The author on his roof with the drone operator
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Dr. David Fialkoff, Publisher / Editor

Up north, city storefronts feature large, entertaining display windows, and suburban homes have front yards. Down here, store windows, in the colonial style, are small to keep out the sun, and residential front walls are fortress-like to keep out the thieves.

San Miguel has a lot of walls, along almost every street, enclosing courtyards. It is charming architecturally, but sometimes a tad claustrophobic: "That's a very pretty garden you have there. Too bad that it's surrounded by walls." Here we cherish our rooftop views in part, I suspect, because they lift us out of these narrow, labyrinthine channels.

It was, then, with great relief that I moved from a narrow alley behind the church in San Antonio to the wide open spaces here on the northern edge of town. Here, in colonia Insurgentes (an extension of San Luis Rey), atop a ridge, my second-floor apartment features a large southern-facing window with a view that goes on panoramically for miles. My northern view, especially from my roof, is equally breath-taking, but of countryside not city, encompassing as it does square miles of federally-protected campo bounded, at least visually, by a high hill running east to west.

The valley
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I'm embarrassed to admit that in the four months that I've lived here I've only walked that open space twice before last Sunday, both times walking down to the bottom of the narrow valley to explore the sparse ruins of an old hacienda. The hacienda captured the runoff when it rained in a series of pools, and benefited from natural springs which still exist.

Hacienda ruins including bullring (left)
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But the valley is not easy to cross, guarded as it is with thousands of thorny knee- waist- or chest-high mesquite trees. I tried to stay on the narrow, stoney trails used by harvesters when the tuna fruit is ripe on the nopal cactus. But they didn't always go in the direction I was headed.

Then, just last Sunday, for the first time I put on some funny-colored, never-used, very good hiking shoes I bought at a garage sale almost a decade ago (I prefer sandals, but I was worried about those thorns) and went out for a hike on the land.

Cliff
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I'd heard (from more than one source) about glue-sniffing delinquents who live out there in some caves in the hill. But it being mid-afternoon, I figured at that hour they'd be up to no good in town. Still, I brought along 70 pesos in case there was a toll, and picked up a heavy stick along the way to use as a club in case the 70 pesos wasn't enough.

Leaving my front door, I walked up the street this time, instead of down, and exited the city through a different empty lot, entering the wide-open spaces along a relatively broad, well-trodden path, no doubt the one those bad boys use. The path led me rather luxuriously up the little valley, so close and yet so far from it all.

Then, I branched off from that main trail to follow another down towards the base of the hill, below some cliffs. Narrower, my shirt lightly snagging on a mesquite thorn now and then, I walked down past some concrete works that, along with the ample geology, once defined a significant, ranch-sized reservoir.

Concrete wall
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Down farther, among boulders fallen from the cliff, I came upon a spring of water, a very small pool, with a tiny frog swimming in it. There the bad boys made their camp, a camp such as you might expect from glue-sniffing delinquents. There in "caves" under the boulders, they sheltered from the cold and the rain, making fires to keep warm, littering the ground with refuse.

Another spring pool
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On another walk two days later, I walked up to the eastern edge of the valley, up and out onto a rural dirt road, walking along which I found a very small sign pointing ahead to "Maka Haui, ranch and glamping." I continued up the way it pointed, but stopped not long after, still, I'm afraid, very far from Maka Haui, when I came in sight of a house and heard some children distantly playing, because dogs in the country get very protective, especially when confronted by people who have no business being there.

I just turned around and explored that country road a way in the other direction, before setting off back down the valley, leaving the road on a different path, eventually finding my way (without crossing too many brambles) back to the principal trail, and then home.

I expect as I age to enter a second childhood, to happily return to naive innocence. And these walks (I took another one today) do bring me back to when I was a boy, exploring the woods, the brooks and cliffs that were part of the golf course that backed up onto our otherwise very suburban neighborhood.

I've walked a lot of forests since. I've lived far up a mountain, far up in northeastern Vermont. But there is something different about my current situation, an odd juxtaposition. The distinct relationship of having the "wild" so close to this populated street is like combining aged cynicism with youthful naivete.

Immersion in nature (along with belonging and purpose) is one of the best ways to add health and years to your life. In a very boyish way, I feel better already.

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Dr. David Fialkoff presents Lokkal, our local social network, the community online and off, Atención robustly reborn for the digital age. If you can, please do contribute content, or your hard-earned cash, to support Lokkal, SMA's Voice. Use the orange, Paypal donate button below. Thank you.

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