Each year we take it one kilometer at a time: Highway One, Baja California, destination Loreto. Generally a dry and dusty road through the Baja desert, this year the landscape oozes with green from recent rains. It is almost impossible not to drench myself in the expectations and dreams of a new season. With each…
In contrast to our ultra-productive hectic U.S. lives, there is a quality of the Baja culture that lives for the sabor (flavor) of daily life.
While visiting their second home in Loreto Bay from their home in the Sierras of California, Guy and Fauna Tomlinson and their college-age children signed up for an overnight sea turtle monitoring expedition to Isla Coronado. They wanted to learn about the efforts underway to protect the local sea turtle population in the Loreto Marine Park.
It was early and the knock on our wooden door seemed upbeat. From the courtyard I heard our neighbor announcing: “I accomplished a major developmental task! I woke up this morning and cancelled my flight back to the States!” A week before he had noticed our door ajar as he was checking out the Mexican…
Those of us who have discovered this gem in the rough have known intuitively what the Mexican government has just announced: Loreto is the newest pueblo to be added to the list of “Pueblos Mágicos” (Magical Villages). What is Loreto’s magic? The sea, the history, the adventure; an inexplicable state of mind; a simpler, less…
Two years ago, the miraculous outcome of our own car accident quickly gained Loreto folklore status. That was when I learned about the angels on the highway, and every time I told the story I sang their praises.
Nine years is a long time to observe what people do while they wait. Through these years of observation, it seems that people fall into one of the following categories.
When they are ready to nest, hummingbirds build at human eye level, inviting us to view the unfolding miracle. With spider silk and tufted matter, they fashion an expandable nest the size of a small cup. They lay two eggs the size of jellybeans, slowing their metabolism to a standstill so they can sit for several weeks on their developing eggs. Imagine, even at rest, the hummingbird’s heart flutters at 250 beats per minute.
For those of us who have chosen to spend parts of our year here, there is plenty to learn—about living in community, about letting go of expectations, about relaxing our standards. About appreciating the basics and ‘going with the flow’ and the majesty of la madre naturaleza (mother nature).
