Driving Baja – Many Helping Hands
Baja Is for Everyone Essay Entry
Rod Rosser
Many Helping Hands Save the Day
Three vehicles left Panama City Beach Fl headed to Cabo pulling a 34 ft boat 1 RV 1 box trailer 1 van & 1 pickup truck: Taking our boat to Cabo to start a new business venture. Crossed into Tijuana, south cross the peninsula to Santa Rosalia, most beautiful country in the world, made it to Cabo, dropped the boat off, spent 4 days there left to drive back. The pickup pulled the trailer & the RV had nothing to pull back. Left van & boat in Cabo with Captain.
This where the story begins:
We were passing thru Santa Rosalia on Sea of Cortez about dark headed north, crossing the vast land & winding road of the highway about 11PM or couple hundred miles from Santa Rosalia the pickup had got way behind us a few miles, how that happened we can't figure out.
We stopped in the dark to listen for any vehicle in the distance, but no sound, we decided to turn around but there are not many places to do that on that stretch of road. we topped a hill & there was a spot, we backed the RV around & pulled up then backed again pulled up backed again & got exactly sideways on the road on a blind hilltop, no vision of traffic, BAM we backed into a rock underneath & mud under the tires. we were stuck halfway across the yellow line, rear end in the mud on a rock, we looked like Robin Williams in movie RV.
We were stuck big time. we tried to keep from panicking, but the thought of us stuck in Mexico, we know no spanish, we have no flashlite that worked. There were me my wife Todd & angel & Angels dog(Cilia) what do we do. My wife Barbara jumped out ran north with her cell phone light I Rod ran south with mine. we were going to stop traffic before we got hit, with cell phone lights. Todd opened the lower hatches for light & we were all alone in the wilderness, scared to death. In the distance we saw a vehicle coming, the wife flagged it down, they were old man & old woman, bless there heart, they were no help, we gave them a coke, they could not pass, we had the entire highway blocked from Tijuana to Cabo.
A couple more showed up, but no help, we felt very lost not being able to speak the language: Crowd was gathering, but no help> About 30 min passed, Out of the blue an old school bus full of mexican workers pulled up, We thought we are either dead or have help,It was a bus full of Angels: about 30-40 workers pilled off the bus. Talking laughing pointing, & 1 spoke english, (thank God). They pushed pulled crawled under, blocked up tires, rocked the bus, & finally we were hooked up with a truck to help pull, & we were free, they felt like they had accomplished the greatest task of their life. we passed out cokes, bottle water, gave them about $100. had food out, turned it into a big mexican fiesta, Once we were gone, we felt good about the kindness of the people, Next morning we took pictures of the RV it had hand prints all over it, we left them on to show our friends in Florida. everyone said we were crazy for doing it, but I would do it again, & I,m sure we will. We crossed at Tecate & headed home with plenty of Baja Memories.
We have a 45 min video of trip highlights. It is awesome to see: Thanks Rod P.S. I'm new the Bajainsider online Thanks for the publication.