Deer Park

There’re a few things that riding with the group that’ve disturbed my carefully de-bugged daily routine. One of them is not having many pictures to download, and this is unlikely to change for another two weeks. These guys ride in a way that’s unlike the slightly touristy I’ve been doing. They don’t stop ten times a day for shots. They’ve been here before, it’s not news. Helge is a terrific photographer, so is Peter. What they do is stop when an extraordinary photo opp comes up, maybe twice a day, and get all super serious about it.  You know, the heroic journalist lie-on-the-ground-in the-dirt for the best angle type thing. Kindof the opposite of my little point and shoot random attacks. So to keep the riding style fairly in sync, I stop less, guilt?, no idea, even though I ride alone for the most part. And there just isn’t time to hang around too much. So the visuals are going to be a bit thin for a while

However I’m shooting video with a Contour+ from the helmet and sending the GoPro home. Experimenting with it for now.

Anyway, today I wake up thinking OMG last night was New Year’s Eve! No party… So free of New Year’s black-out anxiety we charge off southwest to Loreto, on the Gulf.

The cactuses are looking roasted, but we’re still cold

And into the town of San Ignatio that appears in an oasis, literally. It’s a Jesuit Mission in a sea of date palms, built in 1728

Although cool, the desert sun is intense and we take shelter in the shade

Heading back into the hills, we come across this recently and perfectly paved road. Great twisties. It seemed incongruous in the middle of the Baja but was fun

Then, a few hours later we descended to the sea

A major first. The Gulf of California.

Then towns. Lucinda gets all excited and wants to take her bags off and jump in skinny. Whoa, easy girl

Further on, our first beach

And into Loreto. A notably cold night – the laundry wouldn’t dry on the clothesline (1/2 tubular webbing – also the tow line, boat tie-down) tied between light fixtures and got bagged wet for the next day. Yuck

Up at dawn in the morning and the sun’s shining.

The routine is the same each day: get the bike ready and rigged before breakfast, eat fast  and go.

Today we’re headed inland to central Baja and then due south to Guerrero Negro. Off we go

Towards some hills

And into the cactuses. It was cold. Actually I was thinking that the best measure of the cold is how often I’ve not worn my thick winter gloves. Three days since September 30. Oh well

Whoa!

More and more beautiful by the mile. This is Baja as I imagined it

Baja’s big and there’s about a 400K stretch down the middle with no gas. So you buy it at the side of the road. If you’re on a KTM you’re screwed as the octane is about the same number as your heart beat. But if you’re not riding a hysterical little orange thing it works fine

Fill ‘er up says Lucinda

And the village

David, our Baja 14-bike-owning horticultural expert, tells us that this site is the only place in the world were palm and cactus grow together

The road riding was good. Twisties through cactussy hills, drops, walls, all good. The first opportunity to ride fast and we do. I’ve written *slow down * with a fat Sharpie across my tank bag window. It works in a subtle way. More on this later.

The road kill here is big. Here’s a cow. As I rode by there were big red-headed (yeh, I know, typical) vultures parked on it. We did a u-ey and they’d only moved a grudging dozen feet away

Another village. No gas

A full days riding brought us back to the coast, into Guerrero Negro

Helge got this vanity shot of us from a bridge or something coming into town