Slow Baja - Everything You Want To Know About Slow Baja And Host Michael Emery

Episode Date: May 22, 2021

Hey amigos, it's hard to believe that is's been a year since Slow Baja got picked up on Apple iTunes, Spotify, and Google Podcast. I wanted to take a moment to say a hearty THANKS for listening. Since I launched the show, many have asked me about my Baja journey and what Slow Baja is all about. So since you asked, here it is, one year in, I swap seats with my intrepid editor, Christopher Keiser, and tell you all about me. My first Baja trip came in 1984, just before my Freshman year at San Diego State University. An older cousin who attended SDSU invited me to have lobster down in Puerto Nuevo. On the drive home, we got pulled over, he bribed the cop, and we continued on our way home. -Welcome to Mexico! Regular Tijuana and Rosarito Beach (drinking) excursions followed, and camping on the beach in San Felipe was our Spring Break destination for years. At the end of one of those Spring Break trips, Ted Donovan, my roommate, and I decided to continue South. We piled into my old Toyota Corona and headed out -destination unknown. We slept under the stars, ate on the cheap, and had to scrounge beer bottles for the deposit money to buy gas for our return. It was quite an adventure and I couldn't wait to have another. Fast forward to 2001, I'm married and have two-year-old twins and a four-year-old. My wife and I are exhausted and needed a break. We quit our jobs, rented out our apartment, and took the family down to La Paz for an extended vacation. La Paz was way too hot for us, so we moved over to Todos Santos. We had a bliss-filled month puttering around Todos Santos before putting our minivan on the ferry to the mainland. We drove the Devil's Backbone to Durango and onto Zacatecas. The Colonial city of Zacatecas is an UNESCO World-Heritage site and is well worth a visit. As the only gringos in town, we were warmly welcomed, and our light-haired children were known to all. We spent seven months there before reluctantly returning home. Mexico and the slow life bit me. I immediately began scheming about how to get back. My Mexico adventuring started in earnest in 2006 when Ted and I took on the grueling La Carrera Panamericana. The 2000-mile La Carrera, also known as the Mexican Road Race, is widely considered the fastest, most dangerous vintage race in the world. We had the least amount of experience, the least amount of horsepower, and we finished dead last. On one challenging day, I said to Ted -if we ever figure out the La Carrera, we will take on the Baja 1000 in a Class 11 VW Beetle. We haven't acquired a Beetle yet, but in 2012 I found Slow Baja, my 1971 Toyota FJ40 Land Cruiser. Later that year, for Ted's 50th birthday, we drove Slow Baja down for a three-week adventure. We traversed the entire peninsula on dirt. It was my first off-roading experience, the FJ40 performed flawlessly, and I was smitten. After driving the 3000-mile BajaXL Rally in 2019, I started thinking about starting a Baja-centered podcast. After guest-hosting Jim Reilly's show, I launched Slow Baja. Covid made my goal of recording every interview in person a little more complicated, but I am deeply thankful for all of my guests who opened their homes and their hearts for me. Here's to another year of sharing conversations and exploring Baja together! Please follow Slow Baja on Twitter Please follow Slow Baja on Instagram Please join the Slow Baja Community on Facebook 

Hey, this is Michael Emery. Thanks for tuning into the Slow Baja. This podcast is powered by Tequila Fortaleza, handmade in small batches, and hands down, my favorite tequila. Hey, I want to tell you about your new must-have accessory for your next Baja trip. Benchmark Maps has released a beautiful, beautiful

Baja California Road and Lowe. Recreation Atlas. It's a 72-page large format book of detailed maps and recreation guides that makes the perfect planning tool for exploring Baja. Pick yours up at Benchmark Maps.com. Okay, everything sound good? You want to close a sliding glass door there? Keep out in case any of the UPS trucks come or anything like that. And we are recording. Well, you know, it's interesting to me that people have responded so well to locations I've recorded and have just been awful. Yes.

Harker surf shop. I got you. We're going to touch on that. Miguel Angel de la Cueva. Hello, happy birthday to you. Miguel Angel de la Cueva. It's your birthday today, Cinco de Milo. Who's driving this thing?

You are. Okay. Greetings Slow Baja listeners. Do not touch that dial. My name is Christopher Kaiser. I am the editor of the Slow Baja podcast. And worry not, the great Michael Emery is sitting here next to me, putting down his cat.

Cafe Corretto with a little tequila fordilaze to put in a cappuccino. So nice to start the morning with that. It's, believe it or not, it's been one year now since the Slow Baja podcast came under the steerage of Michael Emery, and I suggested to Michael that might be interesting to do a little year in review and talk to him about his experiences recording

all the fabulous guests in wondrous locations and share that with you, the listeners. So good morning, Michael, how you, doing. Hey, you know, it's funny for me to be on this side of the thing. Honestly, we had not set out to do this today, and so I'm very, very excited that this is, this opportunity has come my way and that you're going to be asking me a bunch of questions, just like I ask people. So let, let her rip, baby. Thank you for the coffee. Thank you for the spot of Fortalaza to get my throat in the, in the proper mode here. We're still, it's still morning hours in California. So it's a nice way to start the day. Yes, this morning brought to you by tequila, Forta Liza, breakfast of change. champions. And Yeho solves everything. Yes. Well, it gives you those dulcet tones that I mentioned earlier.

But let's get right to it. This is a little bit of navel gazing, but again, for me, I find it so interesting because when you first mentioned the podcast, and full disclosure, you and I have been friends for a couple decades now, our wives work together. And you mentioned this podcast, I'm like, oh, gosh, another guy doing a podcast and really what's going to be in Slow Baja. Another crummy podcast. I'm already to fall asleep.

And that despite the fact, I've always been charmed by Baja, but it's still sort of like a black box mystery to me. There might as well be here there be dragons on it. And listening to your podcast, I think you encounter a lot of the same thing, right? Tell me about demystifying Baja for people. Well, Baja for me became easily because I went to college in San Diego. So I didn't put any thought to it. It's like people who went to college in upstate New York probably just, went to Canada because it was cheaper and the beer was available to you when you're 18. That's

really why I went to Baja first. And I, you know, it is just that. We went, we drank, we were dumb. I was enamored by the tacos and the drinking for sure, but I don't feel like I really got to know the place for a long, long time. I probably went there for 25 years without really getting to know the place. So for me, the, you know, that getting to know, Baja came along more so. And, you know, I was there on an extended trip in 2001 with my family, but then more so when I got the 1971 FJ 40 land cruiser in 2012 after I sold my old Dotson race car. And I needed to plow that money rapidly into something besides a backyard remodel and got on Craigslist and found an old land cruiser and bought it. And then really within a couple months, had it kit it out and was ready to go to Baja.

and had a great first trip, first real trip of traversing the entire peninsula on dirt. Like, how many gallons of gas do I have with me? How many miles are we going? I only get 10 miles of a gallon, doing some math, looking at the Baja almanac and saying, son of a gun, this is a long ways. And there's nothing out here if we break down. So, like, are we ready for this? So it was the first time that I really like got off road and went, oh, this is why people come to Baja.

That's amazing to me. I've got raised eyebrows, even though I know this story, and I know some of the ventures you took before on a Dakar motorcycle and such, and still that impresses me that you would jump in that old cruiser. And it's a fine cruiser, don't get me wrong. And I had lots of stupid adventures and cruisers in my past, but just to have the courage to go south of the border, it must have really been a siren song for you to want to venture forth in that.

And who was your partner? You said, we. Yeah, so, you know, I've had a good buddy since college. I knew him growing up, but he was a few years older than me. So he was the cool old kid when I was, you know, he was driving a Camaro at 16 when I was 12 and looking up to him like, ooh, that's my friend's older sister's boyfriend, Ted, and he's cool. So then he took a more circuitous route to college. And so we ended up at college together at the same time. And he just had a great sense of adventure for Baja and was the first one to have a land cruiser.

or we used to drive his old, really run down old land cruiser to Baja. It was 20-something years old when he got it and had lived a hard life. But it was just such a great primitive vehicle that whenever we were in that thing, it's like you're transported back in time. So it was like a double whammy. Baja, I believe, transports you back in time. And then to drive such a simple, maybe primitive vehicles, an old land cruiser that's open to the elements, no doors, all that stuff.

It just, it just, you have to feel every mile. So my buddy Ted Donovan and I have since 2000, well, since 1984, we took our first trip together and then multiple trips through Baja as college kids and after. And then really we sort of cemented a deep friendship and love for Mexico in 2006 when we We raced the La Carrera Pan Americana together, which is a 2,000-mile-long, high-speed vintage car race, and we had the least amount of horsepower and the least amount of experience, and we finished dead last, but we had the time of our lives. And that's when, on one horrible hard day when our water pump dumped and, you know, we were waiting for a toe. I said, to Ted, if we ever figure this thing out, if we ever figure this race out, we need to get into a Class 11 beetle and do the Baja 1,000. How many people have watched on the Baja 1000?

What's Dust to Glory? In fact, Class 11, man. That's where... Hey, if anybody out there has a Class 11, I'm going to bring a sponsor and I'm ready to go. Baja 1000, Nora 1000. I want to get in George Plimpton style. Get in the navigator's seat and let's go. Class 11.

If you won't kill me, let's do it. And if there's two of you and you have a Class 11, I want to go do it Hunter S. Thompson style. You can be the attorney. I'll be Hunter S or vice versa. Either way, I would love to go. My first four vehicles were air-cooled Volkswagens. There you go. It doesn't mean to say that I'm handy with them.

I just know how to replace an accelerator cable. So I think already I was off on a tangent not answering the question that you asked me, if I can even remember the question. About deemistifying Baja for people? Something like that. Yeah, no, I'm sure you still come up against it. And for me, you know, living here

in Northern California, which is essentially, northern Baja, which I know is, you know, antithical Baja being lower and northern. But it's kind of embarrassing to me that I don't know Baja better. That, you know, it's like not knowing Oregon or something like that. It's, it really should be something that we have a closer connection with. And yet it really is. Here there be dragons, you know, getting across the border. It sounds intimidating and scary.

And I hear you and your guests repeatedly saying, it's the friendliest people you'll ever meet. I've had more gracious help, meals, electricity, roadside mechanic, stuff like that. Yeah, no, it really is that. And it, I mean, there's, there are some barriers. You do have to cross a border, international border, which normally it's, you know, you drive up to the border. There's a green light. You keep on driving. And nowadays, you stop, I don't know, as soon as you can find a parking spot 100 yards past the border someplace and walk back and get your fmm, which is a document that you're supposed to have, especially if you're driving a vehicle and you have Baja bound insurance. Your Baja bound insurance or other insurance is only valid if you have

an FMM. So you're going to want to stop and get that. But once you've done that, and some people are savvy enough to do it online, slow Baja is very analog, so I do it in person. out a few stickers, say hello to people. And once you get that sticker, once you get that document, you are free to travel in country legally for up to six months. So, you know, it's after that, it's just where are you going next? So, I mean, to Cate, we're starting at Tacos La Verita for three or four tacos, and then it's on to the Valle and Ensenada or, you know, down Rumoroso and heading over to San Felipe

Bay or, you know, it's, it's a lot easier than you think, and it's, it isn't really that challenging with a good map or downloading something, a Google map to your phone, or, uh, people seem to use GPS now. I see these screens. I don't know what they are. I, I still use my old Baja almanac, and I'm really looking forward to getting that first benchmark, um, recreation atlas for Baja that's coming out here. I haven't seen it yet, but I've seen it, uh, on the internet. And it looks like it's really, really well done, so I'm looking forward to having that in my hand. But I love looking at a map, seeing the squiggly line, and saying, let's try that road. That's a true romance of travel along with the open air vehicle and paper maps.

And it's a different skill dealing with maps, but one that I think is especially important when you're out there in long periods of time. I imagine you don't have a phone signal at all or, you know, it can be kind of sketchy. So we could talk about the practicalities and how to, guides of driving down to Baja all day long. Maybe we put a pin in that and we come back for another episode. And I can ask you before I drive my... How to, a slow Baja.

And how not to. How to Baja. You have a lot of those. The cast of characters, I will freely admit, again, this is a lot of confessional for me, but as the editor, you know, I'm obliged to listen to these hour-long podcasts all the way through several times. And a lot of the characters you've described to me, are like, Oh my gosh, really.

Some old lady who does burrow packing, like how interesting can be. I was wrapped. Pretty much life or death. Yeah, pretty amazing. The most amazing characters and hardcore, rugged individuals you've met down there. Tell me about some of the more enlightening experiences you've had with your guests. So going back to getting this thing going, I was searching for, I hadn't really listened to podcasts. I'm devoted a listener of radio.

And hadn't really found my way with podcasts yet. And once I got on iTunes and went, oh, wow, there's like a million, 888,000, I guess, I think when I started. And I thought, huh, I wonder if there's anything on Baja. So I just did a Baja search, found Jim Riley's show, tuned into a couple episodes. That's cool. Pretty off-road-centric. Enjoyed it. And started thinking, like, people who I wanted to hear from.

and started like thinking about, you know, I'd love to get Sarah Beck just talking about her, her, I don't know, 200, 300, 500, Baja trips that she's taken. Pete Springer, who, who I befriended from my first Baja XL trip down there, just reached out to him. You know, he was the navigator and the builder of the first FJ40 that won the Baja 1,000. I just reached out to him on the internet and just asked like, what should I do? What shouldn't I do? And you record it with Pete and the, you know, Cabova's pickup truck, right?

The cab of my truck. We met at a bar near his house, and it was really noisy. And so we went to the liquor store next door and got a couple of cans and paper bags and actually sat in my forerunner. I think Pete sat in the backseat because it was early in COVID. We really didn't know what the whole COVID deal was. So we got in a closed car with a windows up with a 79-year-old guy drinking tall boys out of paper cans. This is completely destroying people's image of the slow Baja headquarters and sound studios. We just needed some quiet.

But he, you know, my background is a photographer, and I like to see people. I like them in front of me. So the approach that I took to this podcast was as a photographer that I wanted to be where the guests were talking to them, looking into their eyes, you know. And Pete was just such a great, Sarah was my first guest, but Pete was just such a great spirit. He was the first podcast that I posted, and I posted it on Jim Riley's show. I guest hosted four shows for Jim. And it was just such a wonderful experience that it made me say, you know, I really want to do this.

I really want to do this myself. And so, you know, without any with just blind ignorance, I launched and started contacting people and saying, hey, I'd like to sit down with you and talk to you about Baja. and only got big leagueed once, so that was great. That person will always remain, well, maybe twice. We're not going to go into it. But most people were very generous with their time and getting to sit down with me safely with microphones at distance during COVID pandemic.

It was, I think, a tall order. So I did a few by Zoom, but it was really great, again, to sit down with people and hear about their firsthand experiences and bring them to, you know, the slow Baja community. Well, you say you got big leagued a couple times, but yet you have had some genuine legends on the show. One of them, I think I suggested, and you're like, oh, I didn't think about that. Speaking of Dust to Glory, or on any given Sunday.

Yeah, Malcolm Smith, you know, so there are so few people who have achieved a level of fame that, you know, there are one-word names, you know, I don't know if anybody, you know, Pele or Michael or Madonna or whatever, but Malcolm means a lot to a lot of people and, you know, reached out to his son, Alexander, who was very generous and, you know, it was 15, 20 messages back and forth by the time we finally got to our meeting, but Malcolm couldn't have been better. He met me at his house in Riverside. I sat down with him in his living room. We had long Mike Cords, and, you know, he's a guy who has done an awful lot and has achieved an immense amount of success in his field. And he just, he just couldn't have been nicer to, you know, a nobody like me.

So it was very gratifying. It was very satisfying for me to edit it. I couldn't finish the edit enough to turn on on any given Sunday and watch his, I mean, he's virtuoso on a motorcycle. Yeah. And, you know, he uses a walker now. He said, he's got. some health issues and he has a not a steep, steep driveway, but an uphill driveway. And he wanted to take me out back and show me a couple of land rovers that were hanging around in his backyard. He kicked my ass going up that driveway. I mean, he's an 80-year-old dude on a, you know, with a walker. And he's like, whoa, I mean, I live in San Francisco and walk hills every day. And that guy, he still moves pretty well. Yeah. And he's got a real glint in his eye. And that's, to me,

that's why I don't want to do these things on Zoom if I can avoid. it. You know, like if I can see that the person, to get the essence of somebody in person, I think is really amazing. And, you know, again, Malcolm's spirit that glint in his eye has, you know, he even at his advanced age in the situation he's in, you can see, if you've watched on any Sunday, you can see that guy right there in front of you. So that's why I want to do this. Yeah. Well, also, kudos to you for not dismissing him at his, you know, advanced age and his difficulties. And thank you for capturing him because that was for me, uh, as a listener, uh, that was, that was one of the, the key moments of this past year. Um, moving on to some of the others, uh, some of the, I just want to interrupt you

though. Let me, let me just dive right in, but, you know, Malcolm isn't virtuoso, but, you know, you'd kind of touched on it earlier, e-viewing, you know, I mean, what, what, what, what, amazing woman. Crazy. I shouldn't just said old lady. I'm going to use the word lovingly here. What a nut.

She's just a nut. Just a nut. I mean, like, you know, she was flying around Baja with her dad in the 40s and 50s, counting whales from the air. Can you imagine what a romantic story that is? When she talked about flying in the small craft with her father doing that, like, well, yeah, she's an adventurous person.

I mean, she grew up. It. To have a frontier land like that just on the other side of the border doing such adventurous things, landing on small strips like that. Yeah. And with luminaries in their fields like her dad and the rest of the folks at scripts, you know, they were amazing folks doing amazing things flying into Baja. And I really need to land on a couple of guests who can talk about what it was like to fly into Baja in the 50s or the 60s or the 70s because I think that's a lot of what Baja travel. was in those days, adventurous folks, doctors flew down in their little planes, fish like maniacs, drank like maniacs, flew home. So that's a story for the future that I need to find. And certainly Francisco Munoz, when Pete Springer is telling me about, you know, Munoz dropping a plane in on a road and they've got to tip the plane to get through a little cut and, you know, then push it off

the road out of gas. I just need some Francisco Munoz stories of Baja Airlines. Yeah. And it's funny, it is definitely a bygone era, and yet people are still making their own adventures down there. You had a husband, wife, crew, who are Instagram influencers, they do a lot of surfing and stuff like that. I mean, people are packing up their families and going down and still having real life, unbound adventures right next door. Yeah, and it is right next door, and there's a pretty wide variety of, of, vacations like what's your thing are you there for the diving are you there for the surfing are you there for the uh overlanding are you there for the flora and the fauna and the i mean you can get away from nature i mean you can get away from population

two minutes off of the main main road it's desolation on your doorstep as i like to say so pick your pick your your fancy and it's it's there for you yeah and if adventure is not your fancy and you just want to get away to a nice beach. They have that in spades as well as great places to dine. You've had a number of interviews with chefs and hauteur placentia. It was a terrific one to see a guy who's that, sorry for interrupting here, Christopher, to see a guy who's that comfortable in his skin, a dude who's just figured it out, he's doing his thing, his way, has achieved some success with it, obviously,

but couldn't have been nicer again to have a, you know, a little podcast like me set up at his Finca Altazano, you know, he was very gracious. And I find that that's really the defining character of people who love Baja, for sure, and the people of Baja. The graciousness is something that I keep coming back to. Yeah. The culture of La Familia is very strong across the country down there, but it's not exclusive to the family.

It doesn't take much to be welcomed into the embrace of these families by very caring and giving people who are proud, rightfully so of what they've created and who they are and always very eager to share. And it shows through with the people you've spoken with and how they've embraced you and shared. Thank you for sharing that with us. Tell me about why you insist on recording

in what sounds like loading docks and I'm going to say jetway landing strips what's a typical setup like for you when you arrive to town and say oh I've got this interview where could I set up my microphones let's just go back to

Miguel Angel de la Cueva from the opening of the show it's his birthday today we're recording on Cinco de Mayo here at your home studio in beautiful sunny Santa Fe California Christopher and you know I had been messaging Miguel back and forth. I was driving down the length of the peninsula and back up on the Baja XL in January and February of 2021. And I really wanted to meet Miguel because I'm a photographer, but he's an extraordinary, you know,

he's ansel Adams quality photographer working from La Paz, and he really does stunning work. So he agreed to meet me. I don't know, we probably rolled into town at 8 o'clock at night and needed four. food. And so he said, okay, come and meet me at this place. Open air right on the street, on the Malacone. And I'm like, there's no way we're going to start recording at 10 o'clock at night. So we just popped out the gear. I mean, the political announcement cars are going by on the street. You know, you hear the clanking of the glass. You can hear us drinking people, you know, walking up, taking orders of people talking. And I just said,

you know what? Talking to the microphone, Christopher sorted out. I'm doing like these prayers. You You know, like when people, you know, Mexico is such a religious country. When you see people go by the, the cathedrals, they all cross themselves and kiss their, their thumbs. And it's just like, I'm just doing that little motion right there, cross, cross, kiss, kiss. Christopher can sort this out. It'll just sound like you're sitting at the table with us. Hopefully, hopefully I won't muff this whole thing. Because that's, you know, I'm a technophobe, which is why I drive a 50-year-old analog machine without any screens at all.

I just, anything technologically with. Which reminds me, we should shovel some more coal into the stuff. recording machine of ours. So yeah, exactly. So yeah, so I've recorded there some other places that have been difficult, I'm sure, you know, hopefully people feel like they're sitting right there with me. That's the point. This is an intimate medium.

And I want people who are interested in this subject and in my show to feel like they, they know me and they're sitting there with me, having a tequila or, you know, having a beer and listening to the story just like, you know, just like I am. I'm doing this for me more than anything, guys. I hate to say it, folks. I'm feeding my own addiction here. Well, it definitely shows through, and I do appreciate the sense of place as a listener.

It's the technician me who's trying to make your podcast sound like it is produced in a big studio and not recorded in the cab of your pickup truck while drinking cans of beer out of paper sacks. But truthfully, I really do appreciate this sense of place. Have mics will travel, usually with a bottle of tequila these days. So thank you, Giromo Sousa at Fortaleza. Appreciate the help.

No, it really shines through, and it does make it more interesting for all of us. All right, enough with the flattery. Let's get on to the meat of this podcast, Christopher. Which is what? I don't know. I thought we were in the meat. Talking about the, you're there for, you're really recording this because it's your sense of adventure and everything.

You just finished the Baja 1000. Baja Excel. Sorry, not to be conflated with the super... I just had to back out of the... The trophy trucks. Yeah, I just had to back out of the NORA 1000,

which was a goal of mine, but I'm counting down to the Nora 500 in October, so I'm looking forward to that. But you did the Baja Excel, and you encountered a lot of adventures on the way, which you touched on on the podcast that we released just two, three weeks ago, and you arrived...

Adventures in drunk podcasting. Exactly. Oh my gosh. How much. should you guys had? I mean, clearly your brains were rattled and addled from the road, but I think Dom still could have flown a 747 or whatever he flies commercially. He definitely was still it. I mean, even though he's having a wine glass full of gin and tonic, perfectly proportioned, as he said. I cut that part out, actually. No, so it is, it must be really entertaining.

I come from a production background. I make documentaries. I'm a photographer as well, and I know how difficult it is sometimes when you're all sitting down at the end of the day and the last thing you want to do is pull out a device to start recording and yet you manage to do it somehow. What is, again, that drive to speak to these interesting people, is it strictly because you've got to get out of podcast every week or is it because you're so enamored and excited about the people you're sitting with? Well, the Baja XL was a sort of life-changing event. And it's an event every two years.

The organizer does the Budapestabamako rally, which is a crazy adventure rally from Hungary to West Africa. So let's just start there. And I think the point is to do it in a junkie car as well, or at least it started out that way. So very intrepid travelers. And he became enamored with Baja and started this rally called the Baja XL. And it's 3,000 miles more or less in 10 days, mostly on dirt. and it's it's not for everybody it's a skeleton of instructions and you figure it out on your own and there's a competition category for people who want to you know do it as fast as possible

and there's a touring category for people like me who are just glad to be there and and don't need to don't need to rush through but uh i did in 2019 and it was just i hate to use the phrase life-changing, but that does percolate up. You know, I had a vision previously to, previous to the start of the race to have Slow Baja painted on my soft doors of the land cruiser, just to kind of set the stage that I'm going to be with some real off-road racers and some, some folks who like to go fast in the dirt. And so I just wanted to sort of establish my expectations and let them know that I'm going to be slow. And if they're, if we're crossing paths, there's probably going to be a tequila fortaleza in it for them. So, you know, there's, there's reasons to,

to wait around for slow Baja to come by. But that 3,000 miles of dirt seeing Baja that way was really eye-opening for me. And I couldn't wait to do the 2020, 2021 event, January, February of 2021, 10 days. And of course, COVID came on. So as events were getting canceled, left and right all over the world, the organizer figured out a way to do this event safely, thoughtfully, and did it. And I was delighted to have the opportunity and the excuse to go, but the event was not without some drama. And we heard from our friends in the off-road racing community at the event was illegal, and

there was going to be police intervention and, you know, the government intervention and all that. And we just figured, you know what, how about if we just don't put the stickers, the event stickers on our truck? And our vehicle looks so different than any, you know, normal event proper vehicle, a Raptor or, you know, Toyota Tacoma with 35s and rooftop tent and Jerry Cairns all over. I mean, we're just totally different. We look different. We are different. We look like two grizzled old gringoes looking for the next fishing, camping.

cold beer. So we figured bringing up the rear in a vehicle like ours, we would be pretty much left alone, which we were, but, you know, it was unnerving being in Bahia de Los Angeles having dinner after a very long day on the road. And a police officer walked right into the restaurant, right up to our table, you know, confronted us about this rally that we were running, which we played dumb. Obviously, we weren't running the rally, but we were in the rally. And, you know, he wanted us to step outside, which we wouldn't do. We stayed right in the restaurant. and it was very awkward, would be one way of putting it unnerving. And then, you know, when the police officer left, and I looked around the restaurant,

there were probably six tables occupied in the restaurant. And I saw my podcast guest for the next morning. I'm like, oh, there's Roger Mears sitting there. You know, and I didn't know Roger. I'd been messaging his wife for a month or so about, hey, I'm coming down on this date. Is there any chance I could swing by the house and interview you about your life in Baja? But, you know, we're not friends. I mean, I'm not, you know, Joe Rogan rolling into town, you know, making them famous.

It's just little old me in Slow Baja. And here I am getting the police shaking me down at the table next to Roger and his wife. So it's just an awkward way, you know, to walk over and then say, hey, hi, I'm going to be over at your house tomorrow at 9. Okay. So, yeah, some of the adventures of podcasting. But that the Baja XL for anybody who has a vehicle, we, you know, it's kind of rooftop tent crowd. People camp. There's a big camp every night, and it was a lot of fun.

Ted and I chose to, if we can find hotel rooms in a shower, we have enough exposure driving in a completely open, primitive vehicle that after, you know, 10, 12, sometimes 16 hours in the vehicle a day, it's nice to get off the road. And I'm not ashamed to say, I don't mind having a bed. You know, we've got camp gear, so we do camp when necessary. But if there's a bed to be had, I'll take it. And I just want to, before we get too far past this, I just want to point out that the spirit of the Baja XL is you're not going out there hooning, running down goat herds and such. You were out there to celebrate a being on the road on Baja. Is that fair to say? It's not like a complete lawless cannonball run.

No, no, no, not at all. Not at all. It's all public thoroughways. So you're on the paved highway, some portions, and then you're just on a lot of public dirt roads. So you're not hooning across people's private property, which, you know, does happen in other races where the organizers do need to get permission of those landowners and whatnot. But no, the Baja excels all run on public runs. You live on the edge, but you're not a total rebel. I live on the edge and just that I'm out in a bunch of dirt roads with nobody else on them anymore.

So, you know, that's as edgy as I get. All right. With that disclaimer, let's pay for your tacos and the gas and that old land cruiser and listen to some sponsors. You know, we can't wait to drive our old land cruiser down to Baja, and when we go, we go with Baja Bound Insurance. Their website's fast and easy to use, Baja Bound Insurance, serving Mexico travelers since 1994. Let's talk some more about the guests. What's the most sage or poetic thing you heard from one of your guests over the last couple of years? I'm sure there's been a lot, or the last year, I'm sure there's been a lot of stuff and it might be a little bit of a blur.

But what really stuck with you about what people had to say about Baja? Wow, I'm stumped. You know, I am stumped, Christopher. I know we've been talking about motorsport, motorsport, motorsport. Yeah, you know, and that is a concern of mine because I do enjoy the off-roading, the overland, the motorsports, but I really do want to bring all the other reasons that people go to Baja. Okay, well, let's talk about the Borough Adventures. What do you call it? So we've got Trudy Angel, saddling south, and we've got Edie Littlefield Sunbee who walked the El Camino Real,

and then you have Eve Ewing, who, you know, her dad said. Hey, why don't you go to, you know, why don't I fly you into Bihia de Los Angeles and you can join this expedition because everybody just left this expedition and they need horseshoes, powdered eggs and a bunch of other stuff that I'm flying down to them. And why don't I give you my daughter to? Yeah. Wow. So has that inspired you to do anything in the future? Yeah, for sure. So that's, you know, Paul Gansder, again, he was down there with Harry Crosby. And, you know, you. You know, these long, slow pack trips that must just be excruciating some days seem so romantic when you're talking about them. But the remote ranch life, I think, is not long-lived. And I think that's something that if I can get up there on a borough with either Trudy's assistance at Saddling South or through another method, I'm going to slow my role even more than the old Land Cruiser and do that. Yeah, you talk about what a life-changing thing it was to do your first Baja road trip. And I can't even imagine that trip with a pack mule.

It must almost be monastic, you know, meditative to be out there in the heat and the wide open distances. And everything is reduced to a very, very simple life of one foot in front of the other. where's my water going to be? Where am I going to set camp for the night? And I love the idea of it. I don't have the courage yet to do it. Yeah, you said monastic. I thought masochistic.

So yeah, it's an M word somewhere. But a bottle of Fortaleza will help you get through the... Fortaleza is getting their miles worth. For sure. Always, you know, with product that good, they don't need to pay more to have me promote it. I do want to come back to Pete Springer. It's something he said that I do like, you know,

luck beats good in Baja a lot. Luck beats good. I don't know if that'll be on a T-shirt one day, but I think that you do have to be lucky sometimes when you do dumb stuff down there that can involve alcohol or, you know, remote locations and breaking down or whatever. But even when you're not doing dumb things,

you get a lucky bounce, you know, here and there. And that puts you in the right place. It's a fortunate time. Serendipity is beats planning for me, you know. that's a that's a good one you plan on getting back in the truck cab with pete springer and recording another one don't you you know pete has so many great stories that it it's something it's something that um i feel anxiety you know he's rolling up on 80 years old i feel anxiety that somebody needs to pull these stories out of folks the e viewing must have a hundred more amazing stories um pete springer just go

went down there when it was just, you know, a simple thing and it was cheap and you did it and you didn't think a lot about it. And then 50 or 60 years later, people look back and I say, do you did that? That's crazy. That's crazy, mister. You didn't have GPS. You didn't have a sat phone. You didn't have a, you know, fly you out if you get in trouble insurance policy. You just went down there and did it. You went on a motorcycle with no headlight and you rode in the night until you crashed and then you slept right where you crashed and got up in the morning and figured it out. Yeah, so there's a different level of adventure

that I think it's important to record that while it's still around, if possible, from the Malcolm Smiths to the unknowns like the Pete Springer's. Yeah, and we should all let that inform us in our own travels and our own fears that, you know, we have so many safety nets right now in our pockets in the sky. at home that they're almost constricting that we think that we can't do anything without all these

safety devices around us, but really you can't. And, you know, don't take your advice from a couple, you know, nerds like us recording in a studio, but you can go out there on adventure and you're going to be okay. You're going to find somebody. We've all, to quote, Blanche Dubois, benefited from the kindness of strangers. and that's where the adventure usually begins. And don't be afraid of embracing that uncertainty and get out there and start the adventure like you've done again.

Yeah, I think that might be the recurring theme, if there is one thoughtfully or unthoughtfully in my shows, that it always comes back to the kindness of the stranger, the kindness of the people of Baja. It is a place that 99 times out of 100, you're going to have a magnificent trip and good things are going to happen. You're going to get great food and good adventures. And still,

still it's a place where you can get a capital A adventure, that you're not, you know, I find that it's just harder to get a real adventure in life these days. And I think Baja, it's still pretty easy to get a capital A adventure. You can be off the road, out in the middle of nowhere. You can be, you know, on the road. And that's a very adventurous road.

the new Highway 5 is lovely, but the old Highway 1 is a, it's a maximum concentration road. In my old vehicle, for sure, but in any vehicle, the potholes and, you know, there's no shoulders and the way the road's crowned, and there's a lot of big rig traffic and livestock and jack rabbits running across. And so there's, it's a capital A adventure to go down there and does make you feel, uh, I think, uh, at the end of it all, a lot more alive. So, um, you know, I'm obviously, I'm an evangelists and I strongly recommend it, but I have a new guest coming up who just took an RV trip down with her family from Buffalo, New York, and had the time of her life after, you know, a lot of people had told her, why would you ever go to Mexico? It's so dangerous and this and that.

And she got on some forums and found other people saying other things, Canadians saying other things, particularly she took their advice. And a three-week RV trip through the states, and a month of which was in Mexico was absolutely life-changing for her and her kids and her husband and her parents came along and now they're shopping property in Baja for retirement.

So it's that kind of a place. I don't know if I want to go on or not. We're going to leave it right there. It sounds like a closer right there. But since I keep needling you and asking for any sage advice that's been passed along by any of your guests, you've spent a lot of time down there yourself.

You've lived south of the border with your family. leave us with one little piece that you would say. I mean, you've been giving it throughout this half hour we've been doing, but if I'm thinking of going down there, what do you say to me? Well, so that's the thing. You know, it used to be we would try to get through Tijuana as rapidly as possible on a drive. You know, as soon as you're on the south side of Tijuana,

you can stop at some, you know, deposito and buy that case of beer and throw it on ice in your cooler and feel like, okay, the Baja trip has started. Tijuana, I think, is super exciting to me now. The food's great, lots of interesting stuff happening. Obviously, the Valle de Guadalupe has, what is it, 160 wineries and 120 small ends or 120 wineries and 160 small ends. I mean, it's astonishing. They still have dirt roads.

Then you get to Encinada, and Ensenada is, you know, it's almost like an Italian village in that they've got the sea there. They've got the amazing seafood, the amazing climate around with the grapes and the fresh vegetables and chefs doing amazing things. And then, you know, the cheese caves just south of Ensenada. And then, you know, Bahia de Los Angeles, I haven't even scratched the surface there. I was there for, you know, a couple of days. It looks really dry and dusty and sort of slow. And that makes me think like, okay, I just need to get out with Carol Mell.

mirrors and fish for tacos on her kayak with her, you know. So there's so much for me that's still inspiring. We haven't even, you know, gone more than a day's drive into the country. So San Catin's got great seafood and shellfish and things are happening. Then you get south. And, you know, the whale watching trip that I took in San Ignacio with Sherry Bondi was just, you know, it's hard to say life changing too many times in this, but it's one of those things like, where the hell in the world does do whales just swim up to your?

Your dingy. Say hello. Give me a pat. Hey, how are you? They're like, they're like puppy dogs. They're like, you know, it was just astonishing. Like, here are these massive wild creatures. And in one place in the world, they swim right up to your boat and you can touch them. Just bizarre, but amazing and powerful. And so, you know, keep on going south. I love Loretto, is a beautiful town. stumbled into a baseball game up at San Javier at the at the cathedral up there at the mission and you know the two baseball teams were having lunch they're having a goat roast in between and you know my son's a professional baseball player now he had his

professional debut last night so I've been watching kids baseball for 18 years I've never seen two teams sharing a meal before the game together and so that's I think Mexico to a tea that these adversaries you know are going to go out there and play against each other and give it their all. But before the game, they're sitting down and having a goat roast. And it was just, and, you know, we were just, you know, tourists in the town, so they welcomed us in to come in and have, you know, have, there's plenty to go around. So grab a tortilla, gringo, and help yourself. And it was really, that's, that's the spirit of Baja that I miss. And I think if there's a, you know, a theme to

my life and my show and being down there, it's, you don't need to plan everything. You don't need to plan everything. You don't need to have an itinerary. You need to have some pesos or some cash to buy gas because you can't pay for gas with credit cards everywhere in Mexico now, usually just in the northern and the southern ends, but in between you're going to pay in cash. And you need a map. I like Baja Almanac, and I'm looking forward to that benchmark new Baja Road and Recreation Atlas. And then you just need to go and have an open mind and an open spirit and see where the road leads you and what, you know, say yes to things. Why are we still sitting here?

I know, you've got the great motorcycle right there. Let's go. Let's go. Well, Michael, thanks again for bringing me on as editor of the Slow Baja podcast. It's always a pleasure. You always surprise me with the recordings you bring back from your adventures, even when they're just down the road. And let's hope for another exciting year with more safe travels. Well, I can't wait to take you with me.

and have Baja seen through your eyes. That'll be a lot of fun. My face is going to split in half from my big stupid smile right now. Well, from Slow Baja, we're going to leave it right there. Thanks, Christopher. Thanks, Michael.

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