Southern Exposure

Thursday, November 20

Today was the first full day of riding in Mexico. Last night we studied the map and the travel book to figure out our route in Baja. We’ve heard that Mulege, a small village on the site of an ancient mission in the southeastern part of Baja, is a nice place to spend a day or so soaking up the sun on the beaches of the Sea of Cortes. Judging by the speed of today it will take us about three days to get there.

This morning we had a fun encounter with two adventure riders from Seattle. In a comical circumstance, these were the guys we “blew off” yesterday when we were passing through Ensenada. We could not figure out why there were all these dirt bikes and dune buggies on the streets, and as we moved slowly through the traffic, two guys on the sidewalk were running after us, yelling, making signs with their hands, and taking our pictures. Unfortunately, neither of us could hear anything because of the ear plugs and the music. We waved, and kept on going. This morning, as we ate our mini mart breakfast outside of the motel, we saw two riders on the road, waved at them, and to our surprise they turned around and drove up to us. It turned out that these were the guys from yesterday, all geared up on their V-Stroms. We found out that they rode from Seattle to watch the Baja 1000 off road race, which was starting tomorrow. They tried to get our attention yesterday, because they saw our ADV (Adventure Rider) stickers and Washington State license plates. We talked for a short while, got invited to join them to see the race but we had to keep on going South and they had to get back to Ensenada.

We only had about 200 miles to go today to El Rosario, which is a small town before a long stretch of desert nothingness. It took us much longer than we expected, mainly because the traffic kept on getting stuck behind large trucks and it took effort to get in front of the line, only to get stuck behind another trail of cars 20 miles down the road. One time we tried to get around a line of stopped traffic by riding on the shoulder which got us into a sandy dirt road. Matt’s tire got in pretty deep at one point, and I was sweating it as it was my first time riding in the sand. We decided not to get too adventurous. (There were a bunch of cars stuck in the sand ahead of us, and guys with shovels trying to dig around the tires).

Another time the paved road suddenly ended and we had to ride on the gravel road while the workers were paving the road two feet next to us. I am happy that Matt and I took the dirt riding class before we left on this trip. Now I just have to practice my skills as there will be many more dirt roads ahead.

We stopped by for a quick lunch in a small one road town. Apparently, today is Mexico’s Independence Day, so there were all these festivities going on in the town park. After lunch (where I was stung by a bee), we kept on going through the desert mountainous scenery, sometimes enhanced by the view of the ocean, and finally made it to El Rosario.

The hotel we stopped at seemed extremely cush for this area, we’ve got a king size bed, satellite TV, coffee maker, beautiful shower and a large size adobe room decorated with dark wood beams and artisan furniture. All for only 30 dollars. Better not get used to luxury like this. Tonight we had dinner at Mama Espinoza’s, one of the oldest restaurants in Baja. It has been a Baja 1000 checkpoint for 40 years and the walls are covered in race memorabilia.

Tomorrow we will get up early and head to Guerro Negro. It should be a long ride through the desert. We’ll get an earlier start tomorrow and hopefully traffic will be lighter.