Perfekt Imperfection

by Dlove

It’s funny how things always have a way of working out. There’s an old Taoist proverb about two old friends talking about life. One friend said to the other, “So, I bought this new horse. It’s a great horse, really strong.” The second friend said, “Oh! That’s good!” The first friend replied, “Well, my son was riding it a couple of weeks ago and had a really nasty tumble. That horse started bucking him and my son fell off and broke his arm.” The second friend exclaimed, “Oh! That’s bad!” The first friend continued, “Well, a week later, the king’s army came to our village and took all of the young men who were old enough to fight in the war. My son couldn’t fight because he’d broken his arm.” The second friend replied, “Oh, that’s good!”

The story continues on in this manner. The point of the story is that when there is bad timing for one thing it is only because, later on, there will be good timing for another. This idea became vividly clear to me this past weekend. Some friends and I had made plans weeks ago to head out to Mexico and camp at a beautiful desert oasis called Guadalupe Canyon. It is, quite literally, a desert oasis; natural hot springs flow out of the mountains and into the canyon. Palm trees grow in groves along the canyon floor and waterfalls cascade down its rocky walls. The days were warm in the sun, but cool in the shade. La Virgin de Guadalupe, a human shaped boulder at the peak of the mountain, looks over the canyon. It is a holy place.

Paul was our tour guide. He had been to Guadalupe Canyon many times and new his way around Mexico. He is also a Spanish speaking Puerto Rican and a really fucking cool guy, so I always knew I could trust him to speak for me when having to deal with the locals, since my Spanish is so limited. All of this would come into play over the weekend. Paul and Steve, another cool guy who was ranked tenth in the world for wheelchair tennis and plays guitar like a mothafucka , took on the grocery shopping and cooking duties. Gabe, cool guy #3 and amazing ceramics artist, had planned on doing a pit firing (I’ll explain this process later). Jason, another incredible artist, brought out his drum and his good vibes. I brought a big ass tent, a cooking stove, some percussion instruments and a small bag of shrooms.

Some pretty serious planning had gone into this trip. Reservations had been made for the best campsite. Under normal circumstances, we would’ve left on Friday and gotten a jump on the weekend, but Gabe was having an art opening at Playa Gallery and we all decided it’d be better to simply leave on Saturday morning instead. Still, our reservations were set and we had decided to stay until Monday. The art show was great and, after a night of partying, we all headed home to try to rest up for our trip.

The next morning, we managed to get out of San Diego by 11:00AM. Not too bad. We had three cars heading out caravan-style and everything was going great. We made it over the border without any problems and were about 45 minutes west of Mexicali when we turned off the highway and got onto a bumpy dirt road. And I’m not just talking about little bumps. I’m talking serious mounds of dirt and rocks. We traveled this road for about 40 minutes at 35 mph until another Guadalupe Canyon sign directed us onto a road that was even worse than the one before it. Whereas the first dirt road had been mostly straight, this new road was 10 times as bumpy and irregular as the first road and had all sorts of hairpin turns. We finally drove into the camp at Guadalupe Canyon at around 4:30.

The sun had already set behind the Virgin of Guadalupe and the canyon was cast in shadow. It would be dark soon. We had hoped to set up our camp before it got too dark. Paul scouted ahead to the camp office to check in. He had said that we’d either get El Mirador or El Sol; two of the best campsites complete with a stone walled palapa and natural hot spring bath, not to mention an incredible view of the canyon spilling out into the salt flats. While Paul and Jason went to deal with checking in, Gabe and I went to see the campsites that were supposedly reserved for us. Both of them appeared to be occupied by happy Mexican families. Fuck. What did this mean for us? We waited patiently for Paul and Jason to return, but after awhile, we got antsy and went up to see what was going on.

We found Paul and he told us what we already knew; they had mistakenly given our campsite to someone else the day before. To make matters worse, the whole camp was filled. There wasn’t a single campsite available. Fuck. However, there was other news: apparently there are actually three different camps in Guadalupe Canyon. Three brothers own the three camps; one brother owns each one. All of the camps were full, but one of the brothers had a brand new campsite that had never been used. However, apparently, the two brothers we had been dealing with have a bit of a feud with their third brother. One way or another, the guy decided that we could stay there. Getting our money back from the original brother was another matter that took time and when we finally drove out of the camp, it was almost 7:30.

Unbelievably, we got on a road that was worse than the first two put together. We were bumped and jostled left and right by boulders sticking up through the earth. We had to drive through a fucking river. It was like being inside a commercial for one of those hulking 4x4 jeeps, except it was now dark so you couldn’t see further than your headlight beams projected. A half hour later, we were driving into one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been.

The original camp we first drove into seemed pretty fucking cool. Each one had its own cool little set up with a grill and hot spring bath made from the stones jutting up through the earth. However, compared to our new campsite, the first place looked crowded. The new place had a huge area that stretched for about 50 yards in one direction and 20 in the other lined on one side by a grove of tall palm trees and on the other by huge granite boulders and beyond that, the canyon floor. As with the other sites, a nice, large, stone hot spring bath was built into the boulders lining our space. Unfortunately, the one problem with our place was that the pipes were not insulated so that, by the time the spring water made it to our tub, it was only hot and not super hot (about 120 degrees). Still, we were just happy to have a place to set up camp at all.

By the time we started in on making dinner it was 8:45 or so. The menu included about 4 pounds of mahi mahi with a mango chutney and seasoned white rice. There was more than enough food to go around and everything was delicious. We had just eaten the best meal any of us had had in awhile and we were happy to have our new spot. It certainly didn’t feel like camping. We were doing it in style. Hell, we even brought out a special grill for our meals. We smoked bowls and jammed on our instruments. Very cool. The night was damn cold, actually, but we had built a good fire and kept ourselves warm. Good things had come out of a potential disaster at the first camp.

The next morning was leisurely and included breakfast (leftover mahi, scrambled eggs and a delicious avocado tomato salsa served in a burrito), bowls and Frisbee. Paul had gotten friendly with Ernesto, the owner of the camp and brought him over to check out Gabe’s pit firing process. Basically, Gabe creates some ceramic forms and fires them in a normal kiln. He then gathers up a bunch of organic stuff (seaweed, pine needles, hair, banana peels, etc), liquid metals, wood for burning, and a shovel and heads out to places where he can build big fucking fires. There was a perfect area amid some boulders and away from vegetation where we decided to build the pit. It was about 3 feet deep and we moved some smaller boulders around the edge of it. Gabe worked all afternoon, carefully draping organics dipped in liquid metal around his ceramic forms and then wrapping each one in aluminum foil. After this part of the procedure, the forms are placed in the bottom of the pit and covered with wood. The wood is then lit on fire producing heat in the 800 to 1000 degree range which oxidizes the organics and causes the liquid metals to leave traces of color on the ceramic forms. Ernesto watched us build the pit as Paul explained the whole process to him. He seemed impressed by it and gave our project his blessing.

As we were digging the pit, we watched the Mexican families loading up there things and heading out from the site. It became apparent to us rather quickly that we’d have the whole camp to ourselves. Even Ernesto was leaving. He told us to lock the gate behind us when we left in the morning. Very cool guy. Jason, Paul Gabe and I went on a hike while Steve studied (he’s a English lit student working on his masters degree). We hiked up to the waterfalls and checked out the breathtaking view. Jason and Gabe headed back to camp a little earlier to continue his pit firing preparations and Paul and I went back a half hour later.

The sun was beginning to descend in the sky and we were all excited for the pit firing. Paul, Jason and I took some mushrooms and had a great time laughing and watching the intense colors spreading across the desert as the sun went down and the mushrooms kicked in. Just as it got dark, Gabe lit up the huge pile of wood. Within minutes, the wood was completely ablaze. The colors coming out of the fire were incredible. Transparent blues and greens. Deep purples and, of course, burning oranges. The fire was getting so hot in its middle that it was burning white. The flames were easily 7 feet high. Jason and I sat on a large boulder and watched the flames from above. Suddenly, we heard a voice yelling, “You can’t do that! You can’t do that!” A man with a headlamp and pony tail was running towards our fire and said, “Help me get some water to put out that fire! We can’t have a fire that big here!”

None of us knew what to do. This guy was the caretaker for the three camps and he was completely steadfast in putting out the fire. He took the lid to our grill, submerged it in the water from our hot spring bath and threw it on the fire. By that time, I had decided that the guy was not going to stop until the fire had been extinguished, so I helped him. Meanwhile, Gabe stood by silently outraged. When you take a ceramic form that is heated up to 800 degrees and then suddenly throw water on it to cool it to 200 or 300 degrees, they crack. Gabe had about 17 different forms that he’d created over the span of a couple of weeks. A whole body of his work was ruined. Or so he thought. He argued and debated with the guy for a good half hour while the rest of us got dinner ready (4 ½ pounds of organic steak and potatoes with carrots, onions and spices. Un-fucking-believable). Gabe finished his conversation and rebuilt the fire. The guy had been really nervous because another campfire had gotten completely out of control and burned through the valley. He saw a big fire and got worried about floating embers burning some of the extremely dry palm fronds on some of the trees. Gabe convinced him that this fire wouldn’t get out of control and explained the pit firing procedure. The guy said we could build the fire again, but make it smaller.

Although we were all sad about Gabe’s ceramics, we tried to salvage the evening and ended up having a great time. And even though our own hot spring tub wasn’t hot enough, we had access to the tubs at other camp sites since no one else was around, so we used another one instead. It was exquisite! The stars were out in full force and with the air at 35 degrees, it felt great to get into 120 degree mineral water. We got out of the tub after awhile and, one by one, went to sleep.

The next day, we all got up and were curious to see if any of the ceramics had survived the caretaker’s fire dousing routine. The ceramic forms were visible, some of them still packed in their aluminum foil. There didn’t appear to be too much damage to the ones that could be seen. Usually, when he does a pit firing, Gabe knows he will lose 10 to 20 percent of his pieces. It’s something he has come to accept. For whatever reason, Gabe didn’t lose a single piece in that firing and he got some incredible effects that he might not have gotten had it not been for the water that was poured on them. Again, a bad thing that turned into a good thing.

Finally, our trip was coming to an end. After one more dip in the hot springs, we packed up our belongings and headed out of the site careful to lock the gate behind us. We ventured back out to the open salt flats and cruised back to the highway. Before we knew it, we were back across the border and on our way home. The trip was perfect in its chaotic imperfectness.

We’ll definitely go back to Guadalupe Canyon. Paul and Ernesto became friends and Ernesto talked to Paul about producing a webpage and logo design. We also talked to him about doing postcards that would be available in the little market there. We’re going to create these things for him in exchange for a free place to stay whenever we want. It’s a beautiful thing that wouldn’t have happened if things hadn’t flowed exactly the way they did.