This is the (rather long, but hopefully enjoyable!) story of our 1600km cycle from San Diego, California to La Paz, Baja California Sur in February 2018. You can find out more about the logistics in our separate blog here.

“You ready?”

“Ready” Knut replied.

We’d purposefully left it a bit later to start to avoid the San Diego rush hour traffic and it was now 11am on a Monday morning. We hadn’t perhaps meant to leave it this late. But, our bikes were packed, our panniers fitted, and most of our worldly possessions were in the (thankfully!) capable hands of DHL, winging their way back to the UK. There was no going back now…

We launched out onto the road. The first few kilometres wound us through back streets of San Diego. This was nice. We even found a cycle path! Perfect. The traffic was quiet and it was pleasant. At least for 40 glorious kilometres. Alas, as we breached the city limits we were chucked out onto a small windy road to the Mexican border. This wouldn’t be a problem, if US drivers weren’t complete maniacs. And then THE HILL started.

It was steep. Our half an hour session playing around on some spin bikes two weeks previously hadn’t really prepared us for going straight into 1000m of ascent. There was also no hard shoulder, meaning there was little room for error. If you carefully cycled along the white stripe on the absolute edge of the road, the chances of being hit by one of the speeding overtaking lunatics was a lot less. But it was tough.

As we got closer to the border the US Army and Border Patrol presence increased. Border Patrol Trucks passed us regularly. We cycled past a checkpoint with an incredible number of scary men with guns. They definitely take the border seriously here. But thankfully seemed very unphased by two cyclists travelling South.

As the sun dropped beneath the horizon we rolled into the border town of Tecate. Our plan wasn’t really to arrive in the dark, seeing as basically the top two warnings about Mexico were 1) Don’t travel after dark, and 2) Be very careful in the border towns. And, here we were, our first hour in Mexico – arriving in complete darkness into a border town. Oops.

We shuffled through the border checkpoint, feeling rather apprehensive about what we needed to do. Suddenly everything was in Spanish – and we didn’t really understand anything. A security guard signalled that we should leave our bikes and go into a building to get our visas. It’s never the most comfortable feeling leaving all of your possessions unattended in the middle of a street – but particularly not at the Mexican border.

The border official spoke absolutely no English, but after loudly listing every place name I could think of in Mexico with as much of a Spanish accent as I could muster, he stamped us in for 6 months. I have no idea if he actually needed us to say our travel plans, but I like to think he was at least impressed with the breadth of my Mexican geography.

And so, by 6.30pm (over 7 hours after leaving San Diego), we were in Mexico. We found a hotel (that was happy for us to have our bikes in the room), got some Mexican pesos, and headed out on the town.

“All I want is a beer, some tacos, and then my bed”, I wearily said to Knut. So off we went on the hunt for some food. We did a lap around the block. Nothing.

“Urm, shall we try up here?” We started wandering up one of the streets. It got quieter and quieter. We passed the last street lamp.

“Urm….do we have any idea where the no-go areas in Tecate are?” I said to Knut. Nope. We turned around. Let’s not get kidnapped by banditos on our first night! We did another turn round the block. The only place that was open was a classy looking wine bar. So, we postponed the beer and tacos and settled on wine and cheese. Not an awful compromise.

The next day we stretched out our legs, got over the shock of putting our bums back on our very hard, un-worn in saddles, and headed out of the town.

We had done some research on a route down the Baja peninsula called the Baja Divide that was mostly off road. After 20km of road cycling we reached the turn off. The route would cut us down through remote, desert terrain for over 112km, keeping us off the main roads and exploring a more adventurous side of the Baja.

500m in I lost control of my bike in a patch of sand, barely managing to keep myself upright.

“Is it going to all be like this?” I moaned to Knut.

“Urm, I’m not sure. Let’s see”.

We persisted – having to get off and push our bikes around every 200m.

“I’m not enjoying this Knut”.

“Let’s give it a bit longer”. He entreated.

After taking 30 minutes to do 3km we sat and had some lunch and looked at our options. At this rate it would take us about 5 days to do the 112km. Our bikes just weren’t right for this kind of terrain – our tyres were too skinny and our bags were too heavy.

After lunch we felt refreshed and decided to continue on. And then the hills started. I’m not the most confident downhill cyclist at the best of times, but when the trail is rocky or sandy, I go into freak out mode. I was just not enjoying it.

“I think we should turn back” I stated. And so we did. In the end we had done a round trip of 10km and had taken 3 hours to do it. We were back pretty much where we started and it was now 2pm. There was no way we were going to make it to the next town, so our only option was to cycle as far as we could and hope we could find a place to wild camp.

As 5pm rolled round and the sun was getting lower in the sky, we spotted a tree covered area just beneath the road. It wasn’t perfect, but we didn’t have many options.

We dragged the bikes down the steep rocky slope and set up camp, avoiding using our head torches to bring attention to ourselves. Although we’d spent the whole day on our bikes, we realised we’d only actually got 40km from the border – about 25 minutes in a car. So were still very much in the “be alert” danger zone of Northern Mexican border areas. Oops.

But we passed the night with no incident. The next day we got to Ensenada, checked into a hostel and enjoyed the local sights and cuisine (fish tacos anyone?).

We stayed for a few nights and rethought out our trip. If we weren’t going to take the dirt roads, it was back to the drawing board. We read a lot of blogs that did not make the cycling sound very enjoyable just heading straight South on the Route 1. No hard shoulder and heavy truck traffic.

We decided to do a 180 and head East across the country and through the desert.  We don’t know what would have happened on the other route, but I’m pretty sure this was a good decision. There was hardly any traffic, and the roads cut dramatically through barren desert scenery.

People were incredibly friendly when they passed – giving us lots of space, and at least 50% of the lorry drivers waved and honked their horns (a very different experience to the UK!). The road was amazing as we were able to dive off and camp in the middle of nowhere – hiding between rocks and cactuses.

We also got very excited about seeing ACTUAL cactuses.

And eventually we made it to the coastal town of San Felipe.

Here we had our first (and to this point, two months in, only) very odd experience. We were minding our own business, walking along a main street in the town in the middle of the day, when a young Mexican guy started yelling something at us. We had no idea what he was saying, so smiled and walking. And then he threw a rock at us.

Not a small rock. A rock about half the size of a football. His aim was completely shoddy, but it would have really hurt if it had hit us. He continued to shout stuff at us, and we ignored it and walked on. I’d like to think he thought we were Americans and was just saying:

“Here’s some rock for your f**king wall you f**king gringos”. But we will never know. Very odd.

On from San Felipe we followed the stunning Baja coastline along an incredible freshly paved road. It was very quiet and we were able to find amazing places to camp, just off the side of the road.

After 100km of very fast, very smooth progress, we hit a military check point.

“Where are you going?” The man with the gun asked.

“Coco’s corner” I replied.

“Oh *very fast unintelligible Spanish*” He replied with a lot of head shaking and looking at his watch.

“Hahahaha” I replied and smiled, my usual response to Spanish I don’t understand. He waved us through, with a look of concern and pity.

“What was all that about?” I asked Knut, as we continued along the beautifully smooth road, breathing in the distinct smell of freshly laid tarmac.

“I have no idea”. Knut replied.

We soon found out. In the distance a sign loomed: “Construction work”. We cycled apprehensively towards it. The tarmac ended abruptly, replaced with the bare bones of a dirt road.

Our progress halved. It was getting dark again – there was no way we were going to make it to Coco’s Corner.

We pulled off the road into a cactus field and set up camp for the night. It was going to be tough to get to where we wanted the next day in these conditions. We would have at least another 30km on the dirt roads, where we were hitting a maximum of 10km an hour.

At 6am we were awoken to the pitter patter of rain on our tent. By 7am it was torrential. We packed up anyway and got onto the dirt road, which was fast becoming a mud river. We made slow progress and eventually reached Coco’s Corner, a somewhat infamous stopping point in the overlanding community – touted by many as an absolute must do.

We rocked up, not really sure what to expect, but desperately hoping for some nice food option to supplement our oats and banana breakfast. Note to self:  try not to build your hopes up too much on the reviews of random people you don’t know.

Coco met us at the door of his shack-cum-house, and invited us in with our bikes.

“Of course you will stay here”. He said straightaway. It was about 9.30am. Staying wasn’t really our plan.

“Put your bikes there” He ordered us. We obliged, bringing them into his living room. The ceiling and walls were covered with women’s underwear.

“Put your helmet on the table” He barked at me, after I tried to put it on the handlebars of my bike.

“Sit down”. He continued. We obliged.

“You will stay of course” He repeated. I caught a glance at Knut, trying to convey many things within a stare, a heady mix of ‘what the fuck, I’m sorry, lets never listen to reviews of strangers again’.

A random Canadian was also sat drinking a beer (there’s always a random Canadian). I tried to gauge his feelings about the situation. I got the sense he had just been about to make his move when we arrived, and then got shamed into staying a little longer.

Coco brought us two coca colas (I don’t drink coke, so passed it on to Knut) and we tried to make small talk. This consisted of Coco listing every person who had arrived in the previous few weeks who had the audacity of not staying.

“They didn’t stay. I don’t know why. I won’t be offended if you don’t stay. But you should stay”.

“Urm, yeah I think we might head on soon”.

“Oh, okay” He huffed, “Well if that’s the way you want it”.

It was odd. I was really up for spending time with a local Mexican. But it was just odd. Eventually, after a hideously awkward 30 minutes we made our excuses and left.

By this time the rain had really made a mess of the dirt road. We hit the heart of the road building operation – a relatively complex infrastructure project, creating a road from scratch through the heart of the mountains. It was chaos.

We watched a truck attempt to manoeuvre up a steep muddy road, an abort half way through…drifting back down and very nearly jackknifing off the cliff. We cycled past trucks creeping along at the same pace as us on our bikes. A motorbike stopped us – “it gets even worse up there”.

We loved it. Once we got over the fact it was going to take us much longer to complete the distance we needed, we embraced the rain, the sliding and the sand and mud going literally everywhere and had an amazing time. After 30km of muddy delight, we launched back out onto the paved road – and like a pristine oasis in a desert, a restaurant loomed in front of us.

We dived in. “Comida, for favor…food, please”, we asked.

“Will burritos be okay?” The lady replied.

“I’m assuming that’s a rhetorical question”, I muttered under my breath, I mean, when are burritos never not okay?

“Si, si, si!!!” We replied with enthusiasm.

“How many?” She asked

“Lots” we replied.

Ten minutes later we were each munching away on a plate full of burritos. Knut ended up having 7. The lady offered that we could camp in the yard of the restaurant, but fueled by the incredible burritos, we decided to power on – finding another beautiful spot surrounded by cactuses.

Setting up the tent, Knut reversed out into one of the cactuses and it got stuck on his bum. This was probably one of the highlights of our whole trip so far. I grabbed the camera and documented his misery for all time.

The next morning I did exactly the same thing, but obviously it wasn’t half as funny when I did it.

Our cycling then took us to Guerrero Negro, where a random person on a blog had told us we MUST go whale watching. As I take an incredible amount of store in what random people I don’t know on the internet have recommended to me, I had got terribly fixated on the idea of whale watching in Guerrero Negro.

Alas, so had a lot of other people. We sauntered up to the first hotel and nonchalantly attempted to check in.

“We’re full”. They informed us. Full? Every place we had been so far in Mexico had been basically closed for the off-season. It had not been a problem to get a hotel anywhere.

The next place had the same response. Fully booked for the weekend. And the next place.

Eventually we found a place that had space for the Friday night and might have space for the Saturday. “Might” was better than “won’t”, so we checked in. Now to find a whale watching tour. Naively, we headed up to the hotel reception and attempted to book on their tour for the next day.

“We’re fully booked until Tuesday”. They informed us.

My face fell. I had been looking forward to this ever since that random person had told us to go.

Knut attempted to console me. “It’s okay, we’ve seen whales before, we don’t need to see these ones”.

“But I want to see these ones”. I stubbornly cried.

After a very small hissy fit in the middle of the road, we decided that surely there must be someone else in Guerrero Negro providing whale watching tours and went off in search of them.

At ‘Whale Watching Tours here”, we met an incredibly friendly guy who informed us that his tours were all booked up. But, on seeing the look on my face, proceeded to ring round other places in Guerrero Negro on our behalf. Five minutes later and success – there was a tour going the next day with spaces on it. We rushed over, booked in, and all was right with the world again.

And, well, it was worth the hissy fit. 1000s of grey whales converge on this bay off the coast of Mexico every February, and it was unbelievably spectacular. Whales everywhere. And, they wanted to interact with humans. They would swim up to the boats – Mothers pushing their babies up to the boats to be splashed and petted. It was crazy, and awesome. Turns out some random internet commenters can sometimes be trusted.

We cycled away from Guerrero Negro not particularly rested and rather hungover, launching into a hideous, soul-crushing headwind that sucked the energy out of us.

“Right. We’ll try and make it to 65km and then we’re going to stop” I said to Knut.

Ten minutes later I revised my ambitions.

“Okay, 60km. We’ll get to 60km.”

We pedalled on painstakingly slowly. I spotted a dirt track leading off into desert. Perfect wild camping terrain. I glanced at my watch. We were at 54km.

“Urgh sod it. We’re stopping” I announced, veering off into the cacti.

We found a delightfully secluded spot and sat feeling sorry for ourselves for the rest of the afternoon.

The next morning we headed on (now with a tailwind, hurrah!) through beautiful cactus fields and moody skies.

We got as far as the cute little town of San Ignacio and found the awesome Casa di Ciclista – a yard where we could stay for 100 pesos (£4), have a (much needed) shower, and rinse the very good Wifi. They also had a menagerie of very small, incredibly cute animals which kept us much entertained.

We headed off the next day towards Santa Rosalia, taking it easy and relaxing for a long lunch break and opportunities to photograph vultures.

We were just packing up from lunch when a cycle tourist flew past – his open shirt blowing in the wind.

“Woah…hey!” We shouted and he spun round to join us.

After a quick back and forth we had established this was Nevil from Canada, and his wife, Heather, was on the way. They had also started cycling in San Diego and were also heading down to La Paz. We joined forces and went en masse into Santa Rosalia.

This was not a fun cycle. Not because of our new friends (who were delightful). But it was hilly AND there were wild cross winds. Descending into the town was probably some of the most stressful cycling I’d ever done. We were battered from all sides by erratic and very strong winds. Staying upright was difficult – we grasped our handlebars, pulled on our brakes and lent sideways into the wind – desperately trying to anticipate where the next gust was going to come from. Hideous. But the views were cool.

At least until we got into the outskirts of Santa Rosalia itself. It could definitely get an award for the most unattractive welcome to a town ever. First we passed the scars of intensive mining all over the hills, and then we got the first acrid whiff of the town itself – a huge, plastic billowing, rubbish dump was burning right next to the road.

I racked my brains – I swear some random internet commenter had said Santa Rosalia was a nice place. Ah yes, I mentally reminded myself – be careful what you read on the internet. We cycled past the dump and got to the coast. The lovely smooth road was replaced with a mangled mess of pot holes, speed bumps and patches of sand (we can only assume the main roads had been properly maintained by the state and as soon as the local town took over there was a little shirking of responsibility).

Thankfully the wind had died down, but unfortunately there were other hazards. A group of dogs erupted at our cycling past and attempted to maul Konstantin’s legs. We jumped off the bikes, grabbed some rocks and fought them off. But our picture of Santa Rosalia wasn’t improving.

In actual fact, once we got into the centre itself, the town was lovely (don’t judge a book by it’s cover/a town by its dump, and all that). We checked into a hotel with our new friends and headed out for some tacos. They got a little confused with our order and Konstantin ended up getting 5 tacos (which he ate, like a trooper), and I ended up getting my head blown off by some extreme spiciness.

After Santa Rosalia we headed to Mulege. This was a gorgeous little town that was very deserving of all the rave reviews on the internet. We checked into the beautiful Hotel Hacienda, all on the fact the courtyard was stunning (the rooms were okay, but the courtyard was A-MAZ-ING).

We spent a rest day ACTUALLY resting (novel!), and felt fully ready to head on a whole THIRTY kilometres to the beach the next day. It’s a hard life.

On the way to the beach we collected cyclists – Heather and Nevil were tootling along, and we met up with Steffen and Örbn (from Germany and Switzerland respectively) as we sat having a well earned beer (after 29km!). We eventually headed to the beach, where the other cyclists left us and we ‘checked in’ to a lovely palapa and relaxed for the afternoon.

Our neighbours in the palapa next door gave us some chairs and a cold beer – and then invited us for dinner and ‘happy hour’ drinks. This turned out to be more beers, some tequila, and fish tacos. The couple were lovely – Tico was Mexican and Marge was US American, and they had lived their lives on/off in both countries (they were both now in their mid-80s). They were both very keen runners, and were the founders of the Duke City Marathon in Albuquerque.

The next day we packed up early, ready for a long day to Loreto. After cycling for a bit, we picked up Steffen and Örbn, and soon had caught up with Heather and Nevil. We were quite the cycling crew!!

Eventually we made it to Loreto where Nevil got the most important thing sorted straightaway (sustenance? You ask. A place to stay? Nope, a 6 pack of celebratory beer!). Unfortunately, we were not the only ‘biker’ gang to arrive in Loreto that Saturday. It was, in fact, the Harley Davidson club of the Baja Peninsula’s annual meet up. So, all the hotels in town were fully booked and there were lots of VERY hard-looking, tattoo covered Mexicans walking around the place.

Eventually we found a place and decided to take a rest day in the town. It was a beautiful little place, even with the biker gangs!

On from Loreto we had to make a choice. My family was due to arrive in Puerto Vallarta on the 4th March – 7 days away. To get to Puerto Vallarta solely by cycling we would have another 350km of (not particularly nice) cycling on the Baja, a 12 hour overnight ferry ride, and then 450km of cycling on the mainland. That wasn’t going to happen.

My preference was to take the bus to La Paz (at the end of the peninsula) spend a few relaxed days there on the beach, then take the ferry, and then a bus on the other side.

“Yeah. I suppose that could work”. Knut said, his demeanour displaying all the characteristics of a man who is not happy with a plan.

“What? What is it?” I asked.

“Oh y’know”.

“Y’know what?”

“Well, I mean, I would probably cycle it. But I understand if you don’t want to”. Translation: I understand, but I am quite disappointed and may hold it against you in future disagreements.

“Fine” I huffed. “We’ll cycle it, whatever, I’m cool with that”.

So, that meant we had 3 days to cover 360km, with a mere 2500m of ascent. No worries.

We left Loreto early the next morning to give ourselves the best chance of covering the 100km (at least) we needed. The sun was scorchingly hot by 10am as we launched into THE CLIMB. This climb was kinda infamous on Baja based blogs and I was a little apprehensive. But, my tried and tested PLOD worked – whack yourself into granny gear and plod, plod, plod up the mountain.

It was actually quite fun. Knut had sped off in front of me, and so all the cars coming down the mountain had already seen him by the time they got to me, and some of them were genuinely apoplectic with excitement that some lunatic lady was trying to cycle up this hill. They whooped and cheered and gave me all the encouragement I needed.

It took us a couple of hours but eventually we breached the top of the hill. Hurrah! We thought, as we braced ourselves for an epic downhill. We’re on top of the world…no one can stop us now!

Alas, wind can. The bastard wind was howling full frontal in our faces. It was torture. All those 100s of metres of downhill we had earned, and here we were just battling to keep a little bit of forward momentum, with gravity on our side! It was cruel and pretty darn demoralising. At 100km we wearily left the road, found another cactus garden to rest our heads, and started trying to re-energise for the next day.

We rose bright and early the next morning ready with the aim of covering 150km. Ambitious, but needed if we had any chance of making La Paz in time.

Was it the most beautiful cycle we’d ever done? Nope. The two towns we passed of Ciudad Insurgentes and Ciudad Constitution were nothing to write home about, and the rest of the way the traffic was busier, more stressful and it was monotonous scenery (bring back the cactuses, I say!). But, by this point, it was more about the challenge of doing the whole thing by bike than getting the best Instagram shot…!

At 140km we were actually feeling pretty strong. But there was one small problem…the wild camping options were little-to-none. Barbed wire fencing had lined the road for the previous 20km – and, although, in extreme circumstances, we would jump the fence, we’d also seen a LOT of cows/goats/horses behind those fences, and I’d rather not get into an argument with a bull (let alone the owner of said bull!).

At 5.30pm, with the sun sitting low in the sky, we rolled into the town of Las Pocitas, which was barely on the map. Surely it would have a hotel? I tried asking in the petrol station. Hotel? No. Campsite? Camping? They looked at me blankly and shook their heads.

We moved through the town and tried in a restaurant.

“Can we camp here?” I attempted in my incredibly basic Spanish.

The ladies looked at me confused.

I put on my best ‘I’m really bloody tired’ face (not difficult under the circumstances), and smiled meekly.

The older lady launched into a torrent of Spanish of which I literally only understood one word (camping). The younger lady repeated it all to me again, and I was absolutely none the wiser.

But, I surmised, it looked like there was an option. I got out my phone and opened up my beloved Google Translate app and passed it to the younger lady. She typed in Iglesia. The very vital missing word I didn’t understand – Church!

We cycled through the town and spotted the spire in the distance. It was starting to rain and the sun was just dropping under the horizon. The church was all fenced off and we prowled the perimeter to try to find an opening – eventually coming into a deserted courtyard.

We propped up our bikes and looked around. Eventually, a man popped round from behind the church.

“Urm…” I started, feeling a little awkward. “Can we camp here?”

“Of course!!!” He declared with complete enthusiasm and introduces himself “I’m the priest, Hermando. But, you don’t need to camp, I have a spare room”.

He led us into his lovely home where a bed was made up. “Are you Catholic?” he asked.

“Urm….”

“No worries, everyone is welcome in mi casa”

We had an excellent nights sleep and were fresh to tackle the next 100km the following day. As we were cycling out of Los Pocitos, two dogs took an aversion to us, wildly barking and yapping after our feet. We both get pretty angry in these situations, as the dogs are usually owned by people who simply don’t care and don’t shout their dogs back. Knut jumped off his bike, went to grab some rocks, and ended up badly twisting his foot.

The next 20km I heard grumble after grumble from Knut in front of me.

“Bloody dogs. Next dog I see….”

I was trying not to laugh, finding the irony of the situation quite amusing – avoiding an injury and getting another one. He grumbled on. I stayed silent.

After about 80km I tested the water.

“So…hows the foot?”

“It hurts”

I stifled a snigger.

“Yeah okay, it’s kind of funny” Knut admitted. 80km later and his sense of humour had returned! Hallelujah!

The final kms into La Paz were not fun, even if we were allowed to joke about things again. It was a relatively big sprawling city, with lots of traffic on the only road in.

But we made it, checked into our first warm showers host (and had an EXCELLENT warm shower), and began to relax. We’d completed 1500km (ca. 1000miles) of the Baja peninsula AND we were going to make the ferry!

The next day we met back up with Nevil and Heather who had taken the bus for the previous section as Nevil wasn’t well. It was great to share a few stories as we waited for the evening ferry.

The terminal was 20km out of the city which meant we reluctantly had to get back on the bikes….But we made it in good time, ready to enjoy some food at the terminal cafe. It was shut. So we set up camp in the terminal and cooked ourselves some pasta.

The ferry was actually pretty awesome (we treated ourselves to a private cabin). Our ticket said we would be arriving at 10.30am the next morning, so we were looking forward to a relaxed lie in.

At 7.30am an announcement came through the tannoy, waking us up – “would all cabin holders please return their key”.

“Huh?” I signalled to Knut, looking out the window. There was Mazatlan ferry terminal. We had arrived 3 hours earlier than we expected! Great…but our stuff was everywhere. Bugger. We rushed around like headless chickens, packing up everything and vacating the cabin.

In Mazatlan we leisurely cycled to the bus terminal, taking a few photos and, arriving about 9.15.

I enquired about the next bus to Puerto Vallarta. It was at 9.40am. That was cutting it fine to get our bikes sorted and some breakfast. The one after? Midnight. 9.40am it was.

“Can we put our bikes on the bus?” I asked (in fact I said something along the lines of bicicleta, autobus and lots of hand signalling).

Unfortunately the answer was not a simple sí, so it was time for google translate. Basically, she wanted us to put them into boxes.

“No worries, where can we get a box in the next ten minutes?”. I asked

She started to explain, and then stopped.

“Un momento” she signalled, picking up the phone and ringing through to someone.

“Okay, you can just put them on. You just have to pay 100 pesos per bike”.

Excellent! This may have been a bribe, but given the amount of subsequent hassle the man had getting our bikes on the bus, I feel it was very well deserved. And so, 25 minutes after arriving in the bus station, our bikes and us were on a 10 hour bus ride to Puerto Vallarta.

Success! Next stop, meeting the family.

If you’d like to know more about some of the logistics and planning we did for our trip down the Baja we wrote a separate article here.