Southern point (Rushing to sea)

Sunday 17th March - Tuesday 19th March

After the race, it was only a week until Elsa (who I met in Ensenada) and some of her friends were going to be in the nearby holiday destination of Los Cabos. There was a nice little 400-500km loop of highway that explored the rest of Baja, south of La Paz, and I figured I could knock that off in 5 or so days, then meet up with Elsa and her friends afterwards. So my mini-bike tour began!

I took Sunday after the race to prepare, and set off Monday morning. To my horror, I realised after 5 minutes that my bike computer is not working. This may not sound like much, but to me and a lot of bike tourists, it's terrifying. There is just something about seeing those numbers tick over, about knowing how fast you are going, how far you have gone that day and how far you have to go, that keeps you sane in a very important way. Your bike computer is as much a game and a distraction, as it is Prozac or a safety blanket.

So even though it took a couple of hours to find those damn CR2032s on a Sunday in La Paz, it was time gladly spent, and soon I was back on my bike watching the numbers tick over. Mid-anxiolytic bliss, I become concerned that the computer was still not working, as it was reading the temperature as 41 degrees celsius. Sure it was hot, but not that hot, right? It turned out that, unfortunately, it was exactly right.

It was hot and heavy work the rest of that day. Around 32 degrees in the shade, 36 in the sun, and up to 40 when caught in that vice made up of the sun high above and the black asphalt below. Hills, long and steep enough to tire, but not high enough to cool, give undulation to the eastern road south, which is dotted with little towns. The first I passed through, was the town of El Triunfo, an old mining town decorated with skeletons of its mining past. Around sunset, I ended up in the comparatively dull San Antonio. Where there is not much. I camped next to a dry, dusty dirt football field which doubles, oddly, as a running track.

Some ruins at El Triunfo

The tower, trees, and moon at El Triunfo.

I camped for the night just behind the track.

Tuesday again brought heat, and after rolling up and down more hills, and seeing the pretty San Bartolo, it became clear I had camped in the only uninteresting town on that route. I felt the temperature drop blissfully as the road plunged steeply down towards the coast, and the beautiful Los Barriles, whose beaches reminded me of the great beaches of the Gold Coast back home in Oz. It even has gold flecks in the sand, from the mica that washes down from the hills. After lunch and an idyllic two hours in Los Barriles, I got going again, and the road took me out away from the coast, towards the desert again.

The beach at Los Barriles

All of the day that remained, and into the next, I encountered and crossed these huge arroyos - floodwater gullies and dry riverbeds that flow rarely, and only when there is a huge storm or hurricane. These things can be immense, a kilometre or two wide, and I couldn't help but imagine how grand and exciting a spectacle it would be to see one of those in flood, full of tumultuous water, rushing and hurtling towards the ocean.

A smaller arroyo. The track on the right is a 4WD road.

A larger arroyo. You can see where the road crosses it, and some caves made by the rushing water.

While imagining such things, I almost ran over a snake on the side of the road! SNYKE! I thought, A reddlesnyke! (For some reason I felt it appropriate to think in a Steve Irwin voice.) A genuine rattlesnake, in the wild, on the side of the road. I was pretty excited. I managed to not run over it, just, and get a few photos, before shooing it off the road so it didn't get killed.

SNYKE!

Even the plants have fangs.

Later that day, perhaps not quite as exciting, though it still gave me a tickle, was passing over the Tropic of Cancer. Seeing that made me think of really long distances, big things, and it made me feel like I was doing something big too. It was a good feeling. Not as exciting as the snyke though.

The rest of the day was relatively humdrum in comparison, and towards sunset I found the turnoff to Miraflores, which I'd heard was nice. It is a town situated at the feet of some beautiful mountains, and it is indeed a pretty place. I rode around looking for somewhere to pitch my tent, until someone suggested the church. Padre Jorge said that I was welcome to stay, and that there was space in the parking lot. So there I cooked dinner, set up my tent, and slept, to the sound of a church service.

Laaaaaaaaa.....