I had no idea what I was going to do that day. Keep cycling? Or hitch a ride? The next 50km past Loreto was along the coast, and presumably beautiful, but after that it was another 300km of desert to La Paz, where the ferry leaves for the mainland. I sought to prod my brain into brilliant decision-making action with some caffeine, and moseyed on into a cafe with wifi, needing also to assuage my connectivity dependence.
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| Sunrise in Loreto, from my tent |
It turned out that that person had been Paul, and the trailer he was towing behind his bike had broken, and he had hitched to La Paz to fix it. Paul also knew the two other guys I had seen, two Germans on a world tour, with whom he had ridden for a few days. They were also in Loreto that day.
Ze Germans were staying in town for a couple of days, but Paul was leaving the next morning, to ride to La Paz. I really liked the idea of riding with someone for a while, having not really ever having done it, except perhaps the couple of days with Candela right back at the start of the trip. I figured I could cool my jets that day, and use the extra time to fix my flats, switch tires, and do some necessary maintenance on my bike. I had made up some time hitching already, and was keen to be on my bike for more than just a couple of days, so I shelved the idea of hitching, knowing I'd have to do more later on anyway, and made plans to ride out with Paul the next morning.
Paul had found the brilliant Herman "Manni", who runs a bike shop in town. He had performed miracles with Paul's trailer, and helped my tweak some things on my own bike. After pulling twigs and rocks from the drivetrain, I discovered no less than 5 punctures in my tires from, it seemed, only the previous single day in the desert! Freakin cactus. Freakin pointy desert. I realised it was probably because I had kept stopping, and rolling my bike off the road to take photos. All of the punctures were from small thorns and spines from the bushes on the side of the road. Lesson learned!
Later, after getting my bike running smoothly again, I ran into the motocross guys who had given me a ride a couple of days ago. Then I met the Germans that Paul had been riding with, and it was pretty cool to realise that I had gone from waking up knowing no-one in town, except perhaps for a friendly security guard, to having a whole bunch of friends!
I split a cheap hotel room with Paul - I believe this was the second hotel I had stayed at in my year and 2 months of travelling - and bought myself some delicious fresh tortillas and other things for the ride the next day.
The extra day in Loreto, and the friends I had found there, had me thinking about how I was approaching my travelling. In particular, things like stealth camping in the desert, and on the beach, were kinda fun and saved me money, but they aren't all that social. Aside from simply having some company, if I wanted to spread the word about Open Volunteer and Angel Mule, perhaps somewhere with people would be better. I was beginning to think I should look for a few more hostels or RV parks, despite the extra cost. Similarly for food, I have had a lot of chance encounters with people at cafes and taco stands, which I wouldn't have had if I had been doing all my cooking myself. It was looking like it was worth doing these things a little more often too. Even if all this stuff did cost a little more, and hence shorten the trip somewhat, surely a richer, more enjoyable trip was better than stretching out my time, at the cost of these same things.
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