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.