Dec. 1999

I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas.
I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas.
I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas.
From the bottom of my heart.

Just in time for Christmas, I’m back from Mexico — happy to be out of that boring perfect weather into the festive Canadian cold & slush, the urgency of impending blizzard.

I got lucky finding a flight home from La Paz, Mexico just hours before the 25th.

I got there by ferry from the mainland, over to Baja — a stark, dry, littered wasteland which none-the-less attracts over 50 million! visitors every year.

“The land supports a variety of obdurate and malicious flora; there are thistles underfoot and Cardon cacti (the world’s largest) towering overhead. … Every growing thing, or so it seems, sticks, stabs, or stinks.
(Tim Cahill)

I went to Cabo. I can’t explain it.
(Bill Bryson)

I guess I wanted to see for myself the tourist trap described by my guidebook as a depressing jumble of exorbitantly priced hotels, pretentious restaurants, rowdy bars and tacky souvenir stands…. Its quintessential experience might be to stagger out of a bar at 3 am, pass out on the beach, and be crushed at daybreak by a rampaging developer’s bulldozer.

I hitched with 2 of those Mexican architect / developer condo commandos who had been up boozing all night & whom were now driving home to Cabo. We passed an overturned 4×4, crashed the night before.

“Probably drinking & driving. Another beer Amigo?”

Cabo San Lucas is smaller & less glitzy than I expected. The marina will be stunning when the construction is finished. Looks like a good town for a blow-out.

But I didn’t stay.

Sorritos Beach

For weeks I had heard rumours of a free, dry surfers beach. Undeveloped. No toilets, no water, no power. Surf fishing. A mucho hip hang-out.

Somebody said it was called Sorritos beach but I couldn’t find it on any map. It’s there. Head towards the water on the dirt track closest to the km 64 road marker.

Idyllic spot. Perfect weather, cloudless but for the spray haze off the huge breakers. You can walk the beach, read, doze in the sun, or watch the surfers crash.

It’s dark by 5:30 pm this time of year. And the slim crescent moon dipped into the sea early leaving more room for the stars. I made a wish at every meteoric flash.

From Sorittos I wanted to try the most popular hike in Baja, Sierra de la Laguna, a unique alpine meadow nestled high between peaks on the peninsula.

Receiving more than 10 times the normal rainfall, this oasis in the mountains grows palms, oaks, aspens, & pine trees; providing refuge for species now extinct in the rest of Baja.

I didn’t make it. About 2 hours from the top, my leg muscles cramped up. I was finished.

My hiking partner, a young Brit named Richard, dashed up without me. I felt he was fit enough. He had recently sailed 2000 miles from Seattle to San Diego, then mountain-biked another 1000 miles in Baja — without a hat!

I sat. Enjoyed the fantastic views out over the desert to the sea. Read “Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”.

Richard rejoined me next day for the hike down the mountain and the 11 mile! hike out to the highway through thorn forest, sand, & blistering heat.

You haven’t had a BEER until you’ve first climbed off a mountain then trudged 11 miles thorough desert. You haven’t.

We limped into “Frank’s Shut-up & Drink” (something like that), the kind of bar that attracts end-of-the-liners; washed-up surfers, trust fund kids, eccentrics, & run-of-the-mill alcoholics who drifted west, then south to Land’s End.

One of my companion morons wants to be King of North Dakota where he heard he can buy a house for $3000. I advised him, “Why not Minot? The reason, it’s freezin”.

Run to the sun?

If you ever want to travel Mexico I’d recommend to motor Baja, to drive a VW van or older model American-built shaggin’-wagon-type camperized van. These are easily repaired. Bring a tent & toys: kayaks & motorbikes.

And if you ever need to flee home, talk to me first. I’ll tell you how to vamoose to Mexico. No Butch / Sundance shoot-out. Guaranteed.

We plan someday to kayak Espiritu Santo island out of La Paz, Baja.

Happy Holidays!

I’m thinking of you, hoping you follow your bliss over the holidays, taking some time to do exactly as you please.

Merry Christmas to you and yours.

– Ricardo