Two places on a map with 200 miles of petrol fueled excitement. One flat, and one inverted maneuver, and a few bushes that jumped out and entered the car were the incidents of the day, but other than that there were hours upon hours of 70+mph split second degrees of finesse to guide a 3,000lb machine along a 3m wide track, to the anthem of an open air engine revving at 3-6,000 rpm just behind your seat. Really that's all I can say, this is one of the funnest things going that I've come across (provided you're an aficionado of logging high speed split second judgment time and believe in roll cages). There's something to be said for peaking out on a rolling gravel road at 85mph where you're getting big air off the rollers... like "Holy shit" possibly...
Francesco (I drive with an evident Italian gene pool) Mele and I were co-drivers today. We exchanged fibre infusions, I brought a great thyme smelling tree into the car early in the day. He brought in an oak-ish tree complete with ants about an hour later. All in, we entertained each other from sunup to sundown, and it's funny how the worst of the impacts always happens on the co-pilot side. I view the road as a normal distribution curve - you want to spend most sigmas on the road, but a few 6 sigma tails off the side mean you're getting your money's worth. Frank got to drive the Waterfall, a famous feature just outside La Paz.
Got a few great pictures of what happens when a bird can't fly out of the way fast enough. The fresh air intake for the cooling (and helmet clean air system!) becomes full of feathers, blood and guts in a hurry. Gross!
I like to chase. Seriously. Possibly I'm not that evolved past hunting instinct; there's something about seeing the dust trail of your 30 second man ahead and closing in on the prey that consumes all focus. Love it! We tagged the 30 second guys then braked to let the gap re-open at least a dozen times today. Gained some experience driving in the dust trail which is what racing involves.
La Paz is the start of some 500 mile race tomorrow. There's a lot of machinery here that makes our cars look like children's toys. When you've got a one seater buggy, with over 2' of suspension travel, and a V8 that sets off car alarms in the parking lot when it revs with 500hp of un-catalytic convertered goodness, you know it's here for pretty serious business. I'm not even sure I'd want to get behind the wheel of one of those things. Ok, that's a lie. My self preservation instinct is a lower power than fleeting desire.
Dinner consisted of charcoal kissed mamals of many variety, and a few items of what food considers food. Mexico seems low on vegetation as a food group. Having said that, with the amount of lime and tequila available here, I don't think I'll ever get scurvy. Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever gone to bed sober in Mexico. It's part of a flare for customer service and national economics rolled into one - a gringo without a cervesa or margarita is between $1 and $4 of lost US dollar hard currency acquisition opportunity. With drug trafficker battles claiming media time, the tourist industry needs to pitch in with those who still come... and those who do are taken care of. "The Jungle" was our watering hole of choice, and its selection of 80's rock and cheap beer put the Back Alley to shame in the most serious way. I don't think Mexico has noise rules or happy hour time rules or anything of that nature, which is a competitive advantage for the night scene. The picture attached is the wall you stare at when entering the washroom for a bit of character feel.
Ps. Crash helmets, 5 point harnesses and steel roll cages are almost perfectly positively correlated to pure awesome times, even if Martha Stewart doesn't agree. The dune buggies don't have any armchair doileys.
Pps. Did I mention yet that it's like I've died and gone to heaven?
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