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Notes from the Road - Travels in City and Country About Notes from the Road
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Travels in City and Country

 

Sierra del Pinacate

Sonora, Mexico
Sierra del Pinacate Range
Desert Mexico | May
It is North America's last frontier, a barren, hundred-mile stretch of blackness and inhospitability. It is The Pinacate, named after its primary inhabitant; a rather insignificant beetle which stands on its head and lets out a rather putrid odor.
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Desert Mexico

Baja Norte, Mexico
Tijuana and El Rosario
Desert Mexico | April
"...Under our feet was a giant hole in the earth. The sea had cut an underground cave and settled here: a stretch of beach underneath the earth. Four seals were in the water. One had no head. Sharks. Somehow, this hole led to the sea, and we wanted to find out, but, "paddling in there is too dangerous. Lets put that out of our minds right now."
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Desert Mexico
Bahia de Los Angeles
Desert Mexico | April
"...From here I could see the white lights and flickering neon of Bahìa de Los Angeles - reportedly named for the white islands in the distance which resemble angels, but the city itself hasn't grown since Steinbeck griped about too many new buildings in 1940. A thousand people, if that. The Angel Islands; fifty-mile long Isla de la Guarda, for example, is one of the most pristine and untouched islands in the world; but sparse and void of little other than reptiles and scrub..."
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Desert Mexico
San Felipe
Desert Mexico | April
"...Two hours later and twenty miles along the road to Puertocitas, we passed out of a canyon and onto a saline flat. This was the lowest, hottest, dreariest flat: white sand, ocotillo, not even a creosote. We saw a flash of silver in the distance - a building maybe. Some time later, we came upon it; a strange otherworldly shanty made of ocotillo and hanging cans of Tecate. I pulled the truck up. The sign said, "Cold Beer." This was the first sign of man since Chapala. "
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Desert Mexico
Mountains of Baja Norte
Desert Mexico | April
"....But I wanted to find this out for myself, so I shoved Sonora through the marsh and circled the bouldery islands near the northern shore. No fish, but the view of the granite peaks at night from these islands was stunning; and the Milky Way was bright enough to lead me around the islands and onto them; between the pines and under uneven boulders. "
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Desert Mexico Canyons of Baja Norte
Desert Mexico | April
"...These palms are oddly the only major species endemic to the Californias. But the fan palms are magnificent in their natural state; forming dark, cool canopies of mosque-like interiors, '.and a giant rattlesnake too', Vance would say later. "
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Desert Mexico Baja Sur, Mexico
Mulegé

Desert Mexico | June
"...I like the idea of being where I am now, in a place where roosters are crooning about, and people are selling used hack-saws and post-hole diggers and air-compressors. Actually, I am beneath that place, at the bank of the clammy-green Rio Mulegé, in the reedy section where most of the water is stagnant and swampy. "
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Desert Mexico The Islets of Bahia Coyote
Desert Mexico | June
"...What in light-muddled night assumes an eerie bioluminescence, is in complete darkness, magic. Hans and I understood little about the flagellate plankton that glow bright green when slightly agitated as a way of scaring predators. But days later, when we settled our campsite at a palapa in Bahia Coyote, we rolled our kayaks off the sand, out into the quiet Cortez, and north, to Isla Piedra, and on its Eastern shores."
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Desert Mexico Guerrero Negro
Desert Mexico | June
"...In the morning, Father and I made coffee and looked at the sifters, examining their simplicity - the way the larger stones would separate from the smaller pebbles. A pair pulled up to the cliff and greeted us. "You have any beer?" they said. I said, "we have water. You want water." "Si." I offered them my canister as they began to haul white bags up the cliff, resting for a few minutes between each load. "
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Desert MexicoIsla Espiritu Santo
Micro Update | Desert Mexico | May
"...Elephants, too, were once aquatic animals; their skin is testament to this. Fossils found on both sides of the Pacific indicate they were actually deepwater creatures who swam the entire ocean...."
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