Mar de Cortez

A bit nervous, and a bit excited, we pushed our bikes out of our cramped hotel room, into the elevator, and down into the bustling streets of Mexicali. The man at the front desk of the hotel advised us on the best way to escape the traffic of town, but as soon as we were out on the streets, his advice became worthless. None of the streets were signed at all, and this would continue to become the standard for the following days of riding in Baja. Best to get used to it from the start then being shocked later I guess.

The shoulder was wide, the drivers friendly, and enthusiastic complements from the side of the street were flowing as we stretched our legs for the first time. In less than 30 minutes, we were out of Mexicali, and on the quieter highway which led west to Tecate, and even further west to Tijuana. You see, we had decided to take the more scenic route to San Felipe, only some 200 or so km or away. Instead, our route would wind up taking us over twice this distance, and possible thrice, in the name of adventure and more scenery.

Eventually the sun beat down on us enough to compel us to stop at an amandoned shack/gas station/marcado within view of a huge salt flat. The shade was nice, and gave us enough time to get ready for the last push into twilight. When we felt like we could barely be seen any more on the roads, we found a break in the barbed wire on the side of the road, and pushed our bikes thru the sand and around dry bushes to our first camp of the trip.

Our maps don't really show anything in terms of elevation gain, but we did know that soon enough we would be getting into the Sierra de Juarez. What we didn't know was if we had to go over a huge pass, if we slowly went and stayed up high, or what. What we found was that we would wind up climbing constantly for a few hours after we got through our first military checkpoint, and stay up high for the next 3 days.


the scenery immediately had me thinking of southern California on the Pacific Crest Trail, and then Lisa had to remind me that we were looking north, into California 'norte', and probably could see the mountains that the PCT was on. Oops! The view from up top was absolutely beautiful, and it was amazing to see how much we had climbing up from the valley floor. The further we went away from Mexicali, the more beautiful things seemed to become, and we were ready for the mountains near Parque de Nacional Constitucion.

All along we had been planning to enjoy some hot springs in Canon de Guadelupe, which according to some quick notes we added to our Lonely Planet guide, could be found in the Parque. The previous day though, we saw a sign to the Canyon on the road, and this side road wasn't even on our map. Without a clue as to how far the canyon was from the road, we decided to pass it up and enjoy whatever else the Parque would have for us. After the huge 3,000 ft climb, we stayed high and went to the town of La Rumorosa for a resupply. We figured we would need 4 days of food and water to get through the next stretch, and this would wind up being dead on. The young boy who swepth the floors and did other odd jobs at the marcado took an interest in us, asking us about our trip, which we enjoyed responding to in our broken spanish. spanish that is slowly improving...

9 Liters of water, lots of packed food, and a heavy bike later, found us pedaling south through town on our first dirt road.


Brecha: noun: Gap, hole.

Our maps called these backroads 'brechas'. Not sure exactly what to think of that, and not sure if the literal translation from our dictionary implied, we took off into the sand. Within a few miles, we found ourselves sliding all over the sandy road. Getting off the bikes a lot to push through the deepest sand. Asking locals for directions on how to get to the Parque whenver the road would fork, and the signs weren't there to help us figure out where to go. We were offered water and a place to stay at Rancho Nuevo by a really friendly father and son in a pickup, but knew we wouldn't make the remaining 20 km before dark fell. Before darkness fell though, we were treated to a beautiful sunset and a nice campsite.

And then the wind came. And then the rain. The wind was pounding our tent so hard that we had to reinforce the tent with as many guylines as the tent would hold. Sleep was tough to come by, and around 4 am the rain started to come down. When we woke up at 6 or so, we had to decide what to do. The rain would pour for 15 minutes, then hold off for a few, then come down again. Ultimately we would stay in the tent until 1pm, before riding into the cold and damp day.

The rain had made the sand rideable, and actually fun and smooth. We didn't make it very far that day since the hours of daylight are so short. A little more rain fell that night, and no more would fall for the next few days. The next day we started earlier and was full of new challenges. The wind was bad, we were cold, and decided to drop to lower elevations and better weather, or so we imagined. The road started off innocently enough, but then turned into a series of neverending steep hills. More bike pushing up the sandy hills, riding down slightly sketchy loose sand, pushing up again, repeat repeat. This road was more beautiful than the flat plateau that we were just on. The going was slow, and again we got to an unsigned junction. Knowing that we needed to head south, we followed the left fork which seemed to be going in that direction.

2 hrs of stess about the road starting to head in the wrong direction without any good landmarks got us to a sign: "Parque Nacional Constitucion - 20 km". what the hell?? We had been thinking the whole time that we were far south of the park, but somehow we had branched west, and taken a road that wasn't on the a map which connected back on the road we were just on. 6 hrs of hard work had us back to where we had started in the morning. At least it was all beautiful!


The road had snow on it, without much traffic. The park was very pretty, with a huge dry lake which is full of life and water in the summertime. The descent down from the plateau was the most exciting of the trip and got us to the town of Ojos Negros and paved road.

The paved road was immediately a drag to me: slow rough asphalt, lots of traffic, zero shoulder, and really scary winds created by passing semi's pushed my stress levels through the roof. Lisa was handling it much better than I was. I was immediately longing for the adventure of the high jeep roads, not the boring, flat monotony of the highway. Within 30 minutes, my mood had changed and I enjoyed cruising the road. The valley was beautiful and wide, traffic died considerably, and the sun got low.

More highway riding later, a birthday for Eric in a San Matias diner for truck drivers, and a ride along the sea put us in San Felipe. Of course there is a ton missing, but we are both very happy. There are mountains in view to the west, the sea to the east, and are in a pretty quiet town.