There are a lot of large-winged birds in the bay who cruise about on the updrafts in the bay looking for scraps. Along with the ubiquitous turkey vultures and pelicans are fork-tailed frigatebirds, small seagulls, and the occasional wayward hawk. 

Upon returning from the beach, Max and I spent a solid half-hour trying to hack open a coconut with a rusty machete. We were eventually successful, but all the water had run out into the sand and the meat was a rather tough and dry. Nonetheless, it was a victory.

How to (properly) cut open a green coconut:

  1. Make sure your machete is sharp.
  2. Make deep cuts around ‘equator’ of the tapered end of the coconut.
  3. Chop the end off. You should be able to see the tip of the brown inner shell.
  4. Chop the other end down so it is flat, and balance the coconut on that end.
  5. Make some cuts around where the tip of the inner shell is until you can peel back the bits and see the interior of the coconut.
  6. Drink the coconut water, then continue chopping until you split the inner shell and can peel out the meat.

During the heat of the day, I was out like a idiot gringa on the upper terrace, getting a mild sunburn (not on purpose), watching the high arches of kitesails hover over the water. As beautiful as La Ventana is, the contrast of sun and wind can trick one into a false sense of security. Not only does it get cold here, but the sun is quite strong and its heat is masked by the wind, making it very easy to get burned.

Normally I am a person of invincible laziness, but something about the combination of heat and a constant cooling breeze seems to inject me with nervous energy so I convinced Max to cycle with me into town for a soda and snack. Coming out of the tienda we saw a group of around twenty women and children and some skinny dogs gathered around the front gate of a house. Upon seeing the residents of the house come out, they began to sing Christmas carols, and the residents began to reply in song. We watched them for a long time, then turned and coasted down the hill back home. The sun was hot on our faces, glass bottles of Coke rattling in the bottle cages of our bikes, chasing the shadows of red-throated frigatebirds gliding overhead. We pushed our bikes through the sand of the driveway and sat up on the roof to enjoy our spoils and catch up. Max and I often pass like ships in the night when I visit home so it was nice to be able to talk. I tore open the bag chips I had bought and found at the bottom a small metal disc printed with some cartoon character on one side. On the other it said in Spanish; “It’s hard to be humble when you’re the best.” 

Spanish Word of the Day:

Agotamiento—Exhaustion

Mexican Slang Word of the Day:

Güey—Dude/man, can also be used to punctuate a point. Literal meaning: Ox.

Satisfying the gnarlier side of my tree-hugging urges. 

Are you a peli-can or a peli-can’t?

Trying to feed one a fish head. He really wanted it, but was too shy.

“Lobo Salvaje” 

Trying to chop open a coconut with a blunt, rusty machete is just as difficult as it sounds. 

Eventual success.

A mourning dove sitting atop a saguaro.

Friendly local stray cat. 

1 year ago 2 notes

Banff Mountain Film Festival

Just got back from the 2011/2012 Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour showing on campus. If you are interested in films about extreme sports and mountain culture, I STRONGLY recommend going to see it. There are some incredible people doing incredible things out there, and the films screened do a damn good job of finding the best and telling their stories. Check out this year’s trailer and be awed:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHDGv1RR2v4

1 year ago 3 notes
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