La Paz

I feel cursed by the things that happen to me, but blessed by the convenience with which they happen.

But first, an update.

After a genuine Canadian breakfast at the B&B in San Ignacio, I rode south along the Sea of Cortez to Santa Rosalia. I spent a few hours lunching with an American traveller before continuing south to Mulege. While exploring the small, colonial-style town, a transplanted Californian retiree invited me to a friend's backyard barbecue. I struggled to communicate in Spanish, but capably did my part to remove the roasted swordfish and ample spirits.

The following day, I rode a beautiful 130km seaside stretch of road to Loreto, a European inspired town of about 3,000 people. In the only campground, I met a resident British Columbian guitarist, Marc and his visiting friend, Brad. Marc was one of the hundreds employed by a developer attempting to turn Loreto Bay into the next big Mexican tourist destination. He graciously invited me to a lasagna dinner at his brother's house, not far from my tent.

Spending two days in Loreto afforded me the opportunity to write that clever first sentence. Enroute, one of my gear shifters started misbehaving. Having rebuilt it before, I thought I'd have a look inside to see what I could do. Long story short, I ended up doing more harm than good. By blessed coincidence, Loreto was the first town since Ensenada with a bike shop. By even greater blessed coincidence, Manny, the mechanic, had a 20 year old shifter that worked flawlessly in replacing mine. He didn't even charge me a penny. Muchas gracias, Manny.

Rolling once again, I spent two days riding the dregs of the desert and the Sierras Gigantes(Sierras means mountains) into the southern capital of La Paz, pop. 400,000. After exploring the downtown, I scouted a $16 hotel and resolved to forgo the immediate mainland ferry for the Monday afternoon trip. I spent Friday evening at The Dock restaurant with another displaced Canadian friend, Stefen. Thereafter I spent a few hours at a popular night club, La Casa de la Villa, being serenaded by a really adept Spanish rock band blasting hits by CCR, The Who and Guns n' Roses.

Stefen drove me to the beautiful Telacote Beach where I spent most of Saturday afternoon before returning to town to see an amazing late night performance of Mexican Banda music. Afterwards, until 1am, I sat on a bench on the seaside Malecon, marvelling at the similarities between La Paz's main drag & Richmond St. West in Toronto.

Tomorrow, I'll embark on an 18 hour overnight ferry ride to the mainland town of Mazatlan. Soon thereafter, Guadalajara, Mexico City, who knows what else?

Santa Rosalia

The Deserts of Baja have now taken the place as the most intriguing settings across which I´ve ever ridden. It´s amazing to look to one´s left and see a field of shrub and cacti extending beyond the horizon. It´s amazing to look to one´s right and see the same. It´s breathtaking to look ahead and see a yellow line down the middle of the road with no visible end. It´s frustrating, sometimes infuriating to ride that yellow line for hours at a time without seeing even the slightest deviation in scenery or trajectory. In fact, the only thing that ever changes while riding in the desert is the position of your shadow - not very rewarding.

Baja´s scenery changes almost as rapidly as the minutes of the day (until you arrive in the desert, that is.) In one day, I saw forested mountains, sand dunes, seas of cacti, fields of boulders the size of houses and dehydrated river canyons much deeper than I´d like to fall into.

I spent a night on a Pacific beach near San Quintin before heading inland for a few days. Following the only paved road on the peninsula, I rode to the town of Cataviña where I camped amidst a huge boulder field with an American motorcyclist. Derric eagerly shared his double rations after his weekender partner bailed out on him. I carried on to Chapala and from there, hitched a ride with a hydro worker down a 60km detour to Bahia de Los Angeles, a charming tourist mecca nestled in a huge rocky cove on the overwhelmingly blue Sea of Cortez. Bearing a few days of desert I couped up at a Canadian owned, eco-friendly bed & breakfast in San Ignacio, on the shore of a natural spring lake by the same name.

Weekends here have been a little hectic with the infamous Baja 1000 offroad race approaching. There are a lot of dirt bikes and dune buggies cruising about in the sand in an effort to master their respective sections of the 1600 mile relay. I´m still being granted lots of space on the road from the many trucks and cars that pass my way.

While it seems I´ve parted ways with my new found cycling team, I´ve heard rumours of more on the horizon. With only a few more days until my arrival at La Paz, I´ll soon be finished with the Baja and on to the marvel that will be mainland Mexico.

Adios, amigos!

Ensenada

San Diego is an interesting place. It's the last establishment of American civilization as the Mexican border approaches. That said, there doesn't really seem to be a clear border. The city officially ends with one of America's largest naval bases, but suburbia continues beyond that for another 25km. Those 25km represent an interesting gradient from English speaking Americans to Spanish speaking Americans & Mexicans. Within the last 3km of the border, you'd be hard pressed to find a sign in English.

In any case, my last night in the good old U.S. of A. was spent between an R.V. packed K.O.A. campground and ironically, a Mexican restaurant. I'd have more symbolically preferred McDonald's, but my group had other ideas.

Crossing the border the following day was a bit of a surprise. Despite my best efforts, I could not find anyone who cared to look at my passport. Cars were flowing south by the hundreds and not a single one was being stopped. To my left was parked a line of cars at least 1km in length, waiting to head north.

Tijuana only received about an hour of my time; enough to see some peculiar, but very touristy sites. This included a donkey, painted like a Zebra. I thereafter headed east and inland to the smaller, understated town of Tecate; home of the world famous Tecate brewery. I spent the night in an $18 motel - it was worth every penny.

I continued east the following day through a sizable range of mountains. My hopes of of seeing the nearby national park were quickly dashed when my well-paved and popular corridor turned into an impassable patch of sand. I did an about face and after 80km of mountainous riding, returned to the every charming Motel Paraiso in Tecate.

Yesterday, I rode southeast down an Alternate route to the coast and the town of Ensenada. The road brought forth 3 incredibly challenging climbs atop desert mountains, all of which revealed stunning vistas. On the more thrilling side, there were four converse descents into beautiful valleys, the last of which brought me into the Valle de Guadalupe - one of Mexico's winery regions. Faced with the opportunity, I spend the equivalent of 80 cents to sample 7 varieties of Don Juan wine. The final 30km of my 113km day were a little tipsy, but I made it safe and sound to Ensenada where I requainted with Mike, Kelvin and another tourista, Judith.

Today, I continue South, destination: unknown.

Arrival

After several minutes of intensive trip planning, I gleefully arrived in Los Angeles. Accommodated by dear family friends near Huntington Beach, CA, I was afforded two days of generous rations and lots of time to get my bike in working order.

Itching to hit the road, I made a relatively early start on Friday mid-morning, destined for Oceanside, CA. Enroute, I coordinated with another pair of cyclists, John & Phil. John was on his penultimate travel day from Portland to San Diego and Phil was a single-day freeloader. We spent the night at the Encenidas campground amidst the company of three other cyclists with whom John had been playing cyclo-leap frog for more than a month down the west coast. We were all furthermore blessed by the addition of a surf/cyclist who had ridden with surfboard in tow from Santa Barbara. His colourful personality and unique ability to rapidly consume alcohol proved quite the source of irritation & amusement.

Headstrong into the first day of rain that Southern California had seen in 9 months, the five of us played leapfrog all the way to San Diego where from I type this entry. The group will be disbanding tomorrow with the exception of Mike, who'll be continuing on to the tip of Baja. I expect to see a fair bit more of him.

Onward - to the Chula Vista campground. Tomorrow, the border. *cue doomsday music*