The Aftermath

Cabo Pulmo 191118

The road that ran along the back of the house towards the sea was washed out in the morning. The packed sand was replaced by a layer of gravel and there was a deep rift cut in the sand leading out to sea.

Nancy 00:30 (7.6MiB)

As I sat on the little veranda above the back road in the quiet morning I saw Nancy shuffle up the road. The place next door was for sale for $525,000. It was a large house or restaurant with a bunch of bungalows in the back and the faded sign leaning against the fence by the heart shaped front gate indicated it was known as Nancy's restaurant. We assumed the old woman who lived there with ten cats and an old dog was Nancy and we saw her shuffling up and down the roads around our place. She would go out to the beach at sunrise most mornings with a pot of tea and a flashlight or spatula to swat flies. Her old dog sometimes accompanied her, shuffling as slow and carefully as she did. Once I spotted Nancy's dog standing in the center of the road with it's front legs spread as though it had just taken a step and then froze in place. I watched it as I read my book and it remained motionless for several minutes, looking at something around the corner. A group of tourists walked by and turned to stare at this strange frozen dog but it ignored them and they moved on. After several more minutes without moving I decided to pull out my binoculars and try to record a video but as soon as I raised my binoculars Nancy shuffled around the corner and the dog un-froze. I caught a video of her shuffling down the road instead.

Karen, Amanda, and I went on another inland walk and discovered what I had assumed was a private driveway actually continued on into the hills. Karen spoke to a man coming the other way and he gave us his map showing a network of hiking trails around the city.

A little farther down the road we ran into another man who berated us for hiking in sandals and gave us confused directions to find the junior trail and a waterfall.

00:15 (3.7MiB)

We continued on among the deep red rocks and lush desert vegetation. The path took us to a cliff overlooking a sandy arroyo now running with a few inches of water. We walked up the sandy wash for a while but Amanda's sandals were falling apart and we had to turn back. Karen went on ahead and we looked for lizards during a brief gap in the clouds. We briefly saw a desert spiny and an iguana in the underbrush and while walking back along the main road Amanda cried out and pointed at a snake coiled up in a bush. I could just see it's tail through a gap in the bushes. It was an inch and a half in diameter and white with thin black edging along the scales. It had no rattle. It fled as I cut my hands on the thorns and branches trying to grab it. We looked at the reptile book later but could find no snake that fit this description.

We stopped at the tiny souvenir store on the way back to look at t-shirts and when we got back Kayla informed us you could buy a cheesecake at Pepe's. Pepe told us yes, he had cheesecake and there was only one more left and he reached into a fridge and pulled out a tiny mason jar with some cake and asked for $12 dollars. I was disappointed but it was Kayla's money...

On the short walk back we ran into Sarah and Andrew having lunch at Caballeros while they waited for Carolina's shuttle to take her back to Los Cabos and we joined them for a sparkling lemonade using the last of our pocket change. They had also had an eventful morning. Carolina had agreed to play a song for a stranger they met while he recorded it on a borrowed phone. After this impromptu recording session this man pointed out their tire was flat. Fortunately someone nearby overheard this and said he would fix their flat as soon as he finished his beer. This man pulled out a well used tire patch kit and explained that the patches were meant to be temporary but he'd never had to fix them.

We made ill-fated plans to do some snorkeling together and returned to the house for lunch. I tried to make guacamole but our avocados were half rotten and half rock hard.

That afternoon I went out swimming to cool off and found the visibility poor but Karen and Joy wanted to snorkel and boogie board so we all headed out back down the beach. A group of divers were just getting off a dive boat and we asked them about the conditions. They confirmed the conditions were lousy for diving and he said the only reason they went out at all was because they were going to be leaving the next day. All of the men looked like corn fed mid westerners and they were carrying expensive diving cameras, holding the glass orbs with both hands at waist level like bowling balls.

On the walk down the beach we saw some stranded portugese man-o-wars in the sand. It made me nervous about getting in the water and I wondered if the invisible creatures stinging our face and arms were were juvenile man-o-wars.

The wind was high and the sea was choppy. Karen wanted to go out but it looked a little too wild for her. Instead she asked Amanda to do a boogie boarding demonstration in the little shore break. I gave her a chaka and a cowabunga as she headed out. She said the waves were disappointing and only managed to fill her bathing suit with sand.

So we returned to NOMADS to look at t-shirts and jewelry and Joy went next door to Pepe's to order two $30 extra large pizzas and beer to be delivered at 6pm. We ate them on the table out on the patio while the geckos chirped from the ceiling above us. The outside lights attracted bugs and we watched the geckos crowd around to eat and wrestle for position.

A week ago Amanda found a XL rash guard abandoned on the beach. She brought it home, though it was too large for any of us to wear, and we learned later than Joy and Karen met a man named 'Dave' looking for it. We never met Dave but the moms made sure to ask everyone they met if they knew him. Most conversations with strangers started with the question, "Do you know Dave?" We started to joke that Dave was a figment of their imagination and we started cursing his name at every setback or thanking him for our success like some minor deity.

A little after dinner, as I stepped out of the shower, Karen held up the shirt and asked me if this was Dave's rash guard. She said she'd finally found someone who knew Dave. As she stumbled down the stairs in the dark I got this feeling this was all part of some inside joke I was not privy to.

Kayla, Rian, and I played a game of caveman and then we picked up my black light and headed out for a walk in the dark looking for anything that might fluoresce. I started counting scorpions as soon as we saw the first one squished in the road and stopped when I got to 50 about halfway down the road. They ranged in size from the tip of my pinky to the length of my longest finger. It's interesting how they glow. The black light is almost invisible in the dark but when you swing it past a scorpion they shine out like stars in the underbrush.

The scorpions were more common in the grassy margins of the road where it was drier and we would sometimes see four or five scattered over a single patch of ground. We wished we had special lights that would reveal other stuff; like lizards, spiders, mammals, and birds. It would make things so much easier. Amanda stopped to pick up every frog along the way. She couldn't help herself.

Besides the scorpions we discovered that dog poop often fluoresces and we found one plant covered in glowing polka dots which turned out to be spots of sap. I had to go ahead to stay out of the bright headlamps and nearly stepped on a tarantula and a millipede.

That night Nancy's cats yowled and fought all night keeping us awake.