A Case for Pueblo Life

Punta Abreojos, Baja California, Mexico

921 miles from San Francisco

Chilaquiles.

That remarkable substance of sauce-saturated strips of tortilla topped with perfectly spiced chicken. As we began our stay in the remote fishing town of Punta Abreojos, a four-hour drive from the dunes of Guerrero Negro where we’d spent the previous evening, Chilaquiles was my meal. 

We ate at Juanita’s, a small restaurant right in front of a fun reef wave that had an exposed inside shelf on the low tide. Our server was Teresita – a friendly woman somewhere in her late twenties. Apart from our rabid breakfast and WiFi consumption, the restaurant wasn't particularly busy so I was able to chat with Teresita and learn a bit more about her background and life in the 1,600-person pueblo.  

Teresita is originally from Mazatlan, a larger city on the West Coast of mainland Mexico 800 miles south of El Paso. She grew up there, amongst a sea of people, never really enjoying the overwhelming nature of city life. When her mother moved across the Gulf of California to Loreto 8 years ago, Teresita jumped at the chance to leave too. She landed on the other side of the Baja peninsula in Punta Abrejos, about 6 hours drive away from her mother. 

No stranger to adversity, Teresita was unafraid of entering this new, cell-service-less environment despite not knowing a soul. In addition to being separated from her mother by a quarter day long, pot-hole-riddled drive, her father had left years prior to work in San Francisco and send money home to the family. She told me this was common among people in the northern mainland states - and it was clear that it had caused her to grow up quickly. She knew that there was no certainty she’d see him again as his presence in the States remains "illegal", despite years of gainful employment. 

She described arriving in Abreojos and having difficulty gaining traction at first. Small town life is beautiful when you are stitched into the tapestry of its culture by birth, but it is typically difficult to join in a meaningful way when one arrives later in life - as an outsider. 

Teresita felt that harsh reality when she first moved but began to feel comfortable when she secured a job as a server. Working as a server makes sense, especially with the occupational gender divide that she described in the town: fishing is everything, but “solo los hombres pescan.” Only the men fish. She told me that women in the pueblo typically work in retail or restaurant environments, and she has no desire to fish herself anyway. 

Over the years she’s found real happiness in Abreojos. True friends, a love of the traditional festivals unique to the town, and the embrace of the tranquility of the seaside life. These are all she wants in life. 

She doesn’t miss the city.