An Epic Journey Through Time: Documentary Producer Trudi Angell

In this episode of the California Frontier Podcast, Damian interviews Trudi Angell, producer of the documentary film La Récua (The Mule Pack Train).

La Récua follows the story of Darío Higuera, a 70-year-old Baja California ranchero, who dreams of recreating an early-20th-century mule train transporting traditional goods from Comondú to La Paz in southern Baja California.

Accompanied by his son, 8-year-old grandson, and friends, Darïo plans to travel 200 miles on mule-back through the daunting Baja outback, retracing historical routes and discovering never-before-filmed sections of El Camino Real.

Along the way, the travelers face dangers, encounter old and new friends, and exchange memories, providing viewers with insights into the traditional lifestyle of Baja California’s backcountry ranchers.

The documentary uses breathtaking cinematography and captivating storytelling to take the viewer on a legendary journey into Californio vaquero history.

The official website of La Récua: https://larecua.com/

The California Frontier Project:  https://www.californiafrontier.net
California History Teachers:  https://www.californiahistoryteachers.com

Transcript

Damian Bacich: 0:00

I am here with Trudy Angel, and this is something I've really been looking forward to talking to her about this wonderful documentary that she made called La Récua. So Trudy, um, can you tell us a little bit about yourself before we talk about the, uh, the documentary, which I loved and I hope everybody gets a chance to see. Can, can you give us a little bit about, uh, background about yourself and, and maybe, you know, how you wound up exactly getting into a project like this.

trudi-angell_2_09-13-2023_130425: 0:33

Yes, it's quite a story. Uh, and thank you Damien, for inviting me on the show, and I was really thrilled to find your website. Uh, as I've been cruising around looking at who might just be interested in this film, and that's how I found you is, uh, going to the al I love your t-shirt, Alta California established in 1769. I need to get

Damian Bacich: 0:57

You know what? I didn't know when I came up with the idea for that t-shirt is that up in the Sierra Foothills, there's actually a town called Alta California, I have run into a few people who were asking me if, if it was about that town, I was like, no, it's

Trudi Angell: 1:18

no then you, then you end up getting into a long story with them. I bet.

Damian Bacich: 1:22

yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Trudi Angell: 1:25

Well, basically that's how I got started with this whole story and this whole, this whole film. Um, I started going down to Baja. I I was born and raised, uh, here in Calistoga, California.

Damian Bacich: 1:39

That's right. You and I have the Napa Valley connection.

Trudi Angell: 1:42

Yeah, yeah, exactly. You were in Saint Helena and, um, so I was, yeah, born and raised here. I had horses when I was a teenager, rode all over the valley and up into the hills and, and, um, so that was kind of my background here. Did a lot of swimming at the local swimming pools here in Calistoga. And so I was kind of outdoorsy. And so back when I was 20, uh, in about, oh, when was that? Uh, 19, uh, 75, 76. It was when I picked up a catalog for the National Outdoor Leadership School, uh, Knowles. And it's based in Lander, Wyoming, actually, uh, since the late sixties. And, because I wasn't particularly interested in snow camping, I. Uh, this was winter time that I picked up the brochure and I saw this ad for, um, a trip down to Baja to learn sea kayaking. And I thought, oh, good sun and sand and beaches. That sounds more my style. And so I signed up to do a, a 12 day course and I ended up staying six weeks, uh, buying a kayak when I got back up here to California, Alta, California, and then ended up, um, Just traveling down to Baja quite a bit. And I always did well with language, with Spanish in school, both in St. Helena when I went to Robert Louis Stevenson, as you probably did, and then also to, uh, in Calistoga High School here. And so I, I just, it kind of fit when I went down and I started driving my old 1964 Rambler American down the Baja Highway with my folding kayak on top of it. Uh, it became a lifestyle, it truly, or a lifestyle for many, many years. And so finally in the early eighties, I started, I was, I was in the right place at the right time when sea kayaking as adventure travel and, um, You know, Baja as a destination kind of, kind of came together, you know, and so I knew the coastline. I, uh, and I started running kayak tours small at first, but then it worked into a nice little business and a, and a fun lifestyle. But somewhere in there, also in about the mid eighties, a friend of mine who had been taking people up into the rock art canyons in Baja, uh, to look at indigenous paintings, amazing, um, world Heritage class now, uh, indigenous cave paintings. And they invited me out on a mule pack trip. So I hadn't really ridden since I was in high school. And now I was about in my late, uh, twenties, maybe around 30. And I got on a mule and thought, Ugh, I wanna be a cowgirl. I. And so I, I ended up, uh, starting to ride around, bought my own horse. By then I was living in Loreto during seasonally coming up to Calistoga as I still continue to do in the summertime. And then I kept going back down to Baja and I would start leading some mule pack trips too. Uh, and basically I got out on those El Camino real trails, the very first El Camino real trails on the west coast of North America, which started in what we now know as Cabo. And then, um, you know, ended up all the way up here in, in Monterey and Sonoma being the final one. And I thought, oh, what a fun connection. You know, I've been in the Sonoma area all my life, and now I'm in the area in Loreto where all of this Mission California missions, um,.The indigenous histories of, of the people on the, on the California Peninsula. And of course, as you know, California, the first, California was where I live right now in Loreto and farther south to us. That's where the Explorers land and first started calling it the island of California. And so that's, that's how I kind of became my interest in the history of the area and riding with the cowboys and visiting the women and the children and the people on the ranches. And so it just became another part of a lifestyle. I kind of handed off my, my si my sea kayaking business to my other guides. And then I started exploring the mountains because that became, oh boy, another 30 years of things to explore up in this area. And it certainly worked into that. So on one of our first trips that we did from, um, Loreto area and up to the mission called San Javier, which is just west of Loreto. I, back in the nineties, late eighties, probably late eighties, I heard about this old, um, not so old then. He, he was actually forties, fifties, probably at the time. But a saddle maker, a regional saddle maker who was making the traditional old California styles of saddles, the, the saddles that were basically developed in that desert environment for the type of cattle, roundups and Uh, travel that these VAEs had to do in those areas. So it was a very unique and specific to the area type of saddle. So I went riding off one day with my three-year-old daughter sitting in front of me in the saddle. I had kind of tied her on around my waist and we went off and rode five hours cross country with um, one of, one of our local elderly vaquero guides. And I couldn't see a trail, but obviously he knew where we were going. And went really just cross country and ended up down in a little canyon where a very amazing, wonderful family was living. And that was Rio Ira. Uh, Rio Ira Mesa was the old saddle maker and his family of, uh, two, three boys. Three boys and one girl who were all in, in about their teens at that point. Uh, we just all became the best of friends. My daughter and I, and another friend we rode in. They accepted us like family. We had our cowboy guy. It was just such a unique experience, um, to arrive at a roadless ranch, a place where cars couldn't even get to. So their way of travel and lifestyle was to load up a donkey and ride many, many hours just to get out to a road head where they could get supplies. And so they, they knew how to, of course, raise their cattle in the back country. Dario knew what were the plants that were needed to build the tree of the saddle or the base of the saddle. What plants and, uh, bark, uh, or roots were needed to tan the hides. And it was fascinating and so many, for many years when I started to run the tours, uh, and that became a popular thing to do, it was to run these, these tours to go out and visit these outback families. Um, they just, we all became the best of friends. And after about 25 or more years of doing that, riding around to his ranch and taking people there and discovering how charismatic he always has been, he's just a natural teacher at heart. He loves to tell people about his lifestyle, the family, how he builds things, um, with and how they survived actually eating cactus and indigenous foods when, when that was all that they could get ahold of. So he had a fascinating background. It was like riding back into time, a hundred years, uh, to, to go out to their ranch and one day, so then later on they moved a little bit farther down canyon and set up a ranch in a little bit wider area where their cattle could graze. And they built corrals and, and, uh, made, made it be a place where they could actually have a little bit of road access. It was still about three hours from any major city. Um, we would still ride, we would do a loop trip and leave from Sun Javier or Loreto area and, and take our guests and go camp out in the back country and mid Tripp. We'd end up at his ranch and it was such a breath of fresh air. We would, there was fresh water there. We would take baths. The women would.would cook a meal for us. We, it was like old home week, it would be like just visiting friends. And Dia was always so wonderful about, um, teaching the guests who were on my trip about how the old saddles were made and how the old pack saddles were made. So after many, many years of doing that, like I say, I started doing that in about, it must have been about 94 when I rode into his ranch the first time. And by 2017, I had a small group we'd ridden in. He was doing what he always did with being charismatic and showing all these beautiful hand tooled saddles to my guests. And he suddenly looked at me and he said, Trudy, for years I've been wanting to reenact. An old time pack train, just like my grandfather used to do. And I used to sit around the campfires when I was just a little kid. And I would listen to the stories about how these old time packers would load up a dozen donkeys in the village of Du or Lamo, which is about 300 or so more kilometers to the north of the capital city of La Paz, which was a port city. And they would load up and they would ride for a couple of weeks down to La Paz, taking goods from the villages or the ranches along the way, trading it in La Paz for things that they couldn't grow on the ranches or rice and, and flour from the mills there and bring them back again. And he said, and I've always wanted to do that. I've always wanted to, to be one of those old packers and relive that story and, and You know, I think I'd like to do that sometime and I want it on film. I went, oh, okay. Let's do it. I'll help you. Oh my God. that was quite a statement, um, six years ago now. We now went through the whole process. It was the first time I've ever made a film. First time Darío has ever made a film, although he'd been in a couple of others. And I'd been had a little bit of background with, uh, the film called Corazón Vaquero, uh, which I

Damian Bacich: 13:39

Oh, I love that.

Trudi Angell: 13:40

Yeah. Okay. So you'll see in there, um, my friends Gary McClintock, who is an old saddle maker and Uh, he passed away a few years ago, but, um, that was his, his, uh, dream also was to make a movie back in the, around 2005, 2006. Gary called me up and said, Hey, Trudy, can you take me to some place? Um, places in Baja where people are still doing traditional old California style of, of um, building things and making things, and especially saddle makers. And I thought, ah, I know where we're going. So we traveled with, uh, Cody, his son and another woman Eve Ewing, who had been traveling all over the Baja California Peninsula by Mule since the 1960s, uh, and was very famous in her own right for being one of the first people to take people into the, those rock art, the cave cave painting areas. which is up to the north of Dario. And so it was, um, it just seemed natural for Dario to say, okay, I've been in one movie already, maybe actually he'd been in couple movies being interviewed about his knowledge, his old traditional California knowledge. And so he said, well, let's just make a movie. And I said, okay, well I'll just help you. But little did I know what it was going to involve. And uh, so that was it. In 2017, he said, I wanna do this thing. I want it on film. And I said, okay, I'll help you.

Damian Bacich: 15:28

That's, that's really something, you know, just, um, backtracking a little bit, that movie I, um, I used to show it in my classes at, uh, San Jose State on, uh, old California history and also Latin American culture. Students used to love it. And, uh, it makes sense that, that, that there's a tie in, of course, that you're that you're the link, you know, um, that yeah, that's an, it's an amazing film. And the protagonist, um, Récua, uh, Dario, you mentioned him a number of times. He's a real character for sure, but he's, he's a poet. it's just fascinating to see him on the trail, you know, creating little verses, little little poems, uh, little songs as he's going along. At least for me, somebody who's studied, you know, the old, uh, Spanish ballots, he's sort of almost a living example of that, of these people who, who carry on that, that, that song, that performance tradition as well, in addition to being very rooted in, in the land and in and in very practical life, right?

Trudi Angell: 16:47

Yeah, very practical, uh, very resilient in the back country you go with the punches, with the weather, with your cattle. Um, you just do what you have to do. And, uh, a really fun background story you like. Now that you've seen Dario in both films, now that I know that, that, that you, that's been part of your background too. Vaquero, he's the guy who gets bucked off the horse. Right?

Damian Bacich: 17:16

Hmm.

Trudi Angell: 17:17

Okay. So, um, that, that ranch, Rancho Al is the ranch that we begin to film from, uh, a little bit. Uh, we don't include his ranch too much into the current story of La Récua because it's really much more of an abandoned ranch right now. Many things have happened in his life and. Um, his, his health in some ways, and now he's, he's back on track again, so he's doing well. Um,

Damian Bacich: 17:48

and sorry I interrupt, but that's also part of the, of the, the plot of the film. The plot, if you will, the, the story is his health along the trail. Right. Um,

Trudi Angell: 18:00

Yeah. He has bronchitis on the trail and we truly do almost lose him that day. He couldn't breathe and you don't see the backstory. Luckily my editor did a great job of cutting out, kind of all of us rushing in and me giving him homeopathic remedies and somebody in the background yelling, give him strong, dark, hot coffee. And we happened to have some in a thermos. And so the story doesn't really elaborate on that in, in the film or the, the visuals don't, but there's a lot of background that had to be cut out and, and woven. Out it, but that's really true. And then Dios spirit, as he drinks his strong black coffee out, opens the aviola in his lungs, and then he's able to carry on and in fact is the leader of the group and says, no. What is, what does he say in that moment? He says, Firo, let's put the pedal to the metal And, and Cha, our actual real trail guide there is like, oh my gosh, he should take a rest. He should he. But no, that is spirit And his, um, his desire to complete this trip and do this trip and, and finish this story is overwhelms everything and get carries him through.

Track 1: 19:25

So in short, the, the documentary follows him and his group of, um, friends and relatives, right, as they kind of do this. Um, I don't know what you'd want to call it. This, carry out this idea that, that you're not a hundred percent sure that it can be done or that it will be done, but along the way you see his determination, good humor, and, and, um, and fearlessness that really, that really gets them through.

Trudi Angell: 19:58

Yeah. So if you, did you get a chance to listen to that little nine minute video clip of an interview that we did in Spanish and uh, it's on one of my websites and

Track 1: 20:10

No, I wasn't

trudi-angell_2_09-13-2023_130425: 20:11

I might have sent

Damian Bacich: 20:12

Oh, I, okay. So there's a clip where you're, uh, together with the crew

Trudi Angell: 20:17

Yeah.

Damian Bacich: 20:17

being interviewed. Yes. I watched that.

Trudi Angell: 20:19

Yeah. And one of the things I mentioned there is that. The children, even the children on our trail. The reason we chose the people who were traveling along with us, well, for one, Dario wanted his family there. He wanted his son, he wanted his grandson in particular because his story, the whole thread of the story is he was a child at eight years old listening to his grandfather tell the stories. And so he built that little saddle for his grandson, um, in order to get him on down the trail in the old traditional California style. And, and he wanted his grandson to, to be for sure part of this film. And so the children, because little Ena who was 10 years old, lived and grew up on a roadless ranch. Uh, in the Sierra, there's San Francisco where all the cave paintings are. And I've known her since before she was born. I've known her parents since they were young people before they got married. And um, and then her father, Ricardo, uh, they're two of the other people on the trip. So it's Dio is the main protagonist telling his story, his son helping him along. And you see his expertise as we go along, his complete knowledge and ability to, um, survive and keep his animals healthy in the outback, feed them when they need feed, climb up in a tree and break off branches because that's all there is right there. Uh, it was during the drought season, there was nothing on the ground really to feed them. And there were many places along that trail. And as a back part of the backstory of the film, uh, as we left the village of Du, we were all riding mules. And then when we got to Sun Javier, then we had actually support vehicle for parts of the rest of the trip all the way down to La Paz, the 200 miles along the trails and old roads. So some of the time, uh, we were able to have feed for the animals and make life a little simpler and feed them alfalfa and, uh, not have to look how to, uh, go and tie up a dozen donkeys and five or six or seven or eight or 10 mules, uh, every day to try to feed them. So we did have, in the backstory there, is that, yes, we had some, um, definitely we had the vehicle support for many nights of those 20 days on the trail, but there were a half a dozen, maybe seven nights where we as a group or part of the group were, were actually on the trail. Okay. And had to camp in a place where there was no road access. So that's the time when they had to resort to traditional feed that those old Ros, the old packers would've had to done on their whole trip, because way back then there were, there was no alfalfa to, to feed your animals. Um, so, so as you watch part of that history unfold, you get a, a good sense of what it was like to, to ride through that back country because we had three cameras filming five people on the trail, basically all day long. So that was hundreds of hours of film that was rolling all day long for 20 days. And because we call it a"vérité" documentary where you, you don't script it, you don't know what, you don't know what's gonna happen. And so the fun part is then you just try to film everything that's going on. And then the editor has the job--or the editing team has the job and storytelling team--script writer afterwards has the job of putting it all together in the actual story that the protagonist wants to tell. Um, or very key elements that came out of all of that film and sound that were so amazing, such an amazing part of the story that they got. It got also woven into the story over the end as the editing was going on. So can we can consider, let's see. Sergio started editing in December, 2018. We rode the trail in March, 2018. It took 20 days to get to La Paz. We actually had a whole lot of Traditional goods that went on those donkeys

Damian Bacich: 25:16

Right. And in fact, that's one of the, the great scenes, uh, when they do. You know, spoiler alert when they do reach La Paz, um, when the people are, are crowding around to get, to get a little sample of the, the, the traditional goods, foods that they brought with them and the wine and yeah. That's, that's a beautiful thing to see the appreciation of the people there in La Paz for this extremely traditional, um, I don't know what you want to call it, this, this, this, um,

Trudi Angell: 25:55

yeah, the old town caravans. Mm-hmm.

Damian Bacich: 25:58

Yeah. This representation of their own traditions, they appreciate that.

Trudi Angell: 26:02

Yeah. Um, yeah, from the whole story from the beginning, when you see those beginning shots in the Village of Comondú where Dario speaks, uh, a little bit, um, a about the, the dates and the cheese and the, uh, dried meat that went along on the trip and the, um, you know, just whatever and the wine from Comondú because Comondú the little village of du up in the heart of the Sierra de La Giganta to the west of Loreta is pretty famous for its wine. There's a lot of water flowing through this little canyon, and they make great wine there. And so it was so exciting for the people in La Paz who may have grown up in that area or grown up on branches or in the back country. Many of them were Dario's relatives. Uh, they know the story. They know the story from their own background, their own ancestors, uh, you know, very close their, their own parents. Uh, and grandparents. And so yeah, as we, as we show this film, um, to people, and even as the film was in the development stage, it wasn't yet to final cut, Dario and I would sometimes, um, just do a screening of our slideshow about what the film was going to be about and bring a saddle to kind of show people. And elders in our audiences down in Mexico would get up at the end of our presentation with tears in their eyes and just, um, you know, lumps in their throats and saying, thank you so much for preserving part of our past, and bringing back the memories of what it was like to have these pack trains come through their own ranches back then. So that's how I, I can explain and, and say that Making this film, it is just so wonderful because it takes you to a really, takes you back in time. A hun in the reality of 150 years ago of how things were, or even 80 years ago in, in the Baja Peninsula before the road was put in, in the seventies, uh, so many people still traveled by mules and had roadless ranches in the back country, in the mountains. And right now there's only a few, uh, mostly in the Sierra, the San Francisco of ranches that are still surviving. I can probably count them on one hand at this point, but when I started riding about 40 years down, 4 35 years ago down there, there were a lot more ranches that, where people were living in the back country and surviving, making their goat cheese, packing it on donkeys, taking it out to a road head. Um, but that's disappearing. So, so it's, it's just been a wonderful thing with the film La Récua to capture that story and preserve that story.

Track 1: 29:08

So would you say, well, you definitely, you just said that this is a, this is a, a way of life that's definitely disappearing. Um, What, what do you think is the future this way of life? Um, and that's one of the things that, that struck me about the film is that it's, you get this dichotomy between a very traditional, self-sufficient, um, off the grid, you know, what we talk about, uh, lifestyle that's very tied, uh, to the past. And then, you know, there's cell phones, there's, um, they're going to a, a modern, uh, city. You know, they're trying to decide. Dario talks about, um, well, well, I don't remember if it was himself, but this idea about, you know, what are the children gonna do? Are they gonna go to the city to go to study, to university? They're gonna stay. And I think Azucena talks about how she wants to stay on the rancho. Right. So

Trudi Angell: 30:11

Mm-hmm.

Damian Bacich: 30:12

can you talk to us a little bit about how do you see. That, um, crossroads that these people are at, you know, in terms of maintaining this life and, but also being immersed in a modern world that, that, that touches really everybody now.

Trudi Angell: 30:31

right? Well, so back in the early eighties and the first time I rode into the canyon, uh, where the, where the rock art paintings are in the north end of the state of Baja California Sur there. there was no communication on many of the ranches. Then they got radios, they got the, the UHF radios, and there was, wow, there was communication before the, you know, where there wasn't any before. The communication prior to that had been fayuqueros. These people who wouldn't be the long range trucker kinds of mule pack teams that would go from one village to LA p, those were called the arrieros of the récuas. They would do the long distance, uh, merchant, uh, sell, buying and selling and trade. But there were others, fayuqueros, as one of elderly gentlemen, uh, says in, in the story, in the kind of the middle of the story in the film. He says, yeah, we had a couple of donkeys and we'd ride into the town and first we had two donkeys, and then we had six donkeys, and we'd buy this and we'd buy that and we'd buy this and we'd buy that. And, and so those were the fayuqueros, those were the people who would go kind of from ranch to ranch or shorter distances. And so they would all be called récuas, the, or caravans. But the ROS would normally do the shorter routes or, or go do a loop in a month and visit a ranch every night. They would be the pedalers, the pedalers who didn't have a cart, all they had were donkeys. And so they would load up their goods, move to the next ranch, and the ranches were pretty close together back then because like I say, there used to be a lot more people living on those outback ranches. Um, up until the nineties and the two thousands. So anyway, the Ros were the ones who carried the gossip and carried the news and, and brought in the goods. And now then in the eighties, nineties, and up until 2000, maybe 15, uh, about 2015 people started getting cell phones and they would get little internet towers. I think there's even a government program that would help the ranchers, uh, get some kind of an internet connection so that they would have, they'd have a little antenna and you could place it, and then suddenly people had internet. And one of the things we did, and this was about, gosh, must have been about six, eight years ago, um, I, I thought uhoh cell phones are coming into the ranches, uh, these really outback ranches that's gonna change everything. And it really did. Prior to the cell phones, I had an amazing experience with just one couple riding into a remote roadless ranch one time, and we rode for several hours through the mountains. Ended up down in this canyon where two or three families lived and there were some young children there, excuse me, several young children. My two guests got off their mules, went over and sat on a log by our little campsite area. And at that point, of course, the children come running off the hillside. They're like little goats. They're just leaping from rocks to rocks and coming down and, and climbing up into camp. And immediately the children, six years old, eight years old, 10 years old, start helping the cowboys, unpack the donkeys. They bring our gear into the camp and they see that there are new people. They go around, the children go around to each cowboy. Shake their hands, say hello, and then they come over to my guests and I've known them and so that we shake hands and say hello, give a little hug. But they go over to my guests who are sitting there just dumbfounded and they, each one goes to each adult, hi, my name is da da da da. Welcome to the ranch. And they shake hands and they go through And my two guests were just jaw drops and said, Trudy, those children, they're so at home in their place, they're, this is amazing. We've never had this happen before. And the children are brought up to be very respectful, to go around and shake everyone's hand, introduce themselves, and you know, really be with you. And then they went back over and they started joking around with the cowboys and helping'em unpack the donkeys again. But they, they took the time to go over and greet these people and say, wLa Récuame to our ranch. And the people on my trip were just like, oh, we can't believe this. And so the children, because they've been raised on those ranches in the Outback, they were on our trip on La Récua. It's just so much fun to watch them and see how comfortable they are in the back country and how polite they are. Um, and, and in that little interview story, uh, that you may have watched, it's a, the 10 minute interview, one of our, uh, filmmaking crew members who wasn't on the trip but who saw a lot of the background filming. Process because he looked at all the pieces of film. He was really amazed as well that he, he said all these people on the trip that you, that were being filmed are just so comfortable in their own space in the back country. It just, it comes across and the heart of the, the family aspect of the respect that the children have for the cowboys that the cowboys have for the children, it, it just comes out in the film and people have commented on that a lot.

Damian Bacich: 37:12

Yeah, that really, that really comes out. It's, yeah, you look at it. I can just imagine, um, I. My son, I've got a teenage son. He would love to be there doing that. Um, yeah. So I wanted to go back a little bit to the whole filmmaking aspect. One of the things that, that blew me away about this, this film is how beautiful it is. It's, not only engaging in terms of the story and the, the people, the characters, um, but it's just, it's visually, uh, breathtaking. And so, um, the, yeah, it's just captivating. So I'm wondering, you started out by saying you really didn't have a filmmaking background, so how did you, uh, how did you become a filmmaker? How did you assemble the, you had a crew, you had editors and camera people. How did you do that? What was that like?

Trudi Angell: 38:14

Um, I think because I worked with Gary and Cody, um, McClintock helping to make that film Vaquero and in fact in the credits, um, they named me, um, Associate producer on that film, even though I thought I was chief cook and bottle washer And so I think just riding along with them, riding along with you. You know who Doug McConnell is in the Bay Area back roads? Doug McConnell? Yeah. Okay. Well, Doug McConnell, maybe he was, he might've been my first experience with, uh, doing some filming in the Loreto area. Somehow he was coming down to film Wales on the Pacific side, but he also wanted to, he knew about the history of the El Camino Real and the missions and he wanted, and so somebody pointed out him out that to me and said, oh, well, Trudy should, you know, you should talk to Trudy. So I went and picked him and his crew up at the airport. Uh, in Loreto way back, let's see, Olivia was about five years old, so that was almost 30 years ago, and he did, uh, the, the one, uh, his crew came down and they did the one, um, episode of Bay Area Back Roads was about Baja and about the connection between the missions and all that Loretto. So anyway, it was fun to see over the years as a couple other team film teams came down, they all said, well, go to Trudy if you wanna know something about cowboys and ranches and, and El Camino oral and, and that kind of stuff. So I had a few, uh, opportunities to work with some film crews. So what I noticed mostly is, yeah, you need a good team and you need a team who works well together and loves what they're doing in the area that they're doing at. So back in 2015, we took Cowboys from Baja Dario being one of them, and Azucena's grandfather being one of them. Um, out to Elko, Nevada. And I saw with a display there done by my friend Fermín Reygadas, who you also see in the film a little bit at the party in La Paz, um, you, he, he had put together a little museum piece in Elko, Nevada for the, some number, th number 31 National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko. And we, the Cowboys, our cowboys and our singers and our band were, uh, basically the stars of the show for that particular, particular year. And I saw some photographs that my friend Ferin had gotten ahold of one of his students. He's a professor at the university in La Paz about rural tourism and about cowboys. And he just did a beautiful book. On Old Californio saddle making, and it's in Spanish, and he published it in Mexico, of course. So anyway, he knew this student, a young woman who has, who had her focus for her photography, had been, uh, uh, to capture ranch life because she also knew even at a young age that this was a fading thing and it needed to be captured. And the, the, the stories of the people on the ranches were so important for her to capture. And I saw some of her photography and I went, oh, this woman really has a, a sense of heart for these people who live out here. So when Dario told me in 2017, Trudy, I wanna make a film, she was the first person I went to. She grew up in La Paz, she lived in La Paz. Um, so Dio told me this in like February, 2017 and by May, 2017, I was down in La Paz and interviewing her and her husband, who are both filmmakers and photographers and have already published some books and, and things. And I discovered that she had also done a trip called a cabalgata, which is, um, uh, a movement of people on horseback, usually on some type of a pilgrimage mission, or to head out to a party that's going on about, um, maybe a Saint Day Festival at a particular village. And people will do their al Gatas and round up a bunch of folks and, and ride to get to, um, to a, a festivity. And so she had ridden for 11 or 12 days with a group of men from La Paz all the way to Son Javier for its traditional annual, uh, St day festival. And so I knew that if she liked to do that, she'd probably love to work on this film. And so I asked her, and, and she would know the hardships. She would know what she was getting into. So I wanted to make sure I had a team of people that knew what they were getting into or could be really resilient and positive about, you know, just getting out there and riding with those cowboys. And so the two of them, Alejandro, uh, Rivas and Elizabeth Moreno is her name, they, they signed on right away. They were very excited to do this whole film. And they were the ones who introduced me to the sound guy, young man named Rogelio Munoz, who had to, for the first time in his life, get on a mule. Carry his, the boom. So he's riding along

Damian Bacich: 44:14

Oh wow.

Trudi Angell: 44:15

on the back of a mule with a boom, or he has the little microphones on the pin to the lapel of Dio and, and a couple other people on the trail. And he's trying to capture, trying to keep his boom and his microphone out of the, you know, the visual of the camera And he's very good at it. And so that's why they suggested that he come along. And so as a big plus beyond all that skill of, of his being able to know what he has to capture on the trail to make this film be so realistic. Like you remember the scene where that donkey bites off that piece of tree, uh, big branch and you hear the crunch, crunch and you can almost hear the drool dripping out of his. Because that was Rogelio's job, was to capture all of that background view, uh, sound that would make a viewer of the film feel like you're right there. And he did it wonderfully. And he did it with a sense of humor. He did it with enthusiasm and he and Dario became best buddies, on the,

Damian Bacich: 45:32

okay.

Trudi Angell: 45:32

the whole ride. And so, you know, the whole crew really clicked as, as a group moving along down the trail. The children, Rogelio had tons of fun with the children. The children teased him all the time.'cause he had a big, long ponytail. He wouldn't wear a cowboy hat. He, he would wear something like a wrap around his head or something like that. And they were teasing him all the time. And they just had tons of fun. So all of that, you know, brought the fla, brought the flavor into the film of Of just ease and friendship and comradery and uh, yeah, it just brings it out. There are so many people who have said, well, you go riding along with this team of people as they're leaving Kdu and you, then you see them get into the village of Sun, Javier. This is about 20 minutes into the film or so, and, and it shocks them. They're like, oh, oh, wait a minute. This is okay. This is actually, there's cars and there's people using cell phones, taking pictures of our cowboys coming in. And it shocks people that here they were out in the back country and just kind of flowing along. And Dario does this traditional, very traditional cowboy thing, um, early on in the film as they're writing and, and presents a riddle to the group if that presents the riddle to the group and Uh, so that's part of it. That's part of the, he's the campfire philosopher. He's the, he's the mule writing poet. He's the keeper of old track California traditions. And, um, and you just learn, you just begin to love him because of all that he is sharing with the world, basically.

Damian Bacich: 47:28

Yeah. You know, the old California traditions. Um, what do you think you're, you're a California and Alta Californian, right? And residing in Baja California, and one of the, um, I think one of the, the subtexts of this film is, is the fact that, that when we say the word California, we're really talking about a much larger piece of property than we normally think of. Right? What do you think about that today in 2023? this, this idea, what do you, do you think that there's hope for a. A better sense of continuity between two regions on each side of the border, or, or, yeah. How do you see that?

Trudi Angell: 48:20

I would hope so. And I've been involved peripherally with a group called em, C A R E M, down in ate. Um, and together we've kind of been imagining me to a lesser degree and they to a more formal degree of trying to put together, um, the concept of the three Californias. So the original California, which goes basically, uh, I always use my, my arm as a, as a map of California, right? So the, the knuckle down here is Cabo, and then the elbow is up by Guerrero Negro at the state line between Baja, California Sur. And, and Tijuana and San Diego are up here at my shoulder. So I'm using that all the time as, as a map to, to give people a sense of the real first. California is really this whole area in my lower from my elbow down.

Damian Bacich: 49:21

Mm-hmm.

Trudi Angell: 49:21

And, um, that has disappeared. Well, it was even in the mid 18 hundreds here, uh, that people were still referring. And maybe even in the early 19 hundreds, people were still referring in newspapers and Uh, wasn't there an Alta California newspaper? Uh, believe, and it was called the Alta California. And so they were still understanding that, you know, they, this upper California was just basically where the missionaries came as they traveled north up from lower California or Baja California. And so,

Damian Bacich: 50:00

Or Antigua, California. Right.

Trudi Angell: 50:02

pardon,

Damian Bacich: 50:03

Or Antigua, California.

Trudi Angell: 50:05

Antigua, California. Antigua California is a great, a great way to, um, describe that. Yeah. the the old original California. And so, you know, the, this whole sense of how people traveled, like nowadays, because I've ridden mules up and down the peninsula for many, many years, I, I've ridden actually from Cabo all the way to Tecate. Uh, one year with, uh, my daughter and a couple other women, women friends. We called it the"Mula Mil" the Mule, 1000. And so, um, and we're hopefully doing it again pretty soon. Um, you know, the, the, my sense of how that was done, probably not too many people get, get it, that that was just a normal way of life. Back in the forties, fifties, sixties before, before the, the Trans Peninsular Highway was put in from Tijuana and finished up all the way down in the early seventies, down connecting Cabo and La Paz to Ensenada and that whole central part of the peninsula. There, there are some wonderful books in Spanish written by a woman named, um, Estela. Davi.

Damian Bacich: 51:34

Uh, yes.

Trudi Angell: 51:35

Yeah. Have you read

Damian Bacich: 51:36

I met, I met Estella a number of years ago at the California Missions Conference

Trudi Angell: 51:42

Perfect. Okay. Yeah. She's a

Damian Bacich: 51:45

Oh, no, excuse me. No, no, no. It's Stella AVEs. That's somebody else. Esella AVEs came to U C L A and she spoke about her book. Um, La perla del mojón",

Trudi Angell: 51:58

mm-hmm. Yes.

Damian Bacich: 52:00

Estella. Yes, yes. Yeah. have her book autographed by Esella.

Trudi Angell: 52:04

Great. Well, she, she has interviewed a lot of people, um, and, and written their stories down. And her, you know, as you know her, the background of most of her books have to do with her own family's old stories and the past down information and, and stuff. And, uh, yeah, she's wonderful. She's still, uh, hanging out in La Paz. She finished writing another book called"Conversaciones y memorias" Maybe about five years ago, and I went to to visit her and she gave me a copy. And in that it speaks, she tells one story about an interview with an elderly man who, uh, was very famous in the Loreto and Kodu area. He was a teacher, uh, and would ride on horseback to go around to many of the places. And there was a woman back in the, uh, forties and fifties, uh, thirties, forties and fifties. And she had her, she was a fayuquera, she was a paddler, and she had her route of taking goods around to all those ranches. Her name was Mari... Maria.... Oh, I'll have to think of it later. But, um, there was a story in there about her, how she She would help people if they wanted to move farther north with all of their stuff from DU or um, La Purísima or Loreto, they would hire her, she would be the moving van, and they would ride for two months to get up to where this, these people might wanna, wanna move to. They would load all their worldly goods onto a dozen donkeys and they would just travel for a month or two up the peninsula, just like the Padres did with Padre Serra, who went on foot, of course. But, uh, Portola and the, the people and, and so it's really fun having done that ride myself, I really connect with those old historic stories about travel by Mule, um, up the peninsula. I get it. I, I understand now every time I drive up the Peninsula, Every 10 minutes is, you know, like a day of travel every 10 minutes on the highway. And I can, I can see, and I can kind of visualize, okay, well Portolá, of course, in this area would've wanted to go up over that ridge and down through valley.'cause there's more feed or, uh, there's, there was a little creek down in there. So, so those kinds of things are just things that, that I could absorb and relate to, uh, because I've done some of that myself. Now.

Damian Bacich: 54:55

Well, what I really like about this, uh, documentary is it kind of exemplifies how, um, contrary to maybe to what we might think, how modern technology in some ways, especially in this case, filmmaking, technology, et cetera, can put us in touch with the, the past and with the, the history that, um, is underneath our feet and with parts of traditional life that are disappearing. So, um, it's one of those cases where, where we can, where we can use modern technology to really, um, help maintain memory of the past.

Trudi Angell: 55:43

Mm-hmm.

Damian Bacich: 55:45

And so, Well, I got to see in a, um, I was able to see the film through, um, you know, a special, um, streaming event that you were doing for, for a certain period in August. I'm wondering now, as we close out here, how can thousands and thousands of people see this movie that I really hope, um, they'll be able to,

Trudi Angell: 56:10

Right. Well,

Damian Bacich: 56:11

are plans?

Trudi Angell: 56:12

yeah, the, well, I, I love the full feature film, uh, because of all of the aspects of what, what is tied together at the end of the film, talking about the children and how they're being raised and how, yes, education is important, but so is life on the ranch and, you know, their, their own struggles with trying to decide what they're going to do in life. Both those children, actually, by the way, are, are still living on the ranches and we are Speaking of technology, um, ASNA has been learning English from a young girl, a woman in La Paz, who's a friend of ours, who is teaching her, uh, two times a week. She has an English class with her, so that Asna will be able to live on the ranch and also we hope become a guide to take people down and work with the cowboys who are up there and maybe even be the first young woman guide who will actually, she knows how to pack a donkey. So when her father may not be able to do it sometime, well, she would be next in line. Her brother, her little brother who would be likely to go onto the guide role up there for taking people in, uh, and wouldn't have as many skills. But she is 16 now. Uh, since she was 10 on the, on the filming, and now it's been years later, so now she's 16. And when she's 18 we can actually, um, act, uh, see if she can get onto the guide, role and do her own donkey packing up.

Damian Bacich: 57:51

excellent.

Trudi Angell: 57:52

Yeah. And so one of the things I would like to do with the film is, um, uh, I, we're working on a PBS cut right now, and we already have it cut down to just about an hour. It has to be a little bit less than that for the P B s um, hour. It's

Damian Bacich: 58:12

Ah, okay.

Trudi Angell: 58:13

six minutes and 46 seconds or something. And so we're working on that. And so I'm hoping that next year, uh, about this time, it might be something that people would, lots of, lots of people would be able to see on P B S. uh, but a shortened version.

Damian Bacich: 58:30

Hmm.

Trudi Angell: 58:30

And for the longer version, once we have that out on p b s, then I would be able to post it on my website, sell it at our online store and things like that. And, um, and so I, I haven't really resolved all of the questions about distribution, but um, it distribution is changing anyway in the world of film. And I'm in a group right now who is discussing and getting their own films out into the world and, and, uh, getting more eyes on their product. And, and that's hopefully one thing that we'll do. The other thing, like you, you mentioned there's so much education in there, like you've shown RA vaquero to your, uh, to your students in the past. And I would like to make an educational cut because there we have so much footage.

Damian Bacich: 59:22

Yeah.

Trudi Angell: 59:23

Of things that Darrio really had hoped would come out in the film. But the editors kind of grabbed different threads and different storylines to weave the whole story of the trip together and left some of what Darrio considered important parts about the history of the arrieros, the history of the saddle, making, the history of, uh, but there was just too much of it, much, uh, too much material. So at some point I would like to put together an educational cut, maybe a small series of 2, 3 20 minutes sections with a, with some information in the background. You're actually a person who has now come into my radar of thinking, Ooh, you could help me with this putting together an educational background, uh, and what would be the most interesting. So at, at some point, it'd be wonderful to speak with you about that.

Damian Bacich: 1:00:16

Happy to. Well, Trudy, I want to be respectful of your time. This is, uh, once again, this has been a real pleasure. Um, the, the film is called La Récua, uh, the Mule Train or the PAC Train. And, um, I said, I hope everybody gets a chance to see it and for, uh, people to get a little idea of what it's all about and, um, more of a taste of the film and what you do. Where can they go?

Trudi Angell: 1:00:46

They can go to La Récua.com, so that would be L A R E C U A qua.com. And on there you can watch the trailer for sure. And that little 10 minute interview. And there's some lot of good background stories and background about the bios of the, uh, filmmakers as well. And, um, And then you can also, there's a little button down at the bottom of the homepage, uh, that where you can sign up to get information and get on our newsletter so that the next time we do another, uh, week long streaming screening, uh, on a platform that I'm using, then you, you could be on that list to, to find out about, um, when's the next time. It might, might do it in late October, also if you're in the Sacramento area, uh, in California. Then in, on October 3rd at the, um, uh, the Department of Natural Resources, the new building, downtown Sacramento Department of Natural Resources, uh, La Récua has been chosen to be a film presented there on October 3rd. To honor Latino Heritage Month, basically starts this Friday, I think, uh, up

Track 1: 1:02:16

The 15th.

Trudi Angell: 1:02:18

Yeah. And, um, so I hope to see you there, Damien, and,

Damian Bacich: 1:02:23

I would really to attend.

Trudi Angell: 1:02:25

and, and you'll be receiving actually a special invitation pretty soon in the mail. We have a, a discussion with the, um, the people. Tomorrow I have a Zoom meeting with the, the woman who's getting the official invitations ready to send out. And, um, and other people, uh, on, on the radar who are very interested in California history are, are on that list. But also it will start to be announced, I think, in the Sacramento Bee and other places, uh, with a link to be able to, uh, reserve a space. So they, they'll definitely, there's only 300 seats in the theater. So they'll want, uh, to make sure that, that people reserve a space so that we limit that there will, it'll cut off at 300. So, yeah.

Damian Bacich: 1:03:16

Well, that's great that I'm, I'm really looking forward to that and once again, all my compliments on the film and, um, I think what you're, what you're doing is wonderful and I hope more and more people hear about it. And, um, looking forward to the film getting, uh, greater distribution and the word getting out about what you're doing and about Darrio and his legacy.

Trudi Angell: 1:03:41

Mm-hmm. and especially in Baha, California Sur, uh, we're also working on a project to get the, the film, uh, is in its feature film format out to all the little villages and all the people who really deserve to, to see this film and understand that their heritage, their background, their knowledge, Um, and their history is so, so important so that it will honor them as well.

Damian Bacich: 1:04:13

Wonderful. Well, thank you Trudy. Uh, it's been a real pleasure.

Trudi Angell: 1:04:18

Okay, Igualmente and hope to see you soon on the third, if not sooner. And St. Helena.

Damian Bacich: 1:04:24

Okay.