Date: 31/10
City: Playa Azul , Mexico
Kilometres ridden: 312
Cumulative kilometre: 24453

Our room was nice but had only some small windows, so we slept in a bit. We were ready at 10AM.

After getting out of the city we got onto a nice two-lane road. Closer to the cost the road turned into a one lane windy road, great fun to ride. Unfortunately there are not many places to pull over and take pictures of the great scenery.

After an hour we stopped at a petrol station and had some breakfast/lunch.

The next bit of road was great, windy with trees around, everything looked lush and green. From time to time we saw the beach, we really enjoyed the ride.

Around 4PM we looked for accommodation, and we found something nice in Playa Azul, with a pool. This time I had to pass the reception to park the bikes in front of our room.

I had another look at the chain, this time with a wrench and moved every link and oiled it until it could be moved reasonable easy. Sigrid organized food then we had a swim and dinner. We didn’t do as much distance as we thought because of the windy road. We will have to start a bit earlier tomorrow and stop just short of Acapulco.

Date: 1/11
City: Acapulco , Mexico
Kilometres ridden: 355
Cumulative kilometre: 24808

We packed up and left, getting out was easier than I thought. We drove for 20 minutes when we saw a Walmart. So we stopped in the hope to get some chain oil and some other stuff. On the car park we met two other motorcycle riders, Chris from Alaska and Brook from Canada. Chris is on his way to Ushuaia; Brook will turn around in Panama. We left the car park after a short chat before the two and around lunch we decided to stop at a restaurant on a cliff, facing the sea.

After ordering our meal Chris and Brook arrived. Sigrid had fish and I ordered…….right, scrambled eggs. To vary it a bit, I ordered it without bacon ( possibly because they didn’t have bacon πŸ˜‰ ). The meals were freshly prepared on a wood fire stove.


So we exchanged more details, took some pictures, had a nice meal together and then we departed. This time Chris and Brook went first.

We meandered and decided to stop in a city 30km before Acapulco. When we arrived, the town looked terrible, congested and not very pleasant streets, so we decided to keep going afterall. The GPS was suggesting some accommodation in 14km. So we followed the GPS, got stuck in a traffic jam for an hour arrived at the hotel but decided to keep going, as that hotel didn’t look nice either. Then the GPS suggested a hotel 2km further (as the crow flies), and after 20 additional minutes through maniac traffic we arrived at the place where the hotel should be, but there was only a plaza. Todays hunt for a hotel was going great. It was in exactly this moment that a guy came running towards us, offering to show us a hotel. We looked at the hotel, but the rooms looked terrible. As luck would have it, there was another guy who tried to show us a hotel earlier just after the first guy. He had mentioned that the rooms are not nice in this hotel, so we went with him. He ran uphill to show us the hotel. In the end we took his hotel. The advantage of the hotel was that it had a pool.

By the way, we were now in Acapulco. From the top floor we had a view over the whole bay.

After settling in the room we went shopping to gets bits for dinner, had a swim and a shower after that. The shower had two tiled steps down to the bedroom, and Sigrid slipped on one.
Luckily nothing was broken, but the elbow and the wrist were sore, so we put plenty of ice on it. I hope that it doesn’t swell so Sigrid can ride tomorrow. Below, Sigrid with a wing on ice :/

Date: 29/10
City: San Gabriel , Mexico
Kilometres ridden: 152
Cumulative kilometre: 24119

Our plan was to get to Colima tonight, so we packed our bikes, took a couple of pictures (there was a golden mirror in the garage πŸ˜€ )

and started to get out of the city. We had a small detour planned, riding to the Plaza Panoramica Bugambilias to have a look at Guadalajara as it was recommended by Salina (we meet her in La Paz). We missed the plaza somehow but we got a good view from a small chapel.

The view was limited; I believe it had more to do with the humidity than with pollution.

The houses around this area looked pretty expensive.

Then we turned towards Colima and stopped after a long stretch of roadworks. We bought a coffee and while we were sipping on it, a Mexican motorcyclist arrived. His name was Fernando and he was a wealth of information.

He gave us a list of good motorcycle roads, names of cities on these roads and recommended taking another road to Colima. At the same time we would pass the volcano, which is the main attraction of Colima. So we changed our route and drove into the hills instead the boring Mexican 80. The progress was slow but the view and the streets were amazing. Unfortunately our camera gives up whenever it’s a bit hazy, so the pictures don’t do the real view any justice.


With climbing up the hills, we started to see the clouds coming closer. No surprise there since the weather forecast predicted rain. So after seeing the first drops on our visor we changed into our raingear and continued. The biggest challenges were the potholes, some were big enough to create serious problems. When it’s dry they are already interesting but now the holes were filled with water and they were barely visible whenever there was any standing water on the road. But we took it slow and arrived at Tapala safely. I entered Tapala as a via point into my GPS, so the GPS guided us to the Church in the middle of the town just to bring us out again. However getting out was not as easy, since the recommended street looked like a one way street where somebody had randomly dug trenches. So we tried to find another way out, but the one way street system brought us back to the church. After the rain the cobble stones were slippery, we had plenty water puddles and potholes. We continued, ignored the road that the GPS was showing us, trying some other roads, but the one way system brought us right back to , you guessed it the church. Close to the church was a pub and people were sitting outside at the tables. After we passed them the third time, they started to smile. I guess, somebody who likes mazes designed the streets. Finally the GPS gave in and showed us another road that we could use, so we did. On the way to the next township, the roads wound up some small mountains and we passed a couple a ‘small’ hill slides which sometimes blocked off more than half the road. It must have just happened after the rain. As before, we took our time and we arrived in San Gabriel around 4PM safe and sound. We went to one of the two hotels and at the front desk we met Eva, she was very helpful and we had fun trying to figure out if we could park the bikes securely. Finally we established clear communication using Google translate πŸ˜€

After we parked the bikes we chatted about what we and she were doing. Then we went shopping and had a look at the local church. πŸ™‚

After Fernando’s recommendation we are reviewing our central Mexico trip plan again. Not sure where we are going tomorrow.

Date: 30/10
City: Colima , Mexico
Kilometres ridden: 122
Cumulative kilometre: 24141

In front of the hotel they served breakfast, just right for us. During breakfast we discussed which route to take. We decided to take the easy way out and would continue the picturesque way today, continuing along the coast to get to Puerto Angeles as fast as possible. There we would stay for a couple of days and rework the rest of the trip as a baseline. The current plan finishes one month too late and we have to see where we can save the time. So we took off, had a nice ride through windy hilly roads.
Then we came to a T junction where a car clipped Sigrid at the panniers, just at the beginning of an embankment. Sigrid griped the brakes but the side of the embankment was just a bit too high for the bike, so Sigrid tipped over and the bike landed on the side on the embankment. I saw it happen in my back mirror, but had to drive until I could turn around, because of the aforementioned embankment. When I was back, one driver has stopped and helped Sigrid to get the bike from the embankment. Sigrid was ok, the side protector in the new BMW trousers prevented major bruising and the bike has now a leaking pannier, other than that, everything was ok (water leaking pannier on the right picture).

Both of us were relieved that nothing more had happen. After a while we recovered from the shock, and continued. We decided to make it a short day and stop at Calima, at a hotel that I had looked up. We arrived there early in the day, got a room and parked the bikes in a secure area near the pool. We did some maintenance, I oiled and examined both chains and Sigrid polished our boots.

After so much work we had a swim and a short nap before we went to the central plaza where schools had a competition to the topic, Altares de muertos – Altars of the dead. There we found exhibits made out of vegetables, fruits and other materials. I was impressed by the creativity of the kids.

On our way back, we visited, yes you guessed it, a church, before we had dinner. At dinner we went to a restaurant and I had an enchilada, this time it was sweet. It still tasted nice, but it was unexpected. At night we sat on the balcony,

in nice warm weather and briefly planned the next four days. It will take us at least two days before we arrive in Acapulco and then another two to get to Porte Angel, so the next four days will be a lot of solid riding.

Date: 27/10
City: Guadalajara, Mexico
Kilometres ridden: 63
Cumulative kilometre: 23967

In the morning we were heading to the Tequila Museum and on the way we walked through some small markets.


The Tequila museum was not as good as we thought, I guess we missed a lot of explanation since it was only in Spanish, be we saw some original tools used to produced tequila.

I thought we might get some free samples when Sigrid puts some work in πŸ™‚

And I made sure that not one drop was wasted J

After the museum we went back to the church plaza to have breakfast. The atmosphere was very relaxed and pleasant –check out the movie clip

Then we went back to the hotel, jumped on the bikes and rode 63km to Guadalajara, arrived at our hotel of choice, which was full. Darn! The traffic in the city was pretty slow, stop and go. So we tried another hotel, it was fully booked as well, but they recommended another hotel. There was something quite discrete about it… by the business card it seemed to be a ‘by-the-hour’ hotel. Not sure why they recommended a hotel like that to us πŸ˜›

These hotels have a very good reputation in South America, but not so sure in Mexico, so we gave it a miss. At the end we found a nice motel which still had a huge room for good price. They also had a fridge and cooking facilities. The bikes could be parked in a garage during the night too which suited us well.

In the evening we went and had a look at the Cathedral – which was huge!Β  It looked like there were five different churches within the cathedral.

Then we wandered around the cathedral, the places and buildings reminded me a bit of Berlin.

It looks like Montezuma’s revenge has done good things to our figures; let me know what you think πŸ˜€

There were a couple of things that took us by surprise; the first was the animated pedestrian traffic light which started to run when the remaining time got shorter.

The second was electronic price tags in super market and

The last surprise for the day was to find a clothing store company that we know from Germany, C&A.

For us Guadalajara seems to be a cosmopolitan metropolis, as we found out later, it is the seconds biggest city in Mexico.

 

Date: 28/10
City: Guadalajara, Mexico
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 23967

Nothing much planned, we walked through the historic centre and looked at the local subway system.

We also discovered that they had a car free city centre on Sundays, only bicycles are allowed.

We had a look at more churches and museums.

Looked at the preparation for a step dance show in the evening,

Looked at some government buildings (avoided visiting the prison),

went over a plaza where they had some masonry craftsman ship exhibition,

looked at plenty of stalls, sat in a cafe and let the life pass by. Then we went home and did our blogs, what a relaxing day.

In the next five days we will try to make it to Porte Angels, a nice beach area, where we will stay for a couple of days.

Date: 26/10
City: Tequila, Mexico
Kilometres ridden: 394
Cumulative kilometre: 23904

We managed to get up early; I guess sleeping the whole day and not watching TV helps with that πŸ˜‰
So by 8:15AM we were on our way. The morning was foggy and our glasses started to fog up as well.

The fog slowly disseminated and we had clear sky an hour later. We stopped for a break close to Tepic. It was just 11:30 and we had two teas hoping not to upset our stomachs. Looking around, we were definitely in a rain forest area, everything was lush and green.

While we were sipping on our tea we watched three kids trying to open some nuts with a stone, that was fun.

A bit later we drove through an area that looked completely overgrown. You couldn’t really make out any trees any more, just the shape of them covered with some sort of creepy crawler. You could imagine that whole building would be swallowed in no time, so I made sure that Sigrid kept moving, otherwise……

Tepic was our tentative goal for the day, but it was too early and we both felt good, so we decided to go to Tequila. It was a nice ride especially when all of the sudden the road was leading through an old lava river. You can see the lava on both sides of the road.

Then we arrived in Tequila. This time it took us some time to find a hotel. I inquired at 5 hotels, partially in English, partially with a Spanish phrasebook and partially with Google translate. None of the hotels had air conditioning for a single room. In the end we settled for the one where it was easy to park the bikes. So we unpacked and Sigrid had a shower. The bathroom was higher than the bed room and all of the sudden water started to run from the bathroom into the bedroom.

It turned out that a rubber plug was put on top of the drain to avoid some odours entering the room and we had to remove the plug before starting to shower. Great, nobody told us, but now we know. πŸ˜€

After dinner we had a stroll in the city center, but unfortunately I didn’t take my camera. It was party time on the road and on the main square. A band was playing and people were sitting there and listening to it. It was a very pleasant atmosphere; I guess as soon you have families with kids around it seems to feel safe to me. On our way back we made a brief stop at a Tequila bar – when in Tequila – taste the Tequila and eat some Quesadilla (cheese tortilla). The atmosphere in the bar was nice, and it was interesting to observe the different characters there. After we went home we realised that we didn’t have a picture to show that we had tequila in Tequila, which was just not right. So we grabbed the camera, went back to the tequila bar and had 1/2 tequila each, just for the picture. πŸ™‚
The owner was amused, either about us coming back or trying to explain that we would like to have half each and if she could take the picture. She put the two bottles on our table just for taking the picture… πŸ˜€

And after taking the picture, she went away and came back with 2 samples of a better tequila, hmm, that didn’t taste bad.

So went home with our pictures as trophies. Hard work to get them, but, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. πŸ˜€

Tomorrow we will visit the Tequila museum and ride to Guadalajara, which is just 70km away.

Date: 24/10
City: Rosario, Mexico
Kilometres ridden: 70
Cumulative kilometre: 23510

In the middle of the night on the ferry it started, and the toilet was mine for the rest of the evening. Did I mentioned that there was no cabin left with a toilet in the room so we booked one without? >:/
According to our clocks we arrived one hour earlier, but we found out that there was a time change on the mainland. So we were just in time. Mazatlan looked nice from the boat, but it was warm and humid.

When we got our call (I only understood ‘motos’) over the PA we went down to the bikes, undid our entire crafty tie down, and off we went.

We must have problem with harbors though. First we didn’t find our way into the Habour in La Paz, and this time we couldn’t get out. Just follow the fence until you find a hole or some military guy with guns looking at you strangely.
Anyway, I was just happy to have my life and to get going ~ the air condition on our bikes only works when we are moving. πŸ˜‰
The temperature was around 30 degree and humidity around 80% – just looked it up.Β  So we decided to take a toll road and try to get to Tepic which is 280 Km away. After 50km we pulled the plug; turned off the highway and got into a hotel with air-condition in Rosario. That was it for me, I slept the rest of the day in a nice cool room and Sigrid had to do all the work, parking, securing and unpacking the bikes.

Date: 25/10
City: Rosario, Mexico
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 23510

I felt good in the morning, Sigrid didn’t.Β  Sigrid got a milder version of what I had, so we both slept nearly the whole day. In the afternoon we felt that we should move a bit so we decided to visit the church with the golden altar and have a look if we could find a super market to get some bananas and some Saladitas (salt cockies) and Gatorade (Ionised drink). That was our staple diet for the day.

When we left the church I found a bicycle secured with the church bell ropes πŸ™‚Β  No batteries needed.

So we went home and had ‘lunch’. Just before sunset we parked our bikes in the motel hallway. I like to park the bikes there πŸ™‚

Here is a picture of the sunset.

Tomorrow we will try to start a bit earlier, since it gets very warm later in the day.

Date: 23/10
City: La Paz, Baja, Mexico
Miles ridden: 20
Cumulative miles: 14565

We took our time to get ready since the ferry was leaving at 17:00 and we should be there three hours earlier. I took a couple of pictures of the court yard, since there were so many items (nicely put) to see. Did I mention that some Trip advisor reviews used the word quirky? Here some closer shots.



Any when I though I got everything, Sigrid ask me if I took a picture of the monkey. Which monkey?!? There was the front of an old car and in it was a monkey wearing a hat.

We really enjoyed the two days here but now I was keen to get to the mainland. So we set the bikes up and I got them out of the court yard. It was surprisingly easy and the damage to the house and interior was minimal πŸ˜€

Then we drove to the ferry to arrive there the allotted 3 hours before we had to leave. It took some time before we figured out where the entrance was. While passing through customs we got on a scale too – the bike including me weighs 310Kg.

Then we arrived at a roofed area and were siting there for three hours before we got moving.

Our ferry from the side

When we arrived we talked to two bicycle riders. It turned out that they are from Germany and Austria. During our conversation more and more motorcycle riders arrived. We met one from New York, (Well, previously from new York, at the moment he is living on the road), on guy from France, one from Mexico and a couple from Canada (Kevin and Karin). As it turned out, Karin is from Germany and moved to Canada elven years ago. Karin didn’t feel well; she had something to eat a day before that didn’t agree with her. Anyway, we had dinner together and had a look at the upper deck. The temperature was perfect and the see was calm. We took the last picture of the Baja peninsula. Adios Baja, viva Mexico Mainland (no idea what this in would be Spanish).


Date: 18/10
City: Guerrero Negro, Baja, Mexico
Miles ridden: 262
Cumulative miles: 13988

Before we started we had a look at the street report. Hurricane Paul hit only the southernmost bit of Baja, so the roads up to Guerrero Negro are fine. Some bridges were damaged further south but the construction crews were working on it and only minor delays are to be expected. So we said goodbye to Alfonso, the very nice person at the front desk, took the mandatory pictures with the Didles and Brice,


and started to get going, a bit earlier, just in case. It was an easy ride; we had a short stop at a hotel, where, for a smalls surcharge, you can book some company in your room.

We decided to give this one a miss. The landscape started to get more interesting with cacti fields surrounding the road.

At some places we could see some red cacti; the landscape looked just nicer with that red coloured dot in.

For lunch we decided to give a road side restaurant a go and it worked out perfectly. After entertaining all customers in the restaurant with our non-Spanish, we got finally the omelette with bacon from the breakfast menu, even in the afternoon.Β  Victory! πŸ˜€

When we arrived in Guerrero Negro, we met two young pushbike riders, coming all the way down from Canada. One guy built the pushbike himself, out of bamboo, with some sort of soya glue. I was impressed! Unfortunately I didn’t take a picture, but we got a link to his web site: www.grassframes.ca . Here we parked our bikes the first time on a walkway just in front of our windows.

In the evening we realized that this was our 200th day since we started our journey. We celebrate it with Salami, Crisp bread and a beer. When we were eating dinner, we meet Harold from California. He is driving through Baja and likes to have a look at ancient cave paintings and the Missions that the first JesuitsΒ  set up around this area. He gave us tips what to see and where to stay as well what to see around La Paz.

And we had a nice sunset.

Date: 19/10
City: Santa Rosalia, Baja, Mexico
Miles ridden: 137
Cumulative miles: 14125

Today we were not in a rush to leave. I found a hotel in Santa Rosalia that had really good critics, so we planned to pamper ourselves a bit. The landscape was flat and boring at the beginning, but got more interesting later on. We were again in a hilly area with plenty of cacti around. After the experience in the road side restaurant, we stopped at another to have some lunch. This time we got really adventurous, Sigrid ordered something that I haven’t heard before (turned out to be a fish soup) and I changed my omelette to scrambled eggs πŸ˜€.


I couldn’t resist, when we left the restaurant I took a couple of picture of the cacti around.

Not long after that we arrived at the hotel and booked a nice room with sea view.

After a short power nap we went back to the town to have a look at a prefabricated church, designed by Eiffel (same guy who designed the tower in Paris). After trying to find the address on the internet, we were just driving to the city and looking for a church tower. It sort of worked, we had a look at a school, a comunity building and after asking other tourists, we had a look at the church as well.

So if you are in desperate need for a tropical storm resistant church kit, here is what we have for you! J. The church itself is build out of metal, so it is not very impressive, but the colourful windows make it a bit more interesting.



After having a look at the church we got a bit hungy and walked through the old town core where we found a bakery, that claims to have world famost bread. Hrmmm… to be honest, I don’t recall ever having heard of it.

So after a short shopping spree we went home and enjoyed the view onto the sea and a beautiful sunset over the hills.

During diner, the owners cat was walking around, she looked very similar to our cat Snowy.

After sunset we went to bed, not sure how far we go tomorrow, it all depends on the road conditions.

 

Date: 20/10
City: Loreta, Baja, Mexico
Miles ridden: 197
Cumulative miles: 14322

 

We started around 10AM and our way guided us around a bay, which was the first time that we saw a sandy beach in Mexico. During our ride we started to see the first washouts, and at one place there was only one lane left, so we let the trucks from the opposite side pass before we attempt the crossing.

We also had our first water crossing.Β  Luckily it was not very deep, and so far everything went without a problem. The landscape was just great, with the mountains around, the sea and the cacti.

So we arrived in Loreta pretty early, filled the bikes up and drove into the city to the hotel recommended to us. The description was “the hotel is adjacent to the petrol station”. Unfortunately the hotel was full, so we followed a sign to anther hotel which was at the sea, but it was extremely expensive. So we turned around went back to the main road and found a motel for half the price. Our room is facing an old church and we could park our bikes in front of our door on a tiled walkway. Cool, that’s how I anticipated Mexico.

After settling into our room, we walked through the city, had a look at the church,


 

had lunch/dinner in a bar/restaurant and strolled around the city, where we discovered the beach. At other places the shore was just stones, no sand at all. This was the first time we put our feet into the Sea of Cortes, the water was warm.

This is a brave move particular after seeing the monster living in the sea.


When it was my turn to get the picture taken, I dropped my wallet into the sea, bummer. On the picture the water is still dripping out the wallet.

Then we went back to the room, looked for accommodation in La Paz, how to book the ferry and how to get on to it. I was writing my diary when a ceremony in the church started (with ringing a bell around 7PM and pretty girls standing in the church door. It looked like a communion.

I love this place; it is great to observe what is going on. It feels a bit like sitting in a street caffee. We will see how far we go tomorrow, if everything goes well we will end up in La Paz.

Date: 21/10
City: La Paz, Baja, Mexico
Miles ridden: 221
Cumulative miles: 14543

In the morning we had breakfast and watch people going to the Sunday mass, well, it was the second mass of the day, the first one was at 6AM and we decided to stay in bed after the church bells stopped….

The first part of the ride was through cacti fields in the mountain; from time to time we got a glimpse of the sea.

We had lunch in a small township, just after we crossed a road flooded by water. I was adventures and had omelette, Sigrid had Chilaquiles which is a sort of tacos with hot sauce and cheese; it tasted nice.

We took off to the most boring part of the day, straight roads surrounded by farmland. After an hour or so we had another coffee, just 120km from La Paz. After the coffee the landscape got more interesting, curvy roads with cacti. We arrived in La Paz, ask at the petrol station for directions and got them. When we arrived at the destination, we ask the next person (a mother with her daughter and her grandchild), for directions and she actually gave us a piece of paper with a drawing of where the hotel was. When we arrived there, it was really the hotel that we were looking for but we were not sure if they had secure parking. Before we got off the bikes, a young guy approached us and told us that we could park the bikes securely in the inner courd yard. So I hopped onto the bike, drove a short bit in the wrong direction along a one way street, got up two steps from the road with the bike and onto the pedestrian path into the hallway.

After that we removed the boxes, and drove it into the court yard.

But there was a second bike, so I took up the challenge a second time. It seemed to be warmer and more humid here than it was in Loreta, I would say around 30 degrees but humid. After we parked the bikes and settled into our room, we met Selina from Germany. She studies in Mexico and then travels through Yucatan during the semester break. We got some pointers for Yucatan; it seems that our trip in mainland Mexico gets more and more defined. Then we went shopping and had some dinner. By the way, part of this hotel is a Laundry service every 3rd day, breakfast and 2 Tequila for every guest (we didn’t know that, honest). So at dinner the night porter came along and asks us if we would like to have our tequilas, so we said yes, got them, updated our blogs and drunk 1, 2, hmm 3 Tequila

After that straight to bed ..passed out on the floor πŸ˜‰

Date: 22/10
City: La Paz, Baja, Mexico
Miles ridden: 2
Cumulative miles: 14545

Did I mention that we selected the hotel because it was described as a bit quirky and some comments like ‘shoot the roster and it is nice’ where there? Well, around 5AM we knew what they were talking about, there was a roster who did his morning thing. To be honest, it was not too bad. When he stopped we stayed in bed a bit longer. We finally got up and had breakfast (cereal and coffee). Here is a picture of the court yard boss πŸ™‚

After breakfast we drove to the Baja Ferry outlet, to purchase our ferry tickets.

It worked very well; they called a lady who spoke English. Except for putting our names onto the ticket, (I was ‘Bjoern Melbourne alessa’ and Sigrid just ‘Geb. Krebs’) everything else went well. After purchasing the tickets, we went back, passed a street stall where we bought our lunch, some sort of Scampi cocktail, very nice.

After a short nap we packed our stuff for the beach, had a short look at an photo exhibition in the town hall,

Went to the beach had a short swim, took some pictures


And then went home to plan the middle part of Mexico. Tomorrow we will leave Baja and go to the mainland.

 

 

Date: 15/10
City: San Quintin, Baja, Mexico
Miles ridden: 117
Cumulative miles: 13722

Sigrid had a swim in the morning,

Did I mentioned before that the pool was not heated and the nights are not hot in Ensenada, ok, this morning I volunteered to guard the bed, somebody has to do it. So we took it easy, filled up our bikes and set off towards San Quintin. The ride was not very eventful, finding the hotel was a bit more difficult. The night before we looked up a hotel that got good reviews in the trip advisor, but there was no real address, just the name of the town. As it turned out, the town was bigger than I thought and it was not easy to find the hotel. So we started to ask around (with our limited Spanish) and it turned out the all the hotels not on the main road have a sign at the turnoff. So we followed the main road until we found the sign, headed along the corrugated dirt road and arrived at a beautiful place, which had clean rooms and a beautiful garden.

So we booked in and during unpacking we meet a group from California, which came down to celebrate the 106th birthday of a Mexican lady in the next town. They had known her for years.

They did know Baja like the back of their hand, so they helped us to break the trip to La Paz down into sizeable parts and suggested as well hotels in the appropriate towns. That helped us a lot, since looking for hotels in an unknown city is still our weakest point. It started to get dark, so we decided to ride two up to the next restaurant at the beach. To cut the story short, after encountering long patches of beach sand and getting stuck in a pothole filled with sand, we turned around. The pic shows me trying to turn the bike.

Dehydrated food didn’t sound too bad after all. On our way back we meet Uli, he was locking for a hotel. So we ended up in the same hotel and having dinner together (somebody drove us in a car to the restaurantJ. Having said that, our driver took another road J not quite as sandy… It turned out that Uli is from Germany. He took three month off and tries to go as far south as possible before returning to Germany. So we talked about the preparation for the trip, shared our experience on prepping the bike, the border crossing and our experience in the US and Mexico so far. After the pleasant dinner we realised that Uli can make telephone calls in Spanish, bummer that he has to race off, would be handy to have him along! The pictures show Uli making a call to Michael, our driver and Uli, Michael and me)


 

Date: 16/10
City: San Quintin, Baja, Mexico
Miles ridden: 4
Cumulative miles: 13726

We heard rumour about Tornado Paul, he is supposed to hit Baja in the afternoon, somewhere in the south. Checking out the map we decided to stay until Paul has passed.

Uli tries to meet somebody in La Paz and decided to get to Guerrero Negro this day, which is 450km away.

After checking out the setups bikes and comparing notes Uli had to leave.

After Uli left we thought we get food and booze, just in case that the hurricane would hit San Quintin J, so we went to the city and went on our first shopping spree in Mexico. Well, we ended up in a super market, but at least it was a Mexican oneJ.

It took us really long before we got what we needed, but at the end we succeeded thanks to our phrase book. So we were prepared for Paul J. A spinoff of Hurricane Paul were the clouds which gave us a beautiful sunset.

Date: 17/10
City: San Quintin, Baja, Mexico
Miles ridden: 0
Cumulative miles: 13726

Nothing today, it was just some planning for the rest of the Baja trip up to La Paz. The hurricane moved to the sea again and didn’t come up at all. Nevertheless, we got a power outage. So we started to redraw our map on the bikes and repack some luggage

when we meet Clara from Argentina. She is a biologist doing some research project with her husband in San Quintin. She was supposed to evaluate the samples that her husband brought before, but without power there was not much she could do. So we had a beer and a great conversation instead.

We will leave tomorrow and try to get to Guerrero Negro, 460km from here, so it will be an early start.

Date: 14/10
City: Ensenda, Baja, Mexico
Miles ridden: 106
Cumulative miles: 13605

Today is the day, we cross the border to Mexico. After hearing all these stories about Mexico we revised our planning on which border crossing we would take and which way we are traveling through Mexico. We adjusted the border crossing from Ciudad Juarez, which is the most violent area, to Tecate, a small border crossing in California. We will travel through Baja and cross to the mainland by ferry. We were a bit nervous but got on our way around 9:30, last pictures from us in the US, at least in 2012.

We arrived at the border to Tecate around 10:30. We stopped on the US side, looked for a migration office to hand over our I-93 form. Well, it was Sunday and the office was closed, bummer. Luckily, there was a very nice border patrol woman, which took our forms just outside of the office. Great, that went well, now we can cross the border to Mexico.

Well, there are no pictures of us crossing the border, only from the border itself.Β  After handing the form over to the US authority, we hopped on our bikes and drove through the Mexican checkpoint, overcoming some of these half metal balls glued to the street which makes the back tire jump left and right. After passing the first metal speed bumps without dropping the bike we approached a boom gate, which magically opened, and there were more of these speed bumps. So we mastered them as well, looking at the road searching for other obstacles. All of the sudden we realised that we were in Mexico, but…
What happens to all the paper work to get our visa and to import our bikes? So we turned around and drove back to the border, parked our bikes at the exit and locked everything. Sigrid stood by the bikes and I approached one of the guys with the machine gun. Luckily he spoke a bit English and showed me where to go to get the immigration paper done. I went to the immigration office and the guy went out of his way to help us to get the paperwork done and fees paid. He also pointed us in the right direction for our temporarily vehicle import. The biggest problem for the vehicle import was to get a copy of our just acquired tourist visa. It was Sunday and most of the shops were closed. Across the road we found a pharmacy that had a copy machine as well. We got everything sorted at the border and we don’t have to do any paperwork later in La Paz. It took us two hours and we were on our way. I must admit, the first impression of Mexico was that people are really nice and try to help if they can. Mexico, here we are πŸ™‚
We had a bit of difficulty to find our way out of the city, since the GPS was not very accurate and nor were the street signs. After a short scenic tour through Tecate we were on our way to Ensenada.

We found a nice colonial accommodation with a pool in downtown (CBD) Ensenada with secure bike parking. Sigrid had to relax in the pool before we had a short walk on the boardwalk.


It was Sunday afternoon and there were plenty Families on the boardwalk, which created a pleasant atmosphere. So we had a look at this huge Mexican flag. In Lonely Planet they suggest that it would be visible from Space, not sure about that, but it was huge.

We also found some sea lions relaxing in the afternoon sun – any similarities to Sigrid at the pool, hmm, not sure πŸ˜‰.

On a close by lawn area we found these three large head sculptures. Not sure about the importance of those guys, I guess I have to look that up a bit later.

Not speaking Spanish has its own challenges, simple signs like this leave you puzzled.

Obviously there was something prohibited, so we took a picture and Google translate showed us that we should keep of the grass. πŸ™‚
Ok, next time πŸ˜‰
Well, we had similar problems on the highway, but between the two of us, we mostly had some idea what these signs mean – well more of an idea than at the grass one… In the evening we went to the restaurant across the street and celebrated our first day in Mexico with a nice glass of local red wine and some local food, hmmm, it was good! Tomorrow we will travel 200km to a hotel that got good reports in the trip advisor. Not sure how to find it since there is no address, just a town name…