All Part of the Adventure (i.e. carry a spare birf you dolt)
full post with photos:
http://www.wideanglewandering.com/2012/08/all-part-of-adventure.html
Ridge Leading to Rancho Coyote by
WideAngleWandering, on Flickr
Last night I asked Pedro to wake me when the coffee was ready in the morning. At 7AM he knocked and I crawled stiffly out of the truck and found a new vehicle in the lot, belonging to Chris and Lucky, father & son returning home from a fishing trip in Baja Sur. The staff offered us breakfast, but with the caveat that it would be $10 each. They seemed surprised when we accepted. I did so for the chance at an English conversation.
Lucky had been working in Montana until recently, and spoke fluent Spanish from working with hispanic laborers. He and his father, from San Francisco, told me about spots along the coast of Baja where the fishing is fine and the villages free of gringo resort homes.
After our mediocre breakfast of scrambled eggs, potatoes and tortillas, we asked Pedro about the road and routes out to the national observatory. He told us that the road would be rough, with loose rocks at first, but then it would smooth out. I paid my tab (somehow they extracted $40 USD from me on top of the camping fees) and organized the truck for the drive. Lucky decided against it since he didn't want to waste the day if his Volkswagen didn't have enough clearance to make it.
As he and his father drove off, Lucky told me he hoped I would find what I'm looking for. I think he was speaking philosophically because at this point, nobody thought I'd actually get lost looking for the observatory.
Following Pedro's directions, I set off for the observatory via Rancho Coyote. For two hours I followed the road, which quickly degraded into a 4wd trail. I climbed up over loose rocks, followed ridges overlooking brown valleys mottled with green shrubs, crossed arroyos smeared with dried waves of mud, drove through quartz deposits erupting from the roadbed and found occasional oases.
Eventually the road ended in a washed out creek bed. I never found the turn-off that Pedro had described, through the cattle gate, to Rancho Coyote. As I made my way back out to look for the gate, Betsy let out a squealing and crunching sound that surely indicated a problem. Nothing critical looked awry, though the steering stabilizer was hot to the touch and had a sizeable dent in it. Satisfied that this was probably the cause of the noise, I resolved to ignore it and continue on. Further up the trail I hung up one of the rear leaf springs on a rock but freed myself with a traction mat and a pile of stones. Getting out was a bit harder than getting in.
Back at Rancho Mike Sky, Pedro laughed and insisted I had missed the cattle gate. He didn't seem to know anything about the washed out road but since trucks went back there every few days and usually didn't return, the way through must be possible. He described two other routes, one a rough road through a neighboring ranch where I'd be charged by the owners to cross (a reasonable requirement given the number of off-roaders who pass through here) or a longer route across easy dirt roads via Valle Trinidad. I opted for the latter route in case Betsy decided to start squealing again.
At the turn-off for Valle Trinidad, I discovered I could no longer turn more than a few degrees to the left. Instead, I continued slowly up the road to a driveway marked by beer cans overturned on the cactus plants. Fortunately it was on the right and I eased my way in.
Inside I found Juan, the owner of this ranch. I explained my problem and he grabbed a tarp while I got my tools from the truck. He too suspected the stabilizer but after removing it we found I still couldn't steer. I said this must be some bad luck but Juan replied “No, no, this is part of the adventure!” While we pondered the problem, I gave him and his friend Emilio some of the beef jerky I had brought from California. Juan gave me a roasted ear of corn and a handful of fresh pine nuts.
We decided that the best thing to do would be to drive slowly up to Ensenada, two hours away. Since it was already late afternoon, I speculated that the morning would be a better time to go, to which Juan unreservedly offered to let me camp on the ranch. “Very tranquil here”, he said, before going back to work. Emilio showed me around the ranch, a ramshackle collection of structures surrounded by goats, geese, roosters, fields of beans and vegetables, apple and pine trees. The roosters, he said, were for cockfighting. I declined to share my opinion of blood sports at that point, yet he went to explain with a shake of his head that “that's what people want, so we raise them.” The largest of the fighters, he said, was always sad in the off-season but perked right up when it came time for combat.
Emilio too had work to do so he left me to relax in an easy chair under a corrugated tin roof where I munched on pine nuts and read from Dove, Robert Graham's story of circumnavigating the planet alone at the age of 16. In between pages I thought about how to fix my steering. At nightfall I went to sleep early, to the sound of barking dogs and growling roosters.
In the morning I woke up to find Juan making tortillas and Emilio pouring me a cup of coffee. I gave them the coconut I'd been carrying for the last few days and Emilio gave me an apple from their orchard. I countered with a bag of frijoles that I wouldn't be eating due to my aborted camping trip.
When I was ready to hit the road, Juan told me to come back anytime. Emilio asked that if I did, to bring them a book of apple marmalade recipes as they were inclined to make some for sale.