It All Went Wrong...

This is a story about things not going according to plan. I want to go back, Nick. I can't do this. For this video, I convoy up with a few friends in an attempt to drive down the Baja Peninsula together here in Mexico. I think I'm a bit stuck. And along the way, stuff goes wrong. I can't do this. No, I'm too scared. But first, let's rewind to T-1. I offered to put this itinerary together. Nobody asked me to do it. And now I'm sitting here. It's the night before the convoy. And I'm like, where do we go? So I've got my iOverlander app here and Google Maps and Gaia GPS. And I've got my notepad here where I'm kind of making a note of all the places that look good. I am a little bit nervous about planning this whole thing for everybody. But I'm also so excited. So excited to finally be traveling with other people again. I've definitely been feeling a little bit lonely lately. And they're great people too. The night before setting off, we all met up for dinner and to discuss the upcoming road trip. You'll get to know everybody soon. First, though, we need to figure out our route. What I was thinking is speeding through Baja, through Northern Baja. But speeding through Northern Baja still means a lot of driving. Yeah, it's about 10 hours to get to... It's only down the road. Down the road? Well, technically, yes. There is only one road leading all the way south. The Baja Peninsula in Western Mexico is a 1,000-mile stretch of desert, dramatic coastline, and remote towns. We're on a bit of a deadline and we hope to reach the warmer southern part of Baja as soon as possible. It's time to go. I am definitely not feeling ready to leave this beautiful spot. I've been here for the last two weeks just decompressing. And it's been honestly so great. Not having to think about where to drive and where I'm going to stay and what's next and just decompressing. So I'll definitely miss it. You have no idea how nice it feels to dry your hair with a hairdryer once in a while. Let's go. Hola, hola. Ready to go? Some new talkies because these are channels. These are legal. Awesome. Thank you so much. Yeah, you're welcome. Let's do it. And this is our crew. In the white Defender called Albatross, we have Mathilde and Nick. You might recognize these guys since we traveled to Alaska together. And in the white Toyota Troopy called Jambo, we have Olivia and Cody. Plus their adorable pup, Rowan. This is our convoy. Okay, I'm leading the way for the next three hours to our first spot for the day and for the trip. Let's see how this goes. Exciting. I was not sad to leave Ensenada behind. It's a nice enough town. But to me, road tripping is all about those wide open desert landscapes, ocean views, and wilderness. We are looking for discomfort. And at this point, we don't even know how much discomfort we signed up for. On roads like this, even I as a driver get motion sickness. It's not fun. So I don't understand how he doesn't. I think it's all those miles that we drove on mountain roads in Montana when he was a tiny puppy. Now it's all paying off. Well, okay. We just had our first military check of the trip. The guys at the checkpoint really took their time looking through my car and then Mathilde's and Nick's car as well. How was it? Yeah, it was okay. You passed? I passed. ¿Tienes drogas o pasas? No tengo drogas. Third checkpoint in 200 miles. The only question they asked was, ¿Hablas español? Un poco, un poco español. Okay. So this is our home for tonight. And it is pretty surreal actually. So we've got these amazing colors all around. It's just the most beautiful pink sunset tomorrow morning. Sunrise over there. But for now, it seems like it's really low tide. And when I say really low tide, I mean like a mile out. For now, plenty of space and it's just us pretty much. Very quiet, beautiful. First night in Baja. Good morning. Good morning, old boy. Going on adventures solo is amazing. But doing it with other people is a whole other thing entirely. With other people, you feel a sense of community. You have a support network. And I feel like that gives you the confidence to take more risks, to try new things. Because you know that there's always going to be someone there to bail you out or winch you out in the worst case. This track better be worth it. So currently we're driving this pretty long off-road track. Not paved, loads of rocks, going through riverbeds. It is rough. 4x4 only. There's supposed to be a really beautiful beach at the end. But we don't actually know that. Because none of us have ever seen any pictures of it. There is no guarantee that it's even open or that it's even still there. Yeah, we're going to take the risk and hope to find something beautiful on the other side of these mountains. Let's see. Really, really rough road. But I think we're getting there. It's so dodgy. There seems to be some sort of mining operation here. There's a lot of people working, digging up the beach, basically. This place is definitely a little bit shady. The guys are asking for some tax in the form of beer. Luckily, I do have a couple of beers. Oh God, Vic. Okay, okay, gracias. Okay, the tax has been paid. And now these guys who work here are saying that we should go across the beach to that other beach over there that you see just across the bay. I think we're all a little bit nervous. We're not really sure what's going on here. And personally, I'm a bit nervous about driving on the beach. But I guess there's people here that can winch me out in the worst case. Gently, gently. Nick is sliding. Oh man, I think I'm a bit stuck. Getting the diff lock on. Okay, a little bit stressful. A lot of really soft sand. Holy crap, you're really sliding. What was that? Should we be worried for you? We're going back. Literally going back. This has nowhere to turn around. God, this is the hardest reverse I've ever done. Yeah, they got stuck. You know, I'm kind of not loving the idea that a Toyota is pulling out a Land Rover. You win some, you lose some. This was not the spot that we had expected to find. And we got stuck, so decided to just go back a little bit. It's getting late, unfortunately. So we can't go all the way back to another beach. But we'll find a spot to camp in the mountains and hopefully that will be okay. But gotta say, that was a bit of a stressful experience. A bit more stressful than I would have liked. You know, not every day of overlanding is smooth sailing. But then again, that's not exactly the point. If it was smooth sailing, guaranteed, it wouldn't be an adventure, would it? In moments like this, it's easy to get frustrated. But somehow, living the experience with other people, sharing it with them, helps you move on and press the refresh button much more quickly. Wow, am I happy to be at a campsite again. That was a pretty long day with a very unexpected outcome. And what was supposed to be a really beautiful campsite, it wasn't. Oh my god, oh no. Look what happened here. My little fender thingy broke off. Check this out, Nick. Look what happened. My fender flare. From that off-road? Yes, it was so bumpy. Did you feel it while driving? No, I just saw it now. Oh, here it is. There's a bend here. So now it goes in, but now you need the screws that sort of just hold it together. Did the screws fall off? I think instead of screws, it's those plastic things that hooks. Yeah, because it really looks like plastic hooks. But you could just screw it on because it's all plastic and this as well. Okay, nice. I got extra screws, you can just put those. Cool, sweet. Well, it wouldn't be an adventure without something breaking. This is one of my favorite parts of every single day, making dinner. Oh yeah, what are we making here, you guys? Tacos. What is this? Queso de Oaxaca? Oaxaca cheese. Mm-hmm, amazing. Vilk has his little bone right here. So he's enjoying, he's had dinner. Beautiful moon shining above us and dinner with friends. That's pretty much all you need. Olivia made us guacamole, which looks absolutely delicious. That's the tacos. Yay. Nick is frying some peppers and onions and some chicken for himself. All the rest of us are veggie, right? Yeah. Wow, that's pretty wild. Thank you very much. It's coming in hot. What is your dream dish, Nick, if you're going to dive? Oh, if I'm going to dive? I know my number one dish is fondue. If you dive tomorrow, you would want to have fondue? Yes. I think me, it's a delicious pomodoro mozzarella salad. Olivia, guac and chips. What about you, Cody? Um, I'm a child, so I'd have French toast with peanut butter. But it'd have to be like a huge, huge stack. I would have pizza. Like, why didn't anyone say pizza? Wait, pizza was an option? A second, you don't get a second, you're dying. What a day. So we didn't manage to find our dream campsite on the beach, which is fine. Not every adventure has to work out as planned, right? And we ended up here, which is also so beautiful. Tomorrow, the plan is to keep heading south. And we're gonna start driving down south on this really long off-road track in the mountains, which looks quite technical. And I'm not sure, not sure if I can do it. I don't know if the Odyssey is nimble enough to take on that kind of technical track. So I'm a little bit worried, but time will tell, I guess. So for now, good night. Vilk found a new friend and he's just so excited to see him every single morning. So cute. Yay. Hi, are you good boys? Are you good boys? Ron, you've been so patient. Vilk just desperately, desperately wants to be friends with Ron. It's like the number one thing, dream in his life right now. How big he is. But a short 15 minutes later, things started going south. The Jambo and Albatross crews managed to get up this tricky section pretty easily. But Odyssey is much more top heavy than those two and just not as nimble. It started out okay, but then suddenly, shoot. I felt my car with me, Vilk and all of my possessions in it, tilting dangerously to the side. My hands were shaking on the steering wheel. My foot was shaking on the gas pedal. Odyssey was tipped at such a sharp angle, I felt like she would topple over to the side. We decided to take Vilk out of the car while Nick helped me navigate the tricky terrain. Backwards just a little bit. We're going to put you back in the right trajectory. Am I going back now? Yes. We tried one way and then we tried another way, but Odyssey just wasn't managing it. What terrified me the most was the possibility of Odyssey rolling on her side because I was stuck at such a sharp angle. Eventually, I decided to ask Nick to just help me back out of there. I want to go back, Nick. You want to go back? Yeah, I can't do this. You don't want to do this? I can't do this. No, I'm too scared. Turn your tire left. Like this? Yeah, more. Yeah, good. Go, go, go. Yeah, make it straight. Go back now. There, you feel it? You're shredding. Oh my god, that tilt was the scariest thing. I honestly thought I would fall. It's super scary when you're tilting, but the center of gravity of the fender is almost 40, 45 degrees. With this awning, it would more be like at 37, 40. The option was to air down the tire pressure, but that would be too difficult because the cars could slide down. I'm in a pretty shitty position right now, so I'm going to go around. Apparently, there's another track. That's a bit easier than this, so... Bye! Yeah, I'm going back. Those guys' cars are way lighter than Odyssey. They're much, much lighter. I think they're also much more confident off-road drivers. I am just... I'm one of those people that, with anything to do with Odyssey, with the truck, if there's even 1% chance of something scary happening off-road, I'm just not willing to take the risk, you know? Better safe than sorry. I was relieved to be heading back into less technical terrain, albeit on my own. I still felt a lot of residual stress after my off-road fiasco, so I spent the next hour counting from 0 to 100 over and over again, literally, just to calm my nerves. Before we parted ways, we agreed that we would all meet up in a small town called Punta Prieta. That's our meeting point. And I'm really curious to see who's going to make it there first. Is it going to be me, despite the fact that I had to go all the way back and all the way around, or the guys who took the off-road track through the mountains? Off-road track that, you know, none of us had any idea how difficult or easy it would be. And I still don't know who's going to get there first. It's taken me a while. It's taken me a really long time. So I reckon they're already there. I think they're probably faster than me. So they're probably waiting for me. Anyway, we're 20 miles away from that town, so time will tell. They're not here yet. Seems like I am the first one. I hope they're not stuck anywhere. The track was so bumpy that most of my stuff just fell out. Look at all this mess. Oh, my God. Super dusty, super messy. I'm just really happy to be on a paved road again, honestly. It is now 1.11. I gave them half an hour. Thank you so much. I need a lemonade. They're coming. It is 1.27. Woohoo! That day, we continued driving until finally, we reached one of the most magical places I've ever camped at, halfway down the Baja Peninsula. You know, in places like this, in the company of great people, you tend to quickly forget about the things that went wrong. Yes, over the last few days, we got stuck a couple of times. Yes, I got a huge fright while off-roading. And no, not every single plan we made ended up working out. But whenever you look back on your life, I feel like the stories of overcoming challenges are the stories we will always remember best. These stories, along with their struggle and drama and uncertainty, become the very stories we tell our families and friends once we're back in the safe harbor of home.