Yes, this is the face of exhaustion. I did something like 45 miles in just under seven hours. That’s right, you do the math. Crawling…no, crawling would be fast in this case. The road out of town and to Loreto (via San Jose Comondu and Santa Isabel), turned from a trail into a wash and it didn’t get better from there; in fact, it only got worse, I had to go up an over a 2,700 ft. mountain.

I fell over plenty; I abused bike and clutch, and refused to turn around. Reason One: this WAS the trail, and everyone said that it would take two to three hours, maybe four, max. Reason Two: GIANT dogs, two of which chased me for a mile up a washed out trail, nipping at my leg. I finally stopped and yelled at the dogs with malice and it seemed to do the trick. They gave up and went off to more pleasurable pursuits. Me, not so much. On three separate occasions I had to off-load the bags and panniers and portage them up the trail a half of a mile or so, then return for the bike. Wow.

I suffered mightily until, just outside of Santa Isabel, at 5:00, when I decided to give it up and pack in for the night. I was shocky, cold and sweaty, and I needed to avoid a serious mistake in the middle of BFE. The irony of the whole thing was that I was in sight of a small rancho, but I was literally too tired to try and keep moving into the night or even think about making it into Loreto.

Realization #234: a bush or a rock ate my sleeping bag. A few days ago, I ran into a cholla that put one million cactus needles into my bag. Now, bag gone. The funny thing, was I was too tired to even worry about it. I dried off, set up a tent, put on my warmest clothes, and crawled under an emergency blanket. I was asleep in 10 minutes.

Good times, people, good times.

BT