Yesterday, as we came out of the mountains and into the town of Mulege, we were surprised to see the whole valley covered in palm trees! Today, during our city tour, we were told that Spaniards brought dates from the Old World, fed them to the Indians and even some of their animals and the resulting manure was filled with seeds that sprouted into these massive trees. Mulege is built on the banks of the Santa Rosalia River which has flooded numerous times in recent years due to hurricanes so the roads we traveled on in the city were very rough! And narrow and steep.
The Mission Santa Rosalia de Mulege dominates the city sky line as does the ancient prison. The Mission was built by Jesuit priests starting in 1754 and is one of the very earliest in Mexico. It is made of lava rocks and limestone and is named after an Italian señorita who was said to have healing powers. The prison was built with no bars. When it was built the only way to enter Mulege was by boat. The desert and mountains and sea were the only ‘bars’ needed to keep the prisoners here. Our last stop on the tour was the point where the light house is located. That road was totally washed away so we drove on sand and mud ruts but it was beautiful being near the shore.
As soon as we returned from the tour, our wagon master informed us that the mud was not going to be removed from the RV park so we were moving on 1 day early. We had to eat, gas up, hitch up and be ready to drive in 45 minutes! I was not happy - I was hungry! (You know that Snickers commercial where someone is a wolf until they have a Snickers bar? Yeah, that was me!) Oh well, we were ready on time and the 21 rigs pulled out at 1 pm for the 97 mile, 3 hour drive to Puerto Escondido which is about 15 miles south of Loreto. We followed the coast for quite some time and then turned inland and skirted the mountains that run down the peninsula. For some reason I did not have it in my mind that the Baja would be so mountainous. Desert and relatively flat - yes, but not high mountains. They are really tall, rough, rocky and majestic mountains.
The only tedious part of todays trip came when we were parking the RV’s in the Tripui RV Park. Each site has palm trees on both sides of the site so that one must thread the RV between each tree. The wagon master and tail gunner worked really hard to get everyone parked but it took over and hour to get us all in. Cocktails were a must then a grilled steak with a bottle of wine.
1 comment:
Enjoying your travels vicariously through your blog. I had never thought about the palms that produce dates being "planted" in this way. Great job John, of keeping your rig on the roads.
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