It is a dearly held fantasy. Beaches like those on Isla Spiritu Santo are what dreams are made of. In the dusk, the sea between the island and the main peninsula turns orange, gold, pink and finally gray. The wind has dropped and birds are spiraling down in their hundreds to roost on a cluster of offshore islets, stained white by countless others before. Black against the evening sky, they look like sooty flakes settling in the aftermath of a great fire.
Darkness falls suddenly.
Stars emerge quickly, and in the dry air they shine with a brilliance that is seldom seen in the moister latitudes to the north. Far off, the lights of La Paz glow in the sky. The city has a long history, and is closely connected to Hernan Cortes, the conqueror of Mexico. Almost half a millennium ago, he dispatched two fleets from the Pacific coast of Mexico, to look for the fabled North West Passage, hoping to find an alternate to the gale-driven Magellan Straits at the southern tip of South America. The first fleet disappeared.