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From Swedespeed.com Reviews and Road Tests Travelling to Southern Baja in order to sample the Volvo XC70 isn’t the simplest proposition. Going to the extreme environment of the Baja peninsula is an excellent way to show off just how tough the SUV-inspired wagon can be, but actually getting there is a whole other exercise in toughness.
Landing in Loreto, the single-building airport sports a customs gate and bathrooms. The former is equipped with a state of the art button that lights up one of three lamps on what looks like an intersection red-light. If you hit the button and get a greenlight, you’re clear to go. If you get red, you get searched. I don’t know what happens if you get yellow, but all of our party got the green and walked as free gringos into Mexico. We passed through Loreto, capital of the Mexican state of Baja Sur until the 1800s. Back then a hurricane leveled the place and the governmental seat relocated to La Paz. At the Hotel Villas de Loreto we caught a quick lunch of fish tacos with a beautiful view of the water. This was the last time we’d be anywhere near a cell tower, so those with phones and calls to make quickly checked in before dropping off the network of technology that still bound us back to our Stateside offices. Shortly thereafter, we were given a quick run-down of how everything works. It’s all the usual stuff – watch out for road blocks with automatic weapon-wielding federales looking for drug traffickers, watch out for cactus at the roadside “rest stops” and one last thing - Mark Thomas (a medic from Texas hired to keep an eye on us) mentions, “keep your passport on your person, with your blood type and any allergic reactions paperclipped inside.” Apparently, if they have to medivac you out and back to the States, without your passport, the chopper will have to stop at Tijuana. No passport on a bleeding or otherwise incapacitated American makes him or her an illegal alien. As Phil Collins once sang, “It’s no fun being an illegal alien” – especially when you’re in need of emergency medical attention.
We get a quick briefing on the cars and their several modifications (outlined in the Introduction to this series). Aside from a few upgrades, our XC70s were new, cosmetically-freshened XC70s fitted with the company’s 4C active chassis. Our guide and lead XC70 driver in the convoy was to be Bryon Farnsworth – a master of the Baja 1000 endurance race and old salt when it comes to knowing the area. He gives a few brief pieces of advice like: 1. If you see a large rock or obstruction and can’t avoid it, aim it toward the wheel or just inside it, keeping anything from knocking the oil pan silly enough to spill its guts. 2. When we go through the armed checkpoints, follow his lead. He’d run the course beforehand and had a letter from the Mexican government saying we’re in their graces.... muy bien. 3. We’ll be on a prompt schedule. We WILL make our destination by dark because the helicopter can’t fly after dark. They shut down the lights at all of the airstrips by law, assumedly in a bid to stave off the smuggler traffic into California. So we’re also told to keep pace so as to stay on schedule, but don’t drive beyond your means. We finally hit the road for some of the easiest driving of the trip. The road is the two-paved lane Mexican Route 1 that covers the expanse of the Baja Peninsula, snaking southward out of Tijuana, sometimes along the coast, sometimes not, and ending at the southern tip of the land mass in Cabo San Lucas. Of course, we’re only on it a fraction of that distance, going north from Loreto to Mulege’. We can hold a good clip - the main danger being truckers making time on this two-laner, barreling around blind corners and swinging wide. It wasn’t surprising as these aging eighteen-wheelers bore down on us several times that the mind quickly goes to a quick inventory of the XC70’s safety features, such as side curtain airbags. On the road, the 4C system seems pretty conservative. Even in Sport, the XC70, while an improvement over the older car, isn’t as taught as the “Sport” nomenclature might lead you to believe. It’d also be nice if that “Sport” mode could also control the weight of the car’s power steering. In a car with a lot to love, the steering remains quite light and non-communicative.
We stop for a short break in Playa La Perela. One can pull the cars right up on the sand and next to clear water and amidst several R.V.s and other sorts of temporary housing. A local woman with her beautiful little daughter comes by to sell bead necklaces and animal figurines made of seashells.
Back on the road, we pass through a checkpoint – our first encounter with these teenage soldiers carrying their foreboding automatic weapons. Thanks to Bryon’s good word, we’re all waved through and get back up to speed in only a moment. On some increasingly straighter stretches, the group gets a bit split up as it passes slower-moving vehicles. The XC70 in front of us manages to slip around a pickup truck pulling a large boat as it rounds a curve. By the time we get him on the straight he’s got the big Ford going at a 90mph clip, the boat dragging behind, and he'smaking a concerted effort to keep us from getting around. Committed as we are to the pass, we keep the hammer down and finally tuck in ahead of the truck.
Arriving in Mulege’, it’s just before dark as Bryon predicted. La Serenidad is a hotel located near the outskirts of town. Owned by an American with an eye for what is appealing to those of us from that side of the border, the hotel is clean and the food is impressive. The pork that is cooked on a spit out in the hotel’s central garden is raised there on the premises. Fed figs from the local trees, the meat has a sweet taste to it. We’re told the villa is a popular spot for Americans, especially those with their own aircraft. As if to make the point, one can spot three 1940’s era Pipers parked on the adjoining dirt airstrip. They were owned by a group of travelers from New Mexico who’d flown down for a quick jaunt to Baja.
Armed federales have an office and a Hummer parked outside – manning the airstrip just outside the fence. With the soldiers outside and the sleepy little village of Mulege’ beyond, it’s easy to relax over a few cervezas and jokingly inquire with the Volvo staff just what it is we’re in for tomorrow - supposedly our most intense and longest day of driving. ARTICLE SERIES LINKS 1. Introduction 2. Part I: Loreto to Mulege' 3. Part II: Mulege' to San Ignacio 4. Part III: San Ignacio to San Francisquito 5. Trip Wrapup
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