More Baja California

After a month on the road I felt like I had a better idea of what cycle touring is about.  I'll be honest that it was still challenging.  It never gets easy, and much depends on the state of mind.  I find that going uphill my mood is usually lower, I don't appreciate the surroundings, I think about how hard it is and poor me, but it's about strengthening my mind against those thoughts.  On the other hand, going downhill I smile, look at the beauty around me, think constructively, run favorite songs through my head.  Going really fast can be euphoric - the rush of air, sometimes a great view of mountains.  Cycle touring is not all a vacation; there are good times and bad times.  But a month into our trip I really start to love it.  My body was used to the daily strains, I had great books, we were more comfortable with Mexican culture and finding food and places to camp.  The ambiance of Baja is so chill.  We could always camp on the beach for free.  The eggs aren't refrigerated, the speed limit is lower, the coffee is weaker, a serviceman fills your tank for you at the gas station.  I think the most stressful thing in Mexico are its soap operas.

The second half of February we zig-zagged a few times between the Pacific and the Sea of Cortes as we made our way south.  Most of the towns we passed through were small, with one or two shops.  It seems like the official sponsors of everything are Coca-Cola and Tecate beer, which takes its name from the city where we crossed the border.  We were in straight up desert.  I was thankful for my RidgeRest sleeping pad, which I also put down for protection from the thorn-laden desert floor during meals, reading, or changing a flat.  Not to brag, but it's really nice because I just pick out the dozens of thorns that stick in it, while Andrew and Dave's air pads both were punctured.  It has a black side and a green side; I keep the green side  up.

A few days we rode completely flat, featureless land; a great plain scattered only with tundra, and little to hide our campsite from passing vehicles.  Other days huge mountains roared before us as we came over a small summit, but we put those behind us.  There were huge mesas, one with a towering basilica guarding it that only needed a flapping flag from the peak to be an impenetrable palace of granite grandeur, and we put that behind us as well.  

We heard coyotes many nights; one night a pack of them ran through camp, and left the food but strangely took a jug of water.  I guess they were just thirsty.  We didn't see much other wildlife, mostly birds and a few lizards.  Much of the land is cattle farms.  Lots of roadkill though - dogs, cows, even horses; every day we smell decay at least a few times.  

We continued to have perfect weather, with sunshine fit for Thoreau.  One fine morning I arose early and took a short walk in the stillness, the early glow perfect, the desert tingling in the part my heart where "place" makes its home, whispering that I might need to come back here to fully understand its beauty.  I went about hoping to find a tarantula searching for an early morning snack, but I lacked the keen eye and quiet feet for it to be a fruitful search.  I never did see a tarantula.  A very good walk though, and then tea, and oatmeal with an array of dried fruit, all made for a memorable morning.  Towards the end of February it began to get very hot in the afternoon, so that we took a siesta for a few hours, tried to find a shady spot until it cooled off and we got back on the road.  Mornings became my favorite time to ride, while it was still cool and I had fresh legs.

Almost all Mexican people are Catholic.  There were a lot of small shrines beside the road, inside which people lit candles with a picture of the Virgin Mary or a saint on the side.  We also visited a handful of missions, built by the Spanish in the 17th century or even older.  I was intrigued by the symbolism of Catholicism, with large crosses and pictures around the cathedral walls depicting the Passion.  

We went whale watching in Guerrero Negro.  The bay is a favorite spot of the grey whale for breeding and raising their young, and we saw hundreds of the huge creatures breaching the surface, exhaling through their blowholes, and frolicking together.  Some came right up to the boat, a mother and cute baby.  I barely touched one with the tip of my finger, the boat leaning way over to one side as all the people on that side reached for it.  

In the mission town of San Ignacius we stayed at a campground beside a river, where frogs croaked and mosquitos buzzed while we cooked dinner, really the only mosquitos on the trip.  There was a whole mess of fan palms; probably the village was built at an oasis.  There was a wooden rowboat anchored at our campsite, and Dave and I sat in it eating our dinner and later enjoying a few beers.  We'd crossed the 28th parallel and the time change meant the sun set an hour later, which was really nice for riding and camping.  I was perplexed why we crossed a time change going south, since usually time changes occur when you travel east or west.  I later learned that for convenience the line jumps sideways at the border between the states of Baja California North and Baja California South.  

We encountered powerful winds leaving San Ignacius, and hunkered down to wait it out, but the next day they were just as strong and we were forced to ride through it.  Though it was some of the toughest riding mentally for me personally, it was shorter than expected, and before we knew it we reached the coast.  A deep blue in the distance, it was soon out of view as we unexpectedly plunged into a long gulch that escalated quickly into steep grades along a ravine, over which spectacular rock walls and mesas rose.  Cacti dotted the bottom of the landscape.  I smiled and pulled my eyes momentarily from the road rushing past ahead of me, taking it all in. Soon we passed out of the hills and beside the sea, and arrived in Santa Rosalia.  We took a brief exploration of her streets, and fancied the French architecture unique to Baja, the homely yellow and pink of shops and homes spread out on both sides of the hills beside the bay.  We found a hotel for less than $10, and took advantage of the freedom of leaving our bikes in the room.  Dave and I went out for coffee and pastries from the famous bakery, and later we all went out for dinner.  On the second day just before leaving town we met another cyclist, Nico from Belgium.  Up until then he was the third cyclist we had come across.  At another time we crossed paths with a guy from Germany on the road for fifteen months and 15,000 miles.  Andrew remarked, "that's one thing about cycling - when you think you've gone a lone way, you meet someone who's gone a lot farther."  Nico was on tour already for nine months, starting in Alaska and including a side trip to Hawaii.  It was great talking to him about his country.  His diet consisted of choco sandwiches, or bread and Nutella, breakfast lunch and dinner on some days.  We met up with him again a little down the road and he rode with us to Mulege where he stayed with a couchsurfing.com host, while we camped on the rocky beach.  Cars drove down the beach late into the night, some of them whooping at us if their lights found our camp, but it was nothing more than annoying.  Not as annoying as cleaning up the bottle of mustard that exploded in my trailer.

We rode on to Conception Bay, and some of the most beautiful coastal scenery of Baja - mountains on both sides flanking the deep blue water of the inlet, a few fishing boats casting about lazily.  We stopped for lunch and a quick refreshing dip at one of the beaches, before riding on.  With a tip from a Canadian woman on her 35th or something visit to Baja, we camped at a gorgeous  place with natural spring pools.  I've never felt cleaner after I slipped into the cool cartesian water of the largest pool.  That night my brothers and I had a time of true communication over dinner, and we worked out some of our issues.  It was really great.

As we neared La Paz and the end of Baja California, we considered our options for continuing our travels.  In a few towns we used our daily siesta to do internet research. Also at this time we met up again with Nico as well as three other cyclists, Jason, Jackie, and Jessie.  We camped together as one big group, and shared a meal and Jason played his mandolin.  I was interested in contrasting our own traveling style with another group's.  For example, we ride close together while the others cycled spread out down the road.

Nico joined us to La Paz, a port city, the second largest in Baja.  We found an inexpensive hostel, while Nico had a warmshowers.com host.  We all met up later, the Yapps and Nico and his host Laura.  She took us to an authentic Mexican restaurant, and later on we met up with one of her friends and went to a bar.  Two times that evening I drew back and thought, is this really happening?  The first was hearing waves lap through the open slats near the roof of the restaurant's bathroom, and second seeing the collective rhythm of the young bar crowd behind our half-circle of merry friends and family.  So great!

We all met up for brunch the next day, and I enjoyed the sights and smells of the Mexican food market.  We walked to Laura's house, and it made for an interesting time cooking for so many people with so few dishes, but we made it work.  Later on we stopped at a bike shop, where I picked up new tires for the trailer, as the ones I started out on were almost worn through.  We met up again with Laura that evening, and her niece drove us to a huge mall near the edge of town.  It was just the second time in a car in two months.  Bowling was pretty chill.  Back at the town center, we walked the wharf where they were setting up a carnival - at 10pm!  Apparently these things go all night.  I was exhausted, but still had to patch my tires back in the room.  The desert can do terrible damage to tires, and I had seven patches in all.  A big disadvantage of the trailer is I have two more tires to watch out for.  I don't think Andrew patched a single tire the whole trip, a combination of experience and luck.  

In the morning we departed La Paz, to make a circle of the bottom of Baja, through Cabo San Lucas and Todos Santos.  We reached the 2000 mile mark of the trip, and Andrew gave me a congratulatory water bottle spray on my head.  As with the rest of the trip, that week held good times and bad.  I cursed the busy highway, silently criticized in touristy Cabo San Lucas; I sweat gallons and wiped the salt residue off my face at night.  I both mocked the people and loved the people.  I love the way they great each other, with many handshakes, a hug and kiss on the cheek.  I laughed during horseplay with Dave and Nico in the ocean break so close to shore.  Flying down a hill with the Pacific below me behind some cactus and a low golden sun, I stood on my pedals and felt the wind rush past and I felt, truly, like I was the king of the world.  I shared the feeling with desert hawks soaring up over the hilltops.  The majestic coast was how we shared our last ride all together back to La Paz.  Dave and I had decided to take the ferry from La Paz to Topolobampo on the mainland of Mexico, and then ride north back to the U.S along with Nico.  Andrew would take the ferry to Mazatlan and ride across Mexico to Texas.  Andrew learned he needed to take the ferry that same day we returned to La Paz, so he spent a few hours getting everything together, and we split up group gear.  We saw him off around 5 o'clock, onto new adventures.  Of course, he's still writing about his journeys (and has more photos) at www.lifebybike.blogspot.com.

Dave, Nico, Laura and I cooked a meal in the hostel's kitchen, and went out later for ice cream.  On the morning of March 6th we said goodbye to Laura for the last time, and cycled to the ferry.  There we waited around for a few hours, played hacky-sack.  Finally we pushed our bikes on the huge vessel and found seats in the cabin. It was a six-hour ferry, arriving on the mainland at 9pm.  We put on headlamps and rode a little ways out of the tiny port town and found a campsite.  Nico's bike is equipped with a headlight and taillight, and if I ever do another tour I will have at least a taillight.  But that's our story up until the mainland.  We're riding back to the States!

Finally...Feb 2 through Valentine's Day

Mexico.  In a word...marvelous.

About February 2nd we crossed into Baja California in the city of Tecate, rode across without showing passports or anything - there wasn't even anyone in the booth.  We purchased tourist visas, which we never actually needed to show, but it was good to have them anyways.  I'll say right off that despite the present state of turmoil, I personally never felt endangered as a tourist.  The violent occurences which we knew of only through contact with friends and family in the U.S. are almost completely restricted to disputes between drug parties, while the rare cases involving foreigners, accuentated by the media, happens when people are in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Most Mexicans are friendly to visitors.  That out of the way, back to our adventure.  We grabbed our first Mexican meal at a nice restaurant - our first sit-down meal in a while; sat under umbrellas beside the popular town square, and enjoyed deciphering the meal options.  I used my Spanish dictionary for first time of many.  After lunch we got groceries which was a fun experience, figuring out names of various items and the prices in pesos.  We were excited about the bakery, which had great chocolate cake and muffins.  There are delicious baked goods at most grocery stores.  How this works is you grab a tray and tongs, and go around selecting from the many fresh baked goods, then take these to the register where they bag them for you.  We took advantage of this system many times.

We rode out of Tecate on the busy two-lane highway with trucks growling past, but once out of the city the road was single-lane and less busy.  There is essentially one road down Baja - Mexico 1.  There is no shoulder, so we had to ride half in the lane.  It's as safe as in the U.S. though, with less traffic making up for the lack of shoulder.  Also, Mexican drivers gave us plenty of room as they passed, so we never really had a problem.  The first thing I noticed was the annoying reflectors on the road, located every 15 yards literally right where we cycle.  They were especially peeving for me with the trailer, having to dodge them with four wheels instead of two.  My other pet peeve is the snot I have to constantly blow out of my nose, which runs when air rushes past it, especially cold air.  

Our destination was a campsite indicated on the map, but as the day went on it became apparent that we had either missed it, or it didn't exist.  Near dusk, we were forced to find a spot to camp beside the road, but we found a pretty nice sheltered place down a small path.  The trucks were pretty loud all night as they downshifted down the hill, but other than that we enjoyed the place.  After dinner we made tea, and tried not to spill it as we climbed down into a ravine.  Dave slipped and slid a bit which was one of the funniest things I've ever seen (sorry Dave).  Down by the little stream, we made the smallest fire ever and roasted marshmallows, made smores with Nutella.  The marshmallows were strawberry and vanilla flavored, which was interesting, but delicious nonetheless.  In the morning we were startled and a little nervous when two men walked down the path beside our camp.  They said good morning and didn't give us any trouble.  We had yet to learn about Mexican people, their generally relaxed attitude and warmth towards visitors.

The morning was chilly, and hurt my hands while I changed a flat tire.  It warmed up to another beautiful day as we rode to Ensanada.  With only a few downhill miles to go, we pushed hard and arrived in the big city around 10am, and spent an hour finding an inexpensive hotel.  We pushed our bikes into the room, and explored the city.  Near the marina under the huge Mexican flag, I watched clowns entertaining a crowd, and watched the people walk the wharf, enjoying the gorgeous weather.  Later, Andrew Dave and I ate tons of food at a Chinese buffet.  Back in our room, we caught the end of the Superbowl.  A big city near the border like this had plenty of American television stations.  Dave and I went to see a movie, and were surprised it was in English with Spanish subtitles.  It was nice to relax like that after a few weeks of camping.  The following morning I took advantage of the sink in our hotel room to patch my punctured tubes.  I pushed the tubes underwater and looked for bubbles to find the hole (or holes), and glued a patch on.  We cycled on in the afternoon.

We rode easy along the coast to La Bufadora, and paid a man to camp on his property atop a little hill overlooking beautiful rocky cliffs.  The town was a single street lined with shops and venders selling trinkets, leather goods, and cigars to tourists.  We got beer and cooked a fine dinner of enchilladas and watched the sunset.  More smores.  A perfect night!  While I was reading I felt something on my collar, and pinched it with my gloved hands (it was chilly) - a small white scorpion!  That was a little nerve-racking, but cool - I'd never seen a scorpion in the wild before.

In the morning we rode back into town to see the blowhole - where the ocean waves collide with the cliff and spray as high as fifty feet.  It wasn't shooting very high that day.  Dave and I tried a fresh coconut, drinking the milk out of a straw.  At the grocery store, the parking assistant guy used a whistle to direct cars.  He whistled us into a place for our bikes; so serious about his job, and a bit comical for us.  But he told us to try the seafood salad nearby.  We did, and it was chopped fish, octopus, clams and oysters all mixed with a kind of bruschetta, ketchup, and squeezed lime.  It was pretty good on crackers and tostadas.  Afterwards, we rode on into lush rolling hills so much greener than I expected, and so beautiful.  We decided to take a turnoff to a beach twelve miles away.  The first ten miles were good, but then the road became miserable dirt and rocks.  We finally reached the hostel near dark, and the American working there kindly let us camp for free.  We did laundry and sat at the bar and I loved the classic rock he was playing.  Music is one thing I really miss.  Andrew was sick that night, probably from the seafood.  I felt bad for him, up all night wretching.  He felt poorly the next day, and I give him mad props for riding on.  

We restocked on groceries in San Quintin, and planned to have a rest day at the beach.  The road, however, was pretty bad so we ended up getting a cheap hotel, and paid for the low price with little sleep from a noisy bar and people walking up and down the stairs just outside our window.  Our situation improved when we made camp on a quiet beach the next day.  We pushed our bikes through a few hundred yards of sand to get there, which is no easy task.  Hurray, vacation!  We threw frisbee, went in the water, and then it started to sprinkle.  We set up our tents, and dried to stay dry inside.  The sand at that beach was magnetic, and left a fine black covering on our feet like graphite.  My tent started to build up with sand.  That night it rained for the first time on our trip.  The next day Dave and I went for a jog along the beach, and watched some locals digging for clams.  They parked their cars right on the beach, and took little pitchforks and bags to collect the clams.  Clouds reflected in the film of water we ran over as it receded back into the waves, sliding beneath us making it seem like we were running sideways; what does it feel like?  Vertigo?  No, horizontigo, yes that's what it feels like.  

There was a bar a little ways down the beach, and Dave and I walked there in the evening through a massive expanse of shrubbery, slipping through wire fences to cross sandy roads.  After dinner, we walked back, taking off our shoes to wade through the estuary which had formed the night before.  Unfortunately, it was Dave's turn to be sick that night.  That meant we were staying a third rest day.  But it was an intense day.  Early in the morning Andrew's calls woke us up; I heard waves, and looked outside my tent to see waves encroaching about two feet away.  The tide had risen immensely, rivers had formed through the low areas around our camping area, and water was rushing into the estuary.  Quickly, we scrambled outside and moved the tent to a higher hill, and Dave went back to sleep.  But I kept hearing sand falling into water, and I reluctantly crawled back out into the cold wind and rain to inspect the stream flowing a few feet away.  The bank of our little mound of sand was receding slowly each time a big wave pushed a surge of water to the estuary, eroding the edge until part of it collapsed.  I watched it come closer and closer to the tent, maybe two feet while I stood there, until I was cold and went back inside.  It didn't reach the tent though, and the tide eddied eventually by the time we woke up for good.  We were surprised that the entire landscape of the beach had changed, the estuary had quadrupled in size, and there was now a wide channel a few feet from my tent where our bikes had been before.  Dave's bike was covered in sea grass, and mine was rusted.  We had to carry everything through the estuary to get off the beach.  We went back to the bar for dinner, but it gave me an upset stomach all night.  I didn't get sick, but I had the same digestive "issues" that my brothers had.  It rained again, and my "sand castle", as Dave called my tent, became a mud castle.  Andrew and I rode into town the next day, and the dirt roads were thick with mud.  I was covered in mud, as was my bike, and it caked up around the breaks.  I cleaned the dry mud off my bike for weeks.  So finally we headed out after 3 1/2 rest days, and rode just 35 miles before we needed to make camp, the next place with water 72 miles away.  That was when I felt sick, so we needed another rest day.  I was tired of resting, and wanted to make progress!  I stayed in the tent all day and read, out of the strong wind outside.  Andrew made fried quesadillas that night - all I can say is "wow."

So finally we headed out and rode 75 miles, a new record.  The region took on a much more desert appearance as we moved inland, with many cacti of various types, most notably the several-pronged saguaro type that is the quintessential symbol of the southwest states.    Throughout Baja the road was generally very good, with just a few poorly  maintained sections.  Occasionally it was immaculate blacktop, over which we glided effortlessly, almost floating above the soft sing of our tires.  There were more long sections without much to see, and just a few houses along the way.  Still, I liked it out there in the desert, where the wildness of the earth shows through and reflects the nature of its maker.  I was grateful for a backrest against a gnarly white tree as I journaled, beside peculiar plants that stick way up and then sometimes wave over horizontally at random.  Everything is spiky...