I awoke at 6:30 but because of the cloud cover, no sunrise.
No bugs of any kind, no snakes, no scorpions, just a dew covered tent. I made a
large amount of coffee and drank it with a granola pourage. I hit the road, and
again, slow going, low gears and nursing the right knee. It was a lot of work
pushing the rig up the steep gravel road the night before and the arms felt it.
I rode until a small almacen and bought canned corn and a small bottle of salsa
and finished both. The road opened up more with small climbs and cacti and
desert. Two Mexican cyclists, one from Chihuahua, one from North Baja, told me
I had to make it to Pulmos. I would have to back track 40km, but I’ve never
backtracked and have missed much. I took a road south and suddenly was sailing
in a tailwind. My slow riding earlier must have been from the headwind. I rode
through untouched desert until I saw the coast and was happy I would reach
Pulmos in only 10km. But it turned to a white sanded ripio, as ugly as I’ve
seen. The left rear rack had snapped that morning and I had repaired with
zipties. It wasn’t meant for ripio and the water and food fell off the front
rack and I had to load on to the rear rack to keep everything together. In two
hours I made it into the small town and two American guys who had been riding
all year asked me to camp and pointed me to a small place that served fish
tacos and beer. I ate, bathed in the bathwater ocean, and camped by a fire and
watched a rainfire of stars. The ocean and shore is untouched here and I had to
win such place by the sacrifice of a sandy ripio. I backtracked north back to Los Barriles and then on my way to find Gustavo. It is pretty in these parts.
These wild horses were nearly as bad as the dogs. The one on the left charged me.
