LAS ADVENTURAS DE MI SOMBRA
By Vee Webber
Her E-mail
Her BioWhen we first met, the attraction was instant and mutual. Her chocolate brown eyes melted into my gringa blues and we knew we were destined to be the best of friends. I smiled at her shyly and she licked my nose and wagged her tail. After days of trying various "Baja" sounding names such as Margarita and Enchilada, the Spanish/English dictionary finally came in handy for something other than a flyswatter, I named this golden ball of cotton "Mi Sombra", which means "My Shadow" in English. She was friendly, loyal and as the Spanish language puts it so well, she was simpatica.
When I met my husband he infected me with a life-consuming passion, the love of Baja. It is absolutely incurable, and either you've got it or you don't. When we married, I became a partner in a twelve-foot teardrop trailer that was perched in lovely solitude on a hill above a horseshoe bay. Rimming the granite cliffs of this deep bahia, were smatterings of weekend homes. Most were in that evolutionary process which seems to be unique to Baja. Half house, half trailer, all functional with the primary purpose of capturing as much of the unspoiled white-water view as possible, without infringing on the neighbor's view. In our trailer on the hill, with no running water, no electricity and a rapidly increasing mouse population, we felt like millionaires. On certain cloudless days it seemed that if we looked hard enough we could see to Japan; on certain cloudless nights there were so many stars that we felt as if we were in the center of the heavens.
Nearly fifty years ago, our landlord, Don Jose Leon Toscano pioneered this little bit of paradise. He and his young bride, Dona Maria, and their ever-growing family cut the first road to La Bufadora and started a ranch. Today his ranching is limited to gringos and birds, and he seems to have a great fondness for both. We have shared our garden with his ducks, geese, guinea hens and an occasional peacock.
One spring break we attempted to rough it for a week in the trailer, which at that time was very much like dry-camping in your own backyard. We cooked our meals over an open fire, took long, private morning constitutionals with a shovel and a roll of TP in a knapsack; and discovered the joys and sorrows of tequila.
Sombra was still a puppy and the "Mouse House", as we called it, acquired a new idiosyncrasy. We could not shut the door from the inside. To compensate, we propped various items in front of the door in attempts to keep Sombra inside during the night.
It was definitely a Tequila Sunrise on that Thursday morning in April of 1982. Dick, ever the early riser, had gotten up at sunrise, to drive to town and partake of the public showers. I was alone in my misery. Sunlight screeched through the windows and howled through my brain and I prayed to sleep through the pain. Then Sombra added to the cacophony blaring in my head with her eardrum piercing puppy yelp. Nature was beckoning; it was time for her walk. I honestly tried to get up. I wasn't fast enough, she found her own way out through the maze of lawn chairs and firewood that served as a temporary barrier, and as true as any outlaw, she headed for the hills. I grabbed my sunglasses and watched as she headed up an arroyo to one of "our" favorite morning spots. I figured she was safe and retreated to relative shady comfort of the trailer where I looked for aspirin and orange juice to get me going.
Dick returned a moment later, damp, clean and smelling of Irish Spring. "Where's Sombra?" He asked.
As I pointed up the hill we heard the report of a rifle from the opposite direction, down near Senor Toscano's aviary, and his angry cries of "Quitate!" (Get away).
Sombra came flying up the hill, into the trailer and under the bed before we could wonder what happened. It seems that Sombra took a sharp right turn the minute I went back in the trailer and headed down to Senor Toscano's aviary. We like to believe that she never meant any harm, that for her, the joy was in the chase and the prize an occasional plume. But Senor Toscano had different ideas, and as he told us, several times he told her to get away ("Quitate!"), but she wouldn't listen, and he had to resort to the stronger language of a gun filled with bird shot. Obviously, she understood that language clearly enough and hurried home. Senor Toscano followed her up the hill in the battered old pickup he used on the ranch and spent the morning with my husband picking the bird shot from Sombra's tail end.
We pulled out the Spanish/English dictionary and began Spanish lessons for Sombra that very afternoon. She learned her commands much faster than either my husband or I could learn the simple phrases that would keep us out of trouble.
It was a good thing that Sombra learned her lessons so well. Her life in Baja was full of adventures where being "That gringa dog that knows Spanish" came in handy.
Part 2: "Sombra & The Federales" **Part 3: - Sombra in the Tijuana Jail**
