Thursday, 31 October, 2024 – Tuesday, 12 November, 2024
Note: Okay, we should address the obvious first—this blog post came out around 3 months after the last one. We were writing it on the road, but we didn’t finish it before we left Mexico on the airplane. As we mentioned in the previous post, we weren’t able to go over to Mazatlan on the mainland of Mexico because of the war between cartels. That’s why we booked a flight back home, and we spent the holiday season with family and friends. It felt nice to be back, but we kept procrastinating with blog writing. It just wasn’t the same since we were comfortably back at home.
We started to learn Spanish more seriously, and we planned a separate backpacking trip that we will take before the spring. A few people wrote to us, checking if everything is okay, and we really appreciated that. And now, after so much time has passed, we finally got back to writing this blog.
Let’s get back to our story.
Every time we decide to start early, something comes up, and this time wasn’t an exception. We woke up early in Los Petates campground, packed everything, and were ready to go. But as soon as we moved our bikes, Primož’s bike didn’t cooperate. It turned out that we apparently leaned the bike somewhere weird, and the rear derailleur got bent a little bit. It took us way over an hour to figure out what was wrong and to adjust the derailleur to work normally again. We were glad that we had Wi-Fi; it would be much harder without the help of YouTube. After all that, our early start got delayed to around 1 PM, so we decided to skip the panoramic ride around the town of San Ignacio, and we just hit the road. Whenever something goes wrong, good things happen to fix the day; in our case, we went to buy more purified water, but the man working there was so kind that he just gave us 10L for free. It wasn’t much in terms of money, but we found his gesture to be extremely nice, and he for sure made our day.
We start most of our days with some sort of exercise, especially centered around core strength—most often we do a few variations of holding plank. We found that after a few months of cycling, our legs got strong, but everything else didn’t. Our backs started to hurt a little bit, and besides the not-so-ideal sleeping mats and position on the bicycles, we blamed our weak body cores. After a few weeks of short daily exercises, we have seen a lot of improvement, so we continued to do it as often as we can. We started day 130 this way.
Ever since we left the campground close to San Ignacio, we have been faced with a more-than-usual amount of idiots on the road. We had a few close encounters with cars or trucks. One worth mentioning was with a guy who was probably playing on his phone on the highway, and he saw us at the last moment; he hit the brakes so hard that his car wheels stopped, which produced a lot of smoke and squeaking noise, and he stopped less than two meters behind us. We were also met with a few truckers that started to honk when they saw us, trying to tell us that we should get off the road because they won’t move on the other lane. How did we learn the meaning of that honking? Well, at first we thought that it’s just a “hello” honk, like a lot of cars and truckers do when they pass us, but after the first instance, when the truck didn’t move to the left and we could almost see its spare wheel underneath, we learned the lesson. We hate these drivers with a passion; hopefully, one day, they will be faced with a truck going 100 km/h right next to their face.
We found the iOverlander application to be useful also for finding interesting local points. One of such was a “hill-chain” of a cooled-down lava that we slept next to that night. We had to push our bikes on some rougher terrain, falling in small holes underground with our feet. It wasn’t a long walk, and we enjoyed the privacy we had there.
Friday, day 130, was Dia de los Muertos—Day of the Dead. We heard about celebrations and festivals in Mexico, but unfortunately, we weren’t in the right place at the right time. In most smaller towns, this holiday is spent with family and friends. To see those big celebrations, we would have to be in a larger city, like Ensenada or La Paz. We were in Santa Rosalia on that day, and besides some decorations around the town, we couldn’t really tell that there was a national holiday. So, how did we celebrate that day? We planned to go and eat out in a nice taco place, but everything was closed, so we stuck with our tortillas and beans before leaving the town to find a sleeping spot before the dark.
Two big things happened on day 131. First, a bee got under Primož’s helmet while riding, and it stung him in the head. This, combined with a mild bee allergy, meant a few sleepless nights and a lot of anti-itch cream. And second, we tried a new water tactic. Instead of always having 15-20 liters of water with us, we decided to try our luck and stop a passing car to ask for mercy. William and Oscar (the guys on the tandem bike) told us that this worked very well for them, so we gave it a try. The first car that we waved to stopped, and they gave us around 2 liters of cold water! Besides some social anxiety before waving for the first time, everything went smoothly. From then on, we weren’t as concerned about our water situation as we were before. We still refilled most of our water bottles when we could, but we didn’t have to ration and plan the water for the next few days; there was always a backup plan of just waving for the water.
Since restaurants were closed on the Day of the Dead, we went to eat out on day 132 instead, in Mulegé. Iris had her birthday a week ago, and we still had plans to treat ourselves with some decent food. We stopped at “Los Equipales” restaurant, where we left our bicycles in a company of around 15 motorcycles outside. The place was supposedly recommended by local people, and we saw a few of them in the restaurant. Also, the prices weren’t crazy; 160 Mexican pesos for a full meal (around 8€). At the end, we bought three meals for the two of us: beef burger, chicken burritos, and fish tacos. We also got tortilla chips, salsa, and corn soup alongside the main dishes. We ate everything and were barely able to move at the end of it. Luckily, there was free wifi available, so we spent the next two hours planning ahead.
We made an Airbnb reservation in San Jose del Cabo for two nights before our flight, and we also booked a car rental for the same days. We need cardboard boxes to take our bikes on the airplane, so we wrote to a bike shop that was close to the airport, but we never heard back from them—we will have to improvise when we get there.
Mulegé was a beautiful town in the oasis, and we were sad that we couldn’t explore it better and spend more time there, but we were already late and were in a rush to find a spot before dark, so we had to leave. We found our spot in a dry riverbed, which we shared with a pile of washed-up garbage. In the morning, a couple of curious cows woke us up while they were walking around the tent.
Monday, day 133, was a beautiful day. We had mostly rolling hills, going up and down without any steep climbs. The road ran next to the ocean, and we had some beautiful views over the sandy beaches under us. We went down to one of those beaches—Playa Requeson—and we enjoyed a couple of hours spent there. The interesting thing about that beach was that one could walk all the way to the nearby island, barely getting their ass wet by the sea. Sadly, we couldn’t sleep there because the beach officially closed after the sunset, so we knew that we would have to leave in time to find a sleeping spot somewhere else.
Nevertheless, we loved it there and would gladly extend our stay. We walked to the island, enjoyed the water, chased after the pelicans, and tried to feed seagulls. The price of having your fingers bitten was nothing compared to the fact that seagulls ate out of our hands! Before we left, we met a group of American tourists, guided by Jorge. We talked for a while and made a new friend on that beach! We exchanged our contacts with Jorge, and he said to call him if we ever need any help. Even after so many months on the road, we’re still surprised over our luck with meeting such incredibly kind people like Jorge. And here is a small spoiler: we will meet even more of them in the following month.
We left the beach and stopped by the road to ask for some water. Again, the first car that we waved to, stopped and gave us a bit over a liter of water, which was enough for the remainder of the day. The area wasn’t ideal for finding a nice sleeping spot; everything was fenced off again. So we lowered our standard, and we went through an open fence gate that we found by the road. It wasn’t much, but it was enough for the night, and we were semi-hidden from the road. The following night was cold and windy, and we were happy that we weighed down our tent with a few rocks in the evening.
We started day 134 with a 9-kilometer climb and a low battery in our Bluetooth speaker—it was barely enough that it lasted until the end of the climb, then it died on us. On top of that, we took a break and again stopped a car for some water. We were slowly getting good at that (and less stressed about it), and we developed a system of having one of us waving an empty water bottle right next to the road, while the other one was a few hundred meters further, next to some drive-off where cars could stop. This way, we gave drivers enough time between seeing us and them deciding if they want to stop or not. We could see why someone would prefer this over taking 10 liters on their bike—the water we got was almost always cold, and people didn’t seem to mind sparing you a liter of it. But we still preferred to stay as self-sufficient as possible, and our reason for asking for water for the last two days was that there wasn’t any water available to buy for the three days between Mulegé and Loreto.
Our plan was to sleep before Loreto this night; we still had around 35 kilometers to go. This meant that we needed just a bit more water, so we stopped one more car on our next break, and we got lucky again. But not only because we got some water; we also made a new friend this time—it was a man named Alvaro. He stopped his car, gave us around 3 liters of water, and he even offered us a ride to Loreto, which we politely declined. We communicated in Spanish and pantomime, so we couldn’t be 100% sure if we were thinking about the same thing, but we found the offer to be extremely nice. We didn’t know that at the time, but we would meet Alvaro two more times on the road in the next few days, and he would always stop and give us some cold water. He became our guardian angel for that time. And even more, he gave us a contact of his cousin in San Jose del Cabo, whom we could reach out to and maybe stay at his ranch/campground there.
The surrounding area was rocky with big boulders around us. Most of the road was slightly hilly—a gradual climb up, followed by a relaxed descent. We found a nice spot on the iOverlander app in a dry riverbed, hidden enough that we couldn’t be seen from the road.
We got to Loreto on day 135, and we made a big restock in the Bodega Aurrera store. Did we smell nice? Of course not, we were stinky after 6 days, so we found a laundry place in the town. We didn’t think twice about paying less than 2€ to get fresh, soft clothes. And they even offered free wifi, so it wasn’t hard to wait there. After refilling water in Loreto, we left the town on a very nice two-lane road with a wide shoulder—it was pleasant to ride on. Thanks to iOverlander, we found a beautiful beach with a long line of palapas, where we could spend the night without any problems. We weren’t the only ones who decided to stay there that evening—we met Nicolas, who was traveling from Canada down through Mexico on a motorbike. The first thing that caught our eyes was the guitar case, strapped on the side of his motorbike. He told us that he’s traveling and recording music on the go, wherever there’s beautiful scenery. We talked for a bit, but the wind was quickly getting stronger, so we had to make a wind shade for our tent. One broken tentpole was enough for us.
We picked our palapa, then we tried to figure out how to place our bikes to break the wind and hide our tent behind them. In the end, we had to use both of our tarps, hoping that they wouldn’t be torn by the strong wind bursts. You can see our setup in the picture below. Once that was taken care of, we put up our tent and ate some dinner. We were in the process of brushing our teeth and going into the tent when Iris met a small mouse coming out from under the tent. Thanks to iOverlander, we knew that it was called “Kangaroo rat”, and we weren’t the first people to see one in this area. It looks just like a mouse, but with a long tail and long, strong hind legs, it jumps around like a kangaroo. They live in the desert and come out at night to look for food, mostly in the form of seeds. They hear extremely well and can sense the change in air pressure, which they use to escape predators like snakes and owls. So I have no idea how Iris managed to meet one eye-to-eye, scaring both of them in the process. In the next few minutes, we tried to figure out how the rat got under our tent and why it would do it in the first place. There wasn’t any hole to find in the sand under the tent. We don’t like rodents around our bags and tent—they can easily bite through the material to get inside, looking for food. To avoid this, we turned on a high-frequency generator on our phone, hoping that the rat wouldn’t like it and would leave us for the night.
Through the night the wind settled down a bit, but in the morning of day 136 it picked up again. It was right after we packed the tent and before we took down the tarps, that one of the strong wind bursts just ripped the edge of one of the tarps. The quality of said tarp probably wasn’t the best since it cost around 5€ from Aliexpress, but it still surprised us a bit, and it didn’t take us long before we packed everything and left that beach.
While we were pedaling uphill on one of the ascents, we met Jorge again; this time he was waving us out of his car, going in the opposite direction. When we reached the top, we decided that it was a great time to take a longer break, and we hoped to meet Jorge there on his way back, but sadly that didn’t happen. Instead, we met David—a very kind guy who knew where Slovenia is, and he even knew a few Slovenian people. We learned that he has a house in San Jose del Cabo, where we planned to go, so we exchanged phone numbers and hoped that we would meet again.
Remember that strong wind from the beach in the morning? It ripped our tarp, but it also helped us up the next hill—5.5 kilometers of gradual climbing. Right before we reached the top, we took a break for lunch—that time it was something completely new since we added sliced cucumber to our usual tortillas with beans. From there on, we had many beautiful views over the surrounding mountains. We continued cycling, stopping only once in the afternoon to pay for a shower at a bar by the road. We couldn’t find any nice spot where we could set up a tent; everything was either too steep of a hill, covered in spiky bushes, or fenced off. The sun had already started to set off when we still had around 9 kilometers to the first spot that was marked on the iOverlander app as potentially sleepable. Thanks to our luck, we found a tiny road to the side before reaching the 9-kilometer mark. It wasn’t much, but by the time we pitched up our tent, it was completely dark outside. Sleeping next to the empty well wouldn’t be our top pick, but we had to take what we got. Also, one more cold night.
We started Friday, day 137, with a small breakfast of whatever we had left, and this gave us the motivation to start the day strong. We checked the map, and there were 50 kilometers until a town called Ciudad Insurgentes, where we would restock in a big Lays grocery store. It was supposed to be an easy morning ride because the road had a constant 2% decline, but the wind went against us, blowing nonstop from 2 o’clock. So we had to pedal for the whole 50 kilometers until we finally got to the town. There was our first break, and we went loose in the store—we bought too much and ate too much. We needed to take another break because of that. The road South out of the town was probably the worst road that we’ve encountered in Baja – it was narrow, full of holes, and with terrible traffic.
Finding an ideal sleeping spot every night was hard, and that evening was one of the times when we just had to take whatever we got. We followed a long sandy road off the main highway, and we knew that we wouldn’t be hidden from anyone; everything around us was flat with barely any trees. But we told ourselves that, just like many times before, there wasn’t anyone around to see us. Well, this time we were wrong.
The early morning of day 138 wasn’t in any way different from most of our mornings—we took down the tent, packed everything on the bicycles, and then we sat down to eat breakfast. We were hearing cowbells in the distance, but we weren’t paying much attention to anything around us. That was, until we saw a cowboy sitting on a horse, just watching us from the semi-distance. We weren’t sure how long he was there and if he saw our tent earlier. We just smiled and waved, and he decided to come closer—surely we would be more interesting than a dozen skinny cows that he was looking after. He was an older man, probably in his 60s or 70s, and he didn’t speak a word of English. We could say hello in Spanish and a few sentences about where we came from and where we’re going, but it stopped after that. To us, it was clear that there wasn’t anything else we could talk about, so we expected that he would turn around and go back to his cows. Nope, he just stayed there, sitting on his horse and looking at us. After half a minute, it started to become weird, so we looked at each other and started to slowly pack the last of our things into the panniers. It looked like we would be the ones leaving, and after a few minutes of packing, we said “adiós” and started to push our bicycles away. We wouldn’t say that the interaction was scary; we were mostly just hoping that he wouldn’t be angry at us for sleeping there.
We still had 4 days to go to La Paz city, and the map on iOverlander didn’t show any store on the road there, so we went to the shop for a resupply (in reality, there was one OXXO store). On the way out of the town Ciudad Constitución, Alvaro met us on the road, waving us out of his car, so we stopped, and he gave us some cold water once again. For the next 40 kilometers, there wasn’t anything specific that stayed in our memory, and we didn’t take a single picture. The only interesting thing was seeing a couple of cars suspiciously parked in between the cactuses a few hundred meters on the side road, right where we wanted to set up our tent. We avoided and passed them, then turned in between the cactuses, this time making sure that we were well hidden, which included us lifting bikes off the road to avoid leaving tracks on the side.
We stopped at an unexpected OXXO shop by the road on day 139. In total, we did just over 70 kilometers that day, out of which the last 10 were done while we were looking for a place to sleep. At the end, we found an unlocked fence gate that led onto a maintenance road for the electric tower, and we slipped through it when there wasn’t any car on the main road.
After 5 kilometers on day 140, we stopped at Loncheria Lupita—a sort of local fast food restaurant—and we had breakfast there. It was recommended to us by David, and when we got there, it was already full of locals, which we took as a good sign. It was a perfect combination of good prices and tasty food. We decided to try something new, and we ordered two things that we didn’t know: empanadas and tamales. For two portions, alongside a Coca-Cola, we paid 155 pesos (a bit under €8), and even though we still wanted to also try some dessert, we were completely full.
That day was one of the more social ones for us. First, after cycling for a while, we climbed up a hill and were greeted by a young couple waving at us from the edge of the road. They had smiling faces and two cold Coca-Colas in their hands. We talked for a bit, and they told us that they already helped 5 other cyclists in the last few days since they were on the road. Thank you, Yeni and Sidney, your kindness made our day, and we appreciated it at least as much as we were grateful for the cold Coca-Colas. We didn’t know it at the time, but that wasn’t the last time we would see each other.
A bit more cycling after that, and we found two new license plates by the road. The next break that we took was in the small shadow of a bush by the road. We stayed there for 10-15 minutes, and then just before we got back on the road, a car stopped next to us. It was Alvaro again! We just couldn’t believe our luck! Even now, when we’re writing this a few months later, we’re still amazed by him. Whenever Alvaro saw us on the road, he stopped and checked in with us. It was the kindness that we couldn’t repay him, and he didn’t expect anything in return. It’s fair to say that he became our inspiration for selfishly helping others, and we will make sure to pay the kindness we received from him forward to someone else.
But even this wasn’t the end of socialising for us. For the last two days, we were seeing subtle evidence of someone cycling in front of us – tire marks on the gravel, alongside footsteps going off and back on the road. Then, finally, we saw a lone cyclist sitting in the shadow under a tree, just a few meters off the road. We caught up to him. Young man’s name was Valentin and he was from Switzerland. He was cycling in the same direction, going to San Jose del Cabo, just like we did. We talked, exchanged contacts, took a picture together, and promised that we would stay in touch, before we continued. We still had 20 kilometers to the spot that we chose to sleep. We were tired, our butts hurt like crazy, and we knew that we must continue if we wanted to get there before the sunset. There was a fence on both sides of the road, so we couldn’t just sleep wherever we wanted. At the end, we found a small road which led us behind a hill, and we set up our camp there. We were right under the electricity tower, and there was a constant sound of buzzing, but we weren’t too bothered by it – we were too tired to care about such small inconveniences.
The following day, Tuesday, day 141, we got to La Paz. There were only three WarmShowers hosts in the city, and none of them could host us. Our backup plan was to stay in a campground in La Paz, but before that, we contacted Tuly. She is a former WS host (she hosted over 800 people), and we got her contact from Jorge (who was one of the contacts that we got from Shirley), so we sent her a message and waited for her reply. Even though she decided not to host people anymore, she made an exception for us, for which we were extremely grateful.
Before we went to her house, we stopped at Soriana – a big grocery store – and we improvised burgers out of bread, pulled pork in a bag, guacamole sauce (with 0% avocado), and some fresh peppers. Besides that, we bought enough food for the next few days, then we went to Tuly. She showed us around the house, we met her roommates, and we petted their dog Blacky. Then we took a shower and set up a tent next to their house. We will stay here for the next few days.
For the last two months, our goal was to reach La Paz, and now we finally achieved it. As we wrote in our previous blog post, our plans from here on have changed, and we won’t be taking the ferry from La Paz to Mazatlán on mainland Mexico. But, nevertheless, there is one thing in La Paz that we are extremely excited about: we would go swimming with the whale sharks! But more on that in the next blog post …
Some more pictures:
Lepo je prebirati …, zdaj, ko vemo da sta bolj na varnem in vam je udobneje 🥰🥰.