When we last left off, our fearless heroes Perez and yours truly were heading out the south side of El Rosario. We join them now as they travel to Santa Rosalia. . .
“Does he ever shut up?”
That was the question of the hour as Fidel (A.K.A “Fiddle” – so named for his curious resemblance to the guy in “Deliverance”) plowed onward through another of his many radio broadcasts. Now you gotta’ understand that we’d already rifled our MP3 collection, and the only “Mexican Radio” we could listen to was on Disk 1 of the Pat Chicas Baja CD Collection.. This far out into the hinterlands, even AM isn’t an option.
Suddenly KTDF went silent, and I thought for a moment Lord Zatar had exerted his patented “Stink Eye Death Stare (Copyright 2000, 2001 All Rights Reserved) on the feckless DJ. No such luck, however Wonderboy had found a new victim to taunt – all 4 legs and 1500 pounds of her. Somehow I just knew Fidel was a BBW kind of guy.
“Pull over at the top of the hill spake Chicas, laughing hysterically all the while. “That bonehead’s out there chasing a cow!”
Sure enough. Not content to beautify the road signs of Baja with race deals (as goes chase crew tradition), Fiddle was indeed chasing a cow through a farmers field, with a sticker un-peeled and ready for application. Yet it seemed that the cow had other ideas . . .
As the scene unfolded with man and cow cavorting through the tall grass and fields of barley, Eddie and I were overcome at the . . . ah . . . “sensitivity” of the moment. From our perspective, all we saw was Fidel, with arms outstretched at a brisk run behind ol’Bessy.
Draw your own inferences. We did.
Once our love struck photographer had given up his dreams of lasting romance, we were back in the trucks, and heading south once again. After several hours behind the wheel (most of which were spent looking for Pat and Fidel who’d became lost in Ensenada earlier in the day), Eddie took over the shotgun seat and I got my first experience at driving a Jeep Wrangler with a hyper-exceeded weight capacity. This is what’s known on the amusement park circuit as an E-Ticket ride.
Because the roads of Baja are very narrow, a smaller rig like a YJ would seem to be the hot ticket for navigating their more compact size. This theorem does not apply to 7500 pound Jeep products. Being used to piloting ORC’s full size “Flashback F-150” wasn’t much help as the Wrangler felt more like a pair of roller blades on an ice rink.
Picture if you will, this mud-encrusted mni-barge loaded down with more gear and fuel than an off-shore oil drilling platform, trying to keep pace with a professionally set up F-350 through the twisting mountain roads of the peninsula. You may notice that this report comes a full 12 hours after that given by Senior Gonzales. That’s because it took that long for us to clean the stains out of the YJ – after all we still have a few hundred miles to go, and neatness counts.
Back to the point . . .
We arrived in San Ignacio well after dark, only to find crowds already marking their territory around the village square. Ignacio is an old mission town steeped in history and tradition. It’s the kind of place the History Channel sends crews to cover, and it could (and has) filled entire volumes of text. If you’re a history buff, or just a lover of old places, you’d be crazy to pass up the old Mission church as a destination. In fact, we’re planning to do a little touring of our own before the race begins.
When we followed Pat and Fidel into town, the big white Ford was immediately swallowed by at least 40 little urchins all chanting in unison “STEEKERS!!!, STEEKERS!!!” You’d think that after spending years as a Team Honda Pit Captain, Pat would know better than to stop the truck in an area known to be the territory of adolescent steeker bandits. Then again, perhaps he did it on purpose? Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The STEEKER!!! Knows . . .
With Jeep’s cache of goods expended, we chose flight rather than facing an angry (and steekerless) mob, and high-tailed it back to Highway 1, leaving Zatar and Wonderboy to fend for themselves.
It took them some time to escape.
The last run of the day into Rosalia was made under several billion candlepower as reported by Fidel, but we didn’t need all that high-tech wattage to see the beauty of the town as the full moon rose over the Sea of Cortez. I’ve long thought about making the move from Vegas to Baja – Santo Thomas in particular, but I gotta’ tell you that Rosalia will likely win out in the end.
Here under tropical skies exists some of the most inviting terrain on the planet. The atmosphere is incredibly laid back, the food cheap and delicious, and lastly, it’s home to some of the gorgeous women on the Peninsula. What more I ask, can a desert rat ever need?
Fortunately we’ll be spending a couple days in the area before duty calls, and we’ll be forced (kicking and screaming I assure you) into finishing the trip to Cabo. You know, sometimes life is so unfair. ;-)
Speaking of unfair, If there’s anything to put a damper on the sheer joy of the B2K thus far, it’s the looming specter of the election fiasco still hanging in the air like the stench of feted democrat. In several stops along the way, we spoke with a number of racers and crews about the ongoing freak show in the state of Florida. We can only pray Bush comes out the winner.
The contrasts between the stupidity unfolding in the south east and the atmosphere of the Mexican Peninsula couldn’t be any clearer. Back there, you have a group of boot licking sycophants led by garbage like the not so “Reverend” Jessie Jackson. Aside from making utter fools of themselves before a worldwide audience, they are proud to parade themselves before God and Country wearing the yellow cloak of victimhood. Here in Baja, there also live a proud people; yet these people are willing to work hard for what they have. People who depend on themselves for their sustenance, not some government hand out program run by token lapdogs. People with pride in themselves, and the intelligence to show it.
You know, it’s not just the racing that brings the desert rats south of the border every year, nor is it solely the incredible terrain. In many respects it’s the people of Baja who keep us coming back time and time again - because in the people of Baja we see kindred spirits to ourselves.
Road Condition Index
