Vincent

Problems in Baja

 Mexico  Comments Off on Problems in Baja
Sep 302009
 

I thought I was going to get a nice early start from Mikes but I slept so well that I woke up at the crack of  8 am. So much for an early start to beat the heat.  I sat down to a tasty breakfast of machaca and coffee before loading up the bike.  I think I hit the road around 9:30 am and it was already heating up into the 90’s by the time I took off.

Nevertheless it was a beautiful morning riding out to Mex 3 were I picked up some old SCORE course to Diablo dry lake, then Zoo Road into San Felipe.  As you may or may not know, the new paved road from Puertecitos to Gonzaga is progressing rapidly.  The pavement ends about 12 miles past Cow Patty cantina, but the road bulding is well underway for another 15 miles past that and everything is a complete mess with diversion roads all over the place, big trucks, big graders, lots of dust and deep churned up earth.  If you dont ride this road sometime this winter, chances are that when you do, it will be mostly pavement.  Make no mistake, the government is serious about getting this road done, pronto.  The number of construction crews and heavy equipment I passed along the way was staggering and now rivals any highway construction project in the US.  Once the road is completed it will be the major trucking route from Mexicali to Mex 1 near Chapala dry lake, forever changing the flavor of Puertecitos and Gonzaga Bay.  Its progress I guess, but that doesnt mean I have to like it.  Like Mama Espinosa says, “Bad roads bring good people, and good roads bring all kinds of people.”

The road grading and bridge building ends about right here for now: Bird Shit Rock.


By this time its about 3 in the afternoon and the heat is downright oppressive.

I just love this place.  Too bad its soon going to be changed forever.

It was hot.  Did I mention that?  Early September is the hottest time of year on this part of the Cortez coast.  Well into the 100’s, no breeze and as humid as a steam bath.

Even at 10 pm it was so hot in my room that I couldnt sleep, so I brought the camera outside and got a couple shots of the Sagittarius and Scorpio reagion of the Milky Way in stunningly dark skies.  It was very slightly out of focus, but the 30 second exposures turned out well enough to display at web resolution.

I finally dozed off into some fitful sleep around 2 am. It was still hotter than hell (mid 90’s or so), but to make things worse the west breeze had started to pick up and felt as if you were standing in front of a 1 million watt hair dryer.  Brutal.

Around 3 am I’m still lying in bed, half asleep, half awake, and miserably drenched in my own sweat, I see a silouette of a person poking their head through the window next to my bed, What the hell ? I hear, “pssssst, Vicente?”  It was Pedro, the dude the guards the gate.  I jump out of bed, open the door and Pedro is standing there with my buddy Mike.

I say, “Jeez Mike, are you doing here?  I thought you would get a room in San Felipe and spend the night in some air conditioning before coming here?”  Well, he got to San Felipe around 6 pm and decided what the hell, its only another couple of hours to Gonzaga and its cooling off a bit so why not press on.   However with all the new construction there are so many diviersion roads around the new road bed that in the dark he go totally confused about where he was.  I could understand that because even in the daylight I had take the wrong diversion road several times and it took me a while to get back on track.

In the darkness, at one time he found himself on the new road bed cruising along when the road disappeared from his headlight beam as it illuminated nothing but blackness.  Oh shit!  He did a panic stop only to discover that 3 feet in front of him was a 60 ft drop off where they were going to build a bridge.  Damn, that was close.  To top it all off, upon tryig to start the bike again he discovered that his battery was dead.  It was well dark by that time.  After some time had passed and a huge amount of effort, he managed to get that HP2 bump started.  Later, while lost on one of the diversion roads again, he killed the bike.  Shit.  After hours of messing with the bike trying to get it started he figured he was going to spend the night lying in the rocks and wait until morning when a vehicle may come by and he could get a jump start.

As he was sitting in the dark he saw a vehicle driving around in the distance, stopping at one house, then another, then another.  Seems like some folks were out doing a little late night shopping in the vacant houses.. The truck finally comes up to him and its a husband and wife team.  The wife drives, while the husband goes in each house to do a little shopping.  The back of their truck is filled with crap, food, furniture, houshold appliances, anything you could imagine.  They gave him a jump start and got him on his way.  They may have been thieves, but at least they were nice enough to help him out.

He killed the bike once again in the deep sand next to the new gate at the side of the runway where the road goes by the Gonzaga houses.  Thats when Pedro found him and walked him down to Alphonsinas.

Miguel, at 3 am, just happy to be out of the desert and off the bike…………

Sorry this is so text heavy, but due to the heat and my state of exhaustion during the following events, I took absolutely no pictures.  I wish I had, but I didnt even think about it at the time.  It was just another task that I didnt have the strength to do.

Mike had rough night.  He was supposed to ride to La Paz with me, then hop the ferry to Mazatlan, and take off for his casa in Arizona.  However, when he was bumping down the Gonzaga road at 3 am, about half the shit fell out of a side bag that he forgot to zip up.  He lost his perscription meds, his SPOT, a huge wad of Pesos, his Mexican Passport, his vehicle registration, and a bunch of other crap.  Since he lost the bike registration, he would be unable to get a temporary vehicle import permit (required for mainland Mexico) at La Paz, so his only option was to turn around from Gonzaga and ride back home.  He actually seemed kind of relieved about not having to go with me all the way to Mazatlan.

I asked him, “where do you think you lost your stuff?”  The answer was not encouraging as his crap was somewhere between Alphonsinas and 25 miles north towards Puertecitios.  I figured what the heck, I’ll suit up and go look for his stuff as I’ve got nothing else to do except hang out in the shade and go for a swim in the bay.  The temp was already easily over 100, and even warmer in the inland desert canyons.  So depsite all that, I suited up, put a gallon of water in my pack and took off to go look for his stuff.

I was riding very slow scanning the road and road side looking for anything.   My bike was on the verge of overheating the whole time, with the cooling fan running constantly..  After about 10 miles I found his SPOT tracker laying right in the middle of the road.  Then I started to see things on the side of road, so every little thing I saw I would stop, get off the bike, walk around scanning the ground on the side of the road, get back on the bike, then ride another small bit until I saw more things, get off the bike again, walk, repeat, over and over again just to find pieces of trash.

About 15 to 20 miles up the road I found some more of his stuff, a book, a baseball hat, some hand scribbled notes, etc.  Then I found his meds.  I knew he would be very happy about that since his bad back was killing him.

It was around this time that I ran out of water. With all the getting off and on the bike, walking around in heavy boots, and heavy riding ger in the scortching desert heat, I had downed almost a gallon of water.  By this time I had pretty much given up looking for the rest of his stuff.  My only concern now was to get water, and fast.  The temp had to be well into the hundred and teens by this time.  I knew the construction crews would be closer than going back to Alphonsinas, and I could get some water from them, so I continued north, now only in search of water.

At about 24 miles north of Gonzaga, a Hummer sporting a 50 cal on the roof, launched out of the desert bush and blocked the road immdiately in front of me.  I had to lock up the rear brake to avoid hitting the vehicle, as it came onto the road so quickly, and right in front of me.  Three guys brandishing M16 A2’s jumped onto the road and took up positions next to the Hummer while the guy on the 50 cal had me in his sights.  Whoa.  I have never encountered such an agressive military checkpoint before so it kind of freaked me out.  Naturally they wanted to check my bags, which I had stripped down to only water, tools and essential parts.  I was getting dizzy from the heat and as I dismounted the bike I stumbled back and fell on the ground.  As the soldiers were standing over me, all I could muster was one phrase, agua, por favor.  They sat me down in the shade of the vehicle and started handing me jugs of water.  After I got my strength back, they filled up my camelbak and told me to go to Puertecitos and find some more water, ice, and shade.  But I was now feeling good enough to go back south to Gonzaga, so south I went, not looking for any of Miguels lost stuff.  I just wanted to get back to shade, ice cold water and a cererza.  However after a few miles a glint of light caught my eye about 50 feet off the road.  Well, shit, I’ll just go check it out one last time.. It turned out that they were ziplock bags with Mike’s Mexican passport, bike registration, and another bag with a wad of 200 peso notes.  Bingo.  We are back in business.  I got back to Alphonsina’s totally spent and just sat there on the porch in the shade while Antonio brought me out an ice cold water, and an even colder cerveza.

We left Gonzaga and headed to Coco’s Corner.  Coco is a an interesting dude that part of Baja off road racing legend.  His place is nothing special.  Its a little patch of dirt in the middle of the desert, but its a welcome site for weary off road travelers.  I have met Coco a number of times.  Years ago after an accident he had a leg amputated and recently, I think partially due to diabetes, he had his other leg amputated.  Coco seems to be getting along well and putting the place back together after it had been ransacked while he was recovering in the hospital.  After his last amputation, he doesnt use a prosthesis, but simply puts on knee pads and walks around on his knees.


Miguel is happy to be here………………….


Coco is happy we are here, and the obligatory book signing………

The dee-lux accommodations are still here………..

The deluxe banos……….

But I think Coco might need a new TV

After some discussion we found out that the Calamajue wash
(pronounced Cala-ma-way) was full of water from the recent hurricane and was probably only passable by a lifted Jeep with a snorkel.  So we opted to hit Mex 1 at chapala dry lake.

On the way south down the highway to Guererro Negro my bike started acting up.  Weird electrical problems started to pop up and the bike was running like crap.  Uh oh.  Not good.  We got a hotel and started to trouble shoot the bike.  It became apparant that I would need some KTM parts.  The nearest Mexican KTM dealer was at least a week away in Guadalajara, but the other option was to hit the pavement back to San Diego and get things fixed at home, as its only a long days ride to the border via the pavement.

So, we opted to head back north to San Diego.  After a week and half at home I got the bike all fixed up.  In addition, my soft luggage wasnt holding up very well, so I also replaced the soft bags with some hard cases.

I got back on the road and crossed the border again on Sunday, Sept 27th.