At one of our road side pit stops we took a walk that wound through a field of cactus, shrubs, and funky trees. Our kids are well aware of the dangers of cactus—Lowe has been warning us to watch out for cactus since before he was two—but on this particular stop we ran into all sorts of problems regardless. First Ouest stepped on one. About the size of a child’s fist with thorns two or three inches long, these things are nasty. Fortunately, Ouest was wearing her cowgirl boots and nothing made it through to her foot.
After exploring a bit more we started back for the bus, me in the lead, Lowe behind me, Ali, then Ouest. Suddenly Lowe let out a wild animal yell. I turned around and he had another one of these cactus footballs stuck right in his thigh—to this day Ali and I have no idea where it could have come from. There was nothing calm about the next ten seconds, but eventually I got a grip on the thing and tugged it out. He had about six barbs in his leg, and they didn’t come out without a fight—those things are like fish hooks. He got one in the finger too. We all felt terrible and figured he’d be limping around the rest of the day, but he shook it off without ever uttering another word about it. Later on at our campground Ouest managed to get another one stuck in her boot. You need to be vicious to survive out here—the Baja desert plants seem to be even more wicked than normal.
This is a typical military checkpoint. There is always a freaky looking mannequin up front looking for all the world like a dead body propped up on a stake by some sadistic cartel. After a couple of topes (speed bumps) the middle of the road is taken up by a military blockade, leaving us to drive off the road extremely slowly through shock busting potholes to the waiting officer. A couple of quick questions and we’re waved on through.
San Ignacio didn’t promise much, but it was a convenient place to stop, and it had a three-hundred-year-old mission church (I suppose it’s just mission, not mission church, huh?) to have a look at. The town sits a mile or two off the highway, and as we drove along the dirt road we realized that something was amiss. Many of the palm trees were uprooted and lying on their sides, while hundreds of others were scarred black from fire. A forest fire containing nothing but palm trees must be a sight to behold. Hurricane damage. It’s amazing what too much rain can do to a place.
For some reason our kids had gotten it in their heads to wear their Halloween costumes this day. Lowe cut a striking figure in his dragon costume, looking very much like the devil himself as we walked up the steps and through the four-foot thick walls of the mission.
This is what the vast majority of Baja is like—not an inch to spare.
Ladies Bar—location, location, location.
Santa Rosalia, one of our favorite Baja towns. It’s one of those places for us that leads to one of us saying, “Remember this,” on every corner. Lots of fun memories. And I think part of it is that we’ve traveled so many places before kids that it’s kind of fun to have a place in which the memories include all four of us.
We’d heard that Santa Rosalia was hit hard by a hurricane this summer, but there wasn’t much evidence of it. A few roof panels missing here and there, one small section of road leading into town with a few trucks buried in mud (now dirt), and most obvious, the old marina.
The old marina was in a sad state for a long time before this hurricane blew through—so it’s hard to believe anybody could have been surprised when it was totally wiped out. And frankly, anybody who had their boat tied up to that dock with a storm coming needs to have their head checked out anyway.
Santa Rosalia is one of the few towns I can think of in which the marina (I’m talking about the newer marina now) is situated in a far better location than the nearest RV park. Actually, we could have boondocked right outside the marina gate, and maybe should have, but we pressed on down the road instead. The place we found was u-g-l-y, but with one redeeming feature—an abandoned and dilapidated motorboat for our kids to play on. Parents were unnecessary the rest of the day and the next morning, that is, until Ouest yelled out for help.
“Papa, come quick!”
“What is it?”
“I think there is a big crab in there,” she said while pointing into the dark recesses of a bait box.
“Jesus!”
“What is it, Papa?”
“Uhh, that’s not a crab, honey, that’s a spider.”
And with that, we loaded into the bus and made our way out of there.
13 Comments on “San Ignacio”
christ, im becoming a bum stalker.
i’m sure you guys know this already, avoid mulege at all costs.
have fun at bajia concepcion. now i’m officially envious.
see you soon.
Why the advice to avoid Mulege?
not an easy place to roll around an RV. Internet cafe is a creative people watch hangout. Thursday night movie night down at the roadside taco stand next to the fire truck Escondido Burro Beach is a hoot.
Yet another classic photo – the princess and the dragon walking into the old church.
I’m totally tripping out on how DIFFERENT our posts are on the same places – NUTS! And we stayed a week in San Ignacio on a date farm there with a bunch of bicyclists going overland, so that was pretty different too.
We’re over in Mazatlan now…not crazy about the town at all…but our neighbor from the Lost Coast (CA) has land south of here so we’ll head over to boondock for a while. Hope you guys are planning a long stay over at Los Frailes – we absolutely loved the 6 weeks we camped there (- here’s a post I wrote on it if you want? http://www.meriahnichols.com/story-pieces/) –
Such a deal at the camp site. $10 a day or a whole month for $180. Sign me up.
Beware the leaping cacti. I don’t know if they can actually do that, but it happened to me. I was looking for my lost golf ball and was told to be on the lookout for snakes. Suddenly I felt a sharp pain in my calf. Snake! I took a swat at it and ended up with one of those cactus footballs stuck to my hand. I ended up creating a new dance that day. I was avoiding the cacti so I know I wasn’t close enough to touch one. Therefore it jumped.
Love-love the last pic; the look like veteran sailors
Dang it!! Where is the spider pic? You can’t just drop a story like that and not have a pic!!! ;->
I agree with Joe, I need to see that spider…
On the contrary, please don’t post a pic of that spider. I don’t think I could recover.
No pic of the spider. I slammed the cover back on the top of that box so fast. No way I was going back in there.
Getting closer to us here in La Paz. I’m another Bum stalker and will be the idiot cruiser waving excitedly when I see the blue bus