00:00.00 archpodnet Dear on. 00:06.89 alan Ah, welcome back to the rock art podcast episode 71 and we're in segment 2 we're graced and honored and blessed to have Trudy. Onghell who's been riding the ropes and reins and. Moving into Baja California for ngh on 25 years and having a fabulous time at it Trudy. Why don't you ah share a bit about the adventure and nature of riding the trails into The Grand Canyon of Mexico into the Sierra. Ah, San Francisco 00:48.89 Trudi Okay, um, you know often I take people into the mountains people want to sign up and and see the rock art in this amazing spectacular World Heritage Rock art. Great Merle Mural Rocker and when they come out of the Canyon Beyond Even the the majestic mural art they're coming out of the Canyon saying Wow The cowboys those vocaros. 01:24.30 alan The burrows everything. 01:26.46 Trudi The the mules the trails the canyon the scenery. They just can't yeah they just can't believe the kind of other reality of worldview that these people have who live out there in the back country. Their skills and their abilities and those guys who take us down into the canyons are just super amazing. They're they're Mule tears. They know how to pack a donkey. We've even packed guitars. Guitars and ukuleles on on the top of the carga and they're very gentle with those. Um they just are so knowledgeable. 02:04.40 alan So the way so the way I've described it is first. Yeah, so what the way I've described It is first of all, you're going into a place that there in essence are no roads for motor vehicles am I correct. 02:22.45 Trudi Yeah, you're correct so we drive. Yeah, we drive from loretto up to San Ignasia the small village of San Ignacio on the following day. We drive up into the ah beautiful escarpments of the Sierra San Francisco 02:23.12 alan Okay, so. 02:37.57 alan Ah, ah oh my word is the borders her her. 02:39.35 Trudi And then you get to meet your mules and meet your cowboy guides and the Donkeys that do all the work for us that carry the load down into the Canyon. So. It's ah it's an otherworldly kind of ah of an experience. You're going to get a huge cultural hit with coming on one of these trips and just a huge respect for how these people live in the outback and how they've integrated. 03:05.30 alan So you get on the back of a mule. It's ah it's a it's a it's It's a mullla or a muo. But but I think many the time that they are are they female mostly or no the muulas. 03:10.16 Trudi Us into their lifestyle. It's really wonderful. 03:16.94 Trudi Um, no there Ah mule there. There are female mules and male mules and those male mules you know the word maco Quinisma maco. 03:23.34 alan Okay, so yes, yes, ah. Okay, that. 03:32.77 Trudi Well macho is actually just the word for male MALE but the male mules are called Macos and the female mules are called mullas. 03:37.65 alan I did not know that. Okay, okay, Interesting. So What when I experienced this ah I was on the back of a mollah and the trail is about as wide as my arm. And I correct her is it whiter how white is it. It just seemed like that. So but somehow these mules can navigate this trail tremendously and they they are confident and have ah. 03:57.25 Trudi So oh come on. It's wider. It's it just seemed like that. 04:13.90 alan Have a good sense of it Now we go from the rim of the Canyon and descend how far how fast. 04:24.75 Trudi Well, it's about fifteen hundred feet down to the first camp on day one and if you've been into maybe into The Grand Canyon on muleback. It's rockier than that and there are some. 04:25.62 alan Well well. 04:41.37 Trudi There are some places Alan I do give you credit. There. Yes, you're you're standing at the edge of a precipice and you're looking down but you know what I have a favorite saying I say trust your mules feet those mules don't want to roll down that canyon wall and they don't want to take you with them. So. So actually they're the the perfect animal for this back country of baha where it's so rocky and so steep Mika and because they're a cross between a donkey and a horse. They're good and large so you're not dragging your feet of course and. And but they're they're sturdy but they have the donkey trait of being super super um, wellbalanced on rocky trails. 05:20.27 alan Yes, and and I can I can assure assure that assure my ah colleagues and the visitors that participants in these tours that those mules are are sort of you know our our lifelood and it's it's rather. Remarkable to be on the back of a mule on these trails going through these deserts now when we say deserts sometimes we think about the California deserts or some of the other deserts that that don't have much in the way of vegetation. That's not the way that the Baja. Experience is. Is. It. 06:01.86 Trudi No, not in the sierra San Francisco it's one of the most gorgeous mountain ranges because you're starting out at the top of the mesas where there's a lot of wide open space. But you have these deep steep canyons and we drop down into those canyons and so ah, they they have water courses through them pools of water. Beautiful palm trees. Um, there's mesquite of course and there are some very unique endemic plants up in the higher country as well and so you really get an experience that it is cultural and ethnobotany. We can teach a little bit of that along the trail as well. And. People with interest in the ethnobotany are really surprised to see to hear and understand how how the indigenous people lived without agriculture and without architecture. Basically the coaching me in that area. 06:56.00 alan Yeah, so as we continue to ride on the mullahs and the male mules as Well. The Machos. Um, we descend the Canyon and then we get down to the bottoms and we ah ride along those water courses for a while and then we have to go up the side of the Canyon again. Don't we. 07:15.57 Trudi Matchos. 07:30.40 Trudi Right? So most of the time um on those on a four day trip. Let's say four days and 3 nights in the canyon you're camping and we're in a flat camp spot in the bottom of the canyon but then to get up to the rock art. Locations then there's some trails and scrambles up some some sides of the canyon but there are trails and so most of the time people say oh my gosh I don't think I can do this because I can't ride a mule all day. 08:00.45 alan No. 08:03.63 Trudi We don't actually ride the mules all day. The first day is like 3 hours into the canyon and then we might ride for an hour down to where we tie the mules and then hike up to some some of the rock art sites Cueva Pinta the quaeva de Las fleches and then ride back to camp. 08:12.52 alan And it's rather amazing these? Ah yeah, yeah, and the the places where the rock art is are in these rock shelters that are often on the rim rocks just below the rim rocks. 08:21.25 Trudi So their their short. 08:32.39 alan And they are made of of a volcanic tough and you would never have guessed that these are ah the canvases for these remarkable, many colored paintings but they are and the. Geology plays a part in the story of each painting and it was E viewing that taught me this and she's she's one of the pioneers in understanding sort of the geological nature. Of how these canvases of of Volcanic Rock shelters serve as sort of the the homes for these remarkable archaeological sites and paintings. Maybe you can say a few things about that that. 09:31.26 Trudi Yes, it's been fun to travel with eve over the years to some of her favorite sites and she's always pointing out how um how the the animals are moving in a certain background of. Of the rock how they're running straight up a crack in in the ah fissure in the in the face of the the rock overhang. Um, and and she does a great job of ah determining what what? those. What the symbolism might be in that particular um, painting in a particular cave and because of the the structure of the of the rock wall. Yeah. 10:17.41 alan Um, and you get and you can see as you study that canvas that rock canvas that volcanic interface that some of the major fissures the major cracks of where the water will run become sort of the. Central conduits for the movements of this panoply of of animals that are rushing rushing at at a at a death pace out of that particular panel and. It is amazing to see the movement and flurry and vitality of the animals in counterpoint to the stability and stationary nature of the human. Figures that exist they call them static figures. They are full frontal and they ah often have their hands towards the sky in an adorant posture I would argue and the animals. Ah. Continue to move yet the the humankind both men women and even children for that matter appear to be an homage or prayer or some sort of ah a posture relating to almost a deification. Of the animal animal people as it were and perhaps relating to asking for their deities to provide them with a way to continue in the face of adversity and one of those resources. That they need most critically is water water and rain. 12:19.59 Trudi Yeah, right? So the animals and the deer figures running up the cracks and bringing down the rain I remember was one of the papers that Eve Ewing wrote and it has specifically to do with. With that concept of how the animals are going skyward ah and in praying for the rain to come down the down into their world because it's just such a necessary thing in those desert environments. 12:51.41 alan And it's so unpredictable is that is that correct this. Ah whether whether they receive the rain or receive enough rain to produce a reasonable crop and be able to harvest the necessary fruit and seeds and. Have the animals that they need to live. 13:14.10 Trudi Yeah, um, right? Yeah yeah, and so all of those desert foods are they are so reliant on those desert foods since they had no agriculture in their own culture at at that time until the Missionaries did arrive. But and so that ancient art seems to reflect that. 13:34.74 alan Is that main food the one that's called the Joyous food called Patia am I correct is that the fruit of the cactus that they harvest. 13:48.92 Trudi Right? There were different fruits of cactus fruit that would that they would harvest in the summer times and in the fall and then the seeds also the pods from various plants and one of the. Um, one one of the things that that they harvested a lot were actually roots from various vines that grew in the canyons as well. 14:13.38 alan So They had a ah repertoire of a foraging and harvesting certain plants and then I guess the hunters would try to acquire either deer or I would I would presume bigcorn sheep or other smaller game. But I Yeah I think those were the. The major targets am I correct. 14:37.72 Trudi Yeah, and it's interesting to note that there have been no um or at least no place that I have been in the sierra the San Francisco do you see any particular pictographs of the of plant life. It's all animal. It's all game. It's all. Ah, turtles and whales and pinnipeds and ah then the deer and the the pronghorn are bighorn sheep in the area and those are the most those are the largest of the. Paintings on the walls and the ones that seem to have the most consistent movement going in one direction or another so in different cave rock art sites. It's really interesting to see eve noted 1 time when we were in the sangregoio area. Into the the site that Harry Crosby named in in the book. The cave paintings of Baja California as just S Sangregoria one and eve noted that all of the year figures in that cave are running up canyon. 15:39.20 alan H. 15:52.13 Trudi So she asked our cowboy guides what they might think about that and when they put their minds to it. They said well you know when you do when you're hunting what you do when you're out there is to run the deer up canyon. 16:03.80 alan Um. 16:08.59 Trudi And so we came up with that concept that this was an interesting site because all of the animals were running in one direction and that was up Canyon so there was some kind of concept there of of what that could mean as far as the storytelling in that painting. 16:21.00 alan Absolutely remarkable. Well second segment I think in the final one we'll try to put a bow on it see ah see you guys on the flip flop in the next segment. 16:34.65 Trudi Okay.