[paranewbi]

So when we think of the subject of criminal activity and personal security while enjoying Baja, how many of us have this in mind?

A true story…

I met my third and fourth wife (go ahead ask) by way of our group of friends, who gathered together in OB (Ocean Beach) San Diego, at a certain friends driveway on weekend nights. A year out of my second divorce, I was living in my 1976 RV (this was 1995), parking it in the OB beach parking lot during the day (while I went to work) and a nearby store parking lot at night (while I slept).

I was on a mission to save up the funds to leave for a year of traveling Central America.

One of the things I found attractive about her was that as a nurse, she was dreaming of joining ‘Doctors Without Borders’ in her personal quest to visit and serve the underprivileged souls of distant lands; something I had done since working in Tijuana orphanages, with my church youth group as a fifteen-year-old. Oh, and she liked margaritas.

She knew of my future plans as we socialized amongst all of the others those late nights and as we started to ‘hang-out’ together, I shared my experiences of down south. She had never been across the border and I started to drop those ‘seed’ words of commitment saying such things as, “Maybe we’ll have to make a run-down Baja to get you in the groove”. Of course I was looking for her reaction to see if she was buying the ‘maybe we’re more than just friends’ thing.

She indicated she was on board and I lay in my RV that night thinking of how I just put my travel plans in question. Those plans got shelved when we moved into a house together in OB at the end of our first summer of doing the relationship dance.

The beginning of our first new year together, we packed up my 1971 VW bus with the usual Baja camping gear on top and for good measure, packed up her fifteen-year-old son and my seventeen-year-old son as well. Her son had been living with his dad out of state, whereas my son was living with his stepmom (who raised him as my second wife) while finishing his last year of high school. My son and I had a rough sixteenth year of his life and he chose to live somewhere else. This “run down Baja” was an opportunity for a regrouping camp trip for he and I, returning to the many times we had camped in Baja during his life.

The four of us got to know each other during the three day drive down the peninsula and set up camp in an arroyo about 83 kilometers out of San Jose on the east cape. From the many times I had brought the family down to this site, we knew some of the other campers that made it an annual winter retreat, camped in the arroyo. For two weeks we fished, snorkeled, explored San Jose, turned tortillas into chips and guacamole, bathed in the ocean and spent late nights around a campfire.

My son knew the coastline of this area since he had camped here many times with me. The boys were free to explore the beach and the arroyo up into the desert behind us, while mom and I got to sneak in those afternoon ‘naps’.

Of course, the day came when we were destined to return to the mundane life up north. The trip north would be a repeat of the same pattern we had traveled many times before. An overnighter in La Paz to cleanup, an overnighter in Guerrero Negro and then a run for home in OB.

Being the early riser that I am, the bus and campsite were packed up by the time the boys crawled out of their tent as the morning heat started to set in. I gave each of them a medium sized garbage bag to put their dirty clothes in and instructed them to pack the tent up. As usual I had opened a tarp over the top of the bus and packed the larger camp items up on top of that tarp. I waited up there while the boys started to toss up the items that remained to be stored and covered for the trip home.

Sleeping bags, camp chairs, tent, the items they had in their personal control all came flying up to me as I packed them away. Then came the first garbage bag full of dirty clothes, then came my son’s backpack. I tossed the backpack down to my son and instructed him to keep it for the stay in the hotel and to toss up his garbage bag of dirty clothes, that no one needed access to. His backpack came flying up as he told me that his dirty clothes were in the backpack.

I asked him where his clean clothes are (usually in the backpack) and he informed me they were in the garbage bag. I asked him, “Are you going to carry a garbage bag with your clean clothes into the hotel?” He replied yes.

Not wanting to lose the healing in our relationship he and I had gained getting past those recent teen years, I decided to not make an issue of this, and I put his backpack on top as the last item upside, and folded the tarp over the contents on the roof of the bus over the bundle, and tied it securely to the rack it sat in.

It was Super Bowl Sunday when we walked into our hotel room in La Paz and the boys were not interested in hanging out for several hours while we watched the game. They took off to the Malecon, with instructions to meet us out front of the hotel at the appointed dinner hour. With the boys gone we took a quick ‘nap’ and the game was on.

We had all the fixin’s for drinks in the bus and I went down to the street to retrieve such from it. Sliding open the side door I noticed the tarp was askew and I climbed up to the floor of the bus to reach up and resecure it. It wasn’t the type of askew that the wind would create and it looked like someone had opened a small portion to access whatever they could reach from standing on the sidewalk. That would have been only my son’s ‘dirty clothes’ backpack, which was still there and I reclosed the small opening and retied the rope tiedown.

The game ended, the sun was setting, we exited the hotel and found the boys waiting for us on the Malecon. We directed the boys towards one of the restaurants a short walk down on the beach side. We exchanged looks of suspicion as we strolled, acknowledging the way adults do, that something was up. The boys were much more engaging and animated than usual, joking and smiling along the way.

At the restaurant we placed our orders for what would be unexpectedly huge plates of fish with all the side offerings that usually comprise a delectable imbibing. The boys picked at their plates for a few moments and sat back declaring it was just too much. They asked to be excused, and wanting a chance to speak alone, we allowed them to meet us back at the hotel room.

Our conclusion was that the boys had found someone to sell them, or perhaps someone to buy for them, a bottle of booze and we were seeing the effects of the content. Knowing we still had two days with them in a VW bus we decided to let this ride, to be addressed when we got home.

We crossed the border in Tecate with a trip to secondary and a walk-around sniffing by a Border Patrol dog. Down the mountain grade and the familiar superhighway to the coast through east county San Diego, we arrived out in front of our home safe and sound.

The boys quickly carried the content of the bus onto the ocean view deck and then asked if they could walk down into OB before dinner time. I was pleased with their cooperation and was ready to be rid of them for a while after 11 hours in a VW coffin with them.

We took advantage of the solitude for a quick ‘nap’.

One son returned the next day to his stepmom not far away, the other son was destined to be with us for another month until flying home to his father’s abode. As that time grew nearer for his departure his mother grew more melancholy over having to say goodbye to him. But with a week to go until his departure, we both were looking forward to having our ‘new love’ lives back to ourselves and we knew more adventures south of the border were already in the planning stage.

“Hello, my little brother!, how have you been? Are you recuperated from your trip down south?”. My sister in Florida was on the phone. We talked every couple of weeks usually but I hadn’t spoke to her in a month with this call.

“Hey sis, we had a great time and I was really happy to have some time with the teen monster and survive! Just another awesome trip to Baja! How’s things going with you guys and the kids?”.

“Well, we’re doing fine, but I’m calling because I need to discuss something with you. The next time you take your son to Mexico, make sure you search him”.

I wasn’t sure what my sister was driving at, but I assured her that I always inform whomever I am travelling with that drugs or paraphernalia or contraband would not be tolerated by me. I had sat the boys down and told them to not bring anything with them that was illegal. I told them to do whatever they needed to do with it now and to not bring anything into my car.

“What are you telling me this for sis?”.

“Well the boys found a brick on the beach while you were camping and they brought it back with them”.

Now my sister was as straight as an arrow as a person can be. Her and her husband had sailed the South Pacific for several years. She was at one time the personal executive secretary to Jonas Salk at the Salk Institute in San Diego and her husband is a trained scientist.

“A brick sis? Are you talking about pot? Sis that’s over two pounds of marijuana and is pretty large, how did they get it back?”.

“In your son’s backpack”.

‘Drift-weed’ is not that uncommon on the shores of Baja. It is often the result of a dumping of smugglers boats in transit when discovered by authorities. The salt water will usually render a portion unusable, but a good amount may still be salvageable although sometimes tainted with a salty mold. Personally I would have nothing to do with such in any area of Mexico as not only is there the chance of being caught, but there might be others looking for what they expected to be their delivery, let loose in local waters.

A series of images instantly flashed through my mind. The ‘dirty laundry’ incident, the disheveled opening of the tarp in La Paz, the access to the backpack, the boys animated actions on the Malecon, the quick departure for OB after arriving home. THE DOG SEARCH OF MY BUS AT THE BORDER!

“How did you come by this information Sis?”.

“I called my nephew to see how he was doing at his step-moms house and he told me”.

My son had never been good at hiding his shenanigans in life and often boasted of them, even to me. It was a great part of the problems that we had between us… that sharing with his dad of things I would never think of sharing with my father. It also led to the discipline he eventually revolted against.

I was boiling mad. I envisioned a Mexican roadside stop and the discovery of a kilo on top of my van. They don’t have juvenile halls in Baja and they aren’t interested in teen kids. I would have had to come up with the funds or perhaps been thrown in jail. And… I have had friends who’s girlfriend and one who’s wife had to pay the price for stupid infractions such as this (go ahead ask).

I thought of a discovery at the US border and the loss of my bus and possibly my passport, something I couldn’t live without, as well as a prison sentence most got at that time.

I felt stupid for trusting my son, with his recent choices in life, on a trip to a foreign country with me.

“Sis, I have to go”.

This was some years ago and I have gotten over the emotions associated with this. I chose to compose this without using the parties names as I thought to do so would serve no good purpose now. I just share this as a note to alert the reader to the least suspected harm that could come to you in Baja, might be right in your own home.