The Road North (Part 1)

…runs through New Mexico. In late August, I left Loreto in Baja California Sur and drove 1,100 miles to Taos where Rande had spent the summer. Our plan was to drive to Whidbey Island in northern Puget Sound to visit her family, but first I had to deal with an ear problem. On what turned out to be my last dive of the summer in the Sea of Cortés, I had what diver’s call reverse squeeze – a sharp pain in one ear as I returned to the surface. I couldn’t equalize (reduce) the air pressure in my ear with the pressure of the surrounding water. 

Rio Grande south of Taos, New Mexico

The next day, I went to the emergency clinic in Loreto and learned that I had an infection in one ear. The doctor, a young woman who spoke some English, gave me a prescription for antibiotic ear drops and told me to stay out of the water for two weeks. My summer of diving was over. Before leaving Mexico, I made an appointment online for an ear specialist in northern New Mexico. When I arrived at his office in Taos a week later, the infection was gone, but he sent me to a clinic in Los Alamos to test for a tear in the eardrum. They pressurized the outer ear and waited; a decline in pressure indicates a tear. I passed the test; I could go back in the water.

La Manzanilla

La Manzanilla is a small village on the Pacific Coast north of Manzanillo in the state of Jalisco. We visited La Manzanilla while we were staying in Barra de Navidad and decided that we would return and stay for a month. There are no banks in the village and the only grocery stores are small tiendas. We drove 14 km (9 mi) south to Melaque, the largest community on the coast between Puerto Vallarta and Manzanillo, to do most of our shopping. 

Entrance to La Manzanilla

La Manzanilla’s main attractions are the beach, water sports (fishing, swimming, surfing, kayaking), RV camping, La Catalina Natural Language School (link) and crocodile reserve (hence the statue on the way into town). The place is not well known among gringos, but is a popular weekend and holiday destination with Mexicans.

El Tríunfo

Located at 1,700 ft (518 m) on the Transpeninsular Highway between La Paz and San Jose del Cabo, El Tríunfo (The Triumph) was a bustling mining town in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Today it is much smaller (pop. 327) and quieter, and many buildings are just brightly-painted brick facades. The mining-era ruins are extensive and well known, and include a smokestack designed by Gustave Eiffel. Tourists are also drawn to the “piano museum” and the Café El Tríunfo, owned by an ex-biker from California (his motorcycle is in the lobby).

The Transpeninsular Highway through El Tríunfo

San Jose del Cabo Art Walk

Every Thursday night beginning in November, the streets in the Art District of San Jose del Cabo are closed to traffic and the galleries stay open late. They feature Mexican and international artists working in a variety of styles and media from beautiful crafts to high-end art pieces. Some serve drinks and food, and the event is popular with tourists and Mexicans.

We met Nancy Pridham in the Los Cabos Amber Gallery and Fine Art Annex. She’s a Canadian painter from Bahía Asunción and was having her first show in San Jose del Cabo. She and her husband live in a fishing village of about 3,000 people on the Pacific coast south of Guerrero Negro and Laguna Ojo de Liebre (Scammon’s Lagoon). You can see her paintings of Baja at nancypridham.blogspot.mx.

Gallery with a metal sculpture of "Catrina" in front