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Cave dwelling with a view! Photo: Wyatt Fowler

Cave dwelling with a view! Photo: Wyatt Fowler


The Inertia

Editor’s note: This is the fourth in a series of five stories by Sam Evans and Wyatt Fowler about their travels from Costa Rica to Los Angeles via a 1976 Land Rover named Bessie. Check out the first story here, the second here, third here, and look out for the next and final installment soon.

“Es de los Estados?” (Is it from the States?)

“No senñor, es de Inglaterra.” (No sir, it’s from England)

“Ahh, es duro, no? Cuatro por cuatro?” (Ahh, it’s tough, huh? Four wheel drive?)

“Si, es duro, pero un poco despacio.” (Yes it’s tough, but a little slow.)

The old weather-beaten Mexican man seemed satisfied with our answers and told us he had never seen a car like Bessie before. We had become accustomed to such conversations during our trip, and while the subject remained the same, each little chat was as exciting as the first.

Whether it was military, border patrol, local cops, gas station attendants, or just casual passersby, everyone was drawn to our little home on wheels. As their eyes focused on our Costa Rican license plate, expressions of curiosity would manifest themselves in bursts of Spanish directed at our heavily tinted windows. To their surprise, every time the window opened it was two blonde haired gringos, grinning from ear to ear, happy as could be, and rarely in the know of their exact location.

With nearly a year of broken Spanish under our belts, we could have a decent conversation with patient people.

In this instance, we were on a rarely visited stretch of beach on the Southern half of the Baja peninsula on the far side of Scorpion Bay. We had dodged seals, the remains of boats, and forded rivers in the search for waves in this far flung locale.

Remains of a whale watching boat in Scorpion Bay. Photo: Wyatt Fowler

Remains of a whale watching boat in Scorpion Bay. Photo: Wyatt Fowler

When we stopped to examine a messy reef break, a middle aged man ran down the path from the hills next to the beach. He had come from the small structure on top of the hill that we had presumed to be abandoned. It was the only manmade object we had seen, besides the skeletons of old boats, in the twenty or so miles of beach we had crossed.

We grew nervous as he approached. What type of person would live in such isolation unless on the run? We were miles away from our cave home on the shores of the town of San Juanico, on the other side of the bay, and nobody would come looking for us if we did not return.

The man wore a smile as he trotted toward us and held out his hand. It turns out he just needed help changing a flat tire on his car and did not have a jack or a tire iron. The little shack was actually an outpost used to watch the coast for poachers. The man worked there, and was unable to leave because of his car problems.

In the vast expanse of the Baja desert and coastline, it is a duty to help drivers of broken down vehicles. Cars are sparse on even some of the main highways, and where we were, you couldn’t be sure when more help would roll through.

If only to help our own karma, we drove the Rover up to the outpost on the hill. Wyatt grabbed the tire iron, jack, and a shovel. We dug him out, jacked up the car and changed the tire. He told us the good spots to check for waves. We gave him an orange and he quickly ran inside the hut and came out with giant fossilized shark teeth he had found on the beach. We examined them and when we tried to give them back he shook his head. “Es un regalo por la auyda” (It’s a gift for the help). The teeth were a prized treasure for beach combers in Scorpion Bay, and not everyone has the luck to find some of their own. We shook hands with the man and drove back to San Juanico before the tide came up.

Helping a broken down driver change his tire in Scorpion Bay. Photo: Wyatt Fowler

Helping a broken down driver change his tire in Scorpion Bay. Photo: Wyatt Fowler

We lived in a cave while we were in Scorpion Bay. The bay consists of six points, each producing a long right hand wave and each becoming more and more exposed. Our cave was next to the first point. We were so close to the water that during the full moon high tide, we took shifts staying up and shoveling rocks by moonlight to form a berm to stop the encroaching ocean. We built couches out of rocks and lazed on them as we watched surfers zip by the mouth of the cave on bright blue peeling waves. The day after we returned with our shark teeth, the waves started to break flawlessly on the first three points and we had no more reason to drive twenty miles to the other side of the bay.

 
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