Day 8 - The End

at the very first sign of daylight, we were dressed, packed and loaded. during the night this motel had received quite a few more customers and the parking lot was full. there was a huge contingent of dirt bikers. there was no water. shocking. couldn't even flush the toilet. i think ye left them a calling card. ;-)

adios catavina!

but before we could arrive in el rosario, ye pulls off the road and says his bike doesn't feel right. when he checks the pressure in the rear tire, it has 5 lbs. in it. we pulled over and he aired it up. we plugged it in el rosario.

we stopped to check in on a few friends that we'd met on previous visits. this little church stuck on the hillside and it's members have become like family to us. last time we visited we left them with some money.

this is their simple cucina or kitchen. it had received a fresh coat of paint. last time we visited it was bare cement block.

this is the two room school. it also received a fresh coat of paint. it used to be bright blue.


this is one of our dear friends in el rosario, emilio. the curtains are new.

it didn't take emilio more than 3 minutes to come down the hill with they key to the church in hand. he was very excited to show us their upgrades.


the front of their very modest church.


they bought a new 13" tv/vcr combo. their conference is very large and the pastor is in san quentin. he only visits every 7th week. so with the bulk of the money that we gave them, they bought this:

Parabolica!

a satellite dish to receive their sermons and spanish programming all through the week. i wept, emilio wept with me. i was so touched.


north we rode. our destination was colonet for the 2nd best fish tacos on the planet.

our waitress was lupita. lupita's papa was the owner/cook. we visited with lupita all during our meal and then asked her if we could take a picture of her and her father. they each reached inside their very small store and brought out the family.

this is papa, roberto, lupita and lupita's daughter, angeles. such a wholesome family!

this trip has been all about the friends we've made. the lives that have touched ours.

but wait, the worst is yet to come!

grape vines. also known as, the calm before the storm. i remember ye turning to me right after he lowered the pressure in our tires saying "this is going to be fun!" uh-huh.

okay, so the next 5 miles was really fun, then, i came upon a pickup truck with quite possibly 10 people inside, in the bed and hanging off every inch of that truck. when i pulled up behind them, they jumped off, stopped the truck and laughed at me as i went by.

"well, you rude, SOBs" i thought to myself. "i'll show you!"

yeah, i showed them! about 3 miles down the road after 3 ft. tall sand whoops that were about equal distant apart, ruts in each and every corner that were obviously caused by the trophy trucks of the baja 1k, i was pulling to the side of the road, stripping off my rain pants that were now holding about 4 gallons of sweat on my riding pants. wow it was cold taking those babies off and it felt soooooo good.

now, back to hell. . .every stinking time i'd think "that *had* to be the worst of it" my tremors would subside and then another bout of ruts and whoops would hit. hot dang this was awful!

and the only thing i could see was ye smiling at me back at the grape vines saying "this is going to be fun!" mostly because i hadn't seen him since then and was convinced that i was going to spend the rest of my life on that road.

and yes, boys and girls, it had all been my idea. and to think i was worried about the 2 water crossings that pedro had taken us through just 2 short years before. water crossings? gone. i now know what the planet would look like after thermonuclear war!

and finally the road evened out a bit and we managed to find the pemex station in valle de trinidad.

after that it was pavement all the way home! the back up from the military checkpoint going to san felipe stretched for quite a bit and it was heavy traffic all the way to mexicali. once we got there, we thought we would face huge lines for the border. that didn't materialize, in fact, mexicali was almost deserted and we were back across to the US in short order.

we showered and slept at home that night. no one was expecting us until sunday. we didn't let anyone know until late saturday.

so a special thanks to our new and old friends, ralph, the older couple in the microbus, mike with the dirt bike gang, beautiful donita and her brother and sister, loreto, leon, clarita, cleopatra, ricardo, juan, roberto, luis, carla, emilio, lupita, her papa, roberto and angeles! thanks to our special angel in la paz. and last but not least, thanks to my husband for creating even more memories to cherish!

and if you are thinking it, do it!

Day 7

we took our time getting up and moving. time and money was getting short and we were slowly making our way back north.

we met and talked with a couple riding 2-up from canada. they had flown down to san diego and rented a harley. he owned an st1100 back home and thought the harley was quite fine for what they were doing. different strokes. . .they had stayed at "linda's" in catavina the night before and the mrs. said it was not bad.


this was a shot a got as we were heading out of loreto heading north. i really liked this town and the baja outpost. leon, loreto and clarita had become our friends. leon has a beautiful golden retreiver that for 2.5 yrs. is one of the most laid back and friendly i've ever seen. cleopatra lumbers up and drops herself at your feet. she doesn't beg, but did appreciate the bacon i fed her under the table (shhhh, don't tell).


i snapped this picture to show you cacti growing right up to the sea of cortez.

these next few were shots while i was riding. i need to get a ram mount for my camera. . .



as we entered santa rosalia, i took this for a reference shot.





i took this shot because it's always been one of the most curious hillside homes i've seen. actually the hillside facing it is the best, but it ended up being a sky shot. i just didn't capture it. the homes are straight up the hillside and in various stages of being incomplete. all are inhabited though.

this is a shot of the bay at santa rosalia


it was about this time that a couple riding a big 1150 gs came up from behind us. we rode together for a while, but we were quicker and lighter through the curves. it wasn't long before they would reappear in our mirrors. this went on the rest of the day.

as we neared guerrero negro, it began to get a little chilly. ye pulled over and pulled his rainjacket on, the couple passed us then. i elected to forgo my rainjacket (for warmth) as i was still quite comfortable. that was about to change.

we rode possibly 15 more miles before the temperature plummeted. we pulled over just outside of guerrero negro and pulled on more gear. i was about to freeze to death. :-) we ended up putting on our electrics AND turning them on. it was chilly for a good while.

once we pulled over and introduced ourselves. mathias and claudia from switzerland had begun their adventure in argentina and were heading to canada. wow. come to find out, they had also stayed in loreto last night.

we stopped in catavina as daylight was waning. we checked out the hotel there, la pinta. nice enough place, but they didn't accept credit cards and were charging $88/night. way too many fun coupons for what we had left. we decided that if the harley couple thought the pink hotel in catavina "wasn't bad" we could stay there too.

oh. my. goodness.



i'm including almost every photo for a reason. i don't want to forget a single detail.

okay, my first clue should have been that the world traveling swiss took one look at the room and decided to push forward the 80 miles to el rosario. hmmmmm.




well, we checked in. here is a shot of wallace studying the map. i am aghast that he would even sit on that bed. it was so soft i wondered what it was filled with. i can't bear to think.


this is the bathroom shower curtain. it's only purpose is to keep those walking in front of the hotel from seeing you sitting on the commode.

we did not shower in this motel. . .

it slowly dawned on me that. . .the electricity feeding this motel was from a gas powered generator. the ceiling fan was wired in to the overhead lights. if you wanted the fan on, the retinal searing overhead light had to be on too. ye says "it's okay honey, i'll turn the light off at the fan." it was then we discovered the overhead was dangling from a couple of wires loosely from the center of the ceiling.

what building codes?!?

then. ye's in the bathroom washing his hands and he says "hey, i hear water running!" so he grabs a flashlight and heads to the back of the motel.

okay, it's a direct drain. direct to the back of the building.

and he just *had* to drag me back there to prove it. like i needed something else to keep me awake all night.

i couldn't even bring my mind to think about where the toilet was draining. there are some things that just don't need to be explained and that was one of them. ye kept trying to make me think about it though.

unfortunately, we were hungry. we tried a restaurant that a guy from garden grove, ca recommended. his wife was from catavina and knew the best places. this guy was so high he was literally shouting information at us. nice enough guy, but his recommendation didn't pan out as the greatest, cheapest cafe in town was closed. rats. so we walked back to linda's.

what was i thinking!?!

we explained, vegetariano. no problemo, cheese enchilada's. oh no! i made a side glance to the kitchen, there were flies EVERYWHERE. i told ye not to look. i'm sure i threw up in my mouth a little bit. after i ate, i threw up more than a little in my mouth at the thought.

shudder.

but there is always a silver lining we've found. and ours was:


Carla! what a wonderful young woman she was. her family was from cabo san lucas. her papa, madre, sister, candy and herself were stranded here in catavina with a broken radiator hose. they had originally planned to visit phoenix, but due to the mechanico taking off the long weekend for the easter holiday, they were stuck.

we spent a couple of hours talking with her about the different cultures, different languages, families. what a sweet person she was.


carla is an 18 year old senior in high school who works in a clothing store in cabo. it always impresses me when young people reach outside their comfort zone to visit with a couple of old traveling geezers. and we shared a wonderful time.

it was getting dark and i wasn't sure how much longer the electricity was going to last. i wanted no more of this night so. . .

i dug out the bug spray that i had packed, we sprayed down the sheets, threw our sleeping bag on top of the sheet, and one to use as a cover, stuck my earplugs in and tossed and turned myself to sleep.

tomorrow. . .was another day.

Day 6 - Cabo

as we arose this wednesday morning, we headed out of our swank accommodations to hear that mcdonald's fries buzzer one last time (thankfully).

we navigated through the dirt side roads to once again hook up with highway 19 for the cabo loop. it wasn't too long before we started seeing signs. our first stop on the outskirts of cabo san lucas was at a pemex station. we pulled up and there sat this beautiful f650gs. i felt like goldilocks, it wasn't too big, it wasn't too small, it was *just right*.



i was suddenly a woman with a mission. must. have. more. information.
besides, there is no escaping us when we spy another biker and we're stopped. we simply wait them out, they have to depart sometime and when they do, we pounce. ;-)

we didn't have to wait long before luis came out of the convenience store with a cup of coffee in his hand.



luis told us he had 16,000 km (about 10,000 miles)on his bike in less than a year. he had taken the ferry from la paz and traveled around mexico mainland to the copper canyon, mazatlan, yadda. he was such a great guy, busy, but took the time to answer all of our questions and even offered to snap a picture of the two of us before he departed in to the wind. i must say, the people we met on this trip were just beyond wonderful and we feel very blessed to have met each and every one of them.



say "queso!" this is us posing in front of what i had hoped to be my next bike.

and this is what it was all about.



i snapped this at the stop light. funny how something a few weeks ago seemed so darn important. now that we were here, i couldn't wait to leave.

the traffic was more than we had become accustomed to, and things just were not right with the universe. there are all these multinational huge corporations that have bought up almost every inch of beach front property, there are crews of mexican construction workers busily building everywhere. the thought struck me more than once that these citizens living in this city would soon not be able to afford to do so. even a camping spot was $30/night.

so we snapped a few obligatory pictures of the shoreline and kept riding.




a view from some hotel parking lot that had guards and no one would let us any closer.





we rounded the cape of the cabos and headed north once again. we passed the trópico del cáncer sign on our way. it was all a bit anticlimatic and i began to realize our trip was not about the destination, but the people. the people we had met, the people we continue to meet.



this was a spot about 50 miles north of san jose del cabo. for some unknown reason, ye decides this is a great spot to pull over and take a pee. i busied myself trying to get a shot that didn't include that obnoxious telephone line. i snapped some thinking i would later crop it out, well, that obviously didn't happen.

by the time he was done with his business we guessed about 50 people had rounded that corner to witness his bladder evacuation. he says "gosh, can you believe how busy this road is? i think 50 people saw me pee."

uhm, that's a big NSS! what was he thinking!





i started to get a little snap happy when i decided to start taking pictures while i was riding. the first several were shots of the sky before i figured out you need to hold it as if it were you eyes. anyway, here are some. i'm not going to even attempt to tell you where they were. suffice it to say, it was between santiago and loreto.

i was trying to get a shot of the green bay at la paz, but it just didn't turn out. here are a couple more of my attempts.




and here is the malecon at loreto once again. our fun coupons are running pretty low at this point and so we are seeking establishments that will accept our credit card. okay, this is another opportunity to practice direct, concise communication and say what i really mean. and what i really mean is, an establishment that would accept "Ye's" credit cards. :-) look how much i'm growing!

lucky more me that means baja outpost for another wonderful night luxuriating in this oasis.

when we pulled up, leon greeted us with a smile and a wave and asked if we were stopping by to visit, or were we staying. how nice.

we walked down the malecon to hunt down some food. we went to a place called something Texas bbq. now, remember, we're vegetarians. but. . .they had a wonderful sounding guacamole salad and margaritas! so i talked ye in to going.

i have to tell you, the service was morbidly slow, so slow we had to ask the waiter if the cook was still alive. goodness. for 1 bottle of beer, one order of guacamole, some chips and a margarita? $18! that was an entire fun coupon!

ye was significantly less than pleased. we stopped at the corner licor store and picked up a 6 pack of the XX's and made our way back to the oasis.

it was a long day's ride. we were beginning to look longingly at our dwindling stack of fun coupons. each gas stop ate up at least one. . .it was now a couple days before the easter holiday and holy week for most mexicans. that pretty much means that at least for the long weekend all establishments would be closed, a.k.a. the bank! we still had a couple things to do before we left for home. those are for tomorrow.