I tried very hard to see past this, to the positive things I'd accomplished in my life, but I couldn't. All I could see was this horrible here and now in which I was only one thing, the American with the lost dog, a pathetic figure sitting alone on a rock in a river valley in Baja, Mexico.

Over the past couple months when I've had doubts about the journey I've undertaken and the abandonment of the home I had for so long, I'd simply think about the road that lay ahead and the people I'd meet and the words I'd write and the photographs I'd take and the waves I'd ride and the idea of finding not only my old friend Christopher but of discovering a special place, a little piece of personal paradise, and the doubts would dissolve.

I'd see myself as I imagined others would see me -- an adventurous, even romantic figure on a solitary quest of discovery and enlightenment. But this was the reverse epiphany, wherein none of it was clear or made sense. This sensation has lingered and is overlayed onto the feeling of grief at the loss of my dog, producing a numbness and an apathy that has stultified me in body and soul.

I know that at some point I may have to leave the river valley without Shiner, but when I picture myself ascending to the highway, I have trouble with the image of turning south and continuing on with my journey -- I count on Shiner in many ways and would not have begun this journey without her companionship. When I think of the alternative, of turning north and retracing the route back up the peninsula to the United States, I cannot picture myself doing that either, since I'd have no where to go in that country, and nothing to accomplish. I have burned bridges behind me.

I have been yearning for someone to talk to who might understand what I'm going through, and the one person who comes to mind in this context is Christopher, given his ability to adapt to trying and in some cases horrendous circumstances, and to not only accept them if need be, but to do so with grace and even good humor.

So I imagine him ambling up the valley with his dogs, Sweetpea and Jumbie, finding me camped here by water's edge, and after a grin and a hug, asking me where Shiner is. I'd tell him what has happened and ask him what I should do. I imagine him advising me that because of my bond with Shiner I should stay here until I find her, or discover what has happened to her, no matter how long it takes. But I also imagine him telling me that in spite of our bond, it's finally time to leave and get on with things, since it's unlikely that she's anywhere nearby, or even still alive. It is not of course the real Christopher who is saying these things, but me, using his voice to express my equivocality. The real Christopher, I'm quite sure, would take the shorter route and simply say, "It's your call."

Now the sun is low over the thick bramble in the west down the valley and the sky above and to the east is the cobalt hue that seems unique to Baja just before the quality of the light softens and warms at the end of the day. I decide that I'll bathe and shave in the river, which I haven't done since the day before Shiner disappeared.

As I'm setting up my camp table by the river, laying out my shampoo and razor and shaving brush, I glance downstream and see a flash of white maybe a hundred yards away. I yell out "Hey!" although there is no reason to yell anything because it has not yet occurred to me that I'm seeing Shiner standing there at water's edge, the white blaze on her face stark against the muted green of the high brush. When I do sense this, that it's Shiner, the implications are slow in registering. I stare at her mindlessly for some period of time, seeing but not seeing. For her part, in response to my shout she emits an odd sound, something between a whine and a bark and she's looking from side to side, everywhere but straight ahead, which is where I am. I yell out her name but she still doesn't zero in on me; she's in fact very nearsighted and often won't recognize me upon approach until I'm just a few feet away.

I call out her name again, this time with an edge high and squeaky with emotion and I find I'm walking toward her. Now she sees me and knows it's me from the sound of my voice and from my gait but I sense a heartbeat of hesitation and I think my God she's going to run away, she really has gone feral. But then she's galloping toward me at full bore with her ears flapping and I'm running too and even in the heat of the moment as we're having our reunion in the soft fango I'm thinking how incredibly sappy this is.

I'm up at first light and even before firing up the stove I step outside to see if Shiner is still there -- last night I made the decision not to tie her up. She's not in her usual spot under La Casita's overhang and my heart sinks, but she appears quickly out of the near darkness, nuzzles my leg, then stretches and whines and even barks once. I smile because she's normally a blear and droopy riser and not given to this sort of display in the morning. Then I squat on my doorstep sipping my coffee as the clear sweet light gathers and the valley is a beautiful place again, a lush winding ribbon through this wondrous foreign land.

I make my way up the valley, crossing my own tracks and no others except the hoof prints of the searchers on horseback in the damp red Baja mud. I veer to the right, climbing the gentle slope to dry ground, avoiding the soft sand where I bogged on the way in the day I arrived here, which seems so long ago now.

I rumble down the hard washboard grade of the pueblito, and as the kids are converging on the little schoolhouse, I tell the teacher who had spread the word among the populace through her pupils that I had lost my dog that all is well now, and I thank her and ask her to call off the search. Some of the boys run along with the rig smiling and pointing at Shiner beside me and roosters crow and a little Chihuahua barks from in front of the village tienda as we tool on by.

I pass the church where there was a wedding two days ago, a joyous occasion which of course made me feel even worse about having lost my companion; then the road widens to almost two lanes near the rock I sat on and thought about who I was and what I was doing with my life, but then the road narrows again immediately as I cross the river twice where it forms a shallow oxbow.

I'm at the edge of the highway now and for the first time in a week I shift out of 4 x 4 low range and hit the road as the sun cracks the barren eastern hills, sending shafts of light westward down the river valley toward the sea. I'm feeling good and fired up and hopeful about the future and this journey and am very much in the mood to take a big southward chunk out of the road called Mexico 1.

The following is a list of articles Allan has written for the magazine:

• The Caribbean On $25 A Day ~ Affordable Caribbean
• A Dispatch From Down South Costa Rica ~ The End-Of-The-Road
• A Night At The Cantina ~ Pavones, Costa Rica
• My Little World Gets Shaken ~ Pavones, Costa Rica
• In Baja ~ A Birthday