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.
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