There are daily flights from La Paz back to the Bay Area. But I hate flying with a bike. I decided to take the slower option. One less international flight. One more travel adventure. The nice thing about the bus is that there’s no need to dismantle the bike. Or even pay extra for it. All I had to do was take off the front wheel. Which, I learned from a bearded white guy on YouTube, is super simple. I bought a couple of cheap plastic travel bags to stuff all my gear in. I also brought about a week’s worth of candy and empenadas and other snacks. The ride to Tijuana takes 24 hours exactly. Not ..read more

I woke up to an incredible sunrise. Also, so many tiny terrible bugs that I actually pulled on my mosquito head net. Getting bit was a good motivator to pack fast. And I was pleased to be using all my gear on these last couple days. Paved road goes by so fast. I could tell I was getting closer to tourist land. RVs dotted the nicer beaches. I saw so many places to camp that looked so much better than where I’d ended up. Oh well, probably they had bugs too. I hadn’t made coffee (I know, shock!), so I pulled into the first roadside restaurant. I eavesdropped on the ladies in the kitchen until the ..read more

Oh look at that. Day 47 and also my first day of being 47 years old. I woke up several times in the night to re-inflate my mattress pad. That big agnes pad was expensive but not Baja-proof. I was out of alcohol so I made a quick little fire to heat my coffee water. I’d never had such an easy time getting campfires going. There was endless fuel lying around, even the kindling. Even bushes of dry twigs that I could mash down on top of my one piece of paper. The road followed the coast. Almost flat but not quite. To the west, green layered cliffs rose weirdly. What was the green? I tried to find ..read more

While I was making my morning coffee, an old man came walking up the path. He did a double take when he saw me in my tent. We chatted awhile. He let me know that he was single and available. Then he said to come by his house if I needed water. I went to his house. A nice old woman filled my water bottles. I think she was his wife. Possibly he lied about his relationship status. How about that. My birthday treat was some candy I’d kept myself from scarfing down the last two days. The best was this big gooey coconut log. I love anything coconut. This is my last hundred miles. I went by a farm fu ..read more

It was a windy morning. Things tried to blow away but I caught them. Once again I was climbing mountains. There were road crews out. They were building drainage and paving the stream crossings. The high passes are paved too. I had to walk on plenty of the hills. Not because I can’t ride up, just that they’re too steep. Don’t start thinking that I’ve got a handle on this mountain biking thing. I walked a lot. Sometimes it was just easier to keep walking instead of climbing back on. Once I ran into a sand trap. I started to skid out. I looked down and saw that it was all sand under me, no rocks ..read more

I washed my pants in the sink and dried them with the hair dryer. Afterwards they looked even dirtier. There must be layers of dirt and stains. At breakfast, an older man came to my table, asked if I spoke Spanish, and sat himself down for a chat. He told me about his years living in California, buying and selling used machinery. One of his daughters married a Korean man who runs an agricultural outfit in Baja, growing some kind of nafta green veg. He said he has a ranch now, but he comes into town because it gets a little lonely. I told him I admired Baja ranch life. He said I could come visi ..read more

It rained off and on all night. I worried that I might wake up in puddles, or a mud pit. But no, the ground was still solid under my floppy mattress in the morning. It was sprinkling, just enough to be super annoying. I hate packing in the rain. I figured the ride into Ciudad Constitucion would be easy enough. On the map, it was all straight lines. Well traveled dirt roads. I rode by long rows of agriculture, a few orange groves, some tattered plastic greenhouses. I went by a small busy quarry, and for the next few miles I shared the road with great big trucks, sand and gravel blowing off the ..read more

Super foggy morning. I woke up to a world of gray outside my tent. I put up a rope and hung up my fly to dry. Goats bleated in the distance. Teeny tiny hummingbirds visited the pale yellow flowers growing out of the rocks. By the time I was packed up, the goats arrived. They stared at me from rocks, skirted around, nibbling at anything edible in goat’s reach. The road continued same as yesterday. Often when I came to a water crossing, there would be a solitary donkey or horse hanging out. They’d perk their ears towards me when I yelled hello and patiently wait for me to leave. I was kind of ..read more

During breakfast, I met another cyclist. She was riding solo, hitching a little. It was exciting to meet another woman. I was having a long slow morning so I guess she got ahead of me. San Javier was full of day tourists up from Loreto. They stood around the mission staring at the rock walls and orange trees. All the little stores sold touristy things. Usually I skip over those things since I can’t carry new stuff. But I went in one to buy milk candy and saw some small embroidered cloth bags. The guy at the store said they were sewn by people who live out on ranches. I imagine them sewing arou ..read more

I rode about 10 miles to San Jose de Comondú. A steep drop into a canyon bristling with date palms. It was a sleepy mission town. Two tiny old ladies with a really small chihuahua sat chatting on a bench by the plaza. I bought some snacks and had a look at the mission. The store didn’t have a water machine. I was going to go down to the river to filter water. Then I met some nice girls and they gave me water from their house. The climb out of the canyon was no fun. So rocky. Then a big bumpy downhill. After 10 miles I pulled over to eat some food. That’s when I saw that one of my water bottles ..read more