Baja, continued
Trip Start
Aug 04, 2008
1
27
90
Trip End
Ongoing
Cabo San Lucas,
Baja California,
Mexico
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Today I'm in La Paz, which is about 120 miles north of Cabo. I'm not planning on visiting Cabo - too far out of the way, and I think probably too touristy. Not the point of this trip. But back to Coyote Cal's...
Monday the 8th
This next morning, I listened to one of the host guys explain to me all the different places I could have gotten my paperwork. Clearly this wasn't doing me any good, and I told him so
Baja landscape in a nutshell
. But then he made some amazing pancakes and all was well. "We're going to carb you up for your trip", he said.What he was specifically referring to was the stretch between El Rosario and Guerrero Negro, 240 miles, that had no gas stations and few other signs of life. FYI, my bike's maximum range is about 220 miles, but in my infinite wisdom I bought a 2 gallon red plastic gas can in San Diego that straps nicely on the back, so no worries. The ride as very scenic, and the road was in great shape. That night I spent in Santa Rosalia (I think), which was a dusty strip of meager stores on each side of the road. The town is known for 2 things: a jump-off point for whale watching tours in the winter, and its local industry of salt production. It does this on huge flat salt beds where water evaporates to leave the salt for harvesting. Now that sounds like a good job, eh?
A couple of things I've noticed about Mexico's social ecology at this early date, ragarding the status of 2 parties: cops and dogs.
Cops: They have the nicest cars, clothers and shades. Even in poor towns, the cops look pretty spiffy: white shirts, khaki pants and black paratrooper boots, with thick black belts encumbered with a complete set of paraphernalia
Fare well La Paz...
. And the Federales - fuggedaboutit! They have dark blue 4 door Dodge Chargers, the ones that remotely resemble the Batmobile, with low streamlined light bars. This leads me to believe that being a cop is a very good and desirable job. The military is also present, with checkpoints on Route 1 every 90 miles or so. But the sense is that they're more friend than foe to the average American tourist. Many checkpoint have signs in English that say, 'Please contact us with questions or suggestions'.Dogs: In poor towns, the cozy relationship between people and their family pet is not the norm.
They are not owned. They are neither protectors nor protected. They scavenge. And I think that they generally fail to self-actualize their full canine identities without the hand of their domesticator.
Tuesday the 9th
The next day it was on to Loreto, a bit of a tourist town - in season, that is. They do whale watching and diving/eco-tourism in the winter and deep sea fishing in the spring. To be clear, August and September are the absolute lowest point for tourism in Baja
La Paz
. A good number of the stores and restaurants were closed. But I got a nice room next to the cobblestoned pedestrian mall and settled in. The weather was cloudy, and we were expacting rain.Most Latin American towns are built around a town square, or zocalo, that has the main Catholic church/cathedral on one end, and shops and restaurants and often govt offices around the other sides. The zocalo itself is a park with many benches and paths, and maybe a bandstand, playground, etc. People gather ther in the evenings. If they're on the water' the towns will often have a waterside promenade or malecon. Loreto had one, but it was pretty empty. Overall the town was clearly trying to pull tourists, but still quite rough around the edges. That said, it was much nicer than the towns I had seen to the north.
Wednesday the 10th
The next morning it was cloudy, but no rain. I couldn't sit around, so I decided to have a little dirt road adventure. Thereīs a mission in the hills, at the end of a 10 mile dirt road, that was suppoed to be nice, though the road was rough, so I headed out. The road really was not so hot, and I was sliding around a bit but generally having a good time
Lunch
. I went over and around hills and into little valleys. I almost lost the front wheel in some deep gravel, but saved it. Then coming down a hill of loose dirt, I saw a pickup a little ways off coming toward me and I tried to slow down and herd the bike onto the far side of the road, and I touched the front brake as well as the back, and the front wheel skidded and slipped off to the side and I was down. (When riding on the street, the back brake rarely gets used - just like a car that has much bigger front brakes - because as soon as you brake the bikeīs weight shifts forward and all the back brake does is make the rear wheel lock up and slide - while in the dirt, especially going downhill - it's the brake of choice).The guy in the pickup, who saw the whole thing, pulled up to see if I was okay. I was fine and dusted myself off. I checked the bike for damage. A couple of scratches on the right pannier and crach bar, but that was it - you couldn't even really see it. In other words, everything worked as it was supposed to. So I cranked the bike back up, asked the old man how many kms to the mission, and off I went. I think he was impressed, or maybe just puzzled. Anyway, this certainly won't be the last time I wipe out, and I'm glad I did. The rest of the trip was uneventful, except when I got to the mission it started to spit rain, so I jumped off, ran over, took a picture and then gassed in back down - I definitely didn't want to see that nice red dust turn into clay
Memorial
. I was cracking up, laughing, all the way down.It rained the rest of the day. My bike was under a balcony though so I did a little work on it. I replaced the rear brake pedal, which had been bent since before I left, with a spare. That's part of the reason for the wipe-out, since the pedal was bent up I couldn't reach it when I was standing ion the footpegs (standing lowers the bike's center of gravity which is good in dirt). A also lowered my cool after-market adjustable footpegs to make it easier to stand up in the future. See, a blessing in disguise....
I spent half of the afternoon talking to an American couple who ran a used bookstore, among other sundry pursuits. We talked politics and I bought a book. The other half I spent finishing my book "Under the Banner of Heaven" by John Krakauer about Fundamentalist (ie not mainstram) Mormons. which I found fascinating.
Thursday the 11th
This morning I set off for La Paz. 220 miles. I made it in 3 1/2 hours, including a gas stop.
On the road, I passed a small group of bicyclists that were trailed by a car with a sign, to keep them from getting run over
Religious procession in a dirt-poor town
. I had passed thes guys a couple of days earlier. Then at the gas stop about 10 min later I saw some skinny young white guys and a girleasting ice cream in a minivan that said something about bicycles on it, so I stopped by. Turns out they were supporting 4 Irish college students who were riding from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, Route 1 all the way, in 260 days. Holy shit! It's for charity, the website is pacycletest.com. They would be in La Paz in 2 days. I'd be there in 2 hours. Cheers, mates. But I may yet pass them one more time, as I'm doubling back north after La Paz, and hope to be able to buy them a drink or 2 down the road.La Paz (peace in Spanish) is a very nice town, though once again barren of tourists. It sits on the tip of a curved peninsula into the Sea of Cortez. so that the view from the Malecon is actually towards the mainland, and the sun sets - diorientingly to me at first - into the sea, as it did on the Pacific side. The malecon is very nice, with hotels and restaurants along a mile-plus gracefully curved waterfront. There is a promenade along the water with palm trees and small plazaz every 100 yards that feature sculptures related to the history and culture of the place. There are beaches 15 kms north of town, the biggeest one being Tecolote that has palapas, chairs and umbrellas, and a few restaurants. The beach is a little narrow but the water is incredible - as clear and trobical blue as I've seen anywhere
Sea of Cortez
.I looked at the hostel-type hotel here when I pulled in but it was just too gross, so settled in to the Baja B&B instead, a little family-owned place that was clean and quiet, etc. I brought the bike into the courtyard and Antonio and his wife allowed me to do a little work on it, replacing the spark plugs (which is a major pain because of hoe the cylinders are situated - you have to remove most of the bodywork and gas tank), as the bike had been 'pinging' the last few days (technically' it's called 'detonating', when the gas does not fully burn in the cylinder when it's supposed to and instead detonates later, on the way out of the cylinder or in the exhaust pipe. It's often caused by bad gas, or worn spark plugs that don't burn hot enough. A mechanic once told me, all a motor needs is gasoline, air and a spark, a helpful heuristic though I'd add compression and lubrication to that list. A shop manual doesn't hurt either though).
I got here Thursday evening and am leaving Monday on the the ferry to the mainland, then a full day's ride north(!) to meet Jesse Snyder, my travel partner. It's been a very pleasant stay though longer than I expected. I wanted to do some kayaking or snorkeling on the offshore islands, but there haven't been anough tourists at any service to fill up a boat. Oh well, guess I'll have to nurse my disappointment with another Corona.
It is a bit taxing traveling alone and not knowing the language, but I'm going to spend some time studying today. We'll see how that goes.
Bye for now,
Andy
