Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Tour Log: Baja - Day 3

Sometimes I do dumb things and today was one of those instances.  Day 3.  Ensenada to almost San Vicente.  The road was scary today.  Too narrow with no shoulder.  I made a quick exit from my hotel but running around town to get a tourist visa, sunscreen, and attempts to get a patch kit (or 4) delayed the ride a bit.  Mid afternoon after roasting my skin from not applying the 244 peso sunscreen I just bought I hit a turn onto a lesser road back to the coast and took it.  I was intent on going this way anyway and the sign for Coyote Cal's Hostel International only backed my decision.  The road was great.  It followed a creek, not too much traffic, beautiful countryside, ranch houses with woodsmoke billowing from the chimney on green grassy hillsides and goats perched atop old junk cars.  Very picturesque (Though I have no worthy pictures of this day).  I arrived at the oceanside town sooner than expected and rode into the dirt roads of town a little ways following the coast and backtracking to the north.  When I turned up no hostel I turned around and forded the river over to the south and looked up the most major road.  Dogs barked and chased me as I pedaled, even more so than had on the north side.  Not very welcoming.  I asked a man about the route to the south that followed the coast and he described it as "muy feo."  He did not sound optimistic.  I succumbed to his beliefs and returned across the river deflated.  No hostel, no route to the south.  I was hoping to grab some food before returning to the highway, there were places in town, but I stopped at the first little hut I passed on the way in.  Chips and sodas were all she sold.  Yesterday in my fit of flats all I wanted was a soda, so today I got one.  Followed by a long ride out my beautiful road as the sky turned to dusk.  Now I sit on the side of the highway with the lights of San Vicente in sight in the crappiest side hill campsite I've ever tried to sleep with an MRE and five cold tortillas in my belly covered in Lynn's hot sauce so I don't actually have to taste this mush.  The dumb parts here are that I knew there was food, and that I was hungry, but chose to do nothing about it.  As with the hostel.  One might wonder if this dumbness is more self loathe or masochism.

3 comments:

  1. hell yeah! sounds fun minus the mre.

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  2. you're operating on hunches. sometimes we fool ourselves into thinking perfection is over the next hill. but where you are right now is still awesome. how the hell are you posting all this stuff, from yer phone?

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  3. I'm carrying an iSatPhone. It weighs 20 lbs, but its worth it to be able to do this....actually I'm back home. I'm just posting it day by day to keep it interesting. So this stuff is old news, man, old news.

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