Ensenada, Mexico
I'm not sure why we pulled into a port in Mexico. We were coming from Hawaii. Our destination was San Diego. But we docked in the blue waters of a wide, arcing bay south of the U.S. border. The countryside around us started from low, white sand beaches and rose up the slopes to meet houses, hotels, a business district, and tall apartment buildings. A mile or two in the distance, beyond the city, the land rose higher into a range of coastal mountains spotted with green, semi-desert shrubs. I stared at the mountains and the bay for a long time.
Ensenada looked better than Oahu. I mean, the sight of the place made me wonder why I hadn't heard of it before. I had to remind myself how I thought the same about Missouri, where the land is beautiful but the locals either disagree or they take the beauty for granted. I don't hear many people rave about Missouri.
At dawn, the temperature rose into the 60s and stayed there, a cool, slightly-breezy January day. I knew Diane had opted for us to take a package tour because she had given me a choice of tour options. Although I had been tempted by the tequila tasting, I felt I'd done that plenty in college. So I picked the mountain ziplining. It was a way to see the countryside on our only day in Mexico.
Our bus ride to the mountains started with a drive by the gangster mansion in downtown Ensenada. Our guide gave us a quick description of the mansion's history. It hosted crime and shootings. Then it became a sort of museum. The bus and the talk from the guide continued out of town, up into the hills, and eventually took us through wine country. Finally, after most of an hour of riding and talking, the bus driver cranked the wheels to the left, pulled through a gate into a wineyard, and bounced along a gravel driveway to a house responsible for manufacturing wine and tequila. Plus they had an equipment shed for ziplining gear, which made it my destination.
Later, I found out one of the passengers bailed out when we pulled up. She made her decision as the rest of us dressed. She switched to the tequila tour.
Mountain Ziplines
Meanwhile, Diane and I clambered into the gear along with a dozen others, leg straps, shoulders, helmet, and harness. We passed inspection and hopped into another bus, this one headed up a mountain peak. In a minute, our second bus turned off the road and grinded up a volcanic trail of broken basalt, rocks, and clay. The trail disappeared. It looked like it had been washed out and filled in, by hand, with rocks and gravel. Eventually, maybe two hundred feet from the top, the bus could get no further. The trail ended in desert scrub. We had to get out and hike the rest of the way. Fortunately, we could see the huge zipline cables and the launch platform above. We had something to aim at.
We lost another person on the first climb. The guide said one of our tour members returned to the bus and asked to be taken back to the tequila house.
The rest of us didn't know. But one or two of our remaining troupe eyed the launch point nervously. The mountains around Ensenada top out at around 4,300 feet. There was a higher range to the northeast but we didn't have to worry about those. Anyway, we were elevated enough to see the ocean fifteen miles away. We saw the bay clearly, too. It was a bright day in the desert hills.
Even though it was December and we were high up in the air currents, Ensenada by the Pacific coast was warm like an early spring day in Maryland. I was fine in my t-shirt and zipline gear. Diane had to billow her jacket to let in more cool mountain breezes. Eventually, she took it off and tied it around her waist.
The zipline looked easy. Still, we could see it ran from mountaintop to mountaintop. The nervous folks knew what was coming. The hike up to the launch site let our bodies know how it was going to be. We all understood, if we were struggling to climb the last five hundred feet, our reality. We knew what lay ahead, more. Our legs understood. Our lungs did, too. Our eyes saw the depths of the valleys. Our skin felt cool, hair-whipping gusts.
The sun glinted off the ocean to the distant west and far, far below. We hadn't seen the ocean for hours on the rides to get here. We stared at it now, from on high.
"Go ahead of me," said the older man in front, tall and thin. I had been climbing slowly and patiently but nevertheless I had caught him. When he noticed, he stopped on the trail. He wiped his brow.
I hiked past him, worried we might lose another zipline partner. We hadn't even begun.
At the launch point, four college-aged tourists waited with me for the rest of our group. When I started to stroll forward to the launch platform, two of them hopped to the front. Okay, so I wouldn't go first down the mountain. That was a good thing, probably. The guide called me forward when it was my turn. He strapped me in.
My first impression when I took my running leap from the launch deck was not about the height. So I've beaten that old phobia, I guess. It wasn't the wind, either. It was the sense of being on a desert peak half-covered by scrubby trees. It was a 'Gosh, I'm on a mountain' moment.
The world went quiet. I traveled at the same speed as the wind. My hands vibrated. A whining sound rose from the pulley on the steel cable. The pitch got higher as I gained speed. Close to the end, a cross-breeze swept in and threatened to twist me backwards but I pointed my feet, aimed, and I landed fine. In front of me, the same gust had blown a woman sideways. Our guide decided to give us advice.
"If the wind pushes you around," he drawled, "let go of the straps. Spread your arms."
He had waited for a pair of older women to arrive before he repeated himself. One of them gave us a brave smile, showing us her teeth. The idea of letting go sounded crazy to her, I could tell. And to me. Extending my arms meant trusting the equipment more than my grip. But rationally, I knew I was already dependent on the harness. This wasn't different, just another step in a trusting direction.
The guide locked me into the harness for the next ride and told me to, "Wait." We watched the other instructor at the front. The guide reached out to me and repeated, "Wait, wait."
"Okay." And I thought, an impulse is not just a decision but a real pulse, a kick off.
I kicked off. The air felt warm but fresh to my skin. I had the sense of floating above the trees. I could smell them. I could feel their moisture in the dusty, mountain-desert air.
A blast of wind swept me side to side for a moment. My body turned. I spread my arms. But it wasn't working. Then I pulled in my right and stuck my left out. The roaring air spun me back to facing forward. I lowered my hands, pointed my feet, and narrowed myself like a bicycle racer down a mountain. The wind rushed faster.
As I approached the landing platform, I extended my toes. I could see where the instructor had landed. I remembered when I was eighteen, parachuting, and I didn't stick the landing because no one had told me it was possible. Well, now I knew it was possible. I wanted to nail the right spot.
"Whoa," said the instructor as I dodged him and set my feet down hard, next to his. "Oh, okay."
And so it went down the ziplines, from mountain to mountain.
We started at the highest peak and lost elevation each time. We had to hike back up to the next launch point, climb after climb, jump after jump. Mountain after mountain. Okay, it was eight mountains. At the last landing, we climbed down only forty feet to the level ground.
On the bus ride back, we had to stop for a farmer taking his cows across the dirt road. Everyone waited patiently. Someone wondered aloud about the tequila tour.
