Vagabond Tales: Racing In The Baja 500 … In A Volvo Station Wagon

by Kyle Ellison on

One of the world’s most well-known and revered off-road racing events, the Baja 500 runs for approximately 440 miles through the deserts of Mexico’s Baja peninsula. Why it isn’t called the Baja 440 I don’t know, but then again, I just write on these sorts of things, not organize them.

A loop-course beginning and ending in the city of Ensenada, thousands of race participants and accompanying pit crews descend on the peninsula each June for a chance at calling themselves the fastest and dirtiest desert dogs on the entire peninsula. Over the course of the 42-year-old event some really big names with some really big money have gotten involved. Red Bull, Ford, Ducati – those sorts of guys.

The cash prizes can number over $300,000. There have been races with over 100,000 spectators. In case my point isn’t being made – this race is a big freaking deal.

With divisions ranging from motorcycles to trucks to ATV’s, professional teams backed with professional money descend on northern Baja towing trailers full of spare tires and some insanely rugged rides.

Surfers, on the other hand, do not usually drive tricked out off-road vehicles backed by thousands of dollars of corporate sponsorships. They drive whatever they can find. True, a lot of Baja surfers will invest in a sturdy 4×4 desert vehicle that has some high clearance and can power through the infamous Mexican moon dust, but nothing that can plow through 440 miles of dirt road washboard in 12 hours or less.

This is why it was so strange to find myself amongst a thunderous cloud of rally cars racing in the Baja 500 in a Volvo station wagon better suited for suburbia.Fresh off of a surf pilgrimage to southern Baja’s Scorpion Bay, our haggard troupe of Tecate-swilling, wave-hunting twenty-somethings opted to camp out for the night on a stretch of Baja coastline popular with American surfers. Not far from the fabled breaks of Punta Cabra and Punta San Jose, unbeknownst to us this stretch of coastline was also situated on the racecourse of the Baja 500.

And, of course, as it would just so happen, we found ourselves there on race day.

Strapped down with surfboards and sporting a clearance best suited for navigating suburban speedbumps, the silver Volvo station wagon was a far cry from your usual Baja vehicle. Laden with empty beer cans and with windows obscured by clouds of Mexican dirt, I haphazardly navigated the Volvo towards that night’s intended camp spot along the Pacific coast.

Driving due west late in the afternoon into a fiery and exceptionally bright sunset, the fourth-inch cloud of dust which had accumulated on the windshield reduced visibility to virtually zero.

In a move pulled directly out of the pages of “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective,” I strained to keep my right foot on the gas pedal while arching my head and neck out of driver’s side window in an effort to navigate the Volvo sans the use of the windshield. With a top speed of no more than 20 mph, this wasn’t exactly a NASCAR level performance.

Head now arched out the window with the grace of a slightly inebriated ostrich, it was during this time that we first became aware of the crowds of people beginning to populate the rural dirt road.

“Sure are a lot of people randomly standing on the road,” we deftly noticed. “Maybe there is some sort of festival going on.”

Although the Baja 500 draws tens of thousands of spectators and is staffed by hordes of support and pit crews, the rural stretch of road we happened to find ourselves upon wasn’t exactly close to either. Most of the spectators were gathering at the finish line towards Ensenada, and all of the pit crews were waiting at the nearest highway intersection.

Here on this stretch of rural coastline, however, there was only the race course, some local spectators and some unfathomably naive and unlucky surfers who were unknowingly driving down the main thoroughfare of the Baja 500 in an unbelievably pedestrian station wagon.

The scene was officially set for disaster.

As I navigated the Volvo with my head out the window there were an increased number of shouts coming in our direction.

“Cuidado!” shouted a Mexican woman in a flowing floral skirt. “Muevate!” demanded another, who simultaneously was operating a tamale stand for hungry residents and spectators.

Still monumentally aloof as to what was happening (having been in Mexico for two weeks and not having seen any pit crews, we were still utterly unaware that the Baja 500 was even happening), it came as a curious surprise as to why the local people were so hellbent on telling us to be careful driving and demanding that we pull off to the side of the road.

Intrigued but undeterred, I continued to navigate the Volvo around the dirt potholes and patches of dry sand with my head craned out the window in the hopes of reaching the campsite before nightfall.

That’s when the first Honda dirt bike came ripping from behind and passed within about three feet from my head.

Before the shock of the near-accident could even be analyzed, a tricked-out dunebuggy swerved around us to the left and enveloped the Volvo in a cloud of dust.

Between the flashing headlights in the rearview mirror and the chaotic screams of the spectators being chanted in our direction, the reality that something was entirely amiss was quickly becoming apparent.

Finally, the absurdity of the situation caught up with us.

“Oh my God,” offered my friend Jason. “We’re on the race course for the Baja 500. We’re in the middle of the race!”

The realization, however, was too little too late.

With local Mexicans screaming and the sound of mufflers resonating through the air the lead pack of trucks, motorcycles, dune buggies and ATV’s all started to swarm around our vehicle. There is big money in this race, and these racers would be damned if a poorly situated surfer’s station wagon would get in the way of their race progress.

With hearts racing and clouds of dust swirling amidst the vehicle, the option of pulling off on the side of the road had long since disappeared. Stopping entirely would likewise be a poor decision as it would make us a sitting duck for a rear-end, high-speed crash.

“Go!” the drunken passengers in the backseat would scream. “Drive! Drive! Holy…”

The off-road vehicles enveloped us with a vengeance as my foot depressed the Volvo to as fast as it could handle. Forward was seemingly our only option and there was literally no turning back.

The next seven to ten minutes were spent with me driving with my head out the side of a Volvo unable to see if there were little children crossing the road in front of us and getting honked at and flashed at by professional off-road drivers while hoping that we didn’t simply slam into the side of a hugely lifted truck.

With the red and orange sun slowly dipping below the Pacific horizon, the only thing left to do was simply hold on and pray.

Ten months later we would crash the Volvo into a stationary rock in southern Baja and be stranded in the middle of the desert with no cash, too many beers, and be forced to pay off both mechanics and the local military with old copies of nudist magazines.

That, however, is a different Vagabond Tale for a decidedly different time…

Want more travel stories? Read the rest of the “Vagabond Tales“ over here.

Vagabond Tales: The lure of Baja’s Scorpion Bay

by Kyle Ellison on

“Rich man or poor, surf star or surf bum, Baja all equally humbles us. Baja does not care.” -Anonymous-

From the dusty confines of an open air Mexican cantina, a sunburnt American man gnawing on a $4 breakfast burrito managed to ruin my day in a single breath.

“It’s been surfable every day until you got here” he smugly mused, a dribble of hot sauce inching down his chin.

We had just driven 20 hours through the desert, and we’d gotten completely skunked. We knew the outlook wasn’t looking great, but completely flat and unrideable wasn’t the end result we were anticipating.

In fact, before we undertook the arduous and systematic task of loading up the caravan back north of the border with gallons of water, camping equipment, emergency medical and mechanical supplies, cases of Tecate, and all other Baja desert essentials, we knew the surf was only going to be about knee high at best.

The models were showing an outside chance a swell might still develop, however, and we decided to roll the dice anyway and make the bone-jarring haul through the Mexican desert.

Apparently, we had failed.

Such is the lure of Scorpion Bay, Mexico, however. A well-known spot on any surfer’s lifetime or annual checklist, dedicated wave-hunters continue to make the pilgrimage through the desert to the sleepy little fishing village of San Juanico for a shot at what many deem to be the perfect wave.

Whether it’s offering up ankle biters or overhead, the wave at Scorpion Bay can be appreciated and experienced equally by everyone from full time professionals down to the regular guy just searching for a taste of endless desert perfection.

Notoriously a fickle wave prone to long flat spells, the gamble always hangs in the air as to whether or not to gamble on the journey, knowing that if you stay home, it could mean missing that connection from 3rd point all the way into town. Experience, however, tells you that realistically it probably won’t play out that way.

It’s that slight percentage, however, that constantly keeps people coming back.”It’s a drug” claims another palapa dweller I later encounter sipping a Pacifico in the cantina.

“Even though you know you shouldn’t come down, you get a taste of it, and it’s all you can do to get back here. It completely consumes you.”

According to Sean Collins, founder of the hyper-successful surf forecasting website Surfline, “if you get it once you’ll never forget it…she’ll play games with you and will drive you to insanity.”

One of the first accounts of the wave being surfed is by Collins himself in November 1969 while delivering a boat back up the coast. In those days people surfing the spot off of boats being delivered were few and far between, leaving many sessions to be spent completely solo.

“When surfing Scorps by yourself the hardest thing to do is to force yourself to paddle all the way outside and to not take any waves on the way out” claims Collins.

“You may paddle over 10 perfect waves that just barrel and spit without a single section. But if a surfer ever gets the opportunity to be out there solo, remember that it’s such a long wave you need to pace yourself and ride each wave to the maximum of your ability from the beginning to the end. Anything less seems like such a waste of such a perfect wave and may be better to leave it natural and unridden.”

On a recent trip I met a man who had ridden a bicycle for two weeks through the desert from the city of Tecate back on the border just for the chance to get back to San Juanico. Stashing a board the year before and camping solo along the way, the effort could only be respected, unquestioned, and understood by all there to witness the arrival.

One construction worker from San Diego once claimed that he was due back in traffic court in three days but had decided to skip court, pay the $700 fine, and catch the next swell, because according to him, if he caught enough waves to knock it down to about $10 per wave, then the whole mission was worth it.

So was our Mexican mission an absolute bust? Absolutely not.

When the surf finally bumped up to waist high late in the trip, even being able to ride the wave at such small levels erased any doubts of our making the journey down the coast.

As Collins so eloquently waxed in a past interview, “a single wave can make the whole trip worth it. One single wave. For all the planning, the travel, the camping in the dirt, the wind, bugs, flies, bad crowd, super inconsistent swell, etc. But if you get that one wave, and you’ll never forget that one wave, what’s it worth?”

Read more of the Vagabond Tales here.

5 classic Baja outposts

by Kyle Ellison on

Given the recent violence in Mexico, the number of Americans traveling to Baja has taken a precipitous fall. Prior to the reign of the narcotraficantes who are wreaking havoc on so many of the country’s border zones, the Baja peninsula was the ultimate playground for rogue surfers, story-swapping fisherman, and grease covered, offroading desert dogs.

Even with the violence, many Americans are still choosing to venture down the peninsula, despite a handful of highly publicized attacks against Baja surfers. I know, because I am one of them. Sure, Mexico is in the news a lot, but this is Baja. It’s different. Life is good down here. Then the authorities went and discovered the largest marijuana plantation on record smack in the middle of the Baja desert in a place I have driven by 20 times in the last five years.

Whoops.

While times may be changing and the future of Baja travel is uncertain, the fact remains that Baja remains one of the most pristine desert hideouts this side of the Sahara, and the places listed below are just as beautiful as before the border violence began.

Hence a list of 5 classic Baja outposts, their desolate shores waiting for someone to pull up a truck, crack open a Pacifico, and worry about nothing at all.
1. Bahia de San Luis Gonzaga

For decades, difficult desert access has kept this fishing village on the Sea of Cortez removed and isolated from the over development that plagues its northern neighbor, San Felipe. All of that is set to change however with the construction of the paved highway that has slowly been creeping its way south towards Bahia Gonzaga for years.

Prior to the paved highway, the only roads into the turquoise bay in the desert were the shock destroying washboard road that runs along the coast past Puertecitos, and the unpaved mountain pass that’s home to Coco’s Corner, an eccentric compound in the middle of nowhere that’s largely constructed out of aluminum cans and spare parts by a welcoming double amputee named Coco. It can get lonely in these parts.


2. Bahia de Los Angeles

Located 400 miles south of the border on the placid Sea of Cortez, Bahia de Los Angeles is better known for what’s found in the water than what’s found on land. A classic outpost for dorado fisherman, the waters of Bahia de Los Angeles are also part of the Bahia de Los Angeles Biosphere Reserve, which at over 950,000 acres is home to the much sought after and elusive whale shark, nature’s largest fish.

Offshore, 360 sq. mile Isla de La Guarda provides protection from the rougher waters of the Sea of Cortez, making the entire bay a haven for sun seeking sea kayakers who have little on the itinerary outside of mirror calm waters and the fish tacos back on shore.


3. San Juanico

Known to surfers as “Scorpion Bay“, the fishing village of San Juanico has been drawing wave-seekers ever since Surfline founder Sean Collins allegedly first surfed the spot in 1969.
Regarded as one of the longest waves in the world, conversations at the campground cantina frequently oscillate between current road conditions and who’s had the longest ride of the summer.

Given the remote nature of San Juanico, half of the adventure is found in the journey. While approachable from the south and east, most visitors from north of the border opt to traverse a 112 mile dirt road that runs through vast salt flats and car-swallowing moondust on what many consider to be one of the worst roads in Baja. But oh the rewards once you get there…


4. Playa Santispac

One of the pearls of Bahia Concepcion, Playa Santispac is the type of place where you sleep under the stars, watch the sunrise over the water, and have a breakfast of tamales from the guy selling them out of the back of his truck. A longtime haven for sailboats cruising north from La Paz, the aqua waters of Bahia Concepcion provide a sandy anchorage for boaters, while the dozens of beaches within the bay provide ample camping and swimming opportunities.


5. El Socorro

A little visited seaside community on the northern Pacific coast, El Socorro is set at the base of some of the largest sand dunes found anywhere on the peninsula. Camped out at the base of the dunes directly along the shoreline, on many mornings the receding tide will expose the offshore reef and lure what seems to be the entire village to harvest bucketfuls of clams.

El Socorro is also a popular spot for surfers in the winter months when strong Pacific storms send waves towards the reefs set just off of the sand dunes. It’s a long way from here for any real supplies, so pack well, plan ahead, be safe, and lose yourself in the Baja we will all forever love.