Back in Baja

Well, we made it! The Living Roots gals are on the ground running, working hard, squeezing in a bit of beach time, eating plenty of tacos de pescado, and hoping you’ll enjoy keeping up with some of our experiences along the way!

Colleen, Mila, McKenzie

Getting Off the Ground

After picking up Mila in Longmont and snapping a bon voyage team photo in front of the “good-luck poppy” (bloomed for the first time in six years that morning), the Living Roots team was off on their Baja expedition. The adventure started in DIA when TSA authorities caught Colleen attempting to smuggle (accidently, of course) a “butcher knife” through security. The knife happened to be one of the handmade knives produced by the rancheros we are working with in the community of Las Animas. Due to the knife’s longer-than-three-inch size, a very official round of interrogation ensued. Colleen embellished her story with tales of GSSE and saving the world, and escaped what could have been a $10,000 fine and six years in prison. We took this as another sign of good luck gracing our departing day.

Cabo to Todos Santos

Once safely landed on the tip of the peninsula, we made our way to the Yuca Inn (in San Jose Del Cabo), a great little hostel that grows its own fruit, vegetables, and herbs. We spent our first few days interviewing artisan shop owners, tourists, and government organizations both in San Jose and Cabo San Lucas. We gathered incredibly valuable information in a short amount of time—McKenzie even scored over ten years worth of tourist and development statistics from a government tourism agency on her flash drive. We also interviewed a very generous gentleman from a federal organization that supports local artisans, who gifted us each an artisan-designed journal for our travels. Que Bueno!

We continued on to Pescadero, where we picked up McKenzie’s car, which we left down here in January, and obtained our freedom from taxis and buses. We then drove to Todos Santos (home of the best Chili Rellenos in the world, a well-known surf break, and the Hotel California as sung by the Eagles), where we went “tourist shopping” and conducted more surveys and interviews. While Todos Santos is recognized for its high-quality artisan products, we’ve been discovering that many visitors to the area are unfamiliar with the sierra (mountain) communities and the unique, native-to-Baja products they produce. On the way out of town, we interviewed a couple of women who run a Dulceria (sweet shop), and picked up a bag of delicious locally harvested dried mango slices for the road to La Paz.

Back in La Paz

It was nice to get back to La Paz where we home based in January. We finally got to meet our wonderful, fabulous in-country intern, Diana (a resource provided by Opportunities Without Borders who has done some great market research for us), as well as one of our in-country mentors, Fermin Reyagadas, a professor of Alternative Tourism who has worked with rancheros for the past 30 years. Together we sipped nopal (prickly pear) and naranja (orange) juice, discussing conservation issues in Baja and preparing for our weekend trip into the Sierra La Lagunas.