markmarchesi.com

Everyone has owned one car that they’ve connected with more deeply than any other that came before or after. For me it was my 1989 Blazer. It was the first vehicle to which my name appeared on the title, I drove it an absurd amount of miles, and on more than one occasion it served as my only shelter for months at a time. I’m not embarrassed to say that there were times, while on the road, when I came to see the Blazer as my closest and dearest friend. It sounds strange, but when you are thousands of miles from home and it has been weeks since you saw a familiar face, a car can easily become much more than just a mode of transport. It becomes your safe haven- a small piece of your native soil in the middle of a foreign land.

I trusted the Blazer. It carried me to all four corners of the USA and well beyond. I put my safety and well being in it’s capable hands time and again, and it almost never let me down. Almost never. Like every car in the Northeast that has been on the road for more than ten years, the Blazer had it’s share (maybe a little more than it’s share) of rust. Mostly, corrosion is merely a cosmetic issue, but not when it is eating away your gas tank from the inside. Don’t get too excited, the Blazer never exploded or caught fire, but it came close. Toward the end of it’s life I made an early morning trip from New York to the suburbs of Boston to work on a masonry job there. I parked at the site and went to work. Upon returning to the car around lunch time, I found a puddle of gasoline under the vehicle - the result of a fairly steady leak that almost certainly originated somewhere along the interstate that morning. It isn’t like I hadn’t seen that coming. Actually, it was the confirmation I needed to explain the chronic clogged fuel filter problem which was the Blazer’s one recurring downfall.

The first time it happened I had just crossed the border from Yuma, AZ into Mexico. I was staying with a friend in the southern part of Arizona and had been watching a series of documentaries about the fight for water in the southwestern deserts. One episode talked about how the US had robbed Mexico of their share of the Colorado River. It showed the trickle of water that is left when it flows across the border, and the delta which was described in the 40s by a famous naturalist as “a milk and honey wilderness”, and is now a barren wasteland. A week later I found myself crossing the border with no good map, and no real plan but to search for images like the ones I saw in that video. Soon after the city streets of San Luis turned into the country roads of the surrounding farmland, the pavement ended and I had no idea where I was going. I have always prided myself on what I imagine to be a better than average sense of direction. So I pointed the Blazer west toward the Colorado. When I found what appeared to be (and I still believe must have been) it, I was shocked.

I was no where near the delta, but what I saw was a river bed of sand and rock more than a quarter mile across, almost completely dry except for a narrow but powerful stream meandering through the center. This was the once mighty Colorado River. After snapping a few pictures I made my way back to the car and resumed my trip south and west along the banks, intending I guess, to follow the road all the way to the delta. Several miles passed on this dirt road. The river to my right, green fields of vegetables as far as the eye could see to my left. Eventually I reached an intersection on the outskirts of a small town. The road I was on ended and my only options were a left back toward San Louis and the US, or right across the river on a one lane bridge that doubled as a railroad track. Cars on either side took turns straddling the tracks and inching across. When my turn came I was terrified, but not wanting to turn back, I proceeded with caution and made it to the other side in one piece.

To my delight, the road on the other side was paved. I took the first left in order to stay with the river, and happened upon a large outdoor flea market. I parked and walked around a little. I grabbed a Coke and took some pictures, then got back in the Blazer and headed south again. Life was grand. As I accelerated out of town I entered the place where people of the area dispose of their waste. On both sides of the road were burning and smoldering piles of trash, and almost as if the noxious fumes were choking the Blazer, I felt the engine stutter. I gave it more gas and it happened again. My heart sank. I drove on for another mile or so and felt it again. In a slight panic I turned around and headed straight back the way I came. Past the flea market, over the sketchy bridge, through the fields, and back across the border as the sun was setting. I crashed at a state park outside Yuma that night. The next day, more confident in my own country, I pushed onward with the Blazer choking and coughing the whole way. When I finally got to a service station the diagnosis was simply a clogged fuel filter. I would later learn to fix this on my own, and did so periodically, until one became rusted on and I stripped the nuts trying remove it.

Once the nuts were stripped I gave up and just kept driving the car with the knowledge that sometime in the near future I would feel that telltale stutter and be stuck having to get a professional to change it again. Coincidentally, this day came on another road trip in Mexico.

I left San Diego on Saturday morning heading south into Baja, taking pictures and looking for a place to surf. My plan was to camp that night and drive back the next day. But, about two hours south of Ensenada I felt it. Driving though an arid mountain range, just about to make it over the pass, the filter started to clog again. I coasted down the other side of the pass, not sure how to proceed. I had just passed through a small town before heading into the mountains, and it would likely be another hour or two before I reached another. By the time I had descended into the next valley my decision was made. It was touch and go on the way back up, but we made it to the pass again, and then coasted down into the town. In Mexico, Baja is referred to as La Frontera (the Frontier). From Tijuana to Ensenada there is a fair amount of infrastructure and commerce. But, south of Ensenada there is virtually nothing until the La Paz and Cabo area in the extreme southern tip. Towns along this stretch are dusty, windswept blips along the main route. The one I found myself stranded in had a very small network of dirt side streets, one gas station/general store (of course the entire facade of which was painted with a huge Tecate advertisement), a small police station, and a public pool.

I pulled off the road in front of the police station. I had been told on numerous occasions to beware of Mexican police- that they are all corrupt, and make a good living on the side shaking down Americans in Baja. That made me a little hesitant to walk into their station unannounced looking for help, but I did it anyway, and when I walked out had a police escort a half mile down the road to the mechanic.

The mechanic was a stout and squarish, with thick, powerful forearms. His garage was nothing more than a driveway with a couple of large trees that provided much needed shade. His right pinky finger came out of his hand at nearly a right angle. It was almost certainly of no use to him. It must have been badly broken or dislocated once, and in the absence of proper medical treatment, healed in that grotesque position. In our broken renditions of each other’s languages, we discussed the problem- we even took a short ride together so he could feel it for himself. I showed him where the rusted on filter was, and he went to work while I sat in the shade with an elderly man who must have been his father, and wondered how often the bus to Tijuana came through. After a few minutes, he gave up trying to twist the nuts with sheer strength alone, and sprayed what I guessed to be lubricant and/or rust remover all over the affected area. While waiting for the solution to take effect, he went in the house and came out with three glass bottles of Coke. One for him, one for his dad, and one for me. Myself and the elderly man sat and drank our cold beverages in silence while the mechanic went off to work on another project.

He came back a little while later intent on getting that fuel filter off, and succeeded. Given our remote location, and the fact that he didn’t have a replacement, he did what any resourceful mechanic might do. He took a long screwdriver and stuck it right through the filter, effectively eliminating the clog, and opening the fuel line to any and all debris coming from inside the tank. When everything was back together, he jumped in the driver’s seat and I jumped in the passenger seat. He reversed out of the driveway, then floored it. We peeled out in the dirt, kicking up a thick cloud of dust. Then we screeched onto the pavement of Route 1 and quickly accelerated to fifty or sixty before he finally let up. As he turned the car around, he gave me a look of pride and excitement, then did the same thing back to the garage, grinning broadly all the while.

When we got back, and it was time to settle up, I told him I didn’t have much money and and depending on how much it cost, I might have to drive to the nearest ATM (which was two hours away in Ensenada) then come back. He nodded, then thought for a minute before he spoke. What he said next I will never forget. He said “something fair for me, something fair for you… six dollars.” Unbelievable I thought, you can’t even get into a garage in the states for less than one fifty. I opened my wallet and counted seven dollars. I gave him the extra buck for a tip and head back to San Diego.