multi-day trips to some of the 400 recorded prehistoric
rock art sites tucked away in the sierra. But the
pandemic has hit Mexico hard; visitors from the US,
Canada and Europe have withered to almost nothing,
and the family have had to be resourceful to scrape by.
Ricardo’s wife, Alicia (seven months pregnant), is in
the kitchen knitting a blanket for a client, with help
from their 12-year-old daughter, Azucena. On the porch,
Ricardo’s shaded leatherwork bench is strewn with
hand-tooled items in various stages of completion:
teguas (riding shoes), soled with tyre rubber; wallets,
belts, beautiful saddles adorned with equine motifs; and
polainas (gaiters) — essential protection against cactus
spines and rattlesnakes.
Under a harsh midday glare, I tag along as Ricardo
checks on sheets of cowhide and goatskin left to soak in a
vat of palo blanco tree bark that reeks like rancid salami.
This is the sort of thing I’d hoped to witness: the artistry
behind the distinctive aesthetic of the vaquero. Ricardo
turns them over and stirs the tawny mulch to ensure the
skins are dyed evenly. When the colour is set, he and his
son Esteban will slather the skins in chicken grease and
hang them out to dry.
These traditions have changed little since their
Spanish ancestors arrived on the peninsula back in the
18th century. Hired by Jesuit missionaries who were
granted control of the frontier by the monarchy, the
vaqueros’ forebears — known as ‘soldiers of leather’ for
the deer-skin jerkins they wore — lived off the land and
were tasked with guarding mission outposts throughout
Baja California. When the Jesuits were expelled in 1767,
vast tracts of lands were granted to the cowboys. They
raised cattle and goats and lived off the land, largely
insulated from political upheavals elsewhere in Mexico
and the advance of technology. Wresting their living
from the hard terrain, beyond government control,they evolved an extraordinary level of self-sufficiency,
developing tanning, ropemaking and cooking traditions
that blend art and necessity.
“They have this incredible knowledge in their bones
— the real vaqueros know all about the environment,
the land and its history,” says Trudi. With a tinge of
melancholy, she adds: “But we say it’s a dying culture.”
Late in the afternoon, a caravan of pack burros lurches
into Ricardo’s corral, his younger brother emerging from
a cloud of dust at the rear. Slim and strikingly tanned
in a white, clasp-button shirt, his spurs jangling in
time with his horse’s gait, Eleonary ‘Nary’ Arce Aguilar
has the insouciant bearing of a Western film hero. The
romantic impression is tempered by a brutal reality: he
is locked in a battle for his livelihood. As the summer
heat intensifies, Nary must drive down from his drought-
stricken ranch at least three times a week to load up
with enough water to allow his family to survive on their
ancestral land.
Nary tips his Stetson hat and takes a long drink
from the spring-fed pipe. He and Ricardo swap news
and spend almost an hour filling up five-gallon water
jugs and prepping our mules for the trip up to the high
mesa, where we’ll be staying at his home, Rancho Mesa
San Esteban. We swing up onto our mounts and start
climbing as the sun dips behind the ridge line, casting
the trail in shadow.
Trudi informs me the trail we’re on is part of the old El
Camino Real, a centuries-old backcountry trading route
that once linked missions from Loreto all the way up to
present-day Sonoma, California. Up tight hairpin bends
slippery with scree, and across rock faces polished to a
patina, the mules are slow yet sure-footed, despite my
doubts. (“Trust your mule,” Trudi’s voice reminds me
from behind.) Our progress is steady until Nary spots a
young calf lying motionless on the shoulder of the trail112 nationalgeographic.co.uk/travel
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