We packed up our stuff and headed over to the rallying point, Mauro’s house, where I left my bike since it was going to be a dirt bike and off road truck trip only. Martin has an old Ford diesel truck that we pile into; Mauro’s wife Patty and their two kids Giuseppe and Maxine (five and eight years old) and me in the back with Martin driving. Josh goes ahead with Mauro and Mike the two dirt bike pros.
We go through town and then take a gravel road south for fifteen miles and then come to a door that marks the beginning of the ranch. The three bike riders are taking a breather and waiting for us as we’re about to hit the real off road action. Martin is a bit worried about his truck making it but luckily Tony, a Canadian caretaker of a local RV park, is there with his new Cummins Turbo Diesel truck that we pile into. Martin and I are in back as the rest of the group enjoy the relative comfort and AC of the cab. We are battling giant boulders and vicious cacti which scratch the truck and us for another hour while we see in the distance the plumes of dust that the dirt bikes are spewing skyward five miles ahead of us.
We finally catch up to them in a clearing of the cactus forest where we all dismount with shattered nerves for an afternoon barbecue. Only we forgot the grill in Martin’s truck. Luckily Mike takes off up the trail and happens to find a perfect grill for the barbecue and we cook the leftover meat from the hostel fiesta of the day before and have rice and bean and guacamole tacos as we try to hide from the midday sun.
(Mauro's five foot seven frame is dwarfed by a forty five foot cactus.)
It turns out that Mauro has us all out here to check out this Rancho that is for sale in order to get investors to go into the land with him. Only $25,000 will get you something like forty square miles of land. Too bad it’s in the desert and thirty miles over a punishing road or it’d be a steal. But Mauro is a dreamer amongst dreamers and plans to build a town out here. We head out again and it’s not too far until we come to what’s left of the “rancho” which consists of two burnt out shacks, two old truck carcasses and what’s left of a Carmen Gia sports car. Not exactly what we expected but a treat nonetheless. There was also a derelict stone corral which seemed salvageable. We took some photos and decided it was in the kids’ interest to head back before they started to get cranky and more bored than they already were. But Mauro and Mike though it best to continue on the road we were on to possibly find a quicker way back to the main road. After half an hour of this endeavor it became clear that we were only going farther away from the main road and that Francesco and I, once again in the back of the truck, were only getting whiplash and scarred by cacti so we turned around and slogged back the way we came for another hour. This time at speed. And I mean very fast. We were being bounced around in the back of that truck like it was Tony’s business to jostle our brains and our balls.
(Joshua fixer-upper Carmen Gia and Guiseppe and Maxine check out their future inheritance.)
Sufficiently jostled an hour and a half later we came to Martin’s truck where I was granted the great honor of riding in the cab for the first time. It was a welcome relief. We made it back to town an hour later and decided it was time for a beer on the beach. We dropped Francesco off at the bar and took the kids home and I had the bright idea of taking Martin’s zodiac back to the bar since it was beachside. This ended up being another endeavor in of itself since we were beaten by the waves this time. But once we hit the beach we ran into Mr. Smith again who had made friends with three girls from Tijuana (TJ) who had set up a tent n the beach in front of the bar.
(Evette, Veronica, and Maria by the bonfire and Martin escapes being locked in a second story bathroom.)
He introduced me to Veronica, Estella, and Maria and Francesco and I quickly made friends with them as we helped them start a bonfire on the beach. Martin had to go back to the house to take care of some things so we grilled hotdogs with the girls and drank some of their wine and vodka in between beer runs. The girls had been messing with Mr. Smith since he was always drunk and they had given fake names and said that they were from Ensenada in order to placate his constant ruminations upon the stars and amorous advances. They all spoke perfect English and actually had a long weekend because of Presidents Day since they all worked in gringo oriented jobs.
A few other people joined the party including Birch and his wife, a couple we had met at the Hostel party, and some French backpackers that all partook in the smoors we were making. At some point Mr. Smith noticed a slight change in the direction of the wind and predicted a very gusty night which is commonly referred to as a Chabasco and consists of very high winds carrying sand from the south. A Chabasco is also what beached our sailboat a little to the south of here and destroyed everything we had but more on that a bit later. Martin and Josh came back at some point and Francesco was given a ride home by two of the girls because la mota had affected him a bit too much. Slowly the party dwindled until Veronica and I were the only ones keeping the fire stoked.
We lay under the stars and caught four shooting stars as the waves crashed against the beach. It was getting late so I slept in their tent as the winds picked up. And they never let up. Sixty mile per hour winds would slam the tent sending sand and debris into it every five minutes. We huddled in a sleeping bag hoping that it would subside. It never did. At one point we were both hit in the legs by something quite forcefully and we sat up screaming; a table had just been blown into the tent and then over into a palapa shattering it into bits. Neither of us slept much that night as the tent poles caved in on top of us and we waited out the storm.
The next morning we assessed the damage around us; chairs three hundred feet down the beach, the bonfire covered in sand, the shattered table, the tent with twenty pounds of sand in it, and the messes that we looked. I had some coffee and we cleaned up the tent and the girls gave me a ride back to Mauro’s. Veronica and I said goodbye and I headed into the house for some more coffee. Martin and Josh were planning a hike up Mike’s Mountain to go check out Mike’s cave which was this eccentric man’s home on top of the mountain replete with bedding, cooking stove, water collection, and the most magnificent view of the bay possible. I quickly bowed out citing sleep deprivation and a distinct disinterest. They gave me a radio to keep in contact with them and they began the slog up the mountain after I gave them a lift to the base.
I decided to hang out with Maxine and Giuseppe so we played games all day and while they watched a movie I took a much needed nap. When I awoke it was dusk and they still hadn’t returned. I checked the radio and realized that it wasn’t on. I turned it on and tried to hail them to no avail. A while later Martin came over the speaker saying that they were finally heading down and would probably arrive two hours later. I passed on the news and Patty promised to leave them some of the homemade pizza she was making.
We ate the pizza.
Another call came through saying that Josh had sprained his ankle pretty bad as they were coming down in the dark and that they were resting as they assessed the situation. We assured them that there was still pizza left and to come down as quickly as they could. It turned out that it was not Joshua that had sprained his ankle but Martin and it was pretty bad since he was also carrying about thirty grand and a hundred pounds worth of camera equipment (he’s quite the serious photographer). Josh became saddled with the responsibility of carrying the equipment and luckily they made it down safely an hour later. Martin had rolled his ankle quite badly and it had ballooned to almost twice its normal size. We gave them some leftovers and we all decided to rest our weary bones; theirs from the hike up Mike’s mountain and mine from some hard core playing
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