Baja is Spanish for Coma

Baja is Spanish for Coma

Every fall and every spring we take the short flight to the tip of Baja. From there we drive eighty kilometers north to a little town called Pescadero nestled between coastal farms and the foothills of the Baja desert. At the second tope (speed bump) we hang a left at the broken brick building and drop down onto a bumpy and dusty farm road that takes us for one mile through rickety fences of palos (sticks) staked into the ground with barbed wire hung between them. Periodically we pass a field of hunched farm workers, a ranch horse tied to a mango tree, a pile of smoldering garbage. Usually in that order.

We hang a left at the barely recognizable Volkswagon Micro bus, circa 1965. The rusted bus peeks out of the soil and grass like a hippo coming up to view of the afternoon activities. We wind around to the left of the center fields and pop out onto the beach lane that leads to our house. No address. We’re the yellow one next to the white one that’s two down from Gary’s rentals and diagonal to the orange place that a few families share. If we had a fire, we’d have to let it burn. GPS can’t help you find a place that doesn’t exist (except on some convoluted Mexican documentation stored on microfiche in a tax office in La Paz that’s only open three days a week during the hours of “whenever we want to” and “later”). Baja is a place where most directions consist of a line sounding something like “Bueno entonces, just keep going until the road gets really rough and then go right at the big cactus.”

There, on our porch in Baja we participate in our favorite Baja pastime. We stare at it. And when I mean “it” I mean whatever it is that you're looking at. The cover of your book you’ve been clutching since breakfast but still haven’t cracked; the humming bird that’s determined to suck the life out of the flowers in front of you; the hammock swaying lightly in the breeze; the whale pods spouting out to sea. Just stare at it, and slowly the Baja coma will drift over you and hold you hostage for the duration of your stay.

I once arrived at our house for a two week stint and didn’t leave the front porch for the first four days of our trip. Didn’t walk to the beach, not even down the driveway. Just sat in a chair and stared at “it”.

When do we do this? When do we give ourselves time to empty? To shrink ourselves instead of expand. When do we give ourselves time to not learn, not push, explore, conquer, compete, clean or acquire experience. Sure, we give ourselves a nap everyday. We may meditate in the morning, or have a nice long run to clear the head. Me time. But, we fight for it. And, it’s sandwiched between two adrenaline-requiring time-crunched events that will take more than our “me time” gives. So we have to empty ourselves on a regular basis. Under stimulate.

This is easy in Baja because it has a special magic that you don’t get anywhere else. Every time we drive from Cabo to Pescadero there’s a certain sweeping view of the desert that pulls me to say: “You know, Baja would be a great place to kill someone and get away with it.” I say it every time. Not because of the lawlessness of it, but because of the sheer lost feeling you get when you gaze at the expansive desert of cactus and low shrubs crawling from the two lane highway to the peaks of the Sierra de la Laguna. Mountains that look like desert. You can do anything threre and it's invisible. It swallows the events that take place there, turning the evedence into dust. The desert makes thoughts that would otherwise be dark and strange seem uneventful and forgettable. Nothing is traumatic in the desert because everything is so still.

If you really search the landscape you can pick out the individual forms of Buzzards perched on cactus with their wings one-quarter expanded, ready to either eat or sun. They too are staring at it in their own Baja coma. They just perch, like cactus fruit, forever. Buzzards pick the carcass clean and leave little trace of its previous form. When I leave Baja I too am little trace of my previous form.

If you relax your eyes, looking at the desert is a lot like looking at the ocean. Smooth and predictable one bank of earth pushes into another like waves moving so slowly that their intervals can only be counted in geologic ages. On a macro scale the vegetation is like kelp or foam sitting passively and waiting for the next current. It never comes.

Still moving north, periodically a family can be seen by the side of the road picnicking in the back of the truck. Taco in hand, they stare at each other, emptying their heads. On the side of the road, they park with no particular view to appreciate. They don’t need a Vista Point as a reason to stop. Just a low growing tree for shade, some snacks and
plastic chairs. I want to stop. Stop and empty my head.

Maybe it’s the fish tacos, maybe it’s the dust, maybe it’s the beer with lime. Or, it’s the gecko’s blowing kissing sounds from their hiding place in the ceiling, combined with the late night dog barks that travel through the arroyos. For now I’ll consider Baja a Bruja (Witch) with the power to cast a spell that feels like a coma; soft like a trance and lingering like a hangover.