It all went wrong...
- [Eva] This is a story about things not going according to plan. I wanna go back, Nick, I can't do this. For this video, I convoy up with a few friends in an attempt to drive down the Baja Peninsula together here in Mexico. I think I'm a bit stuck. And along the way, stuff goes wrong.
I can't do this. No, I'm too scared. But first, let's rewind to T minus one. I offered to put this itinerary together. Nobody asked me to do it.
And now I'm sitting here, it's the night before the convoy and I'm like, where do we go? So I've got my iOverlander app here and Google Maps and Gaia GPS and I've got my notepad here where I'm kind of making a note of all the places that look good. I am a little bit nervous about planning this whole thing for everybody, but I'm also so excited. So excited to finally be traveling with other people again. I've definitely been feeling a little bit lonely lately and they're great people too. The night before setting off, we all met up for dinner and to discuss the upcoming road trip. You'll get to know everybody soon.
First though, we need to figure out our route. What I was thinking is, speeding through Baja, through Northern Baja, but speeding through Northern Baja still means a lot of driving. - Yeah, it's about 10 hours to get to the turn off. - It's only down the road. (laughing) - [Eva] Down the road? Well, technically yes. There is only one road leading all the way South.
The Baja Peninsula in western Mexico is a 1000 mile stretch of desert, dramatic coastline and remote towns. We're on a bit of a deadline and we hope to reach the warmer southern part of Baja as soon as possible. It's time to go. I am definitely not feeling ready to leave this beautiful spot. I've been here for the last two weeks just decompressing and it's been honestly so great. Not having to think about where to drive and where I'm gonna stay and what's next, and just decompressing.
So I'll definitely miss it. (hairdryer blowing) You have no idea how nice it feels to dry your hair with a hair dryer once in a while. Let's go. Hola hola. Ready to go? - Yeah. Ready. - [Eva] Woohoo! - So new talkies, because these are channels, these are legal.
Shh. - Shh. Awesome. Thank you so much. - Yeah, you're welcome. Let's do it.
- [Eva] And this is our crew. In the white defender called Albatross, we have Mathilde and Nick. You might recognize these guys since we traveled to Alaska together. And in the white Toyota Troopy called Jambo, we have Olivia and Cody plus their adorable pup, Roan.
This is our convoy. Okay, I'm leading the way for the next three hours to our first spot for the day and for the trip. Let's see how this goes. Exciting.
(folky rock music playing) I was not sad to leave Ensenada behind. It's a nice enough town, but to me, road tripping is all about those wide open desert landscapes, ocean views and wilderness. We are looking for discomfort and at this point we don't even know how much discomfort we've signed up for. On roads like this, even I, as a driver get motion sickness.
It's not fun. So I don't understand how he doesn't. I think it's all those miles that we drove on mountain roads in Montana when he was a tiny puppy. Now it's all paying off. Well okay, we just had our first military check of the trip.
The guys at the checkpoint really took their time looking through my car and then Mathilde's and Nick's car as well. How was it? - Yeah, it was okay. - You passed? - I passed. (speaking Spanish) (laughing) (speaking Spanish) (emotional music playing) - Hola. Que tal?
(speaking Spanish) Third checkpoint in 200 miles. The only question they asked was (speaking Spanish) Okay. So this is our home for tonight. And it is pretty surreal actually. So we've got these amazing colors all around.
It's just the most beautiful pink sunset. Tomorrow morning, sunrise over there. But for now it seems like it's really low tide.
And when I say really low tide, I mean like a mile out. For now, plenty of space and it's just us, pretty much. Very quiet. Beautiful.
First night in Baja. (faint chattering) (sleeping bag rustling) Good morning. Good morning good boy. Going on adventures solo is amazing, but doing it with other people is a whole other thing entirely.
With other people you feel a sense of community, you have a support network and I feel like that gives you the confidence to take more risks. To try new things. Because you know that there's always gonna be someone there to bail you out or winch you out in the worst case.
This track better be worth it. So currently we're driving this pretty long off-road track. Not paved, loads of rocks, going through river beds. It is rough. Four by four only.
There's supposed to be a really beautiful beach at the end but we don't actually know that because none of us have ever seen any pictures of it. There is no guarantee that it's even open or that it's even still there. Yeah, we're gonna take the risk and hope to find something beautiful on the other side of these mountains. Let's see. (ethereal music playing) Over an hour on this really, really rough road.
I think we're getting there. (dog barking) Oh man, this looks so dodgy. Oh man.
Holy smokes. There seems to be some sort of mining operation here. There's a lot of people working, digging up the beach basically.
This place is definitely a little bit shady. The guys are asking for some tax, in the form of beer. Luckily I do have a couple of beers. Oh God, Vilk. Okay. Okay.
Gracias. Okay, the tax, "the tax" has been paid and now these guys who work here are saying that we should go across the beach to that other beach over there that you see just across the bay. I think we're all a little bit nervous.
We're not really sure what's going on here. And personally, I'm a bit nervous about driving on the beach but I guess there's people here that can winch me out in the worst case, so... Gently. Gently. Nick is sliding.
Oh man. (engine revving) I think I'm a bit stuck. Putting the drift lock on.
- [Walkie Talkie] Have you tried reversing, Eva? (walkie talkie mumbling) - Okay. Little bit stressful. Lot of really soft sand. Holy crap, you're really sliding. (car bonks) What was that? Should we be worried for you? - [Walkie Talkie] Not yet, not yet.
(walkie talkie mumbling) - I guess we're going back. Literally going back. Cause there's nowhere to turn around.
(walkie talkie mumbling) - Nice! - God! This is the hardest reverse I've ever done. Yeah, they got stuck. Yeah. I'm kind of not loving the idea that a Toyota is pulling out a land rover. You win some, you lose some. This was not the spot that we had expected to find and we got stuck, so decided to just go back a little bit.
It's getting late, unfortunately. So we can't go all the way back to another beach but we'll find a spot to camp in the mountains and hopefully that will be okay. But gotta say that was a bit of a stressful experience. A bit more stressful than I would've liked.
You know, not every day of overlanding is smooth sailing, but then again that's not exactly the point. If it was smooth sailing, guaranteed, it wouldn't be an adventure would it? In moments like this, it's easy to get frustrated but somehow living the experience with other people, sharing it with them, helps you move on and press the refresh button much more quickly. Wow. Am I happy to be at a campsite again. That was a pretty long day with a very unexpected outcome in what was supposed to be a really beautiful campsite.
It wasn't. Oh my God. Oh no.
Look what happened here. My little Fender thingy broke off. Check this out Nick. Look what happened.
My fender flare. - From that off road? - [Eva] Yes, it was so bumpy. - Did you feel it while driving? - [Eva] No, I just saw it now.
- Oh, here it is. There's a bend here. - [Eva] Oh! - So now it goes in, but now you need the screws that sort of just hold it together. - Did the screws fall off? - I think instead of screws it's those plastic things that hooks. Yeah cause it really looks like plastic hooks, but you could just screw it on cause it's all plastic and this as well. - Okay, nice.
- I got extra screws, you can just put those. - Cool. Sweet. Well it wouldn't be an adventure without something breaking. - Right. (sentimental synth music playing) - Thank you.
This is one of my favorite parts of every single day, making dinner. Oh yeah, what are we making here, you guys? - Tacos. - [Eva] Tacos! - Tacos. - [Eva] Yes. What is this? Queso de Oaxaca? - Oaxaca cheese. - [Eva] Amazing.
Vilk has his little bone right here. So he's enjoying, he's had dinner. Beautiful moon shining above us, and dinner with friends.
That's pretty much all you need. Olivia made us guacamole, which looks absolutely delicious. - For tacos. - [Eva] Yay! Nick is frying some peppers and onions and some chicken for himself. Cause all the rest of us are veggie, right? - Yeah. - Yeah. - [Eva] Wow, that's pretty wild.
- Should I put the- Do you have a casserole or should I try and find mine? - If you have a dirty pan we could- - I'm worried about you. - [Eva] Oh bless. Thank you very much. - Coming in hot.
- It's coming in hot. - What is your dream dish if you're? - Fondue. - If you're going to like die? Fondue? You think fondue? - Oh, if I'm gonna die.
Oh no, I know my number one dish is fondue. - [Eva] So if you die tomorrow, you would wanna have fondue. - Yes. - I think me, it's a delicious pommadoro mozarella salad. - [Eva] Olivia? Guac and chips.
- Chips and guac, yeah. - [Eva] What about you Cody? - I'm a child, so I'd have french toast with peanut butter. - Aw. - But it'd have to be like a huge, huge stack.
- I would have pizza, like why didn't anyone say pizza? - Wait, pizza was an option? - My second is pizza. - Your second? You don't get a second, you're dying. - You only get one.
(emotional piano music) - What a day. So we didn't manage to find our dream campsite on the beach, which is fine. Not every adventure has to work out as planned, right? And we ended up here, which is also so beautiful. Tomorrow, the plan is to keep heading south and we're gonna start driving down south on this really long off-road track in the mountains, which looks quite technical and I'm not sure, I'm not sure if I can do it. I don't know if the Odyssey is nimble enough to take on that kind of technical track.
So I'm a little bit worried, but time will tell I guess. So, for now, goodnight. Vilk found a new friend and he's just so excited to see him every single morning.
So cute. (giggling) Yay. Hi. Are you good boys? Are you good boys? Roan, you've been so patient. Vilk just desperately, desperately wants to be friends with Roan. It's like the number one thing dream in his life right now.
He doesn't even know how big he is. But a short 15 minutes later, things started going south. The Jambo and Albatross cruise managed to get up this tricky section pretty easily. But Odyssey is much more top heavy than those two and just not as nimble. It started out okay, but then suddenly, shoot.
I felt my car with me, Vilk, and all of my possessions in it tilting dangerously to the side. My hands were shaking on the steering wheel. My foot was shaking on the gas pedal. Odyssey was tipped at such a sharp angle. I felt like she would topple over to the side.
We decided to take Vilk out of the car while Nick helped me navigate the tricky terrain. - Backwards just a little bit. - Now? - We're gonna pull back in the right trajectory. - Am I going back now? - Yes. - [Eva] We tried one way and then we tried another way but Odyssey just wasn't managing it.
What terrified me the most was the possibility of Odyssey rolling on her side because I was stuck at such a sharp angle. Eventually I decided to ask Nick to just help me back out of there. I wanna go back, Nick. - [Nick] You wanna go back? - Yeah. I can't do this. - [Nick] You don't wanna do this? - I can't do this.
No, I'm too scared. - Turn your tire left. - Like this? - [Nick] Yep. More. Yep. Go, go, go.
Yeah, make it straight. Go back now. There, you feel it? You're straightening, you're straightening.
- Oh. Oh my god, that tilt was the scariest thing. I honestly thought I would fall. - It's super scary when you're tilting but the center of gravity of the Fender is almost 40, 45 degrees.
You with this awning, you would more be like at 37, 40. - The option was to air down the tire pressure. But that would be too difficult because the cars could slide down. I'm in a pretty shitty position right now so I'm gonna go around. Apparently there's another track that's a bit easier than this, so. - Bye! - Bye.
- Yeah, I'm going back. Those guys' cars are way lighter than Odyssey. They're much, much lighter and I think they're also much more confident off-road drivers. I am just, I'm one of those people that with anything to do with Odyssey, with the truck, if there is even 1% chance of something scary happening off-road, I'm just not willing to take the risk. You know, better safe than sorry. I was relieved to be heading back into the less technical terrain, albeit on my own.
I still felt a lot of residual stress after my off-road fiasco. So I spent the next hour counting from zero to a hundred over and over again. Literally just to calm my nerves. Before we parted ways, we agreed that we would all meet up in a small town called Punta Prieta.
That's our meeting point. And I'm really curious to see who's gonna make it there first. Is it gonna be me despite the fact that I had to go all the way back and all the way around or the guys who took the off-road track through the mountains.
Off-road track that, you know, none of us had any idea how difficult or easy it would be and I still don't know who's gonna get there first. It's taking me a while. It's taking me a really long time. So I reckon they're already there. I think they're probably faster than me, so they're probably waiting for me.
Anyway, we're 20 miles away from that town, so, time will tell. (tense music playing) Well, they're not here yet. Seems like I am the first one.
I hope they're not stuck anywhere. (speaking Spanish) The track was so bumpy that most of my stuff just fell out. Look at all this mess. Oh my god. Super dusty, super messy.
I'm just really happy to be on a paved road again honestly. It is now 1:11. I give them half an hour. - Hey hey! (speaking Spanish)
Welcome in for Baja. - [Eva] Thank you so much. I need a lemonade. (laughing) (melancholic acoustic guitar music) They're there! They're coming! It is 1:27. (car hooting) Woohoo! Welcome! (laughing) That day we continued driving until finally we reached one of the most magical places I've ever camped at halfway down the Baja Peninsula.
You know, in places like this, in the company of great people, you tend to quickly forget about the things that went wrong. Yes, over the last few days we got stuck a couple of times. Yes, I got a huge fright while off-roading and no, not every single plan we made ended up working out. But whenever you look back on your life, I feel like the stories of overcoming challenges are the stories we will always remember best. These stories along with their struggle and drama and uncertainty become the very stories we tell our families and friends once we're back in the safe harbor of home.
2022-12-20 03:26
