Flight From Justice--Baja ‘97

Preparations

As we approach the insurance agency, I make a final try. Having spent all of each of the last four days watching my client be examined under oath by his own insurance company's lawyer I am reluctant to purchase Mexican auto insurance for the bike. Surely seven years in the worst Mexican prison is better than having to make an insurance claim.

Anne remains unconvinced. Being from New Zealand and never having had any experience with a casualty carrier except for television commercials, she can only think of being in "good hands" and having them there "like a good neighbor." She obviously does not know how they really are. She does not know that "sanctity of contract" is nothing more than a clever slogan to those guys and that "good faith" is something that happens in church if you are lucky, but not at the claims office.

I realize that unless I get the insurance, I'm going on my own. As I pick it up I silently promise myself to eat the policy if some federale gives me the choice of jail or making a claim. I rationalize this deception to get on the road and away from the practice of law, even if only for a few days.

Friday: San Diego to Catavina

Oh man do I need this ride. Did I write that hyperbole-laced nonsense about insurance claims? I probably have more insurance than the law allows. I can't believe I wrote that stuff. I apologize to any and all insurance claims guys out there because the truth is I would never spend more than one year in the worst Mexican prison to avoid making an insurance claim.

Anne and I had trailered the R11GS to my sister's house at the north edge of San Diego. We arrived at 12:30 am and stashed the bike in the garage, not for the sake of security because, after all, the bike is now insured against theft in the entire northern hemisphere of the New World. I did it out of consideration for my sister. The aggregate value of the houses in this neighborhood exceeds the annual gross national product of all but 17 countries worldwide and there are absolutely no vehicles on the lawns, driveways or streets. She has only lived here a short while and I don't want the neighbors to talk.

My sister uses two cameras to take send off pictures of us in front of the bike and on the bike before we leave. I am happy and eager to go. But try as I do to chill out, I am also cranky and irritable. There are seven turns between my sister's house and the freeway and I manage to make ten wrong turns. It's mid morning and the streets are filled with blond women driving Mercedes Benzes to their clubs. I forget everything I learned from the Mandatory Continuing Legal Education anger management tape and curse them all as if they are conspiring to impede my progress to freedom. Yeah, that's right "freedom!" I scream in my mind in my best imitation of Mel Gibson in Braveheart.

We stop in San Ysidro just before the border to pack as much octane into the tank as we can before I have to turn the bike over to Pemex's Magna Sin. My dealer in Fresno, who I begin to call "Robertito" on this trip, has made me swear not to take octane boosters with me on this trip. My memory is that it in some way will confuse the Motronics or clog the fuel injectors and while it doesn't make complete sense to me I did take and observe the oath. We see a parked R100GS PD with a Rubbermaid topcase and an Australian license plate but no riders are around.

The Tijuana streets are crowded but the drivers are great. Every one drives as if they really want to get somewhere. Everyone zigs and zags aggressively and I like it. It is a pleasant change from the desultory drivers of California's Central Valley. We shop for floor tiles and fortunately can only take down names and model numbers rather than buy. It's just another advantage of traveling by bike. We cruise Avenida de la Revolucion and outside the bars on the side streets see women leaning against walls as they wait for customers. They don't look happy, but then I haven't either lately when I'm working and our professions have some disturbing similarities.

We change some money at a casa de cambio and head south on the toll road. 13 pesos three times to get to Ensenada. Anne had put two twenty peso notes in her jacket pocket. It was easy and worked out just right.

The toll road from Tijuana to Ensenada is a divided highway with limited access. There isn't much traffic and we make good time. The views of the coast are terrific.

North of Ensenada we stop at a roadside taco stand for lunch. It's an open air stand with a tile counter. It's like a sushi bar and we order taco by taco, drink our first nondiet sodas since the last time in Mexico and eat like kings for less than a $2 each. We fancy ourselves to be brave travelers and are generally willing to eat anything anywhere but in Ensenada I buy a package of precautionary Pepto Bismo tablets.

South of Ensenada we pass the Aussies on their PD. (We would later meet them at the 49er Rally in Quincy.)

We are stopped at a federale road block a few miles south of Santo Tomas. The federales all have their automatic rifles slung and are very polite. In Spanish they ask where we are going and what's in the duffle bag. I studied French and Italian in school so most of my Spanish comes from restaurants, bars, playing soccer and living in California. We did alright and I figure it's a drug related thing and can't exactly figure why they are checking us so carefully as we head south. None of it seemed menacing except for the tripod-mounted machine gun trained on us from an elevated position at about 2 o'clock to our right.

South of Santo Tomas the road rises into coastal mountains and drops into valleys. It's like the Southern California of my youth that can no longer be seen north of the border.

Every good curve is marked by signs saying "curvas peligrosas" and there are stripped rusted car bodies at the bottom of each embankment. We soon learn, however, that it is not the curvas that are so peligrosas, it's the semi-truck and trailer combinations on the blind uphill left curves that appear in our lane. After we dodge two, I take every such turn a lot slower and close to the shoulder. Drained of adrenilin, I begin to mellow out.

We pass slowly through the rush hour traffic in the agricultural areas along the coast. The going is slow and we do not really hit open road until we turn east at El Rosario where, as we leave the coast, the desert begins. It's not hot and a brisk on-shore wind chases us to Catavina. It's dusk by the time we reach Catavina. At the motel we spend 20 minutes under the shower to warm up, eat in the motel dining room and in the morning Anne reminds me of one reason why it's so nice to travel two-up.

Saturday: Catavina to Mulege

We gas up at the Pemex at the motel and pull on to the highway. As we do, a lone rider on a black R11RS pulls into the lot from the south. He must have gotten an early start because there is not much for at least 100 miles to the south. We nod and he nods. Another member of the BMW brotherhood, the kinship, the peace, love and understanding.

As an experiment, I had bungeed a cured but untanned lambskin to the seat of my bike for this trip. The skin was from a lamb we had had slaughtered this winter and it is funky. The wool was at least 2 inches deep and the black bike reminded me of a white buffalo. I had left the bike in the parking lot over night and, if we had been in the Dakotas, I know there would have been people praying to it in the morning. Some may have come down during the night and if 300 years from now archaeologists find otherwise inexplicable petroglyphs up in the mountains, we'll know they did.

Catavina is in the desert and it's as much desert as I've ever seen. Even so, the landscape is strewn with water rounded boulders. It is clear that at some time in the past this area spent a lot of time under water and the climate has definitely changed. Anyone who doubts there may be global warming please explain this to me.

The highway crosses one drainage after another. Some of the drainages are wide and consist of dry lakes and arid plains crossed by mostly straight road. Some are broad canyons. Each is bordered by one or more ridges that the road climbs in a series of tasty curves before dropping into the next drainage by a series of curves.

There is very little traffic south of Catavina. Most of the vehicles are American and the vehicle of choice is an ocean kayak, most of which have strapped under them a new Chevrolet Suburban or an old Japanese pickup truck with a camper shell.

We take many breaks by the side of the road. Anne thinks the Baja landscape is God-forsaken. I like it and it tells me why our Western religions come from the desert. Question after question come unbidden to my mind, the main one being, "why are we here?"

There are 21 million potholes between Catavina and Guerrero Negro. At first I slow and try to avoid them. Once I realize the potholes are as shallow as the last layer of blacktop applied to this road, I keep the speedo at 90-95 mph. The R11GS eats these potholes (it is an adventure tourer after all) and besides, I have more than 3 stinkin' spokes per wheel on this bike. We pass two road crews each consisting of 8 or 9 guys with shovels walking behind a truck and throwing cold patch into the potholes. It looks like no one is in charge because everyone has a shovel and there is no fat guy with a coffee cup and a clipboard watching them. Not a single guy is leaning on his shovel and I think that maybe CalTrans should come here for a seminar. These guys are working hard and I appreciate their efforts but it is like trying to empty Lake Tahoe with a bucket.

Everyone including the AAA guide book had told me how awful Guerrero Negro is but I like it. It's flat and windblown but having grown up at the beach I am comfortable. We eat lunch at another taco stand and a small boy holding a toy sport bike cannot take his eyes of my bike. When he finishes his tacos I ask his mother if I may put him on the seat. She smiles warmly. She consents. He doesn't.

From Guerrero Negro the highway turns east to cross to the gulf. The road is flat and straight. There are some villages and a town or two. Outside of one house, where we have slowed to 30 mph, a teenage boy smiles and flashes gang signs to us. It gives me a chill and I hope it is just a fashion and not a sign of some culture imported from California. We stop at a Pemex and buy paletas (popsicles) from a 10 year old entrepeneur wearing imitation Oakleys with one lense missing. The paletas cost only a couple of pesos but I tip him with a couple of quarters. He is stoked.

As we approach the coast we pass lava flows and volcanic cones. The road makes a steep climb with many hairpin turns. We creep up one grade at about 5 mph behind a laboring 18 wheeler.

On the coast we stop at the bakery in Santa Rosalita. I tell Anne how to order an orange juice in Spanish and when she returns from across the street she is proud to be sipping. I bought a strawberry soda from the taco stand which has a handwritten sign that says in English "No fish tacos. Meat tacos only." I'm tempted to ask but don't. I guess I have mellowed out. It is clear from the sign that at some point the proprietor had reached his limit with Sunset Magazine reading tourists.

For the 40 or 50 miles into Mulege I ride for the first time in years without a helmet. The wind feels good and I ride slower for a while. I am appalled at how much the R1100 motor sounds like a wornout sewing machine.

We circle the town before leaving to rent a cabana with a large palapa in a trailer park along the river. There are 4 Goldwing riders in court yard of a new motel and they wave in that distinctive way Goldwing riders have.

In a restaurant in town Anne has lobster and I have incredibly fresh obviously never frozen shrimp sauteed with garlic for practically nothing while we watch the Oscar de la Hoya-Pernell Whittaker fight with 100 smoking Mexicans. Those not buying dinner pay a cover charge to watch the satellite transmission. Before the fight, still a Los Angeleno at heart, I tell the guy next to me that I will be rooting for de la Hoya. He is polite but insists Whittaker will win. During the fight I am surprised to realize I am about the only one in the place rooting for de la Hoya. The Mexican crowd loudly favors the black Whittaker over the Southern Californian Mexican-American and boos and hoots when de la Hoya is given the decision. Though I have never smoked in my life, the next morning when I wake up I cough and think I want a cigarette.

Sunday: Mulege

In the morning we sightsee around the town and go to the predominantly American trailer parks along the river. We are looking for Marty Robison who moved here about 20 years ago. I don't really know Marty, but his son and I were married to sisters in Venice, California. Marty's grandsons, who I still think of as my nephews, now live near us in Coarsegold. We ask around and nearly every one knows Marty. After looking at the sun, one World War II vet suggests we wait by Marty's dock because he is likely to be coming in from his morning fishing shortly.

Sure enough, Marty shows up shortly. I introduce Anne and me. I can tell Marty doesn't remember me but he is incredibly gracious and personable. He remembers buying milk from my family's dairy in Venice and Marina del Rey 55 to 60 years ago when real people lived there and before it became a home for expatriate New Yorkers. He gives us a view of life in Mulege and it is good.

Monday: Mulege to San Quintin

I am happy to be back on the road but it feels different to know what is ahead. The road is still wide open and we still cruise at 90-95 mph with occasional bursts of higher speeds. The speed limit is 50 mph and the locals obey it. When the road is flat and straight we close on distant cars so quickly it is hard to tell if the car in our lane is going the same direction we are. For safety's sake, I slow to about 60 to pass the Mexican cars. It's feels rude to pass them faster than that and the passing feels dangerous if going too fast. I have to slow down to make sure they see me and to give me some time to react if they don't. I also never fail to slow to the 35 mph limit in towns and villages. Still we pass everybody ruthlessly, even when we intend to stop for a rest shortly and watch them pass us back.

Before Catavina we pass an RV pulling a trailer with 2 nice looking Harleys. There is room on the trailer for a third and sure enough, a few miles ahead there is the third poking along at about 60. I laugh and think they are taking turns riding to be able to claim to have ridden the length of Baja.

We reach Catavina a little after 3 pm and the gas station is closed between noon and 4. I decide we can make El Rosario on the coast which is where the next gas is. We drink sodas and eat peanuts on the porch of the store while the Harley and RV passes us back.

About 35 miles before El Rosario, not long after repassing the Harley again, we approach an uphill blind left curve. I prepare to slow down as I have religiously since the first day near Santo Tomas. From the bottom of the hill we watch an 18 wheeler round the curve in our lane. The driver hits the brakes and the trailer locks up, fishtails and the rear wheels swing off the road. The flat bed trailer skids 80 feet along the road and turns on its side. If we had not slowed to pass the Harley or had been a few seconds sooner for what ever reason we would have been squeegeed off the road. The cab flips, the bags of cement carried on the trailer explode and a cloud of cement rises 50 feet into the air as the rig leaves the road and goes down the embankment.

The windshield of the cab had popped out on the highway and the inside of the cab is a mass of legs and couch cushions. One guy is moaning and bleeding beside the cab. He is holding his shoulder and doesn't know where he is. I pull a couple of couch cushions through the windshield and a woman reaches her hand out to be pulled out. Another guy is covered with stuff and I can only see his legs from the knee down. By then the Harley rider joins me, and we both try to uncover the last guy. He is kicking and moaning and I want him to stop but when he does the Harley guy and I look at each other and both think he is dead. We can't move him and are not sure if we should. We pull more stuff out of the cab and a third guy slides down the bank to help us. We get the guy uncovered and the third guy speaks Spanish and crawls into the cab to talk to the last passenger. Enough people have come along so that I know I'm done. Remarkably the third guy is not badly hurt but he is very distressed about his truck. Secretly, at this moment, I am pleased I have that insurance. For the rest of the trip it will be hard for me not to think about timing. Like they say, it is everything.

We shoot the breeze with the Harley rider and his buddies in the RV and it turns out they came all the way from Washington to Cabo San Lucas. Predictably, the 2 Harleys on the trailer had broken down. I tell them I'm low on gas but expect to make El Rosario. They are carrying extra and promise to stop if they see us by the side of the road. Since I have teased them about their trailered Harleys, it is inevitable that I will run out of gas and I do two miles short of the next Pemex. The Harley boys are pleased to help me. I had only gotten 235 miles on that tank, which I had thought would be plenty. In the past I had gotten over 280 miles on a tank, but this time I didn't take the high speeds, low octane and passenger into account.

Tuesday: San Quintin to San Diego

In the morning I go out to the parking lot to pack the bike. The parking lot is nearly full and there are about 20 well-dressed Mexican men talking excitedly. They all wear cowboy boots and have badges and automatic pistols on their belts. The desk clerk tells me they are plainclothes federal police that are staying at the hotel for only a few days, staging an operation. They drive off in large late model sedans, mostly in pairs although some leave alone.

The morning's overcast is beginning to burn off as we leave. The highway is crowded with buses and tractor-trailer rigs leaving packing houses. In San Quintin the highway is straight and for miles on both sides of the road there are scattered small stores, taquerias and shops. The traffic is slow and there is little difference between riding here and on Lincoln Boulevard in Venice except that here the drivers are less aggressive and better humored. I recognize one or two of the sedans from the motel parking lot and start to feel like I am watching a lost and dubbed episode of Starsky and Hutch.

The highway leaves the coastal plain and enters low mountains covered with scrubby vegetation which is lush in comparison with the desert in central Baja. The road is twisty and fun. It is never over-engineered. There is much more traffic than in the desert and though I don't experience the same sense of the open road as in the desert, there is room to pass and room to ride.

In Ensenada we find the first premium unleaded gas of the trip. We had been using Magna Sin exclusively and while the R11GS consistently proved itself to be the fastest vehicle on the road, there is a noticeable improvement in performance and I can really grab the throttle without any hint of a ping.

We continue to the tourist shopping area. No cruise ships are in the harbor and we have the place to ourselves. If we had stopped here on the way down I would have bought some bottle rockets and other fuegos artificiales to launch over the ocean at night. Instead we go to a leather shop and Anne is thrilled by the prices on designer hand bags that the shopkeeper assures her are originals. On the sidewalk with gestures Anne asks an Indian woman if she can give the woman's crying boy a sweet roll. The woman nods and the boy gleefully eats the roll.

Back at the bike we are tying bags and boxes on top of the already full duffle bag when a small Indian woman offers inexpensive necklaces for sale. She appears to be much less than 5 feet tall, has an infant on her back and two toddlers walking with her. As I gruffly decline she extends an empty paper cup towards me. I start to shake my head and actually say the word " no" as she locks both her eyes directly on mine. Before the word completely clears my lips I am struck by hundreds of years of pre-Columbian history and her beauty. I plunge my hand into my pocket and give her most of the Mexican coins there. I am sure they will find a better use with her than in my desk drawer back in Coarsegold. If she had known to ask I probably would be willing to go to the closest bank and draw more on my credit card.

At the border in Tijuana all the lines to enter the US are short at 4 p.m. although there are very long lines to enter Mexico. The guard asks what we are bringing back from Mexico. I mention only the goods we have bought, assuming he is not interested in our experiences and memories. He checks Anne's green card and New Zealand passport. She and I always joke about her crossings into the US, as if there will be some hitch or delay and I suspect I am always concerned there will be. The guard asks what country I am a citizen of and I tell him " the US." When he asks where I live in the US, I say only "Coarsegold." He thinks a minute, as if this place name actually has some meaning to him and then tells us we can pass. Although we have carried Mexican tourist cards we got from AAA in Madera, nobody at any of the various checkpoints we have passed ever asked to see them.

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