13/10/09
I left San Felipe and rode across Baja California to Ensenedas on the Pacific coast across a good mountain road, with the temperature dropping to 9 degrees C. The road from Ensenedas goes inland for a while before following the coast to El Rosario, where I stopped for the night and met Mark a fellow Englishman, riding a BMW GS 1200, on the same route as me. We decided to ride together to La Paz. The next day we rode to Bahia D'Los Angeles on the East coast of Baja and 66 KM of the main Ruta 1 we had been following. We stayed at a beach front hotel with an amazing colonial lobby area.
The following day we rode south through Gurerro Negro which is in the state of Baja California Sur, across a landscape of huge boulders and cacti, which rapidly changed to a lush green mountain landscape. The greennes was aresult of a hurricane and flood that happened at the beginng of September. The other immediate effect of the hurricane was the road would suddenly be gravel from where the tarmac had been washed away. We stopped at San Ignacio, a small village with a tree lined sqaure dominated by large church. Our accomadation was a yurt on a riverside B&B owned by a Canadian couple who showed us the devastaion left by the floods with the water mark at 4 feet deep and a Yurt that had been uprooted complete with it's concrete base.
We rode trough Mulege, on the East coast, the next day and stayed at a house owned by a couple who run a rewsturaunt. The property has no mains electricty and relies on a generator to run the resturaunt. They are also feeling the effect f the Hurricane and the economical situation affecting Ameica, withl ess tourists visiting the area.
The ride to La Paz was about 260 miles and was another good ride along good roads that took us to both sides of the peninsular. San Felipe is a ferry port and a resort location which is popular with Americans and Canadians.
On the Sunday I left Mark in La Paz to catch the ferry to Mazatlan, on the Mexican mainland. The overnight crossing took 14 hours, and I arrived to find it raining and the roads flooded. I stayed one night in Mazatlan, and there was another rainstorm, which again left the roads flooded.
Today (Tuesday) I rode to Durango, in the state of Durango a distance of 386 Km. The final 268 being on scenic mountain roads that are cut into the side of the mountain. The road follows the rim of a huge valley and has sheer cliffs on one side and a steep drop on the other. There where various hazards, including horses, cows and a donkey, not to mention lorries driving round bends on the wrong side.
I am staying in Durango for 2 nighs before riding south to Zacatecas, and then to the pacific coast towards Acapulco.
I have tried to download photographs to the blog, and the problem is I dont know how to compress the files. If anyone can help I wouls appreciate it.