It’s only been a few days since my adventure began, and I am sitting in an internet café with a broken car, I crossed into Mexico nearly a week ago, I got through Tijuana and Ensenada quickly, stopped about 80km outside of Ensenda to organize the car and proceeded South by way of MX hwy 1, I saw a sign made of an old surfboard and headed off down a bone jarring dirt road towards the coast road, or (Camino de Costa). After about 40 minutes of ruts, bumps, washboards, and may cattle, I came upon a ranch house with cattle dogs everywhere chasing me off, there was nobody in sight so I headed South completely off of any real road until I reached a fairly well known surf spot name Shipwrecks. The place was deserted more or less except for some men doing construction work I shared a Sierra Nevada with a man named Beto, he gave me a brief history of the place, evidently it is owned, or rather leased by a bunch of Gringos from San Diego, and the ship that lies rusting away was beached by a Captain from La Paz who fell asleep at the helm about 25 years ago. There was an old camp dog named Sting, he greeted me by pissing on my front wheel and then having a shit a few feet from Beto and I, classy guy Sting…I drove to the top off a high san dune and Sting and several of his pups came with me, I turned off the car and they surrounded me like we were old friends. I considered staying there for the night, but the wind was howling and the waves were non existent so I headed South down the Coast road, road does not adequately describe it more of a scar in the Earth that cars can travel down if properly equipped. I was thinking how I should have brought some firewood and almost immediately began finding small pieces along the road side. About 30 km down the road I found a perfect spot where they were building a little hotel, there was a truck stuck up to its axles in the mud, evidently they were using wood for traction so I was able to scavenge the broken bits. I got past the construction site down onto La Playa and found a tiny camp ground, right on the beach. I pulled in and payed a very official looking man (official in the sense that he could have easily been a rent a cop at any Wal Mart in America). 500 pesos or 5 bucks to stay, he directed me to a spot about ten feet from the pit toilet. I chose to roll up the bluff close to the end far away from his shack and the bano. I set up camp feeling happy and looking forward to an amazing sunset, the wind was blowing clouds in every direction and the light was amazing. The place was all sandstone sheer bluffs, and a rock shoreline, there was a light offshore breeze, and the tiny waves looked perfect, the water was like liquid gold. I had some food, then opened a sacred space, and used the wood I found to perform a fire ceremony. I was the best one yet, a few feet from the waves, it felt pretty powerful indeed. I was very much at peace when I snuggled in for the night. When I awoke I was making coffee when the security guard walked over to see how I was. I offered him coffee which he refused and we began to chat as best we could considering how bad my Spanish is and his non existent English. I was enquiring about the price of fish while eating yogurt and trail mix for breakfast. He looked at my bowl like I was eating grubs or something. An hour or so later he brought me a bowl of the tastiest fish soup I have ever eaten since living in Dominica. I wasn’t at all hungry but enjoyed every bite. I thanked him and broke camp and headed down the road back towards the Sonoran desert. When I reached San Quintin the top soil off the strawberry fields were blowing across the road so thick you could hardly see. Once I got past El Rosario I was back into the desert upon entering Los Valles de Santa Teresa I was a beautiful coyote scavenging for food from a trash can in the middle of nowhere. I also had a couple crows show up several times seemingly keeping an eye on me. The further South I drove I began to hear a slight squeak from my left rear wheel. I proceeded to get louder, so I pulled off to check everything off, it was an hour or so before sunset so I pulled in at a de4serted trailer park and pack of starving dogs descended on me as I checked the car. I fed them a loaf of bread, and a couple of bagels to tide them over and decided it was best to roll back North to a llanterra (tire repair shop). I had past about 40k back North. The moon rise was powerfully huge even though there was very little scale to judge by. I got to la llanterra and journaled a bit then asked the owner Urbano if I could park for the night so I could look at my car in the morning. His response was no problema. It was bitter cold by now so I unloaded the trailer to sleep in shelter. I slept like a rock and woke at dawn, when I awoke I saw a woman standing outside staring toward the rising sun with binoculars, I offered her coffee and I think she thought I wanted her to make me something. She looked a bit annoyed until she saw me heating the kettle, about halfway through my first cup Urbano appeared dragging his floor jack. I explained I didn’t need a mechanic. May be some grease and he laughed at me. I explained I didn’t have money to pay, and again he said no problema. He went looking for something and by the time he returned I had the caliper and hub apart. He seemed fairly amazed and decided I was a mechanic. What we saw upon close inspection was not pretty, my rear disc and hub was about 50% destroyed. Remember I was in the middle of nowhere, plenty of trucks and tourist traffic, but nothing else. My plan was to hitch back to El Rosario or San Quintin and try and find parts, leaving my car with Urbano but he convinced me that with a little jury rigging I could crawl back to town. My instincts said no but I didn’t listen and we put everything back together, omitting a spacer and disabling the left rear brake purposely. I headed down the road in the early afternoon, made about 70 or 80km before the hub complete ate itself up. I was on a treacherous winding road with nothing around for miles. The rear wheel was groaning terribly. I crested a ridge and saw a small turnout. The car and trailer barely made it but I was safely off the road in the middle of nowhere with a giant moon high above…
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