All that stress made us need a good drum jam.  A group of high schoolers on a fieldtrip (this desert keeps getting stranger and stranger) came by to examine the silver buss creatures.

As did a local pooch.

Back on the road, the landscape went through its usual multiple transformations, finally settling on being an immense flat expanse.  And in the distance, situated to keep an eye on things, were the border guards.  The road snaked through their barracks so as to let us know what we were up against, and Ryk and I sat innocuously in the back wearing our best gringo smiles.

We came to this shack and they waved The Buss down.  In the high-noon heat they boarded our vessel:   "Any citrus?"  "Yes," and we handed over our limes.  "Ok, you can go."  And that was pretty much it:  no passports, no tourist visas, no other questions really.  We learned a valuable lesson about listening to gloom and doom prophecies. 

For some reason these guys gave The Buss a good spraying down.

We closed as many windows as would actually close, and asked them to take it easy on us.  I love this picture:  look at the guy's eyes.  (Click it for a better view).

This poor guy, wearing a rain jacket and gas mask in the desert heat.

And he didn't even have a shady spot.   They charged us 20 pesos for our spray down, which was probably a gringo tax, but I personally saw it as a very small price to pay for southern Baja.