Mexico Day 10: A short-lived return to civilization

Punta Ballena to salt flats near Vizcaino //

I’m in a deep sleep when I hear an unfamiliar noise.  It takes my brain a few seconds to put the pieces together as to where I am and what the noise is.  It’s a truck driving right past our camp and onto the beach.  It’s 4:45am.

This would seem odd and maybe suspicious had we not read on the iOverlander app that men come bag the sand on this beach and haul it out.  I find peace in that knowledge and try to go back to sleep but I’m wide awake and so is Mark.  Instead, we begin the day beneath the star-filled sky of this very early morning.  It’s probably for the best seeing as we have a driving day ahead of us.  From the moment we woke to the moment we drove away three hours later, three men shoveled sand into burlap bags and loaded them into a pickup truck.  Once the pickup truck was full, a man would drive it up the hill to a larger flatbed truck, transfer the bags, and come back for more.  As we pulled away, I wondered just how long their endurance would last, their shoveling strokes hardly skipped a beat.  

Two hours of driving through the desert back towards civilization takes us to a trailhead where we take the opportunity to check out some cave paintings that are estimated to date back 1,000 years.  They’re a beautiful sight to see and the short hike is a nice reprieve from driving, though we all agree that we’re ready to get to town for some fish tacos.  

We cover 76 miles of dirt before reaching pavement.  It’s our first time driving on a solid surface since Bahía de los Ángeles, 200 miles and seven days ago.  There are only two miles left to get to town when Josh runs out of gas.  A quick call comes over the radio “I think I’m out of gas” before he pulls off the highway, down a steep grade, and onto a dirt track running parallel to the road.  This highway, as is the case in much of Baja, has zero shoulder.  His two options were to drive into the ditch or come to a dead stop on the highway.  Things got a little hairy for us for a few seconds while Mark had to react quickly with a line of traffic rapidly approaching behind us.  He decided to turn left onto a road a hundred feet in front of us but we had slowed way down while Josh turned off the road.  As Mark prepared to turn left, indicated by his left blinker, we feared the traffic behind us may attempt to pass.  That’s because in Mexico, on the highways, a left turn signal is used differently than us Americans are accustomed to.  Here, it means it’s okay to pass.  We made the turn unscathed and exhaled with relief.  Josh added the gas from his jerry can to his fuel tank and we continued on into town.  

Our craving for fish tacos was denied when we showed up twenty minutes after they’d closed.  We now had a small window of time to seek out food elsewhere, get fuel, get rid of trash, restock our groceries, and get to our next campsite before the sun set in two hours.  Since arriving in Mexico ten days prior, we’d hardly interacted with society.  We felt rather feral trying to reintegrate and both of us quickly became flustered by all the stimulus around us.  An hour later we were back on the open road and headed for some salt flats to call home for the night.  After we parked, a beautiful sunset invited us to wander the salty and featureless terrain around us.  Not long after that we tuck ourselves inside, all of us ready to wind down from this long and very full day.

Interested in camping in Baja?
Check out our Baja Camping Guide!