Been meaning to share a snippet from Boots on Fire, but what to choose? Here’s where my thumb landed after it fluttered through the pages: The start of a wild, week-long trek across the desert and mountains of the Baja in December 1982 . . .
We landed at LAX and bused to San Diego to spend the night before crossing into Mexico. With large moun taineering backpacks slung over our shoulders, we waddled around the city looking for a place to camp. Dennis carried a good-sized pack, full yet reasonable given our intentions. My pack, on the other hand, was hopelessly overstuffed. If I admitted that I’d tossed in a mask and snorkel for some beach time later, you’d get the general idea.
Our duck-walking around San Diego led us to the zoo late in the day. We probably fit right in, and might have been mistaken for a couple of wild emus on the loose. We poked around for an inconspicuous hidey-hole where we might camp for the night, preferably out of the reach of sharp fangs and claws. We spotted a semi-secluded grassy place just out side the zoo’s walls and fences, with no fee station or ranger to check in with. Behind a few trees, it was just dark enough to slink in unnoticed, scarf some dinner and crash.
We were in for a lively evening. Honking elephants and scolding primates seemed to lob vulgarities at one another over the fences. This against a backdrop of squeals, squeaks and grunts from near and far. The ruckus eventually quieted down to allow us some sleep. Early the next morning, how ever, the zoological chatter resumed, as we slithered from our bags and repacked to avoid detection.
After scrambling up breakfast, we reemerged nonchalant onto the street. Waddling around again led us to the zoo entrance. We checked our hefty backpacks at the gate and took a look inside. After a couple of hours winking at our zoo friends, we were eager to begin making our way to magical Mexico.
By early afternoon, Dennis and I stepped off the border trolley and passed through Customs and Immigration into Tijuana. In 1982, a stroll across the border into Mexico was a non-event, at least in any bureaucratic sense. An agent scrib bled something on a slip of paper, stamped the date with a smile, and we were on our way. Bienvenidos!
Stepping into Mexico, our sense of place was rapidly transformed, as if we’d squeezed through a time-space warp that sucked away all that was familiar. Borders should not be so stark, I thought. Our first impression of Tijuana was, ad mittedly, a stereotypical one: clean and littered, new and old, paved and dirt streets, kids in empty spaces, cars from every decade, all seemingly under a veil of economic uncertainty.
A populace of a half-million scratched out a living here, while their neighbors to the north, meaning us, were about to emerge from an economic recession. Due to the recession, I’d been laid off that fall from my permitting job with the county. Though temporary, it squelched my income, meager as it was, but freed me up for adventure. With winter approaching, Den nis could put his landscaping business on hold. Together we had enough coins in our purses to enjoy a low-cost holiday to Mexico. In December 1982, such a thing was still possible.
“Where the hell’s the bus station?” Dennis asked.
It seemed so easy looking at a map back in Bellingham. 1. Go to Tijuana. 2. Catch bus. 3. Get off at San Felipe. 4. Walk across desert. 5. Climb mountain. 6. March to Pacific.
We saw no buses, only a grazing herd of taxis. A driver was standing outside his car nearby and we walked over to him.
“How much to the bus station?” I asked, in my recently reconstituted high-school Spanish.
“Vamos a San Felipe,” Dennis added for clarity.
“Si, no problema. Vamos,” the man answered, waving us into his car. “Muy rapido!”
We shoved our beastly burdens into the trunk and climbed in. When the driver said “Muy rapido,” he wasn’t kidding. We lurched forward and squealed around corners with the radio blaring. Our driver spoke loudly to dominate the decibels. He was curious about we two gringos with the big packs. He tried to engage us in conversation, but neither of us understood much of what he said. We grunted and chortled courteously.
After a minute or two running the Tijuana Gran Prix, so to speak, our driver suddenly nose-dived the car through a break in a fence, and we plunged down the steep side of a concrete-lined canal. A streamlet of water—the Tijuana Riv er—flowed at the bottom. I’m thinking, Whoa, this guy can drive! Dennis sensed we were about to be mugged.
“Alto! Alto!” he yelled, insisting that the driver halt the car and let us out.
To me, the man seemed good-natured, so I assumed, or at least hoped, that he was taking us on a shortcut to the bus station. I’ve been known to have an excessively optimistic outlook in the face of, well, cars intentionally diving into ca nals. We dodged pools, dogs, kids and debris, before the man swung the car around and gunned it up another sidewall. We popped out of the canal and onto the street, screeching to a stop at the bus terminal.
Our string of misadventures kinda went like that. We were aiming for Picacho Diablo near the center of this map. San Felipe is to the right on the Sea of Cortez. And yes, we did make it across the desert and the mountains, although it took me two chapters to tell the story. (Boots on Fire is also available at Village Books in Bellingham or from Amazon.)
