Push button control in a re-cyclical world
Date: March 24,
2017
By Maria-Teresa Solomons
When guests arrive here one of the first things we
will explain to them as their orientation guide here is to be aware of that big
osprey nest over the ‘restrooms’. It’s just one of many mindful attitudes we
encourage here as it’s also perhaps quite appropriate to say that, in the
description of the everyday functioning of this camp, we suggest that learning
to live by slightly simpler rules for the apparently short four days can be
quite a beautiful process, especially as groups come in more or less for the 5pm,
‘happy hour’, margarita and guacamole with salsa n corn chips spread, brought
in by the ringing of a small ship’s bell.
Guests arrive here after a long day traveling,
finalised, either by that stunning landing on a desert airstrip with a
following somewhat retro bus ride along the mud-wash, sand packed road to
‘Campo Cortez’, or as ‘self-arrivals’, – and take note not to look for signs pointing you to ‘Baja Eco Tours’, as that
name isn’t used here. Nevertheless, once settled inside the palapa, (the guest
area meeting and feasting space), the cell phones still never fail to appear
and for a few , I suppose, expected-to-be normal moments, fingers begin to dash
more wildly across one bar signal screens than at times, the whiplashing wind.
However, that doesn’t last long as this experience is anything but normal. Data
connection, Verizon, USACELL or otherwise, doesn’t intrude here at the flick of
a switch or the push of a button. Cell phones down. Beautifully, to the wind or
a quiet sunset , the margarita’s are poured now even more smoothly than
before…a first relatively small adjustment towards learning to live more
simply.
Rocky Point, which marks the entrance to the protected
national marine park whale watching area of the lagoon, where no permanent
structure is authorised, is 2 eco-tourism camps away from Campo Cortez. Yes, what
you will find here is luxury in comparison, phone and battery chargers connected
to small inverters in all of the small ply board cabins designed simply as a
better measure against the elements than the typical ‘bring in take out’ military
style tents put up to brace the wind to host the other equally adventurous
groups excited by the prospect of this whale touching experience. Push a button
and there is light!
If it were as easy as a national border declaration on
a piece of paper that would have us discard ‘illegal’ frontier foods stuffs or
other bio-chemical matter, or dangerous toxic materials we might be able to
more easily let go of all the mind muddle city life nonsense that seeps through
regardless with the busloads. However, in the end the natural elements are
still stronger than the influence of a ball pen and the dictates of
bureaucracy. Eons of dinosaurs and the ice ages freezing over and dispersing
are proof of that. Take a shower here and there is only one control to
consider, the one that turns on the pump to your shower head and out comes
readily measured and temperature fixed hot water.
If you want to pee, then walk along the shell-lined
path, lit up at night by mini solar lights, and you are in the domain of the
male and female ospreys with their 3 still surviving chicks guarding and
feeding in a huge twined stick and bracken nest above you. World-class
photographers win Oscars for photos that could capture that. BUT remember that in passing whatever
you have to pass, first respect their nesting ground and their comings and
goings. Watching them, especially when walking into the melting sun, is the
greatest gift you could wish for, a memorable highlight, only second of course,
to the fun of listening to the thrum of that motorised push button saltwater
flush.
