Todos Santos

In Todos San­tos the dust splashes from pass­ing cars like pud­dle water,
mak­ing a fil­ter in the air that col­ors the light, soft­ens it, makes it like the light in dreams
on TV. The dust set­tles like gauze over every­thing, giv­ing form to the set­tling air.
It lets you know which way the wind blew a while ago.
The dust col­ors the town a rich Mex­i­can sepia. We are walk­ing after dinner.

The vir­gin waits on most cor­ners this time of year, burlap or silk draped, lighted,
plugged in, sur­rounded by relics of the present time. She is stolid and still vul­ner­a­ble.
Her shrine is every­where: a block up from the yel­low cathe­dral here,
a block over from the Hotel Cal­i­for­nia, a tourist night­mare.
The dusty dogs skulk nearby, respect­fully, in a way. Not really, but I make it so
in my desire for them to know who she is. They don‘t care. These dogs are hun­gry.
Street ven­dors, la tien­di­tas, sell pork tacos, man­gos, Marl­boros, Bic pens until
9 o‘clock. They lounge like cats over the coun­ters talk­ing with friends by yel­low
incan­des­cence, also dusted.

Christ­mas lurks in Todos San­tos. It is brought in on trucks with unrec­og­niz­able paint jobs
from Cabo San Lucas or La Paz and from Laredo or Mex­ico City before that. The tin­sel hangs
limp in the heat and the still air. On one bal­cony an inflat­able Santa takes up every inch of space,
his head bent over a bit as if inquis­i­tive. On another street a hawker sells all the Christ­mas wares for the
town. This is where the truck parked. A tent filled with the same down­ward gaz­ing vir­gin, blinged out
in twin­kling lights (we bought one of those), dogs with red noses – inflat­able, fire­crack­ers, plas­tic pines
already dec­o­rated, plas­tic candy canes, pinatas, every­thing you need. The locals drift through not buy­ing much,
but buy­ing enough.

Music every­where on the streets of Todos San­tos at night, from AM radios,
decked out Baja-ready Toy­ota trucks, bars. Walk­ing the streets takes us
from one accordion-heavy song to the next, mak­ing a rau­cous fab­ric of sound, a Mex­i­can blan­ket of sound.
The streets are dirt or paved in no par­tic­u­lar order. Even­tu­ally all of them are dirt, it seems.
We make our way back to Casa Huerta and climb under mos­quito nets and hear
the bale­ful cries of the hun­gry dogs mixed with the sound of gear grind­ing trucks mak­ing
their last turns over dust filled pot holes onto the tiny alley­ways that get them home.