Baja Beach Adventure – Part 3

Alright this is it folks, the last chapter in our saga Part 1 and Part 2 are probably important to read before this part.

We woke up pretty early after our night in the RV and packed our bags thinking that we would head on down the beach to a resturant we had heard was in the next town down, so we headed over to the beach and started pedaling.

About an hour of pedaling had us in town, unfortunately I had another flat but I figured I’d ride it to the restaurant and fix it there. When we arrived we found the restaurant closed, business hours in Mexico are not what they are here. More of a general idea about when they will be open, turns out the guy wasn’t planning on opening till 2pm so we had to grab some snacks from the mini-super and refill water there before heading down to the next town.

As we were leaving we saw some goats moving out to pasture (what the hell they eat is beyond me, everything is spiky and hard)

After that it was some pretty good riding on some roads just off the coast ( we had decided to take a break from the beach just because we were really really fatigued )

It was about 11am and we were pretty hungry but I could not resist stopping for some fishing and exploring in this cove.

Having caught a few fish and checked out some cool tide-pools we continued on our way into town where we stopped for some food at what looked like the only open restaurant, It had no menu but they had burritos so we ordered 6 (not the giant burritos we have in america)

We kind of opened them up and looked inside and that may have been a mistake, the meat looked like steel wool, but we were starving so we ate them and they were delicious. we later found out it was Machaca (sp?) a dried meat product sometimes made of beef but also made of donkey  that gets eaten alot out here where refrigeration is scarce. In any case we were still starving after 6 so we ordered 6 more and the lady asked if we wanted them to go for later, when we siad we were still hungry she looked shocked but made us our food.

Stuffed we headed back out for some beach riding on what looked like some great coast.

We rode this for a couple hours and saw a dude up ahead at what looked like a good spot to skirt some construction so we rode up and found out he was skinny dipping in the ocean! He was happy enough to let us use his driveway to get to the road and continue on our way to the destination for the evening.

The road was brutal loose sand here

After a bit of slow slogging we hit a town again and stopped in at a restaurant for a drink and to see if we could figure out some camping for the night. The bar tender was – interesting. He kept turning up music videos as loud as the TV would go and would dance along to them all the while giving me or Melissa a thumbs up. As far as we could figure out he couldn’t understand either spanish or english so maybe he was slow? whatever it was pretty surreal.

We found a good spot to camp at an RV park next to their pool, we had though of camping on the beach but when we rode down there it was filled with people blasting ranchero music and playing soccer so we figured we would head for a quieter venue.

Much better.

That night we went out to get dinner and found the restaurant we had gone to earlier closed so we stopped someone and asked directions to another one, they pointed us to it and we rode over only to find a closed coffee shop. At this point we were worried we weren’t getting food and Melissa asked a boy of he knew of a restaurant, he looked at us weird for a sec and said yeah I do… Its the building in front of you, we looked around the side of the building and sure enough it was an open restaurant.

Apparently 10 minutes before we arrived, a drunk driver had plowed into a parked police truck and drove off so everyone was talking about that, the cops came back about an hour later having not caught anyone and finished their dinner. Only in mexico man.

The next day we rode down to Cabo Pulmo which is beautifull and had a bit of a snack lunch there before riding some brutally hot road down to a tiny town called La Vinorama. There we found a restaurant called the crossroads cafe club.

This place used to be a high end bed and breakfast, but is now just a restaurant and a good one at that! We had some awesome food and talked with a felow patron named Thomas. He told us to ask to use their shower, which we were hesitant to do but eventually did and the guys were happy to let us. It was amazing! a 20 ft tall rainforest shower after days of cold showers in little outbuildings.

We hung around having just one more beer, then a few Cuba Libre’s then more beers before the guys asked us to stay and camp at the resturant. We said sure and they started a fire on the beach for us and we continued to drink and talk long after the restaurant closed.

Thomas, Hector, Chechu, and Melissa after lots of beer.

The next morning we woke up in our tent which we had setup inside out somehow. Beer maybe? and made breakfast for the guys before heading out.

Now Melissa and I think we are pretty good cooks, But apparently we cant cook for Mexicans, I’m pretty sure they hated our breakfast. In the end though they were amazing guys and I highly recommend the Crossroads Country Club if you are ever in the area.

We started our last day on the trip hung over as hell but riding on some beautiful beach. The night before we had agreed to stop by Tomas’s house for lunch (which we were also to make) so we rode about 10 miles of amazing beach before stopping off at the 3rd arroyo on the left and heading up to Tomas’s.

Once there he got out some amazing looking shrimp and scallops and we started some pasta to go with. then we relaxed in his sweet charis for a bit and watched the humpbacks breach right infront of his house.

The view was not too shabby

We ate lunch and were back on our way, this lunch was a far greater success then breakfast though.

After lunch we only had 7 miles to make it to Cabo San Jose, and we were about 4 miles out riding this nasty steep beach sand that seemed to suck at your wheel and make it impossible to go faster than 3 mph. Melissa kind of freaked a bit at this point and said she was going to have to walk the rest of the way so I suggested we hit the road and take that into town, once we did that it was ok aside from all the traffic from Samano Santos.

The last bit of road before Cabo

We hit Cabo proper and set about finding a place to stay, we ended up finding an amazing spot for $60 a night. at El Delfin Blanco  Osa from Sweden runs the place and was amazingly nice and tolerant of us taking the place up with our bikes and bike box building.

Our Bungalow

We relaxed for a day before having to pack up our bikes. We had planned on getting bike boxes from a shop but found out that it was far away and closed for Good Friday so we went to the nearest mini-super and took all their Sabritas boxes and built bike boxes!

Osa was so nice she didn't even freak out when we took up the entire courtyard for hours building boxes.

Eventually we made something resembling a bike box.

We took a cab to the airport and I gave the guy our last cash (still stiffed him 40 pesos) and the FAA equivalent lady found us yet more tape so that our boxes would make the trip.

After a mini freakout when we thought they were gonna charge us another $3000 pesos for bikes we made it just fine without additional fees!

We had to drag these boxes through customs where once again we got a half ass check and no box opening before we ran the gauntlet of sketchy dudes hanging out on the American side of the border. This was when I realized I had actually felt safer the entire time in mexico than I did in my own town which was interesting. Eventually we made it to the bus station safely and Nick picked us up and brought us home!

It was an amazing trip and I’d love to do it again next year, I’ve got a good idea of daily mileage now so I’d split things up a bit differently and spend a day in Cabo Pulmo and do a few other things differently but I really cant wait to go back to Mexico.