On Day 8 of the Baja XL Rally down the Baja California Peninsula, we passed through San Ignacio in Baja California Sur. Again.
It was beautiful and vibrant, as visitors and locals wandered around the old stone streets. Small family-owned restaurants with open patios filled the square, the smell of fresh food sizzling on a skillet. Misión San Ignacio, founded nearly 300 years ago, was still proudly presiding over the square, and this was our first time seeing it all in daylight.
Then a siren in the distance, and a voice booming over a PA system: “Wooo, the Fire Department San Ignacio is here! Welcome, Baja XL!” The vice mayor and his brother, the comandante, were arriving to greet us, and had decided to make an entrance the best way they could, with their prized fire truck and ambulance.
It was a welcome sight after the grueling week that had preceded, but a week we wouldn’t soon forget.
The BajaXL Rally
My teammate Derek and I were not only taking part in the Baja XL but also filming a documentary about it.
Like the famous Baja 1000, the XL takes on the same rugged wilderness, only it isn’t a race. It is a backcountry expedition, much longer than the 1000, lasting 10 full days.
When the original organizer stepped down, Dave Moore and Wilson Craig, the rally’s “co-jefes,” took up the torch to keep the Baja XL alive as a community event.
This was the first community-led Baja XL: no sponsors, no official organization, no emergency support. No winners. No losers. No competition.
Derek and I dove into the experience a touch overconfident. We are seasoned emergency-management professionals, and his daily driver, a mostly stock F-150, seemed like a solid rig.
However, we quickly realized we were in over our heads before we even started, but that is another story.
Giving back to Baja
The Baja XL selects a charity for each rally. For ours, Dave and Wilson had chosen the schools in the village of San Ignacio, so every team brought backpacks and hard-to-source school supplies for the kids — colored pencils, crayons, coloring books and workbooks.
Before the rally, Dave and Wilson had also organized a charity bingo in Benicia, California. Our first trip into San Ignacio had come a few days earlier, to deliver the donations and to find shelter after some rough days off-roading.
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We’ve got cows
By Day 3 we had dug out one truck twice, watched two teams break and one turn back, and blown the bushings on a rear shock. We were getting our asses kicked, Baja checking the ego we had brought across the border. We did not clear the dirt until after dark, then drove the highway at night.
Just as we cleared town, a black cow stepped into our lane from the centerline, washed out by oncoming headlights. He was so big his head was above the driver’s side mirror. A sliver of luck and Derek’s last-second save threaded the needle.
Forget the plan. We got off the road and found food and sleep in the first town we came to. Anything to get out of the truck.
That is how we rolled into San Ignacio for the first time, catching a glimpse of the square illuminated only by the light spilling from the few stores and the one family-run taquería still open.
All I could do was laugh
We started Day 4 hoping to turn the trip around, but Day 4 had other plans in store for us.
We woke to a leaking water line and a lake developing in our room. To be fair to Ignacio Springs, they had done us a solid: with no rooms left, they gave us a roof and a bed in a partially built expansion across the road. They could have turned us away.
Derek went to let the staff know, and I went out to make a tailgate brew. I overindulge in caffeine, so I had brought grounds, a Jetboil and a camping French press. Nearly 20 years as a firefighter means I am used to coffee that could float a horseshoe.
Unfortunately, as I set up one of the few joys I had lugged into Baja, I set my thermos on fire because I had forgotten to remove the plastic guard on the bottom. Everything was derailing so fast, all I could do was laugh.
The owners made things right and refunded our payment. They were extremely kind, and for that alone I would go back and try one of their yurts. That kindness, in hindsight, was the front edge of our turning point, and a first introduction of what San Ignacio is like.
‘Good vibes from here on’
Eventually we cleared out and, well behind schedule, followed Dave and Wilson to the school to drop our donation. The school was not what you are picturing. No classrooms, no playground, no school buses. It was a grove of palm trees with a large clearing in the middle, beside the water. A woman directed us to a table to add our donations to the others.
By the time the last truck came through, the Baja XL teams had donated enough backpacks and school supplies for all 120 kids in the village’s three schools, plus toys, stickers and soccer balls.
The woman who received the donations had a relaxed, positive energy. “Good vibes from here on. No more breakdowns,” she said as we loaded up to head out. It was not a wish for our trip. It was more of a statement. I like to think it was someone in touch with the place, letting Baja know it was safe to allow us passage and show us why people fall in love with the land and people.
If that was the case, Baja heard the message. We rounded the southern end of the peninsula and started back north. We had cleared halfway. Day 8 brought us back to San Ignacio.
A heartfelt thanks
That morning, at a fuel shack in a speck of a town, Wilson received a video message from the mayor and other San Ignacio officials thanking the rally for the school supplies.
Wilson messaged back and learned the volunteer fire department could barely afford fuel for its trucks. A collection went around on a payment app, our version of passing the hat, enough to fill the fire truck, the ambulance and the service vehicles, and the route bent back to San Ignacio.
The approach to San Ignacio announces itself. The trail turns green, then the palms, then the square. In daylight we could finally see the Misión San Igancio that had stood sentry over the square in the dark.
Welcomed inside to film, we stood at the far end of the nave, in front of the ornate altar, and stared up at the domed ceiling and open beams.
‘You saved a life with this’
In the distance, a siren sounded, and from around the bend at the end of the road, a fire truck came into view with lights flashing. Juan, the vice mayor, was driving and on the PA, welcoming our rally into town. His brother Marco Antonio, the comandante, followed in the ambulance.
After all those years in the fire service, I can spot an old rig in a heartbeat; this one was about 40 years old and still said Riverside County on the side. These guys were stoked for what they had, and they deserved to be. Juan and Marco showed us “the most complete ambulance in all of Baja.” We arranged the donation, shared Baja XL challenge coins and a few gifts, and headed out to the trails.
We set up camp around a tiki just off the beach near Guerrero Negro, beside the largest saltworks in the world, and the sun set as we got the fire going. Around that fire, Wilson’s phone lit up with a thank-you video from Juan: the fire truck at a fuel pump, the ambulance pulling up on the other side.
“Thank you, Wilson, Baja XL and everyone in the U.S. We love you. You saved a life with this.”
The oasis we didn’t know existed
Baja withholds no challenges. That’s part of its appeal. But it also rewards deeply those willing to face the challenges. When we needed it most, San Ignacio showed us what an oasis is: a bed when there was nowhere else to sleep, kindness when the room flooded, a woman at a school promising no more breakdowns, and a reason to come back.
Between Day 4 and Day 8, between a leaking water line and a siren welcoming a convoy of strangers, San Ignacio was the same. We were not.
What’s next for Baja XL?
The 2027 Baja XL has chosen the San Ignacio Fire Department as its charity, with Bingo for Bomberos on Saturday, Oct. 17, 2026, at The Chill in Benicia. Details on supporting the charity and on joining the rally are on the Baja XL website and social media channels.
“Into Uncertainty,” the documentary shot from inside the rally, was completed in August 2026 and has been submitted to Sundance, SXSW, Big Sky and Slamdance.
Go see Baja, and go see San Ignacio. If you see Juan and the fire truck, tell him we said hello.
Ryan G. Christen is a contributor to Mexico News Daily.
