The Mexico Interval: Arriving and Prerunning

Enough backstory, lets get on the actual adventure - Seth's Dream Vacation.

I'm going to skip the road trip from KY to Arizona. There really isn't much to skip, we drove west and the scenery changed. It was beautiful. If that was the story it would be grand.

In Arizona we drove a desolate road flanked by flat scrubby land. Every once in a while we would pass a farm and in the middle of faded desert colors there would be bright green fields looking out of place in a very colonial sort of way. Once we crossed from Arizona into Yuma, California, things got interesting. There were checkpoints on the highway to make sure we weren't smuggling people or drugs, or whatever.

"What's in the trailer?"

"Three motorcycles and all the stuff to go racin'!"

As we got off the highway and onto state routes to Calexico, where we planned on crossing, we saw border patrol trucks driving slowly along the expansive fence that is, or is part of, the border with Mexico. Our hearts started beating a little faster and our faces were all smiles. Mexico. Finally, Mexico.

When we got to the actual border crossing the traffic was thick. The lane we were in funneled us straight into "NO GOODS TO DECLARE" without much warning. "WE HAVE GOODS TO DECLARE!" my brain shouted. "I READ ONLINE THAT WE NEED TO DECLARE OUR GOODS!"

No one heard my brain shouting.

There were several GOODS TO DECLARE lanes, but it was unclear which were open. All except one were totally empty, and the one that wasn't empty had a long line of dusty cars and small pickups piled full of stuff. If we had to go through that lane there was no telling how long we'd be there. It looked like those cars had been there for days.

We were immediately told we had to back out and into the "GOODS TO DECLARE" lines. Normally this might have been challenging, but with the trailer and the traffic I didn't even know how we'd manage. Luckily, maybe, Jimi was driving and backed us out as quickly as I would have in a car. He plowed down just as quickly into a random (empty) "GOODS TO DECLARE" lane, totally ignoring the flashing flashlights and shouts for him to stop. Finally Tommy said "They're telling you to stop!" They made him back out of that lane and go to the one they wanted us in, right next door (also empty).

Jimi turned the truck off and we rolled down the windows. The dust blew in and the warm sunshine felt good on my face. The border officer went through the trailer and all the paperwork with Seth. Tommy and I watched a guy on a bicycle ride through the border with scrap metal strapped to his bike. He just rode straight on through without stopping.. Before I knew it Seth jumped back in the car and said "GO!" No sooner did Jimi start driving than the blaring of horns made us look around. We were so flustered and ready to get out of the border that we had left the trailer door down, and it was dragging on the ground as we drove away. Jimi stopped and Seth jumped out and shut it. He got back in and we were off, rolling through Mexicali en route to San Felipe. Oh, we were laughing.

"They didn't stamp our passports!" I exclaimed, "are you sure they said we could go?"

Seth assured me we were fine. The whole thing took an unprecedented 20 minutes tops.

Worry settled into the background of my mind as we continued along without blaring sirens or chase vehicles, until about 30 kilometers later when I realized we had never stopped for our Tourist Licenses, which we'd read was necessary for people going more than 40 KM into Mexican territory. If you get stopped at a checkpoint and can't produce your tourist license, Mexican officials have the right to seize all your stuff and throw you in jail, according to the internet. Just as I voiced my concern aloud we passed the 40 KM marker.

No one else was worried about it, so I tried to stop myself from worrying. If we got stopped and Seth's truck, trailer and race bike were seized it would be his own fault. (Although I would be stuck on the side of the road with him.) Anyway vacations are supposed to be fun! Surely nothing would happen. "This is Mexico" Jimi said "you can do anything you want here."

I wasn't so sure.

The views of the mountains from Mexicali to San Felipe were amazing, and they got better the farther we went.

Ding! Ding! The tire pressure monitoring system warned us that something was amiss before we could feel the flat tire for ourselves. We were in a construction zone, and had been for a while. In Mexico this meant we were driving on a one-and-a-half-lane dirt road on the side of the road that was being worked on. As we worked to get the spare out from under the truck we were passed by an assortment of interesting vehicles. Other Racers out pre-running, semi-trucks, and a whole fleet of carnival rides going the other way. I guess we missed all the fun.

Soon after our flat we rolled up to our first checkpoint. "Now we're in trouble," I thought. We rolled down the windows and understood that we needed to get out of the car. Seth went to the back of the trailer and showed the army man all of our stuff. I noticed the army barracks in the desert a ways off. I noticed a machine gun station on the side of the road. I imagined them asking for our tourist licenses and wondered what Seth would say. They didn't say anything about our tourist licenses. It seemed they were happy to look at the race bike for a bit and ask Seth about his plans. They said we were free to go.

Finally on the road again, we pulled into Pete's Camp and were delighted to find that it was right on the beach, and it was beautiful. My mind was instantly relieved. We found ourselves in the heart of an expatriate community. Everyone spoke English and they accepted US Dollars, which was good - I had planned on changing some money when we stopped for our tourist licenses. We had a delicious dinner (our server/waitress gave us some Spanish lessons.) and put our tents up. We stared at the stars for a while trying to find the big dipper. There were so many stars we were confused and couldn't find anything except the Pleiades. Seth and Jimi found the big dipper, but Tommy and I don't believe them. We continued our own search. Our road weary bodies stretched out ready to relax, before we realized we were on top of the hardest sand we'd ever encountered. Tommy suggested that it felt similar to laying on concrete. I think we can go ahead and label that a fact: We slept on sand as hard as concrete. The wind whipped in from the Gulf of California, rustling the grass roof of the little shelter our tent was under.

The next day we encountered a lot of firsts. It was our first day of pre-running but we spent a bit of time in the morning looking for a tire shop. When we did Jimi, Tommy and I watched from the truck while Seth communicated with the shop owner. There was a lot of pointing, nodding and shaking of heads. Once they found the right size they worked out a price by writing numbers in the sand. We knew a deal had been struck when they shook hands. Seth brought the wheel with the flat tire over and the shop owner switched the tires and gave it back. Seth gave him $40, which included a generous tip.

We were off again, rushing (back through the checkpoint) to the beginning of the day's ride. Seth was in a hurry because they were behind schedule. They should have already started riding by now. Two hours later Tommy and I dropped Seth and Jimi and (I) watched nervously as they rode into the desert. Another rider, on a quad, was getting ready to ride the same section and Tommy and I exchanged information with his crew driver. They had brought a bunch of ballcaps from the company JEGS to give out to people. The crew guy gave us 10 of them and Tommy and I left, heading back towards the next meetup where Seth and Jimi would meet us for gas.This is what I had been looking forward to. Tommy and I were free and clear with several hours to do what we pleased. The pace slowed.


We stopped for a leisurely gas fillup which might have been more leisurely if the price of gas hadn't skyrocketed once we got into the mountains. We stopped for a leisurely lunch in Valle de Trinidad, a small mountain town. It was our first experience ordering food at a place where no one spoke English. We walked up to an empty restaurant, honestly unsure of whether they were even open. If not, it was ok, we'd seen a taco stand along the road and hey! we had all the time in the world to explore. The racers were out doing their thing. A lady came running over from the house next door and let us in, turned the TV on and proceeded to speak at us in Spanish. After a while Tommy and I looked at each other and I said "No habla espanol?" Her eyes widened. I said "Habla Ingles?"

She continued talking at us in Spanish, now also gesturing wildly as though it might help us understand. It did a little. We followed her over to the wall where the menu was written on a white board. Tommy ordered huevos rancheros and I ordered a quesadilla.
"Cuantas?"
"uno?"
Wide eyes. She patted her belly and shook her head.
"dos?"
"Si, dos."

Next we had to make sure she would accept US Dollars, since we still hadn't changed our money. Tommy said "Dollars or Pesos?"
"Pesos" she answered.
Tommy then continued a conversation with her during which he pulled out a twenty dollar bill and said "Dollars?" and she rattled on in Spanish. Eventually they both said "Si," she went back to the kitchen to make our food, and Tommy sat down.
"What did she say?" I asked.
"I'm pretty sure she'll take dollars," he answered.

The worry planted in the back of my mind crept back to the foreground. What if Tommy had misunderstood and we couldn't pay for our food? What if she called the police and they arrested us AND we didn't have our Tourist Licenses? How would Seth find us? What would happen to the race bike? I had to assume Tommy was right and that she would take our money. This was supposed to be a leisurely lunch.

Worry was soon overcome by hunger as the pleasant smells of homemade tortillas and natural gas wafted out from the kitchen. A while later she brought our meals out. My dos quesadillas were really tiny. Picture a small soft taco shell folded in half and I had two of them with a tiny bit of cheese inside. Tommy's huevos rancheros looked like a feast in comparison! A hard taco shell with a fried egg on top, smothered in delicious looking salsa. She kept making tortillas and bringing them out for Tommy to scoop his huevos rancheros into. I was starving, and I admit that I ate most of them. They were warm and delicious, even without anything on them.

When we were finished I went to the kitchen door and asked "El Banjo?"
"Si," she replied, pointed out the door and handed me a bottle of dish soap. When I went outside there was an outhouse with two doors. One said "Mujeres" and one said "Hombres" in between the doors was a bathroom sink. I put the dish soap on the sink and entered the "Mujeres" side, glad that I had done so well in the first few lessons of my Duolingo App.

When I went back in, Tommy had paid and we were ready to leave. We thanked her profusely, and probably incorrectly ("Mucho gusto?!") she smiled and bowed her head in appreciation of our efforts, and we continued driving towards our gas stop to meet Seth and Jimi.

When we got there we saw a cobalt blue Sprinter parked on the side of the road. We pulled into the pull-off area and parked ourselves, and I went to the back of the truck to get a book to read. A dusty gust of wind blew may hair about. The driver of the cobalt blue Sprinter had half of an enormous sandwich stuck in his mouth and the other half in his hand. He was tan with sandy blond short hair, stylish sunglasses and a nice t-shirt. He looked clean. He was obviously from California.

"What's a Dazzling Urbanite like you doing in a place like this?" he called over, waving his sandwich in my direction.

I frowned into the sun, trying to make out who had asked such a question. "My husband's racing? He's prerunning and he's supposed to meet us here for gas."
"This is a tough section, it'll take longer than he expected, if he makes it at all." the Californian said. "My son just got finished, he's the number 1 bike." He looked towards the back of the Sprinter where his son was securing his bike and changing his clothes.

I continued frowning at him 'til he smiled, lifted his sandwich towards me and said "Have a nice day!" out of the empty side of his mouth.

I went back to the truck to read. Instead I napped. After a while I heard Tommy say "I'm going to go check out some plants." This made me smile and I napped more soundly. I imagined Seth and Jimi arriving safely, heading back to Pete's Camp and swimming in the Gulf of California.

 I had to admit, the view was great.

The sun set, and the moon rose. The moon set, and the truck began to be cold. It was well past dark and we'd been sitting on the side of the road for 7 hours. Tommy and I got out of the car to wait. We could hear engines. A utility truck drove by and all was silent. We tried to find the big dipper, but failed again. I stared out into the dessert and wondered how the first day could have gone so horribly awry. They were supposed to meet us here for gas and ride another 50 miles to the end point for the day! Tommy and I retreated to the truck and turned it on to get some heat. We made ourselves peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Then we turned te truck off to save gas.

I had dozed off until around 9 o'clock, when Tommy's voice broke my sleep. "I think they're coming!"

I turned the truck on as fast as possible so they'd see the lights and know we were there. We ran to the back and opened the trailer. They rode in and Jimi practically fell off of his bike. "Hold the bike! Hold the bike!" I grabbed the bars and he fell off, collapsing into the lawn chair we had set out for them. "Joanna could you get me a coke?"

Jimi had sprained his ankle, and been hung in a tree.

"Frickin' tree hung me! I frickin' sprained my ankle! That course is frickin' dangerous, ohthankyou." I handed him a coke and he was silent for about thirty seconds.

He was just riding along when he felt himself stop moving, but couldn't figure out why the bike was pulling away. Then he realized the branch of a tree had gotten stuck into his jacket, inches away from both his neck and his heart, and he was stuck, hung in a tree (by a tree, if you ask him) while his motorcycle drove away from him. Apparently Seth got everything sorted when he arrived on the scene but Jimi was jarred. Mentally. You can't ride a motorcycle when you're scared. Then he sprained his ankle.

I was busy making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for Jimi and peanut butter and honey sandwiches for Seth, so I didn't hear the whole story. Don't worry though, we'll hear it again soon.

We rolled back into Pete's Camp and I slid into my sleeping bag, stretching out on the concrete sand and sighing with relief. Seth was doing the same right next to me. We blew up an extra sleeping pad for Tommy to use.

The next morning I awoke to the sound of voices. "Frickin' tree hung me..." When Tommy, Seth and I got back from breakfast Jimi had talked to the quad rider and determined that we couldn't continue as planned, there was no way that our trailer would make it down the road to Coco's Corner where we were planning on camping that night. That meant we had to drive up to Ensenada and down the other side of the peninsula and the plan Seth had worked for so long on, the plan with every detail and coordinate mapped out, was unusable. Seth was busy on the satellite phone calling the hotels we had on the other side of the peninsula and switching our arrival and departure days. It also meant we lost a day of pre-running, since it was going to take us nearly the entire day to drive up to Ensenada and down the western coast. Seth decided he might as well try to ride a short section of the course that wound along the road to Ensenada. This was a section of the course he would be hitting later in the race, on the way back into Ensenada. Luckily for us there is really only one road, so it was on the way. We dropped him off on the side of the road and drove to a different pick up area. Again I spotted the cobalt blue Sprinter pulled way off the road and nestled into some pine trees. With the trailer we couldn't pull too far off the road. We sat; now Jimi was waiting with us. Tommy went for a hike. "Joanna could you get me a coke, please?"

I heard the story of how Jimi got hung in a tree, and then I went to join Tommy on his hike. The view was stunning.

When Seth finally reached us it was around 3:30pm, but the sun was setting and the sky would be dark by 6. He was totally enraptured with the day's ride. I would have loved it. The course was great, it was mostly a sandy dirt road, at one point he for whatever reason got chucked off the bike next to a barely trickling creek and under a tree. Laying on the ground he realized that it was a delightful spot for a picnic and got out the peanut butter and honey sandwich I had stuffed into his bag before he left. His mood was sky high, and it was contagious.

I was driving and the mountain roads were narrow and winding, with no shoulders. We were driving west towards Ensenada, straight into the sunset. Shadows and light, my eyes couldn't adjust fast enough: it took all of my concentration to keep us on the road. As we dipped down into a shadow a small pickup passed us going the other way, full of Mexicans and flashing its lights frantically at us. We looked about and couldn't figure out what might be wrong. Then we dipped again and a small herd of cattle were winding down the road with us.

We passed wineries, drove by little villages, ("Llanterras!" they advertised, "Gasolina!") up and down and around. We passed a very nice looking house (almost an Adirondack Mountain style chateau) and Seth was smitten. "I could live here," he said.

"I couldn't," I thought.

Then we came to the outskirts of Ensenada. "Yonke," "Yonke Ensenada," "Primo Yonke de Ensenada!" We were in the junkyard district, juding from the look of things. If we had time we might have stopped and slipped some business cards through the barbed wire fences. We drove through slums and around gated communities, the streets widened and there were people everywhere! Our goal was to eat before we left Ensenada and we were also vaguely looking for a tire shop. We didn't quite realize it yet, but this was our new set of priorities: Tires and food, in that order.

We passed a tire shop and I pulled over. Seth had less luck at this one, even though it was much larger. Next up, food. Jimi didn't want "Mexican" and the rest of us didn't want crap. This was a bit of a problem but luckily I was driving. If anyone saw anything, I instructed, just let me know. No one ever did and we started reaching the outskirts again. I saw a sign that said TACOS! and an open air corner restaurant with lots of people. It was well lit and it looked safe. I pulled over.

No one spoke English but it was ok. We were still feeling jovial and the sun was just setting. It had been a pretty good day even with the change of plans. This time I was determined not to starve. I ordered tres tacos (after seriously considering quattro) and loaded them up with all the garnishes available. Tommy did have more trouble. "Soy vegetarianos?" he suggested. The waitress stared at him blankly, then suggested "Quesadilla?"  We were hungry and we ate happily. We had glass-bottled Naranje Fanta and Coke. Even Jimi said "I can do this!"

We continued on our way, but now it was dark. Route 1 winds all the way down the west coast of the Baja Peninsula. It is the only "road," and therefore packed with semi-trucks. It is a two-lane mountain road no better than the road into Ensenada except that I wasn't being blinded by the sunset. The semis were large, and the lanes narrow. I was sitting forward in my seat, alert though exhausted. If I got us safely to our hotel rooms I felt I would have done my part for the entire trip. Semis roared passed at ridiculous speeds for such a narrow road. Almost every time they did I closed my eyes and flinched, certain that they were going to sideswipe us. The sound of engine braking blared down every hill. I was apparently going way to slow because the line of people trying to pass me quickly piled up. As we wound around each curve and I stared into the darkness trying to see where the road led, I began to think that adaptive headlights, something I've always considered luxurious excess, would really come in handy.

Construction. We've already discussed what construction means in Mexico.We were routed off the main road into the dirt lane that had been worn on the side. It was along just such a road that we had gotten our first flat. Construction lasted for what seemed like ages, bumping along in a line of semis at 5 mph. The arrival time according to the GPS was originally 9pm, but now it said 11. We got out of the construction around 9 and it felt like it had already been dark for eons. Driving into the sunset was only a distant memory. When we finally arrived in the town our hotel was supposed to be in it didn't look like much, and we were a bit confused about the location of the hotel. We pulled over and Seth popped into a tiny cinder block bodega. I was actually afraid. Luckily, of course, there was nothing to fear. The man inside was perfectly friendly and told Seth exactly where the hotel was. Pulling into the parking lot seemed like a miracle in and of itself. What's more, the lights in the reception area were still on! Seth checked us in and found out that they had wireless internet. Will wonders never cease?

shower. amazing.

bed. Softer than concrete sand: delightful.

bottled water for our parched lips.

Sleep.