An adventure! Our trusty 4 wheel drive Toyota pickup has always been miraculous when it comes to reliability and it is the perfect Baja vehicle for such outings. So we headed across town just a bit before la puesta del sol.
I’m still new to the off road scene, and truthfully I still get a little squeamish. For some reason I would rather be outside the vehicle watching some (to my mind) questionable maneuver than inside. Crazy, I know, but I do. So I got out of the truck at the beach ‘to check the softness of the sand’. It felt pretty dicey to me, but we already know I can be a chicken.
So Robert took off across the beach and then stopped to let me back in the truck. That’s when the vehicle started to sink. Try as he might it just kept digging deeper and deeper. Luckily we had brought a big shovel and since we were in 4 wheel drive we knew that it was going to come out eventually. Something told me I should check the hubs to be sure it really was in 4 wheel, and I did, but I only checked one hub…..
The sun was rapidly approaching the horizon, and we were buried up to the rear axle, so as Robert furiously kept digging I began collecting rocks and shrubs to put under the tires, anything to get a surface to grip. There was no one else in sight, and we both silently thought it’d be really great if we had help. And we kept digging.
At this rate we knew we’d be there until at least an hour or 2 after dark. I wasn’t too worried about the tide catching us, just the darkness. And I questioned myself, ‘Why do I feel fear? After all, it’s nothing more than adventure, a change of plans, something new to experience!’ With breath I let go of the old conditioning that said unplanned things must be feared, and began to enjoy finding the perfect rocks for the extraction.
About 5 minutes later, over the sand dune leading to the beach, a big blue truck filled with Mexicans pulled up, 2 in the cab, 4 in the back. They must have come to watch the sunset too, we thought. The 4 in back jumped out and ran to the water; the 2 in front offered assistance. Luckily we had a tow strap and were able to hook onto their vehicle and lickity split we were out! How grateful we were!
One guy knew a little bit of English and was having a wonderful time speaking it. We profusely offered all our Spanish thanks and they all piled back into the truck to head home. Seems they must have seen us from town and drove over just to help us out!
Then Robert noticed that one of the hubs – the one I had not checked – had slipped out of 4 wheel drive. No wonder we weren’t able to drive across the beach! He began to question how that had happened – in Spanish – and with great flourish, our multi lingual benefactor placed his hand on my shoulder, and solemnly said, in perfect English, “Shit happens.”
A huge grin broke out across his face and we all started laughing. Moments later we too drove off, thankful for the kindness of strangers and appreciative of the adventure we had just created.
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