Mexico Day 128: Lending a helping hand

Loreto to San Ignacio, Baja California Sur  //

Our very loose plan for the day is to continue north and choose a place to camp at one of many beaches in the Bahia de Concepción region. During the drive, it’s apparent that it’s a windy day in Baja. The air is filled with dirt, and long, smooth lenticular clouds stretch across the sky. Wind has always been the primary driving factor in deciding where we’ll camp next in Baja. We soon realize this may be one of those days where our plans evolve as the conditions reveal themselves.

Our first choice beach is Playa Armenta, which is easily seen from a roadside pull-off alongside Highway 1. We pull over and immediately see an uninviting scene of breaking waves and white caps. While Mark is looking over wind conditions on the Windy App, the driver of the semi-truck that is pulled over in front of us walks up to the truck. He’s locked his keys inside the cab and wants to know if we can help. Mark walks over to the semi and isn’t sure what to do. He returns to our truck and begins digging through his toolboxes while scratching his head. He’s pretty certain he has no way to help, but Mark doesn’t easily walk away from a problem without finding a solution.  

Ten minutes pass, then fifteen, while Mark brainstorms. The truck driver tries flagging down other truckers that pass by but is unsuccessful. After disappearing around the other side of his truck for a few minutes, the man paces quickly over to our truck and rattles off a string of undetectable Spanish. The only thing Mark or I understand is “la ventana” (the window). Thanks to the universal language of hand signals, he communicates to Mark that if we move our truck right up alongside his semi, there is a cracked window that he may be able to reach inside and open. Mark pulls in closely, and the man stands on our bumper while trying to reach inside, but his arm is too big. Mark gives it a shot and manages to get his arm inside and locates the hinge that opens the small door that leads to the semi’s living quarters. The man reacts with a great deal of excitement, leaving us to wonder just how long he’s been locked out. Meanwhile, Mark’s arm is stuck in the window but luckily is quickly set free when the man is able to roll it down.  

I start off feeling tense while watching this scene unfold. Pretending to be broken down can be a set-up for a robbery. However, while it’s important to be cautious, it doesn’t feel good to approach life as though everyone is out to get you. It feels even worse to deny someone that genuinely needs help.  

While Mark is brainstorming how to help this guy, I look over iOverlander reviews for beaches we’re interested in camping at on our way back to the US.  In doing so I learn that a Canadian man was murdered two months ago a short distance from a favorite beach of ours, a place we’ve spent a lot of time at. My heart sinks when I read the warning. Even though the victim is a complete stranger, something about a fellow traveler being killed hits close to home. We lost someone in Baja’s community of adventurous and free-spirited souls. I share the news with Mark when we get back on the highway.  We go on to drive for a couple of hours in silence. By the time we settle in a wind-protected campground in the small town of San Ignacio, we share in our sadness about the news and our newfound confusion for whether or not that area (which we are planning on heading to soon) is safe to return to.  

In sorting through my feelings, I begin to wonder if we speak about Baja too positively. Bad things do happen here, campers like us have been killed. But it’s so rare that the attention it garners and the fear it instills feels too great. We, personally, have never felt unsafe in Baja. And yet, Mark has had a gun pulled on him in Colorado and we recently met a couple who had a gun pulled on them while camping in New Mexico. I don’t want to be naive and act as though bad things don’t happen in Mexico but I also will accompany any discussion on safety in Mexico with the cold hard fact that there are unsafe places everywhere in the world, the US included. We do our best to be wise and cautious in our travels. We also believe that sometimes bad luck is unavoidable and if the universe or god has determined it’s our time to go, no amount of precautions or protecting ourselves can unwrite that fate.  

Life is so wildly outside of our control. Every living thing on the planet is wired to avoid danger but in the end, death always prevails. Mark and I talk about our mortality often, it keeps us firmly rooted in the beauty of being alive. To make the most of whatever time we get here, we figure it best to take chances, chase dreams, face fears, and to treat everyone else that’s on this wild ride of life with kindness.  

We’ll always exercise common sense in our travels and listen closely to our instincts.  But we’ll always treat people the way we hope to be treated.  And that means always lending a helping hand when a helping hand is needed.

…