Thrill Ride Through Baja: Mexico’s Epic 1000-Mile Adventure

 

Ruta Uno, Baja’s Federal Highway Route 1, hugs its coastline most of the time, but not always on the same coastline of the nation’s enormous peninsula. South of Guerrero Negro and into Baja Sur (Southern Baja), it crosses to the east and skirts the Sea of Cortez until flopping back west just before coming into Cabo San Lucas.

Sweeping west we saw some of the most arid country I’d ever come across. Even the cactus seem to shrivel. If you happen to be looking on Baja from a satellite, it would appear to be folded chocolate fudge, all dark swirls and humps and valleys; not a green thing in sight. We wound our way through it in less than two hours before bisecting a great mountain pass and then descending out of the desiccated plateau to the azure Sea of Cortez below, windswept with mountain/islands that seemed to erupt from the water, green to their caps. After hours of seeing nothing but dust and grit, it was like coming into Tolkien’s Valinor.

But the view soon changed when we arrived at sea level and rattled into Santa Rosalia, as ugly as a badger hole, rimmed by small warehouses, decrepit shacks and truck stops along the main highway. We were hoping to find something to eat, but a quick survey into the heart of the town revealed, as they say in Mexico, nada, so we headed onto Mulegé, our next stop.

There we pulled up to a gravel parking lot that split off a road that had taken us by some spaghetti route deeper into town among white stucco buildings crammed along its narrow streets. Across the road sat a deep inlet where modest but brightly colored homes rimmed the water, their small wooden docks housing motor or row boats that could take you deeper into the estuary in one direction or out to sea in the other. It has the Hippie, laid-back vibe of the 1960s, a throwback to the days of flowers in your hair, bell-bottom jeans and the scents of Panama Red wafting in the air. The restaurant was an open shack with outdoor tables that served beer, tacos, empanadas and enchiladas. Every person dining at the place seemed to be American, and everyone seemed to be preoccupied with food, beer, motorcycles and their races.

The town of Mulege in Baja. Small shops line a small street with cars parked on either side. In the background is a small ridge with homes and a tall cell tower.

 “Hola, I am Juan Carlos,” says a big, bald man heaving up to our little metal table. “The shrimp chile rellenos are spectacular!” He wears a Texas-sized grin and is the picture of raw energy. No sleepy siestas for him.

“Juan !” I say. “You must be the owner.”

“Oh, no, “ he says. “I’m not that one. I’m just Juan. That’s THE Juan over there,” and he jabs his thumb at the boarded sign that hangs behind him, the one that reads: “Juan’s Racing Bar and Grill.” 

He grins. We laugh. He had the joke down pat.

“I’ll be back with your beers.” He disappears into the shack that rings with the sounds of another big man, the short order cook with a 5 o’clock shadow, his massive hands waving his metal spatula around like a samurai as he serves up sizzling grilled beef, chicken and shrimp.

Juan speaks English as flawlessly as a Chicago anchorman though he was born in San Quintin (recently visited— see Dispatch XXIV) and grew up in Mulegé (pronounce Moo legh-hay with a guttural “gh.”) “Lots of television,” he explains. “Lots of movies with subtitles. The chile relllenos! They’re comin.”

We ask if there is hotel around. “Right up the road, top of the hill,” says the other Juan.

We had seen that place while exploring the spaghetti route. “There’s no one home there,” I say.

“Oh, they’ll be back,” Bob probably just ran out for beer. “Check after you eat.”

We do, but the hotel, which looked promising, is clearly cerrado (closed). We rope our way our back, hoping to find a bed along the coastal road before its unpredictable highway and the dark swallow us up.

We’ve been told that along the Sea of Cortez, you’ll see some of the most beautiful beaches in the world. Try Playa El Requesón, Playa de Balandra, Playa Santispac and Playa El Coyote, all between Mulége and La Paz. The beaches are wide and undeveloped. Sometimes we saw trucks or small RVs and tents right up on the sand, their denizens as carefree and easy as the ocean air. No condos or hotels here; just more of the 60’s-hanging-ten beach vibe. If we had any camping gear it would have been tempting to just set up, build a fire and uncork a couple of cold ones, but we are tentless and without food and therefore in need of sturdier accommodations. And we were running low on time.

A small campground sits on a secluded Baja beach under a blue sky. A tent and bench sits in the shade of the lone tree on the beach.

Soon we found ourselves creeping, not speeding, along Route 1 because we were stuck behind an 18-wheeler that was hauling tons of long, bouncing, iron rebar. From the time we began our descent out of the desert, we could not seem to shake this truck. Route 1’s maximum width is never more than two lanes. The only way to pass is to find a slab of pavement long and straight enough to make the passage non-lethal. But straight stretches are rare in Baja. We get to calling the truck “Rebar Guy” and this is not a term of endearment. The behemoth is slow, heavy and noisy, crashing its gears when heading up hill and blaaahhhting with its Jake brake when heading down. Never once does this driver offer to pull to the side to allow us or anyone else to pass. We had passed him before Rosalia, but fell behind when looking for food there; later we passed him again, but after lunch with Juan he passed us by.  Each time we caught him, we again were forced to risk death to circumnavigate his enormous haul, or risk running out of daylight. This happened every time we stopped to take a picture or checked to see if a hotel was open. Naturally the few hotels we found were all closed - COVID has shut them down. So once again we returned to the highway to find ourselves gazing at the backend of Rebar Guy’s reams of thudding iron bars. It was maddening and darkness was coming.

Loreto

After multiple Rebar Guy encounters we finally decided to forsake any efforts at finding accommodations, leave the truck in the rearview mirror for good and push onto Loretto, Baja’s next city.  In Spanish the word Loreto means “a destination at the end of a pilgrimage.” It was certainly that after our encounters with Ruta 1 and Rebar Guy.  Loreto might be our most favorite Baja city. It's a small town, but not too small, embraceable, and the people are enormously friendly. As we rolled off the highway and through its darkening streets Cyn found a charming hotel called the Posada de las Flores Loreto, a hotel in the classic Spanish colonial style perfectly located near the town plaza and the beach.

 

Loreto was founded by a Jesuit missionary named Juan Maria Salvatierra in 1697 when he built a small mission there, and for that reason it became the first capital of all the Californias, a region that in those days included Mexico and much what became the United States as far north as San Francisco. The famous Franciscan priest Junipero Serra used Loreto as his base when he began colonizing New California - missions built in San Diego, Sacramento, Monterey, Santa Barbara and San Francisco. You can find all of the historical proof displayed right there in Loreto’s museum located next to Our Lady of Loreto mission. Many of the documents are 300 years old.

The next morning we explored our posada’s roof top pool festooned with wood and iron wrought tables and bright white canvas umbrellas above a tan tile floor. It gave us a perfect view of the town’s small but vibrant plaza with its shops and restaurants and bakeries. People scurried back and forth below, while children laughed and played, and quiet clusters of tourists wandered the small stores or settled down for a meal among the patioed eateries. The plaza has everything you can want by day: coffee shops, local retail stores, the required steepled church (Our Lady of Loreto), and at night excellent restaurants and bars and plenty of open pedestrian walkways.

While exploring the town we met Mike from Alaska who learned of our travels and told us we must take the Oresund train between Sweden and Copenhagen that crosses over a great bridge and then dives for miles through a tunnel below water. We noted that because we knew we’d be heading that way after exploring South America and Antarctica (trace the route on our PolarSteps map).  The next morning at breakfast we met Bob, originally from Newfoundland (also see dispatches IX and X), and his wife Stasia at breakfast. They’ve often visited Loreto to escape Victoria’s Canadian winters.  “When you make it to Victoria (also on our itinerary),” they told us, “be sure to take the  Blackball Express ferry from Port Angeles. Bob, who loves to motorcycle also recommended I read a book that was one of his favorites: Jupiter’s Travels. Later I did read it on my way by ship through the Panama Canal and enjoyed it so much I chose it as my favorite travel book. (You can read summaries of my personal current list of the world’s ten best travel books here.) 

In the evenings, we took long walks along the town’s malecón (boardwalk). It was pristine, calming and absolutely safe. The perfect weather, verdant mountains and riotous sunsets didn’t hurt either. It’s a sweet little gem, Loreto, known in Mexico as a Pueblo Magico. If you’re in the neighborhood, you’ll love this town. Nevertheless, after three evenings, it was time to push on toward the bottom of the peninsula and  La Paz.

La Paz

A silhouetted figure looks over the boats in the La Paz harbor at sunset. The bright orange and red clouds shine above.

La Paz means peace in Spanish, but the vile story behind the first Spanish conquistadors to find the bay was anything but peaceful. In 1533  Hernán Cortés sent two ships under the command of Diego de Becerra to explore the South Pacific and find two other Spanish ships that had been lost the previous year.  Becerra’s ship, the Concepción, was separated from its sister but continued its explorations. That’s when things got ugly.  Fortún Ximénez was the Concepión’s navigator and second in command, and he was not happy with the decisions Becerra was making. He mutineed and murdered Becerra in his sleep. And he had all of Becerra’s crewmen murdered too. From there Ximénez and his men wandered until they found what they believed to be the Island of California, a mythical place written about in the popular Spanish romance novel Las Sergas de Esplandián.  The fictional California was supposedly a terrestrial paradise populated only by dark-skinned women. When the mutineers landed, they found scantily clad natives who spoke a language entirely unknown to them from the Mexican highlands. Rather than learning from them, they raped the women and plundered the bay for black pearl oysters the locals sometimes harvested. In retaliation the natives killed Ximénez and several of his men.

La Paz is not the mythical island that the conquistadors were looking for, but its bay remains as beautiful as it was the day Ximénez and his men came to plunder it 500 years ago. With a population of over 200,000 today it is a larger version of Loreto (10 times the population).  But like Loreto, it has a long and lovely malecón, even if it is more active than its sister city.  Dark-haired children and their parents and lovers of every age saunter in uneven lines between sculptures and along the sun-kissed beach as roller skaters weave in and out.  Between the malecón and the sea lay a broad beach filled with volleyballers, and bathers lounging beneath small umbrellas of straw. Everything is spotless. In the evening we watched hundreds of cars cruise along the beach’s main drag with children leaning out of the windows gazing beyond the water as the sun set. I was not sure what I expected to see in La Paz or Loreto, but it wasn’t this. Unlike San Quintin or Santa Rosalia or even Mulegé, they were neither run down trash strewn towns nor high end Cancún style resorts. They were simply pleasant beach towns filled mostly with local families enjoying the fine winter weather and spectacular views. 

We had found La Paz after driving four hours of winding highway that rises up and down the peninsula, wheeling us between the sea and the Sierra La Gigantica. By afternoon we had arrived at a tiny B&B with a small enclosed swimming pool called Casa Juarez that Cyndy had found near the corners of Benito Juárez and Revolution 1910 streets - eight snug, but well-appointed rooms. (The streets are named for the bloody revolution that lasted ten years in Mexico and shaped the modern nation. Benito Juarez was a liberal politician who served as Mexico’s 26th president from 1858 to 1872.)

A quiet beach on a calm day after sunset. The sky is orange and beige. Some palms are scattered in the background and the beach on the left is lapped by gentle waves.

Casa Juarez was just a few blocks from the La Paz wharf, owned and operated by Silvana and Jacopo, both Italian. Silvana ran the place, an attractive middle-aged woman, always busy, her long dark hair looking a bit tussled as she ran around the compound attending to clients, checking email, preparing coffee like an expert barista, one cup at a time.   Her husband Jacopo, a big jolly man, had built the hotel and prepared all the food all while belting out his favorite Italian operas. Together they had created a little oasis in the middle of the city; gated (but don’t worry it’s safe), a small, lovely pool, ringed with palm trees and bamboo and grass hut awnings with snug patios and porches for each of the rooms. They had designed the place and then built it from the ground up over 10 years earlier. Every corner was square and plum which is not always the case in Mexican buildings. Silvana had found the property when she was vacationing in La Paz and decided she wanted to create a B&B, and so they did.

She loved the work but they had recently put the B&B up for sale – available for $1.3 million if you're interested. If it sells she told us, that was fine and then they would travel. If not she was also perfectly content continuing to run it. Where would they go when they did travel, I asked? Mexico, Silvana said, maybe Japan and China. Europe she already knew. She did love Sicily and Sardinia. Maybe South America. She was less sure of Asia and Africa. We said we would do our best to let her know what we found.

Each morning we sat down to breakfast and got the full board of Jacopo cooking. The first day I had a single poached egg, topped on a tiny tortilla, wrapped around one strip of bacon with just a touch of tangy cheese at the base. I took the tortilla, dipped it in the egg until it was all gone and then devoured the remainder.  You’d think this was enough with papaya and pineapple, watermelon and cantaloupe chunks available along with yogurt and toast and a variety of cereals, but it wasn't. After you ate all of that, Jacopo, wearing a broad, proud grin would then drop, without asking, three tiny sandwiches each in front of us. He did this every morning for every customer after first going to the counter he had created, quaffing a shot of espresso and singing out in a basso profundo, “Aaahhh!” This sometimes caused their yellow Labrador to rouse himself with a bark, but then he’d swiftly settle back to sleep.

People from all over the world seemed to find Casa Juarez — there was the young couple Ian and Ana, staying with us; a middle-aged French couple of unknown origin; another couple who spoke German (or maybe it was Dutch) and liked to lounge by the pool; and four Canadians. I learned from Silvana that she spoke four languages with varying degrees of command. Italian was her native language, Spanish came easy, then English and finally French. “I never could master Portuguese,” she said. “Or Sardinian for that matter - totally different, completely unlike Italian! I don't know where it comes from!" In between her duties Silvana advised we all must keep our brains active. “Or you’ll lose them!” I figured that mastering four languages probably put her brain in a good spot.

We enjoyed our time in La Paz. Got some work done (solid internet), strolled the malecón, witnessed the sun setting over the Sea of Cortez and watched the endless parade of shining sedans, SUVs and convertibles rumble by. On our last evening, heading back to our room we met Ian and Ana helping themselves to glasses of wine by the small pool. Both, we quickly learned were serious travelers. They  worked on cruise ships, Ian as a cook. Anna had traveled the Trans-Siberian Railway and they were now headed to the Mexican mainland to take the El Chepe Express, considered one of the most spectacular trains in the world. I had never heard of it, but gathered all the information I could from them before saying goodnight. Back at the room I told Cyndy all about the El Chepe, and she immediately said, "We have to try that!"

"Absolutely!" I said. I’d begin looking into it as soon as we got to Cabo San Lucas and completed our one thousand mile Baja run the next day. And the following morning that’s what we did.

But that’s another story.

See you somewhere soon. In the meantime, crack on!

Your Vagabonds,

 

Resource: https://vagabond-adventure.com/library/driving-mexicos-baja-1000-part-two

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Vote for the Best: Our Top 12 Travel Photos of 2023

 

Rate your top photo, and receive a signed hardback copy of Chip’s most recent book — Immortality, Inc. for $9.99, 60% off (until February 27, 2024 or while supplies last). Limit one per person. Use promotional code IMMORTALITY999 at checkout. The Wall St. Journal called Immortality “a gripping chronicle of private-sector experimentation and ingenuity.”

Leave your thoughts in the comments below. Read on to learn more about the images below or use this link to skip right to the voting. Voting ends 2/29/24. Sign up for the Vagabond-Adventure semi-monthly newsletter here.

The Year in Pictures

2023 was another remarkable travel year as we made our way around the planet on our Vagabond Adventure. Thanks for joining us!

There was plenty to see and we captured thousands of images — many of them shared in our regular Journal updates. Here are what we consider some of the greatest travel photos of 2023.

But which were the best? You tell us. You’ll find all 12 below, including one beauty from fellow Vagabond, world-class hiker and orthopedic surgeon Jorina Jurth.

These images, and many more, are available in the Vagabond Adventure Store as high quality prints.

Click the link below to choose your top 2023 travel photo,  Feel free to share your comments! And if you send us a message on Facebook or here and tell us your favorite picture, we’ll send you a free digital copy.

Nørvøya Island - Ålesund, Norway

Tuesday · Oct 3, 2023 · 2:22 PM

On a blustery day a little less than halfway up the Norwegian Coast, Cyn and I climbed the 700 — vertical feet to the top of this outlook. Ålesund is a beautifully walkable city that sits on a peninsula that juts into the Atlantic Ocean The town is filled with Art Nouveau architecture built after the original city was burned to the ground in a fire in the early 20th century.

Download a high resolution digital copy of Norwegian Peninsula here or buy a high quality print.

The Road to Patagonia - Torres del Paine, Chile

Feb 13, 2023 · 10:59 AM

In Chile they call them Torres del Paine, a combination of Spanish and native words that mean the Blue Towers, and they actually are that remarkable color. Enormous mountains carved to their sharp edges by glaciers that have now departed and left this awesome peaks. I caught the image as we were driving into the heart of Patagonia and the view, with the road and car ahead, said all that any place this unique and beautiful can — come closer!

Download a high resolution digital copy of The Blue Towers of Patagonia or buy a high quality print here.

Night Church, Jokkmokk Sweden

Nov 3, 2023 · 7:50 PM

It was dark and snowing when we arrived at this tiny Swedish village, home to an annual Lapland Festival with the region’s native Sami people. Bathed in golden light and luminaries, and surrounded by fresh snow, with its lovely steeple, it looked like something out of a fairy tale; a perfect Christmas card. 

Download a high resolution digital copy of Night Church here or buy a high quality print.

The High Andes of Peru

May 8, 2023 · 2:38 PM

We met Jorina while traveling through Patagonia on Navimag. An orthopedic surgeon from Germany, she’s a self-admitted travel addict and hiker. She’s walked among some of the most spectacular views anywhere and prefers to seek out little know hikes, including this one in Peru’s Cordillera Huayhuash (the northern Andes), a spectacular photo. She says she was hiking between Mitococha and Carhuacocha — probably 10°13′21.36″S 76°52′54.51 if you want to check it on Google Earth.

Download a high resolution digital copy of Peru’s Cordillera Huayhuash.

Antarctic Icebergs

Mar 5, 2023 · 5:01 PM

Antarctica is a part of planet earth unlike anything you will ever see. We are determined to explore all seven continents, so Antarctica was must. This image taken as we road among hundreds of immense icebergs surrounded by the sea, whales, penguins, seals and flocks of seabirds shows you the scale of Antarctica’s beauty and uniqueness.

Start here to read the story of our Antarctic excursion and see more stunning images.

Download a high resolution digital copy of Antarctic Icebergs or buy a print copy here.

Cape Horn, South America

Feb 19, 2023 · 7:43 AM

On our voyage through Tierra Del Fuego onboard Australis, we made our way to the very tip of South America, the storied land called Cape Horn, home to the roughest seas in the world. Just after our zodiac got us on land and we hiked to summit shortly after dawn and I caught this image of the sun above a place where three oceans (the Atlantic, South and Pacific) collide. 

Read about the visit to Cape Horn then follow the links to other portions of the cruise through Tierra del Fuego.

Download a high resolution digital copy of Sunrise at Cape Horn or buy a high quality print.

Arctic Monster, Svalbard, Norway

Oct 24, 2023 · 3:26 PM

Svalbard is home to the northernmost human habitations on earth. As I walked to the dock nearby where coal used to be loaded for delivery around the world, I took this picture because the mountain is monstrous, at least half a mile high with these mesmerizing geological features. I couldn’t seem to take my eyes off of them.

Read the Longyearbyen entries starting with our travel from Tromsø in the Vagabond Journal

Download a high resolution digital copy of Arctic Monster or buy a high quality print.

Antarctic Sun

Mar 2, 2023 · 3:14 PM

We were kayaking through Danco Bay among humpback whales and these immense Antarctic icebergs. I had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. It was dead quiet. A storm was moving in and that background against the grand iceberg, the glinting ice and the darkening sky delivered this picture.

Start here to read the story of our Antarctic excursion and see more stunning images.

Download a high resolution digital copy of Antarctic Icebergs or buy a high quality print.

The Shire - Kystpilgrimsleai Park, Norway

Oct 5, 2023 · 1:32 PM

It had been raining all morning when we came to this living museum that shows off what life was like in small Norwegian fishing villages. Then the sun came out and the green carpet of trees and grass and an old cemetery lay before me. I thought we had arrived in the Shire in The Lord of the Rings.

Download a high resolution digital copy of The Shire or buy a high quality print.

Lake & Mountains, Narvik, Norway

Oct 18, 2023 · 1:19 PM

We were just outside the port town of Narvik in the faith north of Norway, heading to Sweden. Snow had fallen in the faraway mountains that surrounded this enormous bay. I had to at least try to capture that magnificent view.

Read the Narvik entry in the Vagabond Journal.

Download a high resolution digital copy of Hålogaland Bridge or buy a high quality print.

Lapland Pines, Kittilä, Finland

Nov 2, 2023 · 12:32 PM

While looking for a dog-sledding camp in the far north of Finland on an early November afternoon, we got lost, but stumbled into the entrance of this park. Not a soul was around and the sun was brilliant after a hard snow. This part of the world is thick will millions of acres of trees, but in the sunlight and following the snow storm, these particular ones stunned me with their quiet beauty.

See more images while passing through Pallas in the Vagabond Journal.

Download a high resolution digital copy of Lapland Pines or buy a high quality print.

Lapland Moon, Kolari Finland

Nov 1, 2023 · 3:23 PM

We were headed to the far north of Finland in search of Lapland, reindeer and serenity. We found it on this road after a recent snow storm. The sun was already setting and then this big moon arose. The open road beckoned, and so did the big moon that hung in a perfect blue sky. What a world we live in.

Download a high resolution digital copy of Lapland Moon or buy a high quality print.

 

Resource: https://vagabond-adventure.com/library/best-scenic-photos-2023

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Guidance and Ideas for Every Traveler and Every Destination

 

The Vagabond Adventure is just one of so many great travel websites out there. Whatever type of traveler you are (adventure, budget, foodie, solo etc.), wherever you are going, you can find a travel blogger to help your own mission.

Anywhere you go online, there are planning tools, inspirations, ideas, and many fantastic stories. With thousands of these resources, how can you choose? Honestly, we don’t think you can go wrong with any of them, but each has a personality, a flavor to match your tastes.

Here, we’ve decided to include some of our personal favorites. These aren’t the biggest or most popular sites. We think they are highly underrated. Our preference is to avoid the more commercial sites altogether in favor of storytellers and guides that we think our Vagabond audience would relate to.

If you’re looking for more travel content, start with these recommendations and please come back here often as we’re always discovering new adventurers with their own unique takes on getting around the world.

And if you don’t mind, leave a comment below on our selections and please recommend your own favorite travel blogs. Perhaps we can add it to our list!

Great and, Dare We Say, Underrated Travel Blogs?

Just One for the Road

Rupert is a kindred soul. With time to travel the world, he has created a fantastic library of stories from destinations anywhere you might look, along with a nice filter to guide you towards your next favorite spot. He even suggests his own set of travel reading recommendations that are a nice complement to our own favorite travel adventure stories.

Two Birds Breaking Free

Eoghan and Jili write about budget travel, mostly through Asia. Whether you’re looking for inspiration or practical travel ideas you’ll do well to take a look at their work. We especially like their Travel Philosophy.

We also love that they aim for the lesser known spots.

Our own adventure into Asia hasn’t begun (continent #6 coming 2025) , but we’re happy to have drawn some ideas from their exploits.

Perfect Day Somewhere

Perfect Day is written by an ambitious data scientist named Kasia who somehow manages to get about constantly despite managing a career in one of the hottest fields around. We are particularly fond of her delight with “curious humans,” a fascination that Vagabond Adventure readers will recognize in our own work.

She delivers some practical and fun itineraries you should check out. We recently told our own story traveling Into the Sahara via Merzouga. Compare notes by reading up on her own Merzouga Tour.

Fshoq!

Besides being an avid traveler Wojtek is a fantastic photographer. We have to commend him for having one of the most elegant websites we’ve seen that includes this stunning interactive map of his travel destinations.

His travel posts are efficient and tailored to narrow topics. But the range of topics he delivers is what impresses us, with categories covering environmental, family, adventure, and even suggestions for moving your residence.

Travelfoss

Diana and Steve are a Romanian couple who have been traveling nomadically for nearly a decade. They don’t like to think of themselves as nomads, but their travel schedule is quite impressive. Of course, a decade of excursions across all 7 continents and 50 countries has left a wealth of content for us to enjoy.

Their diverse portfolio includes travel tips, destinations, and itineraries.

Heather on Her Travels

Heather Cowper has been active over 15 years, offering travel inspiration for the 50+ traveler who likes authentic experiences mixed with a bit of luxury. Although she gets around the world, most of her writing covers Europe and North America where she writes about food, cruising, and culture.

Heather’s destinations and stories don’t overlap much with our own, in topic or location, making her site an excellent complement to the Vagabond Adventure.

 Resource: https://vagabond-adventure.com/recommendations/favorite-best-underrated-travel-blogs-and-travel-resources

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Grand Gallery at Luxor Temple complex

 Grand Gallery at Luxor Temple complex where 96 enormous columns rise to the sky. From the Vagabond Adventure Day 726.

See more: https://vagabond-adventure.com/

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The World's Most Remarkable Journey: A Tale Beyond Borders

 

It is difficult to imagine a tougher, or luckier, man than British adventurer Apsley Cherry-Garrard. At the tender age of 23 he finagled his way onto Robert Falcon Scott’s Terra Nova expedition to Antarctica and was among 12 original members of the team that set out to race Norwegian Roald Amundsen’s party to the South Pole in 1911-1912.  Only Cherry-Garrard survived.

That alone would have cemented his reputation as a man of daring, but the winter before that near death experience, he survived an even more harrowing ordeal in the Antarctic that today remains one of the most astounding and dangerous adventures ever. It was so bad that he described it to his neighbor, the great playwright George Bernard Shaw, upon his return to England as “the worst journey in the world”. Nine years later that became the title of the book he wrote that chronicled the experience. In 1996 National Geographic rated the book the best true adventure story ever written, topping a list of 100 stories that included William Clark’s and Meriweather Lewis’ Journal and Marco Polo’s Travels.

Cherry-Garrard, Wilson and Bowers

The adventure happened because the expedition’s chief scientist Dr. Edward “Bill” Wilson had a mission he wanted to complete. Wilson had it in his head to gather the unhatched eggs of Emperor Penguins (themselves later made famous in the 2005 documentary March of the Penguins). Scientific theory at the time held that the embryos of the flightless, and therefore primitive, birds would provide valuable insights into the evolutionary links  between modern birds and dinosaurs.

Scott was opposed to the trip, but Wilson finally convinced him that a small expedition could be mounted before the whole team set off for the South Pole the following spring. So when Scott’s ship, the Terra Nova, set sail from Cardiff, Wales for Antarctica’s McMurdo Sound June 15, 1910, Wilson had his plan in place.  It would call for three men to haul 757 pounds of supplies and equipment on two 9 foot sledges 60 miles from the expedition’s base camp at Cape Evans to the far side of Ross Island across the Ross Ice Shelf past Mount Terror to Cape Crozier, all of it in the dead of the Antarctic winter. That was the only time emperor penguin fathers were known to wait out the frigid winds and weather at the edge of the sea, and protect the unhatched eggs penguin mothers left in their care in the fall. This in itself is one of the more stunning examples of paternal devotion in nature.

Cherry-Garrard idolized Wilson, but it was too bad for him that the scientist had taken him under his wing and made him an assistant Zoologist on the expedition. That, and his youth, were likely the reasons he was chosen to accompany the scientist along with Lieutenant Henry 'Birdie' Bowers.

On June 22, 1911 (the shortest day of the winter) the three set off from camp hauling their sledges without the help of dogs or ponies in almost total darkness to face gale force winds and withstand temperatures that some nights plummeted to 77 degrees F below zero. (That’s a wind chill factor of −140º F. ) Some days the men hauled the sledges no more than a mile, often having to pull one ahead, then walk back to haul the other so that for every mile advanced, three had to be covered.

The unearthly cold made doing the most routine jobs nearly impossible. There was no warm place to go. Tying ropes, striking matches, handling gear and preparing meals, all necessary for setting up and breaking down camp, took a total of nine hours each day. If hands were exposed for even a few seconds, frostbite set in. The moisture of their bodies and breathing didn’t evaporate as it normally does, but instead froze on their faces and beards and inside their clothing, encasing them in a kind of hardened exoskeleton if they stopped moving for very long. Their state-of-the-art reindeer sleeping bags would thaw and grow mushy at night as they slept in them, but then, having absorbed the moisture of their bodies, would rapidly freeze once they crawled out in the morning, making them more like sarcophaguses than bedding. Touching bare skin to any kind of metal was like applying a blowtorch to it, instantly freezing and blistering it. Every day was a battle to save their toes, feet and hands from the triple threat of wind, moisture and cold.

And then there was the darkness. Day and night were essentially indistinguishable, and time tended to slide this way and that without regard to the actual hour of the day. When they awoke they undertook their marches in blackness. Around noon the sun would rise close enough to the horizon to shed a thin halo of light, and then quickly disappear. Cloudless nights with a full-moon (extremely rare) provided more illumination than the noon day sun.

“I don’t believe minus seventy temperatures would be bad in daylight,” Cherry-Garrard wrote in his book, “when you could see where you were going…; could read your watch to see if the blissful moment of getting out of your bag was come without groping in the snow all about; when it would not take five minutes to lash up the door of the tent, and five hours to get started in the morning …” “We slept,” he later wrote, “as men sleep on the rack.”

Through all of this they subsisted on butter, pemmican, tea, hot water and specially made “Antarctic” biscuits designed to provide maximum calories and nutrition.

More than once the men were sure they wouldn’t make it, but after 19 days of frigid hell they managed to haul the sledges through the foothills of Mount Terror to the edge of Crozier Bay where they beheld thousands of emperor penguins standing resolutely in the Antarctic night, their unhatched offspring tucked snugly between their feet, feathers and their enveloping stomachs. The storms came, the winds howled, the temperatures plummeted, yet the birds stood against it all, taut, unflagging and indomitable.  Looking out over the scene Cherry-Garrard wrote in a kind of awe that the land, “Seemed to cast a spell of cold immensity, vague, ponderous, a breeding place of wind and drift and darkness. God! What a place.”

The worst came after they arrived.

The men built a small hut, fitted it with a wooden roof and lashed their tent to it on the leeward side of a small outcropping of rock above Crozier Bay. The idea was that this would provide them something better than the tent they had been huddling within for the past three weeks. Before they completed it, they visited the rookery, retrieved several eggs (three eventually made it to England), and completed drawings of the amazing site under the thin noon sun. Then a winter storm closed on them and smashed the little outpost like a hammer.

The men huddled in the igloo as the winds topped force 11, 75 miles an hour. The wind roared, “As though the earth was torn to pieces.” And then their worst nightmare. First their tent was ripped from its moorings and disappeared in the wall of snow the blizzard had become, and then the block and canvas roof of their igloo tore apart. They were left entirely exposed at −12 Fahrenheit in a black storm whose winds were approaching hurricane force. They may as well have been on Mars. For 36 black hours they huddled in their sleeping bags as the snow drifted around them, shivering, waiting.

Amazingly when the storm had passed all three were still alive and frostbite had failed to take any of their digits, toes or limbs. Even more amazing was their discovery, a half mile from their shattered hut, of the tent that was the key to their continued survival. Without it they could never hope to make it the 60 miles back to base camp. Now they had a chance.

With their eggs safely stowed among their gear, they began the slog back to Cape Evans with their broken tent, crippled cook stove and battered bodies. Growing weaker each day, they marched through the night-day, pummeled by more unrelenting snow and wind.

“The day’s march was bliss compared to the night’s rest,” wrote Cherry-Garrard, “and both were awful.” 

At one point two of them fell into a crevasse nearly pulling the sledge and their third companion with them into the abyss. But somehow they managed to crawl out and five days later, drawing on reserves of human courage and perseverance most of us couldn’t even imagine, they made it back to camp. No one even saw them coming, until one of the team opened the door of their warm winter hut and said, “Good God! Here is the Crozier Party!”

Their clothes had to be cut off they were so hardened, and when at last they could sleep, they did, on and off for days, in between luscious meals and gallons of hot chocolate and tea. Said Cherry-Garrard, “…our beds are the height of all our pleasures.”

The experience had bonded the Cherry-Garrard, Birdie, and Bill Wilson as few men could possibly be joined. But within a year Wilson, along with the apparently indestructible Birdie Bowers and Scott himself would all be dead, victims of the expedition’s failed race to the South Pole. Cherry-Garrard, who had been ordered to return to base because of a food shortage, later found their bodies in what was left of their tent, 11 miles short of their next cache of food. 

Scott was the last to die and closed out his diary with these words, “We are getting weaker, of course, and the end cannot be far. It seems a pity, but I do not think I can write more.” And then one last sentence, a plea: “For God’s sake look after our people.”

And what came of the three eggs that in Cherry-Garrard’s words, three humans “had strained to the utmost extremity of human endurance” to bring out of the Antarctic night? The British Museum of Natural History accepted them without fanfare, unceremoniously really. Cherry-Garrard had to wait all day cooling his heels outside the office of the Chief Custodian to receive a receipt for their delivery. Eventually the scientific verdict was that while the effort to retrieve the eggs was admirable, they did not really shed any new light on the evolution of birds, or their connection to dinosaurs.

Cherry-Garrard managed to live another 46 years after his return to England. His book, published in 1922, is universally considered a classic. Later in life he developed what we would now call post-traumatic stress disorder. He spent many years bed ridden as the result of his Antarctic adventures. He married late in life, in his fifties, and chose not to have any children because he feared he might pass along the mental illnesses from which he believed he suffered. He said that writing his story down, helped him deal with his demons.

Resource: https://vagabond-adventure.com/library/the-worst-journey-in-the-world

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Unveiling the Mysteries of Morocco

 

I had been looking forward to this day for years and the idea of finally making it across the Straits of Gibraltar (the Pillars of Hercules to the ancients) had me giddy with excitement. The modern Kingdom of Morocco was created in August 1956, but its roots go far deeper. To me it was one of those fabled countries, a place of mystery and enchantment where men in their djeelabas and and women in their hijabs walked the clamoring markets; where descendants of Neanderthals had migrated from Africa into Europe and Hannibal had massed his armies for an assault on the Roman Empire; where the Moors and Celts, Phoenicians, Portuguese and Spanish had changed and exchanged the fortunes of millions again and again whether it was the caliphates of Islam pouring into Andalusian Spain or Franco raising his fascist army before cutting that nation in two and auguring the slaughter of World War II. Indeed Spain and Morocco were in many ways kindred, if uneasy, cousins despite living on separate continents and being separated by two religions long at one another’s throats. To me that only made Morocco’s imminent arrival more intriguing. We were ready … except now there was a problem.

Heading south from London through the vineyards and farmlands of France and Spain.

It was at breakfast the morning we were to depart Algeciras that we got word that cash, and cash only, must be used to buy the local bus ticket to Tarifa.  I was carrying a single Euro in my pocket. Now I had a half an hour to solve the problem and began madly combing the town in search of an ATM, or some bank or a Bureau of Exchange. Nothing. I returned to the hotel lobby, dejected and Euro-less, when a young lady we had spoken to earlier at the front desk said she had arranged special permission at the bus station (right next door) allowing us to pay for our tickets with a credit card. I wanted to kiss the woman (inappropriate) so instead I spat out a, “Muchas gracias” way too loudly and way too many times before (much to her relief, I’m sure) we heaved up our bags and walked to the bus station next door. In two minutes we had the tickets in hand.

Tarifa

The ride to Tarifa swung us at a leisurely pace through the suburbs of Algeciras and over a mountain pass, down twisting roads and then to a ridge where I beheld the Straits of Gibraltar, and beyond, the vast continent of Africa – home to humanity.

As the bus swung onto a ridge above Tarifa, I could make out the Straits of Gibraltar and the coast of the African continent.

The grandness of this vision disappeared when our bus pulled into a little parking lot and we were all unceremoniously instructed to depart. It turned out that we were not to be dropped at the ferry station, but simply deposited somewhere in the middle of the town to be hopelessly lost the moment we stepped off the bus. I blundered through some bad Spanish and asked the driver, “Donde esta ferry??” 

More than once this bus driver had surely heard some clueless tourist ask this question, and his response  was to vaguely wave his hands in the general direction of the Mediterranean, then, suddenly say in perfect English, “You may get a taxi."

Well yeah, I thought, if I knew where to find one and I spoke fluent Spanish.

We stood in the Andalusian heat and looked around. A young woman, Norwegian I think, tried to help us find a taxi. She pulled out her phone and in her best, but not great, Spanish failed to get help. And then suddenly she departed because her our own taxi showed up. (She was heading INTO Spain, not out.) Cyn and I snatched at our phones and jabbed at Apple Maps. Maybe we could walk. How far away could the ferry be? After much tapping and swiping, we finally located the ferry office,  and ourselves in relation to it. We were a mile apart.

We began walking into winds gusting 40 miles an hour. This did not help our progress. Tarifa is a classic beach town with small shops festooned inside and out with caps, towels, fast food and beach paraphernalia of every kind, all of which would have been perfectly at home along Mission Beach in San Diego or a Jersey Shore boardwalk. In the brilliant sun the buildings looked as bright and colorful as Edward Hopper paintings. We dragged ourselves over cobble-stoned backstreets and followed Apple Maps down a long hill to the town’s ancient castle and then into the docks where with amazing speed we filled out our paperwork, showed our tickets and made it through security to await the ferry.

We boarded the ferry to Tangier. Across the street sat the Castle of Tarifa,  built in 960 by Abd-ar-Rahman III, Caliph of Córdoba, a sign that for 500 years the Moors once ruled much of Spain.

At last, I thought, we’ll make it. The plan was to spend the next three weeks there, where, I hoped, we’d get a proper dose of the place. Our explorations of North America — Newfoundland, the American West, El Chepe, the Baja 1000, Vancouver and Victoria had all been wonderful, but I was looking forward to getting outside our element, exploring a culture and world that wasn’t as rooted in the Western European/North American zeitgeist we had been experiencing the previous six months.

Suddenly for reasons I still can’t precisely explain, I became concerned about passing through Moroccan security. Irrational fears that our bags would be upended and everything in them thoroughly scoured arose. There was no reason for this except that anytime I pass from one country to another my guts get to rumbling.  We had nothing to fear except the world’s bureaucrats, often determined to prove their importance by fussing with some senseless detail or other designed to ruin your day. I knew they could do plenty of damage in any language when they wanted to. But once we boarded and the ship pulled into the Straits, I reminded myself to focus on the sleek, clean ferry and enjoy an hour of quiet as we churned toward the minarets and ancient walls of Tangier.

Arriving in the fabled city of Tangier, founded as a Phoenician trading post 3000 years ago.

All of my concerns were meritless. We passed through customs with ‘nary a raised eyebrow. All of the work with passports was taken care of on the ship -  efficiently handled by three Moroccan customs agents who sat in their neat uniforms behind plexiglass counters. On debarkation we strolled into and out of the ferry building with nothing more than a desultory wave from security, and passed into the broad parking lot to find the driver we had arranged (with Frontiers Travel in Pittsburgh), holding a sign with the name WALTER on it.

You may call me wimp for arranging a driver in Morocco, but there were good reasons for it. Not only was my high school French abysmal (French is one of Morocco’s official languages), but my Arabic, together with its Semitic alphabet (اَلْعَرَبِيَّةُ),  which I knew would be plastered on every road sign throughout the country, was non-existent. Without someone who spoke some English, we’d be as lost as orphans. So I was grateful for Jabriel, our driver, as he stood in the stiff breeze like a sentry. I immediately sensed we were in good hands. As we walked toward him, as if on cue, I heard the adhān (Muslim call to prayer) echo across the docks from a nearby mosque. The words rung out in Arabic …

Tangier - a Muslim call to prayer

“Allah is Great! I bear witness that there is no diety worthy of worship but Allah. I bear witness that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah. Hasten to prayer. Hasten to success. Prayer is better than sleep. Allah is the greatest. There is no diety worthy of worship but Allah.”

Yes, we had arrived in Morocco.

Jabriel, a delightful but reserved man, long of frame and silver-haired, preferred speaking French or Spanish or Arabic, but was passable enough in English to chat a bit and get us to our hotel, the El Minzah. The El Minzah is one of Tangier’s most famous accommodations, home at various times to the likes of Omar Sharif, Aristotle Onassis, Yves Saint Laurent, Rita Hayworth, Richard Harris, Oscar Wilde, Roger Moore, Allen Ginsberg, Paul Bowles, Ralph Fiennes, Henri Matisse and Andre Guide. Maybe the El Minzah’s best days were behind it now, but it was hardly a dump. I loved it’s style. It reminded me a bit of an aging movie star. Still handsome and graceful with great bones. A concierge paraded us around the grounds in stately fashion, and I walked with my head on a swivel taking in the pool outside with its great sweeping palms and olive trees below a carpet of emerald green grass, the terrace where you could have fruit and mint tea or a handcrafted cocktail brought to you by hushed waiters dressed in short dark suits, and beyond that a restaurant with broad French doors that opened to a spectacular view of the Straits that ancient humans had somehow navigated 400,000 years earlier. 

Views of the El Minzah Hotel, Tangier - The entrance, our bellman, the room and gardens

I felt as though we had stepped back into the 1930s and wondered if Humphrey Bogart or Lauren Bacall might walk by.  Soon our bellman, decked out in his kandresse and fez was leading us along its corridors where we quickly settled into our generous room, and prepared to prowl the streets to see what trouble we might get into.

Stone stairs make up a sidewalk climbing among Moroccan shops

The trouble we found was the Diblu Restaurant near Tangier’s docks. We had walked the city’s steep steps past small eateries and shops wreathed with colorful scarves, sunglasses, djellabas, takchitas, qandrissi trousers, pipes, slippers, shirts, you name it. Moroccans are an entrepreneurial lot and  I quickly learned stores and markets are everywhere. The Diblu was the right place for a couple of famished Americans. The restaurant was a local hangout, and our proprietor/waiter greeted  us with a gleaming smile, coaxing us in excellent English to relax and sit down. He was a tidy, small young man with piercing black eyes.  He moved so quickly I thought there might be cloned versions of him as he laid down a menu, bottled water and mint tea. Soon he deposited a huge, uncooked white fish on a broad platter in front of us. "Very fresh! You eat this,” he said, his teeth sparkling against the black sandpaper of his beard, “and I promise you'll be back tomorrow."

We gave it a thumbs up and the meal was absolutely delicious. Spectacular food is common in Morocco. We would learn that soon enough.  Meanwhile, as we wolfed down the meal, our host taught us a couple of Arabic phrases which we slipped into our back pockets: Inshallah - a greeting or way of saying be well; literally “God is good or may God be with you.” Salaam - “hello.” And Shukrann with a touch of an “ah” at the end for “thank you.” They would, I hoped, come in handy for our upcoming explorations of Tangier the next day.

If you’ve enjoyed this adventure, please take a look at Chip’s other adventures (and misadventures), that you can read through Dispatches like this one … and don’t forget to check the Vagabond Journal for summaries and recommendations of our journey as we move day-by-day through the planet.

 

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Resource: https://vagabond-adventure.com/library/the-mysteries-of-morocco

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