Just after Christmas 2017 Cris and I decided to drive the length of the Baja Peninsula. We flew into Las Cabos, hired a car and started the 1600km drive to Tijuana. Many things happened on the way to TJ but today I will focus on 2 hours on Highway 1 in Baja Norte.
The road conditions change drastically as you cross from the Baja Sur to the Baja Norte, the two states clearly have different agendas when it comes to infrastructure. The highway in the north is littered with potholes, some only a few inches deep and some are axle breakers. It’s clear why they tell you not to drive at night! We couldn’t go more than about 10km without seeing someone with a flat tire. It is very common in the Mexican culture to stop and offer assistance to other drivers in need, so you guessed it, we were stopping a lot. Most people were fine, they were prepared with a spare because locals and tourists alike know that the roads are terrible. It’s such a common thing that the government pays for a crew called the Angeles Verdes, or Green Angels, to patrol the area looking for motorists in trouble. They have tools and spare parts to help if they can. The trouble with the Green Angels is that there are too many breakdowns and not enough trucks patrolling.
At some point, we came across another car on the side of the road, but this time the engine had gone out and the guy was trying to push the car off the road by himself. So of course, much to my dismay, we stopped to see if we could help. This is the moment that the longest, weirdest two hours of our whole trip began.
The man in the car looked like a tourist however, he was traveling with a Mexican kid that was about 12. When we asked if we could help he asked us where we were going and if they could get a ride with us. We still had hours to drive and were not interested in having these two tag-along the rest of the way. So Cris kindly offered to take them to a mechanic shop that we had seen a few kilometers back. After a few minutes of arguing to go with us the whole way, the guy reluctantly agreed to be taken to the garage. We took all of our things and crammed them in the trunk so that this guy and his kid could sit in the back seat, loaded everyone in the car, and headed back the way we came.
A few minutes later we came upon another car pulled over on the side of the road. At this point, I thought “there is no way Cris will stop, we already have these two”, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. When we stopped we saw that it was a father and son, they had a flat tire but didn’t have the right wheel lock key to get the lugs off. We searched our car, but of course, didn’t have the right one either. So Cris told the guy that we were on the way to the mechanic but only had space for one more person, so instead of taking them we would get the proper key and stop on our way back. Win, Win. Instead, the guy insisted that his son, who couldn’t have been over 14, go with us. As awkward as it sounds, we piled one more in the back seat and headed toward the garage.
Needless to say, I was more than uncomfortable, we now had a Russian guy and two young Mexician boys in the car. It felt like we were a clown car collecting misfortune souls in Mexico.I’m sure that Cris was also questioning this plan because he began to drive a bit faster. We kept saying “just a few more minutes and we will be there and this will be over.” Again, we were very wrong. Out of nowhere one of those axle breaker potholes showed up and we blew our tire. F@$K!!
We pulled over, unloaded the mountain of things now in the trunk, and Cris began to change the tire. I don’t think I was handling things very well at that moment, I was trying not to snap at him for stopping in the first place, but I could see that he too was pretty uncomfortable so I let it go. By the time we were back on the road the sun was starting to set and I was getting worried that it was too late for the mechanic to be open, plus I knew we had hours to go so the last few kilometers to the garage were a bit stressful.
Finally we arrived at the shop which was straight out of Mad Max. We found the mechanic asleep in his trailer and after finally waking him up he smoked a cigarette, connected some cables to a car battery to turn on the shop lights, and hammered out the rim of our tire. We replaced our spare with the fixed tire and were ready to carry on. As for the others, he grabbed some tools and loaded his van to go fix their cars. We were a bit uncomfortable with letting the solo kid jump in the van, because we felt like we were responsible for returning him to his dad, but he seemed keen to go. Everyone transferred from our car to the mechanic’s van and they took off. Cris and I didn’t really speak for a few minutes as we drove away, I think we were just trying to process what the hell just happened, but as the drive went on we couldn’t stop talking about it. Trying to rationalize with ourselves that everyone made it back to their cars and families safely, that no one was unconscious on the side of Highway 1. I often think back to that day, and I still go through the same conversations in my head, convincing myself that everyone was ok. That was honestly one of the stranger experiences we have ever had on the road.
