The first night
I ever spent in La Bufadora, the kids and I decided to walk from Gordos
to the house we were renting. Kathy took my van and said she’d meet us
later. It was a dark, moonless night. There was no electricity, so there
were no lights. None of us had a flashlight. All the roads are still dirt,
and all of them meander around in a semi-meaningless way.
We made it past
Dale’s Dive Shack. I thought I saw a shortcut, and motioned the kids to
follow me. All of a sudden there was no road under my feet. I slipped,
and slid on my backside down a short but gravelly incline. Getting up and
dusting myself off, I continued onward. We went across an expanse of open
ground and into some trees.
“Which way do we
go now?” Gayle asked. There were three or four choices. I heard strains
of some Jimmy Buffett music off to my left.
“Let’s go that
way.” We went a little further, made a couple more turns, trying to locate
the source of the music. We couldn’t, and after about 15 minutes of wandering
around in circles, we gave up.
“Do you think we
can find our way back to Gordos?” the kids asked. I hoped so.
We made it back to the dive shack
and encountered Kathy, Nina and John in my van. Thankfully, my sister knew
her way back to the house we were staying in. As we wound our way through
the maze of dirt roads, I was astounded. It had all looked so easy in the
daylight. But in the near-total darkness, I was utterly clueless as to
where we were going. I just knew that we could’ve traipsed around all night
and never made it home.
After Nina and
I bought our house, I still had problems negotiating the roads at night.
It took a couple of years before I really knew my way around. That first
winter, after our “Friday Nights at Gordos,” we’d always head over to Dick
and Vee’s house where Dick would play his guitar and we’d all sing old
rock ‘n roll songs off key. As the crows flew, their house was due north
of us, in a straight line and at the same elevation. However, there were
at least four or five different ways to get from Point A to Point B and
I never took the same road home twice.
One trip, in February
of 1995, Nina and I came down alone. We’d left after work, so it was dark
when we arrived. Rather than going to the house and unloading, we went
straight to Gordos. We were starving and craving tacos. It was a busy night.
Of course, it’s always busy at Gordos on a Friday night. It was after 11:00
when we headed home after stopping at Dick and Vee’s.
“Do you know where
you’re going?” Nina asked me.
“More or less.
Well, no. Not really. But I always get home eventually. It’s fun. Just
think of it as an adventure.”
We wound our way
up and down and around and finally got to the bottom of our driveway. I
turned left to go up. All of a sudden, the van lurched forward and pitched
down with a huge thump.
“What was that?”
we asked simultaneously. I tried the gas pedal. It whirred. The tires spun.
I wasn’t going anywhere. I was stuck.
We got out to look.
“Oh shit,” I said. “The front tire’s in a ravine. I swear, that ravine
was not there when I was here the last time.”
“Well, it did rain,”
Nina reminded me. Just then we saw headlights. “Oh good,” she said. “Maybe
whoever this is can pull us out.”
It was Manny, husband
of Celia, who runs one of the Boof restaurants. He pulled up next to us.
“We’re stuck,” I told him.
He shook his head and
laughed. “That’s obvious. Had a bit to drink, did you? Well, go to bed.
Your car’s not going anywhere tonight.”
Not inebriated,
but thoroughly embarrassed, we grabbed our suitcases and hiked up the driveway,
cursing ourselves for forgetting to bring flashlights. We unlocked the
house, turned on the (dim) solar lights and dutifully went to bed.
Next morning we
were the talk of La Buf. Vee came by with her camera to record my misadventure
for posterity. Milo came by. Miguel Toscano came by, driving his water
truck.
“I can pull you
out,” he said. He and Milo hooked a chain from his back bumper to my back
bumper. Within minutes, my van was free. And amazingly, it was undamaged.
He wouldn’t let pay him either. As he drove away, he smiled and said, “Have
a La Bufadora day.”
The moral of this
story is: Do not assume you know your way in the dark on dirt roads after
it rains—especially after a Friday night at Gordos. Oh, and keep a flashlight
in the car at all times.
© Ann Hazard, 2002. No part of
this article may be reprinted without permission. Reprinted in the Coast
News, March 14, 2002.
This story is featured in Ann's newest book,
Agave
Sunsets.