The Ride of My Life! Cabo San Lucas ATV
First and foremost, I must thank God, Jesus, Buddha, Bodhisattva’s, and all others who watch down upon me and keep me safe! Thank you for keeping me alive, and for the most part without injury during my Cabo San Lucas ATV experience.
So, for today’s Cabo San Lucas adventure my friend and I decided to ride ATV’s. We found a tour with a sunset ride on the beach. There was a group of about ten people joining the tour. It sounded perfect! I had never been riding before, so I was pretty excited! After getting our helmets and goggles, we were given instructions on how to operate the vehicle. It pretty much was, here’s the gas, these are the brakes. Wow! How easy! And, oh how naive to think such thoughts!
We started off in a single file line, with my friend and I at the end. We went onto the trail, and into the mountains. At first, I thought it was pretty fun… then the trail quickly become extremely rutted, and uneven. The ATV was harder to handle than I thought it would be too… But, that was just part of the adventure right? About fifteen minutes in, I was wondering where in God’s name the beach was, and was struggling to maintain control of the beast I was on! The trail started to climb again, and I encountered a quick switchback. I almost lost it on the turn, and was somewhat taken aback to see cattle on the trail so close to me. I could have reached out and touched them!
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After finally making it through the switchback, I sped up so I could catch the group. I wondered how my friend had handled that part of the trail, and kept looking back to see where he was. He never appeared! Ten minutes passed, and I finally made it to the riverbed where everyone was waiting. There seemed to be something going on with the guides… And still no sign of my friend.
I motioned for a guide to come over. I asked if he knew what happened to the guy riding behind me. In very broken English, and lots of hand motions, he said something about tipping, paramedics, and he’s somewhere over there! I freaked to say the least! I tried to get more info, but all I got was he is ok. I still had no idea where he was, if he was ok, or had been take to a Mexican hospital. And, I still had to complete two more hours of the ride!
I had to totally focus, like I had never focused before. I just kept riding, believing he was really ok. Off I went… What else could I do?
About ten minutes into the trail, another insane curve appeared as we started to climb even higher. My steering was not quite as it should be, and I kinda missed the trail! The ATV went left and up, and I was stuck… Very, very stuck and teetering, almost falling off the edge! All I could think about at that moment was that we had turned down the insurance for the ATV’s, and now we might have to pay for two! A broken ATV from Cabo San Lucas was not the souvenir I had in mind.
Reality kicked in quickly, as I realized I was being left behind with no sign of help! This was not the time to think about insurance! I jumped off the ATV, taking the chance that it wouldn’t roll. I had already messed up my leg earlier, and didn’t want this thing to crush me. Once I was off, I tried to put it in reverse… Oh yeah, they didn’t show us how to do that!
I kept trying to push, pull and move it while hitting the gas. I kept hoping something would finally work. Everyone was getting farther and farther away. Thoughts of being stuck by myself, in the middle of Mexican mountains, kicked in my adrenalin. Somehow I managed to move it! I jumped back on and found the group.
At this point, all I was doing was swearing to myself that if I get out of this, I will never set foot on an ATV again! And, then there was another switchback… I guess it’s clear by now that the sharper turns and I were not doing so well! Once again, I went off the trail.
This time I plowed straight through eight feet of brush, screaming, and wondering where the hell I was going to come out! “Lucky” for me, I exited on flat land and could see the group in the distance.
When I started to get close, I saw a couple people standing off to the side. As the sun beamed through the dust, I thought I saw my friend… But, then again I could have been hallucinating! But, no I wasn’t! It was him, and he wasn’t hurt!
Apparently, he had almost flipped his ATV too, but had been assisted by one of the guides. They brought him down an easier route once they realized he was ok. We continued on, and finally made it onto the beach.
We were rewarded with a beautiful sunset and a bottle of water… I’m thinking they should have gave us tequila!
I was, however, relieved to finally be on the beach, and actually riding along the coastline.
Several hours have passed since this grand adventure, and we are now laughing about it. Yes, we had some drinks to help get us there! We are thinking of keeping the rest of the trip a little more low key… That’s the plan at least!
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