Desert Camp spot to San Lucas Cove

After leaving my desert camp spot the road saddly didn´t improve, its was a terrible combination of washboard and sand and my morale was pretty low, the views were great though!  Around midday a pickup truck passed me that had a cyclist in the back and it stopped just ahead of me.  I was pretty jealous that the guy had managed to get a lift for part of this terrible road.  He got out of the pick up and we ended up cycling together for the next four days.  The cyclist, Tomo from Japan had started about 6 weeks ago in Vancouver and was heading towards Patagonia.  The road luckily improved slightly as the day wore on or maybe it was just the company making the expierence more bareable.  We finally arrived at Rancho Grande, just outside Gonzaga Bay at around 2 and stocked up on some supplies and got ourselves some tasty beef tacos.   We then cycled for another ten miles before finding a nice camp spot by the road.

The next day we got up early and carried on along the road, it was nice having some company although Tomo struggled a little with my accent.  For our efforts and they were considerable we were rewarded with great views all day but saddly it was hard to enjoy them as it felt like I had an nuematic drill for a saddle.  About half way through the day we got to Coco's Corner, a tire shop/campground/general reststop that was ran by the charismatic Coco who kept a journal of everyone who passed through.  The drinks were overpriced but I had been dreaming of a cold drink all day so bought two cokes while Coco drew pictures of Tomo and I in his Journal.  I got a chance to look in his journal and saw that only one other cyclist had been through this year and that was about 2 months previous so it was very lucky that i met Tomo on the road. 

We regretably decided not to camp at Coco's since it was still early in the day and pushed on over the mountains back to the paved Route 1.  The dirt road joined back up with Route 1 next to Chapala, which isn´t really a town, more of a reststop, but provided us with the chance to buy some water before cycling another 5 miles and setting up camp.    The next day we made about 70 miles, it was nice being back on the pavement and with a tailwind the miles seemed to fly by.  The desert scenery was nice but I was starting to yearn for something different.

We arrived at Guerrero Negro early the next day and I decided to take a day off.  Tomo  headed onwards deciding that Guerrero Negro wasn´t the nicest town to take a day off in.  He was spot on really, it was a pretty ugly town but my body baddly needed a rest and I stayed at the Malarrimo Hotel and RV park for two nights.  They charged me about 70 pesos which I thought was pretty reasonable since I had been charged 100 pesos at an earlier campsite with terrible facilities.  While at the Malarrimo I luckily bumped into Jim and Liz from the Durango, USA and they invited me to come and camp with them at San Lucas Cove just passed Santa Rosalia.  I actually had quite a nice time at the Malarrimo, there was an excellent fish taco stand just down the road and I was enjoying my current book about a woman who relocates to Tuscanny for part of the year!

 The next day I had to wait until the bank opened since I hadn´t paid for my tourist card yet.  I left around 11 but due to favourable wind conditions and the road being mosly flat I made about 85 miles and pulled off into the desert just as the sun was setting.  The next day was quite scenic and I passed through San Ignatio, an oasis town in the desert, which was a nice change before pushing on to Santa Rosalia.  There were some decent climbs after San Ignatio but I didn´t feel like I´d earnt the massive downhill down to the Sea of Cortez.  The decent was a nice surprise but the road was narrow as per usual and the trucks seemed to fly round the bends at quite some speed!  It was probably the most dangerous section of the road, the trucks were taking the downhill sections as fast as possible to get momentum for the uphill sections, an unusual strategy for such a big vechical but it seemed to work.  I arrived at Santa Rosalia in the early afternoon, the town had a nice vibe and it would have been nice to stay but i decided to cycle another 10 miles to met up with Bill and Liz.  I arrived just as it was getting dark and was invited to dinner with wild Bill and his wife, some friends of Liz and Jims.  When I arrived I didn't look a guy you´d want to invite to dinner having just ridden 155 miles through the desert in two days without a shower, so a big thank you for the invite.   Everyone was interested in my trip and we talked over some beers and great food about my motivations for doing the trip.  

The hospitility that I recieved while staying with Liz and Jim from both them and their friends was amazing.  I had the chance to take out a kayak and did some snorkling.  I also went fishing for the first time with Jim, which was a great expierence and managed to catch a few different fish, which was more down to Jim than any skill on my part.   During my stay everyone seemed to want to feed me, this seems to be the case everywhere I go, even at home, I'm not really sure how I manage to this but it's a good skill to have.  After three relaxing great days I reluctantly  packed up and headed south.

Some Recent Photos from Mexico

A selection of photos from the last few weeks in mexico.

I met Jim and Liz in a campground in Guerrero Negro and they suggested that I should come and camp with them at San Lucas Cove outside of Santa Rosalia.  I had a great time relaxing, enjoying some great food, kayaking and fishing.  Thank you both very much!

This is Tomo from Japan, who I spent four days cycling with, as he decends down to the paved Route 1 after three days on the dirt.

I met Joe and Bryan about 30 miles before Mulege and camped with them for 4 days at a mostly deserted beach in Bahia Conception.  They are hoping to cycle down to Argentina then down through Northern Africa to Europe if they don't run out of money.  You can check out thier story at thier website http://www.wekeepgoing.com/.    Joe managed to catch a puffer fish with his make shift fishing set-up, a few days earlier Jim had told me they are poisonous and I've just read on wikipedia that they are the second most poisonous vertebrate in the world!  So I'm glad we decided not to eat it and instead used it as bait.

A photo of Bryan, most touring cyclists don't look this well kept.

The beach we stayed at in Bahia Conception

Sunrise at the beach

A Tasty Crab cooking over the fire that we caught using the puffer fish as bait!

This inspired photo was Joes great idea.

Hopefully get some more photos online soon.

Mexico! Mexicali to Desert Camp Spot

On the 31st of October I made it to Mexicali, and passed into Mexico.  It was an eventful day, I woke up before sunrise as I wanted to get to the Mexican border early and get on a bus to San Felipe.  On my way to the border I passed some cyclists and asked them if they knew of a nearby bike shop since I needed a few things and figured it would be less stressful getting them in the US. They directed me to Finish Line in El Centro.  The guys at the bike shop were extremely friendly and I left in a pretty positive mood, I got a new chain, cassette, saddle and the boss threw in some innertubes and puncture repair kits for free.  He also warned me that I should  take my old chain since bike shops were going to be few and far between in Baja, Mexico.  I told him that I´d never had a chain brake on me before and I should be ok . I would later regret this decision.

When I got to the border I knew I had to hand in my US visa waiver form so they´d know that I´d left the country.  This turned out to be harder than expected.  After following signs for the border crossing I ended up getting into Mexico before seeing any sign of  US customs.  I turned around and asked a US border control guard where I should go, he warned me not to hang around as he would have to call for  helicopter backup and fine me $6000 or something like that, I´d obviosly came too far.  I asked some of the Mexican customs staff and they said I would have to go back into the US to hand in my form.  I did this and handed my form to a US customs guard and then explained to him that I didn´t want to actually go back into the US and he let me out of a back door back into Mexico that saddly opened into a pedestrian only area with a rotating door that I couldn´t get my bike through!  I then had to bang on the custom window and they let me out of another door and I was finally in Mexico.  I then picked up a tourist card and headed to the bus station.  I got a bus to San Felipe as I didn´t want to cycle out of Mexicali.  The bus driver let me put my bike, panniers still attached under the bus for no extra few which was refeshing.

I got to San Felipe in the dark and rode into town.  It was halloween so everyone was in good spirits and the town had a nice vibe.  I headed to the sea front and bought some fish tacos, a Baja speciality.  Saddly I think the fish in my tacos had been sitting around for a long time.  I got talking to some Americans at the taco stand who let me camp with them for free.  The next morning after picking up some supplies I headed towards Puertecitos.  I set off pretty late and ended up camping at a ranch off the highway as I needed to get some water.  When I arrived at the ranch an old lady said I could camp there for free.  The bathroom and shower building had no roof and of the 5 toilets in the mens bathroom.  Only one had the winning combination of a tiolet seat and a door.  The shower tunrned out to be a hose pipe but it was still nice to have a wash.  On waking I was informed by the more buisness minded son of the old lady that they normally charge 200 pesos but are willing to charge me only 100 pesos (around 5 pound) for the camping.  I told them what the old lady had said but he told me she wasn´t in charge of camping.  I paid the money and was then overcharged for 3 bottles of water and was glad to leave.

The road out of the ranch was pretty rough and half way along it my foot suddenly hit the floor and I heard a horrible noise that turned out to be one of my chain links coming apart.  When inspecting the chain it became apparent that it hadn´t been connected properly at the bike shop, which made me pretty angry since they had warned me to take my old chain, probably as an insurance against their terrible mechanic skills.  Since I didn´t have a spare chain and stupidly had lost my spare link I couldn´t fix the chain properly.  I decided regrettably that I´d have to try and fix the chain the best I could and head back to San Felipe and get a bus to Ensenada, where the nearest bike shop was located.  After  reassembling the chain link that had broke I managed to get five miles towards San Felipe before it snapped again and part of it was lost in the dirt!  I then disassembled another link and reassembled it and it actually felt pretty solid. I decided that I wouldn´t need to go the bike shop after all and turned around and started heading south again, the locals probably thought I was pretty mad!(the chain hasn´t snapped yet after about 350 miles).

After the chain problems I ended up getting to Puertecitos as it was getting dark and was informed there was no longer a campsite or restaurant but I could find both another 5 miles down the road.  I arrived at the campground and treated myself to a delicious meal of fish, rice and beans.  I asked how much camping was and they informed me it would be 130 pesos ( around 6 pounds) which i said was expensive for one guy on a bicycle so they said they wouldn´t charge me unless the boss returned from San Felipe.

The boss didn´t return before I left very early in the morning and I was back on the road at about seven.  I asked the guy at the campsite the night before if there was anywhere to get water on the road south and he said yeah, lots of places!   The road south turned out to be worse than I thought it would be.  I knew it would be a dirt road but I didn´t anticipate it being one of the worst roads I´d ever cycled on.  At about midday I came to the first settlement were I expected there would be a shop for me to buy some water.  Saddly there was nothing, an american guy name George who lived in Baja for half the year saved the day and let me fill up my 10 liter water bag and also gave me a coke.

I was pretty tired from the early start and the terrible roads so decided to call it a day around 2 o´clock.  I pulled off into the desert and found a nice place to camp amongst some cool looking cacti that were being pollinated by some even cooler humming birds.  The sea looked pretty close so I decided to see if I could hike to it and go swimming.  I followed a dry riverbed for about 20 minutes before turning around deciding that maybe the sea wasn´t as close as it looked.  I managed to follow my footprints to what I thought was the place I left my bike and was alarmed when it wasn´t anywhere to be seen!  I got pretty worried thinking maybe it had been stolen and started running around the dessert before finally locating my bike!  I´d actually passed it without noticing and decided that I wouldn´t do anymore desert hiking.

California City to Big Bear City

Will try and add some photos soon

After our adventure in Sequoia National Forest Tom and I cycled towards Apple Valley through lots of desert. We stayed the first night outside California City after treating ourlselves to some great burritos from the Burrito van. I'm normally get nervous when camping by the road even though I do it a lot. When setting up camp on that particular night I mentioned to Tom that most people are probably pretty scared of two guys in the middle of the desert with headlamps on, so I probably don't have much to be scared about. One advantage of cycling in the desert is that once your out of a town you can basically camp anywhere and it's legal in a lot of places because its government land. From California City we headed down 58 and past the no cyclists sign(there was no other road to take) until we had a chance to get off it, just before the town of Boron, a town built next to one of only two Boron mines in the world! Tom treated me to a great icecream(thanks) and we popped into the Boron Museum which was run by a well meaning lady who told us the best way to get to Apple Valley and lots of other interesting facts about the area until we were about ready to cry. Tom knew a girl who lived in Apple Valley and my leg was hurting a little so we decided to try and hitch so we would get there before dark. After about half an hour a guy picked us up and dropped us 30 miles closer and so we managed to do the last 15 as the sun set arriving in the dark. We stayed the next three night at Ambers house and had a blast.

The first night we were pretty tired and stinking so we showered and slept! The next day we had a little tour of Apple Valley and went to see an interesting college, CalEarth, that built buildings from earth and sandbags.  The guy who ran the college was from Sunderland, a town not far from my home town, it was quite a surprise to hear my local accent.   We planned to go to some local hot springs that night but ended up drinking lots of sangria and dressing up using Ambers extenisive collection of fancy dress outfits.  Tom looked fabulous as Wonderwoman and I made a great nurse.   The next day Amber drove us to some local hot springs which were a blast.   I think they were the New Jack City hot springs.   After a short hike through some desert scenery we came to a river with 4 different pools of different temperatures. On arrival Tom and Amber stripped naked, I didn't want to seem like a prude so followed suite. The atmosphere at the hot springs was very friendly and we met some interesting people.  

Amber was a great host and it was a shame to leave the next day, we finally set off at around two and headed towards Joshua Tree National Park on the 18 and camped just after Lucerne Valley. The next morning we changed our plans and headed up a pretty big 4000 feet climb to Big Bear City to meet up with some of Tom friends to do some rock climbing. The climb didn't seem too bad and we camped a few miles up a dirt road where we stashed our bikes and were picked up the next morning for a great day of rock climbing. The rock climbing was really a lot of fun, it was great watching Tom and Nick climbing as they were pretty good and it was good to get a chance to do some myself. We woke early the next morning as Toms friends had to head back to San Diago for work. I was feeling a little rough from the beer the night before but this feeling was remedied pretty quickly with some breakfast burritos. Tom and I head down to Big Bear city and found out about a dirt road that headed down to Yucca Valley and then headed a little ways down that road before setting up camp.