1998/9 Baja, Mexico / California Trip

I woke up early wanting to make sure that I would get to the shop soon enough for him to start on our truck first. The problem is that I woke up at about 4:30 am and was wide awake. So I went outside and watched the sun rise as it was a peaceful morning. The boats were already out in the water and the birds were flying around as the sun was rising over mainland Mexico. It would be another nice day today as they had all been while we've been down here. If we could only get the truck fixed now with no major problems. At 7:30 I finally went up to talk to Jay. He didn't even remember the conversation from last night. So I explained to him that my wife and I had stopped by last night around 6:00 when he was eating his eat breakfast. He asked me if this was before or after the Cantina he went to. I could only assume it was after. After I told him the story again and he told me to pull the truck into a parking area right outside so he could start on it. He said that it should only take a couple hours. I went back to the hotel and then Cindy went up 15 minutes later because we had forget to get the camera and to drop off a key. She found him watering and talking to his cacti. I went back at 10:00 and he was putting the converter back on and said that was not the problem. We got into the truck and went for a ride in it. We stopped at the local store and I bought us two large Tecante beers doing whatever I had to to get my truck fixed. He said that the transmission fluid was burnt and that may be part of the problem, that it just got too hot. He suggested that he change the fluid and I said if there is any possibility that it could cause the loss of accelerations than go ahead and do it. This would take another two hours as he had many interruptions this morning. I finally got the truck back at noon, we paid him $50 and it seemed to be driving better.

We left Puertocitos at 12:30 for San Felipe. The only problem was that we knew we still had truck problems after about 15 miles as the truck still would not accelerate. It would only go 20-30 mph for the next 40 miles, but at least it was daylight. We limped into San Felipe at 2:30. We asked at a hotel for a Chevy dealer/mechanic in town. They said there no Chevy dealer but did give us directions to a mechanic. Four mechanics came out of the shop to look at the truck but none of them knew what to do nor did they speak English. As we were there they waived a passing truck over. It was a friend who spoke English. He explained there was one mechanic in town who would know what is wrong with it. We followed this guy to another shop and interpreted for us as we tried to expain the problem. I took the Mexican mechanic for a drive and he said that it was not the transmission but it just needed a tune up. He said it would take three hours and cost $80. He would replace the fuel injector, gas filter, spark plugs, air filter, sprey?? carburetor and have it done in three hours. We didn't have a choice but he seemed trustworthy. We thanked the interpreter as without him we would not have gotten the truck worked on. It turned out he was a contractor and was working on resort near the white island we had passed yesterday North of Gonzaga Bay. He also and said that the new Pemax station would be open next month in Gonzaga Bay. We asked him why don't they pave the road and he said that some day they will but that the political conditions just weren't right at this point. He sounded educated and knew what he was talking about.

While we waited for them to work on the truck we walked into town about a mile and first got some money out of the ATM machine to be able to pay for the truck. We ate a late lunch and then found a room at a small hotel across from Hotel Costa Azuel. The family also owned a store and were re-modeling the hotel. We would be the only ones staying there tonight. There were two bedrooms and a kitchen/living room. We never were able to get the gas stove to work. We walked back to the truck and I test drove the truck with the mechanic whose name was Martin Chino. We were satisfied with his work and paid him the $80. We drove the truck back to the hotel and then went window shopping for an hour. We bought some gifts and ice cream for the kids. We did have a better impression of San Felipe this time compared to when we came here a month ago. Last time we couldn't walk down the street without being asked to buy something every five seconds. It seemed like there were more tourists here this time and it also wasn't a weekend day. We'll come back here again someday. We went back to the room and went to bed early around 8:00 as we were all exhausted from a long day.