Back from Ovenight Visit to Sierra

At 8 AM on Saturday morning I met Larry at the jetty gate and soon we were on the road to Constitucion, maybe 150 miles away. In less than an hour I saw my first road runner, running low and fast just as in the cartoons.


Past Constitucion we kept going straight (NW) making for Ciudad de Insurgentes instead of turning NE for the road to Loreto.  We spent several hours in Zaragoza near Insurgentes where Larry was able to find most of the people that he had come to know from his extended visits to the ranch (abandoned when the patriarch, Manuel Romero Murillo, died) in the remote San Javier area.  The meeting between Larry and the matriarch, Maria Socorro, who had hosted  Larry in her home over all those years was great to see.  She lives in an extremely simple "house" but was dressed and made up very well.  I told Larry that I could see the beauty of he younger years, which he confirmed.  We left her with a can of ice cold beer which made her very happy.  I think that Larry's reunion with these fine people was the highlight of this visit to Baja.

It was at the beginning of this visit to Zaragoza that I spotted my second road runner.  This one seemed to be somewhat more domesticated because it seemed to be contented hanging around the outskirts of the settlement, probably scavaging for food.  I stalked it a bit taking video clips.

We then proceeded on the road and turned off on the dirt track which would take us NE over the sierra and to Loreto.  Shortly after we made this turnoff Larry stopped to offer assistance to a young man by the road with the hood of his truck up.  They started to talk and the young man suddenly said Larry?  Larry hadn't seen this member of the extended family since he was a young boy.  He said that his problem was with the fuel pump but didn't seem concerned.  However, he asked us to take a gallon of fuel to his father, whom Larry knew well.

Reunion at Zaragoza

We drove on to the San Ignacio area where Larry was looking forward to showing me one of the abandoned churches dating to the 16th century.  Unfortunately the government had finally realized the value of this historic site and were charging 3500 pesos for a guided tour.  This galled Larry - who had "discovered" the site maybe two decades earlier when it was a neglected, misused and graffiti-strewn mess and had realized its value and worried about it during his frequent visits - to be charged money to see it.  We decided to push on.

Back on the road it was starting to get dark and I was worried about Larry's finding the man's house in order to hand over the fuel, and even more worried about having to make camp in the dark.  Fortunately a truck approached from ahead, stopped and blocked the road with his headlights on, and it turned out to be the man we were looking for.  One of the few cars that passed us on the road had taken word of his son's plight and our mission with the fuel.

Larry with the abuela (Maria Socorro) in her kitchen, dining, living, and dining room

After the exchange of greetings we found a splendid camp site in a flat and cleared area jutting out over the wide river bed.  I immediately started to gather firewood while Larry set up the cot, table, chair, etc.

We were woefully, even comically unprepared for camping.  On the way to Insurgentes we had purchased 8 big chicken halves, fruit, and cool drinks to present as gifts to the people that we hoped to find.  Larry spoke about getting one of the women to cook some of the chicken for us.  I questioned about how much trouble it might be for these people with their simple cooking setup to do this for us.  "Why don't we simply buy a cooked chicken for ourselves?" I mumbled too quietly and too weakly.  When we realized that the cooking was not going to happen I managed to find nearby a piece of wire about 2 ft long for cooking our chicken over the fire. 

At the camp we had roaring fire, one dull knife, no eating utensils, and no plates, pots, or pans.  Larry came up with the idea of putting bricks on each side of the bed of hot embers and my shaping our precious piece of wire into a makeshift grill of 4 supports.  For a plate Larry found the plastic lid to something.  For rolling over the piece of chicken breast with leg I used my two spare socks on my right hand as a glove.

I must admit that the chicken emerged very, very well cooked - complete with smoke taste and fire-burned skin.  My patience during the lengthy cooking process had been lubricated by several cans of ice cold Pacifico beer.  Larry doesn't eat a lot and wasn't very hungry, so I wolfed down most of the chicken (There was a second piece that we could have cooked.) using my bare hands and cleaning my fingers afterwards with the sock gloves.

It was a cold night.  I slept in the cot with a doubled wool blanket below me and one doubled blanket and a doubled sleeping bag above me.  Sleeping required much discipline because there was just enough cover above me to reach the edges of the cot.  In the middle of the night I had to fetch my coat from the truck and put it on the cot below me to keep my hip area warm.

In the morning we got visitors from the nearby farm house where the father who had met us on the road lived with his large family (12 or so children, many of them grown).  I took some videos which I will present separately.

We then pushed on to Loreto, driving straight through San Javier with its magnificent 16th century church that I had seen before.  We had lunch at an upmarket restaurant in Loreto (scallops for Larry, mexicana combinacion for me) then pushed on to have a look at Escondido.

Puerto Escondido is of great interest to me because it is a picturesque and very sheltered haven for boats.  It is almost certain that Brenda and I will visit there for several days.  After taking some videos there we pushed on and arrived in La Paz at about 8.30 PM.