Baja Peninsula 1

Agustin, Christopher, me, Pati, Leti.

After leaving new friends in San Quintín, the contrast of their company emphasized my solitude on the Baja Divide. 

Sometimes I notice a very gradual shift between biomes. Other times, a single plant will suddenly dominate the landscape, where it was absent a km before.

These jack-and-the-magic-beanstock plants were suddenly the prominent species. Like telephone pole, but tapered. Sometimes they droop, sometimes they fork. 

The fuel pump stopped working. The little black pump cup had fallen off the plunger, so I carved a stick to retrieve the pump cup from inside the pump.

Beans, onion, pepper, honey in a tortilla for lunch.

This yellow, red, green pasta packaging made me think of pastafarianism.

Big bones.

Camping at the beach.

One day, leaving a small resupply, the wind was in my face and I felt grumpy. A pack of noisy dogs started chasing me out of town. One bit onto my bike bag and slowed me down, making it really hard to ride. I kicked at one of them. I swerved around so they would give me more space. Not paying attention, I hit a big pothole and fell over. Now my hand is bruised, my handlebar tape is ripped, and I feel foolish. Words from a cyclist in Tennessee echo in my ears "getting distracted and riding off the road or falling over is probably a bigger risk than the dogs themselves". I'd like to think I could lean to always maintain my composure. But I still get annoyed and do stupid stuff, and I probably always will. Luckily my dramatic fall scared away the dogs. 

I repaired the bar tape with road trash - a scrap of furniture upholstery, I think. 

I visited a mission site. The square symbol near the top of the building, above the window, is an indegineous symbol meaning sun. 

A local person gave me a tour. He has family on the coast, but he's living at the mission site to take care of his dad and work on restoring the mission building. They are direct descendants of those who lived there before the mission. 

I don't remember his name. This was the kitchen. You can see smoke on the original brick ceiling. He spends much time and effort restoring the building. 

The missionaries came for gold and silver in the surrounding hills. Indigenous people were forced to work. But that is just history now, he said. 

We walked and he showed my the nearby hot springs. I saw many palm trees and asked if there were dates. He showed me a date palm and we threw rocks into it until many dates fell to the ground. There was citrus and pomegranate which he let me take, also. 

Dates, citrus, pomegranate.

Vultures waiting for me do die.