"The Devil's Road" Main Expedition, Day 35

April 4th (Punta Conjeo to El Triunfo)

Everything was wet when we woke. The dew was so strong it seemed as though it had rained during the night. But, within an hour, most everything was dry. We had found a cool camp site tucked in under some low growing trees and had a great night’s sleep. Our next move was to head to El Triunfo. We had a day to kill before we needed to be in La Paz, so the decision was made to bypass La Paz and film El Triunfo.

Getting through La Paz has always been a problem for us and is notorious for other travelers as well for having very poor signs. We got lost again. One dead end road after another had me frustrated. I flagged down a passing motorist to ask him where the road to Cabo was and he began to stumble as to how to give us directions. After a few puzzling seconds, he said, "Just follow me." This nice man took us three miles out of his way and took us to the right road to Cabo San Lucas. Only in Mexico will you find that kind of hospitality. Thank you!

El Triunfo is an old town with a storied history. At one time 11,000 people lived and worked in this gold and silver mining town. Now only 500 people make it their home. The mining operation is in ruins and restoration work is in place to save the 70-meter smokestack that was designed by Gustav Eiffel. We were met by an interesting fellow that said he was a tour guide and asked if he could show us around. We agreed and he set about to tell us things like, "This is the machine," and "This is the quartz," and "This is the cow." In the end he asked for a propina, or tip, and continued to give us a blank stare when we asked how much the usual tip was. When I reached into my wallet and pulled out a bill, he seemed to not understand what I was doing. Or, was it his way of saying that it was not enough? We were perplexed.

Most of the land surrounding this community is private and well fenced, so we decided to head for Los Barilles to spend the night on the beach. The 30-mile ride was a wonderful mountainous and curvy ride that made the trip out to the beach that much more pleasant to be camping on.

"The Devil's Road" Main Expedition, Day 5

Laguna Hanson to El Alamo

The wind started howling sometime during the night and didn't let up even after we'd gotten out of the mountains. In the morning, bitter cold wind cast ripples across Laguna Hanson and the overcast sky caused the water, shore, and rock formations to all blend together in a washed out grayscale. We briefly considered boiling lake water to make it drinkable, but abandoned that idea after considering it's murkiness and the thousands of cow pies scattered around the shore. Wind ruled out any on-camera interviews we had planned. Bushwacking cross-country through sage brush on the 650s brought us full circle around the lake and we forded multiple creeks, sloshed through mud puddles, and fought stretches of sandy road to make it back down into the valley. 

"The Devil's Road" Director JT Bruce

Back on pavement, the ride to El Alamo was quick. Nine miles on dirt road finished the side trip and brought us to a nearly empty village that sat just down the hill from the hulking ruins of a hugely productive gold mine, now abandoned. Looking for a way around fenced off dirt roads, we motored up a hill to find some viewpoints and poke around abandoned mine shafts before heading back to town, jumping a fence, and hiking up to the main structure of El Alamo. This thing was massive, and held the rusted, broken machinery of a stamp mill, used to crush gold ore for extraction. The most well-preserved aspect were the piston housings, blocks of iron marked with giant capital letters "UNION METAL WORKS - SAN FRANCISCO, CAL."  As the sun was setting, we rode another 20 miles south and pulled off Mex 3 to make camp. Maybe the wind will leave us alone tonight.