Loreto – Cabo San Lucas: Comfort Never Comes Without a Price 26th - 30th November

Our rest actually turned out to be four days as the whopping 5km hill south of Loreto and what would have been cycling 5 days through largely nothing meant we decided to take easier option of getting the bus from Loreto to La Paz (also on the east side of the peninsula). We now had some experience taking bikes apart and putting them back together (luckily they only wanted the wheels off anyway) and we thoroughly enjoyed the big climb from the windows of the bus, unfortunately the disadvantage being that opportunities to take good photos were sacrificed. We were somewhat shocked, though, by the speed which the driver chose to go, which was far too high for the windy terrain. We thanked our lucky stars that we don’t suffer from travel sickness and were obviously very happy to be going a lot faster than we would have been on the bicycles.

In La Paz we made ourselves at home at the Baja Bed and Breakfast, which is run by a lovely Mexican couple and once again spent two days resting before our last two days of cycling to the bottom of the peninsula. It was also a refreshing change to have access to some better and bigger shops.

Our first day to Todos Santos meant crossing the peninsula to the Pacific side so we assumed that it would be a hilly ride, but were pleasantly surprised to find the terrain relatively flat, and for the first 35km enjoyed a massive shoulder at the side of the road. Not only this, at the Novillo petrol station N was overjoyed to use some of the cleanest public loos she had seen for a long time. The day continued with ease as picnic tables presented themselves at a closed restaurant just as we started feeling peckish (picnic benches never usually appear at this point). Despite a somewhat slow entrance into Todos Santos due to various roadworks and lots of mud, we arrived in good time due to our fastest speed yet at nearly 20km an hour and found accommodation at one of the cheaper establishments in town.

Todos Santos is a haven for ‘artists’ and the galleries and shops tend to attract various hordes of tourists from down the road in Cabo. There is also a Hotel California there, which is even more of an attraction, and despite The Eagles’ insistence that none of them wrote their famous song there, lots of tourists still come to have their photos taken outside it. So of course we stopped for a drink in the famous tequila bar, although we kept it simple with a couple of beers, and didn’t find it too difficult to leave!

We were aware that the road to Cabo San Lucas was a fair bit hillier, which was fine, but awoke to the sound of rain, something we had not thought of since the two soggy days we’d experienced north of San Francisco. We assumed that the rain would stay relatively light and set off after the most extortionately expensive breakfast yet ($6 for a ham and cheese croissant was a joke). The highlight of the morning was crossing the Tropic of Cancer a few kilometres outside Todos Santos although as there were no helpful signposts to indicate this important milestone, we had to take an educated guess at its approximate location. For the first 50 kilometres the rain was light or non-existent (not very tropical!) and the road was somewhat flatter than expected. Again our average speed was a good 17km/hr so when we started getting hungry we decided to skip the complications of making up sandwiches for lunch and made do with bananas and muesli bars instead, and pedal on towards Cabo. It was around this point that the road started becoming a great deal hillier and we found ourselves confronted with several challenging climbs and various complicated traffic situations due to the lack of shoulder. When we were being overtaken by a large vehicle and approaching a blind curve or summit, it was our standard practice to stop at the side of the road, or in the gutter, where possible to let it pass. However, decisions to stop generally had to be unanimous (otherwise we would crash into each other), and this was very difficult when cycling with noisy traffic overtaking, thus inevitable arguments ensued about when exactly it was appropriate to stop, and how to communicate that decision.

The rain became heavier and as we neared Cabo San Lucas (at the very end of the 1600km-long Baja peninsula), so did the traffic. When we reached the top of one challenging climb, we were mortified to see the road dip dramatically back down into a valley and then a never-ending perfectly straight road climbing back up the other side. The traffic complications intensified as we tried to cycle up this long straight never-ending road. Being the first straight bit of road in a long time, cars were queuing up behind slow-moving vehicles and at the first opportunity and were less than concerned about the presence of a couple of wet, harrassed cyclists also trying to get to Cabo. So with cars overtaking lorries and lorries overtaking bikes, someone had to give way!

We had two options during these sordid moments: to stay on the road knowing that the lorries would not have enough space to overtake us at a safe distance and try and enjoy the adrenaline rush of nearly being sucked in under a massive eighteen wheeler, or get off the road and let the traffic pass until it was safe to proceed. The former decision also had the added danger of frantic lorry drivers honking at us to warn us of their presence, and the idiot cars overtaking them (a nerve-wracking and horrendous habit which is enough to shock any poor cyclist off their bike). Obviously being the life-loving and not so dare-devil people that we are, we chose the second option of getting off the road which more or less ensured our safety but made getting up that ghastly hill in the pouring rain a never-ending chore which must have taken over an hour. Added to this madness were several idiotic drivers overtaking in the opposite direction despite the fact that we were coming in our bright orange and yellow reflective bibs and our panniers covered in bright yellow raincovers: N’s furious gesticulations made it very clear how she felt about this although they did nothing to deter these speed-crazed drivers.

When we finally arrived at the top with our nerves more or less shattered we stopped outside a new hotel development and tried to eat a left over sandwich from the day before, but the avocado had already had its day so we decided to try and keep our hunger at bay. At this point, two security guards from the development came out and shook hands with us. We asked them how many more hills there were before Cabo – two - and how many kilometres there were left - 5. Just because you can speak the same language as someone does not mean the information they give you is accurate (this we learnt from a good few years of living in Seville), and were not completely surprised to see a sign several metres further down the road that Cabo was in fact 10 kilometres away. Luckily the guys’ definition of a hill was not the same as ours as they were two very small slopes that took little time to get up, otherwise the rest of the journey was largely downhill. Despite the rain getting ever more heavier, we were not going to arrive in Cabo before another challenge, and that was the roadworks. Roadworks in Mexico usually mean lots of mud, and if it’s raining as it was that day, this means cyclists and everything on their bikes get totally splattered, bike brakes don’t work nearly as well usual and (difficult to spot) potholes fill with filthy water. Added to this was a good ten minutes behind one of the stinkiest lorries that ever traversed the earth, and in front of a car full of very puzzled-looking Americans.

We were welcomed into the town itself with a shout of ‘Gringo’ from some silly boy, at which point N scolded him in a torrent of Spanish (something she has a fair bit of experience with), pointing out that firstly, one does not speak to people that way, and secondly, we couldn’t possibly be gringos as we weren’t American. After trying to dodge all the massive lake-like puddles and speed bumps (little slippy round balls of metal that stick out of the road – very unbicycle friendly indeed), things started looking up when we found an excellent Swiss pastry shop and stuffed our faces with their delicious brownies and muffins. Even better, next door we managed to get our hands on a nice big bottle of gin and two bottles of wine which would hopefully restore our nerves to their usual state.

With panniers stocked, we arrived at our hotel caked in mud, soaking wet and hoping they would be kind enough to let us check in. But not before we had to drag our now very heavy sodden bikes and luggage up the steepest hill in town. Luckily, the hotel staff were very understanding and inquisitive about our trip, although one pair of rather inebriated American women, on seeing our packed up bikes, thought it apt to proclaim, ‘What kind of idiotic, stupid people would cycle in this kind of weather?’ in very loud voices. Not exactly what we wanted to hear at that moment, although we understand that some of our readers are probably having the same thoughts!

We were very relieved indeed to reach our destination and never has a shower, a fancy meal at the hotel restaurant, a gin and tonic and several glasses of wine been more welcome. The dramas of the day, however, were not at an end. A few drinks later, someone (not N) managed to leave the sinktap running. The sink, which we noticed earlier wasn’t draining properly, started to fill. And as we happily watched television thinking that it had started raining again outside, the trickling noise we heard was actually coming from the bathroom. Just as we were about to go to bed for some very well-deserved sleep, we realised that the bathroom and the entrance to the flat were completely flooded. Paul wanted to leave it as it was, but N was not (prime cockroach attraction!), and phoned the front desk who sent the poor maintenance man over to clean up the whole mess with a towel and a bucket because all of the mops were locked away for the night. Yet another action-packed day on the bikes thankfully came to an end and we looked forward to a week of rest, recovery and relaxation in sunny Cabo San Lucas.

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