Rally point
Follow John Boisvenue and Jason Milne from Team Rally Point as they make their way south from Barry’s Bay ON to San Jose Del Cabo, Baja, Mexico.
Day 1 - Oct 17th: Wetter than an Otters Pocket!
6C and rain…. lots and lots of rain! That was the start of our journey. But what better way to start a ten thousand kilometer adventure on adventure bikes than with a bit of adversity. As Canadian bikers, we were prepared so as sucky as the weather may have been, it was just good to get moving.
Up to departure day, the stress was high for both Jason and I as we each had our issues running up to Step Off for the Rally Point trip. So despite the wet and the cold, we were happy to be on the bikes and moving south.
Day one saw us leave Sunny Hill Resort in Barry’s Bay, ON, riding south towards the CAN/US border at Gananoque. We crossed without incident, however the rather lovely border guard thought we were nuts heading to Mexico and gave us our first of many “god bless you’s” of the trip!
We made it as far south as Clarks Summit, just outside of Scranton PA. Being cold and damp, we grabbed the first place we could find off the interstate, which turned out to be some sort of scuzzy version of a Comfort Inn. Life on the road… its not always glamorous…lol! The upshot was that there was a great restaurant across the street called Tully’s which had great food and even had their own beer… which was quite good as well. Day one in the books! Time to sleep!
Day 2 - Oct 18th: ICE Warnings, sunshine and navigational difficulties!
We woke up to a cloudless sunny day in Clarks Summit PA after a fitful sleep. The stress from the build up to the trip had not quite left us. But the sun boosted our spirits immensely and the stoke was high to get on the road asap!
The goal for Day 2 was to get to our buddy Gary’s place in Maryville (pronounced Merivale…lol), however, one thing we soon began to realize was how much we underestimated the scale of the US and how long it would take us to make mileage! Originally, the plan was to make the 1650km to Gary’s place in TN in a day and a half….. not sure what we were thinking, but mother nature made sure to revise our schedule accordingly!
As such we adjusted our end point to Harrisonburg VA, with the aim of hitting some of the MABDR (https://ridebdr.com/mabdr/) as we crossed from Pennsylvania to Maryland. However, a navigational goof, saw us go the opposite direction on our first bit of the MABDR, wasting a an hour or two of travel time. However, although we travelled in the wrong direction on the MABDR, the route still headed south to some degree, so not all was lost. A quick re-route via Google Maps got us to our destination in due course.
With views of the Appellations, excellent twisty backroads and sunny weather we managed to get into Harrisonburg in good spirits. The topper of the day was a great little Mexican cantina right up the road from our motel. Burritos and beers were had!
Day 3 - OCt 19th: A taste of the BDR
With day 2 in the books, we seemed to have shaken the pre-trip jitters as we both slept much better after day 2’s ride. Another chilly morning greeted us on day 3, but the temps promised to rise throughout the day, which was welcome news as we planned to blast down I81 to make a bit of time in the morning and then hit more of the MABDR one our way to Gary’s…. the right way this time!
Once we got the initial run down the interstate out of the way, we connected with the MABDR which proved to be a series of excellent back roads, the likes of which we simply do not have in Canada! Tight, twisty 2 lane backroads flowed up and down with ridiculous transitions between dips in the road! Wheelies were had!
After about 80 miles or so of the twisties, we then hit some dirt, the first of the trip! Once we transitioned to dirt we quickly started climbing as we rode forrest service roads up toward the top of the Ridgeline. These soon gave way to tighter switch back trails barley wide enough for a side by side ATV’s. The cost over-shooting a corner in this section was steep…. no pun intended!
After a lively session in the switch backs, the trail dumped us out into a beautiful valley, at which point we decided to make our way back to the I81 to b-line it to Gary’s place. But before we got there, we ended up finding what could easily be described as one of the best roads either of us has ever ridden! Un unbelievably epic road that twisted its way, up and around the foot hills of the Virginian Appellations! Fantastic!
Eventually we rolled into Gary’s late in the evening to a warm welcome and many cold beers in his most excellent garage/mancave! Time to relax for a day and do a bit of maintenance on the bikes!
Day 4&5 - OCt 20th/21st: Southern hospitality and motorsports meccas
As things were a bit chaotic in the run up to our departure on the trip, there were a few things we did not have time to do on the bikes, chief among those being the install of Triple Clamp Moto’s Head Straight kit. Designed to reinforce the headlight mounting pins on the frame of the bike, this kit was designed and built by Triple Clamp Moto, a Canadian owned and operated bike gear shop out of Toronto. We’ve been working closely with the team at Triple Clamp this past season and they continue to support us on this trip… so big shout out to Amir and the team at TCM!
The installation was relatively painless, mostly for me as I watched Jay make all of the mistakes and got mine installed with no drama….lol! All kidding aside, we would need this kit on the bikes once we hit the rough stuff in the deserts of NM, AZ SoCal and Baja, so having Gary’s rather swank garage to do the work in was a huge bonus.
Camera gear and media were next on the list; charging batteries, transferring media from sd cards onto our ruggedized hard drive and doing a bit of re-arranging of gear on the bikes.
Once the work day was done, Gary and his family were kind enough to invited us out to a local pizza joint for dinner, which Gary sneakily paid for. There hospitality during our short stay was truly appreciated! Big thanks to the Pickens family for treating us like part of the family.
With bike maintenance complete and our bodies rested up, day 5’s game plan was to head south from Maryville TN to Birmingham AL to the Barber Motorsports Park, home of the world famous Barber Motorsports Museum! This one has been on both our bucket lists for a while, so the stoke was high to finally have a chance to visit.
No messing around on this journey… we b-lined it straight there on the interstate, so nothing exciting to report from the ride down. However, rolling up the boulevard to the main facility, you definitely get a sense that you are somewhere special! The sun hanging low in the sky definitely added to the sense of occasion as we rolled up to motorcycle parking right at the front door. As we shut down off the bikes we were immediately greeted with the blissful sound of bikes being pushed to their limits on the race track directly behind the museum…..We had arrived!
The Barber Motorsports Vintage Museum is nothing short of spectacular! As one walks in the front doors, you are greeted by friendly staff who seem like they understand the magnitude of you being there. The entrance is grand, with reception and the gift shop to one side, and a 20ft arial photo of the facility mounted to the wall on the opposite side. But lays just beyond that is truly awe-inspiring: A spiralling walkway that runs from the lower level, where one will find examples of some of the finest sports cars ever built, up to each of the 4 or 5 floors of various periods of motorcycles, from the very first examples of fun on two wheels, to the absolute latest in super bike technology. pinned in the middle of this spiral walkway is an huge glass elevator, big enough for a car (no big surprise there!) which is, in turn, flanked by racks containing motorcycles of all sorts of makes, models and generations, rising from the bottom level to the very top of the ceiling… easily a hundred feet! It is a site to behold! And if all of that wasn’t enough, the facility has a bridge off of the second level where visitors can go and watch race bikes (and presumably race cars) come out of the last corner of the race track and run the straight away!
After far to short of a visit (we could have literally spent a day or two in there walking around and watching bikes race!) we made our way down the road to a motel for the night where we met a couple of fellow bikers; an older gentleman from Texas travelling on a BMW GS and a younger guy doing track lessons up at Barber’s Daytona Racing School. It was a great cap to an excellent day!
The sound of Heaven!
Day 9 & 10 - Oct 25th/26th: Pan Handles and Oil Fields
After leaving Old Pauls place, we headed into the near by town of Paul’s Valley to spend the night at a Motel where we spent the evening working out the game plan for the next day. I had found a KTM dealer listed on the WLFxHere app in Lubbock TX, it’s a clever little app created by WLF Enduro as a resource for riders to link up with other riders pretty much anywhere. At any rate, Lubbock boasted a sizeable shop and we needed tubes in a bad way as we were not able to get much before we left… so into Texas we would go.
Texas is big in case anyone was wondering… like, really big! So we decided a straight shot from Oklahoma to Lubbock was best, so the next morning we dropped the hammer and just ate highway miles all the way.
Eventually we rolled into Lubbock, which I have to say, had more going for it than I would have guessed. There is obvious money in this town judging by the toys and size of the shop. A dozen or so Malibu wake boats in the lot, a massive show room with actual stock, impressive. However, our metric ways caused some amount of confusion with the parts guys. They were all super stoked to learn about our trip and were pretty much tripping over each other to help us out, but when I told them we needed tubes for a 150/70/18 tire, it kind of threw them for a loop. We later learned that in the states, a 150 translates to 6-6.10…. Who knew?
At any rate, we grabbed what they had in stock, which surprisingly wasn’t much given that they sold KTM adventure bikes and left with an extra 21in front and 2 thinner diameter 18in rear tubes…. Or so we thought. With tubes in hand we pushed on another hour or so to Brownfield TX to get us in a good position for a final push into New Mexico the next day.
Despite the name, Brownfield was a bit of surprise. It was a very small town to be sure, however, it appears to be the headquarters for the Antique shop that belongs to the American Pickers TV show. We stopped very quickly on our way out of town to grab a few picks as they had some very cool stuff out front, including an awesome old Bus from the late 50’s, early 60’s!
Our next stop would be New Mexico, specifically a town called Artesia which was within easy striking distance to the NMBDR trail system. A short 20 minute ride from there would link us in about halfway through the first section to the NMBDR, so although not terribly far from Lubbock, we decided it would be a good idea to stop there and get ready for off roading the next day… the stoke was high… bring on the dirt!
That was the plan anyways. As it turned out the RV Park listed on the Rever app, something we were experimenting with, was a total bust. We had intended to camp there to save some money (the US dollar is currently kicking the piss out our measly Canadian Dollar). So we spent the better part of the afternoon looking for a good, yet cheap place to stay. We finally settled on the Budget Inn…. As the name might imply, it was as advertised. But it would do.
Jay promptly got on with changing his rear tire in prep for the trails the next day and it was at this point we realized that the KTM shop in Lubbock had given us 2 fronts and 1 rear tube…. And the tube was A LOT thinner in diameter than we had thought. This proved to be a big issue as we’d have to really inflate the hell out of the tube to pop the bead of the tire. But, despite not loving the situation, there wasn’t much else to do except install it and hope for the best until we could source a proper tube
So, with tube installed we proceeded to inflate the tire with our portable air compressor…..which promptly failed and died on us! So, at 9PM, with a partial bead on Jay’s rear tire, we mounted to the bike and rode to the nearest gas station with an air pump. Needless to say the ride was entertaining, but we eventually seated the bead.
One thing I forgot to mention is that Artesia is essentially an oil town. As we rolled into town from Texas, we came across hundreds of oil derricks, the type that rock up and down endlessly. Most were far off but every once in a while there’d be one by the road that you could just walk up to. So we decided to roll up and have a look at one on the way in. Pretty wild to think that this is basically where our gas comes from… at least to some degree. Truly the land of Dinosaur blood!
There is also a huge refinery in town as well…. And it smells like it does as well. The smell of oil was pervasive throughout town and well into the country side with gas burn off plumes all over the place… even in town! Wild. We couldn’t wait to get out into the desert!
Day 11 - Oct 27th: 8000 ft of awesomeness!
Finally… after thousands of miles of road riding, we had finally arrived in New Mexico, which promised some serious off road riding! As mentioned before, New Mexico has a dedicated Back Country Discovery Route, or BDR (https://ridebdr.com/). These are adventure bike routes, typically run from south to north in each state that has one, however New Mexico’s BDR meanders east to west quite a bit, which will give us plenty of off road riding on our way west to California.
Our step off point on the NMBDR would be about half way through the first leg that runs from Dell City TX to Ruidoso, NM. Although we would start the NMBDR at about 3000ft above sea level, this leg of the NMBDR would crack 8000 ft. We started off the NMBDR on some gravel roads that ran in among some gentle rolling hill country. Nothing crazy and all high speed stuff.
It was really great to finally stretch the legs on some dirt and get these bikes into some territory they were built for! Nothing, and I mean NOTHING beats a KTM 1090 Adventure R on fast dirt roads! It is where these bikes shine! Before long we found ourselves getting into some beautiful alpine valleys and climbing in elevation…as indicated by patches of snow remaining in the shaded areas!
Reminiscent of something out of a western, these alpine valleys were full of tall, wispy pines and lots of loose cattle that really do NOT like my akropovic exhaust…LOL! Most would run like the wind as I rounded a corner. It was pretty cool, but also a bit of a hazard, as we had a few close calls with cows being right at the side of the trail as we whipped around corners. Hitting a cow on a bike doing 50-60mph would not be a good day out. From then on we kept our heads on swivels and slowed down when the bovines where close by.
Eventually, we found our way to Weed NM, a designated fuel stop on the NMBDR and pretty much the ONLY spot in the area to get fuel as well as some supplies for some camping if that’s your thing. We may have mentioned this before, but one very cool thing about the US is that you can camp anywhere you want within national forests as long as it is within 300 ft of a road. Or so we have been informed by Gary…. But Gary generally knows his shit, so…..
After a quick fuel stop at Weed, we continued along, constantly making more elevation, running twisty back roads for a few miles before getting back onto some gravel. This was more alpine valley type stuff… the type of roads you just do not get sick of riding! We could have spent days on these roads and had the weather been warmer, it would have been seriously cool to camp somewhere along here. Whether that would be kosher or not…??
From the beginning of the day, the weather was crystal clear, but a bit cool. As we started to get to the higher elevations, the wind really started to pick up. It wasn’t terribly noticeable in the valleys but as we peaked over the highest pass of the day, the wind was blasting! That said, we barely noticed as the view that created us was beyond words! Epic seems wholy inadequate, as we could literally see for hundreds of miles and the mountain ranges that spanned below us were nothing short of spectacular! Easily worth every mile from Barry’s Bay to there!
With obligatory pics and videos done, we commenced our decent on the far side of the pass towards our next nav point for the day, High Rolls. The run down was a seemingly never ending series of switch backs that the 1090’s ate up with ease! We both fell into a serious flow and before we knew it we were well into the valley that would lead us to High Rolls and one of my personal “must see” destinations on the NMBDR: The Old Apple Barn! For those that know me, Apple Pie is my one and only true weakness!
We knew about this place from the NMBDR video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_TwShdsxFE&t=1170s) and decided that we absolutely had to stop here. We rolled up, parked the bikes and proceeded to go inside. The interior of this place is unreal! It is choke full of cool little trinkets… from kitschy route 66/retro type genre items to more holistic items like semi-precious stone jewelry and volcanic stone bracelets, to candles and mugs, stickers, key chains of every flavour…. The list goes on! But the cherry on the cake, the piece de résistance, is their apple crumple pie with vanilla ice cream!!! They also have pecan pie, but frankly, that doesn’t even rate next to Apple crumble pie!
With pie in had, Jay and I sat at the tables outside and chatted with some locals for bit when the owner walked out, whom I recognized from the NMBDR video. As she said hello to us, I said “Hey, I just saw you on TV the other night!” which put her on the back foot a bit wondering what the heck this weirdo with a funny accent was talking about! I quickly explained about the NMBDR video and she seemed to vaguely remember being interviewed by the BDR crew.
At any rate, she was very pleasant and Jay and her chatted for a while while I ducked back inside to do some shopping for the famjam.
With trinkets acquired we were soon back on the road. Our goal was to hit Cloudcroft, NM about 8miles up the road from High Rolls, then onto Riudoso and back down into the valley to our final destination for the day, Carizozo. However, the BDR route ran an off road trail that cut the mileage from High Rolls to Cloudcroft down substantially. Jay was riding a ways ahead and came on the comms to announce that the road was covered in snow. We soon met up as he was heading back. “Roads completely covered man!” He announced. Should we chance it? It could clear up around the bend, but the clouds in the not too distant sky were getting very dark, and we were in high country, so we decided to divert back to His Rolls and cut the Cloudcroft loop out and head to Riudoso via road.
As we rode into the valley we could clearly see the weather system moving in and it looked nasty! I had switched to a warmer, non-water-proof jacket earlier in the day and with the weather moving fast towards us, I wanted to stop and swap out jackets. As we rolled to a stop in a sandy dip in the road, my bike tipped over into Jays, ripping the front wind screen off in the process! As it had tipped over the kick stand it was a task getting it back up! LOL…. Adventure… no one ever said it was easy! a few zip ties later and the 1090 looked good as new….. sort of.
Once we had the bike back up, a guy on a loaded down mountain bike came round the corner and we had a great little chat. He was doing the NMBDR in reverse, the same track we were doing, but on a loaded up bicycle, wearing a rucksack!! Dude was hardcore! He gave us some great intel on the trail ahead: Weather was not good (snowing in the mountains) and there was a suspended log across the trail that was about 1-2 ft in diameter. So Riudoso was out. We quickly decided to divert to our final destination for the day, Carizozo, by highway. As it turned out, that was the right call! The weather turned quickly, and the temps dropped just as fast! From the time we jumped on the highway to getting to Carizozo, a distance of about 55 miles, the temps dropped about 10 degrees with insane head winds. By the time we hit Carizozo, we were well cold and ducked into a local pizza joint for warmth and a bite to eat. The owners of Rosey’s Pizza in Carizozo were great folks and took care of us. Good Pizza too!
After warming up and getting a bite to eat, we made a call to book into the first place we saw, in this case, the Carizozo Inn…. A fine establishment that apparently cleans their rooms with a blend of Pinesol and Hash…. Life on the road!
Day 12 - Oct 28th: falling down…. and the art of getting back up
It is really quite amazing how desensitized the human sense of smell gets to odors, particularly not so great ones. By morning the bouquet of pinesol and hash was all but unnoticeable and we awoke to another crystal clear, but cool, day.
However, we also awoke to a flat on the rear of Jay’s bike…. The highway miles are not kind to thinner tubes, especially ones that are over inflated. Nothing left to it, but to do it as they say, so although the disappointment was high, we got to sorting out Jays bike right away. The only real issue was that we were planning on a big push for today with about 100 plus miles of off road, some of it potentially gnarly and all we had left for tubes were 21in fronts, and the last 18in tube we had was the same as the one Jay put in his rear tire back in Artesia. Not ideal, so while Jay swapped out his tube, I searched for the closest bike shop in the hopes of getting proper heavy duty tubes that would fit our bikes.
The only options within a reasonable distance where up in Riudoso. Fortunately the weather was good, so once we got Jay’s bike put back together we set off for the mountains. Given the miles we intended to ride for the day, heading back into the hills to Riudoso added an easy 60 miles to the day…. In the opposite direction!
Our first option was a Harley shop 29min away, so we headed for that first. The ride was beautiful as we made our way across the high desert plains and up into the pine covered mountains of New Mexico via some excellent twisty highway roads. In no time, we found the HD shop, all but closed up. Not good. On to the next one on the list… “Your Moms Bike Shop”. Confidence was not high on this one, but with nothing to lose, we punched it into the GPS and made tracks.
The route dumped us into the middle of Riudoso’s main drag, which boasted lots of amenities and options for breakfast as we set off early without eating to get a jump on the day. But that would have to wait… we had to find Your Moms Bike Shop….
We ended up passing the place once or twice as it was stashed in behind a fenced off compound of sorts. But, there was a big sign on the open entrance, so in we went. The compound was small, maybe 100ft or so across and jammed with a few RV’s on one side and a large shop on the other with various bikes in various states of repair out front, including a KTM 1090 Super Adventure. We immediately felt like we might have a chance here!
As we rolled in the shop door opened up and a rather tough looking biker dude, by the name of Zach, sauntered out. He was about our hight, but was a broad, easily double the size of either of us and covered in Tatts. I hung back and let Jay do the introductions, but our new buddy turned out to be a very cool and interesting cat.
Zach had been working on a customers bike, a custom Harley… which seemed to be his thing, and dropped that to help us out. Without question he rolled the bike he had been working on off the lift and put Jay’s 1090 on it to pull the rear wheel off as Jay figured it best to have him install whatever tube he had with the proper equipment.
As Zach worked on the tube change we chatted some and he told us how he had just done the NMBDR with his girlfriend on the back of the Super Adventure out front, fully loaded! Quite a feat! This guy could obviously ride!
It was about this time we also started to look around the shop a bit more. Let’s just say, Zach was definitely “in” the scene and was ready for business if it came his way, as demonstrated by the ‘presumably’ loaded shotty leaning against the wall within easy reach. “Murica!”
Along with the broomstick, Z-man had some pretty funny and cool stuff hanging around the shop walls as well… Maps with past rides, various stickers of varying degrees of humour, a few helmets with references to single digit percentages and 2 posters, framed, of every single Garbage Pale Kids card ever issued….Look it up if you’re not immediately familiar. But for me, these were a big part of my childhood around grade 4 and 5… the 80’s in case anyone is curious.
Bandido Zach had the only 18in tube he had, in this case a 180/80/18, swapped out in no time and we were soon on our way. Before we left, Zach handed us both one of his stickers that read “FTDS” with swastika crosses in between each letter… (hmmm)…saying “Here guys. These are my stickers, which stand for Fuck The Dumb Shit with the ‘svastika’ cross in between them, which stands for prosperity and good luck. Ignorant people think its a racist thing… “
Zach was definitely his own dude. We liked him.
With Jay’s bike sorted we were back in business and hit the road! The ride back to Carizozo was just as awesome, and we were soon back to where we started earlier in the morning. We quickly pushed on towards an ancient lava flow that the highway cuts right through. Its quite something when you stop to think about it and definitely gives you a deferent perspective of the surrounding hills and mountains when you realize these were all active volcanos millions of years ago!
Once on the other side of the Carizozo Lava fields, we hit more backroads… high speed stuff again, and managed to get the drone up to do some filming. Unfortunately we could not get it to track us, which is a feature of this drone and one of the reasons I bought it in the first place. But we got one or two cool shots regardless. We’d definitely need to mess around with it more and figure it out.
Despite the mornings set back, the day was going great and we were finally getting in the riding we had come all this way for. After 40 or so miles of off roading we hit a small gas station in San Antonio, NM to fill up before hitting the desert tracks running parallel to the White Sands Proving Grounds on the way to our ultimate goal of Truth or Consequences, NM. Annnnd, this is where things started to go sideways…
With the bikes full, we back tracked on the highway about 8 miles to the trail head for White Sands. Through out the trip I had my GoPro mounted to a Dango Clamp mount, which is designed to be clamped easily to the front of a dirt bike helmet, but is also versatile enough to be mounted just about anywhere as the clamp is quite strong and grippy. I grabbed some shots with the Go Pro by hand, as I had done countless times before while riding as we ran down the highway to capture the great desert views. Normally I then clamp the GoPro to the hand strap on my tank bag, a system that works great….until it doesn’t…. I guess I missed the hand strap or did not secure it all the way, as this would be the last time I saw it. However, I would not notice this for a while yet….
We covered the 8 miles to the White Sands trailhead in no time and were soon blasting the trails. About 5 minutes in we hit a section of volcanic dirt that was black as night and kicked up a hell of a dark and nasty looking cloud… I made it a point to NOT breath that stuff in. Thankfully it was a very short section. Right after that we hit the first of a series of closed gates. The deal out here is that you can open it and pass, but must then ensure the gate is secured again as it keeps cattle in their respective fields. No problem! If only landowners back home would be so generous!
At any rate, I jumped off the bike to open it up for Jay to pass. Once he was through, I jumped back on my bike, only to have the kickstand sensor crap out. Not good! I was completely gobslmaked as I did not hit the sensor on anything, which is the usual way these things go out. With the bike propped up against a fence post, we started to trouble shoot. The sensor is mounted on the backside of the kick stand, the the screws are inserted from the inside so we’d have to pull the kick stand off completely to have a proper look as we suspected a wire was cut. But as I started to unscrew bolts I could tell the wires were all intact…it was then that Jay noticed the tab on the kickstand where a magnet sits to tell the sensor when the stand is up (the bike will not go in gear with the stand down… a common safety feature on bikes these days) was full of black volcanic dust…. No way could the issue be THAT simple! I wiped off the dust and voila! Back in business! Unreal….LOL!!
With extreme relief we cracked on down the trail into some truly amazing looking desert. The sun was low and casting some amazing colours across the desert and onto the distant mountain ranges… a perfect time to pull out the Go Pro… WTF!?!? “Stop! Stop! Stop!” I told Jay over the intercom. “I think I lost the GoPro!”.
I skidded to a stop in the sand and searched everywhere but no luck… the Go Pro was gone…. Son of a…..!!! That stung as they are not only expensive and the mount hard to find, but we were now down a camera and lost all of the footage from the day! It took me a while to come to terms with that loss. Not cool.
Then, about 5 minutes down the road I got a flat in the rear! All of a sudden what was turning into a great day, was going to shit and fast! We pulled over and quickly found that I had somehow picked up the ONLY nail in the friggin desert in the back tire which sliced a nice little hole in my rear tube. So, While Jay went looking for a piece of wood to prop up the bike I unloaded the bike.
As places to break down go, we could have done worse. The temp was perfect, the sun was low and lighting up the desert in spectacular fashion, so my ire soon subsided and before long we were joking around and actually enjoying the situation. Although it took a while to get it sorted, mainly due to the luggage system I was using… more on that later, we eventually got everything put back together and were moving again. The only issue was we were now going to be riding the last 60 miles in the dark.
Night riding is not my thing generally speaking as I have not so great night vision… a by product of 2 rounds of laser eye surgery years ago. But we had good lights on the bikes and an open desert at night is a lot easier to deal with then tight single track in the Canadian woods at night and I actually enjoyed it quite a bit.
With the comms on we joked around the whole way into town with Jay trying desperately to spot a UFO. But alas, it was evidently too cold for Alien fly-by’s that night. Temps were dropping fast as we rolled into Truth or Consequences, the low hitting about 7 or 8 degrees C by the time we got to our Motel.
As we unpacked the bikes, it was then that Mr. Murphy imparted one more shot for the day… the dry bag I had my goretex Klim suit, along with my only hoody and pair of jeans was gone! It had evidently come off the bike at some point during our ride out of the desert.
Before leaving on this trip I had bought a book called “The Daily Stoic” to take along with me and had been reading it every night since we left on Oct 17…. I pulled hard on the lessons contained within those pages as my normal go too would have been rage and indignation at that Mutha F^&ker, Fate!
But it is what it is, and I resigned myself to having to suck up the loss. Graciously, Jay said we should ride back first thing in the morning to go look for it. I had similar thoughts but as it was my kit and my screw up, I didn’t feel like it was fair to drag Jay along on a search for my crap. But thankfully, we vibe well together and are usually thinking along the same lines. Having good travel partners is keen in situations like this!
Day 12 - OCT 29th: Recovery Ops, Cops and sci-fi landscapes
With our recovery plan figured out, we awoke early to find a thick layer of frost on our bike seats… an indicator of how far the temps had dropped overnight. Although cold, it was an insanely clear and beautiful morning. In no time we had the bikes loaded up and set off to grab a quick breakfast at a McDonalds across the street before heading out of town. Fast and Cheap was the order of the day this morning.
When you travel, especially for extended periods of time, things tend to happen… and in a lot of ways, those things seem to happen for a reason. Breakfast at McDonalds this morning was one of those moments…
We had sat down at a long table with an older latin dude in a biker jacket sitting opposite. While I was waiting for my McMuffins, Jay had stuck up a bit of a conversation with this guy. As it turns out, he was pretty cool dude indeed. An ex-Marine, he was now retired and spent his time driving around in his RV with his Yamaha 250 V-Star on the back, visiting friends and family across the US. He had put a lot of miles on his little 250 and regaled us with a few stories from the road, to include losing a bunch of his stuff like I did the day before, so he could totally relate.
With our breakfast done, our new friend bid us farewell and we were back on the road on the way back to White Sands to search for my lost bag. While we were eating and chatting the temps had risen slightly, so we had high hopes that before long we could strip down a bit.
The ride to the beginning of the off road section bordering White Sands was quick and soon we were scanning the ditches and sides of the road intently, searching for anything resembling a red dry bag. As mentioned before, it was a beautiful morning which soon made the chore of retracing our steps quite enjoyable as most of the ride the previous evening was done in the dark. Now that we were causing through in daylight, we actually caught a few details we had missed the previous night. Case in point, a giant fin assembly from a bomb that was dropped over the White Sands proving grounds.
Now, whether this was actually dropped from an aircraft or placed at the intersection on purpose is matter of debate, but its cool and has been well sticker bombed! Naturally we had to stop for photos and drop some of our own ordinance! Should you find your way to this part of the NMBDR, keep an eye out for it and our Rally Point sticker ;)
With yet another Rally Point tag dropped we moved on to the task at hand, find my dry bag! As we cruised through the desert, we were constantly scanning the sides of the road for anything that could be a red sack. There were many false positives… old jerry cans, pieces of old snow fence.. and I found myself fluctuating between thinking we would definitely find it and that some local or other traveller just hit the Klim Jackpot and was now the proud new owner of a mint Klim Traverse suit, a pair of Crye Precision Field pants and a Triple Aught Design Hoodie….
However, fortune smiles on the bold, and tossing the travel schedule right out the window and retracing our steps to find that bag must have been the move, because about half way to where we had had the flat tire the night before Jay announced the find with a “Oh man! YES!!!” Over the Sea comms. Although I had faith, it was still unbelievable to think that we had found this bag. I firmly believe that had we doddled and not got water it as early as we did, a local farmer or another bike rider would have found the bag first. It being brought red didn’t hurt either.
With the dry bag secured, this time with a D-ring clipped to the frame of the luggage rack for added insurance, we were off again. Our pace, fueled by high spirits and good weather, was brisk and we managed to get back to the gas station from the previous evening in no time. We were hoping Lady Luck would gives one more solid and find that someone had turned in the lost Go Pro. We rolled into the gas station and I walked in to see if they had found my GoPro, but alas, no one had. One miracle was all we were going to get this day.
As I walked out to the bike to give Jay the bad news, an older local guy came up to us with his son and started chatting us up about the bikes. He was a retired law Enforcement Officer and was doing the rounds promoting a local political candidate with his son and Wife. He was also an avid rider and had a few bikes himself and started to give us a bit of history of the tiny, one horse town we were currently standing in. Turns out, the Hilton chain started in this town and partnered with a local bar, which was still standing and operating next to where we were chatting. At some point, there was a big fire and the Hilton burned down, and they moved their operations elsewhere, but in its time it did well.
We were both a little confused at this, as there didn’t seem to be much of anything in the area and said as much. However, the Los Alamos lab of WW2 Atomic bomb fame was near by and this spot was their local watering hole and transitory stop on their way in or out of the lab. Very cool. After a few stories, this guys wife comes sauntering out. He had told us how they had a met; a friend from church had given him her number and said simply “here, this young lady likes bikes too… you should give her a call”. So he did, set up a date, picked her up on his Harley and they’ve been together ever since! She was a firecracker of a woman! All of 4 ft tall and full of life! She had ridden dirt bikes with her kids and big bikes with her hubby, but was now running around in a Polaris Slingshot…. LOL! Unreal!
We were having a blast talking to these great people, but the road beckoned. We suited back up and rolled out as they wished us a safe journey, on our way to Arizona. This was a bit of a big deal for us as we had spend 3 days in NM so far…. Far more time than we had bargained for, and it seemed like we couldn’t quite get out, sort of like Ground Hog Day in New Mexico!
Back on the highway and cruising at a good clip, it wasn’t long before that Ground Hog Day feeling returned…. First it was a feeling. Like something wasn’t quite right with the bike. Then, a tangible wiggle from the back end…. Damn! Another flat! I rolled into the ditch as quickly as possible, which thankfully had a nice flat bottom that ran along a pasture fence. As before, there is really nothing to it, than to do it, so we put our disappointment and disbelief aside and got down to business straight away; I stripped down the luggage from my bike while Jay looked for a stick of some sort to prop up the bike.
We worked quickly and efficiently on this one and had the tire and blown tube off the rim in no time. But why was I burning through tubes? The night before was a random nail. This time, it looked like a pinch flat, which although is not totally out of the question for a rear tire, is still somewhat rare. After inspecting the inside of the rim, I noticed a few jagged edges from tire irons here and there. I decided to line the entire inside of the rim with tuck tape, something I had done with my Beta 300 dirt bike. I had not got a flat ever again on the 300 after that and figured why not try it on the 1090. With my tape job done, I installed the new tube, popped the bead in no time with our new air pump and had the bike back together… all in in under 45 min. Not bad for an Adventure bike road side tire change. The only problem? All we had left for tubes were 21in front tubes, and not heavy duty ones. This could be interesting.
Once rolling again, we both figured it was a good idea to dial back a bit on speed to try and preserve the tube, with the idea of getting more tubes asap. A quick google showed us that there was a bike shop in Springerville AZ, so that was our target.
Ground Hogs be Dammed, we soon found ourselves in Arizona and riding through some really interesting landscapes! Almost as soon as we crossed into AZ from NM, the backdrop turned into something form another world with ancient volcanic hills, covered in a type of grass that resembled sand, stretching as far as you could see. This sand-like surface contrasted with the jet black soil that these hills were made up of, and from time to time we would pass old cut outs that would expose this volcanic earth. It really was a scene out of Sci-Fi movie. Arizona would prove to be one of the more diverse and interesting states, landscape wise, that we would roll through.
Changes in the land seemed to happen almost on the hour. One minute you would be riding through what could easily be the backdrop for a Sci-Fi movie, and the next be in pine covered mountain rages. As this was a highway heavy day, this made the miles float by and before we knew it we were approaching Springerville.
Rolling into town, I consulted the google once more to get a bearing on where exactly this bike shop was located. It was at the other end of a long stretch of road filled with motels and fast food joints. As we made our way down this road we saw that a local cop had just pulled someone over, presumably for speeding, so we decided to keep an eye on the speedo… just incase.
Now, Im not sure why, but I find it infinitely more difficult to keep to the speed limit when you actually “try” to. And when a cop pulls a U-turn and starts to follow you, it seems to get even harder!
So here we were, in small town Arizona, minding our own business and doing our best to observe local traffic laws when a local LEO decides to take an interest in us. For a minute I thought I was just being paranoid…. ‘Maybe he’s just going the same way we are… we’re going to turn into the bike shop parking lot just up a head and he’ll just keep on his way’….. Nope!
As we turned into the shops parking lot, our new friend pulled up behind us! Are you kidding me! My mind immediately jumped to the worst case scenario and I automatically assumed that this officer was being a hardcore stickler and we had some how violated the sanctity of his small town….I could not have been more wrong!
Preparing for the interaction, I promptly removed my helmet and started to get my documents ready, only to be greated by what is possibly THE coolest cop on the planet! The first words out of this guys mouth were “ Did you guys actually ride all the way from Ontario!?” After we responded in the affirmative, he proceeded to tell us he had a KTM 690 himself and loved our bikes! He had also run multiple BDR routes so the conversation started flowing. Like I said, one cool cop. Once we told him that we were here looking for tubes, he was like “ Well I know the guys here, so let me go grab one of them for ya!”
With The Coolest Cop in town making introductions for us, we got in good right away with the shop owners, which seemed to be a pair of couples about our age. They also had a real cool vibe… very laidback and fun. However, yet again, the proper size tubes continued to elude us. The best they had was 130/18… and only one. Needless to say we took it. There was another bike shop in the next town over, which is where we were headed, so they called them up for us to see if they had anything…. Nada! While I was paying for the tube, one of the owners wives came up to Jay, handing him a nerf gun and asking him “Can you shoot?”, to which Jay naturally said “Of Course!”.
“Alright then, we’re playing for a bag of Jerky….we make it our selves, its real good!”…..Still clad head to toe in bike gear, Jay stepped up to the line with nerf gun in hand. The objective was to shoot down all 9, stacked paper cups before his competitor. If he did that, he’d have himself a free bag of jerky! LOL!
I’ve never known Jay to be. ‘Gun’ guy, and his competition was a very exuberant American woman who seemed just fine with shooting ‘things’….so my expectations we’re somewhat measured.
However, to mine and our new friends surprise, Jay turned out to be a bit of a gunslinger and managed to slay all 9 paper cups in no time! We had ourselves a giant bag of homemade jerky! You can’t make this stuff up folks.
With Jerky in hand, we jumped back on the bikes and bid our new friends farewell and hit the road to Show Low, AZ which would be our final stop for the day.
Day 13 - oct 30: Show Low - Parker AZ
No camping again… so far this trip has been motel heavy, which was not really our intent. But with temps being what they were and doing so many big days in a row, having a clean comfortable place to bed down for the night always trumped being frugal. And we were definitely paying for that luxury with the US dollar laying a beating to our measly Canadian buck! But, like I said, worth it… most of the time.
Morning came quickly and we got on the road by our typical 8:30-9:00 time line. Not super early, but anything sooner and we’d be freezing for the first 2-3 hours. The Google told us there were some possibilities for breakfast just down the road so we headed down the main drag of Show Low to see what was available.
The previous evening, before leaving Springerville, we had grabbed dinner at a Subway where we got to chatting with an old timer from town. He was a funny old guy, very particular, but liked what we were doing. At any rate, he had been borderline aghast that we would even consider going to Show Low… “ain’t nothing in Show Low! Don’t know why you’d wanna go there!”
Obviously, we did not listen to this guy, and we were glad we didn’t, for half a mile down the road from our motel, there were tons of amenities and and big dealerships… a lot more going on than the other town. Definitely some small town politics in these parts…lol.
Almost immediately, we came across a great little cafe/diner called Bertie’s. Inside, it was packed with locals, so you know it had to be good. The menus we were handed seemed to confirm this as their selection for breakfast was definitely on point! Jay got a massive omelette with huge slices of French toast and bacon and I opted for the Breakfast Tacos, which were insanely good! They had somehow fused the egg to the inside of the tortillas and filled the tacos with cheese, home made salsa and bacon! Foody Heaven!
With both bikes and bodies fuelled up for the day, we hit the road and headed west towards Parker AZ, which is on the border of Arizona and California. We had chosen Parker as it was only a short ride from where the 2nd stage of the Southern California BDR (CABDR) ran north towards Sahara Oasis, CA. We, however, would be jumping on about a 3rd the way up Section 2 and running the CABDR backwards towards Yuma, AZ and then cross into Algodones, MX the next day. Parker also had a decent looking bike shop, which would be the next stop in our search for inner tubes! Seriously though, neither of us ever thought it would be this difficult to find tubes for Adventure bikes in the US.
But I digress, the plan was to stage there overnight and then get on the first 2 sections of the CABDR and ride that to the border. Baja was less then 2 days away and we were super stoked to get into it! Before any of that could happen, we still needed to cross the state of Arizona. Our initial route our of Show Low took us a ways north into the high plains of the state. The going was cold and windy right off the hop and the landscape was flat and barren for a long while, but as happened so many other times, we’d be off inner own worlds and all of a sudden we’d look around and the landscape had completely changed! This was especially prevalent in here. I always had images of Monument Valley in my head when thinking of Arizona and totally assumed that’s what the entire state looked liked… nothing could be further from the truth! We experienced every kind of terrain ridding from Springerville to Parker; from flat, high altitude plains that sit at an amazing 6000ft+ above sea level, to the pine covered tail of the Rocky Mountains to ancient volcanic hills from another planet to the smooth, wind swiped red rocks of western Arizona, it was truly the most diverse state to date in terms of changes in terrain. Very cool. And the temps went along the same trend, as within our 4-5 hour ride we went from single digit temps and freezing in all the gear we could put on to roasting in 28C desert heat!
We rolled into Parker via Havasu Falls AZ, play ground to Ken Block and many other wealthy Americans. The amount of “Toy Shops” and Luxury RV dealers was staggering. Lots of money was obviously finding its way here. Parker was just a short ride from Havasu Falls, with the road hugging the canyon walls that followed the Havasu Creek making for an awesome sunset ride into town.
After finding a motel in town, we changed out of our bike gear and went to go find a place to eat. We didn’t need to go far as there was a local diner more or les next door to our motel that the lady at reception recommended. At first glance, the establishment was questionable with a definite “Locals Only” look and feel. But the wait staff turned out to be great and the food, although not fancy, was honest and filled the gap. The prices were right as well. Over dinner we went over the plan for the next day, our last in the US and the start of the famed CABDR… little did we know how important doing these 2 sections of the CABDR would be before hitting the Baja trails.
Day 14 - Oct 31: CABDER, bending over for fuel and desert insurgencies
On our last day in the US, we awoke to a warm and sunny day for change. Although it was nice, we could tell it would be a scorcher very soon. But we weren’t complaining after the many cold starts and countless frigid miles running highways.
But first, breakfast. As it happened, the bike dealership we wanted to hit up for tubes was right across the street from the diner we ate at the night before, so we hit the easy button and just went there again before resuming our search for tubes.
Walking into the diner, we were reminded that it was Halloween, as all the wait staff were dressed up and the place was decorated in proper fashion. Our waiter in particular, was a dead ringer as Shaggy from Scoobie-Doo.. LOL. This also made it Jay’s Birthday. Hell of a B-Day present, going riding on the CABDR, and that is just what we were going to do later on. After eating we walked over to the bike shop and grabbed as many tubes as we could… still not the right size, but closer: 130-140/18. They would do. I also grabbed a lighter pair of gloves as I seemed to have forgot my Klim gloves back home… D’oh!
With tubes and gloves in hand we headed back to the motel to pack up. While we were strapping things down, this dude with a heavy euro accent walked up to us and started chatting. He was a fellow ADV biker and had a Ducati Multistrada Enduro and an 1190 adventure himself. He too had put miles down on a lot of the BDR’s in the US and was stoked to hear about our trip. He also advised us of a bar out in the desert not far from town, which would have been nice to know the day before… however after thinking about it, riding loaded ADV bikes in the sand after a beer or two didn’t really sound too appealing.
We said goodbye to our new buddy, (who was Czech as it turned out) and hit the road, immediately starting to sweat in the desert sun. The California border was literally down the street from us so we soon found ourselves in SoCal! Right away, we both started picking up some funny vines from this state. It was nothing really obvious or in your face, just a lot of little things that felt a bit off. For starters, right across the state line was a checkpoint manned by a State Trooper. He waved us through, but other types of vehicles seemed to be on the menu. All through the 14 states we crossed riding through the US, we never came across anything like this before. Shortly after that we rolled into a gas station to top up before hitting the BDR. I just about dropped my bike when I saw the gas prices at this place - $7.799 a gallon for regular!!! WTF!? With conversion, that works out to around $3 a litre for us broke ass Canadians! Unreal! Now, having said that, this was on the state line, and as we got further into Cali, the gas prices did come down a bit, but not by much. The mid state averages were still hovering dangerously close to $5 USD a gallon. California…. What the hell??!
With sticker shock still fresh in our minds we soon reached the trail head for the CABDR. If you are not well travelled, it would be easy to assume that a mountain is a mountain and that if you’ve seem one, you’ve seen them all. That, thankfully, is not the case at all. Mountain ranges, at least in my humble opinion, all have their own unique characters and, obviously, geology. For example, the Dolomites in Italy have a completely different look and feel to them then say, the Andes in Peru.
Likewise, the mountain ranges we were starting to ride through in Southern California also had their own look and feel. The CABDR tracks on this section generally run the desert valley floors that wind their way in between ranges, with the ranges themselves comprising of mountains with a bit of a sharper, more gradual rises to them with the odd, steep pointy peak here and there. And obviously very arid.
Where we turned onto the CABDR was a vast flat valley and right away we got into some fairly deep sand. This was our first real taste of sand on the big bikes with full loads and to say that it was a challenge would be an understatement. For me personally, after only a couple of miles, I was seriously questioning whether we’d be able to handle Baja on the big bikes as I was having a lot of difficulty keeping the bike tracking straight. If you did not keep the speed up, or chopped the throttle too abruptly, the bike would tend towards the centre, where the sand was undisturbed and much deeper making it even more unruly to control.
As always, we pushed forward and kept up the pace as best we could and before long we started to get the hang of things… more or less. Thankfully, the sand let up a bit and we started to get into some small climbs up ridge lines and then back down into dry river beds. These dry riverbeds would prove to be our next major challenge of the trip. The bottom was a combination of sand, deep gravel and huge round boulders! Not too bad on a dirt bike, but on a fully loaded ADV bike, we were struggling. Jay had his first real down of the trip and I properly buried the rear wheel in a deep patch of gravel. We were in deep by this time and the banks on the sides were not very doable on the bike bikes save for a couple of iffy spots, so turning back and finding a go around was not an option.
With little choice, and the GPS telling us the track was just above the riverbed, I decided to give it a shot. I turned around, lined her up as best I could and pinned it! Thankfully the bike grabbed some decent traction and the run up, although sandy, was firm, and I managed to get up and out of the riverbed without too much trouble. Seeing my success, Jay soon followed, making it look effortless as he always does. At this point we realized that there was a much easier way up a bit further back that we had missed, but hey…. doing it the hard way builds confidence, and we’d need that in spades for the trail coming our way in the next week and a half.
Once we had climbed our way out of the riverbed, we crossed a couple ridge lines and then hit a bit of highway before getting to our big decision point for the day: Do we run highway into Yuma and look for a motel, or continue on the CABDR track through the Chocolate Mountains and into the Picacho National Park where we could camp for the night. We were short on fuel and water, but we had not yet camped out in the desert, so we figured what the hell and decided to go camp in the desert!
Widely considered one of the more, if not, THE most challenging BDR’s, the CABDR definitely challenged us and we both felt it was a proper warm up for Baja. This was definitely the case as we rode our way into Indian Pass to Bear Canyon Bluffs and into the Picacho State Recreation area camp grounds proper. The track in was pretty much pure gravelly riverbed with narrow canyon walls either side. There was no getting out once you started in on this track!
With dusk settling in over the desert we rolled into the Picacho camp grounds and light was fading fast, so we only got a cursory look at the place as we rolled in. What we were able to see though was pretty sweet! The whole camping area was nestled in a large desert valley and the camp spots were separated by natural rock formations so that each spot had its own sense of privacy. Although virtually empty of campers, that privacy would prove to be an illusion.
We seemed to have the run of the place and quickly found a spot that would do. We hastily set up camp, setting up our tents in the dark and getting the last of our water and rations set up. As I was boiling some water for our last 2 mountain House freeze dried meals, Jay noticed some movement of to one side of our campsite…. A racoon?! I was surprised to see one so far south and in the desert…. I mean, what would racoon be doing in the desert?? Unfortunately the answer in this case was ‘our stuff’ as our campsite was soon the target of a full scale racoon insurgency!
As soon as Jay shoo’d off the first critter, 2 more came in from the opposite flank! Then 3 more from our rear! These furry jerks were coordinated!! Having lived in rural India where there a feral packs of wild dogs running around, I adopted similar tactics and armed myself with a plentifull supply of rocks as I was cooking and every time Jay spotted another one, I sent it!
Our counter attack seemed to have broken the siege for the time being so we were able to eat in relative piece. That is when the Donkey Psy-ops campaign started! Did anyone know donkeys were nocturnal? No? Well they are and they make a hell of racket! The braying from these bloody things in the wild is nothing like I have ever heard before. To hear it, you’d think they were either fornicating or being brutally killed by some wild creature! It was that loud and crazy…. and there were lots of them out there!
This went on randomly all night and shortly after we tucked in for the night, the racoons resumed their assault. We must have inflicted some significant casualties earlier in the evening as they seemed to be only sending in the odd sapper to mess with our shit. My tent was right beside the bikes and I could hear the pitter-patter of small fury feet scurrying between the tents and then up onto the bikes…. First mine, then thump! More scurrying and then onto Jay’s bike. Empty food wrappers and trash had been placed in hard cover trash bins next to similarly built washrooms across the dirt path from our campsite, so we were fairly confident that there was nothing of interest to our attackers. That, however, proved to be a poor assessment.
Laying in my tent I could hear a racoon messing around on Jay’s bike… it was quite comical for a minute to hear this fury bastard grabbing bits of the bike, giving them a shake and generally just making a nuisance of himself. But then I could hear the distinct sound of sharp little teeth tearing into codura saddle bags! Like a ninja or perhaps more like a bull in a china shop, I sprang out of the tent, head lamp on and grabbed one of my flip flops (a lethal instrument in the right hands… like an old Italian Grandma). I, however, am not an old Italian Grandma, so I smacked my flip flop on the concrete slab outside the tent to scare off our masked muncher! It quickly scurried off as Jay joined me to survey the damage. The little bugger had just about chewed right through the first layer of jays saddle bag!
More movement on the left! I decided to increase the size of our ordnance and grabbed the biggest rock I could lift and launched it out towards the bush our fury friend had hopped into. It made a hell of a crash and finally, that seemed to have got the message across. Don’t mess with the Canadians!
We crawled back into our tents and tried to settle down for the night as the donkeys started up once more. After what seemed like hours of battling the local wild life, I finally started to drift off. Just then a massive “heeeeeeEEEEEE-HAAAAAWwwwwww!” jolted me out of my slumber as one last donkey came screaming through our campsite and down the road….. Unreal!!
Day 15 - Nov 1: Baja…. Finally!
After that last attempt, we decided to move everything not already in our tents, into the hard shelter of the washrooms. They were very clean and seeing as no one was around, it was a good move.
From then on, we only had sporadic contact from one or two racoons until morning… and as soon as the sun was high enough to give us light, we made a quick breakfast using the last of our Engine House Coffee and some instant oatmeal. Not a bad breakfast all things considered.
Once fed, we broke camp and hit the road… or rather the trail as the route out of the campsite was just as gnarly as the the way we came in, with miles of narrow sandy canyon tracks.
As the crow flies it was about 20 miles to Yuma and we made it there in one piece and figured we’d hit a McDonalds for free wifi and 2nd breakfast before making our move into Baja. It wasn’t very far to the border and before we knew it we were rolling across into Mexico.
Algodones is a very small border crossing compared to bigger cities on the border such as Mexicali, the benefit being no line ups. As we rolled up, there was a pinch point up ahead, with only one lane going in, and one coming out, along with a channel on either side for foot traffic. Many Gringos were making their way across by foot, presumably to do some shopping. Another fun fact about Algodones: It is apparently the Dental capital of Mexico and is the place to go to get world class dental work done at a fraction of the cost…. Full of Canadians from what we hear.
Our crossing was very easy but rather odd. We rode across to a single Mexican soldier standing there waving traffic through. I stopped to ask him what we needed to do and he just said“Go!, Go!” So we went… another man dressed in the uniform of an immigration official walked up to us and asked where we were going and how long we were staying. I told and he asked “FMM?” Which is the document we needed to get when crossing… basically a tourist visa. It is free when you arrive by air, but for some reason cost $30USD when crossing by land. At any rate, I said “yes, we need the FMM” to which this guy just said, “ok, go…”….. I looked around and there was no obvious place, like and office or both, to “go” to get the document so we went again… this time we just kept rolling through. Nobody stopped us or challenged us, so…..
That was us in Baja! Finally!
Being on the far north eastern edge of the Baja peninsula, Algodones and the surround area was not much to look at. Rather flat and featureless, so we didn’t stick around and made tracks for Ensenada. Our plan was to make one final highway run to a place called Coyote Cal’s, a popular Hostel on the pacific coast about an hour or so south of Ensenada and take a day off to regroup before tackling the rest of Baja. We had been on the bikes non-stop for 2 weeks at this point and we knew we had some big off road days ahead so we wanted a day to rest and make sure the bikes were good to go.
The ride through northern Baja wasn’t too bad and in fact crossing the mountains in the north was pretty spectacular. They rise quickly and the highway tops out about 2600 ft with surrounding peaks rising above 4000ft, so the road is twisty and steep, but also quite epic to ride on bikes!
Once we hit the top, we rode along a plateau for a bit then made our decent toward Ensenada on the coast of the Pacific ocean. Its quite a busy place and traffic was terrible getting through the endless roadside construction, but we took advantage of being on bikes and jumped ahead when and where we could.
It was late afternoon by there time we rolled into Coyote Cal’s where we were greeted by an older white haired guy in surf shorts. He kind of appeared out of no where and acted like he had been expecting us, telling us to come on in… “your room is in here, you can leave your bikes there, cervezas are cold and ready when you are.”
This turned out to be the owner, Rick (Not Cal…. Cal was his dad…) and we were apparently the only ones there aside from a regular guest, a retired guy from So Cal. Rick ran the place with his Thai wife, who was hilarious and awesome!
As mentioned, Coyote Cal’s was popular on the off road circuit and had a real cool vibe with an inner court yard, complete with bar and restaurant! Like most places of this nature, there were the typical walls and windows covered in various stickers and photos from riders who had stayed there over the years! Naturally we found a spot for our stickers. Our Rally Point stickers and VRE logo were in good company as we spotted some rather famous ones: From Ken Block’s Hoonagan logo (ours is on eat e reverse side to Ken’s if you’re ever there and looking), to big off road names like Mosko Moto and Upshift to friends of ours such as Baja 1000 Iron Man finisher, Darrin Rideout AKA Kickstart Cartel 744x. There were easily hundreds, if not thousands of these stickers everywhere you looked which demonstrated the rich off road history of the place. And if that wasn’t cool enough, in the building we were staying in, there was a framed collage of pictures taken over the years with various pics of riders and crews who stayed there. Among those were pics of Kurt Caselli and Laia Sanz! Pretty much Off Road riding royalty right there!
We stowed our gear and changed into more comfortable clothes and headed straight to the bar where Rick was waiting for us with two cold ones! As we sipped our cervezas he asked if we were hungry and told us what was on the menu. Too be perfectly honest, I don’t remember what we had to eat as we were more interested in our beers and hearing more about this cool little oasis. We did eat, and it was good, that much I can tell you.
As desert bars go, this one was well stocked and boasted a very impressive Tequila rail. In fact, after commenting on the amount of tequila he had behind the bar, Rick proceeded to give us a crash course on the finer points of tequila tasting. Unbeknownst to us, it is a world akin to wine tasting in that there are many types, varieties and methods to making tequila. And quite obviously, some better than others. If you ever want to get into that world, Rick’s your man!
With our thirst quenched and bellies full, we toured around the place a bit, including observing the sunset from the roof deck. Once the last rays of sunlight dipped below the horizon we started to feel the day…. Or the beers and tequila… likely both. It had been a long ride and we were ready to rack out for the night. Tomorrow was a rest day and we looked forward to not having to pack up the bikes again in the morning for once!
Day 16 - Nov 2: Beers, Thai chillies and drone shots
Not having a schedule to maintain can be a rather nice feeling when one wakes up, especially after 2 weeks of constant go, go go. Neither of us were in a rush to get out of bed, however, the need for coffee eventually made us stir out of bed and get dressed! Figuring the kitchen/dinning area was our best bet, we made our way across the courtyard and into the main building, pleased to find the coffee maker bubbling away. As we waited for it to finish brewing its black gold, the owner and his wife walked in to see if we wanted them to cook us breakfast. We didn’t realize it at the time, but the kitchen is set up for guests to basically prepare their own food in addition to the owners running a full menu. As we had no supplies of our own and given the dirt cheap pricing, we opted to order from the menu.
With the coffee now ready, we sipped at the nectar of the gods while Rick’s wife cooked us a breakfast of eggs, bacon and toast for 4 pesos. Can’t beat that!
In between mouthfuls of food and sips of coffee we discussed the day ahead and Jay mentioned he wanted to go explore up the coast a bit on the 1090. I had a couple things to check and work on on my bike and decided to hang back. That said I figured Jay’s ride up the coast would make for great drone footage, so I’d catch him leaving Cal’s and follow him a bit along the coast before turning around and getting some shots of where we were staying as well.
Plan in hand, we got organized and set to. I walked around the back of the main building with the drone to set up while Jay got in his bike gear. This was the first time I’d had the drone up since leaving the US, and was wondering if I’d have the same issues in Baja that I’d had with my previous drone.
On a trip the spring before, I had brought my Mavic Mini and used a couple of times to get some shots of my and our buddy Darrin riding around the east cape of the peninsula. But for some reason when I fired it up in Baja it was restricted to 30m of altitude so getting epic, sweeping shots of the landscapes was difficult and not as great as it could have been.
I was relieved to find that the new Mini Pro 3 was not suffering from any similar restrictions and I was able to get some good altitude. However, one thing I was noticing the whole trip was how weak the signal is on the RC Controller for this drone as it would lag or loose connection briefly from time to time. Because of this, I didn’t feel confident flying out too far. Back when we were on the CABDR we almost lost it because of a loss of connection between the controller and the aircraft, which was a bit nerve wracking to say the least.
Regardless, as jay ran down the road from the hostel and onto the trail that ran down the coast, I was able to get some decent footage.
Drone shots done, I let Jay explore and went back to our room to grab my tool kit to give my 1090 a once over. My to-do list comprised of checking for any loose bolts, chain tension check, re-install my kickstand foot plate which had come loose in Yuma and change out the brake fluid in my front brake. The cap for front master cylinder reservoir was showing its age and would not hold a seal very well. As a result the fluid would keep getting contaminated. Not an ideal situation, but I had a small bottle of brake fluid with me and was swapping out the fluid every 2nd day. So far it was holding up pretty well. I also checked the subframe for cracks as I was carrying more stuff than Jay. I took my time and enjoyed the sun shine.
Before too long I heard the distinct rumble of a 1090 approaching. Jay rolled up just as I was finishing up on the bike and seemed to have brought some wind and clouds with him. With the clouds blocking out the sun it was time to head in and get some lunch. Once Jay changed out of his gear he joined me in the dinning area and filled me in on the ride while we ate. Seems there were some really steep sand sections that were pretty awesome, but seeing as he was alone, he felt like chancing the climb on the big bike was not the best idea… especially given that we did not establish any kind of comms or overdue timeline. Nor would I have known where to look for him… We both paused for a moment. Yep, going forward if we split like that again, we’d work out comms, basic area of travel and timelines for being overdue in the event something ever happened.
With bellies full again, we decided a midday cerveza was in order, grabbed a couple of Pacifico’s and hit the beach. While we were eating eating lunch earlier, Rick had swung by and mentioned a Cove just below the resort where the wind never hits and temps stay constant. As the windy cloud cover that followed Jay back from his ride had brought some cooler temps, we decided to go for a walk to check out the cove. With beers in hand we made our way down the road to the ocean and worked climbed down the rocky path down to the cove. We hung out for a bit, checking out all the nooks and crannies, then walked down the coast a bit before heading back to Cal’s.
By the time we got back, the sun had peaked out again and we decided to try and film some gear reviews. Around back there were some concrete tables and benches that would be perfect for setting up our gear and cameras. Did I mention it was windy?
Try as we might, the wind made filming a royal pain in the ass, knocking over our cameras more than once. That said, we did have good wind socks for our wireless DJI miss, so we’ll see how it turns out. At any rate we ran through our Klim gear, WLF Enduro vests and helmets listing the pros and cons we both experienced after the 7000 kilometres or so that we’d ridden to get to this point.
We wrapped up the review and retreated back inside to help alleviate Coyote Cal’s of their overstocked beer fridge for the rest of the afternoon, discussing our next move and going over the gpx tracks for the next day’s ride. Tomorrow would be our first day of legit Baja Offroad. The route itself would be a combination of various tracks that we pieced together from a few existing tracks our buddy Darrin Rideout gave us, which would get us to Catavinia. There wouldn’t be a ton of off road, but just enough to make things interesting and get some miles in…. The Baja is big and we had just 7 days to fit in as much of it as we could.
Later that evening we got to chatting with the only other guest there, a retired guy from California, who spent his time travelling around the world. He was your quintessential budget traveller and travelled for the experience rather than go to standard touristy places. A very interesting a cool guy to chat with. While we told each other stories of past world destinations, Rick’s wife was cooking up a storm behind us in the kitchen. Today’s diner menu consisted of BBQ chicken…Thai style!
And I do mean Thai style… she was actually making the hot sauce from scratch right be hind us with Thai chillies. I had my back tuned but Jay was facing her and could see how many chillies she was putting in there…. He was genuinely starting to get worried! Right about then we all started to cough… but not the kind you get from Covid… nope, I knew this one all too well from a botched jerk chicken experiment way back in my 20’s…. The peppers were now airborne and beginning their assault on our respiratory systems much like they would shortly be doing to our digestive tracks…..
Thankfully the place was well ventilated and in fact, the brief coughing fit gave us fair warning as to the true potency of the hot sauce about to be presented to us with dinner. As such, I at least, was cautious with my application of the home made Thai death sauce. In all honesty though, it was delicious and hard not to put on the chicken. But I managed to be somewhat moderate…. Jay on the other hand….
At any rate, dinner was quite good and again, for the price, we really couldn’t do better. Huge thanks to Rick and his wife for looking after us! Sorry we drank most of your beer ;)
Day 17 - NOV 3: Baja Racing history, legends and bmw’s
Despite the massive dose of Thai chillies Jay ingested the night before, we were on the road at a very reasonable hour. The plan was to hit the highway for a bit and get south to where Darrin’s tracks would lead us further west in towards the coast again, and ride along the remote beaches of Baja Nord’s pacific coast. Eventually we would make our way down to Catavina via El Rosario, home to the famous Mama Espinoza’s. Little did we know it would be an action packed day!
The ride along the highway was relatively uneventful and we got onto Darrin’s tracks fairly quickly, which consisted of small dirt roads that ran along a dry Arroyo or river bed. It was fairly easy and I mentioned as much over the comms…. Bad move. Never, ever, talk about how “easy” things are going on a bike trip….like EVER!
As soon as said it, I immediately regretted opening my big mouth as the track hung hard right and went from dirt track to deep sand! Well, shiiiiite. No worries, we had been blooded on the CABDR, so as unwelcome as this may have been we were not wholly caught off guard. We just hoped it wasn’t 30 miles of this stuff…. And with Rideout, you just never knew.
We powered the big adventure bikes through the seemingly bottomless sand tracks as best we could, but at a certain point Jay was pulling away at an increasingly steady rate and I was struggling for power. Every time I needed to keep the speed up, the bike would cut throttle and bog down. The only way to keep any sort of speed was to rev the ever living hell out of it and keep the engine screaming while I distributed throttle piecemeal to the rear wheel. Not ideal for the clutch… not at all! Something was up with my bike.
Thankfully the sand sections were interspersed between bits of dirt road and as soon as we got to the next one I told Jay what was going on. “Hmm, sounds like your traction control is taking over” he said. Normally I would agree but I had the “dongle” which is a plug in unit that by-passes the rather stupid OEM setting KTM installed on these bikes so that whatever ride setting you had, would reset to factory every time you turned the bike off. The “dongle” allows you to set it and save it so that you don’t have to piss about with the myriad settings these bikes have every single time you go to ride.
At any rate, mine for some reason, was not doing its job, so I had to set my ride settings every time I turned the bike on. Annoying, but not the end of the world. I turned off the traction control and made sure the bike was in sport mode and we were off to the races! Much better!!
More sand up ahead… Baja 1000 markers too. We were officially on the Baja 1000 track now, at least for a little bit. Pretty cool to think we were on the same track that would soon have tons of bikes, buggy’s and trucks blasting through them at break neck speed. For the moment we were safe though, as pre-running had only just started, so the chances of running into any racers were slim. All the same, we kept a sharp eye on the horizon for the tell tale dust clouds of oncoming off road vehicles… just in case.
Before long we hit the coastal trails and started to get some great views of the pacific again and as we rounded a bend we came across 3 other off road riders… the first ones of the trip! They turned out to be a bunch of guys from Cali, and were on a couple KTM 500’s and a Husky 701. They’d been running the same tracks we were, but were a couple off days in and were now looping back to head north and back home. We chatted for a bit, told them what we were up to and exchanged some stickers (which we would soon come to find was a type of currency among moto-travelers) and bid each other safe travels.
The coastal trails were awesome and despite the loads our bikes were carrying, we were able to fly along at a good clip, even catching some air here and there…. Much to the chagrin of our subframes Im sure! But it was great fun and the coast continued to wow us with spectacular views of deserted points with epic surf and no one around but us to witness it.
At this point we had been rolling for a couple of hours maybe and rounded yet another spectacular point, this one with a bit of elevation, only to come down the track into a small and seemingly deserted fishing village of some sort. The sign read: La Cueva Del Pirata - Pirates Cove. Down below us, was what appeared to be an old abandoned hotel. It looked cool so we decided to go check it out. As we rolled up to the front, which was complete with classic desert palm trees and a fountain out front I saw a huge “Ride Baja Insurance” banner slung across the front of the building. “Hey! I’ve seen this before!” I immediately recognized this place from social media posts that Ride Baja Insurance had posted in the past from some gatherings they have had. This was the company we were currently using to insure our bikes while we were in Baja and the owner, Erik Johnson, was very active in helping us out during this trip… so big shout out to Erik and his team! They know Baja like the back of their hands and were a valuable source of information throughout our journey. They also sponsored our buddy Darrin Rideout during his Baja 1000 Ironman run (and finish!), so we were definitely in good hands.
At any rate, we started to explore and realized that this wasn’t an abandoned hotel, it was half built or at least expanding! But the important parts were complete, such as the bar, and were obviously well used judging by the mass sticker bombing along the windows. Hundreds of stickers from Baja teams, fellow travellers, or just anybody running the coast adorned any free space on the windows that wrapped around the front of the building. I could literally spend hours looking at all of them, as there were some real cool ones up there. This, we were quickly realizing, was tradition when at a new place in Baja. Kind of like carving your name into the bar top “Valley Rally wuz here!” With the obligatory Rally Point and VRE stickers in place, we continued on our way.
We were making good time and would soon be at the Famous Mama Espinoza’s, a roadhouse and motel made famous by the countless Baja racers that would make it a point to stop in. Word had it that a couple of our hats were hanging in there among the rich history of Baja Racing. Naturally we had to go check it out! But first, there was a naturally oddity we wanted to see. Just a few minutes up the road from El Rosario was a giant sea cave that had opened up a ways in land. We had been told it was a cool thing to see, so we made the detour off the main highway to go check it out. The road in was pretty rough and certain sections were challenging on the fully loaded big bikes. But what really blew our minds was a couple coming the other way on mountain bikes! Its one thing to ride a motorbike through this stuff, but pedalling a mountain bike up these hills and through this terrain!? Respect! We thought we were hard until we saw those two!
Coming over the last hill, we descended down the last bit of sketchy, sandy road to a large building set on the bluff overlooking the pacific. Behind it, further inland was a huge opening in the ground with some viewing platforms constructed around it. We parked up and had a walk to the edge and peered down inside. We were about 30 or 40 ft up, and down below us the ocean crashed in up against a small beach at the back of the hole. Just off to the left in the shadows lay 2 or 3 sea lions, having a mid day snooze before hunting for their dinner later that evening.
It was pretty crazy actually. The viewing platform had literally nothing underneath it, having been built more or less right above the tunnel that the ocean had carved through the path over hundreds or perhaps thousands of years. And the far side, right where we had parked our bikes, was not much better! Had this site been back home, it would be completely off limits with no public access what’s so ever… Safety First…Ha! Thankfully we were very far away from any safety cops and were able to enjoy the wonders of Nature up close and personal.
After a quick walk down the rugged coastline, we jumped back on the bikes made for Mama Espinozas to get some lunch and figure out how far we felt like going. Although Catavina was where we were intending to get to, we figured a quick map appreciation wouldn’t hurt while we had a bite to eat.
Seeing as El Rosario is not too far away from the Sea Cave, we arrived at Mama’s in no time. I was a little surprised when I got there as I had these images of a hacienda off the beaten path, tucked away on some desert track somewhere. Instead, it is literally right on the main road through town. As you roll into El Rosario from the north, you go down hill to a sharp 90 ish degree turn to the left and right on that corner sits one of the biggest icons of Baja motorsports racing history.
The history of this place dates back to 1930, when it was established by Ana Grosso Peña, or more popularly know as “Mama Espinoza”. From the onset, Mama’s vision was not simply to open a restaurant, but to create a place for travellers needing a break from what was then a very dusty and difficult journey on the unpaved trans-peninsular roadway. But in 1967, its motorsports heritage was forged when it was made the 1st official check point for the inaugural Baja 1000.
The walls in this place are covered floor to ceiling with pictures, trophies, number placards, you name it! All of it a true testament to Mama Espinozas generosity and welcoming spirit! Although Mama is no longer with us, her spirit definitely lives on and we were honoured to have our hats hang in there and be part of Baja’s rich motorsports history. After finishing our meal, we had a good walk around the place. It was pretty early I guess as we were the only people in there besides the staff, so we had it to ourselves, which was nice. Yet again, another place one could get lost for ages just staring at all the historical pics and racing paraphernalia.
Pics done and bill paid, we headed out to the motel parking lot next door and sat down to have a look at how much farther we had to go to Catavina. A quick check on basecamp told us we had about 150km left for the day. Not too bad. We felt confident we could hammer that out fairly easily. The rest of the day would be highway, save for a small section about half way to Catavina that veered off road and looped back to the highway further down.
It wasn’t long after we left El Rosario that the landscape completely changed again. We had descended into a valley and began riding up the other side via a series of awesome twisty roads. Cresting the top we were greeted with a site I soon won’t forget: Huge rolling hills and mile, upon mile of Cacti as far as one could see! And lush! Recent storms had brought quite a bit of moisture into the desert and everything was blooming like crazy! And the smell! I kept thinking I had not washed off all of the soap from my face earlier or something as I kept getting this fragrant wiff in my helmet. As it turned out, it was a specific flowering plant in the desert that was emitting this scent, something we would find out a bit later. It is something that really must be seen and experienced in person to appreciate I think. I have always been aware of this type of landscape in Baja, but for some reason seeing it now… in person and near dusk, with the sun sitting just right in the sky… it was pure magic. And it just kept getting better the deeper we got into the desert!
Eventually we got to the turn off to the off road loop, but for reasons that escape me now, we both decided against it and made straight for Catavina. It’s not a huge place…. Not at all and the only game in town seems to be the “Hotel Mision Cativina”. Also a frequent stop in the off road scene, the Mission Catavina is a classic, Spanish style building with inner courtyard and pool. Its certainly seen better days, but it still holds its charm and has some cool and unique architecture. In the parking lot were about 10 or 12 shiny BMW adventure bikes accompanied by a sparkling new Ram 2500 with “Moto Quest” written across the side… likely the chase truck for the Beemers. Over on the other side were some serious looking buggies, which were starting to become standard fair in these parts.
Walking to our room we passed the bar, which was full of what could only be the BMW crew…. Having been on the road for almost 3 weeks straight up to this point, we must have looked quite a sight as they all stopped what they were doing and kind of stared at us as we walked passed. Both of us gave curt nods in their general direction and carried on. Quite the contrast we were to their shiny new Beemers outside….We would see them again shortly. For now we needed to get cleaned up and changed out of our riding gear
Our room was just around the corner from the bar and quite spacious. We both stowed our gear, got cleaned up, changed and figured why not go make nice with the BMW crew at the bar. So that’s what we did. As we walked in, there was a palpable sense of “who the fuck are these two” in the air. Nothing agro, just kind of a break in the vibe you could say. Right away we got to chatting with one of the guys standing at the bar that was on the bike tour. As it turned out, they were all running with a company called Moto Quest that ran tours all over. Eventually we met all the guys, including the three guides running the tour and they were all great guys. One of the guides in paticular was a very interesting cat by the name of Ben. Ben had it pretty much figured out… originally from Alaska, Ben flew helicopters there in the warmer months and then wintered in Hawaii, where he flew for a tour agency. He would do the Moto Quest thing on his down time or in between gigs. Seriously…. We are all doing it wrong!…except for Ben… Ben is doing it right!
Day 18 - NOV 4: Dr. Seuss, upside-down Side-by-sides, and whale bones
The next morning we headed to the hotels restaurant to have a leisurely breakfast and reviewed the days route over some much needed coffee. Although we didn’t exactly tie one on the night before, we did end up playing some pool with the Moto Quest guys and there may or may not have been a few margaritas involved. Margs not withstanding, it was a fun evening.
Today was a true off road day and would prove to be a proper day of Baja riding. The route itself would be relatively short, only 217km to a camp site marked on Darrin’s track near a place called Santa Rosalita, but being completely off road and somewhat remote, it would take us long enough to ride. But the day was gorgeous and the stoke was high after riding through what we did the evening before. The days track started 10km back the way we came in and then turned west straight into the desert and the forest of Cacti!
As we packed up the bikes, the Moto Quest crew were saddling up for the day. They were heading back the way we had come the day before, so we wouldn’t be seeing them again on this trip. We walked over and chatted before bidding them safe travels and got on the road. We needed gas though so the first stop was the PEMEX station across the road…. However, it seemed that the station only had a store and no longer operated gas pumps… either that or it was new and not yet operational. Either way, we had to look elsewhere. This would be the first time, but certainly not our last, where we would have to look for an hombre selling gas out of his pick up somewhere…. Pretty common in more remote regions of Baja.
Thankfully, there was just such a hombre just up the road on the way out of town that was selling gas. We pulled up and he produced a few large jugs filled with fuel. What grade? Who knew. It smelled right and looked right so in it went!
With the bikes now full, we hit the highway north for 10km and soon came to the trailhead. Right away the trail was fairly sandy, but nothing we were not used to by this point. We were both well used to the feeling of the bikes dancing and drifting underneath us in the soft sand and could now ride the stuff at speed without too much worry. The riding was great right off the hop and in no time at all we found ourselves in amongst huge cacti, some as tall as 2 or 3 story houses! It was hard not to let the focus wander while riding. Despite our new-found comfort level riding in sand, it still required concentration, otherwise you’d get pulled into the middle where the sand was usually a lot softer and deeper and that in turn generally made the bike go side ways. Not ideal when cruising somewhere north of 40-50mph.
The scenery just kept getting more epic by the minute, to the point where anyone listening to our helmet comms would have thought we were having seizures or something! Personally, I had never seen any place like it and I have travelled some. This would prove to be one of my favourite sections of the whole trip, hands down.
At what I would guess to be about half way to the coast from where we turned off from the main highway, stood two massive cacti, one either side of the trail, like huge prickly gate keepers of the desert. I had to stop and get a picture! Personally, I felt that the evening sun brought out the colours of the desert in more spectacular fashion, but right now, at this moment, the light was pretty damn good!
As we walked around the two monster cacti, I got a closer look at some of the other varieties of plants a bit further in from the trail. Such interesting things…. Totally alien from what we are used to back home in Ontario, Canada. Some of these plants were truly odd looking things… one was right out of a Dr. Seuss book, and in fact, these very plants in the Catavina area were the inspiration for many of the illustrations by the famous children’s author… or so we were told. And yet another looked like giant asparagus!
65 million years ago, a giant meteor smashed into the earth, creating what we now call the Gulf of Mexico. It is dubbed the Chicxulub Impact Even (pronunciation unknown…). It would not surprise me at all to learn that Spora, brought on the meteor from some far flung corner of the galaxy, created these weird and wonderful plants that are found only here.
We carried on and eventually hit the costal trails again. At a certain point we came across a long beach of sorts, only instead of being made of sand it was made of flat, golf ball sized pebbles. The Ocean had literally pushed up billions of these things into huge piles along the coast creating a huge berm between land and ocean. Normally, a formation like this out of sand would just be a normal beach with a steep slope into the ocean. But this beach made of pebbles was actually a bit of trip and some amount of effort to Walk on. It stretched for miles like this in each direction. It was wild to think the ocean was able to push all of these stones so far up and into such a high pile!
We had parked the bikes back on the trail and walked the short distance to the ocean to get some pics of this pebble beach when we could see some specs far up the coast approaching our position fast… buggies! As it turned out, it was a large group side by sides…about 7 or 8. They made a wild sound on the rocky beach was they flew past us, and we managed to grab a few pics and some video of them as well. As we were checking out one particularly cool Cam-Am buggy going by we heard the district sound of plastic crunching against something hard, followed by some yells behind us. As we turned we saw that one of the buggies, a Polaris, didn’t quite make it up the steep berm at the top and flipped over.
We started to run (more like a light jog in the stones wearing dirt bike boots!) to assist, but in a matter of moments the tipped over unit was surrounded by other Side by Sides getting into position to help. Clearly this was nothing new to this crew as they had a winch attached to the turned over buggy and had it pulled right side up in no time. We stood by, making sure to keep out of their way, and watched it all unfold, noticing (with a touch of envy) all of the amenities they could carry on their trip that were impossible for us on our bikes. Things like a cooler full of cold beer for example! Say what you want to about the SxS crew, they travel in comfort compared to us bikers a lot of the time…but I digress.
Despite the early hour, our new 4-wheeled friends were obviously taking advantage of the stop to crack a few cold ones and were not in a particular hurry to get moving. We figured it was a good opportunity to get ahead of these guys and made our way back to the bikes to saddle up and get going. The coast continued to wow us with spectacular views of deserted points with epic surf and no one around but us to witness it but us.
We came across all kinds of cool stuff as we made our way along the winding, criss-crossing trails that ran north to south along the pacific. Perhaps one of the coolest things though, were whale skeletons! I had heard of this phenomena, where the bones of whales who have died in the ocean often wash up onto deserted beaches. But to see these things up close and in person is pretty surreal. The first one we saw was what appeared to be a single vertebrae. At first as we rolled up to it, I thought it was a giant piece of chalk or some sort of weird, weathered white rock. But as I got closer, I heard Jay over the intercom “Cooooool man! A whale bone!!”…..
“A What?!?” Parking the bike, I walked over to have a closer look and indeed it was! It was huge! Easily bigger than our front wheels, this thing was maybe 2 ft wide, 2ft high and maybe half that thick. It was a bit of a trip to think of how big the animal that this came from must have been. Wild! This coupled with the cool desert plants that looked like a single piece of giant asparagus were the types of things you had to see to believe. The desert is truly an odd and wonderful place!
Mile after mile, the track would meander inland a bit before running along the coast again, usually hitting amazing surf spots…at least we thought they were pretty amazing. This was more or less confirmed by the handful of surfers in 4x4’s we ran into along the way. Apparently the surf was not great right now and they were running up and down the coast looking to see if any of the other near by waves were firing. But when the swell was right, the whole coast would start firing!
Remember what I said about the things you find in the desert? Yeah, we kept seeing bicycle tracks on the trails as we were riding and eventually caught up to the one responsible. This girl, maybe in her late 20’s or early 30’s was plodding along on her bike, complete with panniers. We rolled up to her to say hi and see how she was doing… it was the middle of the desert after all. I don’t think she was expecting a couple of friendly Canadians on big adventure bikes to stop and have a chat as she was a bit stand offish at first. But after we asked if she was doing alright, she was like “oh man… can you guys spare any water?” We certainly could!
While Jay transferred about half of the water he had on him (dudes a camel I swear… never drinks, even in the heat!) she told us that she was riding with a group, a few other guys, who had decided to take a different route. Now either those dudes left this chick high and dry (no pun intended) in the desert or she was a stubborn one and was running the coastal track no matter what. Hopefully the latter…. Leaving your riding buddies out on their own in remote terrain is not cool. But she seemed to be able to take of herself just fine and was apparently averaging 40 miles or more a day on her bike. That may not sound like much, but in the terrain we were riding and the climbs we had to make, it was one hell of a feat.
At any rate, she was pretty stoked to have some water again and said she didn’t have too much further to go… some point up ahead with a decent camp spot that had running water apparently. That was were she was going to link back up with her buddies.
With our good deed done for the day, we wished her luck and set off again. We didn’t have too much further to go to get to our end point for the day… maybe another 30-40 miles so we slowed the pace a bit and stopped here and there to take pics and just enjoy the views. Our destination was a campground just north of, what looked like a very small town or fishing village along the beach, so as we drew closer to our destination we kept an eye out for some sort of sign indicating a camp spot. Eventually we came to one, which was not ours but was the one our bicycle friend had mentioned. Although the ride to this point from where we had left her was not particularly rough going, it was a bit of a haul….she would not be getting in until dusk, at best! Hats off to the lady… we wished her a safe journey.
When we came across the sign for this spot, I had said I’d go check it out while Jay kept going. After turning around and catching up, I found Jay pulled over beside a spectacular beach. The tide was way out and the beach stretched as far as we could see. Jay looked at me and just said “Beach Run?” Hell Yes!!
After double checking the firmness of the sand, we jumped on the 1090’s and rode over the small sand berm to a perfectly solid black sandy beach. With the sun just past its high noon position, we were bathed in perfect mid-afternoon light as we pushed our heavy adventure bikes as fast as they would go down the beach! With the stark contrast of brilliant white sand, meeting the wet black sand on one side and perfect surf crashing on the other, we sped down the coastline in a true bucket list moment! Both of us were hooting and hollering as we sped along to the end, which was a lot further than we had thought. It was wild, the sand was so solid that we barely left any tracks, even when we dumped the throttle.It even held the bikes leaning on the kickstands! We took a bunch of shots, both pics and video and tried to see if we could get out and back to the track on this side of the beach. As it happened, the sand berm down this side was way too high and deep for the big bikes…. Sooo, back we went, racing back to the point where we came in! Too much fun!
The beach run had definitely rejuvenated us a bit after all the dusty miles we’d covered since morning and before long we hit a paved road which ran into Santa Rosalita, the small fishing village we were aiming for. There’s not a whole hell of a lot in Santa Rosalita. It is a small, wind swept village pushed up against the cliffs that run between the pacific and the higher plateau further inland. 95% of the towns buildings were all down by the ocean with only a few haciendas and some town infrastructure up on the plateau. As such, when you roll into town, you can easily miss it as it is not really visible from the paved road in.
However, this wasn’t our first rodeo, so we knew there had to be more to this place. So with Jay leading, we managed to find the road down to the ocean and the rest of the town. We quickly found Santa Rosalie’s only bottega, where we were able to get some Gatorade and a snack to eat. Between sips of our gatorades, we sat outside by the bikes and munched on our chips and cookies while looking at the GPS to figure out where we’d stay for the night. The Google showed a place called “Hotelito Pacifico” in town. We didn’t see anything that looked like a hotel as we rolled in, and frankly there wasn’t much else to the town so… But as Jay was looking at the GPS, I looked up and what we thought was a somewhat rundown house, was actually the Hotelito Pacifico, as indicated by the small faded sign clinging on to the side of the building facing us. Yeeeeah, we’d give this one a pass….
So back to the camping option… the campsite marked on the gps was back the way we had come by about 8 km. Darrin’s track didn’t actually run all the way out to the site, but Jay could see a road or track on the base map we were running and figured he could get us there easily enough. As we were finishing up our snacks and water, a local guy came up to us and started asking us about the bikes. He spoke pretty good English and was amazed once he found out how far we had ridden to get to his village. We chit chatted with the guy for a few minutes and he would translate to his buddy who did not habla. All of the locals we ran into so far had all been really chill and friendly, and this was no exception. They say Mexico is dangerous, especially these days… and that may be very true, but it is also full of very friendly and accommodating people that are genuinely curious and welcoming to travellers. Personally, save for the odd exception, I’ve always felt that for the most part, if you keep your nose clean (I.e. don’t go looking for trouble and stay away from the shady people and places), you’ll be just fine almost anywhere you go. Its amazing how far one can get with just a little knowledge of the local language and a good attitude.
After our new friend took off, we got on the bikes rode back into the desert to find our campsite. It wasn’t terribly difficult to find, but the sun was getting low and was at such an angle that it was right in our faces, making the going slower than it would have been. But we got there. The place was a flat piece of ground overlooking a nice mellow looking point with some beautiful waves rolling in. There were these little plywood shelters built on concrete slabs all around the clearing, and upon closer inspection it was obvious that one was to pitch their tent inside them. This served a couple of purposes I imagined: 1st, it got you a bit off the ground and 2nd, provided some shelter from the sun and wind. Who ever had built them had even installed some shelf spaces and the one we grabbed already had a line slung across for hanging things like wet clothing, light etc.
Aside from us, there were a few overland rigs parked up at some of the other shelters, most likely feral surfers. They were pretty common to see along the coast of Baja. But nobody seemed to be around, so we just grabbed a spot and started to make camp. There was only one problem… we did not have enough water to cook our last couple of mountain house meals, or, most importantly, coffee in the morning. Equally important and also lacking was beer. Not the most forward thinking moment of the trip… lol.
Solution: Jay would ride back into town while I set up camp. So, while Jay rode the 8km back to the bottega, I unpacked my tent, and set everything up in the shelter. It was actually a pretty nice set up once all was said and done and when Jay got back with plenty of water and cold beer, we had ourselves a pretty nice evening.
While we were cooking our diner, a chill dude from So Cal that was camped out in one of the other shelters sauntered over to say hi. He was a retired tennis instructor that now spent his time running up and down the west coast looking for waves in his Toyota Tundra. He was also a fellow rider, but admittedly no where near as brave as us. That said, he had some legit pedigree, having put many miles on his old XR 650 R in the deserts of California before going full ADV and getting an Africa Twin. But surfing was his jam and took precedence in a big way. At any rate we hung out for most of the evening and shot the shit.
Its funny, when you don’t have a TV, computer or internet, you run out of stuff to do when it gets dark real quick, so when the beer runs out and the clouds roll in and block the stars (your only real source of entertainment) its time to call it a night. Our new surfer buddy made his excuses and headed home and we packed it in… at the late, late hour of 8PM! LOL! In our case it was more a factor of running out of beer and the day catching up with us. As for clouds, there were only a few scattered ones rolling in, but otherwise it was a beautiful, clear night. In fact, at some point after midnight I got up to “hang hose” as my buddy Gary would say, and was gobsmacked at the amount of stars I could see. The area where we do our OVR events up in Barry’s Bay, ON is considered a “Dark Zone” - a place where there is no light pollution, thus providing the best viewing of the cosmos at night…. Well, ol’ Barry’s Bay ain't got nothing on this place… Amazing doesn’t even come close!
Day 19 - Nov 5: Taking the Kiwis to Margaritaville
I awoke the next morning as the pre-dawn light began to chase away the night sky. The previous evening, while Jay and I were sitting under the stars, I had mentioned that it might be a good idea to get up early and get some nice shots of the beach we were on at sunrise, however it was a touch too early, so I decided to just lay there and bask in the pre-dawn glow from my tent. Moments like this are what most of us with busy day-to-day lives back home often dream about, and I wasn’t about to rush through it. After a while though the sky really started to get bright… time to throw some pants on and grab the drone!
It only took a minute or two to get the drone spooled up and in the air, and in no time I was skimming across the tops of breaking waves on my way to where the dunes rose into the hills which the sun was just starting to peak over. I wanted to catch the sun as it crested over the hills, as I thought this would make a pretty good shot…. I wasn’t disappointed.
The scene that unfolded on my screen as the drone approached the dune covered hills was nothing short of spectacular! I flew the drone around a bit to get some different angles and then turned it around to head back. Now that the sun had risen above the hills our beach was awash with golden rays of sunshine so I brought it in low along the the beach and flew it right above our campsite and back up the hills behind us. National Geographic eat your heart out!
By the time I got the drone back on the ground, Jay had rolled out of bed and had the coffee’s brewing. It was looking like it was going to be a great day. When I had crawled out of my tent earlier to set up the drone, I saw our buddy from the night before heading out for some early morning fishing, and by the time our coffees were ready he was coming back with a good sized catch. Turns out, it was pretty easy catching a fish big enough for a few meals in these parts.
After a quick breakfast of coffee and the last of our instant oatmeal, we packed up and hit the trails. The plan for the day was to get to San Ignacio, a little town on the middle of the peninsula, famous for its palm oasis and old, Jesuit monastery. Our mileage for the day was not huge, only 285km, but we did have a significant off-road section that made up about half of the distance. What that section would be like, we could only guess… hopefully not a ton of sand.
With the sun rising higher in the sky and the temps quickly climbing along with it, we set off, giving a farewell wave to our campsite friends. We took a slightly different track out of the campsite back to town that the locals had told us about. It was a bit sandy, but over all not too bad. A good warm up for the day ahead. We had about 75km of road to ride before we hit our turn off for the days off road section, so made sure to stop to top up both the bikes and the camel backs before getting dirty.
Although we were hoping in vain for a sand free day, we got the exact opposite. Almost immediately, the sand got deep and stayed that way pretty much the whole way with few reprieves along the way. At first, we found the going rough, but before long we were finding our grooves (literally and figuratively) and just got on with it. The tracks were mostly just wide enough for a small pick up truck to roll down without hitting the prickly shrubs and cacti lining the edges, with two well defined tire ruts worn into the sand either side.
Riding in one of the tire ruts was way easier and safer than trying to ride any other place in the track, as the sand in the ruts was packed down more, making it an easier go. But every once and awhile one of us would hit a soft bit and get sucked into the middle where sand was way softer and deeper, just about sending the bikes sideways. The only way to really ride the stuff was to keep the speed up as high as we dared. Riding the tire ruts also meant we were riding pretty close to the edge of the tracks, which often put our panniers in harms way. If Jay was trimming cats bush before, he was pretty much clear cutting sections on this day!
Deep sand aside, it was a beautiful area..true desert riding. About three quarters the way through, we hit a section that made the rest of the track seem like paved highway! It was DEEP! But thankfully short lived. The upshot was that once we were through that section we began to get into tracks that were less and less sandy, eventually turning toward the highway. Once we made the turn the track opened up to a very wide dirt road…the kind that’s white with talcum powder on the surface. Not deep, but you really had to stay out of the dust from the rider up ahead or you’d go blind, choke to death or both! 15 very fast kilometres later we were back on the highway and headed south toward San Ignacio.
With the workout we had in the sand, we were pretty thankful for a shorter day and rolled into San Ignacio in the early afternoon. We had no idea where we were going to stay so we did couple laps of the place… besides the small but quaint, town square, there wasn’t much to the place. There was some sort of walled in campsite down in the palm groves as you rolled into town, but that would have meant riding the bikes in as it was a bit too far to walk to the square. So we opted for a less fancy place 2min down the road from the centre of town.
As we rolled up, an American couple where just checking in and waved “Its noting fancy, but its clean”…. Perfect!
They weren’t lying. It was a very clean place, a touch above basic and relatively roomy….we had definitely stayed in worse for more money. With food and drink paramount in our minds, we dropped our gear, cleaned up and headed back to the square and find a place to eat. As we were walking out of our room, a couple on a pair of CB500X’s were just unpacking and moving next door…. More bikers!
We introduced ourselves and basically got into a lengthy conversation on the spot…as you do. Nick and Bec were a couple from New Zealand of all places. Not content running their good sized farm back home, they came to the realization that life wasn’t getting any shorter and that it was time to Carpe some Diem! Naturally that manifested itself into a round the world bike trip that started in Canada, went up to Alaska, came back down and head east across Canada and then back across the US and into Baja before hoping over the sea of Cortez to continue down to the tip of South America via the mainland.
They basically made our ride from Barry’s Bay ON a walk in the park right there in the parking lot…LOL!
They were great folks, and we could have chatted for hours with them, but they looked very dusty and the sun was getting high so we left to it and got on with the business of finding a meal.
Being very close to where we were staying, we found ourselves in the very quaint town square of San Ignacio wishing 5 minutes. In the centre is a raise boulevard with a few giant trees of some sort that shaded the square almost entirely. It must have been siesta time or something as it was pretty dead apart from a few gringo travellers here and there. Most of the establishments were shut or had no staff as well. But the largest and nicest by far seemed to be operating and had a great terrace overlooking the square so that’s where we headed.
We sat down at a table on said terrace and immediately ordered two cold beers to quench our debilitating thirst and some taco’s soak up said beers! Needless to say, those beers went down very smoothly and were followed by a couple more. Although our server spoke “poco’ Ingles, she was none the less quite funny and humorous and gladly put up with our ridiculousness. After round 2 disappeared, she came by to grab the empties and in a very sly manner dropped the magic M-word: “Margaritas?”
With our new best friend gone to get us a round of Margaritas, we sat there and took in our beautiful surroundings. The Sun was low in the sky, casting a beautiful orange glow over the square which seemed to be the signal to get back to life for the towns folk of San Ignacio as the square was suddenly full of life! Couples were sauntering about, more gringos were checking out the shops that were all now open and ready for business and the local boys were zipping around on their scooters or parked up and chilling out with their hermanos.
Our blissful surveillance was interrupted by the jingle of ice in a glass as our server brought us two, very delicious looking Margs!…. After a quick sip, I can confirm that they were indeed delicious. This could get dangerous! It was around about this point that we realized our NZ buddies from the hotel were at the next table over. We started chatting with them when Bec’s invited us to join them, which we gladly did. Curious about our choice of beverage, Nick and Bec’s soon had a couple of Margaritas of their own!
Chilling with them on the terrace, we shared stories from the road, telling them about our journey so far and getting the long form of their trip and how it all came about. As mentioned, Nick and Becs owned a farm back in NZ and from the sounds of things, it did alright. But at one point, they both came to the stark realization that if they did not get off their duffs and do epic shit now, they never would. So they stoped, assessed what life would look like if they actually “did it”…. What would happen to the farm? Could they do the miles? What if this happened, What if that happened…and basically figured out that life wouldn’t implode if they went off and did this and that now was the time.
So, here they were! Their plan was to get to the tip of South America and reassess from there and get the bikes off to a different continent… I think Africa or Europe was the next stop, but to be honest, after 3-4 Margaritas, plus beers, the memories ‘record’ button stops working, so Im not terribly sure.
At any rate, they were a solid couple of humans and we were stoked to have met them. The rest of the evening was a blur of laughs and humorous stories and anecdotes from home. Despite 4 or 5 margaritas worth of tequila flowing through our systems, we managed to make it back to the hotel where, for reasons that escape me now, we all thought it would be a great idea of end the evening with a night cap at the hotel bar (which we seemed to have missed on the way out earlier). After the deliciousness of those margaritas, a Tecate lager just didn’t cut it, so after a couple, we decided to call it a night… but what a great night it was.
Day 20 - Nov 6: Salt Flats, Dunes and Scorpion Bay
Morning came very fast it seemed, but neither of us felt in a particular hurry to get up. Once we did manage to roll out, we were not surprised to see that our Kiwi friends bikes exactly where they were the night before. We ate a late breakfast… well, late for us, and managed to see Nick and Becs before we left. Poor Becs had really tied it on the night before and was not in great shape. But she was a trooper and we could hardly tell. We both started ‘slowly’ packing the bikes and before long both Jay and I were suited up and ready to roll out again. We all wished each other safe travels and promised to keep in touch.
And we have! As I write this, Nick and Becs are in Guatemala, enjoying some spectacular Central America views and culture! Check them out and give them a follow @bikespanniersandpassports via instagram where they also have links to their blog. Such a great couple! We wish them well and hopefully our paths will cross again!
Back on the road again, our goal for the day was to make it the famed Scorpion Bay, made popular by surfers from all over the world. The days ride to Scorpion Bay was a bit of an odd one. It was a good ride, but vastly different to what we’d experienced so far. Our route veered west into the hills surrounding San Ignacio, but soon they gave way to low lands that, evidently, saw some serious tidal action from time to time. The roads appeared to be built in such a manner that the tides would wash over them, and naturally suffered from wash outs in many sections. Such an odd way to build roads!
Further into the flat lands we started to come across small and very remote villages, who seemed to think the desert surrounding their home was a good spot for dumping garbage. We really had to be careful running through as our track ran straight through said garbage pile. Thankfully we got through without a puncture and ended up on what could only be described as the local road to nowhere!
Hitting the tracks out of the last village, we started riding on salt flats that looked like it had very recently been the sea floor. But there was no water in site anywhere! It was a bleak and seemingly endless landscape, broken only by the odd berm of sand that would rise a bit and then give out to the flats again. It was a pretty cool place to ride, and made both us feel as though we were racing a stage in the Dakar Rally. We raced along the flats at speed, hitting sand berms, while leaning right back as far as we could to lighten the front, powering our big, KTM’s through the deep sand, often catching a bit of air as we did. Almost as if the gods had heard our thoughts on the Dakar, we came around a point to see a vast sea of perfectly white sand dunes off to our right. We had to check these out!
As we gradually started a long and deliberate arc to the right, we started to sink into the sand a bit but it held firm for the most part and we soon parked our bikes a the edge of the beginning of the dunes. Jay set off to walk some of them while I got the drone out… with a scene right out of the Arabian desert right in front us, it would make for some pretty dramatic footage.
I wasn’t wrong. As far as you could see, even from 100m up in the sky, the dunes stretched out towards what we could only assume was the edge of the pacific Ocean.
We got a few fly by’s and messed around with some other shots, then packed it in and got back on the track. Our final destination wasn’t too much further, maybe another 30 or 40 miles from here, and as we rode the this last little bit, I how far we’d come to this point. Even though we had been in Baja less than a week, we had seen so much that it was easy to forget how far and long we rode just to get to that point. And we weren’t nearly done yet!
We rolled into San Juanico, A.K.A. Scorpion Bay by early afternoon. Again, we had no idea where we were going to stay for the night. I had searched online the day before and it seemed like there were plenty of options, but a lot of them were full. I guess the Surf was up. As we meandered through town, we came up on a few cool looking places, but all of them had “No Vacancy” signs out front. So, we figured we’d go and try to find a good camp spot. Towards the end of town the bluffs rise about 50-60 ft above the ocean overlooking the surf, with campers and overland rigs lining the edge. Feral Surfers. At the top of the cliffs, set back a bit was a restaurant that seemed to be managing the spots along the cliff. Sitting down for a bite to eat, we inquired about campsites and were pleased to hear that we could have a spot for the tidy some of 150 pesos! Now we were talking! The place was pretty cool and had ok food, not to mention shower and bathroom facilities that were clean.
Basically the deal was that you could camp pretty much anywhere along the cliffs. So after we ate, we rode the bikes up and down the top of the bluffs and settled on small clearing with a decent view of the local wave. Since we were less than 100m from the restaurant, getting food and drink was no problemo. I promptly bought a six pack of Pacifico, walked back to our camp spot and flowed down in my camp chair for the remainder of the afternoon. Life can be pretty rough sometimes!
Just in front of us and to the right a bit happened to be a camper from Canada owned by a dude with a serious Sam Elliot vibe, complete with wide brimmed hat and a killer stash! He was travelling to San Jose with his wife and their ATV’s stuffed inside a customized Snap On van. He turned out to be a pretty cool fellah and would wander over a couple more times throughout the day as Jay and I sipped our Pacifico’s while watching the surfers do their thing.
All in all, a pretty good day with some decent, but not too difficult riding and time to chill out and relax at the end of the ride.
Day 21 - Nov 7: the longest day - Scorpion Bay to loreto
The previous night Jay and I had discussed the trail for todays ride. Up until this point, outside of some long sandy sections and the odd washout or rocky patch, the trails had been fairly easy. By all accounts, today was the start of the real Baja off road… it was also going to be one of the longest on the trip.
With the promise of a long, tough day ahead, we were both up early to great the dawn as the sun broke over the pacific. Its a view that literally never gets old!
After a quick breakfast and coffee we packed up the bikes and headed out, deciding to follow our buddy Darrin’s tracks that ran along the beach for a more interesting way out of town.
Scorpion Bay is situated in the town of San Juanico, on a high bluff overlooking the pacific ocean. Very popular with the surfing crowd.
To the north lies a sheer cliff face, but if you run through town, you can descend to the water's edge and access the beach, which hugs the coastline as it runs south. Darrin's route took us about 7 km down the beach before heading up a trail to connect with the main road, where we planned to run a few short kilometres before rejoining another trail.
We picked our way through town to the road that dropped on to the beach and opened up the throttle on the near perfect sand, speeding along the edge of the pacific. It was perfect…. Until it wasn’t, at least for Jay. As we cruised along the beach I was looking at the map and track and expecting the rather steep and high elevation of the hills and cliffs to our left to mellow out a bit as our exit was fast approaching. But they didn’t and within a few short K’s the track we were meant to take to get off the beach loomed ahead… a long, steep and sandy looking climb!
At this point, the beach wasn’t super wide, and the sand was such that the run up was not at all ideal, especially on fully loaded adv bikes. But I had faith that we could pull it off…Jay on the other hand, was not confident, which was hugely uncharacteristic for him. I decided to take the first go, lined it up as best I could and dropped the hammer!
Keeping the revs up as I hit the deep sand I rode for all I was worth, while the mighty 1090 let out a deep throaty growl as it hooked up in the deep sand getting me to the top with relative ease. Although the big KTM made short work of the climb, I did have to fight to keep it tracking properly and pointed where I needed it to go. I made it to the top, but I knew I got lucky with my line choice and I was secretly praying that the this was not indicative of what we were to face for the rest of the day.
Once I had found a spot to park the bike, I ran back down to be there for Jay in case he needed a hand. After a quick chat on lines and what worked for me, Jay lined his bike up and went for it, only to get hung up an old cactus buried in the sand, which I had somehow missed!
Take two… after getting turned around and lined back up, Jay cracked the throttle and got past the cactus but almost immediately started to bog down in the sand. I pushed from behind, using the panniers for leverage, getting properly sandy in the process. With Jay on the gas and me pushing and pulling, eventually the bike finally hooked up enough to make it to the top.
With no time to waste, we cracked on, hitting the road for another 6-7km before reaching the next trail head. This time it was an old double track. I say old because it became clear that the locals had not used it in some time. Initially, it wasn’t very obvious, but as we got further down the track, the trail went from a wide dirt track to two thin tire tracks, making us wonder what was up ahead.
We soon found out as the track turned to deep sketchy sand as it made its way down into a an arroyo or river valley. We didn’t really realize how bad the sand was until we started our decent, but by that time it we were committed as there was nowhere to turn the bikes around until we got to the bottom. Once the track levelled out, we could see signs that serious flooding had occurred recently… part of a concrete bridge (or what was left of it) laid in pile off to our right….not a good sign. We could see that the sandy track turned to rough, solid ground, so we stopped and decided to walk up ahead and see what was waiting for us.
Well, what was waiting for us was an arroyo turned full on river, that was clearly very deep…deeper than our bikes were tall, with a sharp drop of at least a few feet to the water on the far side. There was no way we were getting the bikes through that! Based on what we were seeing, a serious amount of water had steam rolled this valley big time, and not that long ago either.
Ok, regroup. What are our options? Well, we knew what was behind us: a very difficult and hugely time consuming climb back up the sandy track and at least 12km back to the road… and then what? This was our track… we really had no other route to get to Loreto. We probably could have figured out an alternate route via road, but that could take hours and was not very adventure bikey.
Faced with that prospect, we decided to walk the edge of the river and see if it shallowed out enough to ride across to the other side and link back up with track. Sure enough, a short way up the river, we found a spot that we felt we could both make on the bikes, especially if we unloaded them. The only issue was going to be riding the bikes to that point. The track was completely mangled from the flooding and only donkeys or maybe some wild horses had been through since.
Right, problem solved…sort of. Looking at the gps we could see that the track crossed the arroyo once more a short way up ahead and Jay was worried there could be another big wash out ahead. So we decided to unload his bike first, get him across and send him on a recon to see what the track up ahead looked like. That may sound overly cautious, but we were still relatively close to pavement at this point with nothing but desert wilderness ahead of us until we reached Loreto. If the next crossing was clear, we’d forge ahead, if not, we could still turn around and salvage the day.
With Jay’s 1090 unloaded, I helped him get through the worst of the trail up to the crossing and spotted him as he made his way across and along a sketch ledge where the track continued. While Jay was off scoping out the track ahead I chilled out in the shade and soaked it all in; even the trashed arroyo’s were pretty in Baja!
After about 15min or so, I heard the distinct rumble of a 1090 making its way back. As Jay pulled up beside me, he flashed me the thumbs up! All clear up ahead, we were back in business!
Happy to have found a way through, we hustled back over the river and grabbed jays stuff, got my bike across and off we went!
Time has a funny way of giving one perspective: Looking back at that moment on the trip now, I feel like we both blew it way out of proportion. We are both competent riders off road, and what we had to get through, in retrospect, was not any tougher than anything we had ridden the 1090’s through before. But traveling on the bikes is a different animal than being on a ride. We had a time pressure. We had already ridden those bikes 9500 km’s straight with no real break up to this point and they were loaded and heavy. In addition, we were both getting a bit of pressure from home for being away so long… It all plays on the mind at times, and I think this was one of them. But the important thing is we worked as a team, and got through to keep the trip going.
And were we ever glad we stuck with this track, because the next 6 hours of riding were some of the most epically scenic and challenging I have ever done on an adventure bike!
After getting through the washed out arroyo, we continued along our track and eventually came up on the second crossing of the arroyo. At this point the arroyo was much, much wider and flatter than the previous crossing, so there was less damage from the flooding and the water was not very deep at all. Riding our way across, we could see a group of wild horses hanging out and having a drink off to our left. It was pretty cool to see horses in the wild like that and it immediately made me think of my daughter, Lara and how much she would have loved this!
I often see things riding bikes that I know I will likely never be able to share with friends and loved ones, and that makes it bitter sweet sometimes. But then I realize how fortunate I am to just be there in that moment at all and makes me grateful for those experiences. This was for sure one of those moments… to quote Paul Bolton: "Ride motorbikes….Its awesome!”
From there our track took us further west into the interior and through San Isidro, a tiny little town that would be the first of many similar towns we came across, where you seriously wondered how people survived in such remote areas. San Isidro wasn’t too bad as the main “highway” (I use the term loosely) ran through it. But for most of the the other towns on our route that day, to say there were roads going to these places would be a huge over statement. How they got supplies in and out of these places was beyond us.
On the far side of town, we turned south and started a steady climb into higher country as we made our way toward the Sierra de la Giganta mountain range that stood between us and Loreto.
All day long we rode through a landscape of flat peaked valleys, each one getting higher and deeper as we went. Like Catavinia, here too the vegetation was very green and lush due to the recent rains. It all made for a very magical experience, which would only get more pronounced as we got deeper into the desert and closer to the mountains.
About at the halfway point, we came to another tiny town called Comondu or San Jose, depending on what map or name you go by. This particular place stands out because I am 99% certain that dinosaurs still live in this valley! Of that I am sure… it is so insanely remote looking and straight out of some Jurassic park movie that there is for sure a herd of Raptors or Brachiosaurs running around in there somewhere! Coming across an abandoned, yet perfectly fine looking pickup truck half down into the valley did nothing to assuage those thoughts. In fact, if you look closely at this place on google earth, there are what can only be described as ancient volcanos all over the area. Are they actually ancient volcanos? Who knows, but if the shoe fits….
Eventually we reached the tiny village at the bottom, nestled in a lush palm grove that ran along the arroyo. Fed by a lake bed up stream during the wet months, the arroyo ran all the way to the pacific, over 40 km to the west, which explained the lushness of the valley.
At this point, the valleys were getting quite deep and as we rode through Comondu/San Jose, we made our way through the cool palm groves along the dirt road that ran north out of town. Of in the distance, the valley walls rose high above…we were going have a bit of climb outta here!
Sure enough, at the far end of town our track veered up another steep track that was evidently too much for the local bulldozer as it sat half rolled and abandoned off the side of the road as we started our ascent. This would explain the increasingly poor condition of the roads and tracks in and out of town. We stoped briefly at the top to have one last look at this wildly prehistoric looking valley before continuing off into the desert.
Our route continued South East through the higher desert plateau after we left Comondu/San Jose. The track was rough but we were able to keep a steady rhythm going until we started to descend into the next valley, which was about 12km away as the crow flies, but was more like 30km on the track. This is where I personally remember things getting pretty tough. Between the long day and the deteriorating track conditions, I was starting to hit a bit of a wall and from that point on it was a struggle until we hit pavement again just outside Loreto.
But we kept on truckin’ and soaked up mile after mile and bump after bump. In one particular valley, the climb out was gnarly as hell and seemingly never ending.. I almost dropped the bike a couple of times, but told myself that if that happened, there was no way I was going to be able to get it back up again. Definitely a “no fail” moment!
The track on top of that valley was so friggin bad that we had to drop our speed right down to pick our way through vw golf sized pot holes!
It was so bad, that we started cracking jokes on the communicators on how bad this road was and marvelling at the impossibility of anyone taking anything other than a bike or a Baja trophy truck down here to get to the town we had passed through earlier in the day. But just as we were saying this we came up on a pick up truck heading the other way, carrying a bunch of Burros!! OMG, I have never felt so bad for animals in all my life! LOL! God love Mexicans, they will find a way… but seriously, it would have been faster and easier to just ride the Burros to the next town!
At a certain point we came upon yet another arroyo, thankfully dry this time, but like the others, the route was mangled from the flooding and there was a detour off to the right. I was about half way across when Jay came on the comms to say that his bike just died.
“What do you mean? Like you stalled out?” I asked.
Jay came back “No… it just died on me and won’t start now”
These bikes had been nothing but solid and super reliable as long as we had owned them and Jay’s bike was newer than mine so this was surprising.
“Ok” I said “Let me find a spot to stop and I’ll come back and give you a hand.”
I managed to get my bike up and out of the arroyo on the other side and ran back to see what was up with Jay’s bike. As I got back to him, he got the bike running, but it was being weird. He had to keep the revs right up or it would die again. It was a bit of a tricky exit out of the arroyo, so I had to help jay so he could keep the revs up and feather the clutch to get out. It took us a couple of tries as his 1090 just did not want to run, but we eventually got a good run up and Jay kept on going so the bike wouldn’t die. We still had or helmet comes going so I told him to keep moving and I would catch up.
Dusk was starting to set in at this point and as I went to jump back on my bike a big harry tarantula about the size of my hand ran across my boot and off into the brush! Yikes! Not spending the night out here….Time to go!!
It wasn’t too much further to pavement, but Jay’s bike decided to act up once more as we made our final descent from the high country toward the Maine highway that ran into Loreto proper. We stoped for a bit to let the bike cool down, as this seemed to help with restart. As we sat there giving Jay’s 1090 a rest, we took some more pics of the amazing landscape.. as breakdown spots go, we could do worse. Eventually we got the other bike going again and rode the remaining Km’s out to the paved highway. Although this trip was all about the dirt, after a day like this one, we were super stoked to see twisty asphalt!
Both of us were on fumes by the time we rolled into Loreto, so gas and a bank machine were priority number 1. Then we’d go looking for a place to stay for the night. Surprisingly, our search for accommodations turned out to be a bit of challenge. To be honest, we both thought it would be a breeze to find somewhere to stay for the night. But since Loreto was such a destination, everywhere we checked was either full or way too expensive. We even tried the big fancy joint down on the water… I got some funny looks walking into that place! LOL
It was well past dark and were about to call it quits and squat at a trailer park we found, hoping they would be lenient with us in the morning when they found a couple of dusty bikers camped out in their lot. But as we were about to unpack and pitch our tents, this very nice lady walked up started chatting with us. She was obviously a snowbird as the place was jam packed with huge RV’s and campers of all shapes and sizes.
We explained the difficulty we were having finding a hotel and she said we could for sure camp out there and settle up in the morning, or try one more place she knew that was close by. We really wanted a shower and a cold beer and we weren’t going to get either of those there. So we decided to roll the dice one more time and one to check out Hotel Santa Fe.
Hotel Santa Fe turned out to be a good call. Nice pool, comfortable room, cold beers at the bar and secure parking! And it was on the way out of town, so we wouldn’t be fighting traffic on our way out the next day. It wasn’t exactly cheap, but the price was reasonable given the circumstances, so we caved and paid up. It wasn’t long before we had our gear off and were racked out by the pool with cold beers in hand….All in all not a bad end to a truly epic day!
Day 22 - Nov 8: Playing it safe is boring - loreto to LApaz
Sleep came to both of us fairly quickly that night and did not leave our tired bodies until later the next morning. Before calling it a night though, Jay and I had a no shitter of a chat regarding the next section of the track which ran from Loreto to Lapaz.
Looking at the map on the GPS, it was clear that it would be another big off road day and even longer than the day before. As Darrin was the originator of these tracks, I sent him a text asking him what we were in for. His reply as short and to the point. “Basically what you did today but longer, more remote. It will be tough big bikes, it will be a challenge”. Darrin knows us well, both personally and as riders, so if he’s telling us we’d be working for it, then we believed him.
Normally, we’d be up for it… after all that is what we rode our bikes all the way to Baja for! But Jay’s bike gave us cause for concern. If it shit the bed out there and we couldn’t get it going or it continually acted up in rough terrain, we’d be in world of hurt. Not necessarily end of days considering we had camping gear and could stock up before leaving in the event we had to camp out in the desert for a night.
Hmmm. Ok, what were the alternatives? Well, the alternative was running the highway out of Loreto and run that all the way to LaPaz.
The upshot was that if Jays bike conked out on us again, I could tow him at the very least. It was also a much shorter day, so we would get into LaPaz with plenty of time to a hotel and have a chance to check out the city a bit. It also had a ton of garages there, being part of the Baja 1000, so if we did need to get Jays bike looked at, we’d likely find a place there and have the time to get the work done.
The down side? Highway miles…350km of Mexican highway to be exact. Not exactly what we would call fun. But to put it into perspective, the off road track to LaPaz from Loreto was 500km of hard as nails off road riding. Even if we did manage to get through with no issues, we’d be rolling into LaPaz super late at this point.
They say that discretion is the better part of valor, so in the end we opted to play it safe and give ourselves an easy day on Mexican Highway 1 to LaPaz.
How was the ride? Pretty much how you’d expect it to be. Long and boring with lots of traffic to deal with. I’d say it was crazy, but I used to live in northern India, so for me the traffic, although a bit heavy at times, was not that bad by international standards. I had definitely experienced worse. That said, you do need to keep your head on a swivel. As much as Mexican traffic is alright compared to worse places (say on the highway between New Delhi and Chandighar), their interpretation on driving etiquette and rules of the road do differ from ours somewhat.
It was not uncommon to have cars and trucks pull out in front of us as we sped along the highway. But if you are prepared for that and expect it, its not too bad to deal with. And they would do it to everyone, not just bikes. Its just how they do their thing down here. Adapt and overcome. To be completely honest though, Mexican traffic is not that bad over all. I mean they get the concept of traffic circles and do it well, which is more than I can be said for drivers back home in Ottawa. YMMV.
So it was, that after 350 uneventful kilometers, we pulled into sunny LaPaz and immediately loved the place! If you’ve never been, it sits on a large open bay with its main drag or its Malecón promenade running along the seafront with beaches on one side and a plethora of inviting looking bars and restaurants on the other (mostly tourist traps). It’s the type of place where its not uncommon to see tricked out buggies and/or trucks doing brake stand burnouts in the street or hang back to create space in traffic ahead and race forwarded, gunning the engines. Lots of military around too, but they all seem pretty chill and into the show as well.
At any rate, we rode through town via the Malecón, keeping an eye out for some places to stay. We had been given a couple of recommendations for accommodations in LaPaz, and made our way to each one, but unfortunately there were no vacancies available. That said, I suspect one or two of them were just saying that as we were looking a bit dusty and raw by this point in the trip….
After being turned away from the last of our recommended hotels, we widened the search a bit and found a place about 3 or 4 streets up the hill from the Malecón. It wasn’t super amazing, but it did have secure parking, a restaurant and was close to the main drag.
Once we had parked the bikes and gotten cleaned up we proceeded to venture into the Malecón and check out the beach a bit, have a couple beers at one of the many bars along the strip and generally just took a moment to enjoy the day. Riding bikes across and down a continent and a half is awesome, but form time to time, doing nothing and just relaxing and seeing the sites is equally awesome.
The rest of the evening was just as chill, with not much to report other than LaPaz is a bumping little place and not just full of tourists. The locals were out in full force as well and you could tell which places were the ones to go to by the line up of locals waiting for tables. Nice to see, really. Most of these were small little hole in the wall type places off the strip but almost without exception, they all had cool looking interiors and great vibes.
We settled on a small place that seemed quite popular with the 20 something crowd. A mix of locals and foreigners… not tourists, not backpackers. Maybe foreigners who were there longer term, but definitely more local. It was a neat little joint.
But as tempting as it was, we were still feeling the miles, so after a few plates of empanadas and as many beers, we called it a night and sauntered back to our hotel to rest up for the final stretch to San Jose.
Day 23 - Nov 8: we rode 11000km to grab a beer! - lapaz to san jose
Nov 9, Day 23: LaPaz to San Jose – Around the Cape.
It really didn’t sink in right away… that this was our last day on the road. After nearly 11000km of riding, we were about to embark on the last 300km. As with any big endeavor that challenges you, you are both glad to be done, but also a bit sad as the adventure is now over and its back to “real life”, whatever that is these days. Though it might sound cliché, bittersweet captures the feeling well, even though we knew there would be plenty of "sweet" moments ahead of us as we made our way to San Jose.
We had breakfast at the hotel, and both of us decided to splurge a bit on a bigger meal to keep us going for the day, knowing there wouldn’t be many options between here and San Jose. Jay ordered scrambled eggs and some sort of bacon or sausage….I don’t recall, mainly due to my own stellar choice for my last meal on the road. I don’t know if it was because I was tired after spend 3 weeks on the bike or what, but somehow I managed to confuse “jamón” which is ham with “camarón” which is shrimp and thus, I ordered a “shrimp” omelet with cheese… Mmmm, delicious!
My first bite was a bit of a surprise to say the least. At first I was like WTF?!, and checked the menu again to see what type of omelet I had ordered thinking if was some sort of jambalaya mix or something. Nope! Im a dummy and ordered a shrimp and cheese omelet (who eats shrimp omelets anyway!?). Like any good buddy, Jay thought this was hilarious and made sure to inform the waiter of my stupidity. The poor guy got all worried and offered to take it back, but I wasn’t having any of it. I told him I was good, picked out the shrimp and shoved the rest down my gullet chasing it with lots of coffee. Job done.
Our route was taking us south along the east coast and down around the cape to San Jose, which is a bit of a suburb of Cabo San Lucas. I say suburb, but it has grown substantially and now boasts a number of big name hotels along the beach and is home to some pretty wealthy folks. Despite this, San Jose still manages to hold on to its local charm which stands in stark contrast to its larger, busier neighbor to the west.
At any rate, we had some rugged terrain to get through yet. Everything east and down the cape to San Jose is out there, with only a handful of small settlements along the way until you’re more or less on top of San Jose proper. There would be deep sand, jagged coastal mountain ranges and highway washouts to contend with. Classic adventure bike stuff.
The first 20km or so was a straight run on the highway headed south with coastal lowlands to the left and higher hill country on the right. In no time we came to our turn off that would be taking us up into the hill country for a bit of jog until we linked back up with the highway. The adventure gods were smiling on us that morning I think, becasue as we were pulling off onto the dirt road that lead up into the hills, an orange KTM 990 was coming from the opposite direction! Needless to say, we waved the guy down to have a chat. Outside of the lads on enduros we ran into shortly after leaving Coyote Cal’s a week ago, this was the only other biker we’d seen on the whole trip… and he was on a KTM. A brother in arms for sure!
Jay and I parked up, as did our new friend, who’s name was Kelly. Kelly was from Minnesota if I recall correctly, and had trucked his mighty 990 to the US /Mexico border in a marathon 36hr sprint from home. Kelly had a week or some other ridiculously short timeframe to make it down to the tip and back! He was on his way back up from rounding the cape when we ran into him. Kelly was a good, salt of the earth type of dude and we hit it off right away. I think we stood there for the better part of an hour chatting about our respective journeys, us amazed at the speed at which this dude was covering miles and Kelly at the sheer distance we had covered on the 1090’s thus far. As fun as it was chatting, we each had schedules to keep, so eventually we said our goodbyes, wished each other luck and got on our way. Its too bad Kelly was headed in the opposite direction, I think he would have been a lot of fun to have a beer with in San Jose.
Despite wanting to sit and chat more with our new found friend, it was nice to get moving again. The track we were following started out as a fun little bit of dirt track. Basically your typical local “road” that would twist and turn its way through arroyos and small valleys. We followed this for a ways up, popping in and out of little settlements of one or two haciendas, but somewhere near the top our track started to veer back down and eventually the local “road” disappeared and we found ourselves essentially freeriding through deep desert sand, wrestling our heavy adventure bikes downhill and through what looked like a forest of Bougainvillea and cacti. Navigation became a bit of a challenge as we had to duck and weave between cacti and these short flowery trees. But the big power of the 1090’s helped us get through. As long as we were on the throttle we could keep the revs up and the momentum going. Tricky Stuff!
This went on for what seemed like forever, but in reality was not that long at all. Maybe 10km or so. When we dumped out onto the highway, I remember getting on the comms to Jay commenting on the track we had just ridden through saying “What the hell was that shit!? RIDEOUT you son of bitch!!!”. In fact, this had become a running joke between us on the trip. Whenever we’d come across a particularly gnarly bit of trail it was “RIDEOUT!” and fists shaking in the air as we cursed his name. All in jest of course…. Sort of.
After that sandy decent, the pavement miles were a welcome break that allowed us to catch our breath a bit before the next off road section, in this case a rough dirt track that wound its way across the El Carrizalito mountains to the Gulf on the other side. The ground was flat as a pancake as we approached the turn off to the mountain track, which turned out to be a pretty steep run as the range rose up hundreds of meters from sea level within less than half a kilometer. The road up was rough but not too crazy, with some tricky sections here and there due to ever present erosion from the sudden rainfall that season. Further into the mountains, the track got more technical, forcing us to take it easy, especially with fully loaded adv bikes. The valleys echoed with a symphony of rock against skid plate, both of us bottoming out multiple times as we picked our way through some pretty rocky stuff. Although it was challenging, it was huge amounts of fun and a ruggedly beautiful place to ride!
About a quarter to halfway through to the Gulf we came over a pass and could see a KLR on its kick stand and a shirtless dude sprawled out against the side of the trail down below. At first we weren’t sure what to think; Did this guy have a big crash? Was he robbed and left for dead? It was an odd site to behold, especially in a remote mountain pass. The rumble of the 1090’s must have roused our shirtless friend, because as we got a bit closer, he sprang up, dusting himself off and waived. It was a particularly rocky section so we parked where we were and walked down to meet our new buddy to see what was going on.
As it turned out, He was part of a bigger group of riders and was admittedly in over his head on this trail and just taking a break. Sick of being last man in at the end of every day, he had decided to leave real early to get ahead of his buddies so he wouldn’t hold them up, but was now second guessing that decision and debating whether he should turn around or keep going. We knew the trail to this point wasn’t too bad. As long as he could get his KLR up and over this pass, it was more downhill than up and it would smooth out before too long. After that, it was nice paved road into the next town. We asked what the trail had been like for him to this point, to which he replied that it was a “shit show”.
Easy decision then…keep on trucking. The only problem was that he was spent and really didn’t feel like he could make the rest of the climb out of this pass. We tried to convince him he was good, but he was still on the fence. Jay offered to ride his KLR up to the top for him though and this seemed to sway him in the right direction. This dude really could not have chosen a shitier spot to stop a big heavy bike though, so I had to help Jay and push to help him up and over the first little bit before he got enough momentum to keep going. His absolute crap set up, not to mention the less than amazing handling of the KLR, made it tricky. No wonder this dude was shit canned!
With our KLR buddy sorted and much happier, we got back on our bikes and bounced our way down to continued on our way. Although it proved to be a great track, it was admittedly technical for loaded adv bikes and definitely felt for our new friend… he had definitely suffered, lol.
Once clear of the steep El Carrizalito valleys, the track turned into a narrow run of dirt switchbacks that followed the coast, ultimately depositing us into the tiny beach side hamlet of San Isidro. As we wound our way down towards town, we came across the rest of the KLR dudes group. All on mid-sized KTM and Huskie dirt bikes, they were all business and were on the charge, no doubt hoping to catch up to there missing buddy. At the pace they were riding, it wouldn’t be long before they would.
Spend any amount of time around Baja veterans, and you will eventually get into a conversation about which coast is better, Pacific or Sea of Cortez? To which the reply is typically, it depends. Up until this trip, all of my time in Baja had been on the pacific side, which of course has its on things going for it. But there is something about the gulf coast that is a touch more rugged, or rather, rugged in its own unique way. It certainly feels just as remote as well. There were definitely some very remote places on the pacific side, but the Sea of Cortez hits a bit different and for sure has its own character. I liked it and was thoroughly enjoying this section in a big way.
After crossing the El Carrizalito range, we found ourselves back on paved road, which stretched across the coastal flatland toward the next set of rugged seaside hills. It had been pleasantly cloudy since we left, keeping the worst of the heat at bay, but as we continued along the coastal road, the sun broke through, bringing the heat with it! The road soon began to climb into more rugged desert hills, transitioning into a high desert plains landscape with a beautiful, twisty road that wound through and down into the small half-horse town of El Pescadero before rising again into the next set of hills and valleys.
It pretty much went like this for the rest of the day, twisties through the hills, small no-horse town, more hills then repeat. The road was great fun, but you had to keep your head on a swivel as there were some serious wash outs every now and then. They were nasty ones too! You’d be riding this perfect peace of twisty pavement only to come around a blind corner and half the road would just be gone! But it wasn’t long before we found our selves in the quaint little suffering village of Los Barriles, ( literally “The Barrels” in Spanish), which has been a prime surfing destination for decades. However, being so remote, it has not yet been over developed to the point of Cabo or San Jose. For that reason it maintains a bit more of a chill, surfy vibe.
We had been going steady all day and needed fuel at this point so we decided to stop in town to fill up and have a quick snack before heading out on the final stretch. We weren’t far now, less 125km to go. We’d be drinking cervezas and eating tacos in San Jose by dinner time!
After some cold drinks, we refilled our camelbacks and decided to do a quick little tour of Los Barriles to check out the beach before we got back on the road. We rode down a few narrow dusty streets before coming to sections of beach where there looked to be few little places to eat. Had we had another day, I think we would have stopped right then and there. Jay was definitely feeling the place and vowed to come back with the family once the trip was done.
Once our scenic loop of town was complete it was back on track. The rest of the day was what can only be described as classic east cape riding. Dusty back roads, vast desert landscapes, sleepy beach towns and epic costal views that never, ever got old! I have been down the east cape before but I always find the views stunning. And this time was no exception. It may not be a tropical paradise like Costa Rica or Hawaii, but make no mistake, the Baja peninsula is a paradise all its own.
The only down side was that progress had caught up to the East Cape area to some degree. As we got closer to San Jose, we fond ourselves on roads I had never been on before, only to realize they were new detours made to accommodate sections of land that had been bought and made private, forcing the road to be diverted further away from the coast line. From what we have heard, this has been going on steadily for years as the rich folks push further and further down the coast to get away from the crowds in Cabo or the govt in California.
With views so breathtaking they were almost dangerously distracting, we made our way from Los Barriles along the epic coastal dirt roads toward the final stretch into San Jose proper. Along this route lies a spot called La Fortuna, which I consider the crown jewel of the east cape. We made a symbolic stop there to ride the beach one last time before transitioning from dirt to the paved road that would lead us into San Jose. The sand was comically deep, and we both came ridiculously close to wiping out right at the end of our long journey. But thankfully, we hit firmer ground and managed to stay upright! It was a short stint, but it held deep meaning: this was the last bit of dirt we would ride on this trip. The last bit of dirt after 11,000 kilometers, from the tiny cottage town of Barry’s Bay, Ontario, Canada, to the very tip of the Baja peninsula. It's hard to fully grasp how far we’d ridden and how much we’d seen over the last three weeks. It still is.
Before long, the familiar skyline of San Jose appeared on the horizon, and soon enough, we were rolling up to the gates of our rental unit. It was the afternoon of November 9th, and we had ridden our motorcycles all the way from Barry’s Bay, Ontario, Canada, to the very tip of the Baja peninsula—a journey that took us 23 days and over 11,000 kilometers to complete. With mixed emotions, we dropped our kickstands for the last time on this trip, stretching our weary limbs. Both of us were stoked beyond words to have finally completed the journey we’d dreamed of for years, yet there was a bittersweet sadness in knowing that the riding, at least for this trip, was over. But Baja has a funny way of getting under your skin and I had a feeling that, although this trip was over, a new one would begin soon enough.
