THE ROBINSON CRUSOE OF BAJA : Except for a Woodpecker, John Bickel Enjoys Quiet Life

I first met the man on the flying trapeze in August 1981.

I was covering a roosterfish tournament at this fishing resort on the Sea of Cortez, near the tip of the Baja California peninsula. From a fishing boat a few hundred yards offshore one day, I saw a strange structure on a bluff above a bay. It looked like a McDonald’s after a hurricane.

“Oh, that’s John Bickel’s place,” someone said. “He’s our Robinson Crusoe down here. Says he wanted all his life to live on his own bay, live off the land and the sea, and have no neighbors.”

“What a guy!” I thought.

I visited Bickel. He was 64, a retired photographer. He told me that he was two years away from finishing his dream house. He lived in a huge, open air A-frame with a palm-thatch roof, high enough for his trapeze.

From his knees, he swung across the length of his A-frame.

“It’s for my back,” he said, while upside down. “I’ve always wanted to live in a place high enough for my own trapeze.”

Next door, the arched concrete frames were up for a more permanent living structure. He was a fascinating fellow--a 20th Century Robinson Crusoe, living on fish he speared in his private lagoon below, wild honey he gathered in the nearby hills, papaya he bought from a nearby farm, and green peppers, spinach, mushrooms and red chilies he grew himself.

“Half of what I need to live on comes out of this bay,” he said at the time. “I’m a spear fisherman. I haven’t bought meat in a store in two years.”

May, 1985: Not much has changed. If anything, John Bickel, 68 now, looks younger than he did in the summer of ’81.

He has finished his concrete-wood house next to the A-frame. He still lives off the sea and the land, he’s still the man on the flying trapeze, still very much Baja’s Robinson Crusoe, still looking for the right woman--he might have found her this time--says he’s found a cure for rheumatism and that the only stress in his life is caused by a noisy woodpecker.

The sign in his place says: “There’s no place like this place anywhere near this place, so this must be the place.”

He now has a name for his place: Punta (Point) Bickel.

John Bickel’s residence is, well, it’s interesting . How else can you describe a 40-foot-high thatched A-frame that adjoins a concrete-wood, Quonset-like structure with huge concrete ribs?

In the lagoon he looks down upon, he dives for cabrilla, parrotfish and pargo. On breezy days, he sails his sailboat. During his walks on the white-sand beach, he looks for sea turtles--not for food, but to protect them.

“Some of the locals dig up turtle eggs when they see tracks of big females on the beach,” he said. “I cover up the tracks, so the eggs will be safe.

“I’m on a 70% seafood diet. And I know where every fruit tree is within 20 miles of me. I eat bananas, oranges, grapes and papaya. And I can cook up squid that’s the best you ever had. I give it a quick saute in olive oil, wine and garlic and it’s the best you ever had, believe me.”

He said he follows bees to find honey.

“Whenever I see bees in the desert, I set out a bucket of water. The next day or two, they’ll be all over the bucket. Then I watch them, see what direction they head for when they leave the bucket. That gives me a general idea where the hive is. If I can’t follow them to the hive the first time, I set out another bucket. The most it’s ever taken me is four buckets.”

Bees have also, he says, led him to a cure for rheumatism.

“I’ve always had rheumatism in my shoulders and elbows,” he said.

“It’s been so bad I’ve had to go back to the States, to a veteran’s hospital, for treatment. But one of these desert bees stung me one time on an elbow and the rheumatism was gone the next day. Now, when it’s acting up, I just rub a bee on my elbow or shoulder where it hurts until it stings me. Baja bees, they’re terrific.

“One of the local Mexicans saw me do that one day. He told everybody he knew, so now they all call me el witache, the wasp.”

Bickel says he’s never lonely, although his nearest neighbor is miles away. He lives just off the dirt road that runs the roughly 45 miles from Punta Colorada to San Jose Del Cabo.

“If I want company, sometimes I’ll drive down to Punta Colorada (10 miles away) and talk to Bob Van Wormer (the resort’s owner) or the fishermen there. That way I find out what’s going on in the States.”

He’s not a hermit, he said.

“I’m here because I have a low tolerance for contaminated air. I have allergies to bad air in cities and I get pneumonia in wet climates. A doctor told me to get to a dry climate. I do enjoy my solitude here, though.”

Bickel, a single man, had indicated a desire for female companionship when I interviewed him four years ago. He heard from some ladies after that, but results were disappointing.

“They all wanted money,” he said with a wave of his hand.

“However, I can say I’ve recently met a wonderful lady. We’ve visited each other, and that’s all I should say right now, except to say she’s 52 and swims like a fish.”

Bickel has taken up the violin, a development his dog, Fifi, views as a terrible error.

“Fifi is a Baja dog,” Bickel says. “She swims with me when I go spearfishing. She can even swim underwater. She hasn’t caught a fish yet. She likes to eat fish, though. She hates this violin. Watch.”

He picked up the instrument and played a quick tune. Fifi immediately arose from her nap, tucked her tail between her legs and crawled under the pickup truck.

Bickel’s life seems almost entirely free of stress. Even so, there is one problem he hasn’t solved.

“There’s a woodpecker that comes here at sunrise and starts knocking his beak on the wooden beams around here,” Bickel said. “Wakes me up every morning. Drives me nuts. He goes away when I throw a rock at him, but by then I’m wide awake and can’t get back to sleep.”

And yes, there is one thing he misses. Two things, actually.

“Yogurt and cottage cheese,” he said. “Geez, if you know anyone coming down here, please ask them to bring me some yogurt and cottage cheese. I’d be happy to pay them.”