How I failed to reach San Jose del Cabo
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
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Day1: Everyone was saying, "Don't go, I don't trust the police/water/food/natives/gas down there."

But I went anyway, and here's the story......

Here I am in San Felipe, noisy adult toy heaven. There are noisy dirt bikes, noisy atv's, noisy power boats and noisy Americans to go with them. Everyone seems to be a bit drunk. But food is cheap.

I gassed up the trusty Kawasaki KLR 650 dual-purpose motorcycle last night, and packed the Givi bags. I was hoping that I'd only need two, but crikey, with all the spares (inner tubes, levers, oil, chain lube and cleaner, air pump, duct tape, head and tail light replacement bulbs) together with emergency supplies (bedroll, satellite phone, GMRS radio, GPS, PocketPC (with which I am typing this via a cute little fold-up keyboard) together with 8 days worth of clothes, various liners, shoes and so on and so on. I even had to leave behind my lightweight Joe Rocket Phoenix jacket. That one was a mistake!

I loaded up the bike, and feeling trepidation at this adventure into the strange world that is Baja California, I discovered my first problem. Although the bike was lower with all the weight on it, I couldn't find a way to get on it. Eventually, by getting my right knee somewhere near my nose, I managed it. But then I had a foreboding feeling, wondering how I was going to get off it again!

How about this, I lost my way whilst I was still in California - missed my turn off Interstate 8 and had to double back to get onto Jamacha to get to SR 94 to Tecate.

To be honest, I was feeling really apprehensive about the trip, but reckoned that if I still felt that way at the border crossing, I could simply turn back. Several things were pushing me on - the price of the satellite phone rental, the fact that I'd already invested in a visa and insurance, and the fact that B was due to fly down to San Jose del Cabo on Friday to meet me for a long weekend.

Stopping for a fuel top-up at the Tecate on the US side of the border, and then to change some 'dolares' into pesos, I went through the Mexican border. Only to stop immediately to get my visa stamped and authorized :-)

My plan was to head East on Route 2 'libre' the old road, not the fancy new toll road, and take a right at El Condor, on what the map purported to be 'graded dirt roads', through 'Parque Nacional Constitucion de 1857' and Laguna Hansen, to pick up route 3 South East towards San Felipe.

I stopped at the Pemex station right by the turn-off and consulted, haltingly, with one of the attendants. He looked at the bike and looked at me and pronounced that I should go via Mexicali and Route 5 south to San Felipe. When I pushed him about the dirt road, he waggled his finger as if to warn me off. So, I wimped out. Plenty of time for glory stuff later :-)

As it turned out, the fabled 'Rumorosa' (highway that falls off the mountains into the desert) was spectacular.

'La Rumorosa' - a wonderfully winding road wending to the desert below:

And then it was boring-boring, into Mexicali, which looks like the world's junkyard. And warm, too, about 85 deg F or so. Eventually peeling right onto route 5 South, I thought, "Hmmm... There's a bunch of Pemex stations on this route, I'll start to think about filling up when I get to 150 miles from the last top-off. "

Bad move.

The gas station at La Ventana had no gas, and the one at Crucero la Trinidad didn't exist. The lads hanging out at La Ventana warned me that the nearest gas was in San Felipe, so I rolled off the throttle to conserve fuel.

This whole stretch of road is like a moonscape, completely flat with mountains in the near distance. Pretty desert flowers from time to time by the side of the on-and-on dead straight road. Every now and then I got a glimpse of the Sea of Cortez.

To state that there was not much traffic is an understatement. I was overhauled (me going a miserable 60 mph) by a couple on a pair of BMW's, who also showed up in the hotel I'm staying at, the 'Costa Azul Hotel', right by the Sea of Cortez.

I have to wear a security bracelet whilst I'm here, so the security man knows I'm 'legit'. Weird!

So, that brings me up to date. All I need do now is to call B on the satellite phone, to give her the number to call me here, and then get some dinner. I'm ravenous. And my butt hurts. And my back, too, for some reason.

Later that same night: It took 49 seconds to call B on the satellite phone and give her my number here in San Felipe :-) This is significant, as it costs big $$$ per minute to use it!

And, what a great meal I had! Spicy fish, yum. Now I feel bloated, all for $8, including a beer :-)

 

Day 2: I'm in the El Cid Best Western Hotel in Ensenada. Mission aborted. Two reasons, really: I am not prepared enough for the rigors of this trip; in particular, my Spanish speaking skills are lamentably inadequate. So much so that I went in completely the wrong direction which proved fatal to the enterprise. Secondly, to cover the kind of isolated roads I had intended to ride, I need to be more self-contained than I am - with full survival gear, tent, food, and so on.

The bottom line is that I have more than 900 miles to ride between now and Friday if I am to meet B in San Jose del Cabo and the way I'm feeling - aching, very tired - and the notion of just haring down route 1 to get there in time, doesn't appeal greatly. So, tomorrow, I'll slip back across the border with my tail between my legs, and hope that B can get another seat on the flight so we can enjoy the weekend in San Jose del Cabo together. Oh well...

Today deserved to be better than it was. I set off at 9am, south towards Puertecitos. At the military check point by the junction with the airport road, they insisted on picking one of my bags for checking. All they found were clothes!

The Baja 250 runs this weekend, and things are heating up for it. At one point, three trucks heading towards me passed at some ridiculous speed, leaving a cloud of dust that was impenetrable.

The road deteriorated the farther south I got, so that at Puertecitos it was mostly gravel and pot-holes. I can live with this, I thought, until I got onto the dirt track leading south out of the so-called town. The track turned malevolent, with sharp stones, tight twisty turns and steepish grades. Although I could make progress on it, it was very slow, between 10-20 mph. And then I realized that there was 85 miles of this stuff to get to route 1, and it doesn't take a genius to work out that, as the time was now 11am, I wouldn't be out of there before dark. That was not something I wanted to do, especially as there was nowhere to stay very close on the 'other side'.

At Puertecitos, near the end of the road, in more ways than one. That Sea of Cortez is really blue:

Back-tracking to San Felipe, feeling a good bit more confident on the pot-holes and 'vados', I reckoned that I could head north to route 3 and cut across to route 1 at Valle de la Trinidad on a dirt road.

I asked a couple of folks for directions, and after being chased by mangy dogs out for a bit of fun, I headed along what I thought was the correct road.

Wrong!

I had missed the right turn (which was unsigned) and headed off instead along a sandy road.

The sand got deeper and deeper, and I got into trouble. The handlebars hardly responded to inputs, and the rear wheel was sliding all over the place. I had been told that in sand, 'When in trouble, gas it!’ which is what I did, and the rear wheel promptly overtook the front wheel and the bike went down, facing in the other direction from travel.

And it's not as though I had street-only tires, the Continental TwinDuros are knobblier than most KLR tires.

So, I picked myself up - no damage done. Looked at the bike - the left side Givi bag had taken the heat, and I wasn't going very fast anyway. I removed the tank bag and the top case, got out my crushed Pepsi can and hauled the thing upright, crushed can under the side stand.

I took another look at the bike, and remarkably, even the Givi bag and mount were undamaged. Started up, second try :-)

But now I faced a dilemma, with the all important crushed can under the side-stand, I couldn't retrieve it *and* mount the bike. Solution: a small, flat piece of rock.

The 'crash' site, near Valle de la Trinidad. All's well that starts again:

So, on I went, up into the hills. The sand eased off and became a gnarly, rutted twisty track with a couple of the traditional Mexican flower memorials for folks who hadn't made it. After about 5 miles, the track kinda 'petered out'. I spied a ranchero, and with a cheery 'por favor', I tried to figger out just exactly where I was.

Uh, oh, I'm in Los Pocitos. And there's only one practical way out of here - back the way I came!

By this time I had now reached breaking point, everything ached, and all I wanted to do is get back to a paved road. So, I couldn't be bothered to find the correct route across to route 1 and simply headed back (uneventfully, happily) to route 3 and Ensenada, about 50 miles south of where I started yesterday in Tecate!

But, hey-ho, it's been an adventure in its own right - the Sea of Cortez is beautiful and blue. The natives are friendly and generous. The scenery and flora are unique. Oh, and the fauna, too - I nearly ran over a rattle-snake sleeping in the road <grin>

Next time, I'll try it after a few Spanish lessons, riding with somebody else, and when I don't have a deadline to be somewhere at a specific time.

 

Day 3 – Rolling home, hoping that no-one recognises me...

Now that the pressure was off, it was very pleasant to just take it easy and ride the rolling route 3 home via Tecate. Vineyards, farmland, very green. The road is great to ride, too, not too many long straights, and enough curves to make it interesting.

Vineyards on the road from Ensenada to Tecate:

Arriving in Tecate, I joined the seemingly long queue to get through US immigration, only to be beckoned after a while to sneak up the inside of all the cars and trucks by a rather unofficial looking Mexican official. In any event it only took about 15 minutes to get through the formalities, including me making a detour to get my passport stamped by Mexican ‘emigration’.

Note to US immigration: the fact that I have a Union Jack on my helmet might be a clue that I’m not (yet) a US citizen. So, as well as asking me what I’ve brought in from Mexico, “Me”, I respond, “What kind of meat?” says he (????), you might want to ask folks if they are US citizens. Just a thought.

Then to roll down SR94 which felt very ‘safe’ and ‘homelike’, which is odd when you think about it. And Jamacha Road and I-8 and SR67 and Scripps-Poway Pkwy. A total of 685 miles and 15.5 gallons of fuel in two and a half days. Whilst I’m talking stats, I spent almost a continuous 9 hours in the saddle yesterday, and my butt is telling me to ditch the custom seat and get one with some sort of ‘scalloped’ shape to ‘spread the load’ a bit.

So, I ended up getting a flight to Los Cabos with B, but that's another story :-)