The previous day ended with no success at getting out of the sand. As you can imagine, our car didn't unstuck itself while we were sleeping, so we woke up to this:
Here is what happened after.
We had the usual breakfast.
It was around 8 a.m. I'd say. I feel like everybody wakes up a little bit later when they are camping.
Memo immediately started clearing the way behind the car. We were determined to get out of this sand. The only way we'd stay on schedule was for us to make it to Bahía de Los Angeles that same day.
As you can see, the sand there is pretty loose but underneath hides the denser level we can work with.
The day was promising.
Never skip on the beauty around you. Stop. Notice. Remember it. Through struggles, through difficult days and your own fears. Nature is magnificent. You do not need to be in good mood to notice that. In fact, when you're not feeling your best is exactly when you need it the most.
We removed a lot of sand from underneath the car in fear that it would eventually get even more stuck.
Then we began to stack big flat rocks under the back wheels to give it more traction.
We positioned our jack on the flattest rock we could find and lifted the back wheels one at a time.
Put the rocks underneath very carefully and added some strong (as strong as they get in a desert) sticks so that the wheel doesn't dig into the sand after it passes the rocks.
The little one was inventing all sorts of games for herself.
She was telling scary spider stories and chatting with us about a great variety of subjects.
The things were looking good.
I gave it the strongest push I could manage.
And we advanced a lot. But still weren't quite out.
Removed the rocks so the front wheels don't get stuck on them. Did the whole thing again.
Pushed it a few times, but nothing worked. What seems like steady packed sand became loose with the weight of the car.
We set up a time limit: if by 12 o'clock we were still stuck, my husband would go and look for help. At first, he did that. He went to the highway and checked off-line maps. Turns out, it's 15 km to a gas station in one direction and 8 km to a restaurant in the other. His first instinct was to hitchhike to the restaurant and ask for help there, but if you've ever been on the road, you'd know that people rarely let a man in their car in the middle of nowhere. In fact, they don't even think about stopping.
So we decided we'd go together. Worst case scenario we'd walk 8 km and reach our destination in an hour or two, best case - someone will stop and would either help us or at the very least give us a ride the restaurant.
The child was excited through the roof. And then got tired, but so what?
Always make note of the place where your car is. Not being able to find it would be such a bummer.
Long story short: we walked about 2.5 km. One car passed right by and didn't even slow down. Then two lovely Mexicans stopped to help. A father and his teenage son. I have no idea where they were going, but they took us back to our car, pushed it out of the sand and followed us all the way to the highway to make sure we get there. I could never thank people like this enough. My husband and I pulled over a couple of times on our trip to make sure people that appeared out of petrol don't need any help. And one man did seem very odd and untrustworthy, but he only asked for a bit of water. And the fulfilment from that was well worth it. Knowing that you have done all you can to help others - something you'd definitely want everybody to do when you are in need of help.
The change begins with you.
Finally, on the road again.
It wasn't always an easy road.
But it was fun.
Oh, and don't be alarmed if your GPS does this. Those roads are a mystery.
When you think, it couldn't get any more cartoony, it will.
This is the land, where all the stereotypes about Mexican terrain probably began.
But before you know it you'll hit the normal road that'll bring you straight to Bahía de Los Angeles.
You'll know when you're there. No chance of missing it.
We didn't get there as early as we wanted, so some quick decisions were made. We found a store. I might be wrong, but I think it's called La Isla. It's right after the roundabout. It's the biggest store we have been to in that town. They have all sorts of things, can give you access to a crapy Wi-Fi (20 MXN for half an hour or something like this), but it's really as good as it'll get in a town with no signal. They also can refill your drinkable water. We refilled it twice in Bahía de Los Angeles: one time from them and the other from a much smaller store that was kind of hidden and only had locals shopping there. Trust me, you don't want to be filling your water anywhere else but in that one big store. It's much more maintained because there are a lot of tourists shopping there. Also, the staff speaks English in case that is a factor for you.
Looking for a campground in the dark is never a good idea, so we went to a paid one. It's called Daggets Sportfishing. As the name suggests, it's the main purpose is to host fishing lovers. They rent boats from what I hear. They claim to have Wi-Fi, but it wasn't working when we were there. There are showers, which is the main reason we went there, but they were awful. Very cold tiny rooms where the wind gets in through the big gap between the wall and the roof. Water jumps from cold to hot and has a very low pressure. Probably, during summer you wouldn't run into this problem, but we went there in December.
Another downside for us was a ton of people. Some of you might not see having neighbours on both sides as a negative thing, but we enjoy open spaces and wilderness. Here you can hear people's conversations, the barking of their chihuahuas and smell a weird mixture of three different barbecues. It might be nice for some, but isn't quite our cup of tea.
It was a safe and quick one-night option for us and an opportunity to take a shower, but we left it in the morning in a search of better free campgrounds. And boy! did we find them.
Tune in next week to find out how the campsite actually looked and what we found after we left it.
This is it for today. Thank you for reading. Have a great day.
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