God Having Himself a Little Chuckle

All along the highway are shrines to the Virgin, and crosses where souls passed from the earth. You come across crazy, unmarked, hairpin curves, and dips, and places where the road is washed out, sometimes all at once. I read about an old Mission, San Borja, built by Jesuits in 1759. The AAA guidebook says, "The best route to Mission San Borja is totally unsuited to travel in a passenger car...the single track road has a high crown and numerous rough and rocky spots, calling for a sturdy, high-clearance vehicle. For those with the proper equipment the trip to this magnificent mission is well worth the time and effort." Yeah.
Hahahaha. It's twenty-two miles from the highway to the mission. Four hours after turning off we were still not more than half way there. We bounced and rattled along, picking our way among boulders and cacti, tilted at crazy angles, until we were bored to death at the slow pace. Then the truck went dead.
I got out to look under the hood. The solid zinc battery clamp had broken clean in half. It hadn't just come off, it was broken in half. I put it back on, and the car started, but it couldn't be clamped, and we were able to go about three feet before it was bounced off again by the road conditions. I could have sworn, I'd packed some electrical tape that might hold it in place, but a thorough search of my tool box and the bed of the pickup and various bags and boxes revealed no electrical tape. I tried using some aluminum foil to hold it down, but about every three seconds the car would conk out. All around were wild asses, real, braying, wild asses, and I thought God was having Himself another little chuckle at me. We turned the car around, and bumped back toward the highway, the car conking out every three seconds, me popping the hood, opening the door, walking around to the front, putting the clamp back on the battery, closing the hood, getting back in the car, going forward six feet, and the car conking out again and again and again for however many miles it was back to the highway. Carlos and Miguel were despondent with boredom. About eight hours later, it was getting dark and we reached the main highway, which is much smoother, with only about a million potholes per kilometer. I only had to get out of the car to put the clamp back on about every thirty seconds or so, all the way to Guerrero Negro, Black Warrior, a mere hundred kilometers to the South.