“So, I knock on the back window of the truck and then run around the right side?”
“Yeah, and you gotta act desperate. If the truck leaves without you, you’re f**cked.”
After driving and gathering shots all day, and with the last lick of light creeping over the mountains, we were finally ready to shoot the gas station scene for our upcoming collection video, ‘Booyah.’ The final destination for the night was a surf hostel, located deep in Mexico’s Baja Peninsula. Although we were advised to only drive during the daytime, complications set us back a few hours. So, Matt, Ben, Deborah (the glorious yellow truck) and I set forth into the night toward the rendezvous. With an hour under our belt and Google Maps leading the way, the rest of our party in the other car informed us we would be turning onto a dirt road that would take 45 minutes and lead us directly towards our destination. Even though Deborah was a finely tuned machine, the transition from asphalt to dirt while in complete darkness quickly revealed our adventure mobile would start to aggressively shake at any speed above 25 MPH. With our precious cargo aboard, including everything from a little Mexican reggie to a snoozing Matt, we trudged on from the main road to the hostel, perched up against a cliffside butting up to the roaring ocean. As cell service began to fleet, Ben and I stayed on the lookout for our last turn: a narrower, bumpier dirt road. Unfortunately, the sandy terrain made this more difficult than we anticipated. After some debate and a healthy dose of Lil Wayne to ease our minds, we chose to take the trail that followed the beach directly to the campsite. As we neared the final turn, the roaring of the waves seemed to indicate that the water was much closer than what our spotty cell-service dependent app was telling us.
“I don’t know if this road even exists man, I feel like we're about to drive into the water.”
That probably wouldn’t have been ideal, so we stopped the truck and got out to see for ourselves. Just to our luck, we had stopped within 15 feet from where the waves breached on the sand. We chuckled for a moment but quickly came to our senses and realized the road no longer existed. With the tide rising, we backed Deborah up and made the decision to turn around and look for another route. After driving for about 20 minutes, we found ourselves at a cross road and also noticed something on the side of the road. I stepped out of the truck and turned on my trusty iPhone flashlight, seeing a wrecked catamaran sticking out of the ground. To my surprise, a sign was attached to the boat informing us the hostel was a few miles down from the sign. Relieved, but frustrated at our inability to have read the sign the first time we passed it, we made our way down the path, following more signs that led us to our final destination. The faint sounds of laughing and crackling wood told us we had finally arrived. After pulling up next to the rest of our group who had already made friends with the other guests, we woke Matt up and explained to him what he had missed. In celebration, we enjoyed glizzys and fell asleep looking up at some of the greatest stars we had ever seen. We learned that not only is Google Maps not always up-to-date especially in the boonies of Mexico, but also that adventures never turn out exactly how you imagine. The next time you find yourself about to drive into the ocean, make sure the road you are trying to find is actually a road, and not just another pipe dream.