#18 Rooster Hunting Baja

The Jeep pushed confidently through the soft sand, closer and closer to the turquoise sliver on the horizon. From fifty feet back it looked like a solid and capable rig. From twenty feet out, you could certainly tell this vehicle had been around the peninsula a few times. If you were walking up to it at a used car lot, you'd be spinning around and ducking the greaser salesman in wrinkled slakes striding your way. At the rental facility where I first hopped in and went to let out the clutch in first gear- I shivered with doubt. Yep, it's a well-used rental rig alright! When you want a 4x4 for remote desert exploration, you want a stick shift. And when you get a stick shift in a Mexican resort town, it's been driven by a LOT of people who've only driven automatics. This poor Jeep had been through the wringer, and I felt sympathy for it like an abused dog as we filled it up with fishing gear, ice and boxes of beer. Reluctantly, we headed away from civilization and towards the Baja backcountry, skeptical of just how far the rig would take us.