A Man, His Dog and a Burro

If you ask El Cajon resident Mike Younghusband what is the meaning of life, his answer will be brief and full of mystery: Baja.

After completing a six-month trek through Baja on foot earlier this year, Younghusband spoke to a group at the Rancho San Diego Library last week, to tell of his travels, his toils and his triumphs.

"This day is cooler that what my last days in Baja were," he said, sipping a mango smoothie while he spoke. "It was 98 degrees with a much higher humidity."

Younghusband was accompanied on his journey by his furry best friend, Solavino, a border collie, who was with him at the library.

"She follows me everywhere," he said. "Has since Day One. But I didn't find her on my Baja trek. She found me. Now she's wondering why she's on the leash."

As people settled into their seats, Younghusband opened his presentation up to a few Q&A's before he began his slide show.

He is serious when saying "Baja" is the meaning of life. After sleeping literally in the middle of nowhere in Baja, places where even Younghusband's GPS could not get his bearings right, he is going back there to live.

"Found myself a place in Loreto," he said. "Escrow's going to close on my place in El Cajon on the 20th, so I have to be gone by then."

His love affair with Baja began two years ago when Younghusband put hiking Baja at the top of his “bucket list.” He started planning his Baja trek on Oct. 1, 2009. 

"Everybody in my family thought I was crazy," he admitted. "They did not say much, just figured that the idea would one day disappear."

Instead, the idea grew. Younghusband realized he would need to get in shape and that he had to chart a path in Baja. He would also have to find a pack animal—a burro, he decided.

"I had never met a burro before," Younghusband said.

He had wanted to find a burro in the United States to bond early with it, but he ended up having to go to Rancho Ojai in Tecate. There, in a pen with half a dozen other burros, he met his other traveling companion face-to-face.

"He turned out to be fully trained, he loved children, and he carried a good pack," Younghusband said.

The two of them explored Baja before the actual trek, with Younghusband charting out the general path he would take. In strategic points, he also buried some “stash,” packages of various items from Gatorade to beef jerky.

After several months of breaking in the lovable burro, the adventurer was ready to go on Oct. 1, 2010. He brought two of his dogs with him, Max and Rusty.

Burros can carry up to 200 pounds, but Younghusband was careful to load only between 160 and 185 pounds so as not to tire him out. True to legend, Don-Kay, as the burro was named, could be as stubborn as, well, a mule.

"Sometime he'd just sit down as if to say 'I'm not going any further,'" Younghusband said, pointing to a PowerPoint picture of Don-Kay on the wall.

"See his mouth open like this, his teeth bared?" Younghusband asked. "He got that look whenever he wanted to mate," he said as the audience laughed.

"Yep, when he found the droppings of other burros, he'd sniff them, and when he realized some were of a female, he'd get that look on his face," Younghusband said.

Traveling on foot in Baja required some careful logistics. He walked seven hours a daily, starting before 9 a.m. and stopping at around 4 p.m.

"Stopping was a huge deal with lots of prerequisites," he said. "It took me almost one and a half hours just to prepare for the evening.”

One of the worst problems was tiny stickers or burrs, what kids in the area called “pinos.” The burrs got stuck in the animals' fur, and Younghusband spent hours picking them out, a painful ordeal for both man and beast.

So he looked for flat dirt roads without the stickers where he could pitch a tent. He also had to find a good place to tie up Don-Kay for the evening, as well as find something to eat for his animals.

Once he got off the coast, Max and Rusty were suffering from heat exhaustion. "It got so hot in the mountains last year," Younghusband said. "And we always had people in their cars stopping to chat with us and take our photos. Well, the dogs would rest under their cars to try and escape the heat.

"When the people got back into their cars and started them up, the dogs would still be under them. They could have gotten run over. So I left them with a friend of mine."

If it hadn't been for the miracle of Solavino showing up, Younghusband's trip could have been cut short by some thugs.

At a ranch where Younghusband stopped for some water, he got his first glimpse of the border collie who would soon become his constant companion. Somehow the dog managed to get out of his pen and traveled secretly behind Younghusband, Don-Kay and Max and Rusty.

Along the road, some very drunk guys in a rattletrap car kept running across his path.

"They offered to give me a beer, which normally I would have been glad to take, but I didn't trust them. They seemed to be the type to make trouble," Younghusband said.

When he had set up camp that night, the drunks saw his campfire. They came up the path toward Younghusband.

"All of a sudden, Solavino jumped up and ran at them, chasing them off," said Younghusband, who instantly bonded with the dog.

"Solavino had never had dog food before, had never been inside a house," Younghusband said. “Very probably, Solavino was starving for attention. The minute I started scratching behind her ears, she was like ‘Wow.’ ”

Everyone in the audience murmured softly, chuckling, reaching out for Solavino as she worked the crowd.

The trio of travelers would often run into human companions. One of those was San Diego author Graham McIntosh.

“Graham is the whole inspiration behind my wanting to do this Baja trip,” Younghusband explained. “He wrote four books about his adventure in walking, including a three-year trip that involved going down to San Felipe and back up to San Diego.”

Younghusband particularly enjoyed McIntosh’s Nearer My Dog to Thee.

During the trip, McIntosh met up with the threesome along the way.

“Pizza and beer never tasted so good,” Younghusband said. “And Don-Kay absolutely loved chomping on the pizza box.”

The last four days of the journey, which ended in Cabo San Lucas, were what Younghusband called the "most miserable because of the heat."

But it was worth it. His daughters had taken a cruise down to Mexico and met up with him in Cabo. After the family reunion, he went to Lopez Mateos.

“The children had been following my trek on the Internet,” Younghusband said. “Those people are fantastic down there, a little town great for whale watching. I was thrilled when they put on a parade in my honor.”

For getting close to nature, to spirituality, and to a way of life that people have long forgotten, walking Baja was the right medicine for Younghusband.

“I always was thanking God for the near perfect weather He gave me and for the way things went,” he said.

And, of course, trekking Baja was a wonderful way to make two of man’s best friends: his dog and a burro.

For pictures of his trek, visit tresamigosblancos.com.