Mountains of boulders dropped in the middle of a barren landscape
Monday April 29, 2010-Day One: Driving Through Baja
San Diego: It’s dark outside and The Crumpster is packing totes jammed with enough to sustain our fishing endeavors over the next two months. He strategically stuffs them in between a rusty muddy four wheeler occupying most of the old Dodge’s truck bed. It’s a Tetris game, but it looks like he’s winning. I am concealing cash like a drug dealer hiding dope on a long haul. I’ve been listening to too many southern Cali warnings about federales and guerrillas stopping and taking all your money.
This year the border is effortless. We find the correct place to stop for our required tourist visas and sigh relief when we realize driving lost around sketchy Tijuana won’t be our fate this year.
We breeze through three military checkpoints, a Federales stop, and past many young Mexican men wielding machine guns. They don’t smile. Despite the Crumpster tying shrimp flies in the passenger seat, these two pale gringos lack any terrorism scare and they wave us along.
Eventually we need fuel. San Quintin’s PeMex, a government owned Mexican fuel station, is jammed with vehicles. We realize it is Semana Santa (please don’t pronounce that Christmas style), or Holy Week, really meaning there’s gonna be a holy hell amount of people traveling, camping on the beach, and drinking. It’s spring break. And that explains the four deep hold up at the pumps. Waiting and sweating in the hot sun, suddenly an epiphany strikes: We’re in the gasolina lane. We need diesel. We look around and see the diesel pumps are empty! Excitedly, The Crumpster throws the truck in reverse and we feel a frightening crash. I look in my passenger side mirror to see a old grisly bearded Mexican man getting out of his Ford Explorer to inspect the damage. Images of jail, policemen, angry Mexicans yelling in Spanish, and large amounts of cash flash before our eyes. I can’t decide to throw The Crumpster to the wolves or get out and look sweet and innocent…maybe beg for mercy. We slowly open our doors and brace ourselves for the worst. But this guy sees no damage and in Spanish says something like, “no harm-no foul”. We sigh relief and go fill up on diesel.
We detour east to Bahia de Los Angeles, surprised to see the desert alive with sea-foam green plants lining the roadsides. The desert appears more alive this year; we’re a few weeks early. Fields of yellow wild flowers break the monotony of a colorless landscape.
Destroying fresh bay scallops and shrimp tacos, we watch the moon rise over the islands and the commercial fishermen launching pangas in a nighttime pursuit of humboldt squid or calamari. A camp area on the beach costs us 100 pesos and the host a palm tree that we accidently ran over. (The Crumpster’s really on a roll today.) We set up our tent, crack some leftover natties, and agree-it’s good to be back in Baja.
The old Dodge amidst a grouping of pretty yet out of place wildflowers
"no time for the old pitcha taken, the meters running" fields of yellow in a colorless landscape
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