FREE CAMPING & TROUBLE in BAJA CALIFORNIA // Hasta Alaska // S04E08

Busted. Busted. Eating fruit loops with your pants half down in the Kombi. This is what you do in your private time isn't it? You come in the Kombi. I got distracted. Pull your pants half down and start eating fruit loops. It's real life. Don't forget to subscribe amigos. Last time on Astra Alaska we made some new friends in Baja and got seriously fishy. We learned how to catch and prepare octopus and created some of our favorite memories in Mexico. Let's go exploring. As we headed further south the tourist population increased significantly but there's still plenty of Baja to go around if you know where to look. The eastern side of the Baja California peninsula is truly beautiful. In contrary to the pacific the sea of Cortez offers calm crystal clear water. It's a place where you're more likely to see goats than tourists roaming the hills and where the locals are extremely friendly. Baja California just gets more and more beautiful. We just pulled off the road looking for a quiet place to sleep and looks like we've scored again. This time a national marine reserve. It's got the most amazing sky. There's fish jumping out of the water everywhere. Beautiful islands. Just huge rocks climbing out of the ocean in front of us. Alaska are you working on dinner? Put the kettle on. Yeah. Not for the first time another spontaneous decision to check out a seldom used road rewarded us with off-grid gold. We decided to stay here for a few days to catch up with some work. Good morning from the combi. Absolutely beautiful morning out today. This is what we get to wake up to. They didn't have fish but they have clams so we can go fishing. Sweet. Yeah or eat some too if we want. I usually have better success when I eat the bait rather than you feed it to the fish. Maybe we keep a couple for the fish. That's very nice of them. Yeah that's nice of them. Now it's all in our own hands whether we starve on this remote beach or if we survive. Really? It's life or death here in the combi. So Tara back at camp how did the fishing go? Oh not very successful today at all. Obviously because you're eating apple and peanut butter. Which I'm okay with. Probably tastier. Wafting. There's a strange smell in the combi. Following the twisty road back again to the pacific side we headed to the sleepy town of Todos Santos but we picked up a couple of guys in need of a place to stay. No worries it's a fun night at the beach. A bit windy for hammocks. Yeah windy but pretty nice experience. In this area the camping is free and life is super cheap. This beach is full of off-grid nomads hanging out and escaping winter. Anything that comes around it's up to you to walk up to a higher ground. No matter what is in your hands to see the best things in life are free. We're making New Mexico cement so we've got some sand and water from the sea and rocks. We're gonna mix them all together. It's in your hands to see the best things in life are free. Best things in life are free. How much fun is Christmas in the combi? It's pretty amazing. We're gonna make vegetables and some chicken. That's the best we could do. It's gonna be a Mexican style Christmas with a bit of mole because there was no gravy in the shop. Chicken mole with sweet potato roasted in the fire. Just chucked up straight on the fire with a little bit of cream over the top. Mole sauce, some roasted peppers, garlic, onion and pretty much half a chicken. Who's a lucky boy? This is actually where Tara says goodbye to combi life. From here she's off in search of more adventures on different continents. But I think you'll agree that she was an excellent addition to the combi crew and a lot of fun to travel with. The combi crew changeover actually happened here at the Tropic of Cancer. Now we must once again fix our compass on north. The time has come to make our final push to the Arctic. Two American lads Danny and Ben joined Alaska and I for the first leg of our journey north. We arrived at night to a slice of heaven that would be extremely hard for us to leave. The boys woken their bivvies to an off-grid paradise. I'm not going to tell you where this place is but I will say that both the food and the entertainment is free and both are plentiful. Days like this there isn't even time to get out of your wetsuit between sets. Just come in, more sun cream, a bunch of water, some bananas for the cramps and just as much granola as you can fit in your belly and then back out for more. Absolutely awesome, loving it. The never-ending waves are not the only great thing about this region. At low tide the beach is literally covered with delicious clams. Filling a pot or two only takes about 15 minutes of strolling the beach. On the rocks there's food too, more mussels than you could possibly eat. Being from an island in my culture we eat a lot of mussels but I've never seen them as big as they are here in Baja California. That meant that even though we were in the desert we could camp here for a long time, supplementing our supplies with locally sourced food and living like kings. and out of all the places I've been to Baja California for sure ranks as one of the best. Beyond the waves I spotted a shrimp boat so I paddled out to talk to them and see if we could get something different to eat. Well you're not going to get fresher than that are you? Check this out and the best part I got to catch a wave back in with my dinner on my back. There's like so many prawns here I've no idea what we're going to do with them but believe me they are absolutely delicious. I can't wait, curry tonight. I think the universe was being kind to me at this time because it knew what was about to happen. The boys and I ticked over the odometer a few hundred miles more before parting ways near Tijuana. The next morning I would awaken to a very unusual scene. My last morning in Mexico was a rare one as I had the combi all to myself then suddenly a parade of vintage Volkswagen's closed in on our camp. This is crazy. The Baja Volks Tijuana club in keeping with traditional Mexican hospitality invited Alaska and I to their mechanics shop for a celebration. This is just a testament to what Mexican people are like. And then it wasn't long before this happened. Apparently a Volkswagen Fiesta in these parts isn't a Fiesta unless somebody has their engine out. It turns out there was good reason for my engine to be out for the 10th time on this trip. Basically for you guys at home what's happened the head here wants to come off the cylinders which is losing compression making me spend way too much money on gasoline. There's smoke coming out of here rather than exhaust and it just basically wouldn't have got to Alaska like that. You can see the problem here clearly shown by the oil leaking out of cylinder four. Loss of compression means less power, worse fuel economy, a hotter overworked engine and ultimately shorter engine life. This is the metal ripping out of the block and that's why my heads were coming off my engine. Incidentally this is the most common issue that I faced with all of my engines. Mexican invention. Being that Murphy is also a subscriber to our YouTube channel the problem with the threads not holding on the block was also found on the other side of the engine which meant a lot more work disassembling both sides. It's a rainy Sunday here in Tijuana. These guys are in the garage helping me put the engine back together. The work's been done pretty quickly which is great because I need to get out of Mexico and start getting towards Alaska. The only problem is that we've had to drill the holes and a lot of metal pieces have gone inside the engine which kind of hurts because I spent so long trying to make it really clean and really good when I first put it together back in Mexico. But what we're going to do is we're going to just run some oil through it and leave an old filter on try and get as much of that crap out of the engine as possible. Change the oil pretty quickly and fingers crossed this will be the last time that I have to look inside the engine. But then I kind of say that to you guys every six months Like with all things on vintage vehicles once you unearth a problem you find many more. I've been wondering why I've had to change the boots on the CV joints so often and I guess that's the reason. I wish there was someone else that had seen that before. True to their word we did manage to get the motor fixed up and back in the Kombi in record time. Unfortunately the bumpy Baja roads had also taken their toll on Capito's front suspension. A solution was desperately needed. Even though my Kombi is a 1992 the parts needed were from the early 60s and they were proving impossible to find in Tijuana. During the search for our replacement link pins I saw a lot of TJ and not the kind of places you'll find in the guidebook. This is the house of a cartel boss you can still see the bullet holes from when the police raided and captured him. Now back to the search. I think we can steal some parts of this. My house is cleaner than this one. We're working again into the night time after fixing all the other cars during the day trying to help them get the wheels back on the bus and get us back on the road. They're amazing. Now my top two, right? What's my name in the egg? Your name? Benito Morales. Benito Morales. Gone. Benito Morales is out. Unbelievable. I have had one of the best gastronomical experiences of my life these past two weeks. It hasn't been all that bad in the garage. These guys have fed me breakfast, lunch and dinner every day for two weeks and it's been a different Mexican home-cooked meal every day. Honestly anyone that has an appreciation for Mexican food I can tell you it was amazing and they're even sending me away on my last day here with lunch packed up. I love these guys. I'm leaving Latin America and I'm pretty sad about it. This has been an incredible, incredible adventure. The people that I've met, the places that I've been and seen and everything that's happened it's just it's been everything that I ever dreamed it would be and a million times more. Honestly I don't really want to keep going. I kind of want to change the name of this trip to Asta Mexico and just stay here but I know that on the other side of this border the good things wait. I'm sad to be leaving. I'm excited for the future. Mexico has got my heart. Viva Mexico! Next time on Asta Alaska we re-enter the USA and pick up a new combi crew. Time is running out fast if we're going to make it to Alaska for summer so there is no time to waste. Subscribe to our free travel series here on the Tube to follow us to the top of the world and beyond and if you're a regular viewer who wants to help us document and create this unique series check out the benefits you get from becoming a Combi Life Insider on Patreon. Thanks for watching amigos!