Megan and I have been keeping a daily log chronicling the main events of our days. One of us (occasionally both of us together) ends our day with the daily log-recording ritual. These past three-plus weeks have been incredibly full, and I am going to attempt to translate from our daily log and put it all into a kind of travelogue-blog. This part of the semester is so much more than simply traveling, though. Work on a larger piece occupies me when I steal a few minutes to myself. In it I document the work we doing in terms of the pedagogic foundation of Finding the Good, taking it out of the conceptual, where it has been up until this semester, and bringing it into the realm of in-life learning. I will share that when it is in a form fit for sharing.
In the meantime, I can provide a context for everyone else’s contributions, at least up through Feb 26. By the next post I should be up to date. Note: the following tidbits are just that – they in no way represent a full accounting of our days. They are a taste, a sliver, a slice…….
The beginning
February 12, 2010
The preparations for the big trip to Baja are almost complete. All day, the energy has been buzzing around here. Everyone is so ready to hit the road. At around 5:00 they actually pulled out. I write “they”, not “we” because I am staying behind, taking the weekend to pack, get the house ready for Clarity, our new-found housesitter, and tie up loose ends.
February 13, 2010
UCSC. Food Convergence Conference. Our group attended workshops on permaculture, urban homesteading, student run co-ops, animal rights and sustainable food, psychology for effective activist messaging, growing a campus garden, to name just a few. They slept on the floor of the grange hall with 50 other students (mostly UC students), shared food, and danced, and ended the night with sleeping bag races across the hardwood floor.
February 14, 2010
Day 2 of the conference. The Finding the Good crew attended a panel discussion on food issues, conducted a few interviews, climbed a 110-foot Douglas fir, named Tree 9, and ended the day with a swim in the Pacific. Our dear friend Susan Sanford drove me all the way to Santa Cruz to meet up with my crew that night.
February 15, 2010
It feels good to be back with my tribe. After breakfast in the grange hall parking lot, we hit the road for San Diego. For the first time, we take hwy 101 instead of hwy 5 and what a difference! Didn’t count on the holiday traffic north of L.A. though and we finally roll into the campground outside of San Diego at around 11:00 p.m., pretty road weary.
February 16, 2010
A packed day in So. Cal. Our main reason for staying a whole day here is our interview with the WildCoast people – executive director Serge Dedina, and Zach Plopper, whose title has escaped me. But that is hardly all we did today. Natasha and I spent about an hour in the clinic – her cough is just not improving and we don’t want to take a chance going into Mexico unless she’s been seen by a doctor. Hopefully the antibiotics will do the trick and she’ll feel better soon. We got our tourist visas at Discover Baja; shopped for last minute items; and had a great discussion on the food convergence before that becomes ancient history. We returned to the campground in time to make fajitas, have a discussion about cultural differences and sensitivity, and take what may be our last truly hot shower for weeks.
Note: the interview with Serge and Zach went very well. They invited us to San Ignacio lagoon at the end of the month for a gathering of the conservationists, scientists, and local people who were responsible for stopping Mitsubishi from putting a salt plant operation in the lagoon 10 years ago.
February 17, 2010
Today we crossed the border. Stopped in San Isidro first to exchange our dollars for pesos. No incidents at the border getting our passports stamped and visas validated. Easy border crossing physically, not so easy emotionally. Everyone was pretty quiet as we passed the shacks of Tijuana, the border fence, and in the distance, but still visible, the opulence of Southern California. We stopped in Ensenada at the tortillaria to stock up on fresh corn tortillas and enjoy our first tacos. We head south and after a quick stop for fruit and veggies, drive and drive and drive. We camped beside the ocean in San Quintin, at Camp Pabellon.
February 18, 2010
Our first morning in Mexico! After a delicious fruit breakfast, the students head off into the dunes and beside the sea to journal. We continue to head south. We pass, as is the norm, the intermittent military checkpoints. Heading south, they generally wave us through after they find out we are just a band of estudiantes heading to Ojo de Liebre to study ballenas. The terrain changes radically as we head inland. Coastal farmland gives way to desert landscapes and we view for the first time the boojum trees, Joshua trees, cardon cactus and ocatillo. The desert is green and alive, thanks to El Nino. We stop in El Rosario for a delicious and filling lunch of pescado and carne tacos. Alex orders a hamburger (hamburguesa) and Tom teases him. Catavina is our destination for the night and just before we get there we pull off the road at the site of the cave paintings, and hike through the rock and cactus garden to the ancient site. We all sit in the rock overhang and marvel at the artwork left by distant relatives.
February 19, 2010
Upon Megan’s urging, we are up at first light. After breakfast we hike across the wash to the cactus garden to photograph, identify, and enjoy the beauty of this unfamiliar land. Then back in the van to Guerrero Negro. We cross the border between Baja California and Baja California Sur and lose an hour. In Guerrero Negro we get our first taste of shopping and resupply in Mexico. One group heads to the Mercado, another to the fruiteria, three of us track down internet. We get gas, and tortillas, and aqua pura. Finally we are ready to head out to the lagoon. We stop briefly at the visitor’s center and Tom makes the unhappy discovery that we have broken a leaf spring on the trailer. He and Jon gerry rig solution that gets us to our campsite without causing any further damage. We set up camp and Andrew sees his first whale spout, and then a breach. I don’t think Charles Scammon was as excited. We are camped right beside the lagoon and there is no one else around.
February 20, 2010
Laguna Ojo de Liebre. Waking up at this lagoon, where gray whales migrate to breed and calve, is a privilege few enjoy. We are one of the few. We spend the day settling in, and walking along the dunes, as well as in council and one-on-one meetings, building our community. Tom headed back to Guerrero Negro to see about fixing the broken leaf spring and he was successful! Later that afternoon, Sirena and Adrian arrive. We have known Sirena since she was four years old. We met Sirena and her mother, Shari, at this very lagoon the very first time we came here. She is now twenty. She and her boyfriend Adrian are joining our clan to help with interpreting, Spanish lessons and cooking. Tonight a coyote snatched their little dog. He narrowly escaped becoming a tasty midnight snack. Adrian ran after the coyote and little Pepper was spared. Tom put his WFR training to good use and did a little kitchen table first aid.
February 21, 2010
Today we went out whale watching. They are extraordinary creatures, the gray whale, and the only whales known to freely interact with humans. Our group went out in two fishing boats, or pangas. The whale count is way down this year (possibly due to high surf from El Nino), still, whales surrounded us, and several came up to our boat to cavort around it. I am sure that someone will write a full report on this experience, so I will leave it at that. Later, a few students went back to the visitor center and interviewed our two lancheros, or panga drivers, Leopoldo and Jose Luis.
February 22, 2010
Today we began serious media instruction. We also started our field journals. While the students were out journaling, Shari arrived. Later, we went back to the visitor’s center to film a presentation with her. She talked about how she got involved with gray whale study; conservation biology; international conservation efforts; politics and wildlife. Back at our campsite we began work on storytelling and student’s individual media projects.
February 23, 2010
Today was a beautiful day on the lagoon. Annabelle has been getting up every morning (before me!) to photograph the sunrise and early morning light. She’s out there with camera and tripod and hundreds of shore birds. The students start each day with personal and field journaling; observation, drawing and recording. Sometimes we follow it with a short yoga or stretching session. Today the whole day was spent in various forms of study – media making; story development; the history of whale hunting in the lagoon. We took a break at one point for a rousing game of Ultimate Frisbee. Sirena and Adrian gave our first Spanish lesson and established “Spanish only in the kitchen”, which means that when we are preparing a meal, only Spanish may be spoken.
February 24, 2010
We were long overdue for resupply, email, laundry and showers, so this afternoon after a full morning of work/study, we headed into Guerrero Negro for a day on the town. I’m impressed with everyone’s ability to navigate the language and culture and have so much fun doing it. We topped the day off with a delicious meal of – you guessed it – tacos.
February 25, 2010
Adrian’s twenty-fourth birthday. Another morning of study and instruction (including photo composition) after journaling and an authentic breakfast of chilequilas ala Sirena and Adrian. Then off to Guerrero Negro again, this time to tour the salt plant. The Exportadora Sal salt plant is the largest solar salt operation in the world. Very interesting tour.
February 26, 2010
Packed up and left Ojo de Liebre today, for San Ignacio lagoon. This was not on our original itinerary and in fact Tom and I have never been all the way to San Ignacio lagoon before. Ten years ago the lagoon, part of the biosphere reserve, was in danger of severe impact from a proposed salt plant operation – the largest in the world. A group of conservationists, activists, NGOs, and local citizens formed a coalition and ultimately were successful in stopping the proposal. The 10th anniversary celebration takes place this weekend at the lagoon. We plan on documenting as much as we can, and perhaps interviewing some of the people who were involved back then.
We stop in the town of San Ignacio — a mission town built in a beautiful desert oasis. The church and its beautiful gardens of bougainvillea and date palms sit on the west side of the town square. Then onto the lagoon – bumping over 40 kilometers of washboard took us two and half hours. We arrived at Pachico’s Camp just as the sun was going down. We were greeted by Jesus (sorry mom, but that’s “Hey-sus”) who showed us to our camp area on the edge of the lagoon. We are exhausted but happy to be in this mysterious new place.
To be continued………..