A Mexican Odyssey

On July 4, Pedro, the official Cariboo Skies surf buggy (an '86 Nissan four wheel drive pickup with canopy), and Yours Truly started heading south. Two thousand, five hundred miles later the two of us arrived at our destination deep in the south of Mexico - a little village called Santa Elena, 25 minutes south of the Mexican Pipeline at Puerto Escondido, which is about 250 miles south of Acapulco.

The trip ended well, but was not without incident. Having previously explored the west coast of the U.S. in the distant past, I decided to see what the interior route was like, and planned a path through eastern Washington, Idaho, Nevada and Arizona. Eastern Washington was beautiful, and so was northern Idaho. But by the time I hit Boise, the temperature was over 100 degrees. Just my luck to be driving a non air-conditioned truck during a heat wave. Up in the high desert of Nevada, things got worse. Local radio stations were reporting temperatures of 116 degrees, and telling people not to go outdoors. I had a cooler full of ice water on the floor beside me, and every few minutes would pour some over my head as I was driving... and I still got a bad case of heat stroke. I felt terrible, but figured if I could just make it to Vegas, I would pull into the first motel I saw and jump into their pool, and just stay there until I felt better. I was sure there must be a million motels on the outskirts of Vegas, and they would all, naturally, have pools. Well, believe it or not, I did not see one motel (with or without a pool), and before I knew it, I was in downtown Las Vegas, stuck in bumber to bumber gridlock traffic, and the temperature was 120 degrees in the shade.

I felt like I was in Dante's Inferno. I was almost out of ice water and felt like I was on the verge of losing consciousness. I just wanted to get the hell away from there, and followed any sign that pointed south. If I was able to find my way out of town there was sure to be some motels, and I would finally be able to jump in a pool. Finally, after miles and miles and miles of freeways, overpasses, underpasses, on-ramps and off-ramps, there it was! A motel! I pull in, stagger into the lobby, and asked where the pool was, only to be told their pool was closed for maintenance, and no, they didn't know of any other pools nearby. I couldn't believe it! But at least they were able to replenish my supply of ice.

I was all the way into Arizona before I found a motel with a pool, on one of the last remaining original pieces of the famous route 66, not that I was in any shape to enjoy the historical perspective of the moment. The next day was just as bad. The air was so hot I couldn't keep my driver's side window open, because it was like a blast furnace blowing right in my face. What an ordeal! Finally I reach the Mexico border at Nogales, and as soon as I crossed into Mexico, the temperature seemed to drop 20 degrees. Don't ask me why. Maybe there is a God, after all, and He lives in Mexico.

A couple of hours into Mexico, and it was starting to get dark. I was exhausted, and found a wide pull-out area beside the road, and climbed into the back of the truck to try and get some sleep. No sooner had I closed the back of the canopy then the most horrendous thunder and lightning storm I've ever seen descended on me. The rain pounding on the roof of the truck was so intense it was almost louder than the thunder, which literally shook the ground. The wind was so strong I could feel it lifting the truck, and a couple of times it felt like it was going to blow the truck right over. There were lightning strikes that cracked so close and so loud they deafened me for seconds afterward, and I was glad to be in a truck with rubber tires. It was, in a word, terrifying. But I was so completely spent from the heat of the last two days, that even right in the middle of all the deafening noise and mayhem, I somehow managed to start to fall asleep.

Then, just as I felt the comforting arms of slumber embracing me, something, or somebody hit the side of the truck - hard - right beside my head! I immediately sat up, and saw a pair of bright headlights shining in the windows, and the shadow of a man walk past the side of the canopy. Without even thinking, I shouted "Hey!" in my most manly and intimidating voice, and popped open the back of the canopy. And standing there, with the rain pouring down on him, the wind howling and the thunder and lightning crashing all around him, was the biggest, nastiest Mexican I have ever seen. And in his hands was one of the biggest, nastiest shotguns I had ever seen! It wasn't pointed directly at me, it was angled slightly towards the ground, but I swear his finger was on the trigger, and he looked ready to use it at a moment's notice. We stared at each other for a second, and out of the corners of my eyes I could see the forms of three or four others moving around the truck in the darkness. Then he screamed something in Spanish that sounded a lot like "What the hell are you doing here?" There was no sign of any uniforms or badges. Squinting in the glare of the headlights and trying not to look at the shotgun, I blurted out that I was just sleeping. He moved forward, poked his head inside the canopy, glanced around for a couple of seconds and then he smiled at me, and in perfect English, said, "Okay, my friend, no problem." Then he and his cohorts piled back into their vehicle and sped off as if they were being chased by the hounds of hell. Or perhaps they were the hounds of hell. Needless to say, I didn't get much more sleep that night, and as soon as it was light enough to see, I got away from there as quickly as possible.

And that was just the beginning. But the rest of the stories will have to wait for another time. It took me nine days and two transmissions, but I finally made it to my destination. And the property I had scouted out last year as a potential new home for the Cariboo Skies Observatory was even more perfect than I remembered. Out in the country where the skies are dark, and a man can study the stars all night long without freezing the brass off his monkey. And when work is over, it's surf time. The following photos were taken from the beach right in front of the new observatory site.

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