This trip, as with the 2001 ride, proved relatively uneventful for the most part. I knew a little more Spanish so that helped quite a bit.

I can’t recommend riding the Baja roads at night, unless you’re in a city or town. Traffic is just too unpredictable, and headlights and signal lights appear to be an option that not many choose out in the boondocks.

The fuel was all good, and although not always available from a gas station, it caused me no problems. For the most part here is no high-octane fuel, except in the larger centers.

As always, the food was pretty good, although I tend to get a little tired of the Mexican fare from time to time. That’s easily remedied in the larger centers.

The road blocks are a bit of a pain but they are mostly paved turnoffs. The troops are polite and even though there is no English spoken they make known what they want to look at and into, so it’s only a matter of opening bags and letting them look. I had no problems.

Border crossings both ways were relatively uneventful except for the northern crossing at Nogales. I was truly surprised by the truck jam here and the fact that you had to ride around them to the car crossing. I had no problem re-entering the United States.

And yes, I’ll do it again one day!

February 11-13, 2006

After another overnight in Loreto I made a last minute decision to proceed to Santa Rosalia and take the overnight ferry across to Guaymas and then head north to Nogales and the border. I needed a vehicle permit to do that, but it was Sunday. After trying my Spanish out at the ferry office, the attendant called the local Banjercito girl to come in and write up a permit for me. She required photocopies of my passport, driver’s licence and insurance card, which I was able to provide. She also wanted a copy of my tourist visa, but since I had no copies of that, she consented to make one for me.

I was on my way.

The Santa Rosalia ferry as of this writing (February 2006) is scheduled for Tuesday, Friday and Sunday night departures at 8 p.m., but after talking to a biker who had gotten off the late-arriving ferry I learned that the seas were very rough during his daylight crossing. This would delay the departure.

Motorcycles are loaded first, then the rest of the vehicles. After strapping down the bike, I headed up to my cabin hoping that I’d get a good night’s sleep. Unfortunately, that wasn’t to be the case. The scow listed badly from side to side in the rough sea crossing, and I was kept awake most of the night as we cruised across the Sea of Cortez. Needless to say, I was extremely happy to see the breakwater of Guaymas approaching at nine in the morning.

After a quick topoff in Guaymas, I rode north on the four-lane highway all the way to Nogales. I was very surprised by the trucks waiting to enter the U.S. They were lined up for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of feet, blocking all of the approach lanes to the border. I finally crossed over into the oncoming lanes to get past the trucks and into the car lanes. Apparently this is now standard procedure to get over the line.

While idling away in the lane, I witnessed a Border Patrol agent wrestle a pedestrian to the ground and escort him back to the Mexican side.

Welcome to America!

I finally tired of the tourist nonsense and packed up to ride north. There’s fuel on the way out if you choose, or you can ride approximately 30 miles to Todos Santos and fuel there. The M19 runs north along the Pacific coast and it can be a little cool first thing in the morning. After my early departure I decided to stop for breakfast at Todos.

The Hotel California is decidedly a bad place to do that. The service was horrible and the meal only so-so. When I finally got my “toast” it wasn’t even brown, but it was nice and hard. I wondered if it was yesterday’s bread leftovers.

There’s a legend floating around that the Hotel California is one and the same as sung about in the song. This isn’t true in the slightest and has in fact been denied by the band.

Across the street from ‘that’ Hotel California, the former owner of the original Hotel California has a very nice place to eat, with a streetside patio. I wish I had gone in there, but I had to sample the ambiance of the old Hotel. A mistake, to be sure, for one can still wander around the old hotel and not eat. Take my advice, and if you must, eat across the street.

I checked out a small market just up the street, but found nothing remarkable. Just more of the same. Todos Santos is just another tourist town albeit on a much smaller scale than Cabo.

Back in the saddle again and I was headed for Loreto one more time. At the west end of La Paz there’s plenty of fuel all the way to the airport cutoff, so don’t be worried about turning off the highway and going into La Paz.

The ride north was uneventful.

February 6-10, 2006

Today was a short haul south to Cabo San Lucas on the M1. Highway 19 is about an hour shorter, and I’ll take that north from Cabo on my way home. There are plenty of small towns to pull off and enjoy the sights on the M1. One of the nicest is Los Barriles, which is fast turning into another Cabo, although on a much smaller scale.

I rode through San José del Cabo on the way to Cabo San Lucas. To me they both appear overdeveloped. Traffic is a mess. Yet again every shop sells the same version of different trinkets, shirts and caps. The resort hotels have the beaches tied up. And so I retired to the quiet elegance of the Hotel Santa Fe, a five minute walk down Zaragoza to the main drag, Lazaro Cardenas.

At the Santa Fe rooms came with a fridge, a toaster oven, dishes and cutlery. There’s a small store, but prices are very high for gringos. My recommendation is to pick up what you need at the grocery store at the end of the street when you walk back to the Santa Fe.

I was pleased to learn that it had on-site laundry – washed, dried and folded for 40 pesos. There’s also a taqueria where mamma fed me breakfast with a smile every morning and the price was only 40 pesos. Years ago I learned that even the simplest attempts to speak a foreign language was welcomed by the locals, and that’s true here too.

I got more than my fill of Cabo over the next several days. After all, there’s only so much to see and do in a tourist town. The malls are the same everywhere. The stores, the hawkers, the gawkers and the talkers populate every nook and cranny. Boats in the harbour are impressive, expensive and empty, their occupants having gone off to some hotel or another to enjoy the finer things they didn’t bring with them.

Two days here have left me well-rested and ready for another leg of the trip, this time to La Paz. It’s an uneventful day with temperatures in the 70 to 80 degree range again. I fueled at Ciudad Constitucion and rolled into the outskirts of La Paz. I was surprised to find fuel on the north end, but in fact the entire entrance to the city has changed since my 2001 trip. It’s all four lane divided highway now, very modern and nice to drive. The little roadside taquerias have all but disappeared on the west end. I missed eating there on the way into the city.

La Paz is a modern city by Baja standards, with all the amenities you can think of. Yes, it’s Mexican, but that’s part of the flavor not to be missed. I much prefer it to any other place on the Baja, and it bears exploring.

I was lucky to get a room at the Los Arcos Cabanas for the night. The Los Arcos is right on the malecon, and from the bar you can watch the people on the street while overlooking the ocean bay. It’s an easy walk to restaurants and bars on the malecon, and the night life can be pretty active. I settled for a shrimp dinner and a beer and watched the action on the malecon while eating.

I’ll sleep in tomorrow, since it’s a short ride south to the tip.