Day 45
It was dead still all night. Not a single leaf to stir. The animals I thought I heard were only the hairs of my beard brushing against my sleeping bag as I slept. We had dropped almost 2,000 feet from our camp last night so it was much warmer. A perfect night for sleep. It gets dark around 7 and we have not much to do after dinner, so we've been sleeping from then until dawn, around 6. A good long early fall hibernation.
Lluc wandered off to watch the sunrise with his coffee cup and came back with a big stalk of a yucca plant. With no kickstands it's hard to pack our bikes without a tree to lean them on, and we often use sticks as "backcountry kickstands" but there's no sticks out here. The yucca stalk was a good find.
Somewhat of an obstacle course to weave our way through the cacti to the road, but we got there and checked our tires for spines. From there it was straight on towards the Sea of Cortez. What had seemed like a flat road yesterday with the wind, turned out to be a slight decline and we rode with ease down the open valley. Lluc said, "I think I can see it (the sea)." I wasn't sure because it was so large and light blue it blended with the sky and haze. As we rode closer I couod see the shimmer of the sun on its surface. That was it.
20 kilometers flew by and soon we came into a military checkpoint where highway 3 meets Mex highway 5 from Mexicali. A young soldier stopped us and he spoke quickly so it was a little difficult to understand, but we pointed at the bags and he looked inside a few, none of them thuroughly, almost as if he was looking just to look. Apparently he didn't find anything of interest so he said "Bien viaje" and we got out of there.
It was 50 kilometers to San Felipe still, without a single bend in the road. Straighter than a razor. Flatter than a board. Luckily there was shoulder to the highway here and we rode quickly to make distance before a midday wind picked up.
Our only rest was at the remnants of some seaside resort "Villas Cortez." Another developer's dream turn nightmare.
There were a few more of these places, some that seemed successful, and we started to see signs in english again and then white people in 4-wheelers.
We pulled into town at noon, way ahead of schedule. We needed showers and laundry bad, and though we couldn've gone on, this wouod be the last big town we'd hit in 4 or 5 days, maybe more, so I thought we should stop and resupply for the rest of the day. We found a hotel room we could share with an internet connection and pulled the bikes in with us.
Town was interesting and we got our groceries at the Calimax by the arches at the entrance to town. On the way we stopped by the bike 'hospitol' where we found a man amid many buke parts hanging from everywhere. We aksed him is he knew the road south of here and if he thought we could make it on roadbikes. He said there's a lot of hills and potholes and the bridges are out but they are fixing them. We probably could do it. At least, that's what I think he said, but maybe thats optimistic translation.
At dusk we took a walk down to the Malecón and watched the fishermen full out their boats and some other men with nets grab the last of the shellfish at low tide.
We settled on "Mariscos La Palma" for dinner and shared a big fish filet with rice, pico and limes. We toasted to making it and to the roads ahead. May they be full experience we do not yet know we desire.
Lluc wandered off to watch the sunrise with his coffee cup and came back with a big stalk of a yucca plant. With no kickstands it's hard to pack our bikes without a tree to lean them on, and we often use sticks as "backcountry kickstands" but there's no sticks out here. The yucca stalk was a good find.
Somewhat of an obstacle course to weave our way through the cacti to the road, but we got there and checked our tires for spines. From there it was straight on towards the Sea of Cortez. What had seemed like a flat road yesterday with the wind, turned out to be a slight decline and we rode with ease down the open valley. Lluc said, "I think I can see it (the sea)." I wasn't sure because it was so large and light blue it blended with the sky and haze. As we rode closer I couod see the shimmer of the sun on its surface. That was it.
20 kilometers flew by and soon we came into a military checkpoint where highway 3 meets Mex highway 5 from Mexicali. A young soldier stopped us and he spoke quickly so it was a little difficult to understand, but we pointed at the bags and he looked inside a few, none of them thuroughly, almost as if he was looking just to look. Apparently he didn't find anything of interest so he said "Bien viaje" and we got out of there.
It was 50 kilometers to San Felipe still, without a single bend in the road. Straighter than a razor. Flatter than a board. Luckily there was shoulder to the highway here and we rode quickly to make distance before a midday wind picked up.
Our only rest was at the remnants of some seaside resort "Villas Cortez." Another developer's dream turn nightmare.
There were a few more of these places, some that seemed successful, and we started to see signs in english again and then white people in 4-wheelers.
We pulled into town at noon, way ahead of schedule. We needed showers and laundry bad, and though we couldn've gone on, this wouod be the last big town we'd hit in 4 or 5 days, maybe more, so I thought we should stop and resupply for the rest of the day. We found a hotel room we could share with an internet connection and pulled the bikes in with us.
Town was interesting and we got our groceries at the Calimax by the arches at the entrance to town. On the way we stopped by the bike 'hospitol' where we found a man amid many buke parts hanging from everywhere. We aksed him is he knew the road south of here and if he thought we could make it on roadbikes. He said there's a lot of hills and potholes and the bridges are out but they are fixing them. We probably could do it. At least, that's what I think he said, but maybe thats optimistic translation.
At dusk we took a walk down to the Malecón and watched the fishermen full out their boats and some other men with nets grab the last of the shellfish at low tide.
We settled on "Mariscos La Palma" for dinner and shared a big fish filet with rice, pico and limes. We toasted to making it and to the roads ahead. May they be full experience we do not yet know we desire.
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