The wedge-shaped Isla Bargo is rich in plant and bird life, and like many of the others, hosts a giant osprey nest at its helm. On the southern edge, where days before we had snorkeled along the shore with Father - triggerfish, skates, a pufferfish, surgeon generals and all sorts of damsels - we were now just paddling along its cliffs, looking up and looking for anything nesting above us.
As we did this we pondered the flat islet-peak, and decided to paddle around to the northern white-sandy shore. Up to a peak of the straggly sour pitaya, the pink-flowered Pitayita, the barrel-shaped Biznaga and even the columnar old man's cactus, which features a grayish-white 'head of hair.' At the broad flat midsection of the island's peak, there are several stands of chain link cholla and a few cardon cactuses.
The green of a cactus is much brighter than the green of trees - almost lime - and against the white sand of Isla Bargo, there is an elegance to this place; the elegance of simple lines and broad strokes. From this view of the entire bay, the canyons, the mountains behind them, the open sea beyond the bay, the dolphins in the deep, we stood there in silence. It means much more to drive to a place than to fly it, I thought.
I remembered the girl from the office a few days before: She leaned over my desk and said, "So, gonna be roughin' it in Mexico, huh?"
"Roughing it is when a golfer loses his balls."
"I just don't know how you can be outside where it's so dirty."
"Kim," I said. "See those vents up there?"
"Yes."
"That's circulated air from all those other departments. Can you imagine the kinds of diseases they have in accounting. Their perversities and sicknesses? You don't know where they were last night, and you're breathing their air."
"Well."
"You know that dust is 80% human wastes? Indoors is sick. Cities breed disease. You should get out sometime. Fresh air."
