Memories of Baja Part 2

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The itinerary for Baja trips was very simple. It was all about food, drink, laughter, rest and relaxation. A typical day involved sitting on the beach for hours with a iced case of Corona at the side. I’m sure you all have seen the Corona tv commercials. As much as I hate advertising they get it right as those commercials capture the timeless, motionless afternoons on the beach where anything happening beyond the shores was irrelevant. Every hour or so you would take a dip in the ocean to cool off but otherwise you reclined in your beach chair in a half conscious state somewhere between daydreaming and sleep. Unlike beaches in California which were crowded and regulated the beaches in Baja were wild, open, and free. You could do anything you wanted and nobody cared. The locals weren’t into laying on the beach, they had more important things to do like make a living or playing soccer on the weed strewn dirt fields. The beaches were relatively clean once you got to the actual beach. Technically Mexico is a third world country so some things are different south of the border, like sanitation. There aren’t a fleet of trucks that come around for curbside garbage pick up every week. Mexicans burned their garbage or hauled it to whatever unofficial place served as a garbage dump which was usually the closest unoccupied field. The playa was a popular place to dump garbage especially if there was a cliff leading down to the beach. Calafia where we stayed was on a bluff and we had to hike about 100 feet down a cliff to get to the beach. At the bottom of the cliff we had to negotiate mounds and mounds of garbage. There’d be all kinds of trash like raw food, food containers, milk bottles, beer bottles, old shoes, old worn out electrical appliances, even rusted out car chassis. Just about everything but dead bodies. Once past the rubbish it was pristine and empty beach. We respected the beach as it felt like it was our own so we always made sure we cleaned up after ourselves. I hope the beaches in Baja are still untamed. It seems the older I get the more rules there are to follow when it comes to public spaces.

My buddy Wes moved to Hawaii in 1987 so for the next 4 years just about all my trips to Baja were spent on the beach since the beach house was no longer available. We’d show up with a gang of people and pitch our tents and stay on the beach for 3 or 4 days. My first trip to Baja without the beach house was Memorial Day weekend 1988. The crew consisted of my best friend in the world and top notch photographer Jon Alcorn, our mutual good friend and all around great guy Sean McCarthy, and a few females who were good friends of ours. We set up camp on the beach near Calafia since it was an area we knew very well. Jon was the lightning rod of our group. He was a passionate young man with very liberal beliefs about the world which he wore on both his sleeves. Jon and I could go all night drinking and smoking dope but it didn’t fuel our juvenile tendencies as much as it fueled our need to express our beliefs about what we could do to make a difference in the world. We were idealistic young men who really wanted to change things, he through photography and me through political activism. Sean on the other hand was a teatotaller by comparison. He was more academic and philosophical. He was an English major at UCLA and he knew a lot about writers and over the years he has hipped me to many good books like Wiseblood by Flannery O’Connor and Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey. On the surface we were serious young men but on the beach in Baja after copious amounts of beer, tequila, and weed, it was inevitable that we would move from the sublime to the ridiculous. Jon could hold his liquor better than any of us but he didn’t bother pacing himself and he is one of those people that can rage but as soon as he runs out of juice it’s lights out. It was rarely gradual. It was like he had an “off” button and went the button was pushed he would be dead to the world. On our second night on the beach we did our usual thing, we had some shrimp on the barbie, drank lots of booze, shot off our fireworks, and as the night wore on laughed our heads off at stupid jokes and humorous stories, mostly about the shrimp disaster that had taken place earlier in the evening. We had been in Ensenada earlier in the day and Jon and Sean purchased about 2 pounds of shrimp which they planned on cooking on the bbq grill. I abstained since I am allergic to shellfish. While they were getting ready to bbq the shrimp I drove into Rosarito and went to One Legged Joe’s. When I returned to the campsite with a full stomach the guys were trying to grill the pinky sized shrimp. Since they bought them from the fish market they didn’t realize they had to shell and clean the shrimp before they could eat them. They shelled and cleaned about 20 shrimp and realized it would take all night to eat all the shrimp this way so they started throwing them on the grill as is. That didn’t work out to well and they grew frustrated because they had been looking forward to the shrimp fest all day. After awhile they just gave up and drove into Rosarito to get some tacos from One Legged Joe’s. Jon as usual had put down quite a few beers and had that look of madness on his face. After a lot of boozing you never knew what Jon was going to do, he was unpredictable in that way so sometimes we just had to put him down before he went “crazy” on us. Sean and I managed to get him in his tent and he fell out and took a trip lala land. His day was done or so we thought. Sean and I stayed up and sat around the campfire just talking like good friends do. About 2am when our campsite had just gotten very quiet and most people had called it a night Jon came bursting out of his tent like Superman dressed only in a pair of fire engine red bikini briefs. He ran up to us and started giving us big man hugs all the while yelling, “I love you guys!”. Sean and I were completely surprised and we tried to fight him off but in his drunken and love filled state we were no match for him. We all ended up on the sand busting up with laughter. I couldn’t believe he resurrected himself and I had no idea that Jon fancied bikini briefs, he just didn’t seem like the type.

Another memorable trip involved my good travel buddy Evan Reid. Evan and I had done many road trips together from skiing in Big Bear to fishing and mountain biking in the Eastern Sierra. Evan had an old yellow Toyota Celica with a hatchback that we would throw all of our gear in. Back in our time we all drove beaters, cars that were made for adventure not for traveling in style. When Evans Corolla finally died he upgraded (or downgraded, depending on your perspective) to a Ford Fairmont, or something close to it. We called it the Stealth mobile because it looked like a car that could only be loved by undercover agents. On this trip to Baja we were in the Celica loaded up with our mountain bikes and our gear. We had a momentary crisis one the drive down. We had been smoking the entire way down and were quite stoned going into Baja. We had a good buzz going and when you have a good buzz going you aren’t really thinking too far forward. We came to a toll both and noticed that the Federales were checking all the vehicles. It was very similar to that scene in the film Salvador when James Woods and Jim Belushi drive up to the checkpoint in Guatemala throwing out all their booze, pills, and weed and trying to sober up. We couldn’t stop and pull of the road, we were to close and it would have looked suspicious. On road trips we kept our weed on a big Frisbee so we are driving up to the machine gun toting Federales with a giant Frisbee full of weed in my lap. What to do what to do. I’m starting to panic because I’m imaging myself trying to explain to the Federales why I have a massive amount of weed in my lap and all I could think of was Sean Penn being tortured in the Mexican jail in the movie Falcon and the Snowman. Evan grabbed the Frisbee and stuck it under his car seat. We stopped at the toll both and a Federale walked up on each side. They peered into the car and saw our bikes and gear. My high was already blown so I just tried to act natural. Evan is a born actor so he put on his happy face and made small talk with the iron visaged Federales and it must have worked because they waved us on. We were lucky because up to then they had physically searched every vehicle.

We had found a campground just outside of Ensenada called San Miguel. It was just past the toll both leading into Ensenada on the north side right before the fish factory. If you have ever driven into Ensenada you know the fish factory because it smells like about a million dead fish sitting out in the hot sun and the odor is so powerful that you either held your breath as long as you could driving by or wrapped your head in a shirt or towel. Unlike the beaches around Calafia, there were always other people camping out on the beach and it had facilities. For about $3 a day you could set up camp and use the ancient shower and bathroom facilities. At night the lights from the nearby toll booths and the highway noise of cars and trucks took away from the feeling of being out there and we couldn’t just drive into town to get tacos from One Legged Joe’s but there were always interesting people to meet camping out on the beach, mostly groups of surfers. There was a nice couple with a cool dog camped on our right side. They were spending their last few days in the States before taking off for Guam. They were going to run a business taking Japanese tourists on submarine rides. I thought that was really cool because I didn’t know people used submarines outside of the military. Behind us there was a young hippy couple from Washington who were on a road trip of unknown destination. They were going to go as far as they could into Latin America. On our left side was a group of about six surfers from Australia who had bought an old VW van and were coming back from traveling to the tip of Baja which is about a 14 hour drive. They basically would drive each day to a new beach, stop, surf it, and move on to the next beach. It was a cool campsite. At night all we would all gather around the fire pit like one large group. There was one misfortune. We exploded some fireworks that ended up scaring the dog off. We searched and searched but could not find it. We thought maybe by morning he would show up but morning came and no dog. It was definitely a bummer for the couple as they were leaving the States soon and the dog was like their child. We just hoped that somebody adopted it and it didn’t get run over on the highway. There is no shortage of road kill on the highways of Baja. Our bicycling destination was La Bufadora, or the Blowhole in gringo speak. I had never traveled south of Ensenada in Baja so I was really looking forward to the ride. La Bufadora was about 30 kilometers south of Ensenada. We had to go through parts of Ensenada I had never seen before, where the real Mexicans lived away from the tourist areas. The streets were bumpy and full of potholes. It was hot and dusty and there was plenty of traffic and the streets were small. I had ridden my bike all over Los Angeles but nothing compared to this. For some reason most of the traffic was freight and delivery trucks and they weren’t used to sharing the road with bikes so it was very dicey getting out of Ensenada. We made it out in one piece and as soon as we broke the city limits everything changed for the better. The traffic died out and we found ourselves on a lightly traveled but rough road. Baja was starting to look tropical as the palm trees multiplied in number, height, and density. It was almost like an oasis but every mile or so we were reminded we were in Mexico when we would ride by an open pit of raw sewage just off the side of the road. There was not much civilization to look at. We passed by a military base about 10 kilometers south of Ensenada and we rode past Estero Beach, a fancy resort that I would come back to visit on another trip but that was all we saw on the ride to the La Bufadora. Beyond that all we saw were fruit and vegetable stands which we were grateful for because a few times we thought we were lost and the Mexicans working the fruit stands were nice enough to confirm we were heading the right way. We finally made it to La Bufadora and it was worth the ride. Its fun to see a bunch of adults oohing and aahing around a hole like a bunch of school kids watching the mighty spouts of water take flight. Like any spot that draws tourist we had to run a gauntlet of fish taco stands and souvenir booths to get to the actual blowhole. No matter where you go in Baja it’s always the same souvenirs; tequila shot glasses, foam and wire reptile pets, wood carved horses, ceramic surfing Ninja Turtles, Jesus figurines and paintings, feathered roach clips, pancho wearing puppets, Chiclets, and of course straw hats and blankets. We never bought anything from the tourist stands but I always wondered what factory was producing all these useful goods.

Before moving to San Francisco in 1991 I spent the last four days of my LA life on the beach in Baja with my good friends Jon, who I mentioned earlier, and our partner in crime Megan Feeny. We camped out on Estero Beach, the resort I spoke of earlier but we weren’t staying at the resort, we pitched tents on the beach adjacent to the resort. Estero Beach is a beautiful white sand beach and because there was a resort nearby there was no trash dumps to navigate through to get to the expansive beach. Just a few blocks from the beach there was a small store which enabled us to easily stay stocked up on firewood, beer, and ice. We spent four days on the sand just kicking back and enjoying the simplicity of sunny days and good friends. We sat around and read books, took long walks on the beach, slept under the midday sun, and rode horses in the surf. It was only three bucks an hour to rent a horse to ride and they were right on the beach. You didn’t even have to go to them. They would walk around the beach with the horses looking for customers. On Estero beach everything came to you. While reclining on the beach, on the hour we would be approached by vendors selling everything from beer and candy bars to batteries and flashlights. Those were four of the most relaxing days in my life and it was the perfect way to say goodbye to my LA life and get myself ready for my new life in San Francisco. On the last night of camping on the beach we bought a lot of fireworks, mostly for nostalgic reasons. It was something we always did so we did it but now I was 28 years old and it didn’t have the same appeal as it did when I was 22. After shooting some off for old times sake we retired the bag of fireworks. Jon and Megan called it a night and climbed into their tents to get some shut eye. I stayed up a little bit longer contemplating my future at the edge of the Pacific Ocean under a full moon. When I returned to our campsite I put one last log on the fire and started cleaning up. As usual any trash that was burnable was thrown into the fire. I picked up a bag which I thought was trash and threw it into the fire. I turned my back to the fire to gather more trash, then…. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!. Holy shit! As I instinctively dove forward into the sand I could see red embers showering the area around me flying as far as 15 feet burning pepper sized holes into the sides of our tents. Jon and Megan came tumbling out of their tents with that “WTF!” look on their faces. I got up perplexed and full of adrenaline. I didn’t know what had happened but in my mind it felt like 5 grenades had just exploded next to me. We looked at the fire and there was no more fire, there was just a hole in the ground full of burning embers. It didn’t take long to figure out what had happened. The bag that I threw in the fire was not garbage it was the leftover fireworks. Other than the damage to the tents we were unscathed so after a few minutes we were able to have a good laugh about it. Even though I consider myself to be a smart person I have often in life done stupid, borderline retarded things so all I could do was laugh at myself. I believe we all have a varying amount of chaos energy surrounding us that results in things going haywire at times. I have a huge amount of chaos energy in my aura and it manifests itself in my life on a daily basis. Some would say I am accident prone but it goes well beyond that. With me it’s not just one accident but a chain reaction of calamitous events. Luckily the simultaneously exploding fireworks didn’t hurt anyone. It was Baja so no police or Federales came around to investigate. We drove back to Pasadena the next day and one day after that I packed my belongings into my Dad’s car and headed for San Francisco.

Hmmm…seems like two parts will not be enough to tell the Baja story so if you are still with me be on the lookout for part 3 which will be posted within the next 24 hours.

To be continued…