Car Trouble

The bay where we stayed

After spending one week in the dessert, we were in need of civilization, proper food, a shower, internet and so on. In the McDonalds at Fernley, the closest town to Black Rock City, we heard a girl say: “I am so happy to see ice again!”. I could relate 100 percent to that! It felt awesome to be back in the real world. We spend the first day cleansing the car. That dust was everywhere, and wasn’t that easy to remove. Water doesn’t do the trick. What it needs is a good wash with vinegar to get the playa dust of. Unfortunately, the Burning Man wasn’t such a good experience for the car as it was for ourselves. The noises got louder and weirder. We decided to let a mechanic have a look at it. And that’s what we basically did, after we spend our first days chilling literally the whole day at Starbucks. It is remarkable how good that felt after spending one week in the dessert.

At Carson City we let a mechanic take a look at our Ford Explorer. The repair of it would cost up to 2000 dollar, which basically is enough money to buy a new car. So we decided not to repair it and try our luck, heading towards Mexico. The repair is probably cheaper in Mexico anyways. The next days were all pretty much alike. During the day I had to work on an assignment for the university and by night we tried driving. The steering got worse every minute, the howling as well as the whistling did their part in the annoying noise orchestra and sometimes, if we got lucky, the car started to smell like burned rubber. Once, we had to pull off the highway after only 15 minutes. It was incredible demotivating. Even the original plan, visiting San Francisco, became victim to the spontaneous fluctuations of the car, so we decided to head straight to Mexico.

On the 12^th of September we finally arrived at the border. Entering Mexico turns out to be quite easy. So easy that we did not even got a “tourist card”. In Tijuana, we then realized that the only place where you normally get this certificate was closed. Now it gets ridiculous. To get this piece of paper, we had to go back to the states and reenter Mexico, on foot. We waited in the “USA-entering” line for several hours. Sometimes there wasn’t even an officer at the counter for foreigner line. They just ignored that fact for nearly an hour. Both country’s seemingly played a game of incompetency against each other and so far they were both winning.

After this nerve racking procedure we left the border city, heading for a backpacker hostel. Ian and his daughter Molly are running this place. With a direct view on the beach we had the entire third floor of the house for ourselves, including a huge porch.

blue house = hostel

finally in the sea after nearly a year

view from our porch

Ian referred us to a “bush” mechanic named Poncho, who has his “garage” in the village “La Misión”, a ten minute drive from the hostel. He wasn’t able to speak English, so we could only translate through Ian.

the perfect chaos

In the end he was able to get a new differential from his brother and fixed the car for 150 dollars (in the states it would have cost nearly 2000). However, we didn’t get far after we tried hitting the road again. The car ran hot and we had to stop at the side of the road. A towing truck brought us back to La Misión, where we parked the car in the backyard of the guy that owns a tire change shop.

We figured that we needed new tires, so the differential can run smoothly. A guy we met at the beach took us to a “cousin” of him to Ensenada. We ended up buying four brand new tires due to the popularity of huge tires in this country. Even though it was quite cheap compared to the prices in the states, I had a bad feeling investing that much money in the car, especially not knowing whether Poncho did a proper job. After the tires were put on the Mexican way, we made a test drive – still running hot.

tire change

Poncho took another look at and after another day of work it was finally good to go. In totally we spend one whole week at the hostel. All the problems and uncertainties with the car were quite annoying, but I had still a good time. Admittedly, there was nothing much to do but we had a few interesting encounters, especially because the hostel also offered “ibogain-treatment” to addicts. A patient stayed there for a couple of days giving quite interesting insights in his situation. We also went with Molly on the mountain, to track and watch a herd of wild horses.

Brum Brum

old pig slaughter house

It wasn’t the most exciting time, but nevertheless quite helpful as well as instructive. Often on travels you just pass through city`s or villages, not really getting any insights in the day to day live. Our involuntary long stay gave us plenty of those possibilities. Especially, the small, authentic village “La Missión” was worth the while.

store with the most random sortiment ever

the electricity pylons always made a calming sound

Our last mission before heading towards the east part of the Baja California was a trip to the “quicksand-city” Tijuana. We said our goodbyes to the hostel crew as well as my good friend Victor. At Tijuana we needed an import permit for our car, which we require when we take the ferry to the mainland of Mexico. Neither in the internet, nor at other government establishments there was any information about the permit or even the place where to get it. In the end, it took us 7 hours to get through to the office. 7 nerve wrecking hours. There are literally no words for the bureaucratic “system” of Mexico.

Right now we are in La Paz and booked a ferry for this evening, which will take us to the mainland of Mexico. We only have five days left to get to Mexico City, where my return flight to Germany depart on Tuesday.

In my next post I will describe the more beautiful parts of the Baja California.

Cheers for reading!

Vince