In January of 1984 my wife and I set off on a three-week
motorcycle trip through Mexico. Our itinerary took us down the
Baja Peninsula to La Paz and Cabo San Lucas, and then to the
mainland by ferry from Cabo San Lucas to Puerto Vallarta. On
the mainland we rode south to Navidad and then over the
mountains to Guadalajara. Finally, back northwest to the
Pacific coast and up to Tucson.
Our second night was spent in San Quintin at the La Pinta Hotel.
The next morning we set off to take on the Central Desert and
the long stretch to Guerrero Negro, with only a few possible gas
stops available. Upon arriving in El Rosario I was prepared to
exercise the correct Baja fueling procedure for a motorcycle
traversing that section of the highway: fill up whenever you
can. As we pulled into the station at El Rosario there was
a very large crowd of Americans in a very
festive mood littering the entire station area.
We very quickly found out that the crowd was waiting for a
gas truck to arrive
- there was no gas available in El Rosario! Or, for that
matter, all the way to
Guerrero Negro according to the rumors sweeping the station.
Okay, so its now
party time in El Rosario.
"How longs the party been going on?"
"Oh, about two days."
"Hmmm. When do you think the gas truck will arrive?"
"They're now saying one o'clock this afternoon . .
. but
there've been lots of similar predictions which didn't work
out."
While we were waiting for the greatly anticipated arrival of the
gas truck, two motorcycles from British Columbia pulled in and
the riders assessed the situation. After waiting about 15
minutes, they began negotiating with one of the locals hanging
around for the party. Like magic a large container of gas
appeared and was promptly emptied into the two motorcycles.
They paid about $5 a gallon for gas, but were on their way while
the rest of us awaited the promised truck.
About 2:30 in the afternoon we decided to ride the 35 miles back
to the La Pinta in San Quintin for another afternoon and evening
on the wonderful beach there. While I was walking back into the
La Pinta a man walks out of the bar and introduces himself as
Happy Miles, the owner of the other motorcycle parked in front
(I was wearing a Honda jacket which identified me as a "biker").
This turned out to be one of those fateful encounters which
change lives, for Happy and I have been great friends ever
since, and have accumulated lots of shared adventures under our
belts.
I explained the gas situation to Happy and we decided to head
into town and get a plastic jug to carry some extra fuel. It
wasn't easy to come by, but Happy managed to secure a beat-up
old jerry jug which held about 2 1/2 gallons. (Happy is very
proficient in "street Spanish," and can handle any situation
in Mexico.)
The next morning we set off in tandem with Happy - the full
jerry jug strapped to his sissy bar. As we went through El
Rosario the party was still going on, now into its third day!
We waved at our friends from the day before and headed south.
I have no idea of when the gas truck finally arrived, but there
were about 50 tourists who got more of a taste of El Rosario
than they had expected.
As predicted there was no gas in Cataviña, although that
was normal in those days. While stopping there we emptied the
gas jug into our two tanks. Our next scheduled stop was to be
the Punta Prieta station at the junction with the road to LA
Bay.
Upon arriving at the junction there appeared to be gas - but
with a hitch! The hitch was that a line of about 30 vehicles
stretched to the south backing up along the shoulder of the
road, and most of these vehicles were large RVs. We parked the
bikes behind the buildings and wandered over to the pumps to
check the situation out. They had their one-cylinder pump
drawing gas from somewhere and trickling it into the vehicle at
the head of the line.
There was a young lady operating this pump "system" and, after a
few smiles and some complimentary conversation, Happy arranged
with the woman that we'd slip our plastic jug in for a "quick
fill" when she was finished with the current customer. This
did, in fact, take place - with lots of folks in line glaring
daggers at us. We crept off with our ill-gotten booty and
emptied the jug into the motorcycle tanks. However, it was
still a long ways to Guerrero Negro and, while my bike had the
range, Happy's did not.
Back to the pumps goes Happy with jug in hand. He pulled it
off,
but at the expense of now having those in line doing more than
staring daggers. We quickly strapped the full jug in place and
fled down the highway.
We encountered no further fuel shortages on that trip. However,
the ingredients for more adventures had been cast into our trip
by this shortage. The Canadians from El Rosario were to play a
further role in our trip south, and Happy Miles reappeared in
Cabo San Lucas to travel with us to Puerto Vallarta.
Moral: Don't rely on the next station ahead
having fuel!