Baja Thirst

The 1955 De Soto sedan pulled my fourteen foot outboard motorboat with ease. We headed south on the narrow dirt road. We'd used the boat for skin-diving trips to Catalina, and we trusted it would get us to a small island about five miles from shore and eighty miles below San Felipe, Baja California, Mexico. We passed through the little fishing village of San Felipe in August 1958. We did not see any tourists.

We saw little puddles of water outside the windows and doors of some of the adobe houses where women had thrown out their bath and dish water. Many of the windows or doors were painted blue or green to keep out evil spirits. The people of the village made sure to drive out the evil spirits with help from a religious person before applying the blue paint. They did this because the paint might also keep a bad spirit inside the house.

My younger brother, Vic Browne, was an excellent mechanic who served in the army. He had served as a front line soldier in Korea, and it made me feel safe being with my younger brother in Mexico in 1958. We were in desolate desert country, and although we did not expect to see bandits, we had seen bandits in the Humphrey Bogart movie The Treasure of Sierra Madre. Being in a foreign country made me feel vulnerable. Baja California and the Sea of Cortez were almost empty of people, and we felt especially lonely where we were going. About sixty miles south of San Felipe we stopped at a tiny boat harbor, Puertosito, where we drank two bottles of Pepsi Cola. We had decided not to trust Mexican drinking water. We asked for directions where we might launch our boat to reach Tortuga (Turtle) Island. We could see the island about fifteen miles farther down the coast. The Mexican store owner spoke only Spanish, but he indicated we might get the boat in the water at a rocky beach twelve miles south of Puertosito.

Our odometer told us we were nearing the beach, and the winding, dusty road was getting closer to the sea again. I pulled over a small rise to look down at the water, and I decided the shore-line was too steep for our boat trailer. Besides being steep, it had too many loose, flat, slippery rocks. Instead of trying to back the car and boat trailer, I tried to swing, or loop down to the left, hoping the momentum would help us climb back to the road. It didn't work, and we got stuck in the loose rocks, spinning our wheels as the car halted. We unhitched the trailer and worked in the fierce heat, forcing bits of driftwood and dried seaweed under the back wheels for traction. Instead of climbing the slope, the car slipped toward the water. We gave up trying to move the car, unhitched the boat trailer, and we pushed the boat and trailer into the water. We meant to drive the boat twelve miles back to Puertosito for help.

As we floated the boat off the trailer, a wave swamped the outboard motor, and soaked all the wires and spark plugs. The motor wouldn't start, the little open boat filled with water, and my camera and other goods were soaking wet.

The sun roasted us. The sea water was about 100 degrees, and it didn't cool us off. We were sweating, getting sunburned, and the air was at least a hundred fifteen degrees. With the boat full of water, we couldn't pull it uphill out of the surf. We tied the small boat to the trailer, and tied the trailer to a rock on shore. Then, we worked to get the car moving. Jacking up the back wheels and putting drift wood under the tires didn't do any good. The car slipped down the slope toward the waves whenever we moved it.

. As we worked, we noticed two severed turtle heads lying on the beach. Someone had butchered them leaving the guts and giant turtle heads behind, covered with little sand fleas. Our plans included finding a giant turtle in the sea, swimming to catch it, and having it tow us in the water.

We had forgotten to bring drinking water, so we opened a can of peaches. The peach syrup was the only thing we had to drink. We shared the peaches and syrup. It tasted great, but we were still thirsty. Vic said, "It's twelve miles back to get help. We are going to have to walk, so let's get going."

The road curved like a snake leading away from the water. After trudging for a half hour in the heat, we flopped down in the sun and rested. Ten minutes later Vic stood and said, "Come on, get up! We've got to keep going and get some water or we will die out here."

Vic stands over six feet tall, and has the strong, lean musculature of a basketball player. He had gone through paratroopers school as part of his training at Fort Benning, Georgia. The hard training made a man of the teenager. During the Korean War he was one of the first soldiers to cross the thirty eighth parallel. He used a jeep to carry welding equipment and a mounted machine gun to the front lines. He rescued broken down American tanks. He repaired and drove the tanks back to safety. Although two years my junior, after the war, I looked up to Vic as if he were my big brother. As I followed him on the dusty road, I looked to see if there was any shade. I saw uneven ground but no rocks, trees, or anything tall enough to give shade. Nothing was growing, not even cactus. As my eyes searched for shade, I day-dreamed about drinking beer, water, anything to quench my thirst. Each mile, and then each half mile, we fell in the dirt. Each time we fell, we slept and dreamed for a few minutes. Each time my brother woke me, and he encouraged me to continue our hike. We put pebbles in our mouths in an attempt to attract saliva to our dry tongues.

In one of my dreams, I was in an old wooden shack with a ragged little Mexican boy about eight years old. He was dirty, skinny, and had the look of a hungry old man. Wizened and weak, with big dark eyes, he looked sad in the dream. He looked like someone De Grazia could have painted when the artist was feeling depressed and religious. In my dream the boy and I were dying of thirst, and there was only one small jar of water. I didn't want to be selfish, but I kept thinking the boy was accustomed to thirst, and that he might be able to tolerate going without drink longer than me. It was a maddening hallucination, not resolved. Far off, I could hear my brother calling me back to consciousness. Later, I dreamed I was actually drinking sweet, cool water. It made me feel so comfortable, I didn't mind lying in the sun on ground heated to 130 degrees. Vic coaxed me to stand, and after we had walked about eight miles, the road took us within sight of the sea. Even though we knew the water was warm, we made a bee-line for it, and walked into the water without removing our wallets from our pockets.

By then, we were burning with fever, and the warm water seemed cooler than before. I took a mouthful of saltwater. It tasted good, and I swallowed some of the warm brine. Vic noticed me and said, "Don't drink any salt water. It will make you go crazy!"

I promised to obey, but kept swallowing sips of mouthfuls before spitting the water out. I didn't let Vic know I was drinking the water. I felt guilty. While feeling guilty about drinking the water, I thought maybe the salt water was just what my body craved and needed. The salty water refreshed me, and I felt better after drinking it. It did not make me crazy.

I offered to pay Vic twenty dollars if he would go on without me, and bring back help. He wouldn't leave me, and we took to the water. We waded and swam around cliffs and big rocks. Sometimes the water was deep. The going was slow, but more pleasant for me after getting a little liquid, and cooling off in the water. After an hour of wading, we stopped to bathe in a deep cove by the dirt road. We heard the sound of a motor, then saw a truck going south. The four wheel drive open bed truck stopped, and the driver motioned for us to come. He held up two quart sized bottles of Pepsi Cola.

Each of us drank his Pepsi straight down, while Vic warned me not to drink too fast. I explained in broken Spanish to the driver that we needed help to pull the car and boat up to the road. As he drove us south, we drank the two large bottles of Pepsi Cola and we also drank two gallons of water. The liquid went immediately into our blood stream and cured our Baja thirst. The truck pulled our boat, trailer, and car to safety, and we gave Juan Garcia our thanks. He was a good Samaritan, and Mexico can be proud of men like him.

Something interesting happened on our way home from San Felipe. The car started acting weak, just as we reached a mountain summit on the way to Tijuana. Vic said I had allowed the motor to overheat. He said it caused the transmission oil to boil itself almost dry. He said we could continue driving for a while since we were over the hump and going downhill. He hoped we would find some transmission oil soon, but in an emergency, we could use water to replace the oil. The water could later be drained, and in the meantime, it would prevent the motor from burning up. But we didn't find it necessary to use water.

We stopped at a closed service station. On the other side of the road, a Mexican cantina was noisy with Mexican men. They were drinking, talking, singing loudly and having fun. We joined them. We were the only Gringos in the place. After we drank two beers each, I had a bad feeling somebody was fingering his knife. Men were staring at us, so we left. I asked the service station hombre to sell us transmission fluid, but he had none, and we settled for pouring motor oil into the transmission. Later, Vic drained it, and replaced it with transmission oil. The thing I hated most about the trip was salt water ruining my camera with undeveloped pictures of my first baby. The water also ruined my photos and the little black book in my wallet.