Baja Adventure

Well, that was a real Baja adventure that almost turned into a real disaster! After a nice calm lunch on the corner of a sleepy town square of San Ignacio, we decided to take the road less traveled to San Juanico. (When I say "we", just know that Cynthia is very humble and has offered to bestow me with all the honor and glory associated with this decision 😝).

The potential of saving at least two hours seemed like the logical choice since we got a later than expected start. Plus, "time and tide wait for no man", and the sun was getting low on the horizon. Driving through the remote areas of Baja at night presents its own challenges and is generally considered a no-no. So, I aired down the tires and we buckled in for a bumpy ride.

Several times when passing through one of the tiny villages, we would stop to ask someone to confirm that we were on the right path. We got conflicting answers every time 🤦🏻‍♂️. Eventually, we got passed by someone on the road who seemed to be a local. Why did he seem local? Baja Sur license plate, driving with determination and he didn't hesitate for even one second at any of the multiple forks in the road. "WE" decided to follow him to San Juanico. (Again, that's the proverbial "we", lol).

It felt great to be following some unknown stranger since we hadn't seen any other vehicles on this road. We were going upwards of 50 MPH across LONG stretches of compacted salt flats. I only got a little nervous when we could see brief flashes of sunlight reflecting off the Pacific Ocean. I thought that I had read that this trail was more inland 🤔.

Well, I knew that we had been led astray when the guy I was following pulled into a little shanty shack in the fishing village, El Dátil. We were definitely off course and probably not even halfway there yet. As we passed by he hopped out of his vehicle with a funny expression. He kinda looked like he wanted to tell me something, but my pride wouldn't let me stop, so I gave him a confident head nod and waved. He waved back slowly…

The road south of El Dátil was very rough! There were several sections of EXTREMELY soft and long sand patches. That would be a nightmare for even an empty, high clearance 4x4 vehicle. My poor little 2WD, fully packed Ford Ranger was not exactly built with this trail back to the main "road" in mind. We had to gun it through that soft sand. Any hesitation on the gas would've almost guaranteed getting stuck in the deep ruts. And the consequence of getting stuck would've guaranteed spending the night in the middle of nowhere and waiting for help or walking back to El Dátil to get assistance the next day.

I think the unknown stranger that I was following was probably expecting me to knock on his door the next day. "Hola amigo, ¿me recuerdas a mí? Yo soy el Güero tonto! Ya puedo imaginar lo que querías decirme ayer…" 😂

The truck was shaking VIOLENTLY for about an hour, but we made it back to the main washboard road! We found a relatively flat spot to pull over and calm the nerves. I can now fully comprehend the expression "white knuckle driving" 😳😆. I looked at my top load and noticed that the spare gas tank came dislodged and was just bouncing up and down on the top of the cab. If you were driving on a normal road, you would definitely hear a strange noise of something bouncing on top of your cab and pull over immediately to investigate. But on that particular road all the noises seemed to blend together in tragic harmony.

While I was attending to the gas tank, Cynthia had let Grecia get out to take care of her necessities. When I walked to the back of the truck to get my tools I saw the tailgate down. I asked Cynthia why she had opened the tailgate and she replied, "I thought you did" 😱. Apparently, all that brutal shaking had ejected the latch. Upon further inspection I realized that the tailgate hadn't just opened, it was completely dislodged and barely hanging on by the limiting cables 🤦🏻‍♂️. We still don't know how it's possible, but none of our stuff fell out. And we had a ton of stuff crammed back there 🤩.

With dusk fully settled, we limped our truck back on our originally intended course. We only had to slow down occasionally to honk at cows that were blocking our advancement. We pulled into pitch black San Juanico 8 hours later. The concept of looking for a remote campsite in the darkness on the outskirts of town was beyond all comprehension. So we settled into the boutique Hotel Scorpion Bay. When we mentioned that we had traveled the north route, via El Dátil, they immediately offered us two complimentary margaritas! HAHA 😂😂🤣 I've never enjoyed a margarita more than that one!