Day Five: Tuesday, March 20: El Marmol

I had been reading about El Marmol in my Joseph Wood Krutch book – he had used the recently (in his time -- the late 50’s) abandoned Onyx mine as a base for some of his explorations of Baja and had some neat descriptions of the area. Our friend Greg Arnold is a rockhound, and we thought that he would particularly enjoy some onyx from this famous mine in Baja. Apparently there was quite a demand for Onyx as a luxury stone, used the way marble (and now granite) is used. In fact, the actress Theda Bara had an onyx bathtub carved of El Marmol Onyx. The advent of cheaper plastics and changing fashions eventually made the mine unprofitable – the stone had to be transported over the rough dirt roads to the coast and shipped to the US.

There are huge blocks of onyx strewn about the mine area, like the ruins of some ancient Stonehenge like structure. The rock is marbled with yellows and browns and touches of red – some is very white, and it is very hard. There is a schoolhouse remaining there that is made entirely of onyx blocks – it really just looks like plain stone, until you notice the marbling in each stone. Joseph Wood Krutch said he had been imagining something like the Taj Mahal, “only better” – ha. He was a little disappointed, but we thought it was neat. It is in partial ruin now, and I can’t imagine that ruin came about naturally – I think people may have taken some of the stones for souvenirs. We collected some samples of onyx from the ground, and could have gotten much more, but of course there is the problem of hauling them all back!

We stopped at a small Rancho/Loncheria Sonora at the Junction of the El Marmol turnoff and Mex 1 on the way back, because they had a sign out front advertising “Figuras de Marmol” which I thought may be carved there from the local onyx. It was in interesting stop – there was no one there, but a coyote-dog cross greeted us shyly, and an old man came around and yelled for someone to let us in. A genial man and his very cute daughter (or grand-daughter) came out and they had huge and beautiful onyx carvings… but they did not look like the special onyx at El Marmol, lacking the rose color banding that made this particular onyx special. They were the more typical white and green color – we bought a couple of small souvenirs anyway, just to spend some money there.

We stopped on the way “home” in some of the neat boulder strewn areas with great cactus “landscaping” and took some more photos – this area is very photogenic! The road we went down leads to the beach, where someone said you could buy lobster if you wanted – but it is many miles – we just went a short way to check it out and take photos of the Jeep in the desert.

We saw some evidence showing that particular road had been used in the Baja 1000 in a previous year – the insane 1000 mile road race that takes place every year in Baja! Sometimes it goes the length of the peninsula, and other times it loops back to Ensenada. Mama Espinoza’s in El Rosario is a traditional checkpoint, and they had posters all over of some of the more famous participants. There are several classes – dirtbikes, trucks, and even VW bugs! It’s open to anyone crazy enough to enter, from people who spend thousands on their fancy racing trucks to old beat up bugs, from teams of drivers, mechanics, and pit crews to single entrants. That night we decided to watch the DVD of Dust to Glory, Dana Brown’s excellent movie of the Baja 1000, once again to see if we could recognize any of the locales. We couldn’t, but it was fun watching it again! The Baja 1000 is everywhere down here – I guess it is THE big event every year – it seems to have influence in every town we’ve been to. The racers are rockstars, and lots of cars are a little fixed up like the racers, or at least have the stickers.

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