Baja | Far and A Wey

But, instead I almost got swallowed by a whale. No shit. La Boca de La Muerta.

So, E. sends me a message and let’s me know that I need to go slower and that that I need to look harder for the kinds of things that constitute Baja magic. Heeding her advice, I met two interesting folks last night, one of whom turned out to be a fisherman with a gift for poetry (“Beto” – oh, no, not another ‘Bob’). He invited me out fishing with one of his local friends (Max) and I decided to take the next day off to do absolutely nothing. Nothing in this case meant getting a ride on the backs of two 40-50 ft. whales in a 17 foot boat. I can assure you that humility is the largest mammal in the world pushing you backward with its lip. The video still doesn’t do the moment justice, but it comes damn close.

Oh, maybe the best part of this story is that just moments before I shot this video, Max turned to Beto and me, and said, “Have I ever told you that my real name [no joke] is Jonah?” WTF? Are you kidding me…?

Reality check; mile 55: the fully loaded bike (including giant bag of gas) was WAY heavier than I expected. The bike wallowed side to side in the sand, picking up speed and rhythm until the front wheel would literally leave the ground. The road to Gonzaga was m-i-s-e-r-a-b-l-e, but I kept thinking it was just my PTA, so I pushed on. Something needed to be done, however, which is when I discovered that a bike gremlin ‘somehow’ put 35 psi. of air into my front tire. I aired down, gassed in Gonzaga, and kept pushing forward. The breakfast in San Felipe had burned valuable daylight and it would catch up to me at 3:30, which was the time I hit the pavement at Chapala. Not good.

Realizing there was NO way I was going to make Guerrero Negro by dusk, I pulled off the road, tucked behind a little mesa, and prepared to camp out for the night. Having made the decision, I was stoked. 20 minutes of daylight remaining, Steely Dan on the iPod speaker, and a shot of Dewars put me in a great mood. So here it was, Day 1, and already I was camped in the moon shadow of a Boodjum tree (sp?) under an almost full moon. 190 miles of riding made for a perfect pillow.