It has been a wild few days, meeting random people and doing some heavy duty driving. The MEX Route 1 has been slaughtered to pieces by the hurricane, every possible vado (wash) crossing either looks like a brown river or is filled with mud and rocks. Luckily for us we are driving a 91’Vanagon Westy, also known by many as a 4-wheeling maniac. She took care of every little water crossing and boulder crawling like it was nobody’s business.  The hurricane had caused quite a lot of damage down here, especially in the town of Mulege, where they reported five people dead and eight missing. We drove over the main bridge thru town and could see cars on top of roofs, houses completely imploded, and the people walking around looked haggard. The following few days things supposedly became worse while the town had to deal with a lack of electricity and clean water.
            Lucky for us we made it just a few miles south to a little beachfront restaurant called Bahia Buenavetura. Mark, an American from Wisconsin made his way down to Baja about six years ago, fell for a lovely Mexican lady named Olivia, and together they’ve been running the place since. Jeremy and I were in heaven. We took naps on our surfboards in the bay, read all day, and enjoyed the fine cooking. I also got my first real nice sun bake of the trip, leaving my back uncomfortably toasty since. The second night a guy named Kevin pulls into our humble little palapa with a huge van, very similar to a Realms of Inquiry van fully loaded. Turns out the guy runs tours from Anchorage down to Panama City every few months. Kevin had plenty of good stories and helpful tips for places to stay later on our trip.
            Two days of laziness went by and we decided it was time to move on and headed down towards Loreto to find a place to camp. The drive was typical of the previous days, mud everywhere, and even big chunks of highway the size of our van missing. We’d hit about 100 km/h and see a VADO sign, slow down to about 10 km/h, bump our way over a whole bunch of mud and rocks, then hit it back up to 100 km/h. This was the story every mile or so. We continued south through the beautiful town of Loreto and were shocked by the size of the mountains; we could have already been in Patagoinia for all we knew. They were towering, jagged, and deadly dark against the sunset sky.
            The following night as we neared Cabo San Lucas we were halted by the biggest vado of them all. Everyone on the road was backed for about two miles of bumper to bumper traffic on a single lane highway. It was hot, humid, and quite clear nobody was going anywhere. The vado looked like a flash flood; river, mud, and trees flowing right over the highway. We decided to do like the locals and walk down to the action and gawk. Sadly there was just one poor man in a front loader CAT trying to clean up the mess. He looked like a little rubber ducky way out in a muddy pond. Meanwhile we met Mr. Ty Miller, another awesome American who decided he’d had enough and headed south. He was right behind us on the drive heading to his home in Cabo when we all got stuck. So after four hours of great stories we lit up the burners and made a tasty meal of rice, beans, onions, and hot sauce. (This, if I may add to all you people that make fun of our mode of transportation, was only possible because of our humble little kitchenette. Any other car and we would have gone hungry like all the others) Ty, being the badass he is had us follow him home to Cabo and offered us a great place to stay, pool included. 
            After a morning swim Ty took us out for cameron (shrimp) tacos and my, what an amazing feast. I’ve never had such a good shrimp or fish tacos before. We then toured the most expensive marina in the world and checked out a couple hundred million dollars in fishing boats, no big deal. After feeling a little out of our league we headed to Zippers, the famous Cabo surf spot and checked out the scene. They have a cool little shop, Costa Azul, that is lying between a bunch of five-star resorts. If any of you are interested in the classic pampered beach vacation getaway, Cabo San Lucas or San Jose Del Cabo is just right.
As of today we are still here at Ty’s house. He and Juanita have been great to open up their house to us. I can’t say how nice it is to meet people in foreign places with such hospitality. I’m sure many of you are wondering why our site looks nothing like regular website, loaded with a bunch of icons that lead nowhere and journal entries that never change. Well I will say that this whole website business is painstakingly slow when you’re living out of a van in a third-world country and have very limited internet access. But as always we appreciate every ones patience and we promise that it will only get better with time.

Hope all is well up north,

Nima


Don’t forget to check the latest Photo Gallery!

Mark and Olivia.

The awesome Miller family: Ty, Juanita, Rachel and Alexy.

How deep can she go?

Where's the road?

The town of Mulege just after the hurricane.

Jeremy waiting for the waves.

The chaos that stopped us before Cabo San Lucas