In terms of events, the past two weeks have been
unremarkable. Life on the road has been [pleasantly] tame and peaceful. Charlie
got a flat in Loreto, Tom had to repair a broken clutch cable on the road, and
Charlie had to buy a new helmet after losing his to theft in Mulege. Alex
rejoined us in Loreto, after balling it south for only a couple of days. So
here we are, the whole group of four, happily sipping beers in La Ventana, Baja
California Sur.
(San Ignacio)
We came here via the windy, desolate, bleak desert interior
of Baja. After the surprising date palm oasis of San Ignacio, it was
disheartening continuing the ride through hundreds more miles through some of
the ugliest and most inhospitable land I’ve yet traveled through. Fortunately,
when we were at the end of our ropes, unable to comprehend why people clamor
about going to Baja, we hit the Sea of Cortez and things began to marginally
improve.
Mulege was our first stop. We drove straight out to the
lighthouse at the tip of the estuary, found a bar for some beers, and ended up
not leaving until the following afternoon. Similar to San Felipe, Mulege was
inhabited by friendly expat gringos eager to socialize with fresh blood. I
found Mulege to be a much better town,
though, much more livable than San Felipe.
The next destination was Loreto, just a stone’s throw south.
Loreto was similarly pleasant, and we rested there for a while, grateful to be
out of the desert wind for a few days. But it wasn’t until arriving in La Paz a
few days ago that I actually began to see the appeal of Baja.
(Bahia da la Concepcion)
La Paz is a legitimate city. Cities come with culture and
cuisine, and it was nice to indulge in both of those things for a few nights.
The city’s market was directly across the street from our hostel, so I was able
to feast my senses on a daily basis, enjoying what I consider to be one of the
highlights of Mexican travel. The main doors of the market are yellow metal,
double wide, and constantly experiencing a flow of pedestrian traffic: shabbily
dressed families and well-heeled housewives entering empty-armed, and exiting
twenty minutes later with a rainbow of laden plastic bags swinging from their
hands, a cup of fresh-squeezed orange juice held to their lips. Once inside the
market, you can turn left into the alleys of plastic-wrapped clothing, shelves
of hand-tooled cowboy boots, and tables stacked with mass-produced sandals, or
right into the heart of the food. I always go right.
First in line are the fruit and vegetable stands,
overflowing with harvest-gold bananas, purply-green avocados, day-glo oranges,
dusty potatoes, ruby-red strawberries, apples in every shade, and limes so
green they belong in a Corona ad. Next come the dairy stalls, with fresh white eggs
sitting unrefrigerated on the counter, unpasteurized wheels of white cheeses
next to them, and cartons of room-temperature milk that never seems to expire.
After the dairy comes the meat, where entire pigs heads, snouts raised
indignantly from beds of ice, rest in bins staring at you. Links of fresh
sausages swing from shower rods, and bags of chorizo, so heavily spiced that
your stomach protests just by looking at them, are stacked neatly on a shelf.
Last, but certainly not least, are the fish stalls: piles of ground marlin for
ceviche, buckets of pale gray shrimp, and filets of fish ranging in color from
pasty white through grape-fruit red, all in beds of ice and watched over by
aproned men and women wielding knives and ladles.
Those are the colors; to describe the smell may not be
possible. The fruit stands smell vaguely of the sweet, foresty odor of bananas,
intermingling with the musk of decay and soil; the dairy stalls smell crisp and
clean with refrigeration, but tinged lightly with the salt from the cheeses;
the meat stands are overpowering with the raw, ancient scent of blood, not even
a scent so much as an awareness, a tingling deep in the cavities of your nose,
which makes you uncomfortable, and raises the hairs on the back of your neck;
the equally overpowering reek of raw fish and spilled guts surrounds the fish stalls
like a wall you walk into. And as isolated as they seem to be at times, you can
always smell every corner of the market at the same time, all the various odors
and musks and even airborne flavors of it all entering your system with every
sniff.
The people at the market are equally amazing. You never see
any of the boredom of a grocery store in a street market. The vendors yell
across the aisles, swapping jokes and crude innuendoes and gossip. The patrons
smile and chat with everyone they run into, and leave with happy hearts, not
the soulless worn out look people have when leaving a supermarket, not leaving
filled with a desperate desire to be released from the zombie warehouse of a Safeway or a Walmart.
They leave with visions of meals in their minds, with plans involving people
and flavor, not microwaves and a TV.
Alright, I’ll get off my soapbox. Suffice it to say, I
prefer the market to the grocery store, and to have traveled over 2,500 miles
before finding one…I was happy to see it.
(our porch in La Ventana)
After a few days of enjoying the relaxing and social
atmosphere of the Pension California in La Paz (where we actually met other
travelers our own age!), we headed south a mere 47 kilometers with our new
friend Erik (riding to Argentina on his bicycle) in tow, and found ourselves in
this lovely paradise. La Ventana is usually a windsurfing and kite boarding
mecca, but the winds dropped off a few days ago, and the crowds of chilled out
water sportsman were replaced with droves of Mexican vacationers seeking family
beach time for Semana Santa, or Holy Week, the week preceding Easter. Despite
the mad crowds on the beach, La Ventana is a peaceful place, with Caribbean
blue water, fresh fish, sunny skies, plenty of beach to share, and cool locals
wanting to show us a good time [again]. We’ve spent most of our time here
horizontal in relaxation, punctuated with the odd multi-mile walk along the
beach, swim in the warm water, or search for scallops in the shallows.
(Baja puppy)
We’re heading out of La Ventana tomorrow to complete the “Cabo
Loop” and head back to La Paz. We’ll catch the ferry to the mainland on
Tuesday(ish) and begin the rest of the journey. I’m currently 2,443 miles into
the trip, and I haven’t even left Baja! Charlie and I spent some time yesterday
looking up some of the mainland attractions, and it’s astounding thinking about
all that’s out there. In fact, while sitting in front of our beachfront
apartment this morning, staring at the white-capped azure depths of the bay, I
thought aloud to the guys, “I can’t believe that this is just the beginning.”
Which brings up an interesting side note: having been
rejected from all three of the graduate schools I applied to with the hopes of
returning to school this fall, I am now a free bird. So free, in fact, that I
may not be returning home for a very, very long time. Think years. So this
truly is just the beginning. And that thought alone makes me giddy beyond
description.
Until next time,
Sarah
