Long live the Baja

For me, crossing from Interstate 5 into Mexico is like landing in the middle of the Hang Dong road (those of you in Thailand will know what I mean- those of you not, just picture a crazy highway with people and businesses everywhere and generally in a run down state), straddling my motorcycle, with no plane ride attached. It was wonderful!

The roads were a little more run down. There are very few warning signs for closed lanes. There is a guy pushing a fruit cart the wrong direction down the freeway. The concept of a lane is only that, a concept. In short, one has to take responsibility for one's own life.

With excitement and my heart pounding, we passed "the last US exit" and then we were at the border. We pulled off to get the paperwork taken care of expecting a long line and chaos. However, we parked our bikes in an empty covered lot right next to a series of windows. One for money change. One for immigration. One for the bank (apparently they don't trust the immigration officials to take money for the visa fee). We filled out the paperwork, payed the 20 dollars for the 180 day visa and exchanged cash. In about 20 minutes total, we were back on the road. Very efficient.

We found our way to the 1D, a toll road which winds along the coast of the Baja for a 100km down to Ensenada. From what we had heard, most of the drug related bad stuff that has been happening has happened between Tijuana (the border) and Ensenada. The toll road was empty and a bit expensive (9 dollars per bike) and actually pretty fun to drive. It ends in Ensenada, I called my mom to tell he we were ok, and then we were on the 1. Surprisingly, there was very, very little traffic. I had always heard about lots of trucks and craziness on this road but that was not the case. In about 70 more km, right before the town of San Vicente, we found out why.

I'm in the orange in the middle

We round a corner to a long line of stopped traffic on the road. After waiting for about 5 minutes with no progress, I got off the bike and walked forward a little to see what was going on. I saw a high bridge with a bunch of bulldozers and such pushing lots of dirt around. Yep, the far bank of the bridge had washed out during the last round of storms. As an aside, the baja is very very green right now. Quite lovely.

No problem with the washed out bridge. A track had been cut down to the river and those feeling bold enough were driving across it. I thought back to my experiences crossing rivers in thailand and smiled a bit. It is pretty fun as long as you don't fall off the bike. And even if you do, there are a lot of people around to help you get your bike if it starts washing down the river. On top of that, Irmtraube and Gigi are built for this kind of stuff. The air intake is situated high up on the bike with a large airbox to help separate out any water coming into it.
I tried to video the crossing, but the chest mount for the camera pretty much just takes video of my tank bag and me smashing into it. Next time, I will put it on the handlebars.

With encouragement from the 50 or so people hanging around to watch the fun Megan and I crossed the river with very little incident. For a short time, Megan thought she was floating down the river, but she wasn't. We punched up the deep mud on the far bank with whoops and hollers.
After some great lunch in San Vicente of a torta (sandwich) with carne asada (steak) we set off down the empty road yet again.

After a few more mildly washed out sections we hit another major wash out. This time, the river bed was very sandy (which is not very good for two wheeled vehicles). We scratched our heads in the chaos for a while. Incidentally, riding in sand is not only hard, but you can't actually get off your bikes, because the kickstand doesn't work at all in the sand.

The head scratching didn't last long because with minutes a giant front-loader pulled up and offered to put our bikes in the bucket and drive them across. I politely declined that offer (next time I will probably use it). Instead some guys with a large pick-up said that for 5 bucks per bike, they could drive them across. I nodded and minutes later Irmtraube was lifted into the back of a large pickup and shuttled across. Megan came over on the next "ferry" ride. 10 dollars later and after some great conversation (with my very, very limited spanish) we were off again.

Another aside, this one is the last- i promise- we have these bluetooth communication devices in our helmets from Chatterbox.  It is pretty cool. As long as we are in eyeshot of each other, we can talk and the sound quality is quite good. So as I am waiting on the other bank of the river, I can talk to megan like she is right there.
We were planning in staying in San Quintin but San Quintin itself is not very nice. Nothing looked great but with our gas lights just on, we decided we would get gas and then find a place to stay. First gas station had a bunch of people sweeping the concrete, but no gas. Ok, we'll go a little further south. No gas at that Pemex station either (I think Pemex is the only gas station down here). Further south, no gas. We finally ask where perhaps we can get gas and the guy at the station says that there is gas about 10km south. 10 km south puts us out in the middle of nowhere and it is now 4:45. But we need gas, and we don't really want to stay in San Quintin. So drive south and spot the open gas station by the lines of cars waiting to get gas. 30 minutes later and about 5:30 pm we have full tanks.

Now what to do? We had said we wouldn't ride in the dark and we have about 30 minutes of twilight left. There is a blip on the map 45 km south of where we are called Rosario. It is a small town which is good for ambience, but the maps have so far been relatively inaccurate and it sure would suck to not anything there. We can camp and eat oatmeal for dinner but that doesn't sound like a great option either.
We punch it south riding vigilantly. Because of the wash outs there is no traffic which is nice (and hopefully no bandits either). We pull up to a military check point as it is starting to get really dark. We had heard bad stories about these things, but Megan talked to the young soldier and was ever surprised to see a woman driving a motorcycle at night in the baja. He waived us through with a huge smile and told us that Rosaria is not far away.
And here we are in Rosaria. It is a very cute town just before the 1 climbs into the mountains. We found this hotel which is like a mini resort. It is very well done with exposed wood beams, and giant stone shower and landscaped with stone and stucco. All for 30 dollars. A relative haven.

In short, the first day on the baja was fantastic. The people that we have met are so nice (I can't wait to speak more spanish) and the landscape down here is second to none. I look forward to more days of riding. Our plan (if we can find gas) is to ride to Bahia de los Angeles and spend a few days in this town on the Sea of Cortez. I'm not sure there is internet so perhaps no blog posts for a while but thanks for reading.

Viva la Baja!


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