Baja By Bike 2013 Part 2

To read part 1, click here.


Day 5:
Woke up to bright blue skies and cheerful thoughts. The blue warm sky was casting sunlight into the sandy parking lot where we moved our bikes out while we packed our gear for the fantastic day ahead. I was super stoked on getting some sunny saddle time and to dry out my cold, damp sneakers; this is why I left cold-icy British Columbia. While getting gear strapped to my bike, Morgan kept repeating that it will be nice to get to the Sea of Cortez today to see his old family friends. By my math, 400 km's is a long three day, easy 4 day ride from where we are in Catavina. But whatever, he can be excited for four days away. After getting both bikes road ready and scarfing some warm camp stove oatmeal, we started to discuss the day. It's sunny, so I assumed that we would continue pedalling south. Morgan wanted badly to bypass the flat desert between us and Santa Rosalia. It is the first town you hit that is on the east side of the peninsula, which is the beginning of paradise. Morgan had made his mind up that he was getting to paradise as soon as he could. He was fed up with being wet and was not about to take any chances. This was our first real quandary where we obviously had different ways to solve the same problem. I was, in all respects, cycling to a destination as efficiently as I could; Morgan however, was needing beach time. We had covered 435 km's in the last four days and were starting to get a bit growly. We had a conversation the night previous about if it were sunny we'd pedal, if it were rainy, we'd bus it. Morgan was worried about the skies turning ugly again and opted to hitch a bus before we could have a chance at a dry road; I couldn't see a cloud in the sky. I wanted badly to part ways in Catavina and let my friend bus ahead and meet him there a few days later - my conscience was torn. My mind mapped out a dozen plans is less than 30 seconds and taking the bus was not one of them. After a few minutes and now standing over our bikes on the road - I gave in - and decided to get on the bus. The thought of riding alone didn't scare me, I've done thousands of km's alone in Canada. I was scared of creating a huge issue in a small, lonely, desert Mexican town.

We road just down the road to the gas station that was next to our Pink Hotel. It looked like it would be the best place to thumb down a bus. Now if you have ever had the chance to stop in Catavina, you have definitely met an American guy that pops out and bombards you with his entire life stories in three minutes or less. From what I've heard from a co-worker that rides his dirt bike down here every winter, he was a draft dodger and lives somewhere in the rocks nearby. This character told us how he invented the Slinky, was married to Marilyn Monroe, and owned many other various Fortune 500 companies. I had a good chuckle for a while, then we had to get our day figured out.

We decided that I would run into the convenience store and Morgan would go into the nice Hotel in town to see when the buses ran through town. I spoke my broken Spanglish with the fellow inside the store and from what I gathered the bus only passed through twice a day. I thought great! Buses don't pass through as much as we'd originally been told in the north and we'll be forced to pedal without me making a scene. I walked back to my bike propped against a street sign happy with what I was told, and waiting to explain my thoughts with Morgan. He walked back with a huge smile and two containers filled with fresh strawberries. Normally I wouldn't be to excited for strawberries; we however had just ridden over 400 km's in four days, eaten camp stove oatmeal for dinner the night before and again 20 minutes ago. Spirits were high again. I completely forgot about the bus issue and was enamoured with the sweet sugary taste of these strawberries. After going into the Hotel, Morgan had spoke with some motorcyclists outside that had extra, so they shared the love. So after we indulged, I told Morgan my news about the buses passing through twice a day and he basically got the same info from his Hotel. I didn't even have the chance to put my helmet back on and start pedalling when an Aguila bus was on the horizon. What are the chances?

The bus pulled over to the side of the road and the driver hopped out. Morgan spoke to him since he speaks Spanish fluently and I don't. He explained where we needed to go and all facial expressions were positive, so this bus trip is a go. The driver popped up the doors to the underneath of the bus and we carefully packed our gear below. We jumped inside to find our soft seats. For the next 4 hours we had a luxurious Mexican bus to get to paradise much earlier than we had planned. We looked forward to staying with friends of Morgans that night on the beach somewhere in Santa Rosalia. The one really interesting thing while riding the bus for that day was having a car's perception on how narrow the road actually is. Being in a bus makes a cyclist feel extremely small. We ended up covering about 440 air conditioned km's in the $50CDN bus in six hours.

We arrived at the bus station in Santa Rosalia close to 3 pm, and unloaded our gear from below. While getting our bikes and ourselves situated and ready to do more pedalling. I realized that my rear seat blinky light was missing. I propped my bike up against the fence that I was beside and the bus drove off. I didn't have enough time to run after and crawl back under the bus to find my small safety device. Not a happy moment.

We had a couple hours to get to Morgan's friends. I asked Morgan where we were going and he wasn't sure. He said he didn't have an address and his plan was to ask locals if they knew an American named John who fishes and that drives a white Ford truck. Inside I wasn't pleased with this plan since this town was actually quite large. I would guess in the neighbourhood of 10,000 people. We pedalled down to the harbour since John is a fisherman. Morgan asked the first group of guys that we came across and they laughed at us. White man named John with white truck, this wasn't working. After finding places to stay near dark for the last four nights, I was getting a bit anxious with this situation and wanted to find John's place soon. We decided to ride into downtown and find an internet cafe and had our fingers crossed that Morgan's dad would be on Facebook, so that he could give us directions to John's. Since we've had months to plan for this, I don't know why we were running around trying to find an address. But too late now.
We ended up finding a cell phone store and begged them to use there business computer to jump on Facebook. They had a bit of hesitation for letting us use it, but we weren't long. We lucked out and Morgan's dad was actually on Facebook and was able to give us directions. After picking up water, we were off to an RV Park in San Lucas, 20 km's south of the downtown district. We found their camp spot right on the water, Sea of Cortez camping was the gem of this trip. They opened their home up to two sweaty, hungry, sore and grumpy cyclists. It was an amazing fish and veggie dinner. Morgan had lots to catch up on with his old friends and they were hoping that we would stay and fish for a day.



Day 6:
I might have been lucky to have got more than an hour of sleep in the tent that night. My mind was going back and forth from - finishing the remainder of the 700 km's solo or keep going with Morgan. I learned much more than I would have guessed about our very different travel styles in the past 5 days and knew that if I kept going with the unspoken tension things would get worse. After rubbing the restless sleep out of my eyes at 6am, I knew I had a choice to make. Morgan had friends, a safe place to stay for a couple days and more importantly, we needed to have a conversation. We had a fantastic breakfast that Maria cooked up to help with another long day in the saddle.

Morgan and I were packing up the tent when I told him. “Once we're finished packing our gear up, I'm going to finish the remainder of this ride alone”. That word track went through my mind all night and it was still hard to say. Morgan's reaction was what I expected, he had many choice words for me. We distributed our gear and Morgan was verbally pissed about being left without a tent. Morgan felt the tension as well, but would have rather kept pedalling as a team versus going at it alone. I however didn't. He repeated that the Journey is more important than the Destination. I feel that both the Journey and Destination are both factors in a successful trip. And my journey was being sabotaged with late starts, long morning packing’s and long lunches. But most of all, an unprepared-uncaring attitude. I felt extremely bad since we committed to doing this trip together, but neither of us knew our travel styles would be this different. I knew in the pit of my stomach that this decision would be the best for both of us. After having packed up my bike and saying my huge thanks to our beach hosts that night, I was off riding back up the dirt road to Highway 1 south.


My mind raced once I hit the highway. I was actually alone in Baja, on a bicycle and had 700 km's ahead of me. Slightly out of my comfort zone, this was the stuff life is about. One thing that I have left out is that my grandfather “Hagar” winters in Cabo San Lucas. He had lived the winters down there for the past 25 years, in the summer he lives in Vancouver. Even though he is only 4 hours away from Kamloops, I don't get to visit him enough. He is basically an 85 year old version of me - kind of cool actually. When I e-mailed him about this trip he was really excited about it, whereas my parents were scared. He knows the country and its quirks, but knew cyclists make it with next to no issues all the time. The original plan was to visit him for a night before I had to fly back to Kamloops. Since I was now alone and could be in the saddle much longer than before, I could hammer out 700 km's as fast as possible so that we could spend a few days fishing on the ocean.




Since today is the start of riding the most beautiful part of Baja, I wanted badly to cool my sore legs in the green sea water. Even more so now since I was hit hard in the shin with something earlier that stung my ankle. I made it to Mulege and filled the panniers up with food and water so I could set the tent up on a beach. I made it 72 km's since morning and decided to stop at Santispac at 2pm. This beach had exactly what my mind could envision, sand, green water and little beach palm bodegas. I set up camp and decided to go for a dip. Waded slowly out in the crystal green sea and my legs ached in the cold water. When I was relaxed with the temperature, I managed to step on something squishy; I'm pretty sure my heart rate jumped twenty points because this beach critter instinctively wrapped its tentacles around my right foot while I jumped 4 feet in the air. Let's just say that the idea of sea water is sometimes better than actually being in it. For the rest of the trip I was scared to go fishing for octopus with my feet.









Day 7:
I woke up at 5am and wanted to make it to the old town of Loreto for the night. Since the sun rises over the horizon at 7am, I had two hours to pack up camp, cook oatmeal, drink tea and drop the morning deuce. My mind had switched over to race mode now vs. compromise mode. I knew I could make it the 120 km's by lunch and have the rest of the day to look around town and do some tourist shopping. Leaving Santispac's beach was hard since I heard from talking to others that this beach was most likely going to be the nicest for the remainder of the way south. I had to do laundry tonight, my clothes were starting to get an odour that the road kill could compete with. So at 7am, I was again off to get a little bit closer to my flight home. Before reaching Loreto in only 5.5 hours, wild horses and donkeys were abundant. My game was to ride close enough to them and shout YEEEEE HAAAAW at the top of my lungs so they would take off racing into the cacti bush. Spending hours alone pedalling through hills of cacti is one way to relax the mind. This stretch of highway was a peaceful ride, I had at least an hour of not seeing another human, let alone a car or truck. One section even had a lone cow standing in the back of a utility trailer. I looked around while I rode past chuckling looking for a truck, but didn't see anything. I love Mexico.






I managed to find a big white hotel just on the outskirts of downtown Loreto. It had everything I needed, hot water, WiFi, a soft bed, a place to do bike maintenance and had laundry services in the building. Life just went up a notch then I sat down for dinner and they had milkshakes on the menu! The small things in life just seem so much better when your muscles are taxed and skin is cooked from sun. It was nice to have WiFi and text with my girl, Chantalle, at home I got to explain to her that I had decided to finish this alone. She was worried, but trusted my instincts. While doing laundry in the evening I had a really good spanglish conversation with two locals that had a good time looking at ice climbing photos that were left over on my camera from 2 weeks previous. They couldn't believe that waterfalls froze and people actually climbed them for fun. One of them wrapped his arms around himself so his hands were touching his shoulders and kept saying brr. I had a good time showing them British Columbia, but was more interested in what the road had in store for me over then next couple days. I pulled the Baja map out of my back pack to get some information from my new friends. They pointed at the squiggly bits on the road just south of Loreto and made up hill signs with their hands. I know from experience when a non cyclist tells you there's hills ahead, you will definitely have something fun in store to hammer up.








Day 8:
It feels so uplifting to be on the road right when the sun pokes over the horizon. The temperature swings have started now that I have made it to the Sea of Cortez. For the first four days we had wet weather, but the temperature hovered around the 10 degree mark. Now, mornings were 7degrees and the afternoons roasted up to 32degrees. The swing can be hard to get used to, especially since the week previous I was in snow and 15degrees below zero. Water was beginning to get more and more important now. In Baja, you can basically bank on having a convenient store or “Mini Super” every 50 km's. Mini Supers are made up of small houses close to the road with bright paint colours so they stand out. Generally, the family that runs the store, lives in the back. There children usually come up giggling and wanting to see who just walked in dinging the door bell. I've heard that if you get into a pinch and can't find a place to camp, they are the next best thing for a safe place to tent for cyclists. I always had great chats with the Mini Super employees.






The plan was to get to Ciudad Constitucion 145 km's south. In the back of my mind I knew I had the biggest hills to climb today for the whole trip, since I missed the hills north of Santa Rosalia due to the bus ride. 40 km's disappeared quickly with an average speed of 45 km's/hr due to a frisky tail wind. Then the switch backs started, so did the sweat as it began to burn my eyes and all I could do was to wipe my eyes with my sweaty hands. Water was easily found, but I didn't want to waste it washing my face just in case a store happened to be closed. I recall being on a constant grinding uphill for at least 2 hours. When you hammer hills for such a long stretch, and you reach the top, something rushes through your body - Victory! After taking pictures and wanting to drink all 5 litres of water I had, I continued towards a place to set my tent up. The road went from a serious mountain pass and turned into a plateau where it felt like the earth was flattened out from a glacier many years ago. This small stretch from the top of the switch backs to Ciudad Insurgentes had the bumpiest pavement for the whole of Highway 1; It needed to be repaved badly. But, I am lucky to have made it this far without having to complain about a fire hole to sit on. If I didn't want to spend time with my Grandfather, I would have found a place to camp and rest after the hell that was switch backs for 90km's, but pushed on to Ciudad Constitucion for a 145km day. I pulled into an RV park on the north side of town and set up on the edge of their pool. They had all day breakfast so I fuelled up on french toast and syrup. The days were hard, but when you fill the void with incredible food, it somehow seems easy to travel this way. The map came out and I wanted to get the remaining 362 km's finished in 2 days. From where I was to La Paz, 200 km's of somewhat hilly and mellow pavement lie. 200 km's is just do able in 9 hrs if you can keep up a 20 km/hr average which would give a 1 hour break split up throughout the day. This would be a stretch since the 145 km day was the longest day I've ridden to date - 200 km's is do-able, maybe... I fell asleep doing time versus distance calculations and dreamt about math.








Day 9:
This was to be the biggest day of the whole trip, 200 km's. I was packed and gone out of the RV park just before sun up. My mind was made up that I had 11 hours to make the 200 km pedal. I had a soft breeze at my back and if it kept up all day it would be just do-able. The road from Ciudad Constitucion to La Paz is fairly straight and has no real mountain passes to cross over. I gave it for 5 straight hours with no stops unless it was to buy water or snap a picture. This section had a bit of scenery to keep the mind busy with looking around. I stopped at a Pemex gas station to get some water and eat a bar. Three tweenage girls ran up to me speaking really fast in spanish. I said "paquito espanol" ( little bit of spanish) the leader tween pointed at my pocket and said deniro (money) I laughed! "No deniro. I'm on bicycleta" they laugh like they understand. Then the leader said "photo" I said "si" (yes) so two girls surround me while the leader was frantically taking as many pictures as she could. They run off giggling. After I finished chuckling to myself and eating my bar I yelled over to the girls and said “chicas, photo”, they ran over and surrounded the Giant while I snapped a couple for myself.






I told myself that I would have the first 100 km's down in 5 hours and I did, then the wind shifted to a diagonal head on pushing on my left. So the pace slowed down and I had to counter act the wind by riding on a angle. Unfortunately, I had to angle towards traffic that passed. This became very alarming, very quickly. Imagine, riding sideways to counter act wind coming from your left side and a large semi truck drives by with only feet between you and the large tires. Every time this happens the wind suddenly stops and you get instantly sucked into its vortex. I came inches away from touching trailer tires 3 times within 5 minutes, then stopped at a pull off to re-address this issue. It was late afternoon now and by my math had close to 40 km's left to get to the outskirts of La Paz. I drank water and pondered for a few minutes while looking into the dusty, prickly desert. Is this the night where I'm forced to set up stealth camping off the highway? I can make it the last 40 km's pedalling with day light to spare, but can't get there if I get squished by a big rig. The desert was not inviting at all since I had just hammered 160 km's and wanted water badly to wash the salty sweat and road grime off. I threw out the thumb to try my luck. After 30 or so vehicles drove by staring. I was not feeling overly confident with getting a ride so close to a large city. I rode off again to try last 40 km's then got sucked in one last time and stopped at yet another pullout. I made it maybe ½ a km. Spirits were low. Out went the thumb and a trucker with a low bed hauling re bar slammed on his brakes and pulled over. He jumped out of the cab while I yelled graciously. He pointed at the trailer deck while he ran into the bushes to relieve himself. I strapped the Defy down on its side with my Thermarest straps and we used some extra tie downs to make sure it wouldn't fall off. I jumped into the Spanish music pumping cab and he followed suit. I felt bad that I had to hitchhike again, but only had two solutions, sleep in the bush to battle the snakes and scorpions or get into town to find a camp ground. Before I could analyze the situation, I had a cold Tecate (beer) tossed into my lap from my new Mexican trucker friend. Let's just say that beer went down pretty quickly, and I don't normally drink beer let alone much, if any alcohol. He didn't speak a word of English and we had a great time talking with our hands. I told him I flew from Canada to San Diego, and pedalled from there. He flexed his biceps and said “Loco”. He was right. He cracked another Tecate, and threw his old one out the window. He was adamant that I did the same when mine was empty. Now being from Canada, you don't normally drink alcohol while driving, and you certainly shouldn't litter. So I finished my cold love in a can and held onto it. He noticed and kept saying in Spanish, throw it out the window. So to keep my conscience clear I gave it to him to do the dirty work. He did. After 5 or so minutes we came up to a Military check point and I realized exactly what he wanted now. After passing that with flying colours, we were in La Paz by 4ish. He dropped me off just outside of the city, we unstrapped the Defy and I was off looking for a place to crash. At this point I didn't care if it was a hotel or camp ground, just needed food and a shower. There is a fairly large RV Park on the north side of town, it was full of 4x4 motor homes with foreign license plates, this was perfect.







Day10: Last day on the road, 165 km's left:
From La Paz you have two routes to get to Cabo, either you ride south/west to Todo Santos then south to Cabo or ride south to Los Barriles then south/west to Cabo. I chose to go the Todo Santos way since I've spent time as a child in Los Barriles. Todos Santos was new to me. Spirits were super high today, mainly since I knew I would get to hang out with Hagar for a couple days and would get a chance to rest the achy muscles. I spent 9.5 hours pedalling ferociously to make the tip of the Baja.

Out of the 1,600 km's that is the Baja Peninsula, it took me 10 days to get to Cabo. 9 days of pedalling and 1 day on a bus. I pedalled 1,130 km's out of the planned 1,600.







I spent the last 3 days with my grandfather fishing and eating sea food. It was so worth being in race mode for 10 days to spend time with him.








It feels good to have had the chance to do this, even though I may have temporarily lost a friend in the process. We prepared the best we could do, with what we had, and I know both of us couldn't have foreseen what happened in Santa Rosalia. We passed numerous emails back and forth to get our gear, minds and muscles dialled for this pedal. The wild card for me was not the gear or my riding partner, but Baja itself. At the end looking back, Baja and its people were unbelievable hosts to cyclists trying to better themselves somehow. From what I thought I had control over, I didn't. When choosing partners for this type of travel, make sure that your expectations are very similar. Even 2 months after doing this I feel that I made the right choice, but feel awful at how we didn't get to ride into Cabo San Lucas together. If you read this Morgan, we will ride together again one day.

I have tried my best in the above text to take everyone along for this ride, I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I did. Huge thanks to: Cheryl at the Bicycle Cafe in Kamloops, BC for helping me out with gear, Giant bicycles for making an unbelievable bicycle, the Defy 1, with not a hick-up the whole time and Chantalle for supporting me with my goofy pursuits.

Stats:
Total ascent – 8,032 meters or 26,352 feet
Total Descent – Same as Ascent
Number of dead animals on road – Lost count at 50
Highest Temperature – 37c
Lowest Temperature – 4c
Max Altitude – 702 meters or 2,300 feet – Somewhere between Santa Maria & Catavina

Gear List:
2013 Giant Defy 1
Schwalbe Marathon Tires – No Flats At All
MEC Aqua Not Panniers
Axiom Randonneur Handlebar Bag
North Face Flying Frog Tent
North Face Superlight Down Bag
MSR Micro Rocket Stove
Minimalist 1 Person Pot
Nikon p7100 Camera

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