12:38am and somewhere on the edge of Ensenada. We’ve been driving since about 9 with a little stop along the way to meet up with Josh and Jim from Wide Open. We are caravanning down to the ranch with the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack and Queen blasting. We’re in Tara’s 1994 Itasca Sunrise. Pretty rad RV but not exactly a slick road machine. Tara’s handling it like a champ as we grip the road precariously tottering dangerously close to the abrupt edges, the road suddenly jogging left due to construction, then cruising right less then a mile later.
We got word a little earlier that Glen Plake is already down south waiting for us. Our crew currently consists of Tara, Andy, Chef John, our new addition to the film crew – Nick and Josh, Melissa and Jim.
Ahead of us are Tara Bell and Brendon McQueen, two other members of our film crew. They are with Gustavo Vildosa’s team who is driving a Red Bull trophy truck. They hooked up with Tavo this morning in the desert and witnessed a little trophy truck training first hand. This entailed driving 120 miles an hour through the desert in hot pursuit of Tavo.
As we creep closer to the Ranch the music gets louder, the adrenaline is coursing in spite of the fact that we’re all a little tired. Andy just made a scary joke. “You can call us Samosonite cause we have such a good handle on things.” Oy vey. I don’t want to laugh but I am so tired I can’t help but laugh a little.
Baja feels very different then California yet we are only about 3 hours from Oceanside. The air is dirtier. You can smell burning trash and bad sewers everywhere. On one hand we’re excited to be here, but the intensity of it all was felt from the moment we crossed the border and the tall imposing walls lined the side of the road. You can’t help but notice that you feel like you are on the wrong side of the wall. The poverty of TJ seems to get worse and worse every time I travel south and all of the negative news about the druglords running Mexico isn’t helping the economy. Between Swine Flu and the Drug cartel it’s no wonder American’s are so freaked about traveling south. According to Jim two days before we headed into Mexico the US government added Mexico to the list as one of the most dangerous places to travel to right now. But here we are anyway. The Ranch is just a few miles in front of us and the first day of our journey has begun…
