Day Four: Monday, March 19: San Quintin to Cataviňa

The highway followed the ocean for a while, and I started to see what is a new kind of cactus for me – later I figured out it is the sour pitaya. It is very common in most of Baja – I thought at first it was a type of unbranched cholla, but it isn’t, but rather a type of organ pipe cactus. The road soon turned inland and wound around and up and down more mountains – Baja is much more mountainous that I had expected! And the desert mountains are quite beautiful. The farther south we travel, the more “landscaped” the rocky terrain becomes with more and more interesting cacti.

At the top of a grade we came to a plateau and encountered our first military checkpoint. Mexicans take the war on “drogas” very seriously! They stop every vehicle, come in a make a perfunctory search – probably assessing whether we seemed nervous or not. I probably didn’t seem nervous – I wanted to take their picture and was chatting away, but they didn’t want it taken. One young man with a very sweet smile and a very big gun said he was a “monstro” with his gun. I said no… or at least he was a monstro with una sonrisa! (a smile). I think it may be illegal to take their photos, which is why I always ask, and so far none has said yes, but none have said it wasn’t permitted, either. One cute young soldier at a later checkpoint said he never liked having his picture taken ever since he was a young boy. Later, another soldier was very interested in California, and if there was work there, and at yet another checkpoint, one asked about the beautiful wall hanging we have in our bedroom – fabric art created by Janet, Devin’s sister, from a photo of Lake Powell – the soldier wanted to know where it was because it was so beautiful. We’ve been through quite a few checkpoints already now, but that was our first. All, so far, have been relatively pleasant experiences with very polite young men who ask permission to come in and search and chat with me in Spanish. I hope our border crossing back into the states goes as smoothly and pleasantly, but I’m a bit skeptical. Not that we have anything to hide, of course – I’ve just heard that they are very tough – hopefully we won’t be pulled into secondary to search, but then again, we have lots of time, so it will just make another blog post if so! Ha.

After the checkpoint, we pulled into El Rosario, the last town at which to get gas for another 200 miles! We were about to enter the infamous “Gas Gap” of Baja California. Forwarned is forearmed, however, and we pulled into the Pemex and gassed up both motorhome and Jeep, then pulled over near a store and did some grocery shopping. After our shopping, we went to the famous Mama Espinoza’s, where we had been instructed to say hi to “Roly” who I believe is the current “mama” at Espinoza’s. She seemed nice but busy, and asked after Rich and Tonya when I told her they sent greetings. We were not able to try the spicy lobster soup as Tonya suggested since they had no lobster, but maybe on the way back north we will. We had fish tacos which were quite good, and continued on our way south, leaving the little valley of El Rosario for more and more mountainous terrain as we entered Baja’s Desierto Central (central desert region).

Boojums, Cardon, and Elephant Trees – Oh My!
Cortez thought Baja was an island – and it is almost an island, geographically, but also in terms of biology. There are many plant species that are endemic to Baja – they are found nowhere else in the world. Islands often develop unique flora and fauna because of geographic isolation, and Baja seems to have similar effects from being a very long, thin peninsula.

I knew a little about Cardons and Boojums, but reading Joseph Wood Krutch, found out much more and also about several other plant species. The area around Catavina has several of these all concentrated together, so is very exciting for a botanist, even a lazy one such as myself. Devin bought me a Plants of Baja book before we left, and that has been a source of further information to help us appreciate the unique plants of the area. I took so many photos! “Drive by shootings” mostly, as there are not many places to pull out along the road, but we drove through absolute forests of cardon and boojum on the way here, and saw entire hills covered with elephant trees! All of these are Baja endemics. Cardon are like Giant Saguaro, only bigger, and their branching pattern isn’t the classic right angle “elbow” but rather upward sloping branches. Elephant trees in this area (there is another species also called elephant trees farther down) have white bark and very thick trunks that taper down to the tips of the branches, I guess sort of like an elephant’s trunk.
And Boojums… there isn’t much that one can compare to a Boojum!! They are quite odd and unique plants found nowhere else on this earth except the central desert region of Baja. The real name is Cirio, which means church candle, but the name Boojum comes from Lewis Carroll, and seems to have stuck as it fits the odd plants that have been described as gigantic upside down carrots… but they really only fit that in that they taper from the base to the top. They are green, “hairy” – covered in tiny branches and sometimes flowers, and sometimes they branch into two or more splits at the top. Sometimes those attenuated tops bend over and most photos or drawings of Boojums have the tops arching down, but plants that look like that are rather rare. They give the feeling of being tendrils reaching up from the earth to touch the sun, they seem to wave, even though they are still. Devin said they seem like something from the imagination of Tim Burton. Very odd plants indeed!
Rancho Santa Ynez
We stayed that night at Rancho Santa Ynez, which was truly like a trip back in time – much of Baja is like that. This small rancho could have been a film set for an old John Wayne movie. An old adobe brick building with a central courtyard, open-air kitchen off one side, a few rooms to rent on the other. Windmill, stone cistern, cattle wandering about, oh, and RV parking out front. The “RV Park” part was a large flat area with cactus and trees and cattle wandering through, but enough room and hard-packed sandy surface for parking lots of RVs here and there. It was overlooking a large arroyo with another Baja endemic species, the Mexican Blue Fan Palm. I went on a photo walk at sunset and snapped portraits of Elephant Trees, Boojum, Cholla, Old Man Cactus, Pitaya, and Cardon!

Muy Tranquilo.

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Go back to Day One of Baja Trip