Wednesday, 29 December 2010

Chuck and I arrived at the rendezvous spot at around 7:45, 15 minutes ahead of schedule.  Mindy and Brad were already there.  They had just come from Brian and Marisa’s and reported that they were nearly ready to go and should arrive shortly.  I went in to Fry’s really quick to use the restroom and when I came out Chris and Wes had arrived.  Chuck then said he got a text from Marisa and they kept forgetting things and hadn’t left yet.  It was almost 8:30 by the time Brian and Marisa showed up (even though Marisa picked the time and place of the rendezvous), and they still had to go in to get a few supplies for the trip.  It was around 8:45 before we were actually all rolling towards Mexico.  Both Chuck and I, while annoyed at getting a late start, were still both actually surprised Brian and Marisa weren’t even later than they had been.  We kind of considered being only 45 minutes late rather good.

The drive to Nogales went smoothly, though for some reason Brian passed us near the end of that leg of the journey.  When we got to the gas station Brian said something about Chuck (who had been leading the group) driving like a grandma.  Despite Brian passing us and going faster, he hadn’t even come to a complete stop at the pump before we pulled in behind him.  His extra speed sure did him a lot of good!  Brian soon discovered that the gas station we’d stopped at didn’t have diesel, but instead of immediately going to another gas station for diesel, they stayed there until all of the rest of us were almost done fueling up.  We then had to go and wait for him to fuel up and the next gas station up the road.  More wasted time.

Once rolling again, we crossed the border without any problems and proceeded down to the immigration office at km 21.  There wasn’t much of a line at immigration and we left there after about 30-40 minutes.  When going through the immigration check, Brian got forced back for some reason.  Since the bonehead sold his 2-meter radio with his old Jeep and didn’t have a way to communicate with the rest of us, Chris and Wes had to go back to figure out what was going on.  It turned out that because Brian had their motorcycles on his truck, he had to get a temporary vehicle importation permit for his truck.  More than 45 minutes later, we were finally on the road again.  More delays.

We stopped for gas in Hermosillo, which somehow managed to take more than 20 minutes, and during which Marisa managed to lose 500 pesos, killing more time in looking for it.  We then still had to find a store so that some of the group could get tortillas and alcohol, resulting in another ridiculously long stop of about 40 minutes.  Apparently the alcohol selection at the supermarket wasn’t up to everyone’s standards and it took a while for them to decide what to get.  At each of these stops, Chuck and I got the pleasure of just standing around a parking lot waiting for everyone, thinking that we could have been on the beach by now.

We finally hit the dirt road that goes out to Playa Himalaya and Chuck stopped to gather the group.  Brian knew he was going to have to go slow because he wasn’t sure how well his home made motorbike carrier would hold up on the dirt road.  Because Chuck is a nice guy and wanted Chris to be happy, he told Chris he should set up his GPS/laptop combination to record our dirt road trip to the beach, despite it not exactly being a terribly challenging route.  That allowed Brian to get way ahead of us, and by the time we caught up to him he was on the narrow part of the road where we could only pass him if he actually pulled off to the side of the road to let us by.

Brian being Brian (kind of a jerk who doesn’t realize that his “jokes” aren’t even amusing and not knowing when to let them go), he refused to let us go by him until we were within site of camp, just as the sun was about to set.  When he pulled over we slowed down as we went by to make sure everything was fine (thinking that maybe he noticed something wrong with his motorcycle c carrier) and he said, “I’m just done f’ing with you.”  Chuck and I were pissed, but said nothing and just sped off, hoping our reaction would let him know that he was being a total jerk.

Chuck raced ahead so we could try to get to the beach before the sun set.  He got us there just in time.  And the sunset was beautiful.  We vowed to spend the rest of our time in Mexico basically trying to avoid having to do anything that relied upon (or even heavily involved) Brian and Marisa. 

All of the delays meant we had to set up camp in the dark.  It took us 9 hours to make a drive that should have only taken 6 1/2 to 7 hours.  It was cool and windy tonight but it was pretty nice by the fire we had going.

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