CHAPTER 1
Its hard to describe the feeling you get when you try to stuff everything you need for an entire year (or at least what you think you will need) into the back of a truck, climb into the cab, and wave good bye to your friends and family as you drive on to the highway, leading to all points south… it is a mixture of the excitement of what the next year will bring, the joy of casting off the expectations of society and doing what your really want to, the sadness of leaving your loved ones behind, the apprehension that you forgot to bring some crucial item, and even fear of what might go wrong if you did. You think to yourself “Am I crazy? Is this really happening? Surely this is a dream and I’ll wake up tomorrow in bed, at home, just like always.” But the next day you don’t wake up at home, you wake up in a tent a thousand miles down the road, and then you know that the trip has finally begun!
We are already through our first sunburns (well, me at least- Kacey’s Italian skin is a little more forgiving), the trucks “check engine” light has already gone off once (turns out that the low quality Mexican fuel doesn’t sit well with the catalytic converter sensor, which isn’t really a problem except for terrible gas mileage and the scare it caused when we saw the light and had no idea why it went off- now we use premium gas), and we almost got stuck in some soft sand on a deserted beach, but all in all the Baja has treated us well. We crossed over the border into Tijuana on Friday July 31st, only 1 month behind our initial plan, and headed south. We wanted to get out of the border area quickly to avoid any potential danger, but had no real destination in mind, so we drove until evening when we arrived at a rather secluded sport fishing RV campground called Don Eddie’s in the small town of San Quinton. The camping truck topper we picked up in LA worked perfectly for its first use, and the 2-buck-chuck we got at Trader Joe’s before leaving San Diego went down smooth.
The next day we drove to the Bahia de Concepcion on the east side of the Baja peninsula, and found a nice camping spot right on the beach. The water was as clear as glass and as warm as a bath- which sounds good, but in the end turned out to be quite the torment. The heat of day must have been at least 115°F, even in the shade of our tarp canopy, and the least satisfying thing in the world was looking out at all that water, thinking it will be such a relief, and then jumping into, essentially, a hot tub. At night it cooled off a bit and there was a nice breeze sometimes, but even then, our sleep was fitful at best. Who knew the Mexican desert could be so hot at the height of summer?!? Well, we should have, and we should have rented a nice little air-conditioned kabana. My attempts at spear fishing were partially successful and ended in the catching of 2 giant crabs- they were just sitting there on the bottom, so it was an easy shot!
We spent 2 days in the sweltering heat, with the intention of reorganizing the truck and finishing the wooden elevated cargo deck in the bed of the truck that will hold all of our equipment and clothing in easy to access compartments for the coming year… in reality, we sat in the shade and nursed cold beers dreaming of someplace cooler. We realized nothing would get done in this heat, so we threw everything back in the truck, and hit the road. We retraced our track north to the small town of Mulege, were our guide book told us we would find a “quaint town with a decidedly French air left over from the French missionaries who founded the city”. What we found was definitely a quaint little town, but the only thing French were the fries they served with my burritos. I guess I was expecting to see little Parisians strolling the streets with berets on their heads and baguettes under their arms, which would have been quite the sight in the middle of Mexico, but burritos are better than crepes anyways, so I’d say we didn’t miss too much.
On August 4th, we headed south once again, ping-ponging back and forth across the Baja peninsula, through Ciudad Insuregentes on the pacific side, and then back through the dessert to La Paz, where we veered west again following the road to Cabo San Lucas. It was getting towards dusk, so we started looking for a place to camp on the beach. With big smiles and laughter in the air, we drove down a lonesome sandy road towards the deserted beach, with the crashing waves of the Pacific Ocean to greet us. The truck rolled to a stop in the soft sand and we got out to watch the sunset. After seeing our surroundings though, we decided it might be too close to the main road, and so climbed back in to find someplace better. I stepped on the gas, and the tires spun. I confidently put it in four wheel drive, and, all four tires spun. I looked over at my co-pilot with a “well, this is strange” look, and got a “you better think of something damn quick” look back. Hmmm, what to do, what to do? Rocking it from forward to reverse and back only made minor progress, but I wasn’t quite desperate enough to get out the come-a-long and tow rope. Finally we figured out that if I got behind the truck and lifted on the bumper, it took just enough weight off the tires that they could get some forward traction, and once we got moving Kacey kept her going all the way back down the sandy road. Which meant a long walk for me, and time to contemplate if it was the lifting on the bumper that did the trick, or simply getting my weight out of the truck… I decided to start a workout routine the next morning.
The next morning we rolled into Cabo San Lucas and found a small bed and breakfast in the middle of town, not too far from the main waterfront area. Cabo San Lucas is a glittering expanse of ritzy high-rise hotels and expensive shop fronts and restaurants. Most items are advertised in US dollars (and are pretty expensive!) and all the beaches, though free to the public, are surrounded by the high walls of the resorts, with almost no access points, thus ensuring their exclusive use by their cliental. It is a location where a small town with a relaxed lifestyle in a beautiful natural setting has been hijacked by hordes of American tourists wielding the almighty dollar. This wasn’t what we had in mind, and it wasn’t the Mexico we had come to see. Even so, we thought it obligatory to take a boat ride out to see the famous arch at the end of the peninsula, thus making our own small concession to this scourge that is the unbridled world-wide cultural destruction caused by America and its wealth. Ok, that was a little harsh, but still, I did feel like a little bit of a sellout paying more for one sunset-boat-ride than we had for breakfast, lunch and dinner the last three days combined.
On August 8th, we said “adios” to Los Cabos, and drove the 3hrs north back to La Paz. We had briefly stopped here on the way south to stock up at a grocery store on the outskirts of the city, and were not impressed. But, on our second visit, after making our way through the outer belt of dusty streets lined with gas stations and “mini supers” (meaning mini-supermarkets, i.e. mini-marts. Some entrepreneurial fellow must have tried to increase the grandeur of his little market to compete with the big supermarkets, and the idea caught on), we arrived at a tranquil sea side boardwalk lined with neat little shops, and good, authentic, looking restaurants. It was welcoming and beautiful. We intended to take the ferry from La Paz to the mainland the next day, so our first task was to find the ferry office and buy a ticket. It was a little late and the tourist office was closed, so we stopped in a rental car company office and a nice guy named Christian gave us a map and not only told us where the ferry company was, but also showed us some great places to camp. We drove to the ferry office, but it looked rather closed. We got out and were jumping up and down on the sidewalk trying to see over the large metal gate to see if anyone was there, when a car pulled up next to us and stopped in the street. They rolled their window down and yelled something at us. I was a little taken aback, but we cautiously walked over to see what they were getting on about. A man leaned out the window and told us that this was the old ferry office, that it was closed, and that the new one was across town. Then, after a few moments of trying to explain where the new office was, he said “Oh, just follow us over there.” We couldn’t believe it, this family on their way to who knows where, stopped to help some complete strangers, and then drove all the way across town to show us where the office was. After writing it down, I realize that it doesn’t sound quit as impressive as it seemed at the time, but I have a hard time imagining the same scenario playing out in the States.
After a windy night at our beach camping spot, and a quick stop at a Mexican water park the next day, where the water slides go right into the ocean, we drove the truck up the long ramp into the belly of the good ship Chihuahua Star. In a short 12 hours, we would be in Mazatlan!
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