"into a desert place"

[nibot]

One of the reasons I like public libraries is that, to some extent, their holdings remain sheltered from the fads of the day. I mean, unlike a book store, they hold books that are out of print and perhaps not very noteworthy, while at a book store you're more likely to find 10,000 copies of The Da Vinci Code. Anyway, I'm a small-time fan of the oddball travelogue: stories on travel-library.com, books like The Last Disco in Outer Mongolia, say, or even Blue Highways; but not any cursory, condescending tripe by Bill Bryson. These tales are a small does of armchair adventure, but, more than that, I think I like them for the odd treasure they provide, the references, possibly quite oblique, to odd things out in the desert that I can then go in search of. It's a sort of archaeology amongst the verbage.

I just read this book Into a Desert Place by some British guy, who, with almost hilarious levels of foolhardyness, decides to walk the coast of Baja California. In true British style he sets out heavily laden with all kinds of extraneous camping equipment, yet with deep naivite; he writes of his SPF 10 as if it were formiddable stuff indeed, he drinks coca cola as he hikes, he casts his garbage into the sea. It seems that every paragraph is how he falls down on some rocks or is struck at by a rattlesnake. But pretty quickly he figures things out, in a very My Side Of the Mountain-esque manner, and so he does it: he walks around Baja, eating rattlesnakes and mussels, distilling water from the sun, and with the unending hospitality of the sporadic fish camps.

Anyway, this story was useful to me. I found three references to hot springs — I knew only of Cañon de Guadalupe and am searching for others. But the single most noteworthy reference to an oddball geographical phenomenon that I absolutely must search out is this:

Malarrimo is situated where the coast of Baja hooks sharply out into the Pacific, cutting across what oceanographers have called "the longest river in the world," a variously named ocean current that runs for 9,000 miles from the Philippines, past Japan, across the northern Pacific, down the coast of California to Baja California and Malarrimo. It was this current that carried, for 250 years, the Spanish galleons from Manilla to Acapulco.

There was a good chance that anything cast adrift in the northern Pacific would end up on that beach. But Malarrimo is extremely difficult to get to. ... Access by land, through deep cactus-strewn canyons and over continually shifting trails and dunes is risky.

Malarrimo wasn't a disappointment. ... The scene was incredible. It was as if some terrible and destructive battle had taken place off the coast. The sore was littered with planks, buckets, tree trunks, helpmets, hatch covers, bits and pieces of boats and planes, and all kinds of military and medical equipment.

I picked up a plastic bottle containing a hundred Tetracycline anti-biotic tablets, a phial of nerve gas antidote, ... and a litre plastic bag of 5% dextrose and 0.9% NaCL supposedly for intravenous injection, but it occurred to me it might be worth drinking if I ran short of water.

There were other things I preferred to keep away from: a cylinder containing phosphorus, with a warning for the finder to contact the police or the military immediately; and some kind of missile with wires hanging from the back.

I could have done with a supermarket trolley as I wandered the beach picking up cans of beer, coke, and dried milk, lifeboat rations, shampoo, sunscreen, contraceptives, spray cans of pasteurized cheese and cream, not to mention biscuits from Spain, dried snacks from Japan, and chocolate syrup from Hershey's.

The newly washed-up stuff was close to shore, but the really old stuff was back in the dunes. There were several wrecks...

I had learned to check out any bottel with a top on. Some contained drinkable quantities of spirits. A surprising number contained messages:

"I was on the MTS Daphne and threw this overboard. Please send a postcard to Jeff Friedlieb... Chicago, Illinois."

"Friend: I am glad you found me. I carry best wishes from all the citizens of the city of Avalon, on Santa Catalina Island..."

Before breakfast, I went for a half-an-hour walk to see what the tide had brought in. I picked up a can of beer, several cans of soda, a bottle of Martini, a coconut, another message in a bottle from the Geographical Society, a baseball cap, and more nerve gas antidote. ...

Making camp, I had tons of firewood, and plenty of food and drink. I enjoyed a can of beer followed by a couple of warming swigs of Bacardi. My campsite, with all the bottles gathered around looked like a well-stocked bar. Half-pickled, I sat there pondering some of life's deeper questions, such as how does all this booze get in the ocean and how am I going to drink it all?

— Into a Desert Place, Graham Mackintosh, p 216-18.

Comments

[squarkz.livejournal.com]

when i was at science fair in tenth grade, i bought a bunch of fun science books for really cheap. and apparently i knew i was destined to become a geologist, because one was a field guide to geology in southern california. i found it again while i was packing up my room the other night, and it's the most enthralling book. i'd give it to you, except there's still an off-chance i'll be at caltech in a couple of years, and then i'll want it. (i think it might have a vignette on some hot springs, but i might be making that up.)

anyway. that's what this [completely awesome] account reminded me of.