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.