I let myself out of the gated fence that surrounds the mission, and was soon back to the "main" (sic) road connecting the mission to Mexico 1. The warm glow of sunrise and the long shadows gave my surroundings a completely different appearance than when I had ridden through the previous afternoon. It was a peaceful ride back out to the highway, marked only with a few pangs of adrenaline when I rode up on a particularly nasty washout or other scary obstacle too quickly. Skipping down a desolate rocky road on my head is usually not my favorite way to start the day. 

I made it back to Rosarito with no problems, then headed north on Mexico 1. The last time I fueled up was in Guerro Negro the previous day, so I was hoping to find a pickup truck with a drum of gas beside the road before too long. I checked my GPS often to make sure I didn't miss the intersection that leads to Coco's Corner. There is often fuel available near there, but not this morning. Ooops. This was going to be interesting. The next unofficial place to fuel up was the small town of Cataviņa, and it looked fairly unlikely that I could make it that far on the gas I had left. I slowed down considerably in an effort to conserve fuel, but a fierce headwind still worked against me. 

After what seemed like an eternity, I finally pulled into Cataviņa on fumes and found a beat-up pickup truck beside the road with a gas barrel in the back, but nobody was around. Hmmm... I waited. After a short while, a very kind Mexican man saw me sitting there and walked over to tell me that there was a Pemex station just a short distance away. This must be a new station because it wasn't on the AAA Baja map. Whew, thank goodness! I made it to the station and filled my thirsty tank.  

After refueling, I headed north on Mexico 1 again and got to El Rosario around lunch time. Time to fill the stomach and the gas tank. I took Ged's advice and stopped at Mama Espinoza's for the famous lobster burritos. I looked around at all the interesting memorabilia while my lunch was being prepared. This is a really neat spot. Three words to describe my lunch: OH. MY. GOD. This was the most delicious lunch I've ever had. The three burritos came out stacked in a pyramid shape on a large platter (two burritos on the bottom and one on top) with all the trimmings in various side dishes and bowls. The flour tortillas must have been pan-heated prior to being served because they were slightly crispy. The stuffing consisted of huge, succulent chunks of lobster with no additional filler. I can't begin to come up with words to describe how delicious these lobster burritos were. I must have eaten five pounds of food for lunch. I waddled out and was luckily still able to throw my leg over the motorcycle to get on. 

From El Rosario I rode up the coast and couldn't help thinking that this looked exactly like films I have seen of Southern California in the 1950's. It was a neat drive, but as I got closer to Ensenada it was apparent that there were too many stressed-out gringos on the road. The driving style took on a more desperate feel as people pulled mindless maneuvers to pass slower traffic in places they definitely shouldn't have. It was crazy... even compared to Mexico drivers. Yuck. Get me off this road. This is too much like reality. 

I stopped to refuel somewhere around San Vicente and a van full of nuns was refueling beside me. I chatted with one of the nuns while refueling. She appeared to be American, and we talked about where we were coming from, where we were going, etc. This was literally one of the kindest, sweetest people I think I have ever met. After fueling, I pulled around to go into the bathroom and when I came out, the nun I had talked to came over and gave me a chocolate meal replacement bar. She said I might need it later on. What a kind gesture! Maybe she had a bit more divine foresight than I had anticipated, because this most definitely turned out to be the case.

I decided to ditch the highway and opt for the "mystery road" that appeared on my map between Mexico 1 and Mexico 3. It appeared to cut about 150 km from my route, which was certainly welcome. I was hoping to make it back to the U.S. by this evening. It was already afternoon and I had a very long way to go. 

After only a few minutes down the "mystery road" (that I later learned even some locals don't seem to know about) I decided to pull over and think some more about my decision. This was a very rugged single-lane road that headed straight into some rather intimidating looking mountains. Just what was I getting myself into? After doing some map checks, re-evaluating my sanity, and calculating the time and distance required to retrace my route and get back to Mexico 1 with all the insane drivers, I decided to take my chances with the "mystery road."

After passing the San Jose vineyard about ten miles into the "mystery road," I realized much to my surprise that I had been on the good section of road until now. Hmmmm. I decided to keep going, but this was turning into a bit more adventure than I had anticipated. I barely made it through a deep combination spring / water hole / mud bog by spinning the back tire and paddling with my feet. The road to Mission San Borja was starting to look like an interstate highway in comparison. There was deep sand, eighteen inch deep tractor(?) tire ruts that had dried as hard as concrete, motocross-style whoop-de-dos several feet high, potholes, large rocks, washboard, sheer drop-offs, extremely steep climbs and descents coupled with loose rocks and blind corners, and in some places a drop of literally two to three feet from one tire track to the other. I even rode through a wildfire that was blowing up the valley. I had seen the plumes of smoke hours before when I was still riding on the highway. 

Finally, at an altitude of about 4,000 feet, I decided to stop for a drink of water and look out over the mountains in the distance. It was a spectacular view. Much to my surprise, while I was sitting there a passenger car bounced slowly down the mountain road and stopped. This was the first vehicle I had seen in over an hour on this road. It was a young Mexican man, probably in his early 20's. He was even more surprised to see me than I was to see him. He was quite excited about my motorcycle, and asked me questions part in Spanish and part in English. During our conversation that lasted a few minutes or so, he asked three separate times if everything was okay and inquired about the possibility of traveling this road on a motorcycle. I told him that so far things were okay. He assured me that the road would eventually lead to Valle de la Trinidad and Mexico 3. Whew! That was certainly welcomed news. 

After about 25 or 30 miles on this road, it dropped back down out of the mountains and the conditions improved considerably. It became pretty flat, and the huge obstacles disappeared. The biggest obstacles were potholes, sand and washboard ruts. I was able to speed up quite a bit. Time was becoming an issue since it was obvious that it would take me over two hours to travel only about 40 miles.

By the time I got close to Valle de la Trinidad, the road all but disappeared again and became a sand piste with sand dunes built up on each side of the "road" where a fence row was. Trying to maintain enough momentum to keep from sinking like a rock while trying to go slow enough to control 750 pounds of lurching motorcycle, gear and rider was a real handful. I narrowly missed doing several nasty tank-slappers. The sand track I was on was beginning to disappear altogether, and I was starting to get a bit concerned. Using dead reckoning, I finally decided to turn east on a fence-lined sand track that I hoped would eventually lead me to the town of Valle de la Trinidad and better road conditions. This was partially true on both counts. But I eventually made it into the town.

Did I mention earlier that street signs are nonexistent in the Baja? Unless you know your way around, even with a GPS, it's difficult to know which way to turn on the hodge-podge dirt tracks and roads that seem to have just "happened" with absolutely no planning. I tried to get to the highway on a small road that literally ended up turning into a deep sand wash. After struggling uphill through this sand, it was obvious that I was not going to make it to the highway. I ended up getting off and pushing the bike while the back tire dug a huge trough in the sand to get it turned around and headed back downhill. It was starting to get late in the afternoon and the shadows were getting longer and longer. My gosh, this ride was turning into quite an adventure.

Once back into town, I stopped a guy in a pickup and asked how to get to the highway. I'm not completely sure he really knew, because I followed his simplistic directions (go three blocks and turn left) and got terribly lost again. Luckily, I was able to avoid colliding with a car whose driver tried quite deliberately to hit me head-on as I rode down the dirt street. I'm guessing by his driving that I was going the wrong way down a one-way street and he was going to make a point of it, but it's hard to tell for sure without any street signs. The labyrinth of streets would invariably turn away from the highway before intersecting with it. It actually got to be funny. I could see the highway a quarter mile away or so, but I couldn't get there. Finally, after feeling like a rather dim-witted rat in a maze, I finally found a road that came out on the highway. 

I needed to high-tail it down the road if I was going to get to the border tonight. By this time it was late afternoon and I still had a lot of ground to cover. I rode past the Christian campo where we camped the first night in Baja and it got so cold. A bit of deja vu. I rode through the mountains and beautiful desert valley to the military checkpoint where Mexico 3 and Mexico 5 meet. Whew... I was really starting to feel the miles. I turned north on Mexico 5 and zipped along. The terrain from here up to the Laguna Salada area is absolutely amazing. It is the upper end of where the Sea of Cortez used to be, and it is so flat you can actually see the curvature of the earth as you look across to the horizon. The road is built up about ten feet above the surrounding terrain, and there are no shoulders, so there is no place to pull off the road in the event of an emergency. 

The sun was setting as I got back into some more mountainous terrain. I came around a blind right-hand corner and zipped right by a coyote standing in the opposite lane. He hunkered his head slightly as I went by. I must have passed within two feet of him. I could see his eyes and his yellow-tinged hair stand up as I flew by. I'm not sure which one of us was more surprised at the encounter. I'm sure we were both glad that he was in the other lane, though.

Eventually, much to my disdain, the light dwindled out of the sky and it became totally dark. I didn't exactly want to ride on this strange road in the dark with nowhere to pull off. To make things more interesting, my visor was full of bug splatters from the previous twelve hours of riding, so it was difficult to see very well. Despite not wanting to ride in the dark any longer than necessary, I decided to slow down considerably and just get to Mexicali whenever I got there.

Finally, civilization (as it were) began returning slowly, and I pulled into the first service station I found to gas up, clean my face shield and put on my driving glasses. My glasses prescription is measured in fractions of a diopter, but I was glad for any help I could get at this point. My eyes felt very tired.

After returning to the suicidal city driving in Mexicali, then sitting in the traffic jam to get to the border, I finally made it back to California. I was really tired. My engine was overheating sitting in the traffic approaching the border. The traffic was so thick there wasn't even enough space to split lanes. There was just enough space for the droves of people trying one last time to hawk their goods to gringos just before they crossed the border. One good thing about being on a motorcycle is that the street vendors know you can't carry a bunch of crap so they leave you alone.

I ended up stopping and restarting my engine to keep it from becoming too overheated. After crossing the border and riding on the open highway to El Centro, the engine returned to normal operating temperature. I made a beeline for the Motel 6 that I had stayed in on the way out. I knew right where it was and I was more than ready to get off my bike and luxuriate in a long, hot shower. As soon as I got my gear into the room I knew that I wasn't going to go back out. I was absolutely exhausted. So exhausted that the fact I had only eaten one meal that day was of secondary importance. 

Then, I remembered the meal replacement bar the nun had so thoughtfully given me earlier in the afternoon. I dug it out of my tank bag and sat on the bed while I devoured it. What a life saver. Thank you!

After finishing the chocolate bar and slugging down some water (wow, you can actually drink water straight out of the tap without dieing!) I soaked in a very long, hot shower and then jumped into bed. It was only about 9:30 PM PST, but I had been riding since 6:30 AM and I was whipped. 

What an awesome day. I packed about three months of living into this day. It dawned on me as I lay there in a semi-conscious reverie that this was quite possibly the best single day of motorcycle riding in my entire life. 

THE RIDE HOME

The remaining 1,600 miles or so back home went without a hitch. Coincidentally, I met up with L.P. once again at a (terrible) McDonalds in Deming, NM while having breakfast. He said he was considering turning around and heading back to Baja once he got the rear shock replaced on his GS Adventure. This guy's an animal! It turns out he blew his shock out on the same stretch of road where the guys in my group had all of their problems. 

The last day of the ride home was very cold and damp, with temperatures hovering just above freezing in the afternoon with gale force winds blowing all day. My left hand got cold enough that my pinkie finger tingled like it was asleep for several days afterwards. Maybe electric gloves aren't such a bad idea after all. Or maybe I should just stay in the Baja during winter.  :o)

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