|
Articles
- - - - - - - - - -
- -
Armchair Travel
- - - - - - - - - - - -
From the Editors
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Directory
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Submissions
- - - - - - - - - - - -
About
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Contact
- - - - - - - - - - - -
|
The Last Baja Sunset
by Alistair Bland
It is May 6, 2004. I am in the desert with not a soul around.
Overhead, the sky is pure blue. To the east it meets the peaks
of a high mountain range, to the west a smaller ridge of
mountains. 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. 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.
This is the Vizcaino desert in Baja, California. I have been
traveling the great peninsula for the better part of a year now,
on foot, carrying a spear, and living out of my backpack. I have
spent most of that time south of latitude 28 - the state border
- and north of Cabo San Lucas - Land's End, at 22 degrees north.
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 pickup will come along and take me to the highway at San
Ignacio where I can freshen up and collect myself before
continuing on a fresh, new road all by myself. 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 part 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.
As of late—the past week or so—I have begun to realize that my
self-induced life of poverty is really quite silly—something of
a false bubble I've put around myself. In reality, which I have
tried to forget, I have a bank account, and in my pocket there
is an ATM card, and it even works here in Mexico 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 from Jack
Kerouac and John Steinbeck, 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, somehow this
morning, I found myself sitting at the roadside scarfing my last
spoonful of whole wheat 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. Then, faintly, my
ears picked up the calls of a rooster and some goat bells. I
stood up and followed the sounds up a dry river bed and there
found a quiet little ranch. I went to the gate, called "Hello!"
and out came a small old man from his shack, through the dusty
yard with the chickens scattering 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 for water and if
I could buy some flour. But the old man, Jesus, gave me a gift
of some old, warm cheese and some stale tortillas. It was nearly
all the food he had at the moment, but he saw that I was in a
predicament.
Jesus told me that the next ranch down the road was called El
Cuarenta, eighteen kilometers away. "They make excellent cheese
there," he assured me. "You won't go hungry."
After he provisioned me I told him I appreciated his charity and
that I would not forget him. Last I saw him, Jesus was standing
inside of the gate, watching me go. He was born there, he had
told me, and I imagine he will die there. I have met many people
like him in the Baja ranchlands, and it warms me up to know that
there are friendly human hearts beating in this lonely desert;
it makes me wonder to think that these humble shacks with their
wooden fences, the animals outside, and the few skeletal trees
in the yard are their only homes.
My own home is in the city of San Francisco. It is a different
world, but I am of it, and I miss it. I am dirty, alone, and
hungry, but even after so many months I have not managed to
break free of my urban American roots. I find myself longing for
games of chess with my dad, movies with my mom, and going out
for coffee with my brother. The big city is undeniably my home.
As I walk along the dirt road, reminiscing about all this and
nibbling at my cheese, I just can't help but wonder what I am
doing here. The sky above is vast and empty. The mountains
around me are dry and forbidding. The sun beats down on me. I am
a stranger in a strange land. This country is Jesus's homeland,
not mine. I have forsaken all the conventional ambitions of my
culture. I have no job and no plans for the future. I have been
going about for months now, living out of my pack day by day,
wondering each morning what misadventures might befall me. The
aspirations of my life are simple and easily fulfilled: meet
some new people, have some coffee, buy some cheese, and perhaps
spear a fish for dinner. But does any of this leave me
fulfilled?
I am still hiking along, wondering if I can reach El Cuarenta by
nightfall and maybe get some real food in me, when a roaring
motor seems to come out of nowhere from behind me. I whirl
around and come face to face with four pairs of eyes. It is a
pickup truck, filled with American surfers. They skid to a stop.
Their boards are on top. They have room in back for me. They are
going to San Diego. Three quarters of me doesn't want to do it,
but I find myself climbing aboard.
"We'll be there by ten PM!" one of them shouts back at me
cheerfully through the sliding window, and then we're off,
racing northward at fifty miles per hour. My spirits sink to
rock bottom. I nestle into their pile of bags to escape the
wind. My pack and my spear are all I have, but they have
everything: food, sodas, beer, tents, surfboards, and much more.
My silly, dirt-poor lifestyle suddenly seems so futile and so
fake. In minutes we are zipping by El Cuarenta. The guys up
front don't even notice the ranch, but I do. It is a humble
cluster of wooden shacks. I see some goats in the corral and
some skeletal trees in the yard. I want to shout, "Hey you guys!
They have cheese in there!" but that life is over. We'll be home
soon. There'll be freeways and skyscrapers and banks. I can go
to the ATM machine. Then I can buy all the cheese in the world.
The land of plenty is just hours away.
The desert vanishes behind me. The western sky turns orange, and I
watch the Baja sun sink for the last time. El Norte, the United
States, lies just ahead. To think that poor Jesus is still
sitting in his humble little shack! For him this might be a
dream come true.
But I, with America looming ahead, begin to cry.
© Alastair Bland 2004
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
About the Author
Alastair Bland is a twenty-five year-old freelance
writer in San Francisco. A year-and-a-half ago, he
graduated from UC Santa Barbara with a degree in
geography and anthropology, but since then has been
traveling. For seven months out of the past fourteen
he has been backpacking, alone and on foot, through
the desert and along the beaches of Baja California.
He met many interesting people on his travels,
learning Spanish, lived largely off the land, and
slept out every night. He lived as cheaply as he
could--less than a dollar per day--and as a matter
of course was put into direct contact with all the
"real people" of the desert. They were his guides,
his transportation when he had too far to walk, his
source of water, and his friends. |
|
|
|
|
|
Read More
Articles From Around the World
|
|
|
|
