Manni's new dance in the DESERT!!! -Heather

As we started our first day of actual stealth desert camping, the two of us alone against the backdrop of vast browns yellows and reds of the desert and deep blue of the sky, Manni decided to premier his fancy footwork in a new dance I like to call, “I’m scared of Lizards”.

It was a combination of 1 part soccer skills and 3 parts terrified spaz seizure. Brilliant. By the time we get through the next 2 or 3 weeks of desert, I think he’ll be ready for Broadway.

It went a little something like this: jump with high knees from one foot to the other, alternate in rapid succession. Now place your body in a slightly crouched position with your hands at mid-height and wave them back and forth. Now shout, “Woah! Woah! Woah!” repeatedly. Actually the whole thing was just the right amount of masculine and scared… I could see the Fight vs. Flight response trying to make up its mind; I think fight might have won out in the end if his enemy had not been so agile, and hard to see… and tiny... because for the most part he was crouched and ready to spring like he was prepared to do wrestling battle against a very large lion.

To his credit, I got to see the whole situation develop so it was not as startling and thus scary for me as it was for him. He was focusing on setting up the camp stove very intently and I saw the lizard dart toward him. All he knew was that we were alone in the middle of the desert and suddenly something slithered and made quick movement ON TOP of his foot and then darted around in front of him before taking quick shelter in the bushes. Like I said, the dance was an appropriate and respectable enough response… but funny none the less.

On second thought, perhaps we should try surprise alligator wrestling once we get to the south, that should illicit a pretty entertaining response and perhaps further evolve an already wondrous dance performance into something simply magical by the one, the only, Manni.

After our first night at our lizard-attack campsite in the Anza Borrego desert of California we proceeded to the best kept secret in Southern California; The badlands of Arroyo Tapiado. These badlands contain one of the only known systems of Mud Caves in the world!! There are over 20 caves (that have been discovered) and they range from small crawl spaces and tight squeeze channels to caverns with 80 foot tall ceilings and miles of winding cave passage-ways…

So, Manni and I go Spelunking!!!! These caves, except for a few collapsed sections called “skylights”, are totally pitch black, and you need a light source in order to explore the tunnels. After a little coercion on my part, Manni finally relented and bought a “totally cool” head lamp… I think he actually likes it now (not just because it’s practical, but because of the inherent “stylish” qualities of a headband, with an attached light- Holla!!). We explored some of my favorite caves including an enormous canyon with remnants of its long-ago collapsed cave ceiling still above, a secret cave off the side of that same canyon called Footprint Cave, a tight passage leading to a dried waterfall shaft towering about 100 feet above called Plunge Pool Cave, and the Air Conditioner cave which provides welcome relief from the heat of the desert because it blows cold air out of its mouth… so cool.

Unfortunately California has had some pretty bad weather this winter, and recently, several intense rain storms. Because these caves are not stone, but rather mud, they are carved and shaped by the floods that go through the area during these types of rain storms. I have been to these caves many times in the past, and I could clearly see changes in shape and even direction of these tunnels as well as evidence of many new collapses. After some rock-fall in the Plunge Pool Cave that landed nearly on top of us- we were in the middle of a peaceful meditation… which made the sudden sound of rocks crashing down even scarier. Needless to say, we were both a little bit weary of further exploration. I think the solitude and silence of the place rattled our nerves just as much as the rockfall… and we ended up leaving a little early to head to our next stop, but not until we had explored 4 separate caves- so we were definitely not left wanting J. The mud caves are so beautiful and eerie at the same time, stepping out of one of those caves feels like stepping back in time to the age of dinosaurs when mud and grit and instinct was law of the land. It is truly a unique landscape and it was only the beginning of our “Desert” portion of our trip. In an environment where water is so scare, it is amazing to realize that water and rain will play a huge role in the landscapes we are about to see…