Baja Incident

Considering the recent bad publicity about Baja California and travel in the area, I wanted to relate an incident that occurred to a group I was with on Dec. 31.

We had been in Baja on a camping expedition. En route home our van would not start. No one in the group had had much mechanical ability, and we were in a real dilemma. Two of us hiked out to the main highway where we flagged down a passing pickup occupied by a Mexican family from Ensenada en route home from a family visit in La Paz. We asked them to go to the nearest town and call the Green Angels for help.

Rather than do that the driver of the pickup offered to interrupt his journey and come down to look at our disabled van. Within a short time he had corrected the problem, our van was running again and we were on our way. The man who helped us was reluctant to accept any compensation for his help.

Such incidents in many forms have occurred to me over the past 18 years that I have been traveling in Baja California. I think they present a more realistic image of travel in that area than all of the negative publicity generated by incidents in border towns.

GARY J. JAMES

Costa Mesa