Fun is a long ride: consolidated Baja tour.

A WEEK AND A HALF IN BAJA, MEXICALI, we find the Consolidated crew and Thrasher photographer Otter Ogden heading south with our first stop at Campland Campgrounds in San Diego, CA. This is a favorite stop of ours when down south, which is basically a weird, over-blown RV park with electricity and cable ready fixtures, two large pools, two grande hot tubs, and showers as well. Instead we go low budge, pitch tents and BBQ'ing.

From Campland Campgrounds we head south to Ensenada, Mexico, and that's when things start to get fun. After hours of traffic we arrive at a Permission School. (What?! Some Powerade-sponsored bike race brought the 15-minute drive to two hours.) Heck was callin' it make or break. The latter becomes reality. Heck somehow tweaks the inside of his ankle while his foot is still on the board, requiring him to gimp around with a cane for the remainder of the trip. Roberto and Emetic filmed lines and hit some thick rails, pretty fun set up. You know cool options when you see 'em; it's the curse of the skater's eye. Once you're aware there's no turning back. From there we head to the House skateboard park in Ensenada for a demo later that evening. After skating, Hilberto from the park puts us up in a cool, mission-style hotel for the weekend.

POLICIA Y LETICIA

THE NEXT DAY street skating the rotary monument, myself, Emeric, Roberto and Leticia as translators, go for a paddy wagon ride downtown. The policia wanted payment for telling the judge that we didn't destroy the monument in any way. They wanted $300, a hundred bucks per officer. After some negotiation, we worked a deal through Hilberto from the skatepark to send a package of boards that they would pick up from him and sell. (Hilberto better hope that we send the stuff. The policia will be knockin' at his door soon). The whole affair lasted a total of 30 minutes, and then we were back out on the street and headed to a cool, square pool for a session with the locals.

You'd never believe who showed up an hour into the session, but the negotiating police officer. Apparently he was scamming on Leticia. Dude splits to go home and change--but says he's coming back and wants to take a picture with Leticia. What?! We were out.

LIP OF DEATH

LATER THAT NIGHT Heck and a couple of the guys go to check out a band playing at the skatepark. Heck is using a busted cane to hobble around. A few locals invite them to their house to have a smoke, fix Heck's cane and ice his ankle. Back at the show following cervezas, the same guy that helped Heck fix his cane then decided to take back his kind gesture and break the cane over his knee in front of his friends, laughing--all in good fun. Heck shrugged it off and powered the rest of the night on his black and blue ankle. You know how we do.

The next day we go skate an OG skatepark ruin. Luke said he saw a Mofo photo shot there circa late '80s, some dude front rockin' the "lip of death." Some old farmer was pretty much hugging the gutter and ran over my board when it went over the "lip of death." Crackzilla. We went skating some more street spots and that's when I hit the edge of a concrete pillar with my leR hand and pretty much broke my finger.

"Let's get a move on out of town. You know this crew," I told Luke, so we decided to split to Quatro Casas, about 130 kilometers from Ensenada. It's a concrete, right-hand kidney sort of thing at a pretty sick surf spot. Hours and a couple of wrong turns later, we arrive just outside of our destination and set up fort in the pitch black, only to wake up in the morning and re-locate about a hundred yards to the north, re-establishing our campsite where we remained for the next two days.

Bailey and some of his homies came down for a skate and surf, Otter Ogden hit the waves, and I caught my third wave ever.

PASS THE BUCK 

EARLY ONE MORNING Leticia asked me to walk with her to buy some fish from local fishermen. They had caught a manta ray and said it was good eating. One of the fishermen sharpened his knife on a rock from the beach and started to carve into the manta ray like a Thanksgiving turkey, cutting off two flanks from each side of its body. He put the flanks in a plastic bag and sold them for four bucks. Then they discarded the manta ray on the rocks, probably tomorrow's bait. Still half asleep it made me re-think some of my morals and values and how nobody wants the blood on their hands anymore, nobody really sees or thinks much about it--pass the buck, just plastic wrap it real nice and let someone cook it and it's all dandy. This is a way of life for these guys, though; totally different compared to what I'm used to. I figured the manta ray was dead, so I could at least show it that much respect by partaking in the feast; a little chewy, put over some pasta and you've got something. We camped, skated and surfed for the next couple of days in a pretty unbelievable spot. FYI: On June 25th, the proprietor, Richard, is hosting an all-girls skate jam in the bowl. It's about 130 kilos from Ensenada.

HOW IT'S DONE

WE MADE OUR WAY back to Ensenada for some more rugged street skating. Roberto and Emetic killed it, skating the soccer goal through the dirt gap with large drop. It was pretty sick. This is where we had our second altercation with la policia. Luckily, this time we had permission from a janitor. Apparently the policia were phoned because all the local dirts were sitting on the roof watching the skating. They split like hellfire when the cops arrived, ducking out quick like they knew it well. Zed flew home to take care of some moving arrangements to Portland, Oregon. Local tipper Canibal showed us around to some more spots and leapt off some big shit.

From there we found ourselves heading north, back to the States. On the way out of TJ I traded my Consolidated T-shirt to one of those dudes selling Chiclets at the border for his T-shirt, which read: "Support a doctor, be a skater," and on we drove with our last stop at 'Pedroside. Andy Harris and Bailey met us there to show us how it's done--and now it's done.