Baja backtracking

After the first night in Cabo, our buddy flew us to Loreto.  Actually I'm glad he wasn't really the guy with the reigns.

Apparently others found the flight more relaxing than I did.  Our two planes were constantly visible to each other, although we didn't do any dog fighting manouevers. 

Little planes land funny, not the goose like "nose up" settle in like a big aircraft, more the "nose down straight at the runway" thing, or so it felt.  The metropolis of Loreto awaits.

Right now there's 8" of snow in northwest Calgary.

I can't wait to get my paws on the wheel... love these things.

Orientation. Note with people there for scale, those are some big tires, and that's a lotta squishy travel.

Westboud up into the mountains from Loreto.  These cars meander on the road, it's unsettling.  Then you get on dirt, and 85mph feels like they're tracking a razor line.

Little Mexican church town.

This is what happens when your co-driver takes you to the cactus.  This individual had a LOT of needles in him, took a good 20 mins of picking them out by several people, then he kept a tweezers handy for the rest of the trip. 

Sometimes bits fly in and stick.  This times a hundred is what happened above.

Polite drivers hit non pokey vegetation. 

The remanents of my foliage excursion.  The tracks we drive, as seen here, are only nominally wider than the cars.  Right before this stop, this was an 85mph (140km/h) straightaway, on that width.  140km/h is fast when passing on the TransCanada highway, now picture that with no windshied.  And with no space beyond the vehicle - no shoulder, no double lanes.  Also no pavement - this stop area is smooth, but back on the trail it's whoops with over a foot of relief.  For the most part in the whoops, there's two choices: slow down to a speed where the frequencies match, so the car just comfortably oscilates up and down... or pin it, get through the violence of the transition period, where the power is still coming on so the car "squats" at the back, letting the front end sit higher and float, which lets you get up to speed and just clip the top of all the whoops.  Sounds easy.  Trust me, from the first time I drove, to riding with others on their first outings, it is not the most natural feeling thing to do.  Anyway, sometimes you need a little more width to the road, so you "take the width" from the vegetation.  The road is like a normal distribution profile - spend most of your time on it, but little tails off to the side are gonna happen.  By the way, this stuff smelled great, like an Italian kitchen.

Oops.  Hitting softer vegetation is better.  The did a low speed flip actually.

I'm now co-pilot, and my driver decided to "get even" with me on the vegtation front.  I think it was this incident (and the pictured stick) that provided my left bicep with a manly looking Rambo scratch.  We didn't even slow down, I just had to start chucking stuff out.

This older tire flatted, don't recall hitting anything in particular.  Note the sidewall hole is big enough to put a foot through... so the air loss was pretty quick.

Baja has wild life.  We go fast.  The trails are narrow, so we don't see them/they don't see us.  This little birdie didn't make it.

Air intake for the positive pressure venting of fresh air to helmet, now with a certain mixture of feather, blood and guts.  Think about that for a second... all I know is everyone says you do not want to hit vultures.

Fresh burrito lunch by el Pacifico, in a wind that probably never dies down.

Died of cancer.  Rebuilt transmissions all his life.  Loved racing.  "The Waterfall" feature right outside La Paz.

This isn't the actual Hotel California, but it's a stone's throw away.  Todos Santos is the town.

Dead dolphin.

The group photo, I think only one guy missing.

Long story here, but this is the exit of a big sweeping S turn.  You can rally slide both of them.  I got a little high on the berm to the left in this pic, and a boulder rolled down.  The two cars after me hit the boulder, second impact with it resulted in a flip.  This blew through the deductible...

I don't usuary to sit that weird, but when I sat for the pic, something poked me.  I "skimmed" this cactus.

When the above mentioned rock and rear wheel came together, it was a bit of a jolt, resulting in a cracked weld and a flat.

Umm, that's gonna be a problem.

I've now purchased a new suspension linkage arm, maybe the old one can go as a towel rack in one of the bathrooms.

I was driving the first car they made.  It was recently rebuilt, the steering linkages were so nice and tight.

These guys can fix anything, fast.  A full engine swap in the dust takes 45 minutes.

Rim damage from the impact.

Mexican economics - Wide Open was worth it!