Today saw the start of the adventure in earnest. Yesterday was merely a preamble, a moving of the pieces into place before the game began.
Staying the night with friends in South Pasadena made the trip across the border easy. At 9 in the morning, Route 110, I-710, and I-5 were a total breeze all the way to the border, just south of San Diego. I’d read that driving into Mexico required filling out forms, paying fees at a bank, and so on—none of this seemed to apply to me, or to particularly concern the border guards, as I and the other motorcycles making the crossing were completely ignored as we rolled across the line, despite my California plates. Stopping to ask questions got me a bunch of skeptical, strange looks, as if to ask, “Why are you looking this gift horse in the mouth?” Here’s hoping that horse doesn’t come back to bite me in the ass later.
It was a total of ten-and-a-half hours of riding today, ending in Cataviña, smack in the middle of Il Desierto Central (The Central Desert, for all you rubes like me). Not the longest ride I’ve done in a single stretch, all told, but it ranks up there. I meant to catch my sister today, who has almost a day’s lead on me, and she intended to stay in this tiny, speedbump of a town (Cataviña), but after combing through the entirety of its two streets, she, her guy, and her car are nowhere to be found. Tomorrow it’ll have to be. I stay the night in the largest building in Cataviña, which also turns out to be the fanciest hotel I could possibly imagine having in the middle of a desert with nothing for a hundred miles around. While I’m grateful for the air-conditioning, I have to admit that it’s kind of ridiculous.
The Baja Central Desert is an amazing place to see; an alien landscape in the backyard of the USA. It has fields of giant cacti growing upward of two dozen feet straight up, their multipe tendrils reaching toward the sky as if listening to some strange radio signals from space.
This desert isn’t as hot and dusty as California’s central valley, and despite the massive trucks careening around blind hairpin turns and teeth-jarring potholes, turns out to be a most excellent ride. Lots of solitude, comfortable weather, beautiful scenery.
There’s plenty of excellent food to be had all along the route, as well: tacos, tostadas, enchiladas, and all the other “classic” Mexican fare, but mouth-wateringly authentic. Bring your Spanish lessons though, as English doesn’t go far in these parts. Shame on me for studying German.