[Above: DATW vehicles camped on a beach south of Mulege, Mexico.]

Journal by Nancy Olson

Hello, blog readers. Nancy Olson here. I’ve requested Thursday as my day to write blog entries during this expedition, so -- seeing as that they have obliged me -- you’ll catch my chitchat right here each Thursday…

As you may already know, if Todd mentioned it in his Wednesday blog, we pulled into camp last night at around midnight-thirty. The night driving and winding roads, combined with the late hour, meant nobody was really up for anything more than popping the tents and hitting the sack. I fell asleep to thoughts of a warm shower (as promised by signs posted in the camp ground) after a brisk run along the ocean. We set up our tents in a place called Guerrero Negro, in a camp ground next to some Mexican military barracks. The nights are pitch black here in Baja, but I was pretty sure we had parked only a few hundred yards from a serene beach.

We’d agreed to hit the road at 0830, so I had set my alarm for 0715 in order to run. Every day since we started this expedition, Todd has said to me, “Oh, you ran? I thought about running.” He had stated his intentions so many times with zero follow-through that I figured he was a lost cause. But he surprised me today.

At 0530 this morning, we were awakened to the sound of a crazy mariachi band’s horn section practicing ruffles and flourishes for about an hour. After some broken sleep, we were again awakened at around 0700 to the familiar (to this Marine, anyway) sound of troops counting cadences. Exercicios, anybody?

I did get up when my alarm sounded at 0715, but, had I somehow managed to sleep through it, Adam’s arrival at the door to our roof-top tent with camera in-hand would have rousted me. He was filming our sleepy wake-up for the documentary…he definitely captured the real Nancy — puffy morning-eyes and all.

I stuck my head out of the tent to realize with horror (ok, it wasn’t horror, exactly, but I was definitely surprised) that we were nowhere near a beach, or even a body of water, but smack in the middle of a vast desert. Ugh. Where would I run without fear of being kidnapped for ransom? Around and around the camping compound?

To my surprise, Todd asked what time it was and then said he’d like to run with me. We took off down a dirt road toward what turned out to be a tiny little pueblo. It was his first run of the season, and we were both tired, so we agreed to a mere 20 minutes. Eventually, I tricked him into running an additional 24 minutes by suggesting it would be a good idea to see if we could make it all the way to the cement barrier at the end of our dirt road. “I like goals,” he said. What a great sport he is! We didn’t make it, but we did cover some valuable extra distance. On our final leg to the finish, Todd and I agreed that I will do a “Brandy Chasteen” victory hurrah to celebrate my 50th run of the expedition. I’ll run into camp, strip down to my sports bra, and throw my arms up in declaration of my #1 status, simultaneously dropping down to my knees in victory while the significance of the moment overwhelms my senses and sensibilities. I can hardly wait. It will be very, um, spontaneous.

We started driving at precisely 0830 — an amazing accomplishment for this team of late sleepers, dawdlers, and procrastinators. I barely made it in time, because the warm shower I had been dreaming of turned out to be ice-cold and miserable. I couldn’t stand the cold long enough to wash my hair, so I ended up washing it in the sink…

Todd and I (we are in command of Vehicle D3) had a lovely conversation about the meaning of “a sense of urgency.” (His take: “Not something that’s real important to me a lot of times. Depends on what it is.” My take: “It’s absolutely critical to survivability and mission accomplishment.” Our take: Move on to a new subject, promising to resume the conversation later, and knowing full-well that Nancy will continue to avoid it from now until the end of time.)

At about 1040, we passed a Mexican gentleman broken down in the middle of the road, and Nick announced over the radio that he was turning around to help him. We had decided that no vehicle was to go anywhere solo, so Todd and I announced we’d go with Nick (Todd is a mechanic).

We quickly radioed the other two vehicles to continue on to a town called San Ignacio and await our arrival. Ten minutes later, after dumping half a jerry can into Luis’ empty Chrysler, we were back on the road and heading to San Ignacio to rendezvous with the crew.

Three hours later, we were still trying to rendezvous with the other two vehicles…We had blown right past San Ignacio, not realizing the little buildings and taco stands along the side of the road were the city, and ended up in San Rosalia on the coast…about 75 kilometers beyond San Ignacio and our team. After a loop through town to scout for their vehicles, we turned around and drove all the way back to San Ignacio. Man, those guys were going to be pissed. We prayed they’d decided to have some cervesas and margaritas.

The trouble was, there was no sign of them in San Ignacio. So we turned around and drove all the way back to San Rosalia. Still no sign of them. We were feeling pretty hungry by then and pulled into a roadside restaurant along the main drag for some tacos. A few minutes after we ordered our tacos pescados (fish tacos), D2 and D4 pulled into the lot beside our vehicles. What a happy moment that was! Everybody was safe and sound and back together. To our surprise, they were coming from the direction of San Ignacio.

We’ll never know how we missed each other, but the good news was we were reunited at last. Surprisingly, nobody was too mad, and nobody tried to point fingers and place blame. They had had tacos in San Ignacio before driving back to where Luis’ car had been stranded, and had finally decided to head on down the road to our destination for the day, Mulege. Meanwhile, we had figured they were probably already drinking beer on the beaches of Mulege. It would have been awesome to see a bird’s eye view of the four vehicles doing circles and narrowly missing one another at every turn. I’ll bet it would be pure comedy to see from above.

We finally got on the road again after gassing up and bickering over what we perceived to be an overpayment scandal at the pumps in San Rosalia. The time was almost 1730, and 1.5 hours separated us from Mulege. That meant more driving at night on winding roads. Our intended protocol called for no driving at night…

We found the campground fairly easily, and we were excited to have a strip of beach and a private lagoon all to ourselves. Life was good! We were in the rack by 2330, and my alarm was set for a 0830 run. Tomorrow would be a late departure, with just an 80-kilometer drive to our destination in Laredo on the slate for Friday. Life is good.

Logbook for November 13th
Start: Guerrero Negro, Mexico
Finish: Mulege, Mexico
Mileage: 250

Help support our cause: Drive Around the World aims to raise money for Parkinson’s Disease research by taking four certified pre-owned Land Rover Discoverys around the globe following lines of longitude. Readers are encouraged to pledge small amounts of money per expedition-mile via a pledge form that can be found on our Parkinson’s page by clicking here. Everyone making a pledge of $10 or more to raise money for the Parkinson’s Institute will be put in a raffle to win an expedition-style Land Rover.