Cycling Baja California Sur

We leave our beach wild camp spot and go into the town called Guerrero Negro to refill our supplies there. Guerrero Negro is known for it’s good whale watching. Sadly this starts in December so we are not able to see them since it is October now.

When we are in the town we go to get some coffee at a local coffee shop. ☕️ Here we have Wifi so we can have some conversations with the home front. We also have contact with our Czech friend Pavel. We find out that he slept in the town of Guerrero Negro and we find ourselves reunited again. We leave the town a little later in the day and ride 30km to go and sleep in the desert together.

Pavel cycles a little faster so because Arjan and I are already packet up we decide to hit the road. Pavel says he will catch up with us anyway so we know we will see each other again.
The end of the day we want to arrive in San Ignacio where we will go to our first “Casa de Ciclistas”. This is a place at peoples homes where you can put your tent in their garden for just 100 pesos. There you can do your laundry and have a nice shower and when you’re lucky you can meet up with other cyclists who are also doing a long distance cycle trip.

We manage to make it to the Casa de Ciclistas. There is no one there so we decide to put up our tent and take a shower. We try to figure out the WiFi password so we can send a message to Pavel. We did not see him all day and we find it strange that he is still not here.
The next morning we meet the family of the Casa de Ciclistas: Othon and his wife and two sons. He also owns a fish taco stand in town. Because the fish taco stand was not enough to provide the family for a good living they started this campground for cyclists in their backyard with help of a french couple in 2014.

We do our laundry and Othon‘s son helps us with the WiFi password. We are wondering what happend to Pavel so we send a message to him right away. We tell him where we are and that we will be staying here another night. Pavel is just 5km away from us but had a lot of flat tires and that is why he was not able to catch up wit us. Eventually he makes it to our campground.
Not to much later another cyclist arrives. He is a cheery and nice fellow called Gus. He’s from England and he has been on the road for quite a while too. But earlier this year he already did some hiking with his girlfriend in Colombia, Peru and Equador and visited Mexico City when his is parents came over to see him.
We go to eat lunch with the four of us at Othon his fish taco stand. The food is amazing! We grab some beers to dring back at the campground. When we arrive back there we see that there are even two more cyclist. Laurent and Odlile from Switzerland. Wow, now we are with a group of 6 cyclists!
We spend a nice night together swopping stories and exchanging tips and tricks and just have fun together.

The next morning Pavel, Laurent, Odile, Arjan and I will go on further south of the Baja California Sur. We aim to go to Mulegé within the next few days. It is close to 1st and 2nd November what means we are close to the celebrations of “Dias the los muertos”. We all want to celebrate it there. Gus tells us he will also catch up with us on the 1st of November in this town.

Pavel has another flat tire and the problem to his flat tires is found. The rim tape has to be replaced because the sharp edges make his tires go flat. Since we have got no rim tape we decide it might be a good option to put duck tape over the rim tape inside. Why not? With Duck tape you can fix anything, right? ? And it seems to be working. Woohoo! ?

Just before we arrive to the town Santa Rosalia Arjan finds out that his back rim is broken. We wanted to go wild camp on the beach just before the town but because of the broken rim we decide to check the local bicycle shop te see if they can help us with a new one.
At the local bycicle shop they can’t help us. The boy at the shop things that we will have better luck in Loreto. We hope Arjan his rim will hold for that long because Loreto is still at least 5 days riding from here. Arjan puts his panniers on the front racks to take of the weight of the back rim. Hopefully this will do the trick until we make it to Loreto.

We spend the night just after Santa Rosalia at a wild camp spot somewhere just off the road not visible for the traffic.

The next day we make it to Mulegé. We can see right away that this is a very nice little town.
We want to stay with a Warmshowers host, but when we arrive we find out that this person does no longer live at this adres. She just moved to another town. But we talk with the landowner and he offers us to stay at the garden of his house. We can put up our tent there and we even have a very nice view over the sea.
Pavel, Arjan and I take on the offer to stay here. Laurent and Odile decide that they rather stay at a campground nearby.

In town everybody is in the streets. It looks alive and everybody is very happy and cheerful. Parents are walking with there kids going from door to door for trick and treat. It is actually a tradition that they took from the USA. It is not really part of the tradition of Dias de los muertos.

The landowner shows Arjan a place where we can use the BBQ so we get some groceries to make a nice meal.
When we are preparing our meal another cyclist arrives who is also searching for the same Warmshowers host that we were looking for earlier today. We invite him to stay with us and eat with us. We figured we have enough food anyway.
It is already dark so it is probable his best option anyway and he doesn’t even have to cook his own meal. Who wouldn’t like a welcome like this?! ?
His name is Nash and speaks fluent Spanish. He tells us he has lived and studied in Mexico for 6 months and that is how he learns his Spanish.
The meal we prepared turned out pretty nice. And the good company and nice conversations make it even better.

The next day we spend together going into the town to get some breakfast at the supermarket. Also take a look around in the town square and see what shops they have here. We bump into Gus who just cycled into town and grab some coffee together. The afternoon we spend chilling in the garden with view on the sea. The water is so nice and warm that we can’t resist to not go swimming. The coastline is full of beautiful shells and the water is so clear the you can see all the fish swimming around you when you are in the water.

In the evening we go back into town to see what happens with “Dia the los muertos”. We didn’t see a lot happening in the daytime. We know we have to go to the graveyard because it is celebrated there. There should be music and a lot of people celebrating, but when we arriver there we see some people lighting candles on some graves. There is no music however and it seems not to be a very cheerful mood. We feel like intruders and a little misplaced to be there. We decide to go back tot he house and call it a day.
The first day of dia the los muertos was not really wat we heard of it and what we expected it to be like. Maybe the celebration on the mainland of Mexico is different. We don’t know. They say Baja California Norte and Baja California Sur are different from the rest of Mexico because it is more connected to the USA. Maybe that was why it was different than what all of us expected. Or maybe we weren’t in a big enough town.

That is why we decide to move on the next day. All of us are all leaving Mulegé.
Everybody has different plans as it seems so Arjan and I will be cycling on our own again. We say good-bye to Gus who leaves early this morning. We had a great time with you Gus! Hopefully we will meet in La Paz again!

Somewhere further on the road Nash catches up with us. He cycles so fast and other than us he planned to ride a long distance for today. We just want to go a few kilometers to camp at a very nice beach: Playa El Requéson that we have heard of. So our paths will also divide here. Maybe see you somewhere on the road again. It was sure fun meeting you Nash!
We take a break at a beach at lunch time and we are reunited with Pavel again.

We have a very easy going day and arrive at the Playa El Requéson. Here is where want to camp. It is the nicest beach of the whole Baja California they say.
We meet with some nice American people Rola and Cookie. They tell us they are kite surfers and that they are heading south to La Ventana. La Ventana is a very well known spot amongst kite surfers. They have a big RV and a pickup truck. At the beach you have to pay for every vehicle you take with you. They offer us to pitch our tents behind their RV so we don’t have to pay a fee to stay on the beach. That is so nice! Thanks a lot! We even get yoghurt and 6 boiled eggs. Wow, sweet! They tell us they are gone early so we will probable not see them again.
The next morning when we wake up Arjan finds a note and Starbucks coffee left by them for us. What a good start of the day!! Thanks so much!

We make coffee and it tastes so good and after that we take a swim before we hit the road again.

After two days the three of us arrive in Loreto and we have trouble finding a place to sleep. We eventually ask at the local church in de middle of town and they let us camp in the garden of the church. Pretty sweet that we can sleep here! Even nicer when they tell us the history.
Loreto was the first Spanish colonial settlement of the Viceroyalty of New Spain on the Baja California Peninsula. That is the reason why they have the oldest church in de whole Baja. We’ve been told that it is over 300 years old.

We don’t have to pitch our tent because we can sleep under a roofed part in the garden. We make our dinners on our stoves and dive straight into bed because we are so tired.

The next morning is another beautiful day. We take a stroll through town. It is really beautiful and we like to stay here for some days.
Eventually we find a good priced campground by accident.

We see there are two more cyclists staying here as well. Jan from Germany and Luc from France. Jan is the first cyclist we meet that is going from south to north. He started in Panama and wants to go up to Alaska. And Luc is cycling around in Mexico and will go to central America as well. We spend the night at the campground exchanging stories.

Jan is already leaving us the next morning to go further north. We wave him goodbye and wish him safe travels.

We stay in Loreto for the next 2 days just to relax, go to the beach and get Arjan’s rim fixed. Drink some beers together. Get our route sorted out for the next part and do some laundry.
Pavel needs a haircut as well…. so hey… why not let Kim do this! ✂️
She is almost a pro now…????

We sort all our stuff out before we begin the last part of cycling in the the Baja California Sur. We say goodbye to Luc.
Pavel is staying another day but we know we will definitely see each other again in La Paz.

We know we have a big climb to do today. Before the steepest part of the climb begins we take a nice lunch break at the beach. We won’t be seeing the beach again until we get to La Paz. Our final destination in the BCS. So let’s enjoy it while we can…??

In the evening we find a restaurant that also has a room we can sleep in for a very nice price. The food is very good. But it is a strange sight because the restaurant is almost empty except for the table we are sitting on. While we are eating we hear one of the two women that we met when we arrived sewing something. Eventually we find out it is our curtains that she is sewing. And when we go back our room they ask us if it’s okay if they hang them in front of the window.
We ask them in our best Spanish how long the restaurant and rooms exist and they tell us they just started the business. They are still redecorating the restaurant and the rooms.
Okay now everything makes sense!?

We sleep well here and the next morning we leave early. We can cycle a lot of kilometres in the coolest part of the day. That is perfect! We start with a good uphill to go more downhill for the rest of the day. We arrive early Ciudad Constitutión and find a good campground. They even have a swimming pool and the place looks nice! Also the showers have hot water which is pretty exceptional for Mexico.

The next morning we leave the campground early again. We buy some water in town and get some coffee at a coffee stand on the street. We see we are standing in front of the town hospital. An older man who is definitely is one of the patients is taking a walk outside of the hospital trying to get someone to give him a cup of coffee. We decide we can make his day and buy him one. It seems this man is no stranger because the lady behind the coffee stand knows exactly how he drinks his coffee. We bet he does this every day! ?☕️

We where in contact with Pavel again and he told us he was cycling pretty long days because he wants to catch the ferry ⛴ in La Paz to the mainland on Saturday evening. Somewhere in these last days he passed us but we didn’t see him. On our last day before we arrive to La Paz we see a cyclist in front of us and it turns out that it is Pavel. We are reunited once again!
Sad thing is only that he has a problem with his knee. It is hurting pretty bad. He still has to cycle a lot of kilometres with this bad knee before we will be in La Paz. Today it is already Saturday and he really wants to catch the ferry because our English friend Gus will also be on that ferry. They want to cycle on the main land of Mexico together.
Today we stick together and hope for the best! When we’re close to La Paz it is really time to say goodbye to Pavel once again. Now we know we will not see each other for a long time. Pavel will try to catch the ferry and we are staying at a campground just before La Paz. He really has become a very good friend of ours and we’ve had so much fun together! Thanks for the nice time and good luck Pavel! Maybe we see each other in Nicaragua again and otherwise definitely in Czech Republic ?? or Holland ?? !?

Next day it is only a few kilometres to La Paz. So we have a pretty easy day in sight. We arranged a Airbnb a few days ago but we have to wait before we can go there until 3.00 pm. Time enough for us to get to know La Paz a little better. We first go to check out where we can find our Spanish school where we will be going for the next week. This is easily found after that we go to check out the rest of the town.
We go to the malecón. Here we have a nice view on de harbour and the sea. And along the malecón there is even a cycle path. It is pretty busy today because it is Sunday and everybody here is enjoying the day and we do too.
When it is finally time to check in at our Airbnb we arrive there to find out that we can not stay at this address. The man we talk to explains that he has had some payment problems with Airbnb and that he has been trying to get off of the website. Okay….hmmm it looks like we have a problem here. He calls with the Mexican Airbnb department while we are there. But still this does not solve our problem because we have to find a new place to stay for the next days or at least for tonight. We say goodbye and hope we can get our money back that we already payed trough the website.
We will try to sort this out with Airbnb when we have found a place to stay the night since it starts to get dark pretty soon.
We cycle back to the malecón because we know there is a cafe that has good WiFi there. While we are there we meet a Belgium couple, Katrien and Jens, who are also cycling in Mexico for a few weeks. We chat a bit about our cycling trip and there’s. Katrien and Jens tell us they are staying at a pension nearby that is not very expensive. That sounds really great! We are definitely going there!