Christmas

The Bay of Conception above Playa El Burro on Christmas morning.

San Ignacio

The Church in San Ignacio.
Dates gathered from around the campground I was staying in drying in the sun.
Desert camp in between Guerrero Negro and Vizcaino. Heavy dew made camping in the desert a messy affair. Rust, mud, fog and a wet tent all have to be negotiated before setting out for the day. My bike has seen better days, thinking the desert would be dry I bought dry wax as lube. I have to put it on every night or I wake up to a fluorescent orange drive-train.

The desert between El Rosario and Cataviña

Truing my rear wheel, I did way too much of this. A special thanks to the gentleman who charged me $300.00 for it before I left...
Boulder fields outside Cataviña, I camped nearby.

Big cactus.

Hola, From San Ignacio!

Sorry its taken me so long to post pictures, you{ll also have to excuse this post, its in reverse order. At the moment I am in San Ignacio in Baja South. Its been a long and hard road up to here, the riding has been not very nice and at times even regrettable. I have had several mechanical problems which I have just begun to get a handle on. Everything came to a head 3 days ago where in a fit of frustration I hitch-hiked 200km to the nearest town so I could sort out my bike. I{m glad to say that I fixed it myself and I think there is still some of this trip to salvage. Everyone I have run into says that Baja doesn{t get nice until now and from here on the riding is much more scenic. I{ll take lots of pictures and let you know how things go.
One of my campsites, nearby Camalu the people whos home it was adjacent to were quite freindly and even brought dinner out to me. For all of those people who I told riding 1600km with a surf board was ridiculous, the first person I came across was making an attempt. He admitted it was ridiculous.

People keep horses in the most unlikely places.

This is the U.S.S. Midway in San Diego, you could go on board but I decided to save my money.

Everything I took with me is in this photo (excluding the bike).

Its better to be fit...

Yesterday I started riding, and now I'm exhausted! Who would have thought riding 80km with touring gear would be so hard, i remember it being easy. It was my plan to only ride to Tijuana but I got there at 11:30am and decided to keep going. I arrived in Rosarito yesterday at about 2pm. My first impressions of Mexico are fairly good. The food has been great and I have been helped by several people so far when I got lost bypassing Tijuana.
Along the way I ended up getting turned around at a toll booth on a road that didn't allow bikes. So, I detoured around the booth, snuck through an empty lot a few km down the road, hopped a concrete abutment and was right back on my way. The toll road was the scenic road after all and I didn't want to be stuck on the non-scenic road, that's not why i ride.
Today I decided to stay in Rosarito, the last few days have been somewhat tiring and I didn't get a lot of sleep in the Hostel I was staying at, is it just me or are all hostels full of weird people who never stop talking?
Have only taken a few pictures so far, the cityscapes haven't been very inspiring and the scenic road I trespassed on only had scenery of an endless string of unfinished condo buildings. I'll post some soon.

-B

Sab Diego (translation: Whales Vagina)

I'm in San Diego! For those of you who haven't heard, I'm spending the next 2 months cycle touring from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas. Yesterday I arrived in San Diego and I have spent the my time so far doing some last minute supply gathering and planning. I have also spent some time touristing around which has been fun. The people here have been freindly, so far, and the city is quite bike freindly. My plan is to leave here on thursday and take a bu to Ensanada, I'll start riding from there. I chose to take a bus because the hwy's from San Diego to Ensanada are quite busy and dangerous. I'll post a few pictures in the next few days.

-B