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Chapter 4 - Shore Leave in Puerto Agua Verde

The weather was fine, warm, blue skies, light NW winds the next morning, and the tide was low enough to permit passing along the base of the cliffs around to the village rather than having to make the long overland hike. I decided to see if a breakfast could be had at one of the sometimes restaurants I'd heard of in the village, so I was ashore and picking my way through the rocks and puddles at the water's edge early. It was a good plan. I asked at the first home I came to walking up from the beach and was lead by the hand to another just down the lane. The restaurant, as is not uncommon in rural Baja California, amounts to a dirt floored and palm thatched lean to attached to the plywood house. There were two trestle tables and a small stack of white plastic lawn chairs for furniture. Antonio, the fisherman, jewelry maker, mechanic and husband of the household doubled as maitre de and conducted the negotiations between the clientele (me in this case) and the kitchen as to just what was available and appropriate for such a morning. We settled on fried eggs, frijoles and tortillas, which may have been about the extent of the menu. Nonetheless, it beat the heck out of cold raw oats, powdered milk and raisins. I was well pleased. 12-year old Blanca took over as head waitress and spent at least five minutes scrubbing the vinyl table cloths before she'd let me sit down, then brought me my breakfast and coffee in fine style. In the shade it was a little cool, in the sun definitely warm, and still early in the day. I could feel the grumpy left overs from the cold wet Northern winter fading at last into the dim past.

I nearly caused another panic after breakfast when I asked to use the toilet (something that was getting to be momentarily urgent). It took me a minute to understand the reluctance to let a customer use the facilities but when I saw Blanca headed for the outhouse with a bucket of soapy water, a brush and several rags everything became clear. It's one thing to let the public in the family toilet, but it had better be shining before you do. . .and I was a bit early in the day. It all came out fine in the end. I began right off taking pictures of people and soon found myself accompanied by my "guias". . .Spanish for "guides", two incredible flirts just turned 9 years old, Neome (say it Nay-oh-me) and Fabiola (er, just Fab-ee-oh-la). The two of them decided to show me the town, the cemetery, their gramma's grave, the school, the pig pen, the cows, goats, their cousins, aunts and uncles, the cave and the berry bushes. . .and anything else that came to hand. Either my Spanish is gradually improving or those two made a special effort to make sure I understood. Now and again they'd rattle on too far and too fast and we'd have to back track in the conversation quite a ways to straighten something out, but by and large we got by just fine. When we came to the "panteon" or cemetery, they were eager to show me their Gramma's grave all covered with plastic flowers which they promptly plucked from the vases and posed with for me, then carefully put back and straightened up. They explained she had been a really good Gramma and they loved her a lot and they cried and cried when she died but now they come here to visit her all the time. They almost managed a sober countenance while describing how sad they'd been, but mostly kept right on with their giggles and chatter. If the old woman's spirit was about that morning it no doubt cheered her no end. She was 4 years older than I when she died.

In the arroyo nearby we came across berry bushes that seemed a lot like red huckleberries, small shiny red berries with a wonderful sweet taste. They picked handfuls for me as though I couldn't manage for myself, though I'm no slouch at berry picking in normal company. The pig pen was rather less of a treat, but made somewhat more interesting by the number of pigs outside compared to the number inside. I didn't ask, but I think it is only the sows with young litters that are kept in, probably to protect against coyotes. That seems to be the underlying fear among the livestock people here. . .the coyotes are clever and will carry off the young of most of the domestic animals. . .pigs, sheep, goats, maybe even calves. . .not to mention chickens and house cats if the opportunity offers.

At some signal I didn't pick up they suddenly became eager to get to school. I asked why so late in the day and they explained their teacher had been sick and they didn't think he'd be at the school today at all, but they'd just seen him drive up so they were rushing home to get their book bags. The school here is a substantial block building with two large class rooms and a very good sized solar panel set up for electricity. The primary kids, grades 1 through 8 work in one room with their teacher. The secondary, high school if you will, is an innovation that has spread all over the peninsula. . ."telesecundario". In years past the kids would have had to go to the city, live with relatives or board at school to get a high school education. Now even very small and remote villages have Telesecundario. The big solar panel drives a large screen TV that receives classes via satellite from a studio in the city. The primary teacher in the room next door takes roll and keeps a general outlook for at least reasonable attention to the work. One week out of every four the real live teacher comes and spends the week checking on progress and doing one-on-one teaching. The books are paper backed, but in good supply. The chalkboard uses real chalk and felt erasers and needs to be washed after class just as they did 50 years ago. My "guides" delivered me to the secondary classroom where the teacher (a 35-year-old gentleman from Loreto) had me give a short speech of introduction, where I was from, how I was traveling, how I liked the town, what I wanted to learn, all of which I managed in reasonable Spanish. . .it really is improving each trip now. I sat through an hour long class on adolescence and its problems. First was the discussion of the hormonal changes, the bodily transformations, the changes in social functioning, the sudden interest in the opposite sex and sex itself. The discussion was carefully but forthrightly conducted, significant points were itemized on the chalk board and scribbled into notebooks. The textbooks had an excellent table of the current crop of sexually transmitted diseases, their symptoms, manner of transmission, treatment, severity and curability, so far as I could see, neither whitewashed nor overstated. I wonder if our kids do as well here? I excused myself, trying to leave without causing much fuss, but then spoiled it all by asking if I could take a group photo. . .and that pretty well disrupted the situation. Oh well, the second photo did turn out pretty well, so I'd have to think it was worth the effort. They were a mighty good looking bunch of kids.

With my guides safely in class I was able to escape and found myself really wanting a swim in the afternoon heat. Not without at least a light wetsuit though. So I back tracked toward the boat. Along the way I stopped at the camp of a couple from British Columbia, who live all year round on a 32 foot boat they built themselves on Vancouver Island (that makes us nearly neighbors). Spending their year on board they like to take a vacation in the pickup camper and they'd braved the 40 kilometer dirt track through the mountains from the highway. Delightful people, we made plans to meet again in the North country. I hiked back around the low tide shelf to the beach where the plastic canoe was waiting, back to the boat, out of the sweaty shirt and shorts and into the funny black rubber swimming suit and overboard. The water was warm in the sunshine or cool in the shade of the cliffs. The fish were swimming all along the rocky cliff bottoms and I didn't mind the cool water with the parade of bright yellow black and white striped perch, by far the most common of the fish, though there were a few gorgeous yellow tailed angel fish and just three of the ones they call humuhumunukunukupuaa or something like that in Hawaii. Here they are "pericos" (parrots) but I'm pretty sure they're the same fish or very close cousins. As the shadows deepened and spread across the bay I paddled and splashed back to the boat, threw my fins up in the cockpit, pulled the transom ladder down where it would help and climbed back out into the sunshine. Then I noticed I'd forgotten to pack a towel when I left home. Oops. The galley had two little tea towels, one already a bit grimy, so I used the cleaner one judiciously and hung it in the rigging to dry. No matter, I dried soon enough as it was in the breeze. Nonetheless, I took the canoe and went looking for a towel to buy from one of the cruising boats anchored in the bay. Should have known. . .not a towel to be had for money, but a passable one with just a torn hem came home with me as a gift. And I couldn't just take the towel, I had to come back for chili and corn bread. That's cruising people for you. . .generosity and hospitality are the rule, not the exception. These were Bev and Archie on a Tayana 38 named Sea-Tacean. What a friendly and delightful pair. We talked late into the evening of voyages and anchorages and friends in odd places.

The 25th of February 2004 was a glorious day in Puerto Agua Verde. The sky was fair, positively hot out in the sun by mid day, when it was still just delightfully cool in the shade. There was the very best sort of N'ly breeze for traveling. I of course, was still on shore leave and didn't even fiddle with the anchor. There was a lot of general visiting around the village, a great many more photos. My guides from the day before were detained by school and homework (which they had sadly neglected), but I managed to learn a great deal of shark fishing techniques and the history of the place from their families. Supper was with Neome's family, eaten on the shade porch beside their block house, frijoles de la olla con arroz, basically beans and rice, with the beans cooked almost as a bean soup. A little local goat cheese was broken up on top. This makes a very mild and pleasant meal and, though not at all spicy, is popular wherever I've been in Mexico. However, the highlight of the day was my introduction to goat ranching and cheese making as it is done here.

I had spotted a herd of 50 goats or so two years before and it was on my list of things to do. . .find out how they made their living in the dry countryside and what their produce was. . .clearly they were milk goats, but with no refrigeration or easy road transport, what was their product? Yesterday I'd missed the early morning activity on the side of the village where the goat herding families live and have their corrals. This morning, knowing my way around more or less and left to my own devices I walked more or less directly through the scrubby growth in the arroyo, keeping well away from the school house, and found myself joining a file of milk goats definitely headed the same way. They were not being herded, and though clearly fresh with milk, there was not a single youngster among them. I followed along and shortly found myself in a veritable throng of goats, several hundred at least, all milling about a stone and concrete watering trough next to a hand dug well in the arroyo floor. I already knew that the potable water for the village comes by gravity down a long 8 kilometer plastic pipeline from a spring farther up. This was purely goat water, and no doubt would be a bit salty for human taste. It was pumped out of the well by a Honda powered pump and thus into the tank next to the watering trough. The well was about 4' in diameter inside its stone lining and is7 meters, about 22 feet deep. The tank alongside is just a rectangular masonry box about 3' tall and 10'x15', open topped, it looks at first glance like a small swimming pool built above ground. Next to it, along one side is a concrete walled trough, low enough to be comfortable to a goat. Mind you, no thirsty goat will be opposed to jumping on the top of the bigger tank's wall and bending down to get a drink. . .even kneeling down if need be, but in general they prefer to use the trough, which the men constantly refill with a big plastic bucket. Through all this activity a deafening chorus of bleating kids. . .that is, very young goats has been demanding breakfast from the confines of a tightly laced corral off to one side. They are resolutely ignored by all and sundry, though an occasional nanny looks through the gate to see if she can spot her favorite. Once the lady goats (for such they are, with only a very few exceptions) have had their drink they are gently urged inside another circular corral made of sticks and wire and whatever came to hand, but clearly a wall against goats on the one hand and coyotes on the other. One youngster stands at the gate opening to police traffic in and out as appropriate, another, probably ten or twelve years old, wades through the goats along the wall of the corral looking for cooperative looking nannies to milk a little. His pail is small and the milk seems spattered with leaves and dirt and the like. His elders, two graceful, gentle men move through the same crowd of ladies and with an easy manner that belies the skill and practice, they simply reach down, pick a hind leg from the huge selection, tuck it behind their knee, and then, squatting alongside their captive (who hardly struggles at all once her hind leg is pinned between calf and thigh), with practiced moves, strip a pint or so of milk from each goat in turn. I'd never seen that before. Goats I'd known had always been stripped dry in milking stanchions, their kids either already gone or forced onto some other diet. In this herd the bulk of the milk is saved for the youngsters and only enough taken to supply a small demand for daily fresh cheese. It was over suddenly, the 50 nanny goats or so in the corral were allowed to escape and go about their other business, which many seemed to think was simply to find a bit of shade to have a nap in. The kids on the other hand, still in their corral 50 feet away had a loudly expressed alternative in mind. The milkers split up, one took the two filled pails away toward the house against the cliff nearby, the other approached the complaining youngsters, dipped into the tight packed herd of tiny goat children, found an ear or a foreleg or the nape of a neck and plucked the youngster out of the crowd, cradled him in both hands for a moment, spotted his mom and pitched him directly at her. The kids hit the ground at full throttle, charged straight toward the nearest nanny and made immediate start to breakfast. What a joyous reunion. . .little goat tails wiggling frantically, little goat noses bumping hard into the milky udders and dribbles of white breakfast dripping down their eager little chins. The nannies, not surprisingly, were not quite so enthused. Most turned around to be sure they'd ended up with the right child attached and maybe gave the imp a lick or two with a long pink tongue, but mostly it seemed to be content to visit amiably with their neighbors while the kids ate. It was amazing to a non-farmer (that would be me) to realize that this man knew each of his goats and each of their offspring. I soon saw that he was just casually in his mind identifying the nearest nanny and actually picking her offspring out of the crowd (sometimes two or even three kids per lady) and unerringly launching them airborne in her direction as she passed by. The three-kid lady posed a special problem. She had (as goats and people usually do) only two possible feeding opportunities, so the weakest of the three inevitably would have gone hungry without the careful attention of the people. She was tied loosely to the corral and two at a time allowed to suck, the third rotated in at intervals so that all three came out about even. One or two other nannies seemed reluctant to stand and feed and they too ended up tied to the fence and even had one hind leg held up by the interfering human long enough for the kid to make a decent breakfast. Meanwhile, the mystery of the human kid's clumsy milking was resolved as well. A handsome mongrel dog, patiently watching and waiting, finally was presented with his night's wages, the whole gallon of rich fresh milk, complete with the odd bit of hair, twig or what have you. I asked about the dog and found he is a very highly regarded member of the family, a working member we should say. There is no barn here, no hay loft full of alfalfa or granary full of corn. These goats make their entire living off the prickly desert vegetation in the hills and canyons around the village. Each afternoon before sunset they leave the village, each 50 goats with one old nanny with a bell to lead them and the dog to bring up the rear, keeping them all more or less together through the night's foraging. That's not his main duty though. His whole purpose in life is to keep the coyotes away. He's not as large as a coyote himself and seems utterly peaceful and gentle in the corral slurping his morning milk, but the people insist he is fierce and has killed coyotes and scared off others. "Muy inteligente, este pero, y bien bravo". . ."very intelligent, this dog is, and very brave".

The cheese is soon begun in the nearby house. . .well. . .house in the sense that it is the structure in and about which the people live. This one snuggles up against a cliff face and includes the stone walls in its plan, which is necessarily a little irregular in consequence. One needn't worry about the back wall collapsing in an earthquake or hurricane however. The walls are hard to pick out. Various bits of post and column hold up three different sorts of roofing on mismatched beams and rafters, pieces of plywood nailed on here and there provide visual screening and a little more wind break than just the cliff side, though probably half the house has no walls at all. It is oddly attractive for something built mostly from what you would normally call junk, sort of an organic and palpably temporary outgrowth of the naturally sheltering rock. In any event, the milk is carried in its pails to a bench where the old man of the house presides. It is poured through strainers into a large hand basin (which I saw being scrubbed ahead of time) then a thin dark liquid squeezed from the stomach of a recently slaughtered kid (rennet it's called I am told by an authority) is added and stirred. Nothing happens at first, but in fifteen or twenty minutes the milk has turned to curds and whey. I didn't stay to see the whole operation from that point, but bought half a cheese to carry away. It had been yesterday's curds, strained out of the whey by passing the night in what looked like an under sized pillowcase, perhaps under light weight, since it was a flattened disc of cheese, 10" in diameter, 2" thick, still showing the imprint of the fabric on its glistening creamy surface. In my ignorance I only bought half a kilo, thinking it would not last long enough for me to eat more. Before they would let me buy the cheese they insisted I try some, first a little wedge sliced off a round, straight, then when it was obvious I liked it that way, I had to try a larger slice warmed in a flour tortilla (people were eating the tortillas and cheese all around me, their breakfasts coming after the milking was finished and not before).

The economy of the fishing families is easy to understand. They must buy gasoline, boats, motors and whatever else they cannot make or improvise with the proceeds of their hand fishing operations, and clearly it does work, though it's a terribly hard life, requiring arms and hands of steel and implies daily exposure to the risks of going to sea in small open boats. The goat economy is less easy to understand. This small output of cheese, entirely consumed by friends and neighbors, only yields $3 per kilogram, and the day's milking probably only yielded five kilos if that. Clearly they must slaughter a significant percentage of the kids. . .probably all the young males most years and equally obviously the older nannies will eventually turn up in a roadside restaurant somewhere as "birria de chivo" . . .the wonderful goat stew that makes breakfast for many Mexicans. There must be a living in it. There were at least four or five family groups, each with at least 50 goats milking there alongside the arroyo, they all looked happy and well fed. One young woman was eagerly shopping in a lingerie catalog with lots of comments and giggles from her mother and aunts. I took my $1.50 worth of wonderful cheese, said many thank you's and left.

The rest of the day passed in longer visits here and there. I learned that the sharks that are much of the fishermen's catch here are sold readily for meat in La Paz or Loreto, but they never include the fins. Even the smaller fins are saved and kept drying in a basket under the eaves. These are sold to China for shark fin soup of course and in larger sizes command a significant price. Smaller sharks are caught in tangle nets left out over night, lead line on the bottom, cork line just floating the web in a vertical wall on the sea floor, perhaps 40 or 80 feet down. Larger sharks are sought by simple hook and line gear fished by hand. Last year Neome's dad and his partner Antonio (from the restaurant) spent an entire day battling a shark that eventually turned out to weigh over 200 kilos, more than 400 pounds. Including the sale of its fins, it brought over $100 and was regarded as a tremendous day's work. No rods or reels are used. The line is very heavy monofilament, but it still seemed to me it would slice into human hands with a large fish on the other end. It is stored on a piece of wood plank, rolled up like any kid's first fishing gear, with the hook stuck into the end grain to keep it out of trouble. The first three or four feet after the hook is quite heavy stainless steel cable. No fiber less than steel would withstand the horrific rows of teeth in the shark's bites.

Thirty years ago there was no highway passing by only 40 kilometers away as there is today (that's a very long 40 kilometers I'm told, breaking axles, bending springs, and occasionally simply slumping off the hillside into the canyon and awaiting major repairs). In those days large sharks were common near the village, which was for that matter only 6 houses and one large family. In those days (let us say, while I was in Vietnam to put it in perspective) the fishing was done entirely from canoes brought over from the mainland where the lush jungles provided trees big enough to carve seagoing craft from single logs (called "canoa") as well as lighter boats made from planks with ribs (which would have been called "cayuca" instead). These canoes, now only memories and fragments almost unrecognizable lying on beaches here and there, were paddled and sailed. If sailed, as they were for long passages, they carried a single home made sail on two spars, mast and boom, and one of the paddles was used to steer. Alberto had often sailed with his father and grandfather as a youngster and made very believable motions describing the management of canoe, paddle and sail combined. The boat was about 20 feet long, perhaps 5' in beam, sharp at both ends and had neither centerboard trunk nor rudder, though both were known and used along this coast.

The sharks in those days were harpooned rather than hooked. The harpoon is retired now, slid up under the tiles of Alberto's front porch roof. I handled it almost with reverence, a solid tool, a single bar of half inch diameter steel seven feet long. . .one end worked into a four sided bodkin point, with a forged slot for a long toggle to pivot in. . .the other end made into a loop to accept 3/8" line. The edges of the point are dull now, rusty and un used, but they were kept sharp when working and it was clear this had been a deadly weapon. Now the large sharks are rare, even far from the village and the men commonly range many miles from home each day, flying over the water on a wind made by Honda or Nissan or Johnson, in canoes 24' long made of fiberglass. Thirty years. Not that long, but again, most of a man's life and long enough for tremendous change these days.

That day passed too. The film slipped through my camera quickly and (I hoped) saved up faces and memories. I returned at last to the boat, tidied her up after my days spent ashore and made ready for sea again. Sleep came easily in spite of the bouncy N'ly breeze that swept through the anchorage.