Mr. Baja

Cuco, the potter, and soon to be neighbor, asked us if we would drive him up into the Sierra de la Laguna mountains today so he could connect with his wife, Pillar, who was up there helping a friend. I guess she was gone for numerous days and he needed to pick up some money from her because his VW van was getting repaired. He told us he is not good with money so she keeps it with her. He has already asked Maurice for so many favors that I wonder how he survived without him. I fear this is a never ending situation, but we will see.

This favor was one we were really looking forward to. Maurice and I had driven up into the mountains on a couple of occasions. These were excursions only, in search of whatever we were lucky enough to run across. The roads we chose looked well traveled and always lead us nowhere. We knew that there were places to go, just not how to get there. So today we picked up Cuco with these instructions from him, “You pick up the beer and I will pay you.” Of course I believed he would. Of course he didn’t. So with our loaded cooler in the back of the truck, and Cuco in the front, we headed to kilometer 79 and turned left, towards the mountains.

Addresses and directions here are defined by kilometer markers. There should be signs at every kilometer, but over time some are gone. For example, to get to us you turn at km 74.3. We do have to come up with an address because right now we made up:

Branzanti
KM 74
Pescadero Baja Sur
Mexico

This is what we tell people, like the guys at Home Depot, the bank etc. but we really do not have an address. Since everyone here uses kilometer markers no one questions us.

So we turn at Km 79, of course on a dirt, washboard road, and head toward the mountains. Cuco is a great tour guide. He fancies himself as “Mr. Baja “and proudly told us that he is mentioned in “The Lonely Planet” travel book for Baja Sur, as a local tour guide.

Cuco speaks perfect English. I laugh at this because the first time we went to meet him, to introduce ourselves and tell him we were buying our land, he pretended he did not speak English. Nice! Today we found out he went to school in San Francisco and was married to a “gringa” and she is the mother of his children. He and Pillar have only been together for 20 years. He is a nice looking man, 57 years old and we have been invited to his birthday party on the 24th of this month. I am sure he will say, “bring the beer!”

So as we begin our gradual climb off the desert floor he explains that we are going into a “dry tropical forest” and as we ascend there will be less cactus and more green. Since we had the big rain a week and a half ago it is even more green than it would normally be this time of year. The rainy season here is September and October and often it does not rain other than in the mountains.

Our first stop was at a deserted compound. I use the word compound because I am not sure what is the best word to describe it. An American started to develop this beautiful place. He must have put 100’s of thousand of dollars into it and ran out of money. It is widespread, over 100’s of acres, so if you were not aware of it you would not even know it was there, or what it was. The place we stopped at had a waterfall, though not very large this time of year, and a pool at the base. We waded in the cold water, took some pictures, popped a beer and listened to Cuco tell us of the people he brings here who pay him $100 for his services. Wow. Lucky him. Did they bring the beer, too? He told us we saved $100 today. Wow. Lucky us.

He educates us on plants and I educate him on the “Canadian Shield” since the area we were in reminded me so much of that! Huge, wide rock formations covering lots of the land. It was really beautiful. He said he will now add the words “Baja Shield” to his tour since he told us he makes stuff up. The tourists don’t know or care. They want to hear stories. Nice. I guess $100 can’t buy integrity.

Our destination is a place called La Candelaria. On this side of the mountain range he said there are 6 pueblitos. They consist of many families that over 100’s of years have formed a community. Of course there are no stores in these places, or retail outlets of any sort. In La Candelaria there is a church, a school and about a hundred people, which is really large for a pueblito.

La Candelaria is only 30 km from the highway but the trip took an hour and a half, which included our 20 minute stop. This pueblito sits at the foothills of the Sierra de la Laguna mountains and is rich and fertile. There is an underground stream that runs through the village and there are palm trees that are probably a 100 years old. Mr. Baja told us that with a consistent water source palms grow about 3 feet a year. These palms are a few stories tall! There are mangoes, citrus, avocados, papayas, guavas, corn, bamboo and pigs wandering around.

Pillar’s friend is a potter. We totally forgot her name but she is a transplanted American who has lived in these mountains with her Mexican husband for 18 years. They have a palapa roofed adobe and block buildings that make up their home. Like most Mexicans their place consists of a separate building for their kitchen. This is the only building we went into, although it appears they had a separate sleeping quarters, and an area for showering. The kitchen was so basic. There was a huge adobe based cooking area that filled most of the inside. One part of this had a propane burner, where a tea pot sat on rod iron bars, and another part of the “stove” had wood under it. The floors were dirt and raked clean.

Maurice went to the bathroom there and said I would be glad I chose a bush instead. There were tons of cockroaches. I DO NO LIKE COCKROACHES. They seriouly creep me out.

Cuco sat in there with the husband, drinking beer from our cooler. He sure is not shy. Maurice wandered in and out chatting with everyone.

The women were outside making adobe to finish a small studio Pillar’s friend was building. They started it in July. It is about 5 x 8 with a stone base. The process of applying the adobe was fascinating and I asked if I could take pictures. I always find it hard to ask this question and usually don’t. I would love to photograph everything in these people’s homes, but I do not want to offend them, so I don’t. This was impossible not to photograph. Come on!! THEY WERE MAKING ADOBE!!!

This is what we learned about the process.

The first part of the equation is the clay that her husband gathers from the side of the roads. Different clay than she uses for her pottery, she said. She had a wheelbarrow and inside the wheelbarrow is a large flat stone, resembling flagstone. She put the clay on this and than with a smaller rock she grinds it to break it up. Than she dumps this clay into a bucket and brings a large screen and places it across the now empty wheelbarrow. Than she dumps the broken up clay onto the screen and rubs it with her hands and what makes it through the screen is the clay that is used for the adobe. Actually I did this part of the work. I hated standing there watching so when I asked if they need help she said YES! This was the easy part, even with a broken shovel.

Abode consists of equal parts of this clay mixed with water, sand and “hay that has passed through the horse”...that is really how she described it. We would just say horse shit! They place this on a plastic sheet and Pillar mixes it with her feet. She stomps and stomps, always pulling up the sides of the plastic to fold over her mixture. When it is the right consistency they apply it, with their hands, onto the side of the building. By the time we were there this was that last of the adobe to be done and the building was complete. It is tall and to help let in light there were about two dozen empty glass wine bottles “plastered” in the top of one of the walls. These gallon wine bottles came from Costco she said!!

So after Cuco got the money from Pillar, and about a dozen beers were drank we headed down the mountain. The women were cleaning up as the project was complete. We took a different way back which was much quicker, and except for the first 15 minutes, was not as scenic. We were back to the highway in about 40 minutes. We ended up driving the last 11 km on an arroyo, which is where the rain runs off the mountains and out into the ocean. The arroyo brought us back to Hi 19, which is the road to Cabo. We first left Hi 19 at km 79 and came back out at km 98 so we did kind of a circle.

We took Cuco home. He asked if we had any more beer and of course Maurice gave him two. He never offered to pay us, but at least he did not charge us $100 for the tour and adobe making tutorial!! Maurice and I decided it would have been well worth two cases of beer for the adventure. Now we also know where to go and how to get to La Candelaria. Cuco said on February 2nd they have a big tamale festival there with horse races. We will certainly be going back for that!

After we dropped off Cuco we stopped at the Sand Bar. This is called the Sand Bar because the floor is all sand, and there is only a palapa roof. The place is the local hang out for Americans and Canadians. Tomorrow I am going to write about the Sand Bar and what it means to me, but I just want to say that they had the Packer game on and it was in Spanish. That was hysterical. All the commentating was in Espanol! So every once in awhile I would hear “Packers” other than that I did not understand a word!

Need to learn the language!