baja bound

over the winter break of 2002-03, a buddy, mike landry, from NOLS and i and a friend of his went to baja on a canoe trip down the sea of cortez side of the baja pennisula from bahia de los angeles (east of rosarito) to santa rosalia. the trip was roughly 100 miles and we had 2 weeks to do paddle to length. it looked very doable from the comforts of nc and looking over maps.

mike and aaron picked me up in san diego late in the evening and we camped the night in ensenada. the next day we made it to bahia de los angeles and made final preparations eg food, equipment, and water, which we wouldn't be able to resupply. we had a couple of very wide scale road maps and fortunately camped beside a serious paddler from cali who recognizing we were idiots gave us some of his annotated maps, which saved our asses.

the first day we paddled out under flat seas and calm winds. we found a campsite beside a group of nudists. i thought i would be alot smoother talking to naked girls.

we quickly learned that open boats (canoes) were dangerous on the open seas and so spent alot of time on the beach going crazy

baja landscape

the most common view of the trip; looking out from a beach over the desert mountains

day after day we were winded in and had 12hr bocce rock competitions.

baja landscape

mike looking sketchy

hike above camp to see the weather conditions but after 10 days and only making 5 moves we came onto a dirty outpost inhabited by a scary little man named pancho. he obviously had very few visitors and pleasured himself by talking to his dogs. he offered to give us a ride back to bahia in one of his disassembled rustbuckets, the following day. he and i spent the next day swapping starters, alternators, batteries, and eventually found a short in the harness. since first gear was out we had to get a running start then we were off. but the windshield was so spidered we had to lean out the window to see the road. pancho was a strange creature like gollum, chain smoking rolled cigarettes and drinking warm beer. we stalled going up a incline and since the brakes didnt work we quickly jumped out and threw a rock under the tire. a rolling start later we crept along until we reached a flat spot and he stopped for pancho to take a piss but of course couldnt get the truck started and settled on sleeping on the side of the road. suddenly a pair of headlights came over the hill. two brash cabelleros with huge belt buckles and hats climbed out of a big truck. they offered us a jumpstart and i think they intimidated or threatened pancho because we tore along the horribly bumpy dirt road at 50mph in second gear for the remaining 2 hours. we arrived battered and bruised in bahia but were grateful.

kungfu micheal landry

scary caveman

pretty sunset