In 2010, I headed down to Bahia de Kino immediately after school on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. For a bit of an introductory sense of this fabulous place and the beauty in between Phoenix and there, check also this earlier post.
Some photos from the trip down and one of my favorite relatively quiet border towns, Sonoyta. The sunset outside Lukeville was spectacular.
The Excelsior Motel in Sonoyta. You can manipulate the hot and cold water for the shower, from the toilet. A real design breakthrough.
Prohibited to shower itself.
Taco stand on the main drag. Pretty good carne asada tacos.
The AA meeting room in Sonoyta, Grupo Dr. Bob. I attended an hour and a half meeting and just soaked it up, not really understanding much of the very rapid Spanish. It was a great meeting though.
The empty pool at the motel. It seems Mexico has very few worries about injury liability.
Some images of the wonderful Sonoran Desert between Sonoyta and Hermosillo, including a series of photos of the rare endemic Echinomastus acunensis from outside Sonoyta, and the snaky Stenocereus alamosensis from along the highway north of Benjamin Hill, SON.
When I got to the beach in Kino, up over the rocky hill north of Kino Nuevo, a beach I sometimes call La Playa del Burro Muerto, I was disheartened to see how thoroughly trashed it was:
It must have been a big storm or two that blew all of that plastic and garbage in. I decided to spend Thanksgiving day cleaning up a huge swath of the beach. But for this evening, just took a walk.
A dead juvenile dolphin, the cast off body of the sylph.
These odd concrete pilings. I suppose someone tried to build a dock or a house or something here.
A slight head start on the beach trash.
Sunrise over the Sea of Cortez, Thanksgiving Day.
The osprey's perch.
One of the hazards of picking up trash on the beach:
Inanimate, this one:
Some of the more than 40 bags of trash I picked up:
Then into town. Idly looking for a supposed colony of Stenocereus gummosus on the big red hill at the end of Kino Nuevo. Mostly just hiking around.
The view from Kino Nuevo, back to the campsite.
Into Kino Viejo, just down the road. A completely different feel here. More local residents, many more working people.
Back to the beach. This wizened old one, standing watch.
On the top of the hill at the end of the beach, a few crosses, with memorial plaques at the bottom that have completely rusted and are illegible.
The view from the crosses, to the open Sea of Cortez and Isla Tiburon.
A well-maintained shrine to La Virgen, on the promontory.
Another view of the pilings on the beach:
The dead dolphin:
The sand cliffs:
Where the sylph lives.
Home.
Sunset, after a day where I think I hadn't spoken with a single other embodied being.
Next day, on my way out of Kino, some cool local plants:
I drove up to Puerto Libertad to check out the only known colony of Idria columnaris (aka Fouquieria columnaris, aka boojum, aka cirio) on mainland Mexico. Huge osprey nest here.
Pretty, red-toothed Agave:
The cirios are so odd, appearing here as if out of nowhere. The locale made me want to get to Baja as soon as possible. It was ferociously windy and desolate, nothing but the cry of the osprey and the sea's rote in the far distance.
Almost directly across from here, Bahia de Los Angeles in Baja Norte.
From here, back home. Already turned forward to Baja in December, no matter how turned inside out. A trip of gratitude, for sure. Pure, endless solitude. If not at ease, at least at home in the church of the world.
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