Baja Beans

Highlights from my trip to Baja California Sud

I was becoming more and more concerned about the direction that our country was going in when I got an invitation to visit Baja. I had airline miles accrued enough to get there and back and they were offering free accommodation, so I jumped at the chance.

I knew the couple inviting me and my daughter pretty well. The woman had been living in Baja near Cabo San Lucas – El Pescadero specifically – and she had been living there for years and working remotely for an American company. It seemed like it would be a good entrée into what living in Baja would be like. I thought, “Mayber Baja could be somewhere to escape to if things went south here.”

I met my daughter at the Phoenix airport. We would be flying to Baja together. We were going to have a good time, and this would be her first trip overseas to another country. We could all support her and she would be as safe as she could be. I had talked her out of flying to Bali to spend a couple weeks at a fruitarian retreat. Being in Bali by herself, never having been to a foreign country was a really bad idea in my estimation. All sorts of things could go wrong, and I would be thousands of miles away unable to help. Yes, going to Baja would be a good first step.

Myself, I hadn’t been out of the country for so very long. In years past I had been to India, Europe, Mexico, and Central America. I was really looking forward to something different.

And different is what we got.

We got on an almost empty American airlines flight. We figured most people had bailed because at the time mainland Mexico was suffering from cartel violence. Guadalajara especially was having a really rough time. We almost bailed ourselves but then we found out that Baja was safe being so far from the mainland – 300 miles, as a matter of fact, of open ocean separated the two as well as being at the tip of the very long Baja peninsula – makes it impractical for cartel activities. They just don’t bother. The mainland is easier pickens.

It was a treat to be on an almost empty plane. We flew above the Baja peninsula and the Sea of Cortez for a very long time, and we could see tiny boats in the water down there near the shore. The rugged desert landscape was fascinating as it always is when flying high above it. When we landed in Cabo and wended our way through the almost empty airport to the customs people, I went one way to one officer and Ari went to another. I tried out my rudimentary Spanish on the officer. “Buenos tardes, senor. Como estas? Muy bien, gracias. E tu?”

Then Ari headed toward me with a puzzled look on her face. “What happened?” I said. “He was so rude to me, mom.” she said. She in her flip flops looking every bit the young American, he asked her do you speak Spanish and she replied no and he said why not? Later we heard that sometimes the customs guys copped an attitude with young people because they judged them to be the rich Americans (which they usually were) coming to behave badly. Spring Break was right around the corner, so he made a mistake but not an unusual one. I didn’t get that attitude because I was obviously an elderly abuela (grandma).

We waited for our ride outside by the pickup zone. Below us in a courtyard loud music was playing and the scent of frying food was heavy on the air. I thought about how it was when I arrived in India so long ago where there was the same rowdy atmosphere. Off in the distance we saw surrounding houses, mountains and desert landscape. It was hot. It was dry hot. It was not uncomfortable.  Across the road there was the Mexican version of 7-Eleven (OXXO) which looked pretty inviting.

Emilio and Jessica arrived and then Patti came in on her separate flight from Oakland. We packed into the back seat of their Ford pickup and promptly headed to that OXXO for cold drinks. Then we set off down the highway. The airport was far from Cabo, and we drove through the hilly desert. The vegetation was different from southern Arizona Sonora desert but the same. Scrubby brush, gravelly dirt. There were giant cardons (Cardon Gigante) which resemble saguaro but make saguaro seem like baby brother and refined. The cardons are not only huge but also very rough and powerful looking. They loomed.

The drive to El Pescadero was nerve-wracking. Emilio was a good driver but no one else was. They drove all over the road and zoomed out to pass us and my seat belt didn’t work so I could just see us rolling in the ditch and losing our lives. Welcome to Mexico. There is no drivers ed in Mexico. You learn by doing. You learn well or you learn badly. You hope for the best and cross yourself every time you go out on the road. Mama mia!

We made it anyway by the grace of God. Highway 19 to El Pescadero is good. It’s similar to the Mexican Highway 1 to the east that goes all the way up into California after all. We could just keep driving and we would eventually arrive home. We couldn’t get lost.

When we got to El Pescadero all that changed when we got off the highway onto the neighborhood roads. OMG the worst roads in the world. We could only crawl and still our fillings were being jarred out of our heads. The roads were also cut deep into the sand, so the actual ground level was about 4 to 5 feet above the road surface. What was up there? Maybe farms? Pescadero is famous for mangoes.

Emilio and Jessica’s house was a cute bungalow, and we settled in for the night but not until we had a fire going in the large yard area. Off in the distance you could hear the roar of the waves on the Pacific. We were in Mexico!

The next day I got down to some serious experience of real Mexico. When I go to a foreign country I prefer to never go to the tourist area if I can help it. I want to go off the beaten track to the real country where the paisan live. Yes, the tourists’ hotels are lovely – and expensive – and necessary if you would like to drink the water. Cancun comes to mind. They have water filtration. But anywhere else ask for agua minerale without ice and you’ll be okay. The ice is made with unfiltered water, don’t you know. Use a straw. Don’t sip right from the bottle’s mouth.

I rode into town with Emilo to the local grocery store which I pleasantly noticed had everything! I love foreign stores but especially foreign grocery stores. I don’t want to see what I see every day back home. So, they had everything – that was Mexican I mean. They had a meat counter with meat and cheese, and the rest of the store had bags and bags of beans and rice and tables and tables of vegetables. Even a large wall of personal items with Mexican shampoos and toothpaste.  Everyone was friendly and definitely spoke Spanish. “Desculpa” or “perdon” (excuse me) when I wanted to pass by someone in the crowded aisle. I wanted to buy one of everything.

This is the nice part of El Pescadero where the ordinary Mexicans live.

Emilio said would you like to see more of the village? Of course I said. It was the typical Mexican village. Chickens and dogs roaming the street. The dogs lay down in the middle of the road as you approach and look at you. Make my day. Just go around, amigo. They weren’t malnourished. Someone was obviously taking care of them.

There were lots of cinder block construction homes and many had plastic tarps for roofs. This would be a shock to most Americans. I thought it might be more improved over what I experienced the last time I was in Mexico (35 years ago) but it wasn’t. Could Americans live here? Maybe. They would have to be open minded Americans who spoke Spanish fluently. There’s no way your average American could ever fit in. And even then, they would have to live here for years. And I mean years!

The ex-pat homes were so very different. The ex-pats lived in villas that were all very similar in size and style and all of them were on the ocean side of the highway. The Mexicans lived on the mountain side of the highway.  It’s the same in Cabo San Lucas that you will see in a minute.

This is a $925,000 house, folks. Purty damn nice.

Here’s a casita one bedroom one bath for $178,000 that I could afford.

We went to Playitas Beach in the afternoon. The water was great and waves small. I’m not much of an ocean swimmer having been nearly drowned in Hawaiian surf and always wondering what Jaws is swimming around down there looking up at me hungrily. My imagination is too vivid, so I was content to wade in the shallows and sit on the nice sandy beach just relaxing.

We made a lot of food at home. We had carne asada grilled by Emilio with habanero pepper salsa on the side that would take paint off a wall. Emilio also made my new favorite light dinner that he called enfrioladas. Black beans boiled until soft and blended to a sauce-like consistency poured over corn tortillas sprinkled with cilantro, queso fresca, sliced onions and shredded pollo asado. Emilio said this was a good meal for him when he lived in Mexico City growing up.

Our whale-watching trip was amazing as you can well imagine. After we got towed out into the water in a large dinghy and motored off nothing was happening, so we fished for Sierra Mackerel and caught a five or six. Then the whales surfaced and the 4 boats that had grouped separately but together powered over as fast as they could. The race was on! Who could get to where the whales were the fastest but stay a respectful distance away. There was a mom and her baby leaping out of the water. They leap out not because they are so tired of being underwater. They leap out and come crashing down to hopefully knock off some of the nasty barnacles that like to attach themselves. They were humpback whales.

When we came back in, the boat captain told us to hang on because the guy handling the outboard was going to gun it to get us and the boat up on the beach. No one was catapulted out and then Emilio took the fish we caught over to a station where a local guy cleaned them. Our intention was to take them into town and have a local restaurant make ceviche out of it. You can’t get any fresher! The place we went to was Shaka’s.

Shaka’s is outdoors under a large, vaulted roof.

Everywhere we went the food was out of this world. Could you imagine it to be otherwise? In Baja the tortillas are made of corn, and they were so much better than you get in the States. Maybe because they are always fresh. In northern Sonora Mexico the tortillas are made of flour. I prefer the corn. They were so good they soured me on store bought tortillas that we get back home. I’m learning how to make my own fresh corn tortillas. Anyway, we ate and drank (smokey mescal), a margarita here and there. Fish, fish and more fresh fish. There were also the local restaurants Hierbabuena for garden-fresh Mexican dishes, Baja Beans Cafe for morning coffee and brunch, and Cocina de Campo by Agricole for upscale farm-to-table fare. These three are for the ex-pats. For the locals there is La Garitas del Chilpa up the road on Highway 19. We had Huevos con machaca (eggs and dried beef), and tacos con marlin (more fish).

La Garita welcomes you.

Tacos con marlin

The giant cardon and pathetic petting zoo back behind La Garita

The only unpleasant part of Baja is Cabo San Lucas. The quaint fishing village of yesteryear is long, long gone. It’s now an ugly metropolis where the glitzy high-rise hotels line the beach and the slums are on the other side of the highway with the ubiquitous crappy roads. It’s conspicuous wealth juxtaposed with conspicuous poverty. It made me sad. Only San Jose Del Cabo retains any semblance of lovely old-fashioned Mexico.

I wish I could have seen Cabo when it was still a sleepy fishing village.

The San Jose Del Cabo Art Walk is wonderful. We had dinner here from an outdoor vendor. The corn on a stick (elote) slathered with mayo and parmesan sprinkled with Tajin.

So, could I live in Baja? No. I could not. I think it comes down to the realization that I am too old to make radical changes in my life. When I was young, yes. When I was young, I was ready for adventure of any kind as long as it wasn’t reckless. Now I like adventure but of the quiet kind and in places where I’m already somewhat familiar. It’s too bad and I hope our country doesn’t go down the toilet because I now have no realistic escape plan.