Mexico

Baja Interior

March 2021 • Judging by the clusters of pricey toys dotting the Baja coastline—RVs, ATVs, fishing boats—it's the sea that lures most visitors here. Dr. Seuss must've been a Baja landlubber, then, because his book illustrations seem to have been inspired by cirio, an otherworldly cactus that grows only in the Baja interior between latitudes 28 and 30. Driving through Valle de los Cirios was hours of constant distraction, camera primed for one more quick portrait of a particularly humanoid form. Their poses ran the gamut: watchful, freakish, ominous, saucy, playful, beckoning. Rarely has such a desolate landscape turned out to be so rich with personality.  

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