Que viva la Revolución

We had big plans for our three day, Revolution holiday weekend. We decided to rent a car and finally see a little of Baja California. I even got to leave school a little early on Friday. Many teachers were out sick last week and several times throughout the week I was approached by students or the prefectos to ask if I could "adelantar" my class. "Our teacher isn´t here" they would tell me "can you come teach us now and we can all go home early?". Absolutely no problem and something that would never be possible at home.

We left Tijuana Friday night for Tecate, which is only about thirty minutes from where we live. I found Tecate charming. I am not a fan of their beer, but liked their little central plaza and their awesome bakeries. I was surprised to visit a border town that hadn´t become an overblown monstrosity like Tijuana or Mexicali. Please don´t mention Tecate to anyone.

Saturday morning, after eating about three or four pounds of sugary bread, Alec and I headed to the Valle de Guadalupe, Baja´s wine growing region. Though we weren´t far from Tijuana or Ensenada, we were surprised by the complete change of atmosphere. Alec kept commenting on how quiet it was. And uninhabited. It was a good time tearing around on dirt roads between vineyards, trying various wines. And a hell of a lot prettier than Sonoma.

After languishing around the wine country, we cut across the peninsula on Highway 3 towards the Sea of Cortez. It was getting dark and I was getting tired on that winding road. We realized when we had a quarter of a tank left that we really needed to get some gas. I knew we would make it. I remembered coasting down canyon roads in Utah with my sister on fumes, pleading with the car to survive so that we wouldn´t get stuck in the middle of nowhere. Alec and I broke down once on the "loneliest highway" in Nevada and still got picked up by an eighteen wheeler and got to ride run away truck all the way to town with this guy and his family. We always make it; the worst never actually happens. And then the car started to sputter. Okay, the worst happened. I pulled off to the side of the road in the middle of fucking nowhere.

We just sat there for a minute. A few random cars raced by us. I saw a truck coming in the distance with some sort of flashing light on it. We flagged it down and it actually stopped. A couple of construction workers jumped out, they had started their day around 7AM in Tecate and had lost "a bag" somewhere on the road. Their boss made them go back in the night and look for it. Dear God, were they drug runners? Could the give us a ride to a gas station? "It´s far..." they said, in a way that told me it was really, really far. "The motorcycle men will have gas" they told us. Motorcycle men? Was there really not a gas station? They insisted on visiting the "motorcycle men" and jumped back in their truck, only to discover that it was completely stuck in the soft sand on the side of the road. We had trapped two more people in our Bermuda triangle.

I felt like a real ass. I could sleep in the car, but now we had snared two innocent men after a long day of work in our trap. They were just trying to help us. They flagged down a pick up that passed and asked to be taken to the "motorcycle men". I just stood there, freezing.

A few minutes later, another big pick up truck pulled up. "Hey y'all!" a boisterous, American voice called out. "Bet ya thought all white guys where assholes!" they called, as they jumped from the truck and tied a rope to the trapped pick up. "We'll fill you up too, that car's gonna run great, we got 110 octane for the bikes!" I was stunned. Who were these people?

They yanked the construction workers' pick up up out of the sand and sent them on their way, adding "We saw y'all pass earlier today, bring that pick up by our camp, we can fix the alignment!". And to us, "Y'all don't have enough gas to get to the station, come by our camp and have some beers, we'll fill ya up!". Our car actually started and off we went to the motorcycle men's camp.

There were dirt bikes everywhere, two big trailers and a bunch of white men sitting around a camp fire. "Have a beer!" one said, handing us a couple of Tecates. "We're here for the Baja 1000, biggest off road race in the world!" they told us, "You from San Diego?" I told them that I was teaching in Tijuana, in a public high school. "That's Navy Seal stuff! Aren't you scared?" one asked me, in complete seriousness. I do like to think of myself as a Navy Seal. "Wanna ride the course?" Ah, okay. I hopped in some sort of four wheeled, open sided vehicle, beer still in hand. The thing roared off as I clung to the side so as not to be thrown from the vehicle. "Better put the seat belt on!" my driver informed me, which I did. Suddenly we were going about eighty miles an hour, tearing over a hilly, rugged desert path. I was screaming inadvertently and beer was spraying everywhere. Tears were flowing from my eyes from the wind and my ass was not touching the seat, the only thing holding me in was the seat belt. Most people would have avoided the crests and pits in this path, this man accelerated and dove at them. I knew if the vehicle flipped I would die. As we screamed through the desert under a blanket of stars, I knew that I wouldn't rather be in any other place in the world.

"Please let us pay you for the gas" we pleaded upon leaving. "Pay it forward" one of the racers said with a smile. We went on our way on the dark highway toward the coast. The car really was running well. We stopped at one of the many military check points that line the highways on the Baja peninsula. "Please step out of the car so that we can revise it" a young, machine gun wielding soldier in camouflage instructed me. I have been through quite a few of these check points and generally don't even have to roll down the window. We got out. In an attempt not to litter, Alec had thrown a couple of empty Tecate cans in the back of the car. This worried me. The soldiers climbed through the car and instructed us to open the trunk. They really didn't seem too intent on searching everything and couldn't seem to care less about a few empty beer cans and my beer splashed jacket. It actually didn't seem very abnormal to be standing in the desert in the middle of the night with a couple of guys in ski masks carrying automatic weapons, chatting about the differences in size and crime between Atlanta and Tijuana.

And then we drove to the sea.