Deeper and Deeper

The next morning I heard someone walking around camp. I guessed it was Miguel or Carlos, but I was too tired to open my eyes until I heard the door of the truck open and someone rummaging around in the glovebox. I opened one eye. Okay. The big lump in that sleeping bag is Miguel and the little lump in the other sleeping bag is Carlos, so who's going through the glovebox. I sat up. It was the hippie who had been sharing his Jack Daniel's with me while I fished the surf the night before. I cursed at him and scrambled out of the truck and he ran off before I could catch him. The guys woke up and we did a quick inventory and didn't seem like the bastard had gotten anything. We decided to get a move on. We broke camp and packed up. Got in the car, started the engine, put her in gear, and the wheels spun in the dirt. And spun and spun and the car sank deeper and deeper into the sand. Again. A Mexican fisherman beached his panga and came over to help. He said he had a car and that he would try to pull us out and he walked up the beach and came back a while later in an old truck. We tied the bumper of his truck to our truck, and he revved the old truck up and pulled his bumper clean off. It was almost funny. We tried tying the rope to place under the chassis. The wheels on the Mexican's old truck spun and spun and sunk deeper into the sand and soon he was stuck, too. Nothing to do but open some Tecates and pass them around. Soon a couple of American women drove up in a Subaru Brat. "Hey, guys! Stuck?" It turned out to be a girl of about twenty years old and her mother of about forty driving around Baja by themselves for the adventure of it. They tied the rope to their car and pulled our truck, and the fisherman's, out of the sand. "You should let a little air out of the tires next time, and you should be able to drive right out," the mother said. Tecates all around and then we were on the road again.