The dessert of the desert

The cool, dark and star studded sky gives way to primordial heat and dryness my ancestors knew well. In the middle of the Baja desert, the eye adjusts to infinite tones of browns; foreign and seemingly monotone only days ago. Starting a rapidly obsolete mode of transportation, I kick the red metal mule to life. The dirt bike’s carbs suck in liquid dinosaur bones and spit out heat and a staccato barking sound. As the bike vibrates through my body, I think of my grandmother’s stories about traveling by camel through the deserts of her homeland, leaving the safety of the caravan oasis to travel to another village. I feel the excitement she must have felt, first time leaving her village as I let out the clutch and bury the tires into the sand.

Many decades have gone by since I first heard of this sacred place and here I am basking in its cleansing fire. Amazing how the mind works, projecting itself out into time and space borne out of desire. A young boy’s burning desires in the form of a poster of a desert racer on a bedroom wall in one continent and time are experienced by a man in another. The vastness of this place enforces a sense of an utter smallness that the boy could not have grasped but is humbling to the man.

I say a prayer for my grandmother; all the hardships she endured for me to be here today; propelling pieces of her DNA across this baking landscape. The little boy that envisioned it screams out loud with joy in my heart. And now I stand on these here foot pegs digging deep into this delicious dessert, grateful for each mouthful of sand dust I am being served.