Feb 5 - The Dangerous Road to Los Barriles

Today was littered with vehicle accidents, thank goodness none of them involved our caravan members.

We left Paylapa 206 at 7:30 AM so we could get here plenty early for our participants to find an English TV on which to watch the Super Bowl. Well we barely made it here by late afternoon due to major accident delays.

First we encountered a jack knifed semi-truck on a narrow high mountain pass. The truck had run out of fuel...which is serious business around here as it is very far from one fuel stop to another. Anyway, he tried to back his rig to get it out of any oncoming traffic and instead ended up jack knifing it and almost going over a very high cliff.

The traffic, including all 22 of our motor homes, was backed up so a long while in both directions. Finally some guys pulled out the side rail on the road so traffic could try to get by. It was not too bad for a standard car, but for a motor home (with most of us towing cars) it was quite scary. You normally will avoid with a passion driving one side of the coach in the soft dirt along side the road as it is not well backfilled and supported. It was pretty tipsy and our Wagon Master did not want us to risk a potential "roll over". Once the Mexican police came, he insisted we go on through as we were becoming part of the problem with no where to get off the road. We inched through and all made it Ok but it was very hard on nerves...to say the least.

It was about 30 miles later just after we had gone through a small village that our Wagon Master was the first vehicle to come upon a head on collision with two cars. There were young kids involved and the ambulance was thankfully just a couple blocks away. Again our motor homes clogged up the roads as we all caught up with each other. Quickly our "tail gunner" got on his fluorescent vest and directed traffic, pulling us all into a large field which was more of a drainage river bed...soft sand, scary moments turning our rigs around to park headed back to the road in anticipation of when we could move on.

The ambulance came and took away the injured. the police came and put up traffic warning triangle but did not direct anything. The cars were blocking 2/3 of the road...again just barely enough room for a standard car to squeeze by. Up pulled a bus and the bus driver was so determined to get through that he and about 5 other big men just gathered around the blocking car and carried it off the side of the road. WOW, I was impressed.

Soon it was "start your engines" and we were finally on the move again to our eventual destination here at East Cape RV Resort in Los Barriles...we are still north of Cabo San Lucas and are on the Sea of Cortez side of the Peninsula. The area here is famous for wind sailing, kiting, fishing, diving and lots of other fun in the sun. We plan on checking it all out tomorrow. We will be here 4 days total so it should be great.