Days 28 And 29: San Ignacio To San Lucas To Mulegé

We woke up to a knock on the door of our cabaña... we were invited to Sofia's for homemade pozole (a warm happy soup filled with bits of tender pork and hominy, dressed to taste with fresh lime, onion, cilantro), otherwise known as the perfect hangover food.  She even had a big mug of real coffee for me.  We said our goodbyes and packed up for a well-deserved late start.

We headed out with a nice tailwind and a gradual climb out of San Ignacio around Los Tres Vírgenes, a complex of three volcanos (so says Wikipedia), the largest of which is known as the Vírgen and has been reputed to have last erupted in the mid-1700s.  And then we plummeted down a crazy descent called the Cuesta del Infierno (aka Slope of Hell) into Santa Rosalía, where we would have a late lunch.

La Vírgen.

Gonzalo likes to bomb down these hills, but I pulled off halfway down this screeching descent into "hell" to appreciate the awesomeness of the grade of this descent.  This was one of the few places that even had a shoulder to pull off on!

The promise of blue waters... but I had to finish this crazy descent first!

First things first.  Awesome seafood!  Ceviches, cocktails, you name it.  Baja does it right.  We knew this place would be good by the number of Mexicans relishing meals inside.

Santa Rosalía is a strange place.  It is as much an industrial town as it is a fishing town.  Apparently, there are tons of Koreans here because of a huge business they have here harvesting the giant squid to send back to the motherland.  There is some tourist infrastructure here because of its location on the Mar de Cortes, but it seems out of place amidst the huge seafood processing infrastructure.  We didn't stay long and opted to head out to find some nice beach camping on the other side of town, and ended up somewhere near a spot called San Lucas.

As always, dirt and sand access roads are our best friends when it comes to finding good beach camping.

The next morning, we biked out with the idea that we would reach Mulegé by lunchtime and set up camp early on the beach somewhere thereafter to give Gonzalo some time to work.  It was an easy day of cycling and we took some time once we reached Mulegé to do the tourist thing.

Vulture eyes me on my way out of camp.

I found a playmate at a small market we stopped at for drinks.  I can't remember where it was, but the guy had obviously seen cycle tourists come through before because he has a huge tree that prior cyclists have hunkered down under to escape the heat of the day.

The mission at Mulegé.

A solitary rose in the most unlikely of places.

Viewpoint from the mission... like San Ignacio, Mulegé is a wonderful little oasis due to a river that actually runs year-round.

I'm not entirely sure what this tourist information sign is trying to say...

As usual, we take a sandy access road to get to the water.  This one was a little more rugged than most.  If I had to do this section again, I would have cycled another 45 minutes to an hour to get to the "picture perfect" stuff... see next post... but this was still really nice.

We found the water!

A few travel notes for cyclists:

• While this part of Highway 1 is not as remote, we only saw about one place to stop for food and supplies between San Ignacio and Santa Rosalía, although this stretch is easily done without needing to stop.  Once you are past Santa Rosalía, there are enough little places that you don't need to worry to much.

• Although I am not particularly into the electronic gadgets like Gonzalo, I have come to appreciate that his GPS allows us to scout good areas for wild camping away from populated areas, or helping us determine how far we are from the water and to identify beach access roads.  We've created a comfortable division of labor, where he deals with the nitty gritty of the directions (we do general route planning together), and I manage food supplies and accounting.