Day 33

Its now Thursday 28 and I have been in Mexico City, I believe, since last Friday. The original purpose of traveling here was to pick up a care package that my folks sent me last week. The package was due to arrive either Thursday or Friday of last week. The package has not yet arrived and I am beginning to feel alot like Humfrey Bogart in Casablanca. Every morning I harass the Fedex people with calls and e-mails. Every day some sort of fresh injustice occurs. Yesterdays injustice was the fact that the Mexican customs decided not to clear the package because they did not have a copy of my plane ticket to leave the country, despite the fact that earlier in the week I had faxed them a copy of my tourist visa that clearly says "mode of transportation: motor bike" and was stamped by an official at the Mexican border.

I guess the upside to being trapped here is having more time to see this huge beautiful city, to meet interesting people in the city, and to hang out with some interesting people at the hostel. On Sunday as I walked around the historic center of the city I came across a Museum of Economics and decided to go on a tour. Since it is a newer interactive type museum, I enjoyed the company of my tour guide Oscar, a university student in Mexico City. We had such a good time during the tour that we got a beer and something to eat afterwords with a friend of his, Lizeth. We had a good time and they offered to give me a personal tour of a few parts of Mexico city after classes on Monday. I gladly accepted and here are some pictures I took.


La Villa de Guadalupe, or the Cathedral of the Virgin of Guadalupe. While the Catedral Metropolitan constructed in the Mexico City Zocalo (town square, incidentally, directly above the old Aztec pyramid and temple complex) the may be considered the largest and most historic Cathedral of Latin America, La Villa de Guadalupe is the spiritual home of Mexican Catholics. The new cathedral that we see on the right is the sight of yearly pilgrimages for many people, some who crawl the length of Calla de Guadalupe as an act of penance (think of crawling down Rainier Ave from downtown to Columbia city to get an idea of what this might be like). When the pope visits Mexico City he gives mass from a balcony of the cathedral. They even have a popemobile that is sort of an exhibit off to the side of the cathedral.


This is a picture south from the Latin American Tower in the downtown center of Mexico City. My GPS clocked the elevation as 7450 ft.


This is a picture of the three amigos. As we were trying to capture some of the lights in the background, the lighting isn´t so great for the rest of us. Oscar is on the left with Lizeth in the middle.

Day 29

When I reached Puerto Escondido I checked my e-mail for the first time in a few days and discovered that my folks sent a care package of climbing gear and bike parts to Mexico City for me to pick up from a Federal Express office. Whoops! Now I need to make a 400 mile trip north to pick up the stuff.

I left town early for Oaxaca, the mid point between Mexico City and Puerto Escondido. It was an awesome drive with the first 100 miles of road seemingly not having a straight section of road over 100 meters in length.

I got to Oaxaca had fun for the evening and left for Mexico City the next day.

Day 27

After consulting with the kind folk at Hotel Eiffel Tower and hearing horror stories about driving in Mexico and decided to continue driving South along Mex 200 to the surfer town of Puerto Escondido rather than attempt a journey east to Mexico City.

The drive South along the coast was uneventful and ended up staying at my first hostel of the trip, Hotel Mayflower, in Puerto Escondido.

Puerto Escondido is an amazing place. Its an internationally renowned surf town, home of The Mexican Pipeline, a hugely powerful wave that reported reaches a height of 60 feet when its big in the summer months before crashing onto the beach. This is the wave that attracts surfers from all over the world to live in this small town. The beaches are full of Mexican, American, French, Argentinian, South African, and Australian surfers. This is also a major backpacker destination as my Hostel was full of European and Canadians tourists. Most of the surfers live in rooms they rent for about $10 a day, surf during the day, hit the bars starting about 10:30 at night, if things go well end up with a girl for the evening, and like the movie groundhog day repeat this process over and over until they run out of money. The more aspirational surfers may take a Spanish lesson during the day or try to find a job at the beach that allows them to live in Mexico a little longer.

In my second day in Puerto Escondido I surfed a relitively sedate 6 foot wave. It was still the biggest wave I have ever tried to surf. I didn´t really catch one of these waves but I did learn to stay back on the board, since if my weight is too far forward I experienced a sensation similar to falling off a brick wall, then having the brick wall fall on my back. I was pretty sure I was the worst surfer in the water day, and if I ever come back I´m going to make a red t-shirt that says "The Worst Surfer On The Beach" so people know to stay away from me. Besides being crushed a few times in the ocean I also got an extremely bad sunburn. I was so burnt I ended up watching a movie by myself, Jimmy Cliffs "The Harder They Come" at a Cinima. Since I was the only guy in a 12 seat theater I got to pick the movie and drink beer and eat popcorn in the airconditioned dark. Heaven! After it was over I hung out with Blue, an Australian surfer and Sammy the woman that ran the theater. We chatted about surfing and living in Puerto Escondido into the evening, and I went back to the Hostel for an early night.

camera phone pictures

I just got back last night or more accurately early this morning. The last push was large, 800 miles or so. I am at work right now using the wonderful Internet for education purposes of course. I will chalk this one up as personal development.

I am feeling a bit tired at the moment so I will only going to upload pictures now.


Chris, Bobby and Carl in Carls' Garage. Carl, thanks for all the tools and parts, we have used nearly everything gave us.


This duct tape glove was custom designed to fit over my gloves. After trying to work the throttle and break with the goofy thing I gave up on it.


Wind mill between Palm Springs and LA. The picture doesn't do it justice.


Pirate Code states. "Pirates do what they can do, and they don't do, what they can't do."
This little rig was designed to replace the chain quick link retaining clip. It worked in this state for 300miles before finally failing. I eventually replaced the wire and fixed it on with a healthy amount of JBweld. We will see how long it lasts but so far it has held since palm springs.


This guy was living in a mans backpack in Zihautinejo.


Boards on the bike at the local surf hang out


This was my bathroom buddy, found him when I reached to put some sawdust in the can when I was surprised by some tiny pinchers.


Ziha's water front



Mexican Wrestling


Chicken Mole with red sauce


Pizole, a local soup. I would liken it to Ramen in Japan, cheap and delicious. This is the best Pizole in town but it is not so cheap.


Uncle Domino and Chris. I think the hour is a little early for the Brownie.


Uncle Domino and his Dream, Thank you for sharing it with us.


Chris in San Mateo coming back from some errand running on my bike. Oil your chain no matter what you read on the internet and beware the evil chain eating chemicals such as Engine Degreaser.

Day 26: Tuesday Feb 19, I think

On Tuesday in Zehau Cameron and I split paths.

Cameron began what planned to be a furious drive back to Seattle with the throttle "taped" open and high hopes to get home to Seattle in a week or so, and hopefully not get fired from his job.

After some indecision on my part about weather to drive East to Mexico City or continue South along the coast, I decided to take the easier path and continue traveling along the coast to Acapolco. Continueing a trend that had begun in the US, I had lost my lonely planet travel guide, a book that to me ranks slightly below my passport and credit card in terms of importance. Thankfully Monday night Cameron and I had run into some Canadians that we were surfing with earlier in the day that were traveling home in the morning, and I was able to purchase a slightly used version of the same book I had lost. Awesome! I knew where I was going once again!

So after another tasty breakfast at the Zehautinajho Pancake house, Cameron and I packed our bags and headed in different directions. I had an easy drive south on Mex 200 about 16o miles to Acapolco. Once arriving in Acapolco things got very hard. The lonely planet travel book for Acapolco sucked: in a city of 500k they only had names for a dozen streets and to make matters worse Acaploco has only about 4 steet signs in the entire city. It took me about an hour of driving around, asking for directions, using the terrible maps and GPS I had with me to find the hotel I planned at staying at for the evening.

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Edit: sorry about the half post. When I was writing the first draft of the post in Oaxoca two Swedish girls and Dutch girl interrupted me with an invitation to go out for drinks and dancing. Like The Godfather, when girls like that make an offer like that, it can´t be refused.
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Anyways, back to the post. I finally made my way to the place I planned on staying for the night, the awesome Hotel Eiffel Tower. After stashing my bike in the garage and checking in for the afternoon a walked into Old Town Acapolco, checked out the town square (always called the zocolo for some reason), took a tour of Fort San Diego that gaurded the harbor and ate a delicous fish dinner at a resturant.

Later that night I swam some laps in the Hotel pool and watched the cliff divers. I stayed up late that night with the owners of the Hotel eating cookies, drinking coffee and talking about Acapolco adventures.

Here are some pictures:


Beautiful Acapolco harbor, well protected from the weather from the hills that line the bay. This was the Pacific end of the old Spanish trading route to the Philipines and the Far East. Think of it as an older San Fransisco with wide sandy beaches. Spanish silver mined in Mexico was traded in the Philipines for china and silk for over 300 years along this route. This harbor was often the subject of fierce navel struggles between the Spanish and various european navel powers and pirates.


The view west from Hotel Eiffel Tower. 10,000 miles to the West is the Philipines. Below my left shoulder are the cliffs that the Acapolco cliff diver jump off.


The famous Acapolco cliff divers. The diver that dove the highest distance, the guy in the middle, dropped about 65 feet into the ocean and needed to clear about 10 feet of cliff to make the dive. Before the divers jump into the ocean the pray at a little shrine on top of the cliff. The thing about the dive that seemed tricky to me is the fact that they need to jump out to clear the cliff and that they need to make a semi technical climb up the rock face of the cliff to reach their diving platforms. I have a small regret that I didn´t swim out to the cliff in the morning before leaving town and attempt my own dive.

some more pics

Chris after a hard day of riding in Guadalajara.


Sunset heading into Santa Rosillia


Pelican flying over the dock in Gurrero Negro

The best whale picture I was able to get.

Chris stoked to be getting on a whale tour boat

Seals on the rocks neer Big Sur

Chris streching his leg outside of Big Sur

View from Schad and Petra´s place in the Santa Cruz Hills

Petra and Schad´s place and the bikes charging.

just pictures

Playas Saladita


Surfboards on the bike


Chris looking awesome


Me with creepy facial hair


Coming into Mazatlan


Our ferry, the Sonora Star


Another similar Ferry


David, looking good


The dream on Playas Saladita, not quite there but showing promise


The reality on Playas Saladita, a nice cool trailer and living facilities.

Day 17

San Rosillia to La Paz

We woke up early with the intent to reach La Paz by early afternoon. I went to take a quick shower to find that the water was not running. Chris used his broken spanish (¿Broke ass Spanish?) to ask for water. The reply was that there was no water in the morning. No shower this morning.

We were on the gulf side of Baja, I was breath taken by its beauty but there was not time to stop. Uncle Domino had a plane ticked to Zihuatenejo arriving in only 3 days. No time to waste! I felt a little sad as I passed through the tranquil town of Mulege, located in a small vally that opened to the sea. The palm trees lined the small river, providing shade and fruit to the area. The climate was noticabley cooler. In my opinion, the gulf was much more senic than the coast, it is one of the places I will am eager to return to.

We passed through a couple towns, none had gas directly off the road side so we continued on. it was about 80 miles on my tank. The is roughly the 2/5 of the operating range of my bikes. I had an extra gallon in my pannier so in a pinch we could both travel 25miles further or one of us could go 50miles and return with gas. Regardless we could still press on a bit. I saw signs to the next town Loreto was 200kilo. Which is damn close to 120miles. If Lorado was the next town this one was going to be close. It would be close the maximum range of the bikes with 4 gallon size gas tanks.

We pressed on, our tanks were reaching a low we had never experienced. To conserve on gas we began to play Tour de France, taking turns drafting one another at the optomal speed of 55mph. In this case drafting means when following your buddy getting as close to the rear end of his bike as possible. Both drivers work hard to not accelerate or decelerate suddenly. Both drivers duck low on the bike to lower air drag so that the person driving the bike in the rear saves fuel. Chris hit his reserve and we knew there wasn´t much left. The Clark tank on his bike was different then mine, reserve could mean another 30miles or it could mean 10. Cars and trucks would pass us and look at us like we were crazy. David caught up with us while we were playing silly buggars and mimed drinking a beverage. Just as he passed Chris ran out of gas but we had a plan. I was too lazy to unpack my gear to get to the gas so we decided to tip chris´s bike onto its side allowing fuel on the right side of the tank to drain to the left side where the petcock siphoned off the fuel. This double the reserve distance from 20miles to some were around 40 if you are playing silly buggars and drafting off eachother. The town was only 5miles away, no problem. David noticed we had droped out of his rearview mirror and returned to see up proping up a bike. He must have though we crashed the bike or something. A few minutes and we were at our favorate store, PEMEX, the Mexican gas station.


The bottom of Chris´s tank at the PEMEX station. Very empty!

We took a break and stoped at a convenience store and bought some soda, chips and tp. We also picked up some beer for the gas station attendents for good karma, they were thrilled. The soda break ended up being too long about 1.5 hours. David then notified us that we had crossed time zones, oops didn´t account for that. The pressure was on, we began to driver faster and faster, becoming more and more brazen about passing slow vehicles. The rolling hills didn´t help with visibility. Our arrival time in La Paz was late, nearly 4:30 and we still needed to find the place and get the paperwork done as we were not sure that the store would be open on Saturday. It turned out to be on the oppisit side of town neer the ferries. We rushed in a panic that the Banhersito, the vehicle licensing agency would close at 5:00 and we would be forced to catch a Monday Ferry. In hind sight this was completely stupid as Chris´s mexico guide book said that the banjercito actually closed at 1:30 Friday but was open on Saturday. I thought Chris was out of his mind, we were traveling out of La Paz at a incredable rate. If we continued this we would shurly end up in Cabo.

We reached the terminal a couple minutes befor 5:00 and were informend the Banhercito was closed. Crap! The guard informed us it would open at 9:00 the next morning. A great sigh of releaf followed. Still pumped from the rush to the terminal we headed back to town to settle in. David lead this time because he had a GPS with destinations programmed in. Coming around a corner we encountered a Semi that had crossed over the center line. It gave David quite a spook as his pannier cleared by a matter of inches, but that was the last bit of excitment for the day.

We booked our stay at a local hotel with an open courtyard that fit all our bikes. The court yard was furnished with plants and a small coocking area. The rooms surrounding the yard had double doors with pad locks. Our room was quite big with a two story ceiling, three full size beds and room to spare. The shower and bathroom was a walled off half way to the ceiling with a curtain instead of a door. The water was hot and the overal conditions quite cleanly, no bugs or leaks. It felt good to get the sweat off my skin and the grease out of my hair.


The door to our room, double doors and a pad lock. I love the warm colors down here.


David and I in the court yard loading up for the ferry

We took a detour and had a drink on the water front where we bumped into a Canadian couple riding Harlies. The sun set over the gulf with a beautiful sillowette of a palm tree. David got an excelent picture. Hopefully I can get it and post it. We then bounced and got another beer and taquila. Before going to be we grabbed some food from a street vender. A local was proud to practice his english and ordered the best off the menu for us. Tired and full we went to bed feeling safe and secure knowing the morning would not be another shit show in Mexico.

Day 14: San Diego to Ensenada

This was an exciting day! After almost two weeks of driving and several weeks of prepration we were actually going to go to Mexico. Neither Cameron or I had ever traveled there, though I felt as if I had a good understanding of the country from repeated viewing of "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly," "No Country for Old Men," and hearing alot things about "Apocolypto." I had also taken three years of high school Spanish over 15 years ago (and in previous travels to foreign countries I can safely say that I have a terrible ear for language and little facility for remembering words) and practiced Spanish for 3.5 hours New Years Eve before attending several parties. Cameron had similar language preparation to me. And now we would be put to the test!

We enjoyed a breakfast at McDonalds (for some reason when I´m international trips I really cant get enough of the Big Mac Value meals, with a side order of apple pie and large coffee to go with the Coke. They are delicouse! And this burger eating policy takes effect as soon as I leave the Seattle City limits). Cameron and I also strategized about what we would do once we got to the border. First we would get the bikes registered, get our visas then quickly visit a cash machine and drive south. As they say in these parts: ¡No Problemo!

Well, things did not go according to plan. We encountered our first problemo at the border itself. We drove to the boarder in moderately light traffic towards a toll both looking thing with traffic moving at about 20 mph. At the toll both area there were green lights and one guy sitting on a stool in the midst of this six lane booth area. The light was an unwavering green. No cars stopped or slowed down. The guy on the stool did nothing. Welcome to Mexico! 100 yards past this booth thingy the road we were on turned into a highway driving East along the boarder. Cameron and I pull over exclaiming, "Shit, how could they just let us into the country like that!" "Why didnt they stop us at the border!" and "How are we ever going to get back to the border to get all our paper work figured out?" After pulling the bikes off the freeway and parking, we looked around and saw that things were alot hotter here, and very dusty. The cars that everyone was driving looked old and beat up, sort of like my Ford Escort back in Seattle. There were alot of people just sort of hanging out doing nothing in the shade. A police officer had pulled over a Mexican car next to us and seemed to really be closely going through the paperwork of the two guys in the car. We quickly decided to NOT talk to the policeman and to try and drive back to the Mexican side of the boarder crossing.

This seemed like it should be pretty easy, as were less than 400 yards from the border crossing and had a GPS map of the area that showed the exact streets on which we were driving, but driving back to where we crossed proved to be difficult. We went around a vast traffic circle with something like dozen cops sitting in the middle of the circle and not a single car following any sort of rules of driving (our strategy, turn on high beams and make noise by reving the engine high). We crossed the freeway we used to enter TJ and ended up in a neighborhood of colorful shanties. The roads we drove on changed from smoth pavement, to rough pavement, to gravel, and finally dusty dirt. Looking down an empty block of dirt road and shanties, Cameron and I decided that we would rather u-turn the bike (usually something that we would frown upon in the US for safety reasons) than drive around the block. It seemed we couldn´t get back to the border on our own, so it was time to start asking for directions. I selected a police woman standing on the street next to some traffic cones and pulled the bike up to her and asked her where the border and the banjercitos (sort of a wierd mexican army band that takes care of vehicle permits) were located. Amazingly I though I understood her directions. We drove off only to find roads and traffic leading back to the US side of the boarder. We didn´t want to go back to the US, so we turned off the road and returned to the colorful shanty town. Emerging from the shanty town, and now maybe 150 yards from the Mexican border station but on the wrong side of a 8 lane freeway, I asked a parking attendent how to get to the Mexican border. He couldn´t understand a single thing I said and I couldn´t understand him. He whistled for a friend that could speak english and a young man ambled out of the shade of the border fence (he was literaly sitting in the shade under it) towards me. He said he would walk me to the border. I asked him how far of a walk it was. He didn´t give me a good answer, so I said "no gracies, no neccisito." I started putting my helmet and gloves back on, while shooting Cameron a lets-fucking-GO-NOW look. The young man asked for something for his trouble. I said "no tengo dinero," which was true actually since neither of us had gone to a cash maching yet. We hopped on the bikes and drove back into shanty town.

This is sort of another interesting things about motorbikes. For better or worse, when we are wearing all our gear and sitting on the bike, we look like an imposing presence. The engine noise makes all conversation below shouting level impossible to make out cutting short awkward conversations, and bikes can squeeze through most any little crack in traffic, in the side walk, in a dirt path to escape a situation. After about two hours of driving around in circles in Tijuana we decided to go back to the US.

Going back to the US, we joined a long line of cars streaming to the border. 6 lanes wide in the blazing sun in stop and go traffic. Now this was what a border crossing looks like! Home sweet home! Happy to have made the decision to go back to the US Cameron and I sat in traffic sweating. Drivers in other cars would helpfully roll their windows down and suggest that we lane split to the front of the line. That sounded like a fine plan so we did it, though I imagine if we had tried such a thing at the Blaine border crossing, people would have had a fit. After we reached the border the guard asked us how long we had been in Mexico and we said two hours. We told him we would return to Mexico as soon as we could get on I5 south. He told us that we were lucky not to be stopped by the Tijuana police (he actually said something like "The TJ cops are all crooks" which I thought was a pretty strong statement considering that he was telling this in his official capacity as border gaurd). After warning us to be careful he let us back into the US and we were on our way back to Mexico.

This time when we entered Mexico we didn´t let the fast moving traffic, the green lights and the sleeping border gaurd confuse us! We drove straight to the vehicle inspection area and asked them where we could get our tourist information filled out. They motioned us towards a long line of windows besides the inspection area parking lot. Cameron and I started husteling back and forth between variouse banking, visa, and tourist offices getting visa stamps, maps, and paying various fees. As an American this feels like a terrible lot of beuricratic red tape, but having experienced this type of thing throughout Mexico I am fairly certain that it is an anticorruption measure. They seperate the guy that gives you the visa, from the guy that you pay for the visa, from the guy that stamps your visa to make it more difficult to work a scam to take your money. Another interesting thing is that often the guys that help us fill out the official paper work tell us things that we knew to be untrue about traveling in Mexico. The visa guy said that we didn´t need to import our vehicles into mainland Mexico (which we knew to be untrue). After stamping our visas he also asked for some money for a coke. We declined (¡No tengo dinero!) and after confirming with a second guy in a tourist information both that the banjecito that we needed to get to for importing the vehicle was in the neighborhood of the crazy roundabouts and colorful shanties Cameron and I decided to drive South ASAP and worry about importing our bikes at a later time.

Relieved to be leaving town, Cameron and I drove south in the afternoon sun down Mex 1 towards Ensenada. After TJ, this felt easy. Traffic was light and the road was good. The sun shone over a beautiful blue ocean and desert landscape. After leaving TJ houses began to look alot less shanty like. The only thing that was funny about the drive was that Cameron and I had decided to not attempt to locate a ATM in TJ, and after spending about $30 cash each for visas (they do not takes cheques or credit cards at the border) we were running short of money. Mex 1 out of TJ is a toll road and we would be stopped periodically and pay tolls of about $2 per bike. After about the third toll both we had run out of money and had to ask the toll both operator to take mercy on us and let us continue driving. I´m sure that the toll both operator had a good laugh with his friends about the indigent americas that somehow snuck into the county later that night.

Ensenada was a dirtly wonderful little place. We had a great room, and I was relieved to be safe in Mexico after the days adventures.

Day 16

Guerro Negro to Santa Rosillia

We woke up arround 7:00, thing were already starting to get hot. I packed up a little while Chris went to check up on the tour times. Apparenty the first tour started at 10:00 so we had some time. I made tortillias and beans, this time we knew to add a little water to the pan before adding the beans. This kept the hot spots cooler and didn´t burn the shit out of the beans immediatly. Chris´s little stove was working well. It was nice to move at a slightly relaxed speed again.

We arrived for the whale tour arround 9:30 and relized it cost 400 pesos a head. This was too much, we wouldn´t afford gass to the next bank machine if we did this. We could quick disasemble the bike and break into the reserve US $60 that remained from the dip we took on the Autopista to Ensenada. We talked our selves out of spending all our cash and with quite a bit of sour grapes we finilized packing our gear on the bikes. I turned the bike off of choke too erarly and stalled it on our exit and realized I had left the keys in the on possition and the handle bar heater on high long enought to kill the battery. Doh!

Now it was engineering time again. I knew we couldn´t jump the bike off a car because we hadn´t replaced our trickle charging fuses with higher amperage ones yet. This ment we could charge the bikes but if we tried to kick over the engine current draw would immediately blow the fuse and the exernal cable I routed to the battery would be useless. I could remove the panniers and mounting rack and do the traditional jump technique. I could also hook my bike to Chris´s bike and let the alternator from his bike charge mine. We didn´t make a bike to bike connector. Well time to engineer one, I clipped to the hot side of the handle bar heater switch on his bike and back striped a ground wire and clipped to it. Some sparks flew but I was going to be optimistic this time. Mean while we were attracting attension from the tour staff. One that spoke english came and asked if we were ok. I replied yes and explained our cash delima. I managed to bargan a reduced price on the next boat. The bike started up and I found the lock for my Pack safe. What a turnaround.

We ditiched our stuff in the parking lot and hopped on the next boat. There were only 6 people on our tour the previous boat held upwards of 16 people looks like we got the deal. As we headed out on the lagoon we saw a male whale breached the surface at full tilt almost completely exiting the water and landing with a giant splash of water. The Mothers pushed there noses to the sky so there eyes would rise above the water line. We asked about the behaviour and were told they were looking around. Obviously we were a bit of a curiosity. Eventually the boat was within meters of the Does and their caves. It was amazing, I was glad to have made out even though I had spent most all the money. Admittedly after an hour and a half of being on the water scorched by the sun and chilled by the water I was ready to get back on the bike.

We puttered off not knowing how far we were going to make it. We speculated on a number of spots but San Rosillia was definatly a need stop on the map because it had a banks with chash machines. We cut across baja through national parks. There were no major towns for some time, 200miles between official gas stations. Chris bought us a couple gallons of gas from a local vender selling out of a pickup truck. The desert was very unique portions of it remeinded me of a field of parcly that had gone to seed. Low ground cover with ocasional jutting groth with a bit of dispercement near the top. Soon cactus began to grow tall, the type of cactus that is depicted in cartoons. After having animals run through the road at dusk we decided not to travel at night. We stopped short in San Rosillia after experiencing the most unreal pink sunset over the mountains.


Our stay in San Rosillia was a test on our spanish. We paged through the Lonely Planet Book looking for places to stay and thing to do. The streets were dimmly lit and often not labeled. The GPS Mexico maps had nothing but a dot indicating a city. We first stopped by a bakery that claims to be world renoun. I bought a short bread like muffin filled with thick sweet cream cheese. It resemble one of those mini shortbread pecan pies but without pecan pie filling. It was amazing. Dinner was 200 pesos for the two of us at a very nice Mexican resturant including appetizer and cerveza. Some searching later we found a place to stay. The owner had gone to be alread not expecting costomers later in the evening. A local nocked on the door for us and we were in for 150 pesos. There wasn´t much to the place, two clean beds in a quaint little hotel with a soft brown courtyard, some local dogs and a little greenary. No TV, not so great plumbing but that is the norm here.

Days 11, 12, 13

After a celebratory Friday night, Davie left San Diego early Saturday morning for an academic conference (side note: Ashers boyfriend Davie is an accomplished medical doctor and HIV researcher as UCSD with, I believe, funding from 4 R01s at this time... in short, a lot of smart people think you are doing good things if you get this level of funding. It was alot of fun to be able to discuss some of the ins and outs of my PhD research with someone after leaving Seattle).

Much time was spent in San Diego at Asher and Davie´s place resting up for a few days and preparing to get ready to ride into Mexico. This involved approximately a 8 trips to various motorcycle and tool stores looking for bike parts and equipment: we tried to find a spanner wrench to adjust my rear suspension -- we failed in the quest for this tool but purchasing a giant pipe wrench seemed to do trick with this adjustment, a chain tool and new chain, oil filters, oil, and o-rings to change the oil on the bike, knee pads to wear under our motopants, and lightweight gloves to wear in warm weather. Cameron and I worked on the bikes changing the oil and adjusting the suspension on the rear spring of the bike so it is "harder" and better accounts for the heavy load of gear and equipment on the bike.

We visited a Washington Mutual bank to convert some dollars to pesos but it seems that banks do not commonly do this sort of thing anymore, leaving it to travelers to convert their money from ATMs once they enter a foreign country.

We also visited a travel agency, Discover Baja, with extensive experience organizing trips to Mexico and talked to them about what kind of vehicle and health insurance we would need on the trip, what visas we would need to enter the country, and what type of documentation we would need to import the bikes into Mexico. We visited San Diego AAA and a map store. In San Francisco we had discovered that we would need copies of our vehicle titles to complete some of the Mexican vehicle importation paperwork and mom and dad had kindly mailed the letter to San Diego. I picked up this letter at the Hillcrest neighborhood post office. For many of these errands Asher and Aline generously allowed us to borrow their cars. And Cameron and I only got a little lost driving around San Diego.

After fixing the bike we had plenty of time for fun. Asher and I talked about school and old times. Asher cooked amazing dinners both Saturday and Sunday nights. Unice, who speaks fluent Cantonese and Mandrin, treated us to a real Chinese brunch of Dim Sum at a Chinese restruant in San Diego Sunday morning. We watched movies Sunday night and had a going away celebration Monday night. Both Asher and I were feeling a little under the weather Tuesday morning. It seemed just like old times at Seattle University. I was excited to go to Mexico but sad to leave great friends in San Diego.

Day 15

Enesenada to Guerrero Negro

We awoke bright and early around 6:20 with the intent to get to Guerrero Negro before nightfall. We moved a little slower than anticipated and had a nice cup of coffee with David a fellow adventure rider we bumped into the night before. David was a white South African, born in what was Rhodesia. After living in South Africa and retiring from his advertising company David had decided to ride around the world for six years on a motorbike, a BMW GS650: a somewhat heavier and more road oriented version of our own bikes. David offered up some real coffee and we obliged. Without a filter he poured the grounds and hot water directly into our cups. I had done this once in the past with mixed results. The key is to stir the grounds until they sink to the bottom. Chris took two swigs and dumped his in the bathroom and then made instant coffee, I gritted my teeth and endured the texture. Meanwhile, David went on about a great deal of interesting things. David felt he had lost his home for the second time, as South Africa had become too dangerous for even this adventurer.

On the road by 9:00 and on our way. The roads were now all highway and we feared they might be slow. The opposite was true, the road were quite clear in Baja. One could easily do what ever his bike would and skills would permit for the majority of the trip with the exceptional slow vehicle and topo (Mexican speed bump) here and there. We drove along the coast for the majority of the morning. Before heading slightly east into the interior we found some single track dirt trails to the water. Here we burned some beans and served them in flour tortillas we purchased from the Oxxo (Mexican Plaid Pantry). The food may have been terrible but we loved it just the same. The cost was similar to most of what we has seen in the us and before Enesenada, stunning as ever but this was the first time we has seen dunes and Pelicans.



Pictures from our luch side track

Full and ready to leave we pushed talked about our destination and strategies upon arrival then headed off. The road winded thought some hills and the road became quite bad in places. All maintainance was done by hand with a crew that fit in a pickup truck. We passed several accidents but this was becoming normal after our experiences in Tijuana an Enesenada. Night fell and we found the visibility conditions to be terrible. The lack of reflectors, rumble strips and fresh paint made staying on the correct side of the road difficult. Dull yellow looks similar to white especially when you are staring into oncoming traffic. We arrived in Guerrero Negro with a little adrenaline on our breaths and quite fatigued. It was time to get off the road.

Our first stop was at the hotel and restaurant know for it's excellent seafood. This was a bit of a tourist destination with whale tours only a few miles away. The Lonely Planet suggestion proved to be good again with an excellent diet of fresh fish we hoped back on our bikes in search of a campground on the beach. Fifteen miles of dirt road through a sea salt production facility and we found our spot. The sky was all stars, not even the moon polluted the sky. It was so clear you could tell the color and twinkling of stars you had never seen before. The milky way was not just a haze but a band of tiny lights, we could see by the star light. The tent was pulled out for the first time and we were fast asleep ready looking forward to the next day.

400 miles in total