Katabasis Central: Days, one and two

Trekking down the Baja peninsula for the 20th time in 25 years, thinking about taking a break for the next year or two or three, as I will have all the data I need, I think, after this trip. It's the Velveteen Rabbit of peninsulas at this point. The astonishing beauty and wildness has become familiar, but the dysfunction, inconvenience, language barrier and other challenges have also become familiar and somewhat tedious. I think this is de rigeur for PhD programs: find something and someplace you love and then get so familiar with the subject and place that you end up hating it. Never hating it when it comes to Baja or the flora, but needing a break, definitely.

I used to take about four days to get as far south as Loreto, but the last two times I've done it in two. Day one across the incredibly boring bottom of the American West on I-8, and then the crossing at Tecate, not just a political border, but a portal into a completely different emotional, intellectual, spiritual world. Winding down through the Ruta del Vino (signs for which wags have changed to Puta del Vino) down the Pacific coast on the paved road through endless industrial farming areas, each little town along the way threadbare and filthy and blasted by factory farming. It takes about 5 hours to go the 200 miles between Tecate and El Rosario. I used to stay in Tecate or camp along the Pacific north of Ensenada on day 1, and then wrangle this unpleasant drive on day two. It's so odious to me now after so many times that I do it all in one day.

Along the Sea of Cortez, south of Mexicali through San Felipe, they have been slowly paving the road. This cuts a huge amount of time and is a much nicer drive, but there are still 20 miles of bone jarring, dusty, unpaved rocky road. I would do it in a heartbeat if everything inside Isabel (the car) didn't get coated with a film of white powdery dust. I do it on the way back, often, because I can just clean everything when I get home. I have learned the hard way that it's no good spending three weeks down here with everything covered with pulverized rock.

Anyway it's great to be out of Hades. My semiannual emergence into the upper world, to the archipelago that has been my study site for 4 years. Coming up on a total of six months spent there, a few weeks at a time, twice a year. I may even have too much data. Well, one thing I have learned is that there is never too much data.