I'm sitting at VIPS--a crisp, modern Denny's-style diner--across the parking lot from Ensenada's Walmart. VIPS big perk is free internet. So I ordered the cheapest thing on the menu, a coffee, and logged into Gmail to write home about our much-needed tax refund. When I placed my pathetic little order, the waitress asked, "Cafe con leche o leche con cafe?" Hmm...? "The first, I think." But she brought me the latter: a tall hot cup of milk, with a slight tint of Nescafe. It should do wonders for the constant rattle in my chest.

Yesterday, after fixing everything else there was to fix in the fuel and exhaust system, we bought a new fuel pump. Since Tim and I had a new one put in in Baton Rouge less than two months ago, it seemed impossible that the pump was our problem. But our most recent mechanic swore us the pump was bad, so we went ahead. What else could the problem be at this point? The car does seem to be driving again. Then again, it's seemed to be fixed before, only to burp and put its way to a stop in the middle of the Baja desert.

This time, we're superstitious. We're not celebrating until we're in Guerrero Negro, our next stop, assuming Dolly makes it that far. Keep your fingers crossed for us.

Take a close look at the cane-wielding, Viagra-loving stick figure.

The boys spent all day yesterday at the mechanics. He replaced the muffler, the spark plugs and coil and told us that the catalytic converter we had put in in San Felipe wasn't actually a catalytic converter after all. Apparently we paid to have ours removed and replaced with a pipe. I can only laugh. The car is still sputtering.

Since it's Sunday, we're spending the day in the van, reading and writing and waiting for tomorrow and another chance to resolve this mess and get on the road. Tim got the flu that Jonah and I are still fighting. It's a nasty one, and he's steeling himself for a week or more of hacking coughs, head aches and fever.

As places to be trapped go, Ensensada's not bad. It's nearly 300,000 people, but feels like a small port town, with narrow streets and a breeze that comes in off the pacific. Maybe because there's a college here, or a steady stream of tourists dumping their dollars, but it's a surprisingly prosperous city. There's mansions on the hills with large plate glass mirrored windows that look out at the ocean, like in Malibu, and high-end cosmetics shops and exotic restaurants. We're too sick to do much, but there's plenty to look at from our hole.

I still don't have much appetite from the flu, so I had two oysters for dinner and a shot of tequila at Hussongs.

Hussongs is Baja's McSorley's. It's been here since 1892 and the evidence lines the walls in the form of old photographs and bizarre memorabilia. It's now a tourist bar, but, like McSorley's in New York, its not without its charms. It's a museum relic, sure, but it's a relic with good music, free peanuts and triple-shots of house tequila. Plus, I can take in the artefacts of the west while waiting for the burn in your throat to calm.

Ensenada, BCN

San Felipe was a fishing town and the pongas still are still hauled out of the water to rest along its clam shell-shaped beach. But now they have names like Ponga de Banana and they drag giant, yellow and blue, banana-shaped inflatables topped with tourists, whooping and hollering like mock cowboys, around the bay. Like so many other would-be tourist meccas, San Felipe's an aspiring Cancun or Puerto Vallarta. It draws people from around the country (from places like Guanajuanto and Mexico City) hoping to cash in on the fools gold of American tourists.

When Tim and I were here six years ago, it was December and the town was mostly tourist free. Now there's small heards that wander the town's malecon and tourist district, wearing their hair in corn-row braids, bargaining the indigenous women down on their mass-produced "artesanal" wares and waving off the little kids with their chicle chewing gum. Some are families with kids on their Easter vacation, others are college kids on Spring Break, that most debaucherous of American holidays.

Yesterday, we thought we were leaving. We were ready. It was time. We'd replaced the MAF Sensor in the van for a cool $145 and it seemed to have done the trick. But 20 miles down the road the car's fuel pressure disappeared and we had to turn back. San Felipe began to feel like an black pit of automotive hell, sprinkled with cat carcasses and the world's finest, most penetrating dust.
We returned to the mechanic who'd done the diagnostic. Jonah calls him Sinbad because he's a short, thick man with a beard and Middle Eastern features. His name is actually Yared. He told us that he once tried to cross the border and was asked by border officials if he knew Osama bin Laden. He spent hours with us, tinkering with one thing, then another. We replaced the distributor cap, then the catalytic converter. That seemed to have done it. We drove 45 minutes outside of San Felipe. We did a celebratory scream, thinking we'd finally expelled the evil demons that possessed our Dolly. But then, again, she began to sputter and lose fuel pressure. We pulled off the road at a wide should where there was a little ranch house.

The two men who lived there invited us into their yard to sit and chat while we waiting for inspiration to strike us about what to do next. One was an aging rancher who had no voice left. When he tried to speak he let out gasps of air, but little sound. The younger man was from Mexico City and we wondered how he ended up here. They gave us a fuel additive in case our problems were caused by bad gas. But they weren't.

We are losing our minds.

We decided to push ahead to Ensenada. We made it into town just before 5pm. We stopped by a couple mechanics, but they both said to come back today, so we found a motel (the cheapest we could find was $30 a night, $10 less than San Felipe).