Tuesday, February 23
My day begins with sunrise (well, obviously, eh). The wind blows throughout the night. Before I retire, I close the kitchen window. We had opened two windows for cross-ventilation, but with the chill, perhaps only one is needed. The generator drones in the background and the wind howls, occasionally lifting the curtain that we have drawn across the loosely-fitted double doors. I awake early, and wait until light is starting to show. Bundled up in my jacket, I fiddle with my camera settings, trying to get a picture of sunrise.
The day is officially to begin with breakfast in the common room, but I have been up betimes and had my tea beforehand, and made coffee for B with our little drip arrangement. Also up early, D & G have toured an upstairs apartment in another building. This is the primo suite, with three bedrooms and two baths, as well as a sitting room. It is quite lovely, and in a bit better shape than our rooms. B tells me about it, and I wander over to take a few pictures of the murals and sculptures. It really is special. The views from our rooms are, however, more immediate to the sea.
We gather in the common room, warm with the morning sun, and prepare to breakfast. Roger appears sometime in the midst of our preparations, and offers to make coffee for the guys. He has a blue, porcelain-coated coffee percolator that he sets to heat on the grungy gas stove in the communal kitchen. I have scrounged a saucepan to heat water for tea, first carefully wiping out the flakes of dried something-or-other around the rim. The guys accept his offer to make coffee. I find out later that it is ... instant.
We enjoy our bran flakes and bananas while the cats wander in and out. We suggest to Roger that he may join us, but he demurs, allowing as how he should take the dogs for a walk. Did I mention that there are four of them? And three cats (I think)? They are given the run of the place. Roger leaves one or the other of the kitchen doors open so they can come and go as needed. They spend most of their time on the second floor with him, in his private apartments.
After breakfast, we set out for the sea tortoise preserve. Roger tells us what to look for along the road to find the right turning. Well, Roger is 0 for 2 -- last night Raquel and Larry's restaurant (closed, only beer), today the preserve. According to some gringos, Baha 1000 veterans, the preserve pretty much fell into ruin when Antonio, the driving force behind the preservation movement, retired. All that is left are dry tanks, signs, and a dilapidated building. Reportedly the remaining turtles disappeared, probably into someone's soup pot.
Disappointed that there are no tortoises, but entertained by a lively conversation with the gringos, one of whom happens to be from British Columbia (Kamloops), we head into town. We find the museum with no problem. It is surrounded by a display of mine e
quipment on one side, and an ornamental native plant garden to the other. Inside is one fairly small room, but the displays are very well arranged. They range from arrowheads to artifacts of the ranchos to sea shells to a grey whale skeleton suspended from the ceiling. You can wander several times around the loop, each time seeing something new. The attendants are a couple of gringos, also from British Columbia (Vancouver Island), who are here for about five months a year. G buys a great hat here. She pays in dollars, but they give her a good rate on the pesos they give her in change.
It is cold outside, although sunny, and the wind continues to blow from the north. We take a while to decide what to do next. The couple at the museum has told us about some cave paintings on the road to the San Borja mission. The mission is 20 miles of bad road away, and the guidebook says the trip will take 90 minutes. This is too long a trip for the afternoon. But we decide to try to find the paintings. About four miles on the road to the mission, the lady thinks; then turn left at a sign and another three miles on you will see the rocks on the right. Well, like all directions, these are a bit lacking. But we drive away from the shore and, in the sheltering hills, the wind is muted.
We find a road to the left, but it's only a couple of miles in. So we continue another three miles, and find no roads at all turning off the mission road. It's a fairly rough dirt road, although we don't need the four wheel drive. Finally we stop and consult the National Geographic map, and decide that the paintings are probably off the only turning we have passed. Back we go. We stop along the way to investigate what was probably a homestead. There is a spring here, and a fairly intact building. It would have been a hard life.
We backtrack to our turning. There are signs here, indeed, but none mentions cave paintings; they all point toward the mission. We turn and follow the sandy road. There are a few bumps, but mostly it's smooth. We drive through a veritable forest of catctus and boojum trees. It's awesome. There are no rocks in sight for the first three miles -- it's all wind-and-water sculpted mud. Finally we begin to see rocks, mostly cascades that have tumbled down from above. We stop at a place where there seems to be a drive off the road. There is a lot of red lichen on the rock, but no cave paintings. 
There is an old mine here, and a survey marker. On top of the marker is a shrine, and in it a bottle of wine (open, yunky), a candle, a wine glass, and some hot sauce. What more do you need?
Further along the road we see some large slabs of rocks. B drives a little further on the road while the rest of us explore on foot. I am unsuccessfully dodging jumping cholla. The first lot stabs my calf, and the second pierces my tennis shoes. I extricate myself in time to observe B coming back down the road, tooting the horn. He has found the paintings, he calls out.
We pile back into the car and drive up the road. Indeed B has found the paintings, nicely marked by an official sign. We clamber up beneath the overhang and observe the paintings that are most accessible. Some are high up on the rock face. B climbs up with his camera, after observing through the binoculars, and takes pictures of less accessible pictographs. We spend quite a while here, speculating. Some of the paintings are just too fresh-looking to be real, I think. But I photograph them all.
By now it is 2 p.m. We climb back into the car and bump our way back to the highway. We measure the distances -- 2.1 miles from the paved highway to the turnoff, 4.9 miles from the turnoff to the cave painting site. Back in town, we find that Alejandrina's is open today, so we settle ourselves for a late lunch. I eat three fish tacos with pico de gallo and guacamole (luscious stuff with coarsely chopped avocado), salad, rice and beans. And this after chips and salsa and a cup of lentil-vegetable soup. This is, for me, a huge meal. I enjoy every bite, and wash it down with two cold, brown bottles of Tecate.
Back at the Villa Bahia, the wind is still to strong and the sea too lumpy to take out a kayak. We repair to our rooms for a while, then meet for snacks and drinks. I take a quick tour of the grounds to take some pictures. I had intended to illustrate how the place is run down, but somehow my camera manages to take pictures that make it look good; never mind the dishes and appliances piled in the kitchen of the bar, or the sad disarray of the common room. B thinks it might be 5 years or more in decline. I finally conclude that this is place intended to be a classy resort in a town that just doesn't need one.
We try the common room for our evening meet, but at this time of day it is cold and unwelcoming. So we sit in D & G's room for drinks and snacks. We talk and laugh, and don't bother to go out for dinner. The late lunch was enough, and cheese, crackers, and the ever-present peanut butter see us through. Tomorrow we hit the road again, or maybe not. We'll see. The wind seems to have died down as the sun set.
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