Wide Sky

wide sky

It's about 1,000 miles from the border to the tip of Baja. In May, we again took the drive south from California. We followed a different route, crossing at Mexicali to explore other parts of this beautiful peninsula. 

Right before we left, I happened to mention to a client that we'd be driving through San Felipe.

"That's where my sister has a house," she said. Soon she emailed me to tell me her sister would love for us to spend a night for free. While I'm grateful, I'm not surprised anymore by such generosity and serendipity--something about a traveling life seems to invite magic.

Bahia Concepcion, one of our stops on the drive down.

It had been two years since we'd been to Casita Once, our little place near Todos Santos. The minute we hit Baja Sur, I rolled down the window and breathed in the unique mix of salt air, heat, dust, warm breeze. I was reminded how I love this place where desert-meets-ocean-meets-cerritos (hills). 

sunset at playa de Cerritos

More than ever before, we have felt embraced by the community here. We spend many days improvisationally. Someone will rap on our gate and say, "Wanna play backgammon at the pool?" At the pool, someone will say, "Come over for dinner. We have fresh fish." And then we will say, "We have cole slaw." And someone else will say, "We'll bring dessert."

In between, Dave has been doing a lot of home and garden projects. I have been editing books and teaching yoga twice a week.

evidence of Dave's green thumb at Casita Once's entrance

We've been re-connecting with old friends and meeting new ones. Some are on vacation here. Some own places or are building them. There's lots of construction around and lots of new restaurants going in.

with new friends Mike and Marla at the site of their home-in-progress

We've also had visitors. Craig, one of Dave's college buddies, came for a week. At the same time another of his old friends, Paul, was here, checking on his new property in Todos Santos where he is building a home. We are happy to have another friend-as-neighbor.

Jimmy, Craig & Paul, and me on Manny (short for Mantequilla).

Our three nephews also visited. My sister Ann lives down here--and her sons, Beau and Brock, have been coming to this area since they were kids. It was the first time for my other sister's son, Evan, to visit. Can you tell he loved it?

with Evan (19), Brock (25) & Beau (27)

Dave got this great shot of Beau 

One Sunday I went with a few friends to the local church. It was sweet to hear the congregation sing in Spanish and to watch two children who, upon being baptized, were lifted up and applauded. Witnessing this community and family love, my heart broke again for the children separated from their parents at the border.

proud father and priest

We continue to be amazed at what a great place this is, rustic and embracing and, in the ways of the desert, beautiful and harsh. There are cacti and snakes and bugs. There are so many birds and palms and papayas and crashing waves and abundant fresh food.

locally grown

papaya in our orchard

Punta Lobos, where every afternoon you can buy just-caught fish.

gila woodpecker

caracaras (iconic birds of Mexico) at their nest

We had forays out of our area. Lee-Ann, who attended my writing retreat in Thailand, just happened to be in San Jose del Cabo! So we drove down there (a bit over an hour on a nice highway) to spend an evening of live music, food and conversation in the downtown.

San Jose del Cabo

For Dave's and my sixth wedding anniversary, we drove five hours to Loreto, on the Sea of Cortez. (Again, we were generously offered a free place for few nights, by friends we'd housesat for earlier in the year.) In Loreto, Dave reconnected with Juve and Sarah. He'd not seen them in more than ten years, when they'd done a kayak trip.

Salud! Juve and Sarah now own a dive shop in downtown Loreto.

Another day, we arranged to have a ponga pick us up for some time on the water. The captain showed us two geologically fascinating islands--Carmen and Danzante--and stopped for some beautiful snorkeling.

isla Danzante

My favorite moment was on the drive back when we spotted a huge pod of dolfinas. They surrounded the boat, squealing and jumping. I asked the captain how many there were. I thought he said, cincuenta (fifty).

"De verdad?" I said. "¿No mas?" (Really? No more?... It had looked like hundreds to me.)

That's when he explained he'd said sin cuenta...literally, "without counting." Too many to count. Yay, I learned a new idiom!

dofinas...sin cuenta

Another of our adventures was a day-long (dusty, exhilarating, exhausting) group quad ride into the Sierra de Laguna mountains. At one point, one of the vehicles got stuck in the mud and needed to be pulled out with our wench; Dave got a down-and-dirty lesson on how to use it.

stuck--but still posing for a shot!

lunch in the shade

Sierra de Laguna from the quad

In our short three months here there have been lots of gatherings. At one, we celebrated my sister Ann's birthday with a great group of people at the amazing and delicious Free Souls.

Another favorite moment was experiencing a Mexican family band: the parents and their five children. They played the most unique arrangements of rock classics, from La Bamba to Stairway to Heaven.

Monster Band

It seems that the theme of our time here has been community. We have been hiking together...

San Pedrito hike

...playing music together...

Todos Santos ukulele group meets every Monday.

 ... and just hanging out together.

with new amiga Susanna

Not many of our friends live here year-round. Even the permanentes tend to spend months away. There have been a lot of hellos and see-ya-laters. 

And we are following suit. In a few weeks, we fly away. For the first time, we are not driving back up Baja. We are storing our car with plans to return in March.

Dare I say it? This place is starting to feel like "home." I use quotes because I'm still not quite sure what that word means for my wandering soul. Dave says home is wherever his toothbrush is.

Maybe my home is Baja. Or maybe it's the world. Or maybe it's the wide sky inside.

The winds will carry you.

"I have come to accept the feeling of not knowing where I am going.

And I have trained myself to love it."

 

Our nomadic lives are about to pull us out of Mexico and into the next adventure.

 

We leave our Baja home in two days. I feel like I'm suspended in mid-air with no landing in sight.

 

Technically, we know where we're landing: California, New York, Colorado, Vietnam, Cambodia, and China. Yet there's so much we don't know. We will be on the move, experiencing people and places and cultures new to us.

 

How different that feels than being rooted here in our casita, enjoying the rhythms of beach life.

 

These three months, I've loved living next door to my sister and enjoying our long walks with her dogs.

Rama and Dino at San Pedrito beach.

 

We celebrated Dave's birthday with a bunch of friends from our wonderful community, featuring homemade tortillas and tacos al pastor.

Simon and Paolo from El Poblano, one of Dave's favs, catered for his birthday.

 

We spent time in La Paz, communing with amigos and whale sharks.

 

On Omar's boat.

 

Swimming with this 40-foot beauty was sublime.

We enjoyed spontaneous dance parties and meeting new people, many who dropped in for a few days or weeks, then left to journey on.

 

Kimberly's birthday at Palapa 1!

We were able to enjoy our home more this time because instead of scrambling around to get it furnished and completed, we could hang out. Writing, editing, reading, playing Scrabble, cooking, enjoying neighbors who dropped by--this was where the action happened.

 

Casita Once

 

So here we are, perched on leaving what now feels like home. Goodbye amigos and la playa. Adios fish tacos and ocean air. So long dogs and music everywhere.

 

When we left Santa Cruz three years ago, I didn't realize we'd be saying goodbye to home and hello to the next thing, again and again.

 

Before yoga class yesterday, Kylie, the teacher, and I were talking about life's uncertainties--especially in the face of nomadic existence. She said, "You're going to like the poem I brought." During savasana (corpse pose), she read:

 

 

We rolled over from savasana and curled onto our sides: reborn from the corpse to the fetus. Death, birth. Goodbye, hello.

 

And then we stood and spread our arms, our wings. An ocean wind blew through the room, carrying us.  

 

A Week in Todos Santos

Todos Santos is a Pueblo Magico, one of 83 small towns that the Mexican government has designated as magical--somehow very special and deserving of attention (and tourist dollars).

Magical Todos

Even though the address of our casita is Todos Santos, we're about 10 miles south on Cerritos Beach. A few times a month, we drive down our bumpy dirt road and head over to Todos. When a friend asked us if we could housesit for him a week, we thought it would be a great opportunity to get to know Todos Santos better. And what a week it's been.

Lazy dog days

The palapa-roofed house is a stunner on a beautiful piece of property in el otro lado. Literally "the other side," that's what people call this area of town. Every morning we wake up to zillions of doves cooing. And some nights we can hear the waves crashing. It seems like there's always a breeze here. I was actually a little cold sometimes and had to put on a sweater. Mexico's climate has made me a wimp.

cocina

We enjoyed walking around the area. One day we hiked to La Poza, the closest beach. Not swimmable, but stunning.


La Poza

We hiked down the beach and then over to these rocks, climbing up and around to head back.



This water flows out of the huerta and sometimes connects with the ocean.

 On our walks, we saw all kinds of creatures.



Anyone know what it is?

cabras

caballos

pájaro amarillo y negro

Another day we walked into town on this road to do errands, including going to the optometrist to pick up my glasses.



I like the optometrist. He has a brilliant smile and knows very little English, so interacting with him challenges me to work on my Spanish. At his office that day, we also ended up talking with a Canadian who now lives here and teaches in the local school; he used to teach on a reservation in Canada. When Dave mentioned I'm a writer he said, "Do you ever help people edit their books?"

Universe, you crack me up!

Why yes, I said, I'm a writing coach--and he launched excitedly into a description of the Young Adult novel he's writing. The protagonist is an indigenous girl in Canada who becomes a political activist. I told him it sounded right up my alley.

Speaking of political activism, we saw this protest on the road...locals protesting this.

A lot of gringos have been drawn to Todos Santos. One morning when Dave and I were out for breakfast, a big guy and a big St. Bernard sauntered through the door. Kevin, who lives half the year in Montana and half here, said he came to that restaurant for desayuno every morning. Sure enough, he hadn't ordered but the waitress brought him his usual, which he shared with Romeo. One-year-old Romeo is a sweetheart and a galumph; he reveled in our hugs and slobbered all over us.



"Are you going to share that bacon?"

Rob, another American guy we met, told us he's ten months into a year-long around-the-world trip with his wife and two daughters. We'd been planning to come back to our casita to water our yard, so we invited them to our little resort's pool. His daughters (12 and 15) years old were so fun to hang out with. They are citizens of the world, having lived in Jordan and several other countries before spending this year on the road.

Rob talked about having an adventurous mindset, one free of conventional limitations.* He and his wife Nadia want to live now. They don't buy a lot of consumer goods--they don't even own a car--and aren't afraid of spending their savings to travel. For many years, they have lived and worked all over the world, so this year of traveling with their daughters is a natural extension of their lifestyle.

And as it turns out, Rob just got offered a job in Myanmar, a place we'd been hoping to go when we're in China. They will be moving there this summer. I have a feeling we will see them again.

You know you're in Mexico when...

In addition to meeting some great people, we've enjoyed stumbling across cool things happening in town. One night we heard music and followed our ears. We ended up at an open-air restaurant dancing to a really fun Mexican band playing a cool fusion of rock, funk, and reggae.

One Saturday morning we also heard some live music and discovered the main street was blocked off. The band played on a makeshift stage, and people milled about, waiting for bicyclists whose race began in La Paz and would be ending in Todos. Soon, the cyclists appeared in their colorful outfits, marked Costa Rica, Guatemala, and various other Latin American nations.

Fun scene.

Another thing that makes Todos Santos magical is its artsy vibe. Lots of musicians, writers, and artists live here--and the streets are lined with galleries. Many of the galleries double as art studios, so you can watch the artists work.

Our casita walls have been bare for two years, and we had a feeling that a week in Todos Santos would cure that. And sure enough, when we walked into a gallery and saw this piece by a La Paz artist, we knew it was the one.

Oceany and expressive.

One of the best parts of this housesit was taking care of Bonito and Negra, two of the sweetest watchdogs. You wouldn't know it are by looking at them (or hearing them bark and protect the yard), but they are love bugs.

 

Bonito likes to recline while eating.

When our friend asked us to housesit, we didn't hesitate. I like saying yes. Yes opens gates to lands you didn't even know existed.

The gate into the housesit property.

 

* PS: Speaking of traveling and living with a freed-up mindset, check out this piece I wrote about a young woman who is bicycling around the world.