The details about the treacherous road, running low on food, and high tensions all seem to fade when they lead to a view like this. Photo: Wyatt Fowler
Editor’s note: This is the fifth and final story 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 fourth here!
It wasn’t the last stop but it felt like the end of the road. We stumbled across it purely by chance. Anxious to leave the booze fueled dusty campground of deteriorating and cranky old expats, we left our camp to find a better place to surf what would likely be the final summer southwest swell of the trip. We drove through the small town of Santo Tomás and took a right at a sign that we thought would take us to the ocean.
On a dirt road we saw another sign for a point in our guidebook and decided to have a look. Our outdated guidebook took us to a spot that had been transformed into what appeared to be a massive mining operation. The friendly guard at the gate allowed us to pass and told us that this road would continue on, but ahead it turned raro or strange, and that we could turn back and leave this way if we so wished. We had no desire to backtrack the 20 miles of mountainous dirt overpasses we had just rumbled over, so we thanked the guard and pushed on. He warned us that we would not be able to come back through the next day, Monday, when everyone came back to work. At least we knew what day it was then.
The mining road started off a smooth and wide dirt track as we’d seen. We soon learned that when a local tells you a road is bad, it is probably much worse than that. It quickly transformed into a path that would be treacherous to walk over, let alone drive. Heavy rains had carved ruts into the narrow dirt track that could swallow a tire. There were sinkholes that disappeared into blackness and steep inclines rising up the edges of cliffs that dropped into the Pacific. It was starting to get dark and we weren’t sure how much longer we had to go or what we would find when we got there.
Two nights before we had found ourselves in a similar predicament, trying to find our way to another secluded break. Our guidebook described the area of Baja we were in as being a hotbed for hold ups and desperate drug users. Bessie was struggling in the thick, soft sand we were trudging through to try and make it to a very inaccessible point. If we got stuck, the rising tide would undoubtedly overtake us and possibly do irreparable damage to our car and home. In a last minute decision we decided we were taking a pretty large risk for a minimal gain. We didn’t know the quality of the wave at the end of the point and the swell was still minimal, not to mention we’d be vulnerable and stuck on the point when the tide came in.
Although our guidebook was old, the mention of the high crime rate still made us nervous. We turned back to head into town.
Now we found ourselves in the same situation, except in harsher road conditions that would be unnavigable at night and no option of turning around. Frustrations were running high and light was running out. We were wondering when we’d be able to see the ocean again when we passed over the summit of a small mountain and a white lighthouse lit up by the setting sun.
The lighthouse was in a tiny fishing encampment made up of hovels and shacks. It was perched on a fifty foot cliff that curved into a bay. The shacks and lighthouse were the only structures on the cliff except for two porta-potties. When we drove in the fisherman had either left or gone to sleep, and there wasn’t a soul around. We looked over the side of the cliff to see the swell had started to arrive. The anxiety and trepidation we were feeling quickly dissipated. A treacherous road to a serene, empty, isolated cliff that overlooked a glassy A-frame wave breaking over a reef at a foot of a bluff. This was the promise of Baja. It wasn’t an unknown wave, we hadn’t been pioneers or discoverers, but we were explorers nonetheless.
Our camping setup. Photo: Wyatt Fowler
We camped on the cliff for three nights, until a lack of water and food forced us to leave. There was a southern road leading away from the cliffs that was much more refined than the goat track we had come in on. We surfed with one other person while we were there, but mostly we surfed alone and every day the waves improved.
Long strands of kelp reached up through the face of the waves like fingers and kept the water still and clear. We would see the fishermen in the mornings dragging out their panga boats, and they would warn us of sharks, either jokingly or earnestly, we could never quite tell. We collected mussels to add to our diminishing food supply, but mostly we surfed.
Cooking up some of the mussels we collected when we were low on food. Photo: Wyatt Fowler
During breaks we would sleep and read. The tall cliffs and the kelp beds kept the wind off the water, so the waves were almost always glassy. The top of the cliff was a different story. The wind could, without warning, whip up into a frenzy. One night Wyatt and I woke up to one of the most intense gales we had witnessed and had to bolt outside to batten everything down. My tent was bending to the will of the wind to the point where the wall was against my back when I slept. The entire squall lasted less than an hour and we woke up to a very still morning and beautiful waves. As we started to drive away a lone Italian pulled up with a surfboard. His tire was flat and we stopped to make sure he had a spare and a jack. He couldn’t believe we were leaving even when we explained we were out of food and water. We left him to enjoy the last pulse of the swell alone.
Epilogue
Passing through Ensandada was the first time in three months we started to feel the presence of Uncle Sam. The tropical weather and small town charm was long gone. People seemed worn, cold, backs aching as they passed in front of Bessie. What eyes did catch our fun loving surf vehicle only glanced before returning to work. It was a somber realization for the both of us. Our trip was inevitably coming to an end.
We found a fun wave to surf, and camped at a small undeveloped lot a man rented out for weekend warriors from San Diego. We were told the border was less than an hour away. Surprised at our lack of possessions and careless attitudes about sleeping on the ground, our gracious host linked extension cords, took a bulb from his porch and twisted it in above our jerry-rigged shack. At first we strung the hammock up, but worried it would pull the whole structure down upon us. I settled for the deck chair pad and started to read. Before long, the owner brought a lounge chair to pair with my pad and offered food and reassurance he would be on site all night. He couldn’t have been nicer. He wasted no time telling us about all the plans he had for his lot, building a restaurant, camping, etc. He made us promise to come back soon when construction was complete.
That was our last night in Mexico. After three months on the road another gracious stranger had yet again put a smile on our face. Prepping for the border we emptied the whole car the following morning, leaving a pile of random belongings we would no longer need. On a gray, gloomy June morning, we got lost in the metropolis of Tijuana, waited in the stand still line of traffic on the way to the border and took our Costa Rican car on her first American highway. We were back in the United States.
