It's all extra
We sit just one hundred miles south of San Diego but a world away as determined by international boundaries. How strange that our human designs separate us so definitively. What if there was no border? (Never mind a wall). Would we all be speaking Spanish? Or perhaps some pidgin hybrid of English-Spanish - a Fanagalo of the Northern Hemisphere. Nevertheless we are here on the other side of the line: Mexico. Muddling our way through Spanish sentences, making due with a paltry few years of high school training, relying on the benevolence and ability of others. The woman at Monte Xanic winery conducted our tasting in English, bless her. She was obliging and kind and happy we attempted to share the history of South Africa’s winelands, in Spanish.
Indeed, Mexico’s Ruta del Vino was lovely - charming and wide-open. We camped our first night near a waterfall and hot springs. It cost us 120 pesos, which we paid to the girl balancing the baby on her hip. No toilet or running water, just a riverbed all to ourselves. We drank a bottle of L.A. Cetto chardonnay - the oldest and largest winemaker in Mexico. We sampled queso añjeo - the cheese we chose blindly from the deli case at L.A. Cetto (an extremely pungent, hard cheese - a blend of Swiss cheese and Swedish lutefisk). It is inevitable that we should find certain new flavors and experiences unfavorable - anejo being the first - as we explore with a mind to be surprised. We’ll chock this one up to experience (no más anejo), temper the hasty purchases and try still not to be deterred.
As it turns out there was no waterfall at the campsite. But a few minutes’ hike beyond said waterfall we discovered the natural hot springs. We bathed in the clear but sulphuric waters and walked back in the hot near-midday sun, in need of a bath by the time we returned. Oh well - time to press on toward Ensanada and the Lonely Planet’s suggestion for the best fish tacos in Mexico. We tried two places recommended by the guidebook and then caught sight of a bustling street vendor selling ceviche. By then we had eaten our fill (two fish tacos and a ceviche each) and felt it imprudent to go again (together our dining amounted to US$ - 7.50 - we’d have been lucky to get a single meal for that price in the States). Anyway, it was nearly sunset and we hadn’t settled on a place to camp for the night.
Just a note: with modern technology - apps and Google Maps, GPS etc., it might seem passé to read a map. However, despite our GPS and clever iOverlander app (which is indeed handy but lacks certain crucial functions without wifi), I find myself yearning for a sizeable, detailed paper map. Between the GPS, the app and the foldable map of Mexico from AAA (thanks Mom), I managed to direct us to Campamento 7, near La Bufadora - a blowhole like rock off the coast that shoots a jet of water thirty metres into the air, like a whale. Somewhat skeptical of the hype around the spurt of agua in the sea (and loath to pay 20 pesos parking fee), we never did make it to La Bufadora.
Incidentally, on the way to Campamento 7, as we wound along, hugging the peninsula’s coastline, I managed to catch a brief sight of an enormous fin, saluting us from All Saints Bay. So huge and so heavy that when we stopped and it surfaced again, we could hear the slap from the top of the cliffs. An impressive, immense sight, and unexpected - migration isn't supposed to happen until December. As we continued on, watching out for signs big or small, eventually we met a large billboard with a familiar “7”. At the turn off, a friendly, ruddy nosed man greeted us. He had a bucket full of something which we ascertained were fish. Tim wanted to know if the man had caught the fish from a boat, so we lingered a bit longer than was perhaps customary, while I paged through my pocket Spanish/English dictionary, in search of the word for boat (barco). What Tim really wanted to know was if he might be able to fish from the shore here, but by the time we formulated a crude sentence we were obliged to let the man return to his affairs and pay our 70 pesos. So we did, and carried on our way - past the first campsite in search of the spot I’d read about on the cliffs, looking across the great fishing-net studded bay toward Ensanada. For the first five kilometres it wasn’t clear that the windy, dirt road was leading us anywhere promising, and we figured we must have passed it (our friendly fisherman hand’t mentioned a steep and rocky switchback - then again, maybe he had). But curiosity urged us on. We eventually found another sign identical to the last, and parked off.
The sun was just setting and the nearly full moon was lifting over the adjacent cliffs. As we crested a rocky knoll, we caught sight of another gigantic, mottled fin, jagged and etched, waving out of the water - so close we could probably swim to it. Tim took off running to the main path for a better view; I opted to scramble down the rocks. We didn’t see it again. But somehow it all seemed like our good fortune - an extra - not to be taken for granted: the near full moon, the campsite on the cliffs, this moment catching sight of the same ambling gray whale we'd seen before. Some moments we seek out for ourselves, others just seem to happen to us.
