Santa Rosalia February 23-27th, 2007
We’ve recently spent two days ‘resting’ in Santa Rosalia after leaving Bahia Asuncion and enjoying a rather scenic jaunt across Baja to the Sea of Cortez. The paved road and long straightaway stretches were much appreciated after the dirt ‘roads,’ deep sand, and gravel detours that we slowly traversed from Bahia Tortugas and Bahia Asuncion on the Pacific coast. Once we got close to the eastern coast we came down from a plateau by winding around treacherous switchbacks which had the broken guardrails and flower decked monuments to prove it. We took it slowly down and were treated to a wonderful panorama of white-capped seas crashing against the basalt boulders and sheer cliffs of Santa Rosalia.
We motored amiably about town for a bit as Josh looked for someplace to get a real cup of coffee so we traversed the one-way streets until we found a place and relaxed in the final rays of the day. I happened to have read a bit about this particular ‘city’ which was set up as a company town in the late 1800s by the Rothschild family as a copper smelting foundry for transshipment back to the old world. They had imported timber from Oregon and Arizona to build in a French Victorian style and segregated the town on either side of a small valley; Mesa Francia to the north and Mesa Mexicana to the south. They had also purchased a pre-planned church by none other than Monsieur Eiffel that stands near the plaza of the town and happened to be having a quinceria (fifteenth birthday celebration) that night. We talked of crashing the reception afterwards but felt that it might be age-inappropriate.
We found a nice little hosteleria near the plaza named Blanco y Negro that was inexpensive and had some much needed hot water to cleanse our dust infused bodies.
We immediately liked the town due to its comforts and the amount of street-life so we walked about for a while getting the lay of the town; the plaza is separated from Eiffel’s church by a big indoor gymnasium which was seemingly continuously holding volleyball championships, the ferry terminal at the end of the valley is the height of modernity complete with experimental architecture, and apparently the dead have the best view from the cemetery that rims the cliffs to the south.
Eiffel’s Readybuilt church and the ornate plaza gazebo.
At some point during photographing all of this I lost my camera but thought I knew exactly where I left it but the place was cerrado for siesta so we went to the police station to see if we could find the owner’s telephone number to give him a call and just let him know we left it in there (before the first person that came in when it opens happened to pocket it). Losing the camera was worth it since the police battalion was numerous and friendly not to mention how funny the commandante was. We struck up a conversation with the cops and they told us about the fire truck (donated by a Manhattan fire department that no doubt got to come down and ‘train’ them on it), frisked me for fun, and looked all over town for the owner to no avail. We got to talking with one of the cops for a while and talk turned to his father and we asked where he was living and he replied, “El es un minero.” (He’s a miner now.) Then he pointed to the cemetery.
They didn’t take kindly to our suggestion to arrest the French girls and bring them to us.
While we were negotiating this whole ordeal two of the only girls in the town our age walked by speaking a bit of French. We were smitten. And we never saw them again.
We ended up staying three days since we were a bit late getting ready to leave the second day. So the next morning I decided to check out the World Famous El Boleo Panateria, the bakery set up by the Rothschild’s front company El Boleo to make their precious baguettes. It’s more of a dulceria now but they still have mini-baguettes that were still warm (I’m a late riser) and a bit sweet. I brought some back to Josh and we walked about with the mini-baguettes looking for a bit of chorizo to sweeten the deal. We didn’t find any but Josh had gone for a run that morning through the cemetery on top of the hill which featured a giant cross in the center and was inscribed with Tu Eres La Pan de Vida (You are the Bread of Life). So at least we were imbibing pan and living the life.
La Pan de Vida and Being woken up by a hot tortilla on the face.
If you think the photos are a bit grainy that’s because they were taken with the N93 cellphone after I lost my camera.
