That's My Story

CHIVATO GIANT – published Dec. 2005 – WesternOutdoor News

I’m kind of a history buff and love that “History Channel” stuff and can lose myself for hours in the history section of any book store. Combine it with some history of Baja and you might as well just leave a light on for me because I’ll be home late. Stuff like Gene Kira’s “Unforgettable Sea of Cortez” about Ray Cannon or John Steinbeck’s “Log of the Sea of Cortez” are among so many gems in my library.

I came across just such a book recently that was mailed to me and thought I’d share some of it with you. With the holidays coming up, it makes good fast light-reading not to mention a pretty cool stocking stuffer for you Baja buffs. I actually let the book sit for a few weeks on my desk before picking it up out of boredom. I basically didn’t put it down until I finished it two days later.

I mean, how could I not check out a book that starts out, “Can you imagine a novel with General Douglas McArthur, John Wayne, Miss San Francisco, Jayne Mansfield, corrupt Mexican officials, and a fast food mogul who rules over parties from Mexico to Hawaii with a toilet plunger?” Not quite John Grisham but they say truth is better than fiction.

In the annals of Baja, you find all the giants who carved the place out’ve sand, dirt and rock. You get the Van Wormer Family who started the East Cape Hotels with a few outboards motors; the Don Johnson Family of Mulege and the Bud Parrs of Baja who shaped the Cabo San Lucas corridor and you’re talking empire builders. Even the Fred Hoctors and Ray Cannons of the Baja were as instrumental in their writings and as powerful as the jackhammer and bulldozer in those early “golden years” of Baja of the 40’s to 60’s.

Well, one guy I had never even heard about is Lou Federico and he tells a fascinating tale in his own book, “One Hell of a Ride” (2004 Adventure Publishing, Folsom CA). These days, we run businesses in Baja and watch venture after venture pop up…internet cafes…pizza operations…parasailing…hair styling salons…Starbucks…and complain about slow phone service or that the Costco is too far away! Turn back the time machine 40 years ago and it was a far different wilder unforgiving Baja. No apologies. No refunds and (gasp!) no air-conditioning (Yes, some of you current Baja travelers might gasp to know there was a time “P.A.C.”…Pre-Air-Conditioning.).

In case the name escapes you, Lou Federico is the feisty Italian guy and WWII vet who built the Club Aero Mulege then went on to hand build the famous Punta Chivato Resort. There were no skycranes to lift girders. No roads. No Aero California to complain about. No ready-made concrete or cinder blocks waiting on pallets. Heck, I complain when the ice machine doesn’t have enough ice! Ever done even a simple backyard job like putting in a brick walkway for your wife and taking 3 weeks just to visit Home Depot? This guy tied boats together with cables to haul in gear. He moved a mountain and dug into bare rock for his foundation basically with hand picks. They looked for water by using a divining rod and digging 30 foot deep pits with buckets and finally hauling in water from 6 miles away using some ingenious engineering under the hot Baja sun

“We used tons of rock…from a mountain behind the pueblo of Mulege. It had a crew there…fulltime hauling the artistic rock 12 miles round trip to the mouth of the Mulege River. It was then loaded by hand onto two LCVP’s. One would tow the other…The rock was then taken 10 miles up to the Chivato beachhead and loaded by hand onto a flatbed and driven to the jobsite. This went on for months,” he writes.

But the best part of the book are his humorous anecdotes for this was the Baja we can only imagine. The best part of any story are the people. He talks about plane crashes and banditos and ugly hookers; fishing with Ray Cannon and seeing feeding frenzies in the Sea of Cortez in all directions and how Ray loved to catch needlefish. There’s funny stories about bribes and corrupt Mexican officials and his own rather scalliwag business partners; decadently fun parties; days when there were actually fish in the Mulege River; battles with the local ejidos over land; secret beaches loaded with clams, mussels and scallops as well as snippets and memories of celebrities and luminaries away from the limelight (“Fred Astaire was also a guest, and he would dance down the hallway every morning on his way to the dining room.”) And you can hear John Wayne’s gravelly voice when he admonishes Federico after a successful fishing trip, “My friends call me Duke, so drop the mister.”

Senor Federico is still alive and doing well in Folsom, California these days and even answers his e-mails. He’s had one helluva ride that few of us will ever see again in the Baja.

That’s my story…
Jonathan