Be Careful What You Wish For

Angela writes:
So as Daryll explained the Baja desert is hot – frickin’ hot and I am having a particularly rough time thinking or talking or eating during the sweltering heat of the day. The riding is fabulous when we are travelling at 80 to 100 km/hr and there is a great breeze through the vents of our gear and helmets. The problem occurs when we stop mid-day to find accommodation and ride slow and try to make decisions – yikes.  I feel like a bug under a magnifying glass.

This one particular day we knew that there was beautiful camping on the beach south of a town called Mulege. We stopped in Mulege and travelled down some dirt roads and stopped at a place that advertised $5 “camping”. Basically it was a farmer/mechanics backyard with lizards and dirty mattresses which I had to tour in full motorcycle gear looking for a potential spot to set up a tent.  It was like walking around in a dirty oven and once I saw what they called “La Bano”, I decided that this was not the place for us. Gratefully as Daryll and I were trying to decide what to do, a sport fishing Gringo in a jeep drove by and confirmed that there was beautiful beach camping just off the highway about 30 km south of where we were. Getting back on the bikes for some breeze sounded like the best idea and we tore up the dirt road back to the highway. After some sweeping high curves on the highway it opened up to a beautiful sandy beach with turquoise water and shade canopies for camping. We paid our $8, drove up to a secluded canopy, ripped off our gear/ boots and ran into the ocean. Daryll was a bit surprised to find me crying amidst our good fortune but I was just so happy to be cool and in such a wonderful paradise. I think I heard my body sizzle when I ran into the water!  The best part for me was the night time swimming under the stars, with a cool breeze and the water the temperature of a bath.  The relief however is short lived as the tent has to come down the next morning, the bikes have to be packed and the bloody sun comes out again….

While stopped at an abandoned gas station yesterday to rest in the shade, we met a local drinking a beer wrapped in newspaper, while waiting for his brother to pick him up to take him back to his home in Los Cabos. He mentioned that La Paz, our next destination city is an even hotter place than what we were experiencing.  This was not the climate report that I was hoping for.  At the time my dream weather forecast would have been for rain and yesterday I even decided to Google to see if the Baja desert ever got any. Low and behold when we started riding this morning it felt much cooler, and there was moisture in the air. When we stopped to rest on our way to La Paz I even started taking pictures of the sky that I hoped were rain clouds. I didn’t dare believe that they really might be.

Immediately upon arrival to La Paz we went to the ferry office to buy tickets for our 12 hour ferry ride tomorrow to Mazatlan. It only runs a couple times a week so we wanted to make sure to get on Tuesday’s sailing.  We also figure there is going to be a lot of admin work to bring the bikes over so we were in a hurry to get some of the red tape out of the way before tomorrow. We booked and paid for our nonrefundable $250 tickets for us and the bikes to cross over to mainland Mexico.  While waiting at this office we looked on the TV reporting about Hurricane Karl and some flooding that occurred really far away from us on the East coast of Mexico (I repeat we have not been at all effected by Hurricane Karl).  After we got our tickets and found a hostel we were excitedly told that later today it might rain in La Paz for the first time this fall. Yippy Skippy except then I decided to check the National Hurricane website to see what the weather is suppose to be for the Baja and area for the next few days. I discovered that there is a 50% chance of a cyclone developing in this area in the next 48 hours. Perfect, our ferry leaves at 8pm MST tomorrow. I’ll let you know how THAT develops. Oh BTW, it just started to pour….

New pictures uploaded to the Mexico album.

Daryll using his land legs while he can!