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 In five miles we started to see the granite
boulders characteristic of the Cataviña area, and seventeen miles later
we joined the highway a few miles north of Cataviña. We went to Cataviña
in case we could top off our gasoline so that we could safely make side
trips on the way to El Rosario, which always has gas, except when it
doesn’t. An old man and a boy had a trailer full of five gallon metal
army surplus gasoline cans and sold gas at $145 pesos per can (about
$13). Not a bad price. The old man started the siphon going by mouth
and emptied a can into the pickup.
With the extra gasoline, we took the road in to El Marmol. The name
literally means marble, but actually it is an onxy mine which operated
successfully for many years. We saw a cow drinking at a watering trough
made of onyx building blocks and a schoolhouse
built of the same onyx blocks. This is purported to be the only onyx
schoolhouse in the world. As we drove around the abandoned quarry area,
Joseph repeatedly heard rattlesnakes warning us off. We never saw any,
however.
When we stopped for gas in El Rosario,
the old man and kid from Cataviña were filling gas drums in a pickup.
I had been wondering how they made a profit selling gas at the purchase
price. The answer would seem to lie in the fact that they sell out of
metal gas cans instead of the usual plastic bottles. There was no way
to tell how full the cans were. They were glad to see us and we were
glad to see them even if they were congenial con men. It was only thirty
miles up the road to San Quintin, and we had another wonderful meal
at El Jardin restaurant. Joe and I had fish with mango sauce and chicken
with mango sauce respectively. We traded bites, of course, and both
were delicious.
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The petite waitress recognized us and
we got a friendly greeting in spite of the language barrier. I explained
to her that we needed two glasses of water and one Margarita because
I got to rest but Joe had to drive.
When she brought the drinks she looked
most sympathetically at Joe and said, “Lo siento, Lo siento” (I’m sorry,
I’m sorry) with exaggerated sympathy. I caught it and said, “Que lastima”,
(how sad), which Joe understood and he came back with “pobrecito” (poor
baby), which put us all in stitches. On the patio a couple of older
women were dining. One was an expatriate living in Vicente Guerrero
and the other was visiting from Long Beach.
Joe drove to Mike’s Sky Ranch. The road is now paved
twenty four miles in from the highway and they are slated to pave about
ten kilometers per year. It is planned to pave the road all the way
to the outstanding observatory on a high ridge of the San Pedro Martir
thirty miles west of the Meling ranch.
After the entrance to El Coyote ranch, the quality of
the road deteriorated dramatically. Joe really enjoyed driving this
section, it was reasonably smooth, but washouts in almost every interior
corner require that one hug the mountain to prevent a wheel from dropping
into the ditch which seems to be reaching for victims. About five miles
from El Coyote, a side road comes in through a thicket on the right.
This road is a longer route to Mike’s Sky ranch, but is picturesque
and comes down San Rafael creek to the ranch. It previously had an abandoned
appearance, but racers and other vehicles have discovered it and really
torn it up. It was a nice challenge for Joe to pick his way through
dust, rocks, whoops, and washouts; and he met the challenge well. There
were dips where both the front and rear bumpers hit the ground. Every
valley was loaded with bevies of quail. We left the highway at 2:25
and arrived at Mike’s at 4:45. It was sixty miles and forty of those
miles were on pavement or pretty good gravel. Mike had not arrived when
we got there, but the lady assigned us to a room in the row of rooms
on the hillside above the principal building.
Being less than athletic, I drove the truck up close
to the room. We indulged in showers at this point, Beau included, and
went down to the pool area where the off-highway folks were gathered
in the cool evening discussing (exaggerating) the day’s exploits over
beers and Margaritas. Beau, the mildest of dogs, decided that he should
exert authority over Mike’s resident boxer. It was not a fight, just
a bluff, and the boxer yielded, and they were shortly playing. By dinner
time there were thirteen dune buggies, three motorcycles and one quad
in the parking lot. At dinner there were twenty three people including
three women. The dinner was the usual marinated flank steak, carne asada,
barbequed by Mike by the pool, with a small salad, rice and beans. It
always tastes wonderful in the clean mountain air after a day of rocks
and dirt.
We slept well and rose for the group breakfast which was served at 0700.
Coffee, eggs and chorizo (sausage), with beans, and fresh tortillas
made a great way to start the day. Before we left we established Mike’s
as a fixed point in the memory of the GPS. It was twenty miles north
to Highway three. About two miles from Mike’s, we picked up an old rancher
who needed a ride to Valle de la Trinidad. Between his English and our
Spanish, we conversed very little. The poor man had to share the back
seat with Beau, but
each time I asked, he said that he was fine. We delivered him to a house
in Trinidad and went to the new Pemex station to fill the gas tank and
add some air to the tires for fast highway driving. As we pulled out
of Valle Trinidad, we saw that there were racers and pit crews parked
all along the side of the road. Obviously there was a race on, but very
little of it was on the highway. However, between crews for this race,
and a lot of motorcycles in pickup trucks headed for some event in San
Felipe, there was a lot of traffic for a couple of guys who had spent
two days on isolated roads. I had planned to take the dirt north from
Ojos Negros, but did not want to stray on to a race course. A very friendly
race participant at Ojos Negros told us that their race went no farther
north, so Joe and I proceeded north on dirt roads as planned. The road
was in medium poor shape as we went past La Huerta & La Rosa de la Castilla,
but then it became evident that a bulldozer had recently taken
 out some
bad spots and really moved dirt in others. The drought is really serious
and the idyllic little creek crossing had no water for picnicking children
to play in. When I reached Rancho Los Compadres, the biggest bulldozer
I have ever seen, a Cat. D10N, was sitting under the oaks between the
picnic tables. A roadgrader rested nearby.
On up the road, we stopped
for a picnic lunch at one of my many dream houses. I don’t want to own
them, I just want to dream of owning them. This one is on a bench high
on a hill with a view of the Mexican pines to the south and all the
way into the US on the north. It always seems to have a gentle breeze.
Before some non-dreaming
clod pulled it down, a log cabin stood on the slab. The unique feature
of the log cabin was that the four to six inch diameter logs went perpendicular
through the walls. In other words, it was cordwood cemented into place.
It had a window with a superb view of a long fertile valley and on into
the United States near Tierra del Sol. Thus refreshed, we got on the
toll super-slab to Tecate. On this journey we had listened to the Books
on Tape version of Breaking Point, by Jonathan Kellerman.
Joe remarked that in
all of our travels, this was the first time he had ever heard a book
all the way through. There was only a one block line at the border,
so we called Ilean and Kim to let them know we had returned to Tierra
Cognita. All in all, it was a wonderful trip. There was little interesting
flotsam at Playa Malarrimo, but we hope to return right after the winter
storms some year. The onyx mine, beaches, restaurants, roads and wildcats
were a fabulous reward. So here we were, home again, tired, dirty and
contented, even Beau.
Thanks
to Vince Landis for this submission
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