Burning Through X – Should I stay or Should I go …

Boxing day and I am shifting and moving as I wake. My first thought is imagining the ferry crossing … I know I want to be on the ferry to Sonora tonight. I need to leave today to have enough time to check out some of the places I researched in Sonora and start my journey back to Vancouver. Mental calculations before my foot hits the floor creates an unwarranted sense of urgency.

It’s my anniversary on 2 fronts but that part of my life seems far away. There is a passing thought followed by guilt for the absence of feelings. This is a selfish adventure and I am admittedly self absorbed. It is a trip I have needed to take for a long time. The guilt is quickly replaced by the realization that I am indeed here in this Baja town, that I got here by bus and that I have to get back. There is a lot to work out.

Boxing day is a business day I decide – book the ferry, make arrangements to use my hotel room for the day, go to the internet café and make arrangements to take the train from San Diego to Seattle. I decide on the train recognizing that while Greyhound provides a unique adventure, I’m ready to ride the rails. The bus … been there - done that.



An hour later my plans are dashed – in broken Spanish I learn the “California Star” will not travel on Boxing Day. It is a deflating discovery and it feels like groundhog day – my body remembers my Tijuana bus station debacle – destinations determined by the transportation company instead of by me the traveler. So my trip takes another unexpected swing. Decision time. The next ferry is in 2 days. Baja is long – you either go south or north. A Clash song rattles around my head as I prattle through some huevos rancheros at a corner cafe – “Should I stay or should I go now …”

I resolve my train departure. I have to be in San Diego on New Years eve to take the train early on New Years day. I have five days. It is a tense moment when I hit the purchase button with my credit card number typed in, sitting in a plywood cubicle in a storefront internet café street side in this small Mexican town. The kid next to me is playing computer games and the ever present Mariachi boom box cars chug by outside. The next screen says “confirmed” and I print out my Amtrack ticket. A wave of relief sends me out to the street. Now what …

Burning Through IX - Christmas Gifts and Movement

Veranda conversations keep me awake through the night and then wake me up Christmas morning. I hear English speakers and my ears are perked. I shuffle outside and receive some friendly advice on where to make a phone call and then a surprise offer to share a car trip to the tip of the Baja- Cabo San Lucas - to stay in a condo for free. The American couple who made the offer give me 5 minutest to decide.

I assess the offer. Does this fit with the ideals I have set for this adventure? The trip is about recognizing and learning from the decisions I make apart from familiar influences. Its about listening to my body and burning through to know my authority. So here I am faced with a major trip changing decision and virtually no time to decide. I walk away and stand by myself, looking out at the sea feeling into my body. My frugal mind is assessing - tropics, free accommodations, good company … I feel my body lean slightly to the right. Then a tingling from my legs and a knowing that to go would mean a very different kind of trip than I want and need. While a free bed in a Cabo condo is an attractive proposition, this trip is about movement, inner and outer.

I feel a slight shift back to centre and I know I must graciously say no. Doing so produces a kind of elation that carries me through the rest of Christmas day. It is my present to myself.

Later I make a Christmas call from a confectionery store to snowy Victoria and connect with Elizabeth. The call leaves me feeling warm and blessed for our friendship and her amazing support for my personal adventure.

After a coffee from the corner taco stand I take a morning trip to a another grave yard and spend several breezy hours scanning the deep blue Sea of Cortez. The sweet smell of the sea , the celebration sounds from the town below and the feeling that all is right are another gift on this day. Sitting there I feel the pull of the Sonoran desert beyond the reach of my vision. I feel the pull and know I must take the ferry on boxing day.

This trip is about movement and when I stop moving I feel the dull familiar start to creep in. Movement has the effect of a big steel wheel on a rail, producing enough heat and inertia to burn through to my core.

Burning Through VIII – Feliz Navidad - Firecrackers Blasting till dawn

Saying good bye to Guerro Negro was not difficult. I am happy to be moving knowing that tomorrow is Christmas and travel would be impossible. I step on the bus and I look ahead to the 220 km of desert between the grey Pacific and the deep blue Sea of Cortez.

Sandy rust covered hills and desolate towns dot the distance between coasts. Besides an enormous hydroponic tomato factory most of what you see at first are skinny cattle, cactus and lonely stretches of ranch fence. A couple of hours out, the bus descends into a humid valley filled with desert palms. San Ignacio – an oasis I find out later. A guy in Ensenada told me there was a catholic mission here. From the bus the place looks like a truck stop.

Increasing elevation in the centre of the Baja peninsula and the cactus grow bigger, a result of Pacific rain clouds that sweep across and dump. The Sierra de Baja California mountains cut through the Baja and create remarkably different climates from one coast to the other. The dry Sonoran desert creeps onto the Sea of Cortez shore and up the east side of the Baja. As we roll along I am anticipating a view of the Sea of Cortez. We crest a ridge and there set against the dry Sonoran desert is a deep ultramarine blue stretching into the distance. I feel both a lift and pervasive anxiety as we roll down into Santa Rosalia. Another town, another change.

I sense the ghosts of campesino labour that worked at the now burnt out smelter as the bus rolls past to the station. The haunted feeling is quickly replaced by the anticipation of Christmas and the joy of the holiday.

After getting off the bus I make my first foray into town. Its narrow streets are filled with bustle, a combination of commerce and music. Street vendors are on every corner among juice stands, bakeries, beer stores and a big central plaza with its nativity scene. I begin my search for a bed. This place is alive. Vehicles endlessly idle up and down one way streets stretching into the narrow valley containing the town. Its the night before Christmas and all is not quiet. Every second vehicle passing me booms out funked up mariachi music. Every second shop I pass has an exterior stereo system doing the same. My noise threshold has diminished from 6 years of Ashram life. Silent Night this will not be.

Santa Rosalia boasts French influence, particularly in its architecture. A French company founded the town in 1884 and exploited copper mines till 1954 when they shut down. They installed a metallic church building, argued to have been designed by Gustave Eiffel, the architect of the Eiffel Tower. The mining company director found it disassembled in Belgium, bought it in 1894 and then had it shipped over to Santa Rosalia prefab, most likely to alleviate the nostalgia of the French community who missed all things European. Yet no official blueprint of the church exists and there are serious doubts about who the actual architect was. Frankly, the building looks like it could be a machine shed on a Saskatchewan grain farm. Even so, a machine shed designed by Eiffel brings an allure and mystery.


I get a place with a great veranda adjacent to what I hope to be a quiet street. I’m drawn to the hills. I want to get up high and see the length of the place. I scramble up the hillside to a cemetery and the perch provides the view I am after. It is Christmas evening with the desert light descending and the Sea of Cortez in the background. In that moment the whole journey is worth every peso, bus line up and road side meal. The town below is full of music and light, the townsfolk are radiant with holiday spirit. I feel a quiet satisfaction. Moments like this in life are rare and they always come with a price.

Later in the evening I attend the service at the church. Hearing the bells I walk through the town and meet a swell of beautifully dressed families pouring out of Iglesia de Santa Barbara. The church is full but I stand outside listen and appreciate the sincerity of the Catholicism. From there I wander the streets and hear families along the narrow streets celebrate in their homes. Children run around the nativity scene in the central square, young men play guitar for young women under a brightly lit Jacaranda, old men stand in the middle of a side street laughing, finishing their neighborly chat with a hug.

The celebration of Christ’s birth lasts late into the night. Firecrackers blast away as I lay down at 11:00 pm and wake me up again at 3:00 am as do the boom box cars and veranda conversations. Sounds fill the air till the early morning light. It is cool with a Sea of Cortez breeze.

How long will I stay? I can get to Sonora from here. There is a ferry that crosses the sea. When does it travel?

Burning Through VII – The Mud Flat Run

I am prepared for a long ride when I settle into my bus seat, but I am not prepared for 11 hours of action movies with the volume set a millimeter below distortion. The barrage started as we made our way out of Ensenada, and included a series of Edward Norton thrillers, dubbed in Spanish. Such Hollywood inspired creations as the Incredible Hulk, Eagle Eye, Shark Swim and the cartoon fight flick Kung Fu Panda, none of which understanding Spanish were required to know the plot, motive or theme. Blowing up buildings and piling up cars is the same in Spanish and English.

My ear plugs help me divert my attention from the movies to the changing landscape. The rich farmland south of Ensenada, soon turns into rolling desert hills and scraggly cactus. The towns thin out as the land dries up and wrinkles on Mexican faces outside the bus increase. Soon we head away from the Pacific Coast into the interior. Many hours later I wake up in the Del Desierto Central Parque and out the window are the amazing Cardón cactus, the largest cactus in the world, holding onto boulders as big as houses, set against a crimson sky. I expect to see Roy Rogers clipity clop by in his 10 gallon hat riding resolute on top of Trigger. I consider getting off when we stop at a taco stand, illusions of spending the night in the desert, but the building condensation on the windows and descending temperatures inform me this would be a rather uncomfortable choice.

I cozy up in my sleeping bag, ear plugs firmly entrenched, and slumber off as we descend and wind our way for three hours back down to the coast.

The attraction to Guerrero Negro are the lagoons outside of town which are the winter homes for the very same Grey Whales that migrate past Vancouver island every Spring and Fall. The idea was attractive when I first learned of the place but stepping off the bus my nostrils are instantly filled with the dank musty decaying smell of mudflats mixed with an ever present pall of diesel. I take a few steps into the dark lit muddy streets in search of a night motel and know this is a temporary stay. The next time I see real Grey whales will be in Tofino.

In fact the closest I get to the whales is the next morning off main street – a painting on a cement wall. The overwhelming smell of decaying mud, burnt out cars on garbage filled beach, and the fact it is December 24 and I don’t want to be stuck here for Christmas, all point to the need to keep moving. I’m on a bus in 2 hours heading for the Sea of Cortez. My Christmas present is a ticket out of town. I wonder if the sea will really be as blue as I’ve been told?