Swimmer’s Ear

Vinnie came down the beach leaning on a walking stick with his dog circling him as he stumped along. He looked to me a bit like Ben Gunn of Treasure Island fame, a retired Navy baseball cap on his head, a dark tan torso with tattoos and wispy white hair all over the place and a long white beard reaching down all over the place almost to his reggae striped shorts. “You people are mad,” he said as he stopped on the beach in front of us as we trod water in the cold Sea of Cortez.

Layne had decided yesterday was her day to try swimming in water we estimated was around 65 degrees. I had surprised her by saying how much I enjoyed swimming in cold water and I wanted to do it again. Our neighbor Ron had come by with a pound of fresh maize tortillas he didn’t need and offered to go swimming. So we did.

That was how Vinnie came across us and threw a stick for his shaggy retrieving dog and checked our sanity for cracks as we enjoyed the cold. Layne was totally into it. I was so comfortable I felt no need to get out. But Ron was taking his van into town and layne had begged a lift to do snd shopping so we had to stop swimming. “You must be from

Canada!” Vinnie said leaning his short wiry frame on his walking stick. He looked to be in his seventies maybe, a beach bum through and through. 

No, I said and told him we were from Key West. “The waters warm there” he said reminiscing about the Naval Air Station at Boca Chica. Originally Vinnie was from Boston he said. He doesn’t swim in cold water. Later Ron told us he has seen Vinnie on the beach for years. He sold some land in California and moved to Mexico.  As you do.
We walked back to our vans and got ready for Layne and Ron to go into San Carlos to do some shopping. We had prepared our pressure solar shower earlier heating it in the sun. We were ready to shower and feel clean though neither of us was cold getting out of the sea. True enough we stepped onto warm sand on a 75 degree afternoon.

Rusty had come down to the beach with us and after surprising us by splashing into the water he had run up and down the beach a bit before hearing over the dunes and out of sight. He was back at the van when we ambled back guarding his camp. Funnily enough when Ron had come  round he alerted us by barking and confronting him until he recognized him. Apparently Rusty feels quite at home here in the wilderness .
Ron drove his van over and picked Layne up for a little light shopping which means we may be able to hold out for a few more days without moving. We have powdered milk when the fresh runs out and Layne has a carton of soy milk for her chai so our middle class existence need not suffer too many ripples. The salads gone and laundry is piling up after our mud bath. Trash is holding out, the orange bag in the photo is where we store the filled trash bags from our very small can. Most importantly Rusty has all the food and treats he needs for a long stay.

We’ve ordered 15 gallons of drinking water for delivery by Saturday so now we have figured out how to enjoy swimming, the urgency to go south has abated. Slightly. I think we might see Mazatlan next week. I say that but I’m not certain even what day it is today…

Lemonade From Lemons

To be stuck in the sand is no easy thing, but one has to wonder, why did they drive their family car into what is obviously not suitable ground?

They had the tools to get themselves out eventually and the kids thought it was great fun but in Mexico there is always an alternative. In this case the local tow company advertises among the sand dunes. You need a grua? Not Ghostbusters for sure. Try these guys: 

Layne and I were ambling along walking Rusty watching the gyrations of the Mexicans with an idea to circle back and offer help when, without warning we both found ourselves flat on our backs. Holy shit! We forgot the mud. It was slippery and we struggled to get a grip between bursts of uncontrollable laughter. Layne went so far as to take my picture as I set off to find a dry way out. 

How to get this sticky chocolate from off was the big issue. How much water would it take? We’d just bought a dollars worth of delivered water to off our tank and now we were going to have to pour it on ourselves? Grrr.

So we trudged back to GANNET2 pondering our various thoughts. Layne was figuring how to clean our clothes while I was feeling the mud drying like armor on my leg.

Eventually the obvious answer to our dilemma presented itself as we approached the van. Rusty ran in ahead but we went up the dune and down to the tide line. Oh well I thought to myself, wishing I were approaching Florida’s warm waters, how bad can it be? 

Oddly enough not bad at all. We industriously scraped  the thick goo from our rubber footwear and I washed my legs and arms in Pacific Ocean water that was actually quite bearable. When I used to live in California among the coastal fogs under gray sunless skies I craved the quieter warmer waters around Florida. When we sailed from San Francisco to Panama I told my wife stories of the joy of Caribbean warmth.

So to be honest I was not looking forward to dunking myself at sunset into the Sea of Cortez. But a man has to do what a man has to do and from time to time I have to do the same so there I was: splashing water on myself in an effort to rid myself of impurities.

It worked. Dinner was a brief affair thrown together on a salad while I hung the muddy vestments of our impromptu ceremony on a thorn bush to dry. Rusty had whimpered when we got back to the van as though wondering what grid us up but like all good dogs ( and all dogs are good) he asked no questions.

It was obvious we had to rinse the clothes in saltwater to prepare for laundry day later in the week so I volunteered to go back to waters edge and rinse them in as many buckets of salt water as necessary. I wore the muddy shorts and left everything else behind including my shoes. It was the work of a few minutes to render buckets of clear salt water muddy as I rinsed the clothes one at a time.

Sod this I said to myself as I submerged the clothes one last time in a bucket full of brine. I put my glasses in the sand next to the bucket and walked like Joan of Arc into self immolation.

It would be stupid of me to claim the waters were bath tub warm, my favorite temperature, but I found myself tingling not unpleasantly in the cold crisp water. The sand underfoot was ridged and solid so I stopped doing the stingray shuffle and devoted myself to walking out slowly and chilling my shoulders with hands full of seawater. Immersion followed. 

Ron from the silver van down the beach had come upon as as we staggered home covered in goo and he stopped by yesterday morning to see how we were doing. He’s from Iowa and is in construction and takes glorious trips all over the place. I hope we meet him down the coast. Yesterday I met him as I swam and he drifted by on a paddle board.
He said scientists have discovered thermogenesis is good for one’s health. Oh good I said. What’s that? It turns out submitting to cold temperatures can improve blood flow and I don’t know what as long as you don’t kill yourself. No chance of that on a 75 degree lunchtime in Sonora. We chatted for a while as I trod  water then he paddled off. I tingled all the way back to the bucket and as I trudged back to GANNET2 full of thermogenesis.
We had homemade asparagus soup last night thanks to Walmart and our Instapot as Layne came to grips with cooking outdoors. I, thanks to one small muddy slip, am going to give cold water swimming another go. What surprising things we learn on the road. I’d never have expected to enjoy that. 

The Good,The Bad, The Dog

I will point out here that the story has a happy ending, after a fashion at least, and as badly as Rusty was affected he is back on an even keel twenty four hours later. Me? I have irrational feelings of sadness and even as I know Rusty has to come first I wish the outcome could have been different. Yesterday started as one more day on the road, from our truck stop outside Guaymas we drove into town and cracked a few nuts that had been puzzling us since before our arrival in Mexico.

We started out by visiting the Telcel office where we learned how to buy data on our SIM card that we put in our Verizon jetpak. We can only buy $25 at a time and we are learning how to surf the web judiciously. Our Verizon phones give us half a gigabyte every 24 hours so we have various ways to get online and not waste surf time. Airplane mode is our friend. 

Next up was Walmart where we found a mobile car cleaning service in the parking lot. $4 for normal sized cars we paid $10 to clean our elephant. We got our money’s worth and helped a cheerful pair of entrepreneurs. 


We needed water and Google maps on our half gigabyte located the water purification place and we traced the route with our phone offline. That’s how you make it work! Speaking Spanish helped as we explained we had no empties to exchange but we could simply pour the five gallons into our tank directly and give them back the empty jug. 15 gallons later we had spent $2:25 on potable water. Filling our tanks with clean water makes it less likely we will catch anything even though we still run our drinking water through our Berkey filter.
One last puzzle was finding distilled water for my CPAP. The breathing machine has a place of honor in the cupboard above my pillow with its own 110 volt plug. I sleep so well with it I am almost grateful to my motorcycle accident when the doctors took time from rebuilding me and told me to get a sleep test after I left the hospital as soon as I could walk again. I sleep better than ever nowadays but it needs distilled water to keep it running smoothly. 

It turns out pharmacists keep distilled water and you have to ask for it by name directly from the pharmacist and it is expensive at $4 for half a gallon! So now we had all the pieces of our shopping puzzles solved and we could head out to explore some wild camping on the beach near the suburb of San Carlos.  Walmart supplied our perishables so we had fruit vegetables milk and soy milk and all the fussy stuff middle class Americans expect; there are a lot of snowbirds in the Guaymas (pro: “Why-mass”) and San Carlos area. We are after all less than eight hours from Tucson.These sorts of discoveries are all part of the good of traveling, learning to cope  .
We stopped by the side of the road to sort some objects shaken loose by the ghastly rough road out of Guaymas. Oh I thought there’s a nice guy feeding a street dog as we pulled off the road further ahead. Not a bit of it. I watched in my wing mirror as Layne reassembled the contents of a drawer and the dog feeder leapt into his car and drove off. The little black dog ran pell mell after him nearly getting run down in the process. I opened my door and called and to my astonishment the little black bundle leaped in. I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and dumped him on my feet before swiftly closing the door. He was safe.
I have no doubt you can imagine our feelings. Rusty was not happy one bit. He turned his back on the intruder and growled if he got too close. The little dog was sweet as can be and totally overjoyed with a wagging tail. What to do? We don’t want two dogs in our small space but if Rusty finds a dog he wants to bring along we would certainly do it for him but this guy got on his nerves. He was very patient but he was obviously massively stressed. We made our way to our planned campground with no clue what to do. One thing was certain: he wasn’t going back on the street.
We found our camp spot in the bushes near the beach and after giving the dogs a treat and a drink we went for a walk. We met an American couple walking their dog and we asked if there was a local rescue. To our Ana EMD by they said ask at the Marina office. Theresa woman who takes strays. Huh? Can it be? 

Well to make a long story short Marty Parra a vet in nearby Empalme has a shelter and she sent us her address by WhatsApp (!) and we drove forty minutes to her shelter. It isn’t like an American dog jail but the little tykes run loose in different compounds and it reminded me more of daycare. We handed him over with lumps in our throats. Rusty sat grumpily outside the van refusing to look at us. Marty smiled at his attitude. “Enojado!” ( annoyed) she laughed. The little black dog got into a group and ran off barking happily and playing and forgot us in an instant. We are left holding hands feeling ill. 

“If he had come back to us I’d have taken him,” Layne said through her tears. But he is safe and cared for and of course we made our donation  to help her out. We stopped for lunch as we were famished and didn’t and tired out. 
Seven and a half dollars of fried fish helped regain our equilibrium and when I went back to Rusty in the van he mewed at me as he never does he was so glad to see me. He spent the afternoon snoring the emotion away. As did we once we got back to our campsite. It was one hell of a day.

We are going to stay here a few days as nights are cool but days are warm. 

It’s too far from any homes for there to be any local dogs barking or claiming their turf and Rusty loves running through the bushes. 

He’s back to normal but I have my own thoughts and regrets and sadness. Not just for him but all the other dogs not living good lives. 

I dislike that fatuous saying “Everything happens for a reason” because the further you get from home the less human nature deserves an explanation some days. 

Some of us are born lucky, some get lucky and others just get shit on all their lives. For a reason? I doubt it. 

Pothole Highway

Puerto Lobos was in the throes of a cold front that the day before had dumped inches of rain and freezing temperatures on Tucson. 

We were tired of strong winds and temperatures that were the wrong side of uncomfortable and we wanted to head south. So we did. 

We rejoined Highway Three and headed toward Puerto Libertad half an hour south. It was Sunday morning and we were still all alone on the road. Odd, we thought but who were we to complain?  Layne got up as I turned onto the main road and we bowled along at a steady 55. It was a pleasant drive through the desert lined by spectacular mph rains and glimpses of. The Sea of Cortez to our west. 

Layne suggested a pause do. He could get comfortably settled and as a bribe to the driver she promised me a cup of freshly brewed Yorkshire Gold tea. Rusty voted for a stop as he loves the desert. 

The turnout had a couple of roadside memorials in the Mexican style. The headstones indicated a 35 year old mother and her eight year old son died in 2008. That provoked some reflection. 

The road to the power station and solar array was broad and smooth and easy. We passed a cop staffing a solo checkpoint with his dog at his feet. I was prepared to stop but he smiled and waved, I responded and we never went below 40 mph. Perfect.  We had places to be. 

We were going to Costco three and a half hours away. Layne thought I was pulling her leg when I told her there was a Costco in Hermosillo. A likely story she said. Okay then I said feeling very superior. Until we found out why we were alone on the highway. 

The photos don’t show the difficulty posed by two deep ruts and a rather tall pile of sand in the middle. It became evident as I plunged our low slung van into the mess that it was as well we had put a skid plate under the engine. We were riding on the dirt.  The wheels spun a bit in the muck but I held firm and with some wiggling (by GANNET2) and breath holding (by us) and we were through and into the liquid mud.  

We got out the other side and looked at each. That’s why we were alone on National Highway Three. The Cuota (toll road) takes an hour more than the free road which is never the case. Obviously we took the free road. Silly us. 

We then met this huge truck bowling toward us. Our first thought was: how is he going to get through that mess?  Our second thought was: if he can make it here from Hermosillo we should be fine. That was sn exaggeration. 

By comparison this water crossing simply required us to take the bank and lean over a bit. Quite a bit. In the US a puddle on a road usually indicates a few inches of water maybe. In Mexico a hole could be six inches or six feet deep.  No telling. 

The potholes lasted 60 miles or so and they were terrible. The road in the distance might look smooth but as you closed in you could see black specks developing and I soon learned we couldn’t drive more than 35 mph and mostly less than twenty to give me time to take evasive action. 

Often I would come to a halt and drive around holes or even through them if they were wide and clearly

unavoidable. The agony went on forever, it seemed. 

We stopped to give us a break and for Rusty to get an explore in the desert he loves so much. Layne made me a second cup of tea and I spent useful time trying to take a selfie. Four days without a shower and dry desert air does my hair no good. 

Rusty had a blast disappearing into the shrubbery while I kept an eye on the non existent traffic, visible for miles. It was a surreal silent spot. Nowhere to pull over so we stopped in the road. Use the flashers Layne said so I did though I wasn’t sure anyone would notice or care. Imagine this scenario in the US. It would confuse American drivers no end poor dears. 

I promise the road was a pincushion of holes even though you can’t really see them. 

If I accidentally took them at speed there was some horrible banging from poor old GANNET2. 

And to add injury to insult they’ve stopped making mens 13 Crocs in pink. Probably just as well in Mexico. 

One other exciting wrinkle is the technique used to mark road problems of a greater order of magnitude. A sinkhole or collapsing bridge support or a failing culvert will be marked with a pile of dirt, or rocks, or sticks with bottles on them,  or pieces of orange plastic from broken road markers. You see that and you slow down if you are new to the area. 

It might have been a total coincidence but at the exact point where big farming concerns were operating the road miraculously improved beyond all recognition. It was as though road building comes in response to the wealth of the landowners. Unworthy thought. 

Meanwhile we spotted a dude with his thumb out. He could either have been a narco trafficker out to murder us or he could have been Alfredo who missed the bus and needed a ride to his farm work site miles away. We delivered him and as we did he explained he goes to work Sunday and comes back Friday and spends Saturday at home. He works on a farm currently raising watermelon (sandia) and squash (calabasas). Not an easy life. We caught a picture as he marched off to work. A tough old guy. 

After we completed our shopping we set off for the road to Guaymas where there was a truck stop rumored to offer hot showers as reported on the iOverlander app. On the road we saw a man walking and we gave him a ride across the desert. Eric’s story was that he is from Chiapas a southern. State traditionally ignored by the central government. He said quite bluntly racism made it hard for him to get work but he was out looking. We got him across 70 miles of desert in a little more than an hour. He was so tired he fell asleep on the floor behind our seats. 

Rusty interestingly turned his position between the front seats and kept a firm eye on the intruder. We were quite impressed. I guess he loves us. We dropped him off and have him some money food and a bottle of coke we had been hoarding. Layne burst into tears as we drove back towards San Carlos. She has always had a soft spot for the underdog. 

The truck stop had showed at three dollars each and provide your own soap and towels. Layne had on and off got water in hers but I got a nice steady stream of hot water. It felt great after five days of personal  dust catching. Hopefully it will be warm enough to use our solar shower if not here then further south. 

Our next stop we hope will be warm enough for us to stay on the beach in a wild camp north of Guaymas for a few days to relax and do some outdoor living. We are tired of the cold. We can handle it but we don’t enjoy it.