Day 7: El Rosario to Catavina, where I encounter incredible luck and generosity

December 4, 2014

Today's mileage is for distance ridden. The actual distance from El Rosario to Catavina is 70 miles, but for me the last 6 were in the back of a pickup truck,

If I had to pick one reason for choosing this route, it would be for the ride through the Valle de los Cirios. I have driven the trans-peninsular highway four times in my life and each time I have felt rushed as I sped through at vehicular speeds. The scenery is literally (really, literally) like no place else on earth, and pedal pace is a great way to fully appreciate what it has to offer. I won’t try to describe any of it here, hopefully the pictures from these next two days can give a taste.

Everybody who travels Baja knows that "there is nothing between El Rosario and Guerrero Negro". NOTE TO WINTER CYCLISTS: That is a bunch of hooey! The only thing there is nothing of between El Rosario and Guerrero Negro is cell phone service, gasoline, electricity and fences. But if all you want is 3 hot meals a day and cold water each time your on-frame bottles go dry then don't worry, you'll be fine. But read on, you might not want to be taking advice from me.

I had yet to learn any of this so loaded up an additional 8 liters of water and with that extra 20 pounds of baggage started the climb out of El Rosario. It was a couple of hours into the ride and had just finished refilling my water bottles from my extra supply when I came across a loncheria. These are basically diners, usually next to or near by a tire shop. The level of service varies, but all have water and soda pop and most serve food as well. There are several abandoned ones, but the people who run these all know where and how far the next working loncheria is. All will let you camp as well. So unless you really want to experience the desert loneliness, you don't have to. As for me, I'm on a bike ride, not a camping trip so I'm happy to take full advantage of these facilities.

But, as I didn't know this, I continued hauling my 20 pounds of water (now down to about 18 pounds) thinking I was going to have to camp at some random spot in the desert and I planned to use some of it for washing. I was going to have to camp because the next place with paid accommodations was Catavina, and at 70 miles and my slow pace I knew I wouldn't get there before dark. I really was looking forward to Catavina, because it is in the midst of these fascinating boulder fields, and full of an astonishing variety of cactus and other plant life. It also has a 5 star hotel! OK, more like 3 stars, but given its remote location it rates an extra 2. I was stunned to come across it the first time, back in 1980, and just drove past (because when you are driving someplace it seems really, really hard to stop on a whim). But on all subsequent trips I've made a point to stop to drink cool lemonade and sometimes have a dip in the pool. At roughly $100 US per night it is expensive, but I promised myself I would spend the night there on this bike trip.

At some point on the ride, while I was thinking about how I really wasn't enjoying bike camping without a shower (when did I get to be so fussy?), it occurred to me that I didn't actually have to stop just because it got dark. I have excellent lights and I'd only have an hour or two so of riding after sundown, given my pace. Plus, the moon was full. That's when I made the decision to just forget about camping and ride all the way to Catavina and live like the middle-aged, middle-class American that I am.

That also meant I didn't have to keep lugging all this damn water around. I stopped on the side of the road, poured 4 liters on the ground, 2 liters on my head (nice!) and kept two liters in my bags in case I was being stupid.

And then I just rode, not caring that the sun was getting low, but looking forward to it. It's easy to be a good photographer in the low light and I kept stopping to take picture after picture of the changing scenery. By the time I was fully in the boulder fields it was completely dark (but no pictures of any of this, because I lack the skills to take any pictures outside of "Auto" mode).

But, oh my. It was beautiful. The rocks and the cactus and the moonlight are something I hope I never forget. Riding through the boulder fields that night, having gotten there all the way from my house on nothing but pedal power was just wonderful. More than wonderful. It might just be the apex of my life.

The effect was so profound that it was barely shaken when my bike started to shimmy something awful and I braked to a stop to discover my rear tire was flat. I was tempted to just pump it up and keep riding, as Catavina was only 6 miles away. But the more realistic part of me prevailed and I pulled the bags, pulled the wheel and started looking for the source of the leak. It turned out that there was no puncture, just that the patch from my flat 5 days previous had failed...

I've tried to come up with a way to spin this next part of the story in such a way that I don't come out looking like a total nube, but I can't. So, here goes.

I was traveling with two spare tubes and a bunch of patches. My reasoning was that with two tubes I could have as many as two flats a day, and not have to deal with patching until I'd stopped for the day. Just like I did on day two of this adventure. What the fuck was I thinking? I even left a perfectly good tube sitting on my bench at home, because it wouldn't fit easily in my already stuffed tool bag. I can't tell you how many times I've since thought about that tube, just sitting there. And this isn’t the embarrassing part, it gets worse.

OK, I pulled out one of my spare tubes, installed it in no time and started pumping. Pump, pump, pump and then, a gunshot! I couldn't be my tire, because it was still hard. Baffled, I stood there, trying to imagine where that sound came from. Finally I admitted that given I was in the middle of the Baja desert with nobody around, it had to have come from my tire, its non-flat condition notwithstanding. After looking carefully I saw that I had pinched the tube between the tire and the rim and had just finished blowing a hole the size of my pinkie out the side of the tube. There was enough pressure to keep the tear sealed, which is why the tire was still hard. I was tempted to just go with it as it was, after all the tire was hard and Cantavina was only 6 miles away, But the more realistic side of me prevailed and I pulled the tube and got out my second (and now, only) spare. Only to discover that it was torn at the valve. This is awkward.

I now have zero spares, I’m still on the side of the road with a flat tire and Catavina is still 6 miles away. I bring out my patch kit and patch the patch. It doesn’t take. I patch again. It doesn’t take. OK, maybe I have a problem. I accept that I won’t solve it by the side of the road and decide to hitch a ride into Catavina and deal with the problem there. The effect of the moonlight ride was so profound that none of this bothers me. I’m deeply frustrated to be dealing with this instead of sitting in my 5 star hotel sipping ice cold Dos Equis, but I’m not worried. I know that there are 3 Belgian cyclists who passed me earlier in the day staying somewhere near Catavina (not a the hotel, this much I know). All I have to do is locate them and I’m sure they’d give me a tube. I reassemble my bike and wait by the side of the road for salvation.

And that is when the miracles begin to cascade.

There is enough traffic on the highway that a vehicle will pass every 5 or 10 minutes. But not every vehicle can deal with a stranded cyclist. What I needed was an empty pickup truck and most of the traffic is semi-trucks, automobiles, and full pickup trucks so I could be here a while. But, I’m not. The first set of lights coming over the hill is an empty pickup truck. The driver sees me waving my solar powered lantern around (thanks, sis) and pulls to a stop. Sure, I can take you to the hotel, no problem. In goes the bike, in goes the bags, in goes David and off we go.

In just a couple of minutes we arrive at the hotel and as we pull up I am not at all surprised to see two fully loaded bicycles parked in front of the hotel. Of course, I think. It must be the Belgians. The fact that there are two bikes and not three and that they look nothing like the teutonic beauties those guys were riding and the fact that there are no Belgians standing around doesn’t register. I figure they must be inside at the bar (that’s where I wanted to be), so I’ll just check in and go find them. As I dash up the stairs into the hotel I call out to this pair of young Mexicans who have been looking at me strangely ever since I pulled up “If those cyclists come out before I get back, don’t let them leave. I need to talk to them”.

“That’s us. These are our bikes, we are the cyclists. We’ve been waiting for you,”

Huh?

Alex and Daniel are in the middle of a 6 month odyssey from the tip of the Yucatan to the US border at Tijuana and back, hitting every Mexican state but two in the process. They had just arrived in Catavina from the south and were wondering where they were going to spend the night. Someone had told them that they’d passed a south bound cyclist a short while before and so they decided to wait for this cyclist (that would be me) and see if he wanted to camp with them (they clearly hadn't been following my blog).

I tell them my story. Omitting the part about not checking the condition of my spares before leaving on a 1000 mile ride through the desert. I just say I pinched my spare and blew it out.., enough people have done that particular deed that it isn’t too humiliating to admit. To which Alex asks “Do you ride 700c?”. Oh yeah. 700c is a common road tire in the US and much of Europe, but the rest of the world uses slightly different sizes. If the Belgians had done their homework (and from the looks of their kit I’m sure they did) then they almost certainly were riding 26 inch wheels, Meaning that even if I found the Belgians they likely wouldn’t have been able to help. But, Alex rides 700c. And he knows how hard it is to find 700c tubes. In fact he doesn’t have any but he does have a 27 inch tube which sort of fits and offers it to me. This is good, but it comes with a much thicker valve. My wheels want Presta, the tube is Schrader

I recall the stories I’ve read about people drilling out the valve holes in their Presta rims so that they will accept Schrader valves and think to myself “This is getting really complicated”, but when I look at my rim I see that it has an insert around the hole and all I have to do is remove it and Presto! Presta becomes Schrader. That is pure luck. Not all rims are like that, my front rim certainly doesn’t have it and I definitely didn’t select my rear rim based on that. I didn’t even know it had that feature.

This is where my story gets painfully embarrassing. So much so that wanted to leave it out (still do) but I can’t do that without also leaving out what great people Alex and Daniel are. I could not figure out how to convert my pump to accept Schrader valves. I know it can, but I can’t suss it. I try and try but I can’t get it to work. I never bothered learning about that feature because, well, I use Presta. I could get the valve to fit but I couldn’t get it to depress the valve stem to allow the air in. 59 seconds on YouTube explains the process, but there is no YouTube in Catavina (until after 11PM and the story was over by then). I conclude that I’m missing some critical part. Daniel GIVES ME HIS PUMP.

The refuse payment. They share my room and we all drink beer. Alex delights in the fact that a short while before they had no idea where they were going to sleep and now they are drinking beer. I am so damn happy that I have a working bike again. Alex gives me his crib sheet on all the facilities between Catavina and Cabo San Lucas that he compiled on his way up. I tell them what I know about the road they are about to travel, but of course I have none of the detail that he has. We have (for me, anyway) great conversation, not just about biking but about what life is like for them and for me. Daniel is a chef, Alex is a musician. He’d love to visit bluegrass country but you can’t get a visa to the US if you are young Mexican male and don’t have a steady job. If you are a young Mexican, chances are slim that you have a steady job. If John Fucking Bohner knew the kind of people America’s immigration policies are keeping out… well, he wouldn’t care. They are Mexicans after all.

All I will say in my defense is that the only way I was ever going to take a serious bike tour was to stop dreaming about it and just start riding. I’m 59 and my father died at 62.

Here are the pictures from today.

I stopped for some tortillas before leaving El Rosario. Some for breakfast, some for the road.

"There is nothing between El Rosario and Guerrero Negro"

Looking over the cabbage fields back towards El Rosario

The first cirios appear around KM 70. Google boojum tree to see why really, there is no place else on earth like this.

Two of the three Belgians who passed me in the morning.

Hard to see in this picture, but they are down there. It was so quiet I could hear then talking among themselves, all the way from here.

Pablo was just watching over this loncheria while the owner was out for supplies. But he let me buy a couple of Fantas.

Racing the sun to Contavina, now that I've decided to go all the way today.

Alex's crib sheet, passed to me by taking pictures of his tablet.

Today's ride: 64 miles (103 km)
Total: 342 miles (550 km)

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