I’ve lost track precisely but I think the Friday night recovery was our third or fourth vehicle we’d come across stuck in the sand, aside from the time we winched ourselves out of the soft sand at Barra de Potosí.
The day started off as usual at our wild camp at Playa San Carlos, one of our favorite swimming holes in Mexico, with an early morning bathe before the wind picked up such that we were paddling about in salt water that most closely resembled a swimming pool.
Back at camp I checked the tire pressure on our new tires. Thursday we’d spent the day in Hermosillo, the capital of Sonora state shopping at Costco and having new tires installed on GANNET2. We chose Michelin Agilis 3, three season road tires not sold in the US, land of snow and ice. In the US the Agilis tires are all weather models to cover people who live with snow.
They are designed to be sturdy tires suitable for rain and rough roads covered by commercial delivery vehicles. The Agilis sidewalls are reinforced, which we discovered immediately help with potholes and the rough sections of road frequently found in Mexico. They give a much smoother ride.
We decided not to go for all terrain tires much preferred by the fashion conscious social influencers. We spend most of our time on pavement where longevity and silent running are our priorities. The Agilis tires are sturdy enough for the relatively minor amount of off road driving we do.
On the drive back to our beach spot at San Carlos the Michelins produced an amazingly smooth ride compared to our stock Nexens. Had we been planning to stay in the US I would have bought the much less expensive Nexens as they were fine but the rough pavement we face in Central and South America next year made me choose something tougher and the Agilis tires are the right ones I believe. It’s funny how critical tires become when you live on and with them all the time!
Back at camp I was hauling my compressor around fine tuning the pressure on the lovely new tires when a dog appeared. Fat and equipped with a collar he obviously belonged to someone and most likely a gringo. I paused to offer him Rusty’s bowl of water when a woman under a broad straw hat yelled, “Don’t feed him anything!” I didn’t respond in kind but simply said I was just offering him some water on a hundred degree day. “It’s not a hundred degrees!” She snapped from under the brim of her broad straw hat. Okay then I said, it’s 95 and he’s in a fur coat. I didn’t mean to imply he was suffering and he didn’t want the water anyway but I was just trying to be nice. I didn’t want her around with her instant irritation especially after six months of living among easy going Mexicans. Layne made polite conversation with her as she wandered around our camp and helped herself to a view of the van. After that exchange I left her to her nosing around and I went back to my tires. The conversation was the usual cocktail party inane stuff asking about where we’re from in Florida and that sort of thing, which seemed rather odd after her outburst putting me in my place. I had the thought that even if I had offered her dog a cookie unbidden there would have been no need for drama. On the way back she looked away and held her creature on a tight leash. All I could think was how am I going to cope back in the USA? I shall have to remember to keep Rusty on a tight leash too.
I can always tell gringos from Mexicans as the latter almost always smile or wave if they cross your path on foot or by car. North Americans in Mexico act as if you aren’t there. Which causes me to smile and wave even harder!
I got my karmic comeuppance for my gross generalization I described above, during the course of the afternoon when a car pulled up in front of the van and I had my gringo moment. We were aboard GANNET2 sheltering from the heat and reading and we could hear the occupants having an animated conversation. I couldn’t quite hear the words but my mind immediately went into the gutter and I figured we had become the accidental epicenter of some secret rendezvous. Why the hell park in front of our van on an almost empty two mile long beach?
After about fifteen minutes of conversation and as far as I could tell no hanky panky a voice shouted “Olá!” and Mr Intruder slid into our beach chair outside the door. My gringo moment caused me to sit up and wonder who the hell was in my space but Mexico has different customs about personal space so I let him talk. It turns out he was a banal traveling salesman offering very expensive seafood in large quantities. Layne gave him a flat no when he asked for fifteen bucks for a pound (approximately) of scallops.
He tried to lower the price a fraction but Layne was adamant. We’d be eating scallops every day till we crossed the border on Wednesday as fresh meat and seafood isn’t allowed into the US. I am expecting a thorough inspection exposing a long list of infractions that we will undoubtedly discover at the Naco port of entry next week. But we weren’t going to haul dead fish through customs. At least that.
The afternoon drifted away as most seem to do around here. Rusty loves it as there are no street dogs to ambush him and he comes and goes as he pleases. I walk him morning and afternoon but he even gets to sit outside at night if he feels like it, as we sleep with the doors open to enjoy the cool night air.
Layne made chicken fajitas for dinner and we were sitting out at sunset when we heard a car engine moaning. Then a gray car I’d seen on the beach earlier in the day came out of the bushes from the beach and drove off toward town through the shrubbery. However…
…the engine noise continued. Another couple who had been enjoying the beach were now stuck in the soft sand at the beach entrance. The darker brown area in the example below is compacted dirt and that’s the surface where we park. The lighter stuff is fine soft sand deep enough to sink a car above its axles, and locals know the difference. An example below where you can see the tracks of the cautious stopping on hard packed dirt.
After a day at the beach with his beloved, Mr Jeep had sunk hard into the sand at dinner time as the sun was setting and he was ready to be driving home to Hermosillo. I listened for a couple of minutes to the engine revving then I got out my entrenching tool and Go Treads and went to help.
Mr Jeep (we never did exchange names) was a man of energy and resource. Lacking any tools he was pulling sand out from under his Cherokee with his arms and putting sticks under the tires to build traction. To no avail. I put the Go Treads under the front tires and together we dug. When we go back to the States I’m buying a second entrenching tool as they are small light and strong and two people dig faster than one. 
We dug and rocked the Jeep but lacking a differential lock we couldn’t get all four tires to grip and he was stuck. Hard. His girlfriend a skinny Asian woman who only spoke English and weighed possibly ninety pounds in her swimsuit got digging too and she was tough and extremely energetic scattering sand like a back hoe. Nothing worked until the Rzr Quad off road machine showed up with two young Mexican men in it. And they had a winch.
They pulled him out backwards then put a strap around the front axle(!) and pulled him sideways and pointed him toward the hard stuff and yanked him towards it. His Jeep got out of the sand hole with all of us pushing including the 90 pound dynamo and nothing on the Jeep broke despite the rough treatment. I want one of those Quads when I’m over van life. Load it with some water and a tent and take off into Mexico’s back country and drive anywhere. They are amazing.
Back to reality. Everyone went home after a round of fist bumps and lots of laughter and I walked around the corner to my solar shower, stripped off and tried to peel off every last grain of sand. A fun day at the beach and one I shall look back on fondly, another memory of Mexicans helping Mexicans and strangers instantly becoming friends.
