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Travel Story

Cops, kayaks, and cactus

Exploring Mexico's Sea of Cortez

We were finally clear of La Paz traffic and headed north on highway one when the police car, siren blaring, pulled us over. Morgan, our Ecosummer guide and driver, rolled the van to a stop and the cruiser slid in behind, its rotating dome light sending glints of red and blue light dancing across the windows. "Buenos dias senor," said the officer as he looked quizzically at Morgan's Canadian drivers license.

With 12 of us, all our camping gear, food and water jammed into the van, and six 22-foot double kayaks lashed to the roof we expected to be charged with driving an overloaded vehicle. But no, we had gone through a stop sign. Indeed there was a stop sign, conveniently hidden from view behind the same billboard that had concealed the lurking police car. The officer agreed the billboard was a problem but he didn't put it there.

"My job," he went on, "is to enforce the law and you must return to La Paz and pay a fine."

"Perhaps" – said Morgan as he took out his wallet. "Perhaps you would be kind enough to save all these visitors the delay and give the judge our fine at the end of your shift."

"Si Senor, I can do that for you. Have a nice holiday in Mexico."

Five bucks later we were back on the road, headed for the Sea of Cortez.

For the next 200 km we follow Mexico route-one across the flat, treeless desert of Llano de Magdalena – an utterly barren landscape where distant views disappear into shimmering heat waves.

At Ciudad Insurgentes the road turns east across the rugged mountains of Sierra de la Giganta whose harsh, rocky slopes are softened by a sparse growth of small trees, shrubs, and cactus. A few miles south of Loreto Morgan swings off the highway onto a narrow gravel road leading down to the ocean. We get out and walk around several "Hail Mary corners" where the top-heavy vehicle is coaxed around outward-leaning hairpins. Finally, pulling onto our beach just before sunset, the van digs itself up to the axles in sand. But we are here – at the end of our road trip. The van can wait till morning.

In the rapidly fading light Allison, chief cook and assistant guide, comes up with a quick meal. We throw our thermorests and light sleeping bags onto the beach, settle down under the stars, and contemplate how we are going to launch heavily loaded kayaks through the surf that is pounding our beach. It was a miserable, sleepless night but we all learned a couple of things: First, don't bring a light sleeping bag to the desert. It may be hot during the day but the temperature goes down with the sun – way down! Second, check for cactus spines before putting down your thermorest.

From this inauspicious beginning the trip took a decidedly up-beat turn. In the morning pushing the empty van out of its hole was a snap. No one dumped as we blasted out through the surf and headed south along the east coast of Baja Peninsula into the shadow of the Sierra de la Giganta – mountains of the giants.

The long, slender Baja Peninsula and parts of California west of the San Andreas fault were ripped off the edge of the continent five or six million years ago. They now rest on the Pacific Crustal Plate while the rest of Mexico remains firmly attached to North America. Between the two, where the present East Pacific Rise comes ashore, the Sea of Cortez is an active rift zone more than a thousand kilometres long, slowly but steadily expanding as the two crustal plates move apart.

Fault blocks that form the young mountain ranges, or sierras, of Baja Peninsula are tilted gently westward and drop off dramatically on the east. And because Sierra de la Giganta is close to the coast its eastern flank plunges directly into the ocean or onto narrow coastal benchlands accessible only from the sea. Not surprisingly it is one of the least inhabited parts of Baja. The few people we met along the way, fishermen and subsistence farmers, welcomed us into their tiny villages, shared water from their wells, sold us fresh fish or fruit, and seemed genuinely pleased to have visitors.

During our two weeks on the Sea of Cortez we paddled about 150 km along the Sierra de la Giganta coast, past towering cliffs of bright blue and green volcanic rock, wave-cut benches of grotesquely sculptured red sandstone, and mile after mile of empty beaches. Unlike our B.C. coast there is very little intertidal life in Baja – just clean white sand between surf and desert. Plenty of places to set up camp, lots of dry firewood, but virtually no shade and never any fresh water. At each camp we pitched a paddle-supported fly where Allison and her kitchen helpers could get some protection from the sun.

On Ecosummer trips everyone pitches in – securing boats, gathering firewood, cooking, cleaning up – and in Baja hauling water. During our visit in early March the arroyos were as dry as the watercourses of Mars. We never saw a drop of running water but springs and wells, some of them artesian, are scattered through the desert and finding them is the key to extended camping along the Sea of Cortez. Most of those we visited were a kilometre or two from the coast so lugging five gallon cans cross-country on a stick between two people became a regular part of our routine. Hard work but the alternative was getting dehydrated in the sweltering heat, so we never skimped on drinking water.

The quest for water also provided a point of contact with the local people and sometimes a glimpse of history. At one of the wells a group of three or four families had pooled resources and rigged a crude irrigation system using an old, 1917 pump and one-lung gas engine. They happily filled our water jugs and then invited us to join them in a feast occasioned by the roasting of a freshly butchered cow. Gnawing on the tough but tasty short ribs, we were surrounded by chickens, goats, and hordes of noisy, curious kids. It may be subsistence farming but for this little cluster of people life was good here beside their well in the desert.

On another water-gathering foray we ended up at the abandoned Dolores del Sur Mission. Established by the Jesuits in 1721 it was later occupied by Franciscan monks who used the large spring for irrigation. Only a few walls remain of the original stone buildings and the fields are now barren, but the old system of stone and mortar aqueducts is still preserved, as is the cavernous root cellar where the monks kept their produce. Sitting on the raised storage platforms, spinning out a long lunch break in the cool moist air inside the cellar, we revelled in a rare escape from the mid-day sun.

Like so much about Baja – the extremes of temperature, the stark contrast between light and shadow – the sea itself was subject to wild swings in mood. Some days there was not a breath of wind and we sliced through the glassy surface sending ripples across the reflected images of desert mountains. On other days we set our sails and let the wind do the work. And there were days when the pounding surf was too rough to safely launch our boats – days we spent exploring the desert on foot.

Walking inland along one of the bone-dry arroyos that emerge from clefts in the mountain front we trudged across gravel bars and along deeply eroded stream channels formed by torrential floods during rare periods of heavy rain. Surprisingly more than 2,000 species of plants have adapted to this feast-or-famine life in the desert. The hills are covered with a strange assortment of giant cactus, tiny gnarled trees, and thorn bushes. Everything has spikes.

Giant, multi-armed cardon cactus tower above all the other plants. Like the aptly named Barrel Cactus, and succulents like yucca with its thick, dagger-like blades, the cardon can store water through long periods of drought. But trees, like the gnarled Elephant Tree and silver-barked Palo Blanco, simply shut down, shed their tiny leaves, and wait for the rains before springing back to life.

Kayaking the Sea of Cortez, camping on the sandy beaches of Baja, and exploring the arroyos of the Sierra de la Giganta was a unique travel experience – as different from the palm-lined tropics as it is from the B.C. coast. As we became familiar with stark dry landscape we came to appreciate that the sparse desert life, though more subtle, is just as varied and vibrant as that of our own northern rain forest.