Baja Sur

As I can now reveal, after exhaustive research, Baja is in fact just a big old strip of desert hanging from some mountains running down its spine. Now to start with I loved the novelity of the desert and this lasted till about 2 minutes into my dirt road experience. After 3 weeks of it, I've got to be honest, I got real bored; espeically as the last clip (250 km) into La Paz was along 2 long straight roads (and a third with a few bends thrown in for novelty factor) with just enough head wind to make me really pissed. So it might be easy to conclude that I hated my Baja experience, on the contrary I loved it. I know your all asking yourselves, hanging on with bated breath: how can this be? Well luckily for you, I'm here to endulge your curiosity: 3 towns, 1 village, 1 descent, 1 climb, and lots of great people. To start: the cycling: the best descent I have ever done, by a country mile: coming down from Volcan de tres Virgenes (great name), to the Sea of Cortez at Santa Rossalia. The speed and swiftness of descent had my eyeballs thrust into the back of my head as I tried to shout with pure joy but the speed of the passing air ripped the sound away from me and the g's created going round the tight bends had my knee almost to the tarmac (thanks be to Schwalbe for producing tyres with such fine grip). The ascent: there were several good un's but the winner has got to be winding up through a canyon, which had cut a rift through the vertical cliffs fronting the Sea of Cortez at Luigi. The climb was 30 km's long and the scenery was immense throughout, with steep dropoffs into the canyon on the right, horseshoe roads and gravity defying standing stones on the messa towards the top. The towns that made the greatest impression on me where each slightly different. First came San Ignacio. Now to be fair any town coming after nearly 300 km of desert is going to seem like an oasis. However when I cleared the final cardon studded hill side and found myself staring down into a valley of date palms with a river winding through its center, my happiness knew no bounds. After a dip in the river, to wash nearly a weeks sweat and sun cream from my alternately red and white body, I headed into town. I people watched in the square as the pilgrims headed to Sunday Mass, I headed in the opposite direction to a taco stand and a full belly. The happiness was complete when I meet some other tourists (on a bus), beers where had and stories swapped. The next town was Mulege, nestled just off the coast in the centre of a near ring of mountains. My love of this town is largely due to two people I stayed with there. Bill my host is a 69 year old waiting to sell his house so that he can go tour the world by freighter. His ability to be so alive (and his constant swearing) had me smiling the whole time. Staying with him was Dave, another cyclist, who has toured from the UK to Cape town and travelled in most other places, was great to talk to and drinking beers with the boys after a great supper by the beach was a great end to my Mulege experience. The last town (litterally as it was my jump off spot) was the place I got to know best: I found $5 (25p) tacos, had my morning coffee spot before a stroll down the Melacon (beach front) and spent much time talking to the sailor's at the marinas around town. This and the beauty of its beaches to the north made it a firm favorite with me. The place that I loved most though was El Juncalito. It is as close to paradise as I found on Baja, with its bay pointing out to a string of islands and backed by 600 ft vertical cliffs, covered in vegetation (thanks to the recent hurricane): sitting on Roberta's (my host) terrace, with her dozen hummingbirds ducking past my head to get to the feeder, looking out across the sea to the islands with the early morning sun on my face was very special. Also Roberta and Vickie (her neighbour) require speical mention: feeding me and entertaining me with their stories and conversation I was truely reluctant to leave after my two nights in El Juncalito.