Around The World In 80 Waves

Margaritta and Berneditto told me there is a much better road down to Punta Rosarito so I head back to Highway 1 and stop for fuel, where I am told the turning is 8km down the road. Sure enough the dirt track appears on queue and I bounce down it going really slowly to try and avoid the rocks.

Halfway down I am wondering if I am pushing my luck because it is ridiculously undulating at times, but barring a couple of loose stones I make it all 13km to the end. I race to the shore to see what the surf at ‘The Wall’ is like and am distinctly underwhelmed. It really doesn’t look anything special, but I go back to the car to get suited up and go in anyway, but am horrified to see a lake of oil forming under the car! I look underneath and see it pouring out of a hole in the sump, so I can’t use the car because I will probably seize the engine.

I can’t see anybody and am 20km from help so am thinking things are not really going well today. (Remember that I had only just been dragged out of the sand just under two hours ago!) I back track along the oil slick I have left on the path to see if anything has broken off, and cannot believe my luck when a white transit sized van bounces out of a side road, and all the more so when it has a young Australian couple in it. He had been surfing the Wall yesterday and they had stayed on a different part of the beach but are now heading to a different bit of the coast. I ask if they can give me a lift to the next town, which they say is no problem. I run back to the car to get my important stuff like passport, etc but when I have run back around the corner with my daysack the absolute w##kers have just buggered off fully knowing that means I am 20km from anybody or anything.

There is no choice but to suck it up and start walking, so I do so for three hours in the midday sun. I am struggling to get my head around the behaviour of the Aussie couple, and am dreaming up things to say, bones to break, curses to cast, etc in the event that I see them again as I stagger down the dirt road armed with my bottle of water. I would have taken pictures here but in my haste to get back to their truck I left my phone in the car. 10km in I already have several blisters and am actually being circled by the same sort of turkey vultures I had seen tucking into a donkey’s carcass the day before, and thinking this may end badly if I’m not careful.

After the full 20km stagger I stumble into the first building I find, which is a roadside restaurant whose only customers are a couple of cyclists called Fabi and Daniel from Germany. They are doing a trip similar to mine (www.tapinambur.de ) but can’t help me. Having cycled to Paris myself I know how hard their own trek is and I promise to make them a cup of tea if I see them again. The owner of the restaurant can’t help either so I have to stagger on two more miles until I get back to the fuel stop where I had asked for directions. A a bloke in the shop says he knows a mechanic. He offers to give me a lift so just maybe I might be ok…