[Riding South] The Peace

[Eric]

Buenas!

 

Pictures - http://picasaweb.google.com/e.apt.dudfield/Baja

 

I have reached La Paz, the first real Mexican city of my trip. Being out of the desert is a relief and I've checked myself into a small hotel for a few days to recover.

 

After leaving San Felipe, the road stretched out flat and smooth for 50 miles. Then suddenly, the pavement ended and the washboard and sand began. The rough road lasted for 4 days. I bumped along and watched the desert stretch out. Lots of cactus, sand, rocks and sky. And when I stopped riding, the sound of bags rattling and tires on dirt would be replaced by wind. Occasionally something exciting would happen - a truck practicing for the Baja 1000 would roar past or I would find a rattlesnake sunbathing in the road. Burned out cars occasionally lined the road and unmarked roads would branch out into the far-away hills.

 

On the fourth day, I was physically and mentally exhausted by the constant bumping and lack of anything cool. But by then, I had reached the pavement. It was a joy to drink much cold soda and eat restaurant meals again. I flew south on the pavement, stopped only by the bored solders at military checkpoints and the rancher and salt town of Guerro Negro.

 

The morning after Gurrero Nego, a shape began to take shape further up the road. At first I wondered if it was was a cow about to crushed by the fuel trucks that rush up and down the road. Riding hard, I eventually drew closer and saw that it was two bicyclists. Pedal and Claudia, two Swiss women, were heading south and invited me to ride with them. I did and was very glad to exchange the night sounds of coyote and wind moving over rock for laughter and their guttural wind-chimy swiss-german.

 

We rode together for more than a week, passing through the oasis towns of southern Baja. Instead of the shack towns of the north, these towns were filled with old adobe homes arranged along cobblestone streets. Old churches stood watch, build by missionaries 250 years ago. And the road ran close to the oceans. White sandy beaches, blue-green water, island rising dramatically out of the water - the stuff of postcards.

 

Not having learned my lesson earlier, I headed back into the desert to explore the remains of missions. The pleasant company of the Swiss was replaced by solitude and piss-warm water that tasted of chlorine. These roads were worse and I had to push my bike through long expanses of sand. I found several types of sand - the light dirty sand that covers everything in a fine layer of dust, the dark riverbed sand that grabs the wheels like wet cement, and the everyday beach sand that seems solid until it grabs the bike and dumps everything on the ground. I began to feel like Sisyphus, only the sun changing as it moved across the sky

 

These remote roads ran past small family farms. These ranchos provided food and water and company of a sort. When I approached, the conversation and laughter of those out front would stop and everyone would stare curiously at the dirty gringo and his bike. In my halting Spanish I would ask to buy food and water. Then the questions would begin. They would ask about my bike, my trip, my home. Children would crowd round and poke at the bike. This would usually continue until I ran out of Spanish words and grow tired of talking.

 

Eventually I escaped the sand and reached pavement again. Then La Paz and the comfortable hotel with it's courtyard full of esthetically arranged junk. Snorkeling, beaches and rest.

 

Con carino,

 

Eric

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Eric Apt-Dudfield
e.apt.d...@gmail.com

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Posted by Eric to Riding South at 11/27/2006 04:02:37 PM