Driving through the back-country trails in San Carlos can make you feel like the last person on the planet. The Sonoran desert marches to the waters of the Sea of Cortez and beyond. The little islands just offshore sport the same scrubby look and classic cartoon cacti of the mainland.
The expansive blue sky, blistering sun, and utter silence can make the stretch of land between the mountains and the sea seem utterly hostile. The flock of vultures I passed while driving with Jose Lopez of the local university helped to embellish the theme of desolation.
San Carlos is a fishing village that also evolved (or devolved, depending on your opinion) into a tourism and retirement destination for well-heeled northerners looking for a dry, warm climate, benign beaches, and tremendous fishing and diving. The fishermen and their families now live on the northern edge of town, up a dusty/muddy track that dejectedly trails off from the paved road that used to take tourists to the Club Med. You can stop by the village and buy a fresh seafood lunch from one of the little shanty restaurants alongside the fishing skiffs drawn up on the sand.
Heading a kilometer inland toward the hills that drop down near the village, we encountered this skiff high and dry in the desert but still lashed to a bush, almost as if the owner harbored suspicions that the sea hadn't receded for good.
I washed out the picture a good deal to impart the feeling that day of the mirage-inducing heat, the broad sky, and the incongruity of the battered skiff still tied down despite its desert berth.
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