Punta Abreojos Baja Sur

From June 26th-July 3rd 2010, Myself, Jeff Thompson, Mike Adnoff, Christian Comet, Miguel Rodelo, Chance Kinney, Jimmy Rodelo, Jaime Noia, Shane Greer, and Makana Makaneole went on an eight day surf trip from Newport California down to Punta Abreojos in Baja Sur. The drive down through the small towns and the "desert stretch" took all of fourteen long hours. This was an SEA trip (Surfing Expeditions and Adventures) spearheaded by the artist/surfer Jaime Noia, Jimmy Rodelo, and Mike Adnoff. The cinematographers of the trip were Jeff Thompson, and Makana Makaneole. I Shaun Gonzales was the chief photographer. Many stories of US-MEX travel these days  displayed by the trusty media portrays Mexico as ripe with crime, murders, kidnappings and rape. However, we were blessed not to encounter any such trouble (although we were stopped by a military checkpoint and had our vehicle searched on our return trip). In the Adnoff green Tacoma was myself, Miguel, Uncle Mike, and Jeff,(Jeff was in the car after we picked him up in Ensenada) we departed Newport around six-oclock in the morning which was late because Shane arrived late and Chance nearly left his wetsuit at the Hawthorne's. Uncle Jimmy, Jaime and Mike were pissed, needless to say they were heckled the whole way. When we arrived at the border around eight o'clock, we got out of our respective vehicles and had to go get our travel vistas for the trip, some of us had to use the john, which was not necessarily the cleanest restroom we have ever used. Twenty solid minutes later we were on our merry way with dreams of straight off-shore barrels because there was supposed to be a solid head high+ south swell marauding the mexican/californian coast the day after we were supposed to arrive at Abre. We were going up the TJ hill towards the coast to the tune of Uncle Mike's ipod which was playing some beach boys. We arrived in Ensenada at San Miguel just about an hour later to pick-up Jeff Thompson, there was a memorial paddle out for a young local surfer who had died in a car accident just recently. We went into town at a coffee joint named Cafe Tomas which has amazing coffee, almost like a Mexican Starbucks. Miguel was making excuses for not wanting or being able to pay for his coffee because he only had a one hundred dollar bill, and uncle jimmy kinda laughed, we all kinda did. Shane and Comet's coffee got mixed up and they switched em back. We were at Tomas for at least fifteen minutes, Jennifer Jaime's girlfriend met us there and told him goodbye, so we left. We stopped once more for gas, soon after me and Miguel wanted a few shots of the Mexican storm flag at the port and jeff started filming.

We then continued on for just over an hour, and it wasnt long before we started to have some engine trouble so we pulled over to check it out. We tossed some trash out and used the head once more albeit the Tacoma was still relatively cramped. It turns out because we had the AC on at the time and it was starting to get increasingly warmer. The trouble was only the radiator, so we replenished the radiator fluid, then it was all ok so we left again. I soon pulled out my laptop and had started to play the pipe masters and Vans Triple Crown from 2006 from my itunes library and we were stoked. We did this for a short time as not to deplete the battery power. So I had my I-pod put in the car stereo and we began to listen to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Matt Costa and the Ramones just to name a few while we were on a winding road passing vineyards and lush farmland below, oh how extremily beautiful the sight was. The following picture is of a Mexican military checkpoint.

The following shot was taken of a Mexican man trying to sell some parrots in one of the small towns along the way.

Several hours later, we began to hit the desert stretch which for the majority of people requires five hours of virtually nonstop driving through a vast desert littered with a cornucopia of cacti. At sometimes we didnt see a single human soul besides our vehicle and the SEA van ahead of us which at this time Uncle Jimmy was driving. I made a remark about people in the Unites States complaining about over-crowding and said "you could look as far as the eye can see to the horizon and not see another person, so much for over-crowding". Jeff Thompson replied calling that a Shaunism, along the whole trip there were many so called "shaunisms" however unfortunately most of them have been forgotten. When we first entered the desert going down a hill I put on the theme song for Indiana Jones and everyone in the car began to smile and laugh a little bit for it was the perfect music to be playing at the moment. We were warned about how hot it could get there, I removed my jeans and was wearing some Katins and Miguel removed his jacket as it did get very warm, albeit not overwelmingly hot. We stopped once to go piss and me and Jeff took some more shots of the desert there such as the cacti, the environment and some of da boys or each other posing in front of the large cactus and such. We stopped for fifteen minutes then resumed the trek which continues on for another solid three and a half hours in the desert. After we started ascending some of the hills after the desert it began to rapidly cool down then we shut our windows as it got cold. About a couple hours later we pulled over to get some gas and it was cloudy, windy, and cold so some of us used the head which was very filthy. I came out and hung outside of the truck for a bit talking to some of the local gas workers and offered them some chicle in spanish which for those of you who don't know what that is it is gum. They were stoked we were all stoked and thus we left. The following picture is of

uncle jimmy in the desert stretch.

  

The following shot is of one of the cactus in the desert.

So we were once on our merry way again and several more hours go by, to our right lies the great pacific ocean about a half a mile away seperating us were cacti, brush, sand dunes and some fences. The sun was setting and it was getting much cooler, and darker, it was an incredible sunset but lucky for us we had a full moon to look forward to. We arrived shortly thereafter at Guerrero Negro which is the dividing line between Baja Norte and Baja Sur which is also just over an hour and a half from our target destination of Punta Abreojos. At the checkpoint in Negro, we had our windshield wiped for like some thirty pesos as to not spread the dead bugs to the sur side. Some thirty minutes later we arrived at some decent restaurant where we ate carne asada, beans, chips n salsa, tortillas and mexican coke. An amazing meal it was. We were on the road again fifty minutes later, the sky was covered in clouds and we decided to beat the clouds to drive under the full moon for superior illumination of the road. About 35 minutes out from Abre, keep in mind that Jeff was very tired from driving then I turned on the songs "Free Fallin" by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers followed promptly by "Another one bites the Dust" by Queen, Jeff commented on the choice of songs since he was dreary and the mexican roads are a few feet off the ground, with no shoulder and they are narrow while driving tired at night. It was an accident, a funny one though. We arrived near the graveyard pulling onto the runway around 10:30 at night under the full moon and set up camp at one of Jaime's friend's homes near the Tecate liquor store. We took down our boards, bags, and we swept up and cleaned the dirty dusty house a wee bit and set up our beds then we slept well after our long journey.