Back in October of '97, about ten days after Hurricane Nora had passed through the same region, I had myself a little solo road trip to the UNAM Astronomical Observatory in the Sierra De San Pedro Mártir, then down to Bahía De Los Ángeles… and had to turn back not long after the main highway junction to Bahía, even on a Ford Explorer with 4x4, the paved but destroyed road looked too chaotic and daunting to risk getting stranded alone.

Curiously enough, the dirt road to Bahía San Luis Gonzaga was in better, more passable shape, except for a widened (although already dry) creek where the road was destroyed but a few 4x4s had already created a path over the previous week.

Gonzaga is a wonderful place, the beach hotel Alfonsina’s a little rustic gem. But the place was full of flies. The hotel manager speculated the storm might have beached a whale somewhere nearby, out of sight but millions upon millions of flies had spawned and many had found their way to the sandbar beach settlement.