Days 2 And 3: The Mesa Between La Misión And San Miguel To Somewhere Near Piedras Gordas To Just Past Héroe De La Independencia

We woke up to cool clouds and set off for Ensenada.  After an easy two-hour ride and some growing pains on how to communicate while riding, we reached Ensenada.  Our first order of business was to pick up a Mexican SIM card for me and for Gonzalo to recharge his cell phone credits.  Then off for a highly anticipated seafood lunch of oysters, shrimp a la diabla, fish tacos, and shrimp tacos.  The food was good but overpriced, but the service was impeccable… the proprietor of the restaurant let us put our bikes in their storage room.

Gonzalo has ridden Highway 1 all the way down to the bottom of Baja California before, so in response to my desire to chase the roads less travelled, he mapped out an ambitious route cutting across the Sierra de Baja California mountain range on Highway 3 with off-road detours following trails and dirt roads.  So we stocked up on food supplies and diverted inland to test our climbing legs.

Highway 3 is purportedly the Wine and Cheese Route… this was one of the few vineyards we saw, but it wasn’t open to tourists.

We basically spent all day slowly and methodically climbing with beautiful views.  I was happy to see that my legs were doing pretty well and that all my triathlon training wasn’t wasted.  In fact, I was in such a good climbing zone that I nearly rolled over a tarantula!  Highway 3 may not be accurately be a Wine and Cheese Route as advertised, but it is a cycle tourist’s dream… smooth pavement, beautiful views, just enough towns to make planning not too difficult, and almost no traffic.

Yet another great wild camping spot in a lush green drop-off away from the road.  It also made for a great makeshift bike shop as I had to fix my kickstand which had worked itself loose.

The next morning, Gonzalo and I discussed some concerns about the route, including some of the more difficult offroad trails, which would require us to carry food and water for 4-5 days.  We decided that we would stay on Highway 3 because it was such great riding rather than riding dirt for the sake of riding dirt.  Instead, our priority would be to have nice traffic-free cycling with nice views, with dirt roads where necessary because of the isolation of a route or as an alternative to crappy congested roads like the Panamerican Highway.  Or, as Eduardo would say, “don’t be stupid, it’s supposed to be fun!”  The hardcore trails we would save for times where we could ditch our heavy panniers and truly mountain bike.   

With that in mind, we continued our climb and made it over the crest of the Sierra, which offered hard-earned views.

Taking in the view.

Highway 3 is supposed to be a Cheese and Wine Route… the only cheese I had was in my breakfast burrito and we saw no signs of actual wine to be had.

The mountains in this part of the route area are covered in huge boulders and rocks.  And cows.  There are a ton of ranches throughout this part of Baja.

We passed through our first military checkpoint with nothing but a few incredulous stares and questions about our trip.  Just before the checkpoint is a gas station and small store which sells some basic burritos, tortas, water, and simple supplies.  Although there is a decent sized town called Ojos Negros just after the military checkpoint, you have to divert from the main road to get there.  This is the last place to get water or food until the own of Héroe de la Independencia since the Sierra slowly turns into desert at this point.

Gonzalo asked the gas station attendant if there was a vineyard where we could do a wine tasting along the way, and he said there was a place 5 km down the road.  When we arrived at the juncture, we saw a sign for Cava de Queso… 7km down a dirt road.  Argh!  Surely there was wine there, but we were loathe to bike 14km just for cheese, so we continued on.

We had a low grade climb into Heroe de la Independencia, where Gonzalo found a wonderful little comedor by asking the shop keeper at the market where we stocked up on water.  It’s times like this where speaking Spanish pays off.  We dived into our "horden" de desebrada for an early dinner, which is a delicious dried shredded beef dish before finding a wild camping spot just outside of town.

Lesson learned from camping among the cacti… the spines really hurt! 

Somewhere along the way to the campsite, I managed to lose my helmet mirror.  Luckily, Gonzalo had the spare mirrors I had purchased for my bike, but which didn’t fit my handlebars.  Zipties to the rescue, I improvised a new rearview mirror setup.

Roy would be so proud…

We treated ourselves to a movie (thanks Karim!) and some of my precious pear jelly bellies imported all the way from Richland, Washington (courtesy of my father by order of my mother, thanks to both of you!).