Mexico:
The Last Baja Sunset
By Alastair Bland
IN
PICTURES : Mexico
It is early May. I am in the Vizcaino
desert of Baja California, and there is not a soul
around. Overhead, the sky is pure blue. To the east
it meets the summits of a high range of mountains,
and to the west the broad desert plains. The terrible
sun has heated the country to ninety-five degrees.
Though I am walking along a road, I don't expect to
encounter any vehicles. I have walked all the way
from Mulege, over on the Gulf coast. There has been
no traffic for a week, and I have come eighty miles.
The silence is overwhelming and I can't help but wonder
for a moment what I am doing here. I have been traveling
the great Baja peninsula for the better part of a
year now, on foot, carrying a diving spear, and living
out of my backpack. I have spent most of my time south
of the city of Guerrero Negro and north of Land's
End at Cabo San Lucas.
Half of me hopes that I can walk
this road all the way to its end without encountering
a car. Then there is one quarter of me that hopes
a Mexican pickup will come along and take me to the
highway at San Ignacio where I can freshen up and
rest for the afternoon in the shady plaza before setting
out on a new adventure. And the last quarter of me
is hoping for a ride with some California surfers
who are going all the way to San Diego. If that quarter
of me gets its way, I'll be swept out of this desert
dreamland of mine and be magically transferred to
the metropolis of Southern California by nightfall.
I am at very loose ends. I am tired and lonely, and
I miss home. Yet, I dread the idea of leaving the
desert.
In the past few weeks I have begun
to realize that my self-induced life of hardship is
really quite silly – something of a false bubble I've
put around myself. The boring truth is, I have a healthy
bank account, and in my pocket there is an ATM card,
and it even works here in the towns that have cash
machines. One time I ran out of money, though. I spend
a lot of time filling my head with stories by Robert
Louis Stevenson and John Steinbeck – stories about
destitute wanderers of the earth – and when my wallet
ran dry that day it was, oddly enough, like a dream
come true.
Running out of food is another fantasy
I have entertained frequently, though in this warm
land where strangers call you "friend,"
going hungry just doesn't happen. Yet, this morning
I somehow found myself sitting at the roadside scarfing
the last of my food – a spoonful of flour. I washed
it down with some water from my plastic jug, and for
the first time in a year I was going hungry. I sat
down at the side of the road for fifteen minutes and
seriously pondered what to do and where to go. Then,
faintly, my ears picked up the calls of a rooster
and some goat bells. I stood and followed the sounds
up a dry riverbed, and a mile away found a quiet little
ranch. I went to the gate, called "Hello!"
and out came a small old man from his shack into the
dusty yard, scattering the chickens before him. He
regarded me for a moment, then asked, "Coffee?"
and opened the wooden gate for me.
I needed something more than
coffee, and I asked in Spanish for water and if I
could buy some flour. The old man, Jesus, frowned
at my offer of money and took from a shelf over the
woodstove a piece of goat cheese and some stale tortillas.
It was nearly all the food he had at the moment, but
he saw that I was in something of a predicament, and
he seemed happy to part with it.
Jesus told me that the next
ranch down the road was called El Cuarenta. It was
eighteen kilometers away. "They make excellent
cheese there," he assured me. "You will
not go hungry."
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