Baja ATV with Joe

 

“Rocky or smooth?” This was the question posed to us before we headed out on the third leg of our Baja ATV excursion. Marcus, our guide, said it in such a way that the only answer was, of course, rocky. Hummer or Jetta? Beer or Fresca? Strip Club or opera? Our manhood was on the line. However, this was a decision that I immediately regretted, and the reason why I am alternating cheeks while I sit and write this. But after months of questions like “conference call or email”, this is exactly the type of choice I was looking to make. So when my college buddies emailed me this winter and suggested that our annual get-together be an ATV adventure in Baja, Mexico, I couldn’t send them my deposit fast enough.

We met on Friday night in the Gaslamp district of San Diego (no, it does not mean a whale’s vagina, and yes, everyone in the city is tired of hearing me tell the joke). After a few beers at a local watering hole we headed to Dakota Grille for great dinner, then to the bars for a few adult beverages. Our clothes are a little nicer, and we now know the difference between Strawberry Boons Farm and Shiraz, but the stories and antics remain the same. Despite the suggestion (warning) on our itinerary, we were the last ones out of the bars that night and made a late-night stop at the 24-hour diner near our hotel. As always, I was the first to bed (read: passed out), but I am told the night carried on long after I bailed out.

 Eight in the morning came very quickly, but the call of Mexico and dirt bikes had us all up early. We were more-or-less useless for the first few hours, but a hearty breakfast and lots of strong coffee had us on our feet and reasonably ready to go. Our driver, Phil, picked us up at the hotel at 9am and drove us across the border to Mexico. The ATV base camp was on a large set of sand dunes that ran to the Pacific Ocean, just south of Tijuana in a town called Rosarito.

 I should point out that in Baja there seem to be very few rules or laws, or at least any that are strictly adhered to. They are really more a series of suggestions. As an example, a bicycle race with thousands of riders was underway when we arrived in Rosarito and la policia had closed the only road to the dunes. It did seem like some drivers were darting across the road between bicyclists, but Phil was not up for potential vehicular manslaughter this morning. So, our choices were to wait for the road to open, which could take over an hour, or to walk to the dunes from the highway, which looked to be about 150 yards. Naturally, we chose the later. This entailed backing the van about 100 yards up the main toll-road in Baja, avoiding hitchhikers and oncoming tractor-trailers. We then got out of the van, jumped the guardrail, ran down a small hill – carefully skirting a pitbull guarding a muddy field, ran across another muddy field, slid through a small gap in a chain-link fence (intended to keep trespassers out of a really muddy field), then darted across a two lane road FILLED with fast moving bicyclists - think Frogger. Any one of these could potentially get you fined and/or arrested in the US, but no one batted an eye in Baja. I estimate this is the best place on Earth for a trip involving untrained man-boys on loud, fast, smoking dirt bikes after a night of heavy drinking.

 At base camp we were introduced to Marcus, a Baja local, who was to be our instructor and guide for the day. The bikes were lined up on the edge of the beach, each with our names and riding gear on them. After a brief but detailed instructional period we were set loose on the dunes. We spent the morning kicking up sand, doing wheelies and donuts, and essentially acting like hooligans. It was a blast. In case you are wondering, yes, you can flip and ATV, and yes, it does hurt quite a bit. I managed to fall off after an aborted attempt at jumping a small sand burm. Another member of our party, who shall remain nameless, had a hat-trick of spectacular (and hilarious) falls, each less graceful than the last. However, aside from badly bruised egos, there were no serious injuries.

 We took a short break, and Marcus gathered us up to head to the taco stand. “You must follow single-file behind me, and do not pass or fool around on the freeway” Marcus said in uncharacteristically serious tone. The part that we all internally keyed in on was the word “freeway”. I surmised this was a language gap, and he didn’t know the English word for side-road, or back-street. My assumptions were incorrect. We did, in fact, ride the ATV’s down the freeway at what we estimated to be about 40mph. This would have been fine, except that quads have all the road handling prowess of a hospital gurney, and have a tendency to wildly drift about twelve inches in either direction. Our white-knuckle ride to the taco stand was rewarded, though, with best tacos I have ever had. Our choices were chicken, beef, or fish, and either corn or flour tortillas. Coca Cola and a few other sodas were available, all served from old-fashioned green bottles. Again, they were fantastic.

 With many tacos, about three highway miles of riding under our belts, and feeling like seasoned Baja experts, we left the taco stand for the afternoon ride into the mountains. This ride would be over much more technical terrain, often along trails only slightly wider than the quad, and usually flanked on one side by a cliff. The good news was that there were usually three bands of barbed wire to catch you from falling down the cliff if you lost control. You can get some idea of how high the cliffs were when the best case scenario is getting near-mortally tangled in rusty Mexican barbed fencing. As we headed out, Marcus, like a wise old sage, said “Don’t ride faster than you are willing to hit the ground.” It was a quote that I repeated many times on the trail in my head, always in his accent.

 We rode single file up and down nearly every terrain you could imagine, with Marcus picking up the pace as we gained confidence on the trails. In the early miles the most common mistake was being in too high of a gear for an incline, which results in a stall. However, this mistake is self-correcting. You quickly learn what gear you need to be in after you stall and the guy behind you rides up your back, and they guy behind him up his, and so on.

 A patterned formed, we rode for about thirty minutes, then would stop to take a (much appreciated) break. It is difficult to describe the amount of concentration needed to ride at a brisk pace over very uneven terrain, Unlike driving a car, where you scan ahead for large potential hazard, I found that I literally needed to inspect each inch of the road (goat trail might be more appropriate) before my tires traveled over it. Internal discussions like “should I straddle that rock or hit it with my left tire”, or “do I want to go left around this puddle and be closer to the cliff, or right and risk flipping on that steep bank” were constant. Speaking of puddles, or washouts, as they are called. They are ALL deeper than you expect, and will inevitably cause you to hydroplane if taken at a speed faster than a brisk jog. The guy riding in front of me learned this first hand and was treated to a cool mud bath that was not on the spa list of services for the weekend.

 Our day of riding ended at ATV headquarters where we turned in our gear and said good bye to our “hogs”. We were driven to our resort and began the de-mudding process, which took us about an hour. I found mud in parts of my body I didn’t know I had, and am sure I did not tip the maids enough given the amount of sand left in the shower.

Thanks,
Joe

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