El Dorado Ranch #6

Thursday at the Baja….

After a fine breakfast of Mexican bacon (which comes from the butcher in a handful in a plastic bag), eggs with bright orange yolks, and toast from the finest Bimbo Bread (which is probably the Mexican equivalent of Wonder Bread) Bickie left to exchange dirty towels for clean ones and came back with new friends and a clam rake. We then set out on a clamming expedition. At low tide there are 300 to 400 yds of a cross between mud and sand. Basically what you do (we finally figured out) is rake on the sandiest portions of the mud flat nearest the remaining rivulets of water. The clams are 1-2 inches below the surface in the ooze. A distinctive clink transmitted through the rake handle lets you know you have struck clam. What we discovered is that clamming requires extensive manual labor (a lot of bending and digging). But we persevered and improved our technique to the point where we managed to capture approximately 12 dozen of the wily little critters. They are currently in their new home which is the bathroom trashcan converted to a clam bucket. They are immersed in a solution of water and surplus pancake mix which theoretically should cause them to ingest the pancake flour and expel their unpalatable sand. According to local experts several changes of this water over the next 24 hrs will yield fine and tasty morsels of clams when steamed in beer. We’ll see tomorrow….. After our expedition of clamming it was necessary to wash the sand and mud combination off me, Bickie, our clothes, the rake, the car, the porch, and the clams. The clams we uncovered are similar to cherry stone clams in the states. The majority are about a big as a fifty cent piece. Some are larger and we call them prize winners. Tomorrow we will utilize our creativity to steam them with our limited culinary equipment (a small Teflon skillet and a pot).

This afternoon Bickie’s new friends (with the clam rake) turned out to be lot owners with a house three weeks away from completion on their lot here at El Dorado Ranch. We spent a lot of time chatting with them about traveling and also all the details about purchasing and owning land at El Dorado. Tomorrow morning we are going to go to see their land and house. They are a very interesting couple from California.

At sunset the Sea of Cortez looked bright blue with a large pink band between the sea and the sky. Just cannot begin to describe how beautiful it was. Took many many pictures but as you know pictures just can’t capture the true beauty of it all.

Wes & Bickie