Slow Baja - Backpacking The El Camino Real With Genevieve Mattar And Kevin Branscum

Episode Date: February 6, 2023

Genevieve Mattar and Kevin Branscum met in South America while exploring the Andes ruins and the Amazon forests. He was an American seeking adventure, and she was a travel guide leading a group of French Canadians. The couple soon married and as Kevin was a Southern Californian and seasoned Baja traveler, they began exploring the remote regions of Baja Sur. They became interested in the old mission trail while visiting the Sierra de San Francisco rock art. One day on a mule ride, they came across a track that looked different from the one they were following. They asked their local guide about it. He replied, “That is the old mission trail, el camino antiguo de los misioneros.” El Camino Real. The El Camino Real, or “King’s Highway,” is the mission trail leading from Loreto in Baja Súr, Mexico, to all Californias. They include Baja Súr, Baja, and Alta California, better known as the state of California. The mystery of that trail, combined with its history and the beauty of its surroundings, hooked them. For twenty-two years, they’ve regularly returned to explore El Camino Real, locating and accurately mapping additional trail segments. They hope to find and preserve the exact position of as much of the El Camino Real as possible. Only through sharing the story and developing eco-tourism --will the historic trail remain alive. Learn more about their work here.

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If you need a little Baja care, you got to get in right now during the open enrollment period for the 2023 Maha XL rally. February 17th through 26th, it's 3,000 miles in 10 days. It's a minimal assistance rally. That means there's no rescue trucks or no medical helicopters or no travel guides. You get to rely on your own wits and resources and probably the other 150 or 180 vehicles that are in this rally with you who are always darn nice and willing to tow you out

or give you a ride to the auto parts store, to the mechanic, or whatever you need. But, hey, the Baja XL is open to anyone by anything. So if it's street legal, you can drive at their classes. There's a competition class if you want to get in and solve geotagging treasure hunt questions all day and all night. There's the 4x4 touring class that Slow Baja does where we just pull out our benchmark map first thing in the morning, get some mchak, some egg, some hot coffee, take a look at where the root end. that day and figure out what the most scenic, squiggly dirt roads are on our map, and that's how we do it.

Again, there's no judging. It's a heck of a lot of fun. It's a major league adventure, and it will certainly, certainly cure your symptoms of mild, seasonal lack of adventuring. All right. All right. right for you, the BajaXL rally more info at BajaXL.org or feel free to DM me through SlowBaha.com or the SlowBaha Instagram or Facebook sites for more info.

Hey, well, thanks for tuning in today to the Slow Baja. I've got a shout out immediately without doing anything else. Shout out my source of so much Baja information, David Kier. VivaBaha.com. Thanks, David. You had pinged me a couple years ago. Now, we're into year three for Slow Baja. Year three folks.

David Keir reached out and said, I needed to talk to his friends, Jean-Vieve Matar and Kevin Branscombe about their work on the El Camino Real. They've spent 22 years, folks, 22 years backpacking the El Camino Real and mapping the exact location, as much as they can find, the exact locations of all the offshoots and the main high way and all that. We'll get into that in today's show. But they're really amazing folks. And they are slow Baja, as the kids would say, slow Baja A-F. They are way slow Bajaer than me. And I just can't wait to share today's show with you. So without further ado, hey, thanks David Kier for bringing them to my attention. I'm sorry this one wasn't in person. We're on a Riverside FM call today. And I've got

Christopher Kaiser, my producer on the line. He's making it all sound good. So without further ado, Kevin Branscombe, Jean-Viev Matar, and we're talking about the El Camino Real on Slow Baja. It's Slow Baja, and my fabulous guests for today are Kevin Branscombe and Genevieve Matar. I hope I didn't butcher that too much, but they have spent decades research. searching the El Camino Real, and I am really excited to get their take on the work they've put in on the ground, on the internet, and let them tell us all about the King's Highway. So, hello, Kevin, Jeanette. Hello. Hi. It's good to be here. Thanks for having us. Tell me a little bit about the two of you and your background and how you got going on this, I think it's kind of, qualifies as an

obsession. Well, Kevin has been going to Baja since. How old were you? I don't know. It's about 50 years. And when I came into his life, I moved from Ottawa, Canada, to Southern California. And being close to the Mexican border, he started introducing me to road trips into Baja. And And little by little, we went further and further south. And eventually we came across some information on meal trips. And we started going to those meal trips on those meal trips in 2000. And that's when we first saw sections of El Camino Real. And that really sparked an interest in us.

Where did those caminos come from? Where are they headed to? And from there, we started wanting to learn more and more about them and going on them, walking them, or going on mules, using those trails, but finding the exact location of those trails. Now I'm going to take it one step before that to tell you how I met Genevieve. I went down into South America to do some climbing in the Andes, and I met a beautiful young French-Canadian girl,

and she was guiding clients from Eastern Canada, And just by coincidence, over the next several days, we kept meeting. We met in a hotel while she was keeping records and making plans for her clients. And by the way, her clients are English speaking and French speaking, and she's also Spanish-speaking. So she's translating with these three languages, and I was very, very impressed. We met the second day out on a trip to the Sacred Valley outside of Cusco. And again, just by coincidence, we got to talk, meet each other a little bit more. She would translate some things not only from Spanish, but from some of her French clients

for me. And then the most important time together is By coincidence, once again, we were backpacking the Inca Trail. I was doing that on my own and she was taking clients across the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. And that was in 1986. So we kind of got to know each other out on a trail in a faraway place, the trail, one of the main trails of the Inca's. So we started out with kind of an interest in this. experience in this kind of thing. We got together during that summer and ended up

getting married and so we've been doing this kind of thing our whole lives together about 36 years now. We have done it in other parts of the world in addition to Baja. We've done a couple of the long hikes in Turkey along Roman roads and ancient roads even pre-Roman. We've done it in other parts of the world, but Baja is close to home and has a special place for us. So that's where we've spent most of our time and it kind of all ties together, the same desire, and as you say, the same obsession, but it mostly is in Baja. And we've spent about 22 years doing this, and we have probably at least another 22 years of work ahead of us. Wow. Wow. Well, can you give the Slow Baja audience a little bit

of a primer on when these roads started, the first mission, a little background basically on the mission system? We don't have David Kier here on tap to give us a 30 seconds. education on the missions, but tell us a little bit about that first mission in Loretto and then this highway system that grew from it as they started bringing in other missions. Well, you're right. David would be the guy that give you the really the best information and dates. He's really the expert on that. But I have a general idea how it worked. First, Cortez came over very early on I can't tell you the years but in the 1500s I think they were mostly interested in pearl fisheries it didn't work so there was nothing permanent

settled from that particular expedition the next one to come over that was close to being established was a mission north of Loretto That did not work, but when finally the mission started in this, I think it was in the 1680s, it might be 1690s, in Loretto, that one stuck, it actually worked, and then they started expanding outward. That was the Jesuits that were doing that. They expanded out to San Javier in the mountains and started going first northward and then south to the lower end of the peninsula, but it expanded northward, eventually up into Alta, California, which is now the present state of California. And so that's kind of how the whole thing began. And can tell me a little bit about the El Camino, I think, if anybody's thinking about the El Camino, at least when I think about the El Camino, I think of one road.

I think of a one-lane dirt path. But honestly, the El Camino is multiple roads, if I'm not mistaken, for use at different seasons when there would be water in the waterholes in one place and not in another through the mountains, through the coast, through the desert. What can you tell me about the different El Camino's? First of all, you have to remember that the El Camino began in Spain. It travels through Spain across the Atlantic Ocean. and then it travels throughout, well, what we're talking about, Mexico,

and then across the Sea of Cortez to the Baja Peninsula. So it all began out there in Spain working across to the peninsula, and then it starts working its way through the peninsula. Now, most people think of El Camino Real as being a single road going from mission to mission. And certainly it is that. But our work has shown that it's kind of almost like a spider web of different trails going out in different directions for different reasons. For example, each mission had little side places called visitas that would help supply the food for the mission. So there had to be roads going out to those particular sites.

But also, as you were saying, the trail, even going from mission to mission, would oftentimes have different branches for different reasons, because this is a desert area and sometimes there's an overabundance of water, but usually there's less than what is needed. So the trail had to really work with that. Some sections, oh, for example, the one going from Santa Haldrudis, the mission center through this to Mission San Borja, it would have three branches to it. The one branch closest to the Sea of Cortez is called the Gulfo. The center usually is traveling through the mountains. They call this the Sierra. It was usually the main trail because there's more water in the mountains usually.

And then sometimes there's a branch out closer to the Pacific Ocean, and you'll see that often called the Pacifico. Now, sometimes they're not certain about the existence. of some of these. Well, I'm thinking about the Pacifico approaching Mission San Borja. It probably existed, but there's so little information about it that there's still some question about it. But certainly in other parts of the peninsula, there are three different branches, sometimes only two and sometimes only one. But that's kind of how it works. We thought we would be working on a trail section of whatever, maybe 600 miles.

We can see this is going to go way beyond 600 miles. And that's just only what we've worked on so far. Because of all the different branches, going to the Visitas, going out taking advantage of water sources, it's really multiplying the mileage. And sometimes we're finding trails that are definitely missionary, and we still haven't figured out why they're there. And so anyway, there's a lot of mystery involved in it as well. And can we talk a little bit about a typical trip for the two of you,

where you started, how you started 22 years ago. You stumbled upon this on a mule trip. obviously the way you two met on the Inka Trail. It tells me you two are adventurous. Kevin, I know you're a schoolteacher now retired. Jean-Viev, were you a school teacher as well? What was your background? Yes, I was.

And we were school teachers actually for many years at the same school. And sometimes the next door to each other. All right, quick aside. Did the kids think you guys were cool? They liked watching our slideshows. Yeah, yeah. They really enjoyed that. And you taught young children, as I understand.

Yes, elementary kids. Yeah, generally primary grades. Second grade, more from me than any other. Fantastic. The eyeballs are open. The brains are wide, and I hope you filled them with lots of exciting, educational opportunities. Tell me about the two of you and that as you, how do you attack something that's as long as 600 plus miles? I mean, how do you, how do you start? Where did you start? Well, we did this in

sections over many, many, many, many years. And typically, Kevin would spend hours and hours at home, at the computer, in historical books, doing the research to get information on where the El Camino Real would be going through. And I'm just talking about a section. And we would be gathering equipment. before our trip and once we get going on the trip the moment we cross the border into Mexico then my job becomes more important being an interpreter asking people over and over different where they think the El Camino Real is,

the ranchers are a huge source of information for us as well. So we would do a lot of research with our pickup, asking the ranchers around, and this is a knowledge that is disappearing. And the younger generations are leaving the ranches, And the older generations are dying with the knowledge of the El Camino Real. And that is one of the reason that stimulated us into getting this information down. And I'll expand a little bit on our preparation.

So we would have a lot of information from Google Earth, from historical sources. We would, being school teachers, remember, we would go down usually on Christmas vacation, and we would have a particular place we were going to explore. The main thing we would do is go out and try to find water sources along the section of trail. That's not always possible along the whole trail. Some are just too isolated. But the places that were close enough, we could access on a Christmas vacation trip. We would go out, check the waters.

First of all, water holes, they're not guaranteed to have water. Even if we find the waterhole, it could be dry, and that has happened to us. But anyway, we find the water sources. We explore any places trying to find bits and pieces of existing trail. get all this information down, get it on our GPS units, then we come back in Easter fully prepared. We then get out on the trail and backpack through a section that we're trying to get the information on, seeing if our guesses were correct. Sometimes they were, sometimes they weren't.

We've had to revisit, oh, about a 10-mile section. as many as six times to get it right. But eventually, eventually we did. And so sometimes we had to actually put in caches. If there was no water, no reliable water, we would have to set in caches.

And that's a whole other story in itself. But anyway, usually backpacking a section would oftentimes require two trips. A preliminary trip to establish water, sources because in a desert backpack, water is everything. And then the return to actually do it, get notes, find out what actually worked, where the trail really was, where the trail really was not. And then on a trip in the future, we would return and try to iron out those places until we were

satisfied we had the trail under our boots. Now, of course, having said that, Remember, the trail is not in existence in all places. So there are some parts you cannot say if you're on the trail. But if you walk far enough down the trail, you'll come to a bit of it. So a lot of it is still there. It's just not fully there anymore. And what sort of clues do you find, Kevin? What sort of clues on the ground do you say, this is it?

We're on it. Okay. This is it. Yeah, exactly. Well, coming into waterholes is a great thing. Because if you know that they went into, say, the waterhole called Yubai, and you can find a piece of trail going into it, you are on the El Camino, without doubt. You're on it.

And it leaving, so you already have two pieces of trail right there. You can look at the ground. You can see that it has been used. There's a little bit of maybe a flatness, or maybe the rocks have been moved to the side. the big sign for a lot of Jesuit trail. But sometimes you can hardly tell. You can stand there, and if you look at the ground, you can see a slight difference in the angle of the ground.

And you realize that that's most likely the mission trail. Now, if you walk in the direction of that slight ground change, and then you come to a piece that you know is really it because you can see like I said rocks move to the side or a better a better surface that you could tell is old trail then you can be pretty safely guessing that you have been on the mission trail sometimes there isn't anything oh and sometimes there's a vegetation change and that's another sign of the mission trail I don't know if it's due to the ground being packed over the time but often there is a vegetation change and even though there's hardly any trail left,

you can tell that there's a vegetation difference right in that spot. And sometimes you can travel on that for miles and you can see off to your left, off to your right, the vegetation is very different. Another great place to see the trail is going into Arroyos or out of Arroyos because you can see that's a great place where the old trail has cut. If it's not been washed away by floods, oftentimes you can see it dropping down into the arroyos. Another great place to feel pretty secure. You have the piece of the old trail.

And what books did you use? What resources did you use to do the home portion of your studies? I mean, I'm assuming you're reading Harry Crosby. I'm assuming you're reading Howard Gulloch. But what did you get before the 1950s before Howard was doing his research? Well, I want to add to that. David Kier, of course, is a good source of information. And a friend in La Paz, Mexico in Baja, I can't pronounce his last name.

Harold Pichmann. he's another good source of information also. But in the distant past, you know what, I can't really, I can't tell you precisely because we're talking about 22 years of work. But for example, there was a Dr. Nelson in 1905 that he was traveling along the old mission trail. I know this is long after the mission trail was in regular use, but he was still able to travel along. And he gave a bit of information in something that I was reading. It was a distance from El Rosario to a waterhole, Las Cuevas.

Now, sometimes it's called Las Cuevas, Las Cuevitas. I've heard it, you know, it was said both ways. But he gave a distance, and that distance was important to me because I knew of the existence of this waterhole. It's between Mission San Fernando and El Rosario. But I didn't know where it was at. He gave a distance in his description of his travels and that helped us find where that waterhole is. And so bits and pieces from all kinds of sources from, let's see, Negrete, Sarah himself, his his journal of course he had placed names and he had distances which were you know

somewhat helpful they're kind of a bit off of what we would measure today but still helpful people like I think Brown was his name all a lot of the Padres would give little nuggets of information some of the old gold miners traveling through would give a little bits and pieces of information so It takes a lot of work to try to find just little things that will help you find different places on the trail. That's what it's all about. It's just doing a lot of reading, trying to find little nuggets of information. Yeah, you've got Uniperosaura, Portola, Padre Cresby, I think did a lot of the documentation there.

And that stuff's going back to, what, seven. They were sort of at the end of the Jesuits. They came in after the Jesuits, if I have my dates and histories correct. Again, I wish I had David on this call to get all of that stuff straightened away. Can we change gears a little bit and just talk about 22 years of backpacking in Baja? Where have you gone? What have you loved? I mean, you've walked an awful lot of that peninsula.

Let's talk about that a little bit. Well, now I can't say that every trip was purely about working on El Camino because we would oftentimes have friends and they don't have the obsession we have. So we had to be considerate of what they wanted to see and do down there as well. But they were extremely considerate towards us because we did do a lot of work over the years on that. And actually a lot of our friends were helping us. sometimes we are all scouring through the desert trying to find bits and pieces of the trill. But, excuse me, I'm sorry. Get me back onto the topic.

Yeah, let me just ask you that one again, Kevin. Yes. 22 years of travel to Baja on this obsession of mapping the El Camino. Let's change gears and just talk about the places you've been and the things you've loved and what you know Whether you shared that with friends or not What what are some of the the highlights of this two-decade long experience? Well first of all our website is Presently only covering the section from El Rosario down to Loretto

We chose this section because we felt it was the wildest part of the Baja Peninsula in regards to the mission trail. And we wanted to see pretty much what the Padres, the people traveling the mission trail at that time were seeing. And I think really you get a lot of that from El Rosario down to Loretto. So that's really what we concentrated on that particular region. We're now expanding outward. We're expanding a little bit south of Loretto now. Our last trip this fall. We did a little bit of work below San Javier. And so those are the areas that we're concentrating on, but expanding outward now. Because we have covered a lot of the mission trails. We've been very successful in that primary target area.

area we're not certainly not finished we have we still have to actually be on the ground and check a couple of branches for example the Gulfo in the section from Santa Petrudes to San Borja we have not checked that out we have it mapped out what we think is the mission trail but we don't feel good until we actually have had our boots on it. And so that's one area we still need to work on. We've got the Sierra route down. We know it really well. We're very satisfied with that. But a few bits and pieces we still need to iron out on that midsection. But we're still starting to expand out elsewhere. So we're not focused too much on one place. We do like to expand out

and see new areas, especially since we do sometimes have people traveling with us. We don't want them to get sick of one area, so we need to kind of expand out a bit for them as well. Here at Slow Baja, we can't wait to drive our old land cruiser south of the border. And when we go, we'll be going with Baja Bound Insurance. Their website's fast and easy to use, check them out at BajaBound.com. That's BajaBound.com, serving Mexican. Mexico Travelers since 1994. You can tell me a little bit about how you go about your travels in Baja.

Do you fly to Loretto? Do you drive from Bend down to Baja? Do you have a four-wheel drive? Break that down a little bit for me. We have a pickup four-wheel drive that we take down to Baja, and we even carry a minimum of two-wheel drive. minimum of two spare tires because on the road that we travel on, we have had to use both spare tires on the same trip. So it's necessary to be well equipped when it comes to having a reliable vehicle.

Sometimes we even bring a spare driver and we have very good friends that are very happy to drop us off at a place and use GPS coordinates and maps to find us at the other end of our backpack. So not only do we carry us two spares, we carry a spare driver as well. And wait. Go ahead. So that sounds like a double cab pickup truck. And you've got a couple tires in the back for sure, plus all of your camping gear. What have you learned over the years as far as how to how do you two camp in Baja?

How do you to manage the hiking portion of your travels? We have been able, through time and through experience, to narrow down precisely what type of equipment works really well for us. And I would say the number one item would be our thick leather boots because of all the spying. that we encounter on the trails. With the leather boots, we also carry like some mini pliers because it's inevitable that one of us or both of us are going to get cactus thorns. And once they penetrate our skin,

they have these little barbs that make it difficult to pull-out. So these little pliers are very helpful. We have some gaiters that are also thorn-proof. And snake-proof. And snake-proof. That's right. And that's important. We've been very close and had some real close encounters in the past. Yeah. Kevin has found himself with a rattlesnake on the ground between his feet and trying to tiptoe. trying to tiptoe quickly away from it.

But we have ultra light equipment also for the camping part. We have a super light tent. We have our water is of course everything down here. You have to have a really good system for filtering water because you in the best of situations your water's not that great. Yeah because this is desert this is desert backpacking you're going to have some pretty nasty water oftentimes. So we have to have a good water purifying system, super light sleeping bags. Our sleeping pads are not inflatable

and you can understand why with all the thorns around we make sure that we get some, we have some kind of foam pad. So that's kind of it really. Oh, our gloves. Oh yes, our, our, We have leather gloves that come up to our elbows. Because remember, our goal is to find the trail.

And sometimes, even though it's a desert, it's like a jungle. And so we are bushwhacking through cat claws, choyah, you name it. And so we kind of have body armor as we're going through there because we want to know where that trail is. So anyway, that's kind of how we've worked things out to not only camp with like gear, always light gear, get our water from the different pools of water, sometimes from a spring, but purifying. We have our purifying down really well, and so that's pretty much it. Hiking poles because we carry a lot of water.

A lot of water. We cannot trust that our next water source is going to have water in it. So we carry on our back extra water, sometimes up to three gallons. Up to three gallons each. Each. Our very last backpack, we had two gallons each because if, you know, on these especially remote trips, you don't get a chance to check where the water holes are and if there's any water in it. And if you are traveling all day in hopes finding water and you get there and there's

no water, you have to have some water on you to get to your next hopeful possible place. So we carry a lot of extra water. And then when we find water, we refill and then again we're carrying so we're carrying heavy loads all the way to the end of our trip and we also have some if we can we plan some escape routes if something came up where we had to abandon we try to have escape routes but sometimes we get so far away to very remote places with nobody around that our best escape route is to just move forward. And over 22 years of doing this, we have never, ever seen another hiker or backpacker. And I would imagine the number of people we've seen, which are the vicaros, probably can be

counted on two hands, and that's 22 years' worth of work. Well, let's talk about the crazy perceived notions of what you guys are doing and the actual experience of what you guys have done and how those two things may be utterly divergent. So your friends, to some degree, must know your nuts. And I say that in the most loving way possible. You must know that you two are totally nuts. but there's also probably a level of admiration, at least I would put myself in an admiring, a amazed, a deep admirer of your adventures. Tell me about how you deal with the people who say, isn't it dangerous?

Aren't you worried? What could happen? Somebody's going to cut you up in little pieces and feed you to the, fish. How do you how do you dissuade or how do you deal with those sort of those sort of comments versus your known reality of 22 years of walking the desert? Kevin and I have no desire to die anytime soon. So we make sure that we are as safe as we can be when we take that first step of the backpacking trip. And we plan every little thing as much as we can.

And yes, some of our friends are probably thinking we're nuts. But the reality is that if we encounter, well, help me out here. Okay, well, our friends, first of all, you have to remember, our friends are into adventure just almost as much as we are. In some areas more so, but as far as desert hiking, probably not. But we have been together with our friends over many years, with many adventures, and so they don't see this as being crazy, but I'll tell you what, they do see it as hard. and they see it as painful. And so they usually don't join us. But occasionally our friends will actually join us.

We have some great backpacks, one out of Gonzaga Bay, going up the Mission Trail up to Santa Maria, and then down the Antelope Springs Trail, known as the Cargo Trail. It's a great backpack. Our friends have joined us on that. Going out of Mission Guadalupe, we go north on the Mission Trail, We go over the pass and down to the big trees. It's a gorgeous place.

This is where they found the trees to make their mission vessel, I think, Triunfo de la Cruz. Yes, and the tree is Guaribo. Guaribo, yeah. So we went into there. It's a beautiful place, gigantic trees, and a beautiful flowing stream. Our friends will join us on that kind of stuff.

stuff. They have not joined us on these long, dragged out, difficult, heavily loaded trips that is going to be a painful trip. But we absolutely love it. The things we see are absolutely gorgeous. We know we're seeing exactly the same kind of things that the Padres saw. And so yeah, our friends sometimes think we're a little bit nuts, but But they're adventurous people also, so it's not too extreme for them. And Kevin, other than the rattlesnake between your feet, any other sort of crazy close calls? Yeah, absolutely. We got all kinds of stories. I had one.

I wanted to go down and work on the trail from the road going over to the Bay of L.A. where the mission trail crosses the road. Well, what I did is I took a bus down to Punta Prieta, and then I hitchhiked over to this point, and I was dropped off there. I was by myself, and I had enough water to get me up northward on the trail to Ubi. And it was in the afternoon, I started hiking as fast as I could. I got quite a ways north and I was running out of daylight.

It was getting quite dark, but the place I was at was very, very rocky. There were just a couple of places that had sand, kind of like a platform, big enough for me to set up my little tent. However, when I got to one of those, there was a big horn sheep laying there dead. killed by a mountain lion. You can see the whole battle that took place in the sand. You can see what had happened. But I was getting nervous because there were very few places I could sleep that night in this general area. But I did not really want to sleep right next to a big horn sheep that had only been partially eaten. I was able to find maybe 30 feet away another one that I had that I could set up my tent, but that was a long night thinking about that big horn sheet just 30 feet away,

and the mountain lion that's probably really near watching what was going on. And I was by myself. So that was another kind of scary episode as well. And do you have a machete under your pillow or something like that, that would give you any level of protection in an encampment? with a mountain line or some other unfortunate evening visitor? Well, you know, a machete is a heavy thing to carry. I know.

We're carrying as little as we can. What we have started to do is carry a can of pepper spray. Now, it would work quite well with a mountain lion, but I'll tell you what our original thought was, get to a remote ranch, sometimes they have these dogs that aren't always the friendliest. Now usually they are, we would get to a ranch and sometimes a pit bull would come out and we'd think, oh boy, here it goes. And the pit bull would come over and lick us and it was as friendly as can be, but that's

not always the case. And so we started carrying a can of pepper spray for those kind of situations where we met something that was not that friendly. We have never had to use it, but it feels good to have that nearby. I bet. I bet. So aside from the mountain lines, have you seen some of Baja's wildlife? Have you seen the bighorn sheep? Have you seen any of the mountain line?

Normally most people are not seeing mountain lines. That's an evening site. Have you had much experience with the local wildlife? We've seen coyotes, we've seen deer. Big Horn sheep, of course the rabbits and snakes and scorpions and you know the normal kind of things you would expect to see. But we have not seen mountain lions yet. We've seen their tracks. We've been close to them but we've not actually seen them in Baja. But I think we've seen just about everything else.

Shanavie, if you were going to jump in there on something, then I cut you off. Did you want to add something to the close calls? On the recent backpacking trip a year ago, again, we were very well prepared, and we got going. It was a five-day backpacking. Something like that, yeah, I think it was. And it was in a very remote area. And on the second or third day, my heart started racing,

and I could not proceed. I had an episode of SVT, supra-ventricular tachycardia, and it just takes all the wind out of me. And it's not dangerous. It's just my heart gets. out of gear and beating very fast but it's extremely uncomfortable and actually in that situation it was dangerous because it was keeping me from advancing to the next water source and that that was a scary situation and I guess Kevin told me

that day he said that's it that's it you're not we're not we're not coming back alone anymore with you with this condition. And it felt to me like I was losing something very precious to me, which is the freedom to continue this lifestyle. And all this to say that I got it fixed, there is a procedure that you can get, which is an ablation on the heart,

and they cauterize, a certain area of the heart and it stops these faulty electrical signals that kick in the SVT. And so I say this, I just want to say that being in excellent health is primordial when doing these excursions. Because it is, by itself it's not dangerous, but it can become dangerous. Anything that slows you down in getting to the next water source, whether it's a twisted ankle or lost, you lose your direction, you're not back on track on the trail. Anything that slows you getting down to your next water is a big thing. It's a really big thing and so when she had this episode it kind of just knocked her down she just had to sit down

it all of a sudden became scary very scary because we did not know where that next water was going to come from we had a hope we had an idea but there was no guarantee so uh i i took a lot of her load and she had to just keep on going uh even though this episode was going on with her she had to keep on hiking So, yeah, like I said, anything that slows you, even something like this, even a twisted ankle, is a really big deal in a situation like this. Route finding can be very tricky when we're in the middle of nowhere in Baja. And it's really good to be prepared and to have a good sense of directions. You know, there are many devices that exist for being rescued,

but will they really work in the remote areas of Baja? We don't rely on them. We have a device, but we're not so sure how quickly help would come if we had to push the button. Yeah, it probably wouldn't happen. And we always carry a minimum of two GPS units with us. and we've got each one loaded with the waypoints we want, but you don't trust anything fully,

so if one went down, we have the other one to go. Another risk that a possible source of danger might be the existence of the presence of what they call narcos, the drug traffickers. However, we have never encountered any personally. We know people who have. Our experience with people we have seen on those trails are just incredibly generous ranchers who were simply curious about what on earth were we doing there, walking on the trail. But before starting a backpacking trip, we do ask around. Have there been any cases of drug dealing in the area? Are you aware of the presence of any narcos? We do our homework

before starting the trip. Just as an extra precaution. We would rather avoid the area than risk meeting someone who does not want us there. And she brings this up because since we were talking about our last backpack, when we finished the backpack, we were at a ranch and the rancher said, oh, well, there are now narcos just down a royal from where we were. and in another place where we can't, there were narcos just upper oil from where we were there. And that was kind of a surprise to us to find that out. Yeah, sad developments. But can you expand a little bit on the people you've met, the ranchers and the folks who are there checking up on you?

And just share a little bit about that sort of what you've observed there. Well, some of the best people you ever meet anywhere are going to be those people living in the mountains. And you're going to find people that are wanting to help, are interested in what you're doing, want to talk to you, and find out about who you are, what you're doing there, what your plans are. Great people. And you read in Crosby's book about... When they would reach a ranch, they would be offered food, they would be offered a cup of coffee. That's the way it still is in so many places in Baja.

You get to these places and they sit down and they have you sit in the shade with them. They bring you a mug of coffee. They might bring you some cheese. These are really fantastic people. And that's one of the things we like most about Baja are going to these remote areas, these ranches. and meeting these fantastic people. They have fantastic stories to listen to also. They tell us about things that have happened to their families in the past on the mission trail.

They have ghost stories. We just have great times in visiting with these people. We have even carried, that's when we were traveling by truck. We've carried one of Crosby's book, the Kings Highway with wonderful pictures inside and they would be so excited to go through the pages and to recognize their family members their ancestors yes and they they too are very interested in El Camino Real and you know you're stepping back into the past when you meet with some of these people.

We were one time in the Guadalupe Mountains at our camp and we heard some jingling, some sounds coming up the trail. And then after a little while of a person coming up riding his mule, pulling a string of burrows, he was on his way back to his ranch with Christmas gifts and things that he had purchased from the nearby town. That's really stepping back in the past. and that was really fun.

That's the kind of stuff you're going to see up in the areas we go backpacking. Those kind of people, those kind of things that you would not expect in today's day and age. And they are extremely intelligent people and they value what they have. They understand that immigrating to the cities is not the best idea. They much, much prefer their way of life. life. They love their tranquility. They love doing what they do, growing their own food and raising their own meat. And they are not attracted at all to city living because they value what they have. And can we talk a little bit about the future of the El Camino? I know you've done some work with

benchmark maps and got part of the El Camino in the new benchmark Baja Road and Recreation Atlas, and that's a big deal. What's going on with the possibility of UNESCO conferring their heritage status to the El Camino? What's the future for the El Camino, in your opinion? Well, you know, that's a really good question, and we don't know what the future is. We certainly hope things are to work out. We want the mission trail to stay in existence. We'd rather not see it melt away like the Adobe walls on the missions. We want it to still be there. That's why we're doing it. That's why we're not tech people. It's a battle every time we work on our website. But we do it because we want people to see information, to get information onto their Google Earth. We want

them to get interested in it and to get out there on the trail and to do things with it. So that's what we want. That's what our hope is. I haven't got a clue what it's going to be like. You know, as far as UNESCO, I know that they were working on it, but I understood there were some issues and it was not looking good. The last time we heard as far as UNESCO, but we have not really been hearing the latest on that. Hopefully something will come out of it and that would that would be more information out there for people getting them interested in hopefully hopefully the trail and doing something about it. I think it's a it's something that would be fantastic for Baja to have. We have long-distance trails in North America and of course like we said earlier in this we do some long

distance trails in Turkey, Europe has them. Well, Baja has some of the most incredible long-distance trails. That's the El Camino. If they could get that set up and established, it would be a real treasure for Baja. It would bring down backpackers. Backpackers all around the world would be all over it. So that would be a hope and if things turn out the way we want to it to turn out, that's the way it would go. Do you ever just have a desire to go to an all-inclusive in Cabo? Oh, I'll tell you what.

I'm asking about, do you actually ever just have a vacation in Baja and not have to beat yourselves on a trail for five days in a tent drinking waterhole water and all that? Do you ever just say, you know what? Genevieve, we're getting older. Let's just have a nice stay at the hotel in Loretto. They've got a lovely wood-fired pizza next to the pool. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Absolutely. Skip the part we're getting older. We know. We know we're getting older, but we're trying not to let age be a reason for slowing down. You know, if our body slows down, that'll be a reason to slow down. Just because we are older in number of years, doesn't mean we're going to slow down. But we do have relaxed days, absolutely. Yeah, you bet.

We're not against that at all, especially after a backpack trip where we're hungry, we're dirty. You bet we would not turn down a nice hotel, a nice swimming pool, and a good dinner. Yeah, you bet we'd be all over it. All right. Well, let's wrap this up. You're 22 years in. You've said already there's another 22 years of work. What do you think the end game is?

What do you want to have produced at the end of this experience for the two of you? Well, the truth is we're always going to find little bits and pieces of the mission trail that won't be on our website. because when you find, when you're out there working and trying to solve this trail problem where it's at, you're always going to find little bits and pieces that you didn't even have a clue that was there. So it'll probably never have all of it. Maybe somebody in the future will take over the job and finish it. That would be fantastic. What we're going to do is get as much on there as we can until we can't do it anymore,

or we're sick and tired of it. But then we're hoping somebody else will take it over and complete it. The greatest thing would be to have it all mapped out, ready for people to use. They could just go to their computer like they can right now for free, download the waypoints, the information, and get out there and use it. That would be what we hope will happen. We would love for the people in terms. charge and Baja to put it to use for their future tourists down there, that's great, because that

means more people will be on the trail, and the boots on the trail means the trail will stay alive, and that's what we want. And one more time on that website address, please. W-W-W-W-R-A-L-Baha.com. That is, C-A-M-I-N-O-R-E-A-L. B-A-J-A-D-A-com. Camino Real Baja.com.

And everything on there is the information on there is free. There's a lot of information on the pages of the website, but even more information after downloading the file of data that will go to Google Earth, yeah, that you can use on Google Earth. And there's a lot of photos and bits and pieces of text along the trail

that accompanies a lot of the several thousands of waypoints we have on there. Well, it's been a real delight getting to know a little bit about the two of you and getting to know an awful lot about the Camino Real. And I just want to say, hey, thanks to both of you for spending some time with Slow Baja, and I can't wait to get a backpack on and some gaiters and some poles and take one of your really easy walks. All right. One of your really easy walks in the future. So let's work on that.

Sounds great. Genevieve, thank you so much for spending some time with Slow Baja. It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much. Thank you for having us. Well, I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Sean Vieva and Kevin. Those two are the real deal. I mean, they have hiked and walked for two plus decades on the El Camino Real.

I don't know if UNESCO's ever going to confer World Heritage Site on that trail, but I really think they should. It's amazing, amazing undertaking that they've started. And again, they've got another 20-something years of work to do. All right. Well, hey, I hope I have another time. 20-something years of work to do, too. And if you like what I'm doing here, folks, if you like, if you like what I'm doing, you got to get on to Apple or Spotify, hit that five-star, give me a, say a few kind words about

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The entire 100 plus shows is on slowbaha.com. You can check out that Lynn Cheneth show. You can check out the Paul Ganster show. You can check out all those old shows. And while you're there, you can visit the Slow Baja shop and buy yourself some merch. We've got some hats in stock. Dad hats are still in stock. Not just for dads.

black sweatshirts. We've got some white t-shirts. We've got a lot of stuff still in stock. A lot of stuff is sold out, but a lot of stuff is still in stock. So find what's there. Buy yourself some Slow Baja merch. And I will be back soon with a whole bunch new shows because I'm heading to Baja for the Baja XL rally, and I'll be driving 3,000 miles mostly on dirt. And in 10 days, starting on February 17th. So we've got a whole bunch of them. bunch new shows coming up. We're going to record more than one show a day, if you can believe that. And I cannot wait to get back at my old plane cruiser and see that desolation on our doorstep and breathe in all that dirt and bring you a bunch of great conversation. So until then,

to paraphrase, Mary McGee's pal, Steve McQueen, who said to her, Mary, got to get off that dang road racer and get into the Baja dirt with me. Baja's life. Anything that happens before? or after is just waiting.