Dispatch Number 6 -Muy Malo

In Spanish this means: very bad. I was driving across a volcanic plain in lower Baja seeking remote villages relatively untouched by modernism and far away from any paved highway. The roads in these parts are not the graded kind of gravel road, but more the carved out of the earth once sort, full of ruts, washouts, and rocks that slow you to a crawl. They are typical Baja ranch roads.

In the early afternoon, when I set out from the desert oasis of San Jose de Comondu set in a deep gorge with thousands of date palms and lush green grass -it was beautiful by any accounting and made more so in the extreme desert setting that surrounded it. There was an excited nervousness as I started out on the dry barren 50 mile road above the gorge. Immediately, the road became rough and forced me to a crawl of 2-3 mph; I grew uncertain of my direction and curiously doubtful about what I was doing. Perhaps it was in part that I broke a shock tower the day before on same road. The landscape was dotted with ranchos spread far apart where many looked abandoned against a landscape that showed little evidence it could support life; it was a land covered by a blanket of volcanic rocks and boulders. You could not drive off the road.

In these parts the ranchers made a living as goat herders. I could often hear the goat bells, but not see them through the thick brush. The deserts of Baja are thick with cactus and other thorny plants that suddenly bloom after a rain. The ranchos are not romantic in any sense of the word, at least not the ranchos my mind once conjured up. These were shacks and lean-tos with thatch roofs and flimsy picket fences. I will stop dancing around the point, they were dirt floor hovels.

I began to wonder what I was doing out here and what was I in search of? Was it necessary to see old pre-tourist Baja? Thoughts of a truck breakdown overcame me with dread. Actually, it was a sense of doom when I took in the moon-like landscape, its utter lack of people, a speedometer that hovered just above zero; and an unprepared element -very high fuel consumption. To cap it off I was traveling alone and without a caravan. Apparently I drove into these remote lands to manufacture drama for myself. There I was to face my romantic notions of conquering the land and the elements, you know the dreamy explorer kind of stuff we come up with while watching the Discovery Channel. My thoughts went from confident to foolish as my sense of purpose withered and sense of direction evaporated. The whole mood was like watching an ocean tide come in -no stopping it. Doom.

I fantasized that a group of vultures were gathering up in the skies above me. A group of them hovering above, patiently waiting. The word was out, there was a lost stupid white guy out in the high desert plains. Nature is vicious. In this part of the country there are no road signs -NONE. So it is all map work and talking with local ranchers who snicker at your polite Spanish. To add to navigational complications there are countless road spurs, each one with just enough tire tracks on it to make you think each time you pass one that you should have taken THAT one -you grow dizzy after a while with the choices. Each time this happened it seemed to invalidate the last set of directions a rancher gave me. No signs, except the emotional ones that said, Turn Back.

Back to Muy Malo. Very bad. I was lost driving around this volcanic plain unsure where the road led. The confusing road spurs left me constantly wondering if I was on the right track. I began to backtrack and repeat sections of road adding to my confusion. On one of these backtracks I decided not to advance any further on a road that withered out and showed no signs of use. It was full of large rocks and deep washouts. I chose another route that I was sure was the right road. The sure thing lasted less than a mile where it dead-ended at a rancho. To my shock and pleasure there were people there.

Too freaked to recall the word for lost in Spanish I began to gesture to the horizon 180 degrees with hands up waving this way and that. They got it. Oscar and Gonzalo explained I was going the right way before I backtracked miles earlier.

"That road looks unused.", I said

"No. That is the right road." they say in unison
"What's the condition?"
"Muy malo." came the reply
"You must have double." Gonzalo added
"Yes, I have 4-wheel drive." as I looked at the sun low in the sky
They sensed my hesitation, "You have time. Go.", Oscar said.

I was split between continuing the drive or a complete turn back retracing my steps to a town that had no gas station. After talking with them I wondered how much was truth and how much of it was Mexican bravado. If I go I'm doomed, I thought. Then the other part of me said, Go, take the road and find out what they mean by Muy Malo. I opened a beer and went up that road. I had driven some very nasty roads in Baja and this one was up there in severity -dangerous, slow and alone. After each mountain pass I crossed I wondered that if I had to turn back could the truck make it back up the hill it had just come down? The truck bounced and crawled and leaned heavily to the right once, Could it tip over?, I thought, and with a flash began to darkly fantasize two mules and men pulling my truck back right side up with broken door glass and driving onward. Manufactured drama.

If I had turned back I would have never gotten a sense of what they meant. And as usual I'm glad I took that road.
And that's how it was today.