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Publié par | iUniverse |
Date de parution | 21 septembre 2022 |
Nombre de lectures | 0 |
EAN13 | 9781663242112 |
Langue | English |
Poids de l'ouvrage | 5 Mo |
Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0200€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.
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A FINGER OF LAND ON AN OLD MAN’S HAND
Adventures in Mexico’s Baja Wilderness
EARL VINCENT DE BERGE
A FINGER OF LAND ON AN OLD MAN’S HAND
Adventures in Mexico’s Baja Wilderness
Copyright © 2022 Earl Vincent de Berge.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
ISBN: 978-1-6632-4210-5 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6632-4211-2 (e)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022912488
iUniverse rev. date: 09/09/2022
Contents
Baja California, Mexico : A Short History and Observations 1962
Chapter 1 Chicago to Mexicali: Buena Suerte—Es Territorio Duro
Chapter 2 Border Crossing Screwup
Chapter 3 Customs and the Mexican Army
Chapter 4 To San Felipe and the Sea of Cortez
Chapter 5 Into the Coastal Desert
Chapter 6 Puertecitos by the Sea
Chapter 7 Searching for the Highland Pass
Chapter 8 Central Desert Highlands and Boojum Territory
Chapter 9 Gold Miner Camp at Las Arrastras de Arriola
Chapter 10 Road to Lake Chapala—Snakes, Bees, and Vultures
Chapter 11 Drowning in Devil’s Dust
Chapter 12 Rancho Chapala: Those Men on the Wall?
Chapter 13 Sierra de Calamajue
Chapter 14 Plateau of Giants
Chapter 15 The Pacific Ocean Finds Us at Muertecitos
Chapter 16 Miller’s Well Flying Circus
Chapter 17 Camp Ambrosia
Chapter 18 Miller’s Canyon
Chapter 19 A Short-Lived Tequila Ritual
Chapter 20 To Black Warrior Salt Mine
Chapter 21 Aboard the Argyll
Chapter 22 The Alvalro Café and Music Hall
Chapter 23 Eyes of the Rabbit: Scammon’s Lagoon
Chapter 24 Adrift in the Dunes: at the Edge of Lost
Chapter 25 Defeated
Chapter 26 Vizcaíno Desert: Nothing Is as It Appears
Chapter 27 Return to Nursery Inlet
Chapter 28 Dividing Our Forces
Chapter 29 Tale of Miller’s Landing
Chapter 30 Solar Salt Mining Process
Chapter 31 A Little Cunning
Chapter 32 Bush Pilot
Chapter 33 A Strange Visitor
Chapter 34 Señor Guthmannnnn
Chapter 35 Santo Domingo by the Sea
Chapter 36 Volcano, Snakes, and Coyotes
Chapter 37 A Stupid Decision
Chapter 38 Little Death: Dangerous Hombres
Chapter 39 One More Celebration
Chapter 40 Village of Punta Prieta
Chapter 41 Too Stupid to Cook Beans, and Mama Fuerte
Chapter 42 Three Village Tales
Chapter 43 Gentle Thunder, Fine Rain: Love in a Village
Chapter 44 Return of the Tire Hunters
Chapter 45 Sidewinder Jamboree
Chapter 46 Marble Mountain Quarry: El Marmol
Chapter 47 Night Drive to the Frontier
Chapter 48 Return to Baja 1964
Preface
When we were in our early twenties, we believed nothing could defeat us in our pursuit of adventure and becoming stronger, wiser, and more skilled. Enthusiasm herded us from Chicago to Mexicali, our rallying point to enter the 900-mile-long, untamed desert peninsula of Baja California, Mexico. We crossed the border with only a used Jeep truck and a map that could have been made by a Portuguese coastal explorer who noted only the vague locations of places he’d never visited. All we knew was that what lay before us was desert. We could only guess at its variety, purity, or size. Every valley, hill, canyon, arroyo, and hilltop proved to be a place to linger. Every mountaintop, every oceanside camp, and most of all, every hike afoot through this classic Sonoran Desert was, as naturalist Joseph Wood Krutch wrote, a venture into alluring places on a “forgotten peninsula.” For me, the only exception was a salt mine at Guerrero Negro where big business was converting ancient lagoons into cash.
Mark overlooks verdant desert below
Everything away from the primitive road was as it had been for millennia. We hiked for days without seeing a human footprint or signs of a domesticated animal. Any scratch in the sand was made by something indigenous to the area. A broken branch was the result of some wild animal having passed by. Sand sculptures on hillsides were the work of wind, water, gravity, or earthquakes. I have never forgotten the sense of being the first human to be in many of Baja’s more remote places. And, as I grew older, I always thought of Baja as my natural home.
At first, our voices were boisterous chatter as we discussed mastering a wild place. This gave way to quiet exchanges on the uniqueness around us, and finally to individual studies of the greatest and smallest examples of nature’s creativity.
Ours was no walk in the woods followed by a glass of wine at day’s end. This was total immersion by four young men exploring a huge, forgotten, and nearly unpopulated desert sea in a used forward-cab Jeep whose electrical heart needed therapy and whose tires, we learned the hard way, were unsuited for the challenge. We christened our steed the Gran Ambrosia and hoped she had the same resolute, adventurous spirit as our team. We kept her running, and she carried us through a world of treasure and trial. My world view was reborn amidst raw wilderness and isolated family outposts where we met practical and sagacious men and women whose feet were firmly and respectfully planted on the earth.
The year was 1962. We were drawn to test ourselves in this wilderness by two books. Joseph Wood Krutch, in his 1961 book, The Forgotten Peninsula , described a wilderness that was thinly settled and rich in raw, natural beauty, plant diversity, and challenge. Erle Stanley Gardner, in his 1961 book, Hunting the Desert Whale , used short, staccato sentences to describe harsh conditions, miserable roads, virtuous frontier people, and lost civilizations documented only in cliff paintings hidden in remote canyons deep in the superheated mountains.
Our team envisaged testing our survival skills during the most challenging time—the dead of summer when midday temperatures soared above one hundred degrees. Between college studies, participating in ban-the-bomb and civil rights marches and falling in love with smart women (one of whom I later married), we planned our expedición into the Sonoran Deserts on the longest peninsula on the globe.
One year after Krutch published his narrative, we stood at the head of a primitive, rutted trail. We had crowed enthusiastically, ready to forge ahead, but paused in awe at the empty desert that stretched into the distance until it vanished in a shimmering heat mirage.
At my side was Mark from Philadelphia, my college roommate and laconically humorous chum. He joined us in Mexicali after a wild bus ride from the interior of Mexico where he had been studying Spanish and working on a school-farm for orphans. He punched my shoulder and exclaimed, “Earl, I bet you think that superheated dust bowl is beautiful! Hell, let’s get going before it cools off!” From Chicago came Adel, an effervescent, fun-loving admirer of women, collector of firearms, and devotee of hunting. He brought along his sidekick, Brian, a quiet, sturdy, and likeable fellow whom I had met only a few weeks before we departed. Brian took everything in stride but always had part of his mind on his gal back home in Chicago.
During those three summer months, I was determined to indulge my emerging interest in photography, experience a desert wilderness, and live off the land. Baja became a passion of self-discovery and adventure. Mark already loved Mexico and wanted to learn more about hunting and Baja’s people and geography. I had no clue about Brian’s motive other than to be with his friend, Adel, during what he hoped would be a fun-filled summer. Krutch described Baja California as the most unique and beautiful wilderness oasis left in North America. For all of us, the real bonuses were self-discovery and coming to know frontier Mexicans, the best and most interesting kind of humanity I might ever meet. We also met worthy explorers, a handful of thugs, and several fools, but the worthy far outweighed the rest.
We were eager for adventure. I had the most desert experience, having been born and raised in the low desert of central Arizona, and I had saved enough money to purchase the Jeep and World War II army surplus gear suitable for camping and hiking. I kept a daily log of my experiences and photographed many plants and landscapes. Sadly, heat and dust played hell with my film, but some images came through just fine. Baja was even more beautiful and extraordinary than Krutch pronounced it to be. Perhaps because I have long been intrigued with the solutions desert plants develop to survive and the beauty associated with that success, I used this trip to explore that interest and document my discoveries in photography, admittedly as an amateur.
The endeavor cost us US$3,200, some of it recouped when we sold the Jeep at the end of the trip. Our vehicle