Goodbye LA Bienvenidos Mexico

Finally is time to say goodbye to LA and my hosts Ted and Bozena. It’s been a while nearly a month. The day was perfect: overcast, cool and slight drizzle. 

 Ready to go.

 Almost

And finally after all this waiting....... go.

I set off on Hwy 5 towards San Diego. I was a bit uneasy. It’s been a while since I was driving on RHS. I kept to the left lane. Bad choice. I was ‘forced’ to leave the highway a couple of times. All towards new experience, no complains. It took only 100 km for the first problem to show up. I noticed my speedo was showing 0 km no matter what speed I was on. I stopped and confirmed speedo cable was cactus. I decided to buy a new one while still in USA. On the outskirts of San Diego I left the freeway and found an automotive shop where I got directions to motorcycle shop nearby. They directed me to Cycle Gear. This shop is nearly on every street in America if you only know where to look. They could get me speedo cable but I had to wait for another day – not an option. Cycle Gear guy was very helpful, he made a few calls and directed me to another store nearby and finally I end up at the distributor to collect it. Not bad, the whole process took me about 2 hours thanks to GPS and the Garmin.

I crossed Mexican border in Tecate about noon. There I got another surprise; Tecate border crossing doesn’t have facility to process import papers for motorcycles. Instead I should have crossed the border in Tijuana or Mexicali which I tried to avoid for security reasons. After short conversation, very helpful Mexican lady official gave me some advise. I can process my papers in La Paz just before I cross the Sea of Cortez by ferry. All good then. Tecata is busy little border town with people generally going about their business. No sign of violence. After getting some money from the bank and paying off my tourist visa I set off towards Ensenada and San Felipe.

Border crossing in Tecate.

Living Tecate for Ensenada

For the first night in Mexico I stopped in Ojos Negros little town between Ensenada & San Felipe. 

After lunch in hotel’s restaurant I decided to install my new speedo cable - but wait ‘the life not supposes to be easy’. I am on adventure holiday after all.  The cable I bought was too short and it needed some modification. After short search I found a guy who helped me to modify speedo cable for only 70 pesos. 

Finally with my speedo working again I am off for San Felipe ---- but wait; when I put all the gear on, I noticed in slow motion, my bike's side stand started to deform. After closer look I could see a crack. I had to find a welder. I was directed to nearby junkyard. They agreed to repair it for about 30 pesos. They fixed it superbly reinforcing it with another tubing welded on top of the weak spot. This repair lasted to the end of my trip. Back to my hotel to collect my luggage and finally I am off to San Felipe. This was very nice ride with hardly any traffic. Hot and dry around 40 Celsius with typical desert scenery.

35 Celsius - still mid morning

Before I reached San Felipe I had to cross this permanent police checkpoint

I got to San Felipe late afternoon. I checked a few hotels, did some sightseeing and decided to carry on.  For my taste the town was too touristy.

I checked this hotel - nice but very busy and they wanted $100 per night for beach camping.

San Felipe street.

The Beach was very nice and clean.

No doubts US expat leaving on this property. Foreigners can't own land in Mexico. In normal arrangement land on paper is owned by Mexican (it might be wife/ husband or just anybody) and then in turn is leased to a foreigner.

After about 10 km I came across dead end, I hit Airport. S#!t I must have missed the turn. The GPS doesn’t work very well in Mexico. Garmin maps are misaligned and often are 10’s or even 100’s of meters off the real coordinates. It was getting pretty late; the sun was kind of reddish. I went back to town and asked for the directions. I got them quickly and was ready to continue my trip but wait a minute, someone across the street called me and offered me accommodation for the night.
I accepted it very gladly. My host John, quit his Air-conditioning business in San Diego several years ago and he chose San Felipe for his retirement.

Next morning direction south along Sea of Cortez. The road starts as very nice bitumen with virtually no traffic.

After about 110km tarmac ends and dirt road begins; mixture of gravel, patches of sand and rocks sneaking at ya at every corner. In my opinion pretty tough track especially when you have large heavy loaded bike. I came across some road building crews building, creek crossing, bridges and preparing new road stages. If you are thinking about doing this epic track, do it now. Not much time left before it gets paved all the way.

All was going really well until I came across this small hill. When I looked down I saw a few patches of sand. Nothing too dramatic. Suddenly my front wheel started going all over the place. I was mowing faster and faster.  The front wheel wobble become unbearable. I lost control and crashed. The speed probably about 40-50km. After the crash, my bike was facing the opposite direction. I laid down for a moment just to check which world I am in. I got up, no problem except for slightly bruised left heal and my ego. My riding gear held up really well. No damage.

But my bike; this is another story. At the first glance; my top Pelican case came off damaging the lock and to my surprise one of the front fairings got damaged too. I took off all remaining luggage, picked the bike up and started it. All good so far. All this in desert heat and no shade. I had about six liters of water. Passing Mexican military left me another gallon of water so I was all right for now.
Of course I didn’t need any help or did I.

I loaded all gear back on.  Jump on the bike and off I go or do I??? . To my surprise my right foot couldn’t find any support. Bummer I lost my right peg.

There is no way I could ride this heavy loaded bike in this condition without the foot peg.
I must find it. I combed the sand around the crash site probably for 20 min with no success. In the end the heat and fatigue overcame me. I needed some rest. I found nice cactus nearby with some shade and laid down. In about quarter an hour I heard some noise. Truck appeared on the top of the hill. It was Mike and Summer going to their beach shack in Gonzaga Bay. They stopped, gave me more water and helped me to search for my missing foot peg. Several minutes passed with no luck. Mike started to improvise some replacement. More minutes passed and suddenly a success I found it about 15m before the crash site.  The bolts where sheared so the peg couldn’t be fixed to the original position. Mike fixed it to the crash-bar.

For me still a mystery how he could manage all this weight. I hope tank was empty...

I drunk about 10 liters of water in an hour.

Now, after short rest we left for Gonzaga Bay about 45 minutes away. Mike loaded all my gear on his truck. I wasn’t fit to ride fully loaded bike with the foot peg attached to the crash-bar.
After all I crashed it with all my gear working perfectly J

Mike and Summer thank you for your help. You were great. Keep in touch. Summer I hope I got your name right.

I settled in Gonzaga Bay for day or so. I needed to repair my bike and have rest. There is Hotel with restaurant  at the very end of Gonzaga Bay. The hotel is a bit dated. Not all the fittings work.
I think $55 a night might be a bit over the top too. The food was good though.

I had to find a mechanic. Mike directed me to Bernie. Bernie impressed me with array of gear he possessed. It appeared, there is nothing Bernie couldn’t do. He had tools for any job. Real asset in this remote location. Bernie, an ex pilot in his seventies with wicked humor who chose Gonzaga Bay for retirement. It took him no time to extract sheared screws and in Bernie’s own words some Baja repairs to the fairing.

Next day I learned I need some welding to my crash-bars. There was an old crack in the weld. This explains why crash-bars failed to protect the fairings.  The crack was old and rusty.

Now I am ready to continue my adventure but not before Bernie equipped me with two shiny straps matching my cases. Thanks for your help mate.

Direction Coco's Corner

Unfortunately I couldn’t  meet Coco in person. He was away.
I did all the right thing though; signed the book, bought a drink and had chat with caretaker.

It was getting late. I promised to myself not to travel at night. I saw some cattle wondering around.
I stopped at the village at the turn off to Bahia de Los Angeles. I asked in my broken Spanish for the permition to camp on someones property. Permit granted. Bahia de Los Angeles next morning.

My camp site in the early morning sun.

Bahia de Los Angeles is a laid back fishing town spread along the bay. Dotted with tens of islands, some are quite large and mountainous some just a rubble of rocks. Thankfully, the developers haven't spoiled the area too much yet. There is no public transport in and out. The place is known for fishing and what I about to find out; whale watching and swimming with whale sharks.

I was tossing the idea between camping or staying in the hotel. First I went to recommended La Gringa beach at northern end of the bay. Nice spot for camping but no shade. In the end I decided on El Diaz hotel. They had cabanas right on the beach for $20 a night. Facility pretty basic no aircon.
I manage to scramble portable fan from the manager. View of the bay from the porch was exceptional, only 25m away from the water edge – perfect. 

 The porch has became my bedroom giving me uninterruptible view of the bay. Not my idea though I borrowed it from my new Mexican friends

Shortly after I settled in I was greeted by my neighbors: Lulu, Maria and Miguel. Two sisters and  brother or much simpler in Spanish tres hermanos from Vera Cruz on their holiday in Baja. They asked me if I want to join them on their boating trip the next morning for some snorkeling and whale watching. An excellent idea; finally I can use my snorkeling gear I carried half way around  the world.  J

The next morning, we set off for our boat ride adventure but not without some drama.
The engine wouldn’t start and the battery died shortly after.

I had to practice some two-up riding, I had to take our Captain to his home so he could bring another battery. The poor guy in his mid 60’s had great difficulties to scramble on to my KLR. Thankfully he managed it in the end.

Our skipper came back shortly after with new battery, started the engine and off we go.

I was a bit skeptical about chances to see the whales and/ or swimming with whale sharks. I know from my experience in Australia, event like this is pretty special. Occurs only at specific time of the year and you need some luck too. I asked skipper about our chances. His answer was ‘Oh, no problem he sees them every day’. After about an hour and half of trolling around the bay we stopped on the beach for customary snorkeling session.  The visibility was pretty average. At this point I was almost sure, the whole trip was just another ploy to keep the local economy going.

More whale searching..... finally wow!!! We saw briefly a whale, shortly after we spotted two shark whales followed by another whale. I think I could have won the world record in putting snorkeling gear on. We swam with two whale sharks.

This whale shark was about 5.5 m long

Dinner time after an excellent day out.

After three days in Bahia de Los Angeles there was time to leave. Tomorrow, San Ignacio followed by Santa Rosalia and Mulege. As usual I had late start. Hey, I am on holiday after all. Traffic nearly non existent. Not even one car until turn off to Mex-1 67 km away. I arrived at Guerrero Negro at about 2pm. I was running short on cash and wanted to get some money. I got shocking surprise.  Every ATM I tried, five in total, did not work with my card. I wanted to get some fuel and learned that Aussie credit cards don’t work here either. I tried Visa and MasterCard. I was told only American credit cards are accepted. To add to the injury they demanded American Express. In Australia AM is not very popular. I pushed on hoping I can get some cash on the way. Today, for the first time since I entered Mexico I met two other bikers. Two guys on BMWs going the opposite way. 

I arrived in San Ignacio and settled in Caravan Park at the edge of town.

San Ignacio - Oasis in the Mexican desert

Convent's church

First use of my hammock and certainly not the last

I liked this place so much; I stayed there for one more night

Mario his wife and the Carp

Late start again. I was considering to stay longer but with this pace I would never leave Mexico.
I crossed peninsula again to the Sea of Cortez side. I decided to stay a couple days at Mulege area.  Arguable the most picturesque part of Baja. Lets pictures do the talking.

Camping Mexican style...

... and beach combing.

Classical view.

I noticed a few yachts in the bay.

I settled in for the first night.

On my way again the next morning.

Today when put my socks on I realized I have socks marked ‘left’ and ‘right’.
Now is clear what went wrong when I crashed the other day.   

But seriously I think the biggest single contributor to my crash was my cruise control.
It is great when cruising on the highway but dangerous when used off-road.

When my front wheel started to wobble I unintentionally pressed cruise control ‘thing’ accelerating my bike even further. Since then the chain reaction started. I feel my tire pressure wasn’t right either. After some experimenting I learned that front wheel pressure is especially very critical. Now in difficult condition I deflate the front to 17 PSI and the rear 18 PSI. On the highway I am running 21/28 respectively. Currently I am using Pirelli Mt21 front and Dunlop 808 for the rear. I am happy to hear some critique from fellow riders regarding tire pressure. I am still experimenting.

I camped on deserted beach a few kilometers south of Loretto. Very nice place with some mystery. For the first time I tried my survival skills. The fishermen in Bahia de los Angeles gave me line with sinkers and some hooks. He insisted I will catch a fish with it, so here we go. When snorkeling I found a mussel and used it for bait. I caught a small fish. I cut it up to pieces and used it for bait again but then my luck left me. No big fish.

Off for some snorkeling

It is getting late

The next morning

.... and my campsite.

 Ready to leave for La Paz

As for mystery, there was a big structure overhanging the cliff about 18 by 10m and 4m high. It looked very new and was very well build. The mysterious part; the were no doors or windows.  My curiosity won end I climbed the structure to see what was inside. It had concrete floor but was completely empty. No marijuana growing or stashed gold.

I left my camp early in the morning. I have ferry to catch in La Paz. Ferry cross Sea of Cortez  to Topolobampo on Mexico mainland. I found La Paz to be the most touristy place during my trip so far. Kind of place where you served with drinks on the beach.

The sand is very nice.

 My last beach camp in Baja. At night it was very windy. My bike's alarm was set off a few times during the night. 

Just before I rode my bike on to the ferry I spotted another rider. It was Arthur. An Israeli rider like me going to Tierra de Fuego. Like myself he wanted to ride Barranca de Cobre or in English Copper Canyon.
This ride became my great adventure. We already crossed the canyon but details in my next post.