At camp, we cooked pasta and played Moroccan music on the guitars. While playing, I saw an Indian figure in the desert, standing at the perimeter of our camp.
"Hello," I said.
"Hi. Just listening."
"Take a seat." So he did, and soon, I handed him my guitar and in two minutes, he was playing the rhythm to Hans' song, 'Kira' and Hans was belting out rippin' triads in what would become a 10 minute jam between him and this Indian man, exploring Spanish style picking and jazz leads.
It was his best playing I heard in years, and I blamed that on the desert. Then, the Indian Man offered his own song, "I've been to Beverly Hills and I've been to Skid Row, Okee Jobee Bim Bop Boo. And all I know is they call this the city of sin."
Then, another figure appeared out of the desert, and she began singing the harmonies, "Okee Jobee, Bim Bop Boooo." It was all a little strange, but before parting, we asked the Indian man and his wife if they had been to Sonora, and he said, "We never go to Mexico, too many horror stories."
At five the next morning, I was hiking up a desert mountain trail, examining brush and ocotillo, and soon, we were driving south.
At the border, the guard asked us to open the trunk, and he began poking through our baggage. Then, he asked where were we going? Hans said, "Pinacate." He gave us a look, a kind of 'really?' look and ushered us on like an imperial guard in Mos Eisley. The change from the U.S. to Mexico was immediate; wild dogs in the street, shanty villages and yellow billboards. The roads were dusty; people were loitering in the sandy public squares.
Teddy bear cholla at last light near Tecolote
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