Spin the black circles

Sun Feb 24th - Tue Feb 26th

From Ciudad Insurgentes, where we spent the night, the road turns south. We were pretty excited that the north-westerlies that had bothered us the day before, would today, and hopefully for all the remaining road to La Paz, be our friends. We thought we could pretty comfortably do the remaining 240 odd kilometres in two days with such friends, and so we took a pretty relaxed approach to the day. We spent a bit of time in town finding supplies and some bits and pieces we were missing, we stopped and chatted to four other bike tourists we met coming the other way, and generally enjoyed the flat roads with the wind at our backs.

Jacinthe, Beat, Aurelie, and Layko. Not necessarily in that order.

Into the sky

Unsurprisingly, I suppose, our relaxed attitude only took us 80km down the road before we found a nice little town, which was apparently the last one for a while. With this in mind, we stopped there and camped next to a church, thinking, perhaps a little optimistically, that we might be able to do the remaining 160km in one day, if we got up early and had the same great conditions.

We played our part and got up early next day, but we were more than a little disappointed to find that the had wind completely changed direction. Instead of friends in the wind, we found a fickle foe. We rode into the headwinds, and the day heated up. The uniform desert scenery, combined with the heat and the wind, meant the ride was a real grind - it was just gritting teeth and spinning circles. There was no way we were getting to La Paz that day, like we had planned!

It was pretty straight.

Relief relief.

The kilometres ticked over but slowly. At km 100 from La Paz we found a spot to have some lunch. Addresses on the highway are given as distances to the next city, which I quite like, so this place is simply called El Cien (the one-hundred). I looked down and saw my odometer had hit 2000km since San Fran, which was a pretty cool thing. Less cool was the 31 degrees it was registering in the shade. We continued on a little further until we arrived at the restaurant at km 77 close to sunset, the last real stop until La Paz. The owner was a cool guy, and said we could camp out the back.

El 2000 at El 100

Paul with a cold beer at km 77

The next day we woke up and had some breakfast at the restaurant, and were mightily confused when we tried to pay, because no-one seemed to want to accept our money. It turned out that the owner had given us breakfast on the house, because of what we were doing. Free breakfast, sweet! Thankful for the full stomachs, we resumed our positions on the road, as the wind and heat resumed theirs - in front of us, and all around us, respectively.

Baja is fairly dry.

The riding was again hard going, but uneventful until with about 37km to go, Paul broke a spoke. Crossing his fingers, he continued on, hopeful that he wouldn't break another, and that he could still make it to La Paz. I watched a little nervously, riding behind him. His trailer wheel was already wobbly, and now his rear wheel was wobbling even more. He assured me his front wheel was ok and that one out of three wasn't so bad. Seeing how close the trucks came to us on the road, I didn't like the idea of any sudden mechanical problem on a bike. So it was actually with some relief that I saw him pull over at km 30, after breaking another spoke. His wheel was now rubbing against the frame, and moving more than a few metres was impractical.

Paul was pretty frustrated to have to hitch, having gotten so close to La Paz, now visible in the distance, but he had no choice. We cracked a couple of light beers that I had been saving for the ride into La Paz, and sat on the side of the road. Paul's bike assumed the upside down 'help' position, and he stuck his thumb out. I still had 30km to ride, so after making plans to meet up in La Paz, or further down the Road, I once again set off. The rest of the ride was mainly downhill and actually pretty easy. The last I saw of Paul was an arm waving from the window of a passing truck, accompanied by the sound its horn, letting me know that he had found a ride.

Within sight of La Paz

Only 30km out, but it may as well be 100 with a bent wheel

Hasta la proxima Paul!