Blah, blah, blah....Uhhh I mean Blog, blog, blog

Blah, blah, blah…I mean blog, blog, blog….

Today I spent some time scanning a few pictures, and really it’s just a few, from my trip in 1987 and 1988 trips to see the cave paintings in Baja California.  So that is my blog topic today!  I know mostly my current health status is the most interesting, but indulge me as I take trips down memory lane. 

I’m not feeling all that bad right now, by the way!  The pain in the hip/back is very frustrating, but with these pain meds I’m on at the moment they’re bareable.  Today my focus has been on figuring out how to keep my head off the pillow when  get that drowsy feeling after taking a dose.  Keeping busy (I wish I could say moving around) works pretty well.  So sorting through and scanning some pictures was just what I needed at the time!

Okay to be honest,  I don’t remember what years I went to Baja for these trips!  The first one was set up during a February break in between school terms from the Riverside Community College.  One of the english professors put these trips together.  Sometimes also over the Christmas break and New Years.  My first trip, I think in 1988 was in February and we had the best weather anyone could hope for.

The group was large,  I believe a total of fourteen adults, the largest he had ever taken to Mexico.  We used a large van and the professor’s private vehicle.  Starting off from Riverside to the border at San Ysidro and then south to Ensenada.  Ohhhh… the best seafood lunch in Ensenada I’ve ever had.  Well, okay I think I’ve been in Ensenada maybe three times!  Then we continued south to a mile marker off Highway 1 in Baja Caifornia that the Prof was familiar with and we camped overnight.  In the morning we drove farther south to Scammon’s lagoon.  February is the time of year in Scammon’s lagoon when Gray Whales are birthing and have their calves on the inside bay while the males patrol the outside for predators and waiting for the family to travel on north.  (that’s how I remember is anyways!

The Mexican government, in those days, allowed only small boats on the water there with nothing more than oars and maybe an outboard motor.  This ‘tourist’ industry could only be operated by Mexicans that had obtained the right permits to take tourists out, and limited the number of boats on the water at one time.  Our group was large enough that we needed to take turns in the boat we found and I was in the second group to go out that day.  It was so fantastic!  We were out there in the lagoon and not seeing much of anything, no motor running on the boat and not much noise from us inside the boat,  when a whale came up right next to our boat.  She was about maybe 15 feet away just floating up gently next to us.  She disappeared right away, but it was so so neat to see – and feel. 

From Scammon’s lagoon we drove over to Guerrero Negro, a small fishing village and bought enough scallops caught fresh that day for dinner for the whole group.  We didn’t spend much time there because we were already running behind schedule.  On leaving Scammon’s lagoon we found a couple of vehicles stuck on the beach and in danger of being washed out to sea with the tide.  Our Prof knew about his danger and had parked well back from the beach,  but these other drivers had driven right up on the sand next to the tourist row boats without a thought to the tide.  Our group spent an hour or two helping out the hapless travelers save their vehicles from the lagoon!   Fun memories.

The second trip I took for the cave painting trips was over the Christmas break from school and we did not go to Scammon’s Lagoon and instead traveled all the way south to the town of San Ignacio.  We ate lunch there and spent a few hours hanging out and admiring the archeture of the catholic church there.  I don’t remember getting to go inside the church, but  do remember the thought about how much work and detail and craftsmanship had gone into this church as any of the cathedrals I had seen in England and Scotland a year or two before this trip. 

From Guerrero Negro we drove east into the the mountians to the village of Santa Maria where our gias (guides) would be waiting. Worst dirt road from rain runoff I have ever been on, and I’ve been on a few!  After a Wonderful dinner of scallops cooked in oil with lemon seasoning over a campfire (I’m serious, I was spoiled for the taste of scallops after that, nothing else has ever compared) we camped out for the night. 

The large number of our group put a little bit of a strain on the gia’s trying to find enough mules for all of us to ride for the trip. They had been gathering them up from individuals in other villages for a few days before we got there.  I got one of the larger gentler mules because I was a girl and because I was a tall large girl.  A perk in this case!  One of the members of our party was a small woman of Peruvian descent and she only got a burro to ride!  But the best trained gentlest burro!  She didn’t mind.  She was quite a lady and I wish I could remember her name!

The next day we set off on our trip out of Santa Maria heading towards the first of many caves we saw with the cave paintings.  Our group of 17 people in a mule train and a second burro train with our supplies mostly in old milk crates and expertly perched on the burros.  The burro train would usually take a different route or stay out of sight, but when the two ‘trains’ met up it was quite a sight to see.  At the time we made that trip in errr… 1988? It was thought that these cave paintings were about 2000 years old and made by local Indians that lived in the area, moving and trading between the sea and the mountains.  Since then,   much more recently, they have dated the cave paintings in Baja Califonia and found them to be over 10,000 years old!

We later traveled into a neighboring valley of goat farmers and we must have made it just after goat birthing time because there were so many baby goats around all us women in the party were just enthralled.   I had some pictures of them once, but don’t see them in what I have left.

Another night camping out (our group mostly in two man pup tents, but the gias would sleep on top of shrubs they beat down flat and rolled out their saddles and saddle blankets on) and the next day we visited more cave paintings and rode into Rancho San Gregorio.  A privately owned family ranch, really, accessible only by foot at the time, no roads leading in to it.   The farming and  irrigation system there was supreme, I think still in use from what Jesuit monks taught the early Californians.  They had citrus trees (with limons an orginial variety of limes and oranges, I think).  They also had a leather tanning vat like something you would have seen in the previous century.  There were a couple of calves tied up nearby that none of us ‘gringo city folks’ really wanted to think about.

From Rancho San Gregorio we started back to the village at Santa Maria, passing through Ciudad de San Francisco (City of San Francisco).  At Santa Maria we were greeting again by the village and the families were all so happy to the see the gias, their husbands and sons back.  To help to add to their economy they asked if they could cook us lunch and, of course, we all agreed.  Very good goat stew!  It was a good meal.   Lots of group pictures were taken and then we had to end our trip and start back north for Alta California.   Ahhh… great memories.