I say it’s not the smartest thing to do because they don’t call this “la Frontera” (the Frontier) for nothing. Even in the best conditions, on the best roads, down the best marked trails, one wrong turn, a busted axle, a slip-and-fall, and there’s a thin line between a nice day and a crisis. Even when the sun is shining, the sun can be the worst enemy in an arid land where water and shade or lack thereof can be deadly.
But all that aside, common sense, notwithstanding, I’m always fascinated by what might be over the next rise our around the other side of something else. I like seeing and finding what most people won’t see.
It can be as simple as a sunset or sunrise or some new vista from a different angle or new colors on sandstone cliffs or seeing new shades of blue on the Sea of Cortez. Just another Kodak moment that could not be seen from the busy highway.
But, I am especially enamored of finding hidden places where someone, sometime in the wayback of time tried to carve something out’ve this rugged place. It might be an old grave. It could be the remains of an old adobe wall or what’s left of an old bar with just a few scraps of wood stuck in the dirt that marked the remains of someone’s dream.
I look around and there’s not a piece of shade to be found. I see no source of water or other visible means of sustenance Good hunting? Good fishing? A farm? There’s nothing but baked granite, cactus and lizards as far as the eye can see. A 100 –year-old way station?
There’s no road here. What the heck were they thinking? What were their plans and why was it abandoned? Who’s bright idea was this to build a house in 100 degree weather in the middle of nowhere? Did they die and no one ever find them? Did they just give up and move away? Did the natives decide to pay a hostile house call? Parts of the place are wood. There’s no trees for miles.
I dunno. Real people not too unlike you and me with dreams and ideas took a shot and it didn’t work out and it’s intriguing to stand on the same grounds that they might’ve walked and wonder.
And then, there’s the churches and missions.
If you ever want to step back in history, step into an old Baja church. Not all of them are still standing. In my hiking and wandering down the occasional dirt road, you run into what’s left. Some adobe. Maybe the remains of an old steeple. Maybe even a wall or two with a step that once lead to the promise of salvation, but now leads merely into the timeless Baja desert. But it’s a church just the same. Again, you ask, “Why here?”
The best examples are to visit the old standing missions themselves. No, not the ones still in the center of town like La Paz or San Jose del Cabo, and certainly not some of the beautifully restored missions in California that are as much tourist centers as places of worship.
Instead, head up near Loreto. Turn off the Transpeninsular Highway. Put it into low and hit the dirt and go up into the Gigantes Mountains. Feel a bit like Marlin Perkins on those old Mutual of Omaha trips or like you’re on a shoot for National Georgraphic. It’s literally another world the higher you ascend the mountains. Baja takes on a whole different perspective from altitude.
It’s not much more than a dirt trail more fit for goats than vehicles, but the long slow journey up the mountain will find you up in San Javier and it’s namesake mission. Look back down from where you came and the Sea of Cortez lays like blue cobalt below. The air is cooler and not as heavy, but the sun still rains mercilessly down. It’s been almost a decade since I was up there, but the trip took me back centuries.
Mission San Javier was no dolled-up mission like you find in north-of-the-border complete with gift shop and grammar school, swallows and strolling mariachi. San Javier is a 300-year-old piece of granitic art straight out’ve central casting and an old Magnificent Seven movie where the bandoleer- laden horsemen ride out’ve the hills every month to exact tribute in the form of corn and cattle from the locals.
It’s almost like a hidden sanctuary tucked between sheers cliffs and surrounded by mountains in a little cleft fed by a stream, the small village of San Javier and surrounding tilled fields and orchards. The steeple 5 stories above the valley floor has watched time roll by.
Talk about stepping back in time, some folks still rode burros. Barefeet and huarache sandals were the local fashion statement and not many cars were seen. In fact, I was told that many folks didn’t have electricity. But this was not a poverty-laden place. Folks lived up in the hills and came down to visit the shady dirt streets and little white-washed houses often having no doors or window glass. Chickens shared the little streets with kids and dogs. Flowers grew and the fragrance of fruit trees mingled with home fires cooking tortillas.
But it’s the church that draws you to it and, is indeed the center of town. No need for air-conditioning. Walls are thick as the pyramids and a coolness permeates the entire structure.
In fact, it’s not only cool. It’s dark. Other than the light of dozens of candles and small slat windows high above the sanctum’s floor, there was no other light. Actually, the walls were a dark patina from ages of burning candle smoke that had coated both walls and ceilings. Candles made with the same beeswax and in the same way as they had been in the early 1700’s when San Javier was in it’s infancy, blinked from smoke encrusted bottles and candle holders in front of prayerful images of saints.
Still, even in the dim lights, your eyes are drawn up to the huge beams supporting the cavernous roof. Your eyes are pulled to the magnificent altar that has all the ornate qualities of a European cathedral. There’s no mistaking the gold that coverers everything.
But this is where you take stock. You’re high up here in the mountains. In the 21st Century you are still in the middle of nowhere. Hernando Cortes sure didn’t schlepp those beams up here. Some schmuck of a conquistador in armor and leather wearing riding boots (Nike cross walkers weren’t around then), hauled these beams from who-knows-where because there sure aren’t any trees up here capable of wooden beams this big. Like all laborers and enlisted men, the poor shmuck probably grumbled about the long days and his immediate superiors.
Worse yet, some local native, has been convinced, under the guise of salvation, that it’s his duty to the Church and the sovereign Spanish crown to truck these beams and other accoutrements of the church up this God-forsaken rock mountain. As we found out in later history, “salvation” sometimes came at the end of a lash or at best a swift boot to the behind. Local natives were probably motivated less by King or Pope as much as the lash or boot.
As I was to find out later, the huge stones that make up the cool walls of San Javier were quarried and hauled from 20 miles away. This in the day before, Humvees, Home Depot and Trucks “built Ford tough.”
Real men hauled cut these things by hand. Hauled them by hand. Set them by hand. Me and the neighbors, all with college degrees in engineering have trouble building a simple retaining wall.
The altar, vestibule and sacramental ornaments weren’t just picked up at the local religious store or ordered from a catalog on the internet. Piece-by-loving piece they were brought from Mother Spain by way of Mexico City. Those 400 pound statutes were carted on someone’s back or the back of some beast of burden. Some with two and some with four legs.
And of the friars themselves, human frailties aside, history has disclosed that despite their robes, they were often cruel taskmasters and spiritualists. Remember, this was the time of the Inquisition in Europe. People were burned at the stake for being witches; having evil eyes; being Jewish; or for any infractions deemed seditious to the all-powerful church.
Yet, here they were in rough robes and sandals toiling to create something out of nothing and to bring the European concept of salvation to a native people who had their own way of thinking and doing. Right or wrong in their methods, many ended up as martyrs. Often, their remains are buried beneath the stones of the inner sanctuary near the altar.
However, in this very church, you wonder how many padres had worked and what hardships they endured. On these very altar steps, how many marriages had been performed in 300 years and how many baptisms and funerals had been presided over.
For there is always the church cemetery. Most names have worn off. Wood has dried and broken in the dry winds of the high desert. But stone remains and you can trace the generations of families that called the San Javier Mission and this town their home. Like me, they may have drifted down another road at various junctures in their lives but they all came back here to rest in the shadow of the old mission up an old road most never travel.
That's My Story 
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