Between Catavina and Bahia de los Angeles riding became more about mileage and covering spans of countryside. At least that was my focus. I started to savor the miles more than the views. That wouldn’t last. There was little out there but busted ranches and homage to decay. It was probably the mot desolate of deserts, but Baja had a good series of winter storms come across it’s western flank, and on this day it was papably moody out. No resources were on the horizon that day either. Although I vaguely knew where I was, I did not know the details.
El Sacrifico – a roadside truckstop and family kitchen came into view and I was down on my mojo, exhausted from the day and ready to be done, and to lazy to consider putting up a tent (temptation). It was raining and I was damned to have to put up a tent in the glooming at the end of this day in particular. I had stopped at El Sacrificio with Reibe back in the day during a baja 1000 tour. On this ride, I arrived to it from the back country, sneaking up from behind. I needed to investigate further, what El Sacrificio really was.
El Sacrificio sits back from the highway by yards of road shoulder. Debris and litter spreads into the near desert so that the establishment is a maelstrom of dust and debris swirling about it. A family lived there, making their way through roadside commerce: food, limited lodging, beer. This is what I wrote about my visit there on the day… or, actually I wrote this in the evening as it rained.
The family watches the tv. One establishment serves as home and restaurant. I ordered 6 Tecate and one Huevos Rancheros and ate devourously in the light of the corner window.
I sleep in the back, in the shack, for a high-ask of $200 pesos, I did not argue. I was far from shape to haggle and the Mother had only concern for the money, not the white man. I then asked if a shower was possible; an arrogant request, the momma bear rolled her yes, dug into a wood pile, and pitched mesquite under the water heater to get it going. I regretted asking for their resource. It wasn’t a situation for it. I was an ignorant tourist at that point, almost willfully. Why?
The room: The room was a shack on the back of the lot. a slight walk from the kitchen and living area of the “restaurant”, it was 10 dollars for the night. a pure survival and attempt at comfort I would be shocked at the obvious nature of it.
Your standard Mexican truck stop. Three beds in a small room – a primary and a bunk to the left. A dead deep cycle battery with wires running up to a useless faint light, a broken tv and a ripped mattress rest against osb walls with a shop vac pushed against them. The build started off well, an artisan-cracked tile floor in that unfinished way of many a good Mexican efforts that see the end of resources too soon, a galvanized roof, a bolt lock on the door. I wear my headlamp. I wager the top bunk wasn’t used as the others, to difficult an act, so I take it, dropping all concern for the paramount of sleep. The rain taps on the roof above my face. I sleep, listening for the emergent. Cattle wander, ranch trucks pass down the dirt road, semi’s Jake brake hwy 1 all night long, all metronomic at a very slow rhythm.
Then the child: The child was a miracle as my wayward ignorance mislead, he was there to whisper essential words… I knew better than what I was doing. As I filled my bottle at the garden tap, he was there, oddly, out of nowhere and said “No se tener.” Do not take. The water was clear. I took a whiff. It smelled the sweat smell of taint. The pozo was rotten.
The hot water heater burned by mesquite to ferocious hot. I asked, then I refused a shower, knowing I had them waste precious mesquite for nothing, a good hot burn. I was happier in filth, dreaded hair and cracked fingernails than I was thinking of the travails a shower required. There was only the impoverished family itself, Juan the grandfather, who was inquisitive and spoke slowly to me, and understood my broken words, as a silver lining.
Why was I there? Exhaustion from the day of cold wind, mountain passes and rain lead me to the first establishment I would find. This was El Sacrificio – a highway 1 hovel in the middle of nowhere.
