burro bob - 6-6-2006 at 10:52 AM
Left San Felipe around 3 pm and drove to Independencia to meet up with Dean and Dean From San Felipe Off Road and my buddy Kenneth and three of his
friends from Salome.
I was the last to arrive so as soon I showed up we headed off to Check 2 at Nuevo Junction.
Along the way I stopped to pick up a long haired Native walking along the road. He told me his name was Verjenio, or something like that, we had a
nice chat in Spanish, English and I believe Pai Pai. I'm not sure about everything he said but I do know that he was "no problem" and that Jonny
Campbel was his best friend.
We set up our camp about 60 yards beyond check 2 at the top of a hill. Verjenio asked if I would drive him another 4 or 5 kilometers down the road to
his house. Dean jumped in the back of the truck and we took off to take my new friend home. First we stopped at an adobe house about a kilometer down
the road where he intorduces us to his cousin. Then another couple of kilometers to another abobe house. Here we meet his uncle and another Pai Pai
cowboy that had a beatufiul mule saddled up and hitched to a tree. We bs'd for another 10 minutes, with lots of Pai Pai being spoken. The cowboy is
kind of looking at us like we might have rabies, but then is is looking a Verjenio like that also. Finally we get Verjenio back in the truck and drive
another couple of kilometers to his house.
We get back to camp and get set up. We talked with the weatherman around 7pm and get organized for the next day.
So now we are just sitting around a campfire drinking beer when Verjenio and a friend show up. It is obviouse that they are very concerned that we
might drink too much so they offer to help eliminate the problem. The more beers they had the more we heard "I no problem" and "Jonny Campble my
friend" Around 1 in the morning they consider our situation as under control "out of beer" and they go somewhere else.
We awake in the morning to find 3 ice chests missing. Mostly they got a lot of water and soda pop as well as a bunch of cooking/eating supplies. The
remaining beer was in another cooler they didn't see. No tools were taken, just the coolers.
We only had help for the first two check points. I was going to try and cover another check but at the last minute the person I was taking to be a
helper decided not to go. I knew I couldn't do it alone. As it turned out we needed at least 4 people at each location do an accurate job. We can't
raise George who is covering check one. Weatherman finally raises him and they do a real good job for the next couple of hours of passing on the
vehicle numbers. Then Georges battery decides to die. He got back on air about an hour later only to have the same thing happen again later in the
afternoon. He never came back on air again after that.
We were able to pass on vehicle numbers past check 2, on a regular basis, until around 2:30 or 3:00. Then the weatherman got too busy to stay updated.
He didn't get the numbers for the last 80 vehicles until after the check had closed .
He was pretty happy with the help we were able to give him but he still had lots of people asking him about status for their car. So I don't know how
efective we were in helping people find out where their race car was. For a first time effort I think it was only about 40 or 50 percent effective,
but successful enough to try again. Possibly for Primm, and then a real logistical nightmare for the Baja Mil.
Oh yes there were a lot of vehicles that went past us. Some were really fast and some wern't. Some were beat up and others unscathed. Somtimes the
wind was blowing and sometimes not. No body crashed anywhere close to us, but one car did fail to stop for the check point. He was behind another race
car and could't see they were coming to a check. Everybody bailed out in time. No body got hurt.
I spent Sat night. there also and headed home at first light. Got home to find that my horse had "busted out" again and my 72 year old neighbor had
had to track him down. My dogs were still there, but I was wishing I had taken them to the race for security.
So if you are out by Nuevo Junction and see Jonny Campbel and a tall indian selling ice chests, stop and say hello to my buddy Verjenio. He is "no
problem"
Diver - 6-6-2006 at 11:06 AM
Even when bad things happen in Baja, we come home feeling like we had a great trip anyway ?! "no problem"
Great story !
Axel - 6-6-2006 at 12:55 PM
Bob,
At Punta Cabras there were alot of camps that got robbed. Surfboards, wetsuits, coolers and much more. "no problem
David K - 6-6-2006 at 09:25 PM
Nice report Bob... sorry your ice chests grew legs!
Geronimo - 6-6-2006 at 10:06 PM
I may have slept through my ice chest being stolen 5 feet from my Head on Frinday night (had to drink the beer before the Pai Pai got them all).
Saturday I sucsessfully stalked a white cow that snuck into camp and was ready to render him unconsious with a 4' Snap On pry bar, later found that my
friend Jayson sent him my way.. LOL.
A-OK - 6-7-2006 at 10:31 PM
A stranger borrowed my 4x4 back in 1991 and I havent seen it since....... No Problem
I still bleed Baja.
Debra - 6-8-2006 at 05:40 PM
This is one of the reasons I love Nomad's so much!
No matter how many times we get "stucks, flats, rip-offs, break downs" (some of us even have to buy a new rig on almost every trip 
,, (Mike I wasn't refering to you, now you are just getting paranoid! Just kidding!
YES I WAS!) It all turns into just another adventure with a great story and a smile in the end no matter how "POed" we might have been while it was
happening.
I always love hearing these stories. I remember awhile back a thread about worse "stuck", my kid almost starved to death, I couldn't stop reading
long enough to feed him!
MORE, MORE, MORE!