Day 44

It was a very cold night. The moon was still glowing when I saw the orange begin to grow on the eastern side of the inside of my tent. The few trucks there had been on the road and ceased to nothing during the night and it was absolutely still in the morning. We peeked out of our tents at the same time and looked to the sun. The palos verses cactuses had a glowing halo, their spines illuminates in the low light. 

We ate, loaded up, and followed our tire tracks back to the 3. It was perfect in the morning. Cool, no wind, little traffic, and stark mountains around the plain shaded by shadows. In a short time, we came into Heroes de la Independencia. There wasn't very much open at this time of the morning, but we found water at a tienda. After filling all our bottles (about 9.5 litres in total) the woman asked for 4 pesos. We looked in our wallets but change that small is hard to come by here. She just let us have it. Very kind.

We rode on over gentle hills and looked at the mesas all around. I wondered aloud, "I this what was under all the buildings in southern california this whole time?" Scattered ranchos appeared here and there, some inhabited, some long abandoned. They had signs; "Rancho viejo," "Rancho Nuñez," "Rancho Agua Caliente," "Rancho Mike."

After a long open plain, we came around a corner and began to descend dramatically. Every hill is a surprise here because our AAA map doesn't have topography, but we could guess there was going to be something as we were approaching "Valle de la Trinidad." We stopped for a minute in some shade by a rusty fence next to a Pemex before pushing on to the next town.

We climbed slightly out of the valley and noticed barrel cactuses start to appear on the hillside. I had read on one of the maps we were using that there was wifi and water in San Matias, so we saw the sign and stopped at a Lonchería to ask where we could find them. The man inside told us to go down the main sandy road to town and there was a tienda there. It smelled fantastic in there and Lluc devided later to go back and get whatever it was that smelled so good. At the store there was a hose with a lever coming from the rood where we filled from. I bought a bag of peanuts in the shell and the man behind the desk gave us the password to the network (but he had to ask his wife for it first). We got to talking and he asked where we were going. "San Felipe." "Ah" he says, "conoces a San Felipe." No, we said, we've never been. He made a face, "el calor..." "El calor?" we ask. "El calor como el infierno del diablo (A heat like the fire of hell)." That was encouraging.

I met Lluc after I had sent the "we're alive" message back home over at the Lonchería. To my surprise there were two other cyclists there. Canadians who had ridden down the Greay Divide trail from Victoria, BC. They were on their way to the Baja Divide trail back in Ojos Negros. They were just as surprised to see us. "Haven't seen cyclists for a week or two. Beginning to think we were the only ones left!" We chatted for a while about bike things before parting in opposite directions. It was another rapid descent into an even larger valley, this time without a clear end. The mountains landed in such a broad, uniform plain it looked like the ocean. As we came down there were several large wind turbines being constructed. It was clear why. As soon as we got to the bottom, the headwind became intense.

Tire tracks and blown tires from offroaders were scattered on the roadside. along with burnt sand and some strange spraypaint alters, like a mad max set.

We made it another 15 kilometers before deciding to call it. We were somewhere in the Valle Santa Clara and there wouldn't be another settlement until San Felipe, about 90km away. I scouted an arroyo between hills where I thought we could get some protection from the wind and sun, but the cactuses were too thick it would've been impossible to get the bikes in there. Instead we went out in the open desert towards a larger mesquite tree in the distance. Crowded between 3 small shrubs for the illusion of privacy, we made camp.

Ramen for dinner (our lightweight provisions) and we watched the light begin to evaporate in the dry air. All was quiet out here at the end of the world.