Christmas Day

December 25th, Christmas day in The Baja

Wow it is quiet here. Never during any of our trips here has there been absolutely no noise. There are no cars, no workers, even the animals are silent. With the exception of one occasionally barking dog, about 2 miles away, there is quiet. Being very religious people we think the Mexicans are probably at church. We did see some locals on the way into Todos Santos this morning to get our internet connection. We saw immaculately clean people, many men wearing white hats, happy, and waving, as they always do. I actually forgot how happy everyone appears to be here. It is a very warm feeling. One of security and peace.

There is one exception. Maurice and his friend Rocco named him “Chewy” after Chewbacca in the Star Wars movies. He is obviously not “all there’ as they say. He does not talk, he makes a noise like Chewbacca would. A growling sound that is as monotone as it is loud and never ending. He is harmless and his past time is hanging out at Esquina, with a filthy rag rubbing people’s vehicles for “propina“...tips. His rag is dry. It is dusty. It is dirty. You can imagine our already dusty truck being rubbed by Chewy for ten pesos, about a dime. This does not make Maurice, proud owner of his first Toyota Tundra pleased. We either park far away, or try to give him money NOT to clean our car. He is the exception because he does not give us a sense of security and peace. He makes us feel bad for him. He is clean, albeit rumpled. We wonder where he comes from, who washes his clothes and how old he is. 40 or 60?? It is hard to tell but everyone seems to know him and his smiling picture is in Esquina saying he is safe, but we should lock our doors! Oh my!

Driving into town is a 6 km trek over a washboard, rutted road, that we bump along, and never get used to. Every time Maurice is here he stays in the same place and drives this same road two or 4 times a day. It is dusty and dirty and what is amazing is the number of Canadians and Americans that live in this area, called Los Tunas, adjacent to Todos Santos. They all drive this daily. Challenging shocks and transmissions and new noises seem to be born daily under the hoods of our vehicles. Recently graded, by a rich Canadian with a monstrous villas on the beach, it appears to have held up well for the first few days, but now, with every spinning wheel, the washboards form again. When we reach Esquina, our internet oasis, we make our calls to families; calling Italy, Canada and the US. We feel lonesome and thrilled to hear everyone’s voices, clearly over our SKYPE connection. While we were there, we saw a man, sitting ram-rob straight in his saddle as he rode his horse past our truck in clean jeans, a pressed plaid shirt, and another one of those popular white hats, and.....a cell phone in his hand. If I only had my camera!

Driving back to our place we bring up the fact that we have not heard from Tomas or Jose. Finding that strange we speculate.

Maybe they did not have enough food to include us with their families for Christmas dinner. Maybe their wives did not want gringos at their Christmas. Maybe something had happened. Maybe when Jose told the others he invited us they were not pleased.

Than we realized that knowing these people as well as Maurice does, none of these things made any sense. So we decide we would do what had originally planned to do on our first Christmas in Mexico which was take a cooler and our little grill to the beach.

We still kept the phone close at hand.

Today was very cool here. Yes, I know, we have no snow and I should not complain. I am not complaining. It is just unusual to be at the beach and to have goose bumps. The strangest thing today though, was a result of a haze. It was a very subtle haze, but it was there, over the entire sky. As result there was a perfect circle around the sun. Not close to the sun itself, in fact probably about 30 dimensions of the sun away from the actual orb. But this perfect circle was a rainbow. Not brilliant in color, but a rainbow non-the-less. It was something we had never seen before. Maybe we will see it again, when on the beach one day, but to watch this rainbow for hours, never varying in shape or brightness was quite magical; especially on Christmas day.

We walked, watched more whales and were shocked at the number of people on the beach today. Of all the days we have been on the beach today it was the most packed it had ever been. We counted 12 people. Another group of 5 came as we were leaving so I guess there were 17 people visiting the beach today. I really mean it when I say that was very strange.

Back at our place now I just got out of the shower. Well, not in the way you may think. I stood there, freezing, waiting for the hot water that never came. Maurice figured out the water heater was off for some reason. So instead of becoming clean and shiny I will drink a glass of wine and write to all of you.

Our phone call never came today but we had a memorable first Christmas in Mexico. With a day that began with us opening our stockings, it will end gentle thoughts of all of you, and hopes that you all had a Christmas filled with magical rainbows around your sun.