This Mexico bike trip was a second attempt, really. The first time, two friends and I
rode around on 3 dirtbikes - 2 Suzuki DR350S's, and an aging Honda XT600. We trucked the
bikes down to just above the Tecate gate, and figured on taking dirt roads to Catavina and
then turning around.
Well, we didn't realize how poor our Spanish was for getting directions to obscure,
unmarked local dirt roads. But with a little bit of luck we found our way to Mike's Sky
Ranch, and then to the Pacific Ocean. There we did frolic on the clean white beach, riding
around, our back tires spitting sand, and otherwise making American fools of ourselves.
Well, 3 sunburns later we got as far as El Rosario when we realized one of the sunburns
was serious. We stayed the night in yet another profoundly bad campsite and made it back
to the US by the next evening. We trucked the bikes and ourselves back to Sacramento
exhausted, tired of Mexico, but with rolls of film with fantastic pictures on them, and
plenty of great stories.
We returned to Mexico 4 months later with the street bikes. This time we aimed for Cabo
San Lucas on New Year's Day. On the day after Christmas, I met my friends at the Santa
Nella rendezvous. Sean brought his Suzuki RF600, his girlfriend Kyra took her BMW K750,
and I rode my Katana 750. We all had all piles of strategically selected bags of clothing,
tools, spares, and camping gear bungeed to the bikes. Kyra even packed Monty, her
Chihuahua sized dog in her specially modified tankbag. This time, we didn't realize how
short the riding days would be, it being late December. (That's also when the sun is
relatively low in the sky, so if you're riding south, the sun is always in your eyes.) We
thought we could make it to the campsites in Oceanside, but darkness caught up to us in
Los Angeles. We ended up camping in one of Kyra's aunt's backyards. We even got a hot meal
and shower out of the deal.
The second time entering Baja was great. You knew the landscape would become distinctly
Mexican only 30 or so miles out of Tecate, and when you finally saw it, it was still
breathtaking. Towards evening, we stumbled upon a campsite maybe 80 km outside Ensenada,
equipped with showers. An American crusade church ran the campsite whose fees helped fund
the church.
A truck rode down at night to collect our $8 fees and offered us a hot church dinner of
turkey pot pie across the street. Although very tempted, we figured we'd better learn how
our new compact camp stoves worked. After some fussing and candlelight direction reading
we got dinner cooked. It wasn't four star dining, but macaroni and cheese and MREs and a
litre of Corona has its own unique appeal.
We were still quite far north in the dead of winter, so I spent night in the relatively
warmer windowless shower room. But now there was some large, not seeable beast grunting
and running around outside like something out of a Steven King movie. Cautiously I cracked
open the steel door, ready to slam it shut as the rumbling and snorting and grunting came
closer and closer. Then I saw two burros in heat run past much to my relief. They'd been
running around all morning, apparently within a yard of Sean and Kyra's tent. I went to
check out my own tent but only the bike was there. The tent was totally gone.
I figured the winds picked up during the night and blew it away. About a mile or two
downwind, I finally found the tent upside down with its shock cord structure still intact.
A stand of small saplings had prevented the tent from blowing into the nearby stream and
spread it out like a crucified squashed amoeba doing a headstand. Fortunately everything
was still inside the zipped up tent, so I thankfully dragged the whole assembly back to
camp. As I arrived, Sean stumbled out of his tent, and did a quick double take. "Why
are you dragging your tent around like that? Andy hey did you hear those crazy noises this
morning?"
We decided to join the church folk for a hot breakfast. They had all you can eat
Belgian waffles, milk, peaches and ham as well as 30 or 40 Mexican kids, all using sign
language. This was a church/school for deaf/mute children, free to the locals. We sat and
ate and chatted, and thanked them and headed out to Catavina. We should've stayed for the
church service, complete with a children's sign language choir, but we wanted to get some
miles in that day. We decided to each take our own pace down northern Baja and meet at the
campsite in Catavina that night.
On my way through Ensenada, I passed a bike shop where around 100 dirt bikers and
tourers had assembled for some run. This was too much of an opportunity to ride with a
random group so I waited around until they started kicking their engines to life. These
guys were nuts. They rode two or three to a lane, side by side, and they would only stop
at red lights if there weren't 4 or 5 of them running them all at once, some wheelieing
across, their girlfriends hanging on tight all the while. They were a bunch of squids, but
it was awful fun. They were otherwise just like US groups.
Same high tech moto-clothing, same bikes, same hand gestures, same sunglasses. I rode
with them until their trail became dirt, and I waved adios to them, and they waved back,
vanishing in a dust cloud of their own making. I then had to spend the next hour trying to
find Mex Hwy 2 again towards Catavina.
The scenery changed dramatically past El Rosario. The landscape became strangely lush
like a Yves Tangway painting, starting out with hundreds of at least a dozen different
species of cacti and ending with surrealistically polished boulders piled high, topped
with tall cactus. The wind picked up too. By the time I got to Catavina, a small, almost
post apocalyptic outpost, I had to put on my electric vest. A bit later, Kyra and Sean
rode up. By evening, it was so windy we lashed the tents to the bikes. A nearby abandoned
structure in the campground served as our kitchen. The night was cold and fairly
miserable, so we stayed in the tents, planned to cross into Baja California Sur the next
day and went to sleep. We used our earplugs so the howling wind and the flapping tents
wouldn't keep us awake.
After we got back on the road we found the gusty winds had gotten worse. We had to lean
the bikes alarmingly over to the left just to go straight. We had to slow down for any
left turns as none of us were comfortable with that much lean angle. After a few hours
though, the wind calmed down and we zoomed towards the border at 100+, passing flatbed
trucks full of waving teenage soldiers, startled cows and that strange Baja landscape.
However, at Jesus Maria, the gas stations were out of gas.
Apparently, this happens often in central Baja. At the next big town, Guerro Negro, you
could possibly bribe a factory truck driver for some diesel, but gasoline was completely
unavailable. A couple dozen of us tourists made a camp in a parking lot just outside of
town to await the next gas trucks. Spirits were actually pretty high, and there were
plenty of worldly tourists and travelers stuck with us. We all camped out there, making
periodic trips to town to check on the gas lines. They only got longer and longer. The
second day there, we smiled and took it easy while worrying the gas wouldn't come for a
week or so. Apparently, windy weather sunk yesterday's gas barge, and its companion
gasoline barge refused to port until the weather calmed down. So we chatted with
expatriate Americans, seasonal partiers, semi-illicit nomads, wealthy European travelers,
and bilingual entrepreneurs to kill the time. A fascinating bunch of people, but what we
wouldn't do for five gallons of gas. This fairly mediocre town still held us as prisoners.
Day three: still no gas. The gas line wrapped around the block by this time, about 100
cars long. We diligently learned that the locals allowed cutting in line only if you
wanted to fill buckets you had hand carried, so we prepared half a dozen emptied gallon
jugs of water for the eventual gas fill up. We drank heavily that night, then went over to
check the pumps again. Still, no gas. Manana, tal vez. We hoped we wouldn't have to spend
New Year's Eve here and went to bed. Several hours later, I awoke to a distant commotion
of car horns and crowing roosters. I jumped out of the sleeping bag and loaded the bike
with all the gallon jugs I could bungee on. It was around 2 AM, so started the bike a
stone's throw away from camp. I asked a smiling local on the way to town carrying two
large buckets if there was gas. "Si, hay gasolina!"
The gas station was a scene right out of Close Encounters. The gas semi truck was
there, its high beams like giant eyes illuminating everything and causing a tremendous
amount of glare and excitement. RVs rumbled noisily past, eager to fill their huge tanks
before things ran out again. Smaller cars crowded each other to prevent cutting in, and
the gas attendants pumped incessantly. I waited in a short line of 5 or 6 locals with beat
up metal gas cans, got my five gallon jugs filled, and returned to camp to get another
load. Kyra had already loaded up her bike. Sean was up too. After we filled all our tanks
we went back to sleep for a few hours happy that we'd be able to spend New Year's Eve on
the beaches at Mulege.
The next morning we rode out of town past the gas line which had grown to twice its
size. Santa Rosalita was nothing like the dusty frontier towns of northern Baja. It was
very touristy, but still awfully charming. The little wooden shops and houses were painted
turquoise, bright yellow and brilliant green with bright contrasting trim. It looked like
a cross between a cleaned up Haight Ashbury and Maui, with neatly laid out city squares
and a bustling street life. I had a great lunch there and continued onto Mulege, which was
low key and tourist friendly. At evening I met Kyra at the entrance to Mulege, and she led
me to a beachside campsite she and Sean set up. We rode into the countryside until sunset
when we cut across the road to a small beach dirt driveway. We continued across the firm
packed sand to a narrow rock abutment and proceeded down a dirt road for a mile or so.
Just as I was getting worried about the darkness, as Kyra's tail light was the only
thing visible except for the faintest glow still in the sky, I saw Kyra's small dog
running around in the sand lit by Kyra's high beans. Suddenly, we were at our New Year's
party. This would be the farthest we would make it before 1998.
Although it wasn't Cabo, it was wonderfully peaceful. I set up camp and went over to
Sean and Kyra's tent, where the celebratory huevos rancheros were under way. Sean was on
his second litre of Pacifico when I joined him with my first of Dos Equis. Though we were
having a lot of fun, we had also been under a lot of stress with head colds, unforeseen
problems, bad weather, and gas shortages. The cool tropical night air, the warm clean sand
and the gentle lapping of the waves did away with it all though. It was as if we had
ridden into paradise, and all was forgiven. We were all exhausted, so after a few hours of
laughing, relaxing and reminiscing, we curled up for some long deserved rest.
I awoke around twelve, and I heard the partygoers farther down the beach fire off some
firecrackers and hoot and holler, their voices tiny and distant. Through the open vent of
the tent I could see the bright moon shining down on me, watching me from above, silent
and calm. I listed to the waves lapping softly on the white sand outside the tent, and
then heard another distant firecracker shoot off into the night. Another year had passed,
and another chance had come. I made a silent welcome to the new year and drifted back to
sleep.
Sunrise was an inspiring event. The horizon began its soft glow early in the morning,
silhouetting the surrounding hills that embraced the bay with a reddish and yellow light.
As the atmosphere gradually brightened, the wide flat bay mirrored the colors in the sky,
and you could see small groups of birds skimming the surface of the still water from one
end of the bay to the other. It was as though you could hear the flapping of their wings.
We spent several days doing nothing. We met with the other beach inhabitants, talking
and joking and drinking and eating and sleeping around various campfires. After unwinding
fully, I decided to head farther down towards Cabo, while Sean and Kyra decided to stick
around the beach. I packed the Katana and they lent me some tarps and the address of a
tourist hostel in La Paz. Supposedly, it had showers and private lockable rooms for about
$5.
The landscape around Mulege reminded me of Maui, with some beautiful roadside scenery
of the Gulf of California. The weather heated up dramatically as I cut across the
peninsula once again. I was now riding in jeans and a long sleeved T-shirt which I
periodically soaked in water. I reached La Paz in the late afternoon, with plenty of time
to explore the city. I found the hotel and got myself a $5 room with all the anticipated
luxuries, plus a stove and a washing machine in the large courtyard. The hotel keeper even
suggested I park my bike there. I met the first of a handful of multinational characters
there, and went out for a quick look around the city for dinner. I walked all over the
town, window shopping and people watching. After dinner I joined the others at the hostel
for late night conversations. The local musician brought out his guitar and we sang until
2 in the morning.
Parts of Hwy Mex 2 to Los Cabos were actually quite scenic, even as it widened out to
handle the tourist traffic. Then the tourism just got really obnoxious. Cabo San Lucas was
a run down version of the Santa Monica Pier with endless tourist shops selling the same
T-shirts and its alternately dusty and puddled roads. It was also overrun with swarms of
tourist partiers crowding the sidewalks and racing on the streets on 3 wheeled ATVs and it
was uncomfortably hot. Sammy Hagar's Cabo Wabo bar with its VIP parking looked like
Hollywood. I rode over to the southern most point of the Baja peninsula and found it was
privately owned by a hotel. I slipped by hotel security to check out the beach which was
like a European suntan resort commercial with hot sand and bright blue water. Off shore,
the millionaires raced their bright white yachts on the warm water, the sun glistening off
its mirrorlike surface.
I took the alternate route back to La Paz, through Todos Santos, I should've spent a
night at the Hotel California there, (the one mentioned in the Eagle's song) but didn't.
The town looked like the enclave of expatriate artists it was said to be. Instead, I
proceeded back to La Paz, and the landscape reminded me of northern coastal California all
the while. Back in La Paz, I cleaned up the bike and rested for a day. There, the
local musician was celebrating being rehired to teach music by playing at a local bar, so
all of us from the hostel showed up and enjoyed some of his original songs and some
traditional Spanish stuff. After the show, we talked again until early morning about
travel stories, translating between Spanish, English, French and German so everyone in the
conversation could laugh together.
I rode back to Mulege the next day and joined Kyra and Sean. They had moved into one of
the palapas available there, so the days were even more relaxed. Kyra had planned a
snorkeling expedition for us, so we rode out to the local swim shop to rent wet suits and
the relevant gear. A boat took us to a reef to see the tropical fishes and seals. The baby
seals would swim around and around and would swim right up to you, then they'd spin around
and swim away just as you got alarmed at how close they were to you. As we were about to
leave, a pod of dolphins approached us. We chased them with the boat and jumped in the
water to try and hear their strangely electronic chirping songs, but the song would
quickly fade off as they swam on. So we kept chasing them and jumping into the water.
Right when we gave up the chase we saw a dolphin leap out of the water maybe half a mile
from us. Then another jumped up and hit the water with a splash, then another.
Then there were 10 or so dolphins jumping out of the water making quite a racket. We
were all stunned by the sight, and none of us dared reach for a camera lest the dolphins
stop jumping. After one dolphin did a spectacular flip and a half out of the water, it was
suddenly over. On the way back to port, we were greeted by a medium sized manta ray that
jumped out of the water, but we were too drained to even applaud. I spent another day on
the beaches of Mulege before heading back home. Sean and Kyra decided to stay a couple
more days and helped me pack up my stuff.
Around Catavina, quickly approaching unseasonable rain, strong gusty winds, slick oily
roads, a completely bald rear tire and the threat of another gas shortage threatened me
with another wet, windy campout in horrible Catavina. Fortunately, I had brought an extra
water gallon full of gas with me and I topped up and managed to out ride the storm. In El
Rosario I treated myself to a $10 motel room, and I polished the newly rechristened bike.
I promised Rhino a polish job and a chain lube if he got me through Catavina in one piece.
I then had a private motel room victory feast of tortilla chips, salsa, burritos, MRE
ravioli, and a litre of Pacifico and fell contentedly asleep with the TV on. It was smooth
sailing from here on in.
I spent the next several days slowly getting back to Sacramento along Mex 2, and Hwys
101, 1 and 17. I stopped briefly in San Vincente and Ensenada for souvenirs, spent a night
in San Diego for a new rear tire, and some sightseeing. I then spent a night each at an
IRC friend's place outside Los Angeles and my sister's place in Santa Cruz where I enjoyed
warm food, warm showers, plenty of wine and warm beds. On the final leg back to
Sacramento, I finally hit my first rain of the trip and tested out my rain gear all the
way back to my garage. It was so nice to be home. I arrived there shortly after 4:00 on
Friday with the full weekend to recover and develop pictures. I had been gone three weeks
(during which the club elected me road captain in absentia) and covered 4000 miles. That
ride has long since satisfied my urge for long distance camping tours, and I haven't felt
the need to return to Mexico since. It was undoubtedly the best ride I've taken.
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