Beneath Canyon Walls

Our last big expedition in Mexico was a trek to the cave paintings at La Trinidad. We rose early from the bed and breakfast in San Ignacio where we spent the first post-whale camp night, leaving even before the chance for the breakfast side of bed-and-breakfast, and drove through the rising dawn and the purple haze of early morning to get to Mulege by 9 a.m. We had reservations with a licensed guide, leaving from La Serenidad Hotel on the outskirts of Mulege.

Mexican highways are particularly empty.

When we arrived, we had some time before the tour left. We decided to book a room at the hotel, which was a bit of a gringo-fest, but was comfortable enough. It was right next to a dirt airstrip. Apparently, a popular activity for bush pilots is to fly down to Baja and land at airstrips like the one in Mulege. Several of fellow tourists on the cave painting trip were avid pilots, and spent the whole drive out through the desert, through the gullies and washes and past the cacti discussing different obscure minutiae of flying and building their own airplanes.

This was the closest I have ever come to feeling like I was in a western movie, and that says something, considering I grew up in Hamilton, Montana.




The trip was fascinating, as the guide stopped the van a couple of times to show us different examples of cacti and plants, things that had different purposes for native tribes, and that would be quite useful for survival, assuming I had any chance of remembering the details of what did what. I do know that some of those plants could be helpful. Or not helpful. So that's something.

The point is, the desert is incredibly, unexpectedly diverse. Cacti alone come in multiple varieties.





A winding, up-and-down walk along a stony trail brought us to a canyon of steep, narrow rusty-red walls, where a small dam created a deep, still pool of water. To get to the cave paintings, we had to traverse the water. You could either swim or get hauled around the bend in the canyon by a rope-pulley system. The pool wasn't exactly requiring a marathon swim. Nevertheless, I took the boat to keep the backpacks and camera dry. I may be a hardened traveler--or maybe not--but I like my comfort.






I like what the Mexican government does to protect these cave paintings. To travel to see them, you must go with a licensed guide, who ensures no one gets to close. And if you want to take photos, you pay a fee upfront for a permit. Theoretically, someone could still sneak a picture when they get there, but that would lead to a nasty conflict with the guide--and do you really want to risk being abandoned in the middle of the desert?--and most of the people who would sign up for such a tour are probably going to be enlightened enough to want to be respectful.

These are old, incredibly old. It's hard to really get a sense of the history behind this. The guide's speech was okay, but a little disjointed, as his English was not perfect, and he had to look to Marina and another girl occasionally for help with translations. But I did get the sense that these were special, and Marina was very excited about them--especially when she found a rare book about them at a used bookstore in Loreto the next day (I bought a Laurie King novel at the store, for the record.)





The way back out was a quick sojourn. Lunch was served, of ham sandwiches--minus the ham for me--oranges, and water, all in the shade back at the headquarters of the ranch where the caves are located. This offered the final two vistas.




Here, now, at the end of the trip, the desert no longer looked so barren. It now looked rich and full of variety. You just have to know what you are seeing. The rest of the trip was uneventful; we stayed in Mulege on Friday night, left early and drove in to Loreto, where we walked around a little more and had a tasty Italian lunch at a small restaurant with good beer, before driving to the airport for an easy flight home. All in all, it was everything I could have hoped for in the trip.