"It's moi! Big Tony! From the book!" Our new friend gestures with his hand trying to get the point through to us. Instead of encountering the expected bandidos as we entered Mexico, we made a good friend, Big Tony, the 'real live' character in the book "In Search for Captain Zero" by Allan Weisbecker.

It's all true what they say about the pharmacies in the infamous Mexican border town, Tijuana. We literally had to zigzag our way through them to find the immigration office where we could get our papers sorted for the temporary importation of the truck and the tourist visa. The sun was baking, and the ordeal of entering the border to finding the right office (with limited Spanish) was as expected time consuming and reminded us how much we wanted to get to the promised land of empty waves and beach camping.

As we zoomed southbound from Tijuana we saw clean reef peaks, maybe 4 to 6 feet, all down the coastline but not one surfer on them. As we were excited to be out of Tijuana alive but still a little weary of the unknown of Mexico, we kept the diesel truck roaring straight past them. We learned later that all the bad press about the drug wars in Baja and the declining economy was to blame for the lack of surfers and tourists, but the empty line up at the infamous right hand point break of San Miguel made us thank the drug lords, Banks or whoever was to blame, at our first stop in Baja.

Our campsite, fondly referred to as 'the dirt patch,' was right on the point and was to be our home for the first few days. Unusually we were the only campers there, our 'Surfing Baja' guide had told us to be prepared for surf hungry crowds from San Diego, California and beyond, but now we were only sharing it with the old dirty outhouse/showers and a pack of dogs.

"Do you know the area?" Ollie asked a surfer in the water that seemed to have an approachable character and a relaxed, friendly attitude. He wanted to break the ice in the line up and maybe even get some local knowledge of the place we were staying. Perhaps it was our naivety of not knowing who 'Big Tony' was that lead him to take us under his wing. Tony certainly knew the place, he'd kept coming back after his first visit which was with his girlfriend and a VW split screen van in the late 60's. He liked it so much that he ended up buying the ultimate surf-pad on the hill overlooking the point.
　
We left San Miguel a few days later with a taste of clean perfect waves breaking over cobblestone, some great surfing stories from Tony, some good advice for our journey and some surf art, which was painted by Tony himself. It had been a great start to our Mexican adventure and an even better start to Ollie's year of surfing.
　
Wash Board Roads and Fish Tacos
　
"Wash-board" was the description used in various surf guide literature explaining the state of the roads in Baja. You don't really understand the true meaning of it before you have actually experienced it. The last bit of the road to Eijo Erendira and the Coyote Cal's Hostel gave us a good introduction. Beautiful rough barren scenery surrounds the area, with dirt tracks connecting the ramshackle villages up and down the coast. The roads are full of potholes and bumpy as hell. Often there are chunks missing of various sizes and scales, they have been taken in a previous mud slide or storm. This is Baja 1000 territory; a hard-core, off road race which travels the length of the peninsula.
　
Within days of entering Baja terrain we had managed to pull out one of the four tie-down hooks which hold the camper onto the pick-up truck bed. The way the camper rocks sideways on these bumpy roads, its amazing the remaining tie down hooks are still in place. It makes us miss the VW Syncro off-roading capabilities.
　
We made sure our first experience of Baja's infamous 'fish taco' was secured before we made our way to another classic right hand point break, Punta Camalu. What we got when we arrived at the point was flat dirty water and a hotel that was in full operation but only had the first of 3 floors completed. As the surf was non existent and we couldn't risk driving any longer with the tie down hook coming loose, we decided to dedicate the afternoon to trying to find someone who could help us fix the problem. After half an hour of searching the village of Camalu, we ended up finding an electrician's workshop, although we did not know this at the time. With phrasebook in hand, we found the owner and gave him a round of Charades, teamed with Pictionary (using his blackboard) to explain our camper problem and what we needed doing. Proving that the Mexi's 'can', Ramon put his electrical work aside and with the help of his side-kick, promptly got down to making a tie down better than if it had been new!
　
As we bumped around on the rough track the following morning, we had piece of mind with the tie down now firmly in place. We had camped at the back of the hotel on the bluff, and were up early to avoid any attention. Shipwrecks, the next break located further down the coast, was also flat. As we had left Camalu so early that morning, the clock had not even turned 9am when we arrived and there was not a single person to see around on the little settlement. We had been advised by Big Tony to avoid driving on Sundays. As the hard-working Mexicans only have Sunday off work they tended to party quite hard on a Saturday night. Sunday road carnage was quite a common thing on the already dangerous Mexican roads. With this in mind, we decided to make camp for the night. This meant we had the whole long day to occupy ourselves, whilst we waited for Monday to arrive. Now we could have been proactive and started chapter 2 of our neglected Spanish course but instead we decided that sitting in our camper, emptily staring at each other in silence, while the clock ticked loudly and slowly in the background, would be more beneficial.

Two Guys and a Red Rocket

After a few hours we could hear a buzzing in the distance, the buzzing was getting louder and louder and eventually could make out a red speck on the horizon. We both could not believe our luck when a little red Toyota pick-up with surf boards and camping gear on the back, rocked up on the beach beside us. We quickly decided to do a stealth mission to investigate the two individuals, and to sneakily delay their journey long enough that they would have to stay the night. By now we were very bored of each others company and it also would give us a sense of security not being the only ones camped out in bandido land alone.
　
Colby and Chad of Seattle, Washington, proved to have some good stories to tell. We ended up chatting to them on the cobblestones for over 4 hours, successfully delaying their planned drive to the 'Wall' so that they were forced to camp with us. The Wall, also on our list of breaks to see, is one of the Seven Sisters; seven perfect right hander point breaks.
　
They had a whole lot of serious surfing gear with them; among this was the 'Red Rocket', a 9 foot long board made from an unidentified foam-like substance with bendable fins which were guaranteed to never cut you in the water, or to cut through the water for that matter. It was worth the $100's paid for it in entertainment value alone. Shipwrecks was disappointingly flat so we did not get to see the board in action. Apparently one of the features of the board is that it bends when you put pressure on it, "kinda like a wet noodle", was one description used; now that's cutting edge surf technology!! Chad and Colby are around our age and have been surfing for decades, but they also have an awesome ability to laugh at themselves. This is something which is seldom seen in today's line-up; there are way too many over-inflated egos out in the surf these days. The guys had decided to take along the Red Rocket to the Wall to break up the seriousness and to have some unpretentious fun! They did bring along other 'normal' boards for the not-so-fun sessions too!

Dodging Bullets in Bandido Land

The drive to the azure blue waters of east coast of Baja, Bahia de Los Angeles, went through the largest population of cactuses we have ever seen. The Cardon cactuses towered at least 20 meters above the top of our camper! Ramon, our electrician had warned us that this area was renowned as bandido land; apparently it was not too uncommon to have bullets fired at passing Norwegian and Kiwi gringos. What we did encountered on our journey through the desert, was not the rumoured bandidos, certainly no flying bullets, but beautiful desert terrain which changed appearance every half hour or so. We had never thought desert could have so many different looks. After 5 hours of driving from Shipwrecks the super blue waters and pinkie brown desert mountains of Bahia de Los Angeles appeared before us.
　
　
In the RV Park of the 'Bay of LA' we took the time to have a few relaxing days in the sun, it was nice to have the luxury of hot showers and be smelling decent again but, after a few days, we were eager to get back to the Pacific side for more surf. Bahia de Los Angeles was nice but very basic; the town survives on its sport-fishing tourism but sadly has also been affected by all the bad press. Hotel rooms and campsites were deserted. The real victims in all this mess is the innocent Mexican families who are now struggling to make ends meet.
　
With our batteries recharged we packed our stuff and headed to the 'Wall'.....