Jeremy's Bike Blog

I say goodbye to Moises, and as we part ways, so too do I return to the shameless ways of a budget vagabond.  I buy breakfast makings, along with calories for the trip to Guaymas, at the near by Walmart, and eat them under the shade of a tree near an entrance to its parking lot.  I try to find a paper map at a few places, but have no luck.   Five days and several inquiries later, a basic road map or even atlas has completely eluded me.

Having driven the route the day before, I have some idea what lay ahead.  Ever since my slight mis-adventure avoiding the highway, and traversing private ranch land the day I got into Hermosillo and met Moises, I’ve been reluctant to take roads that are secondary according to Google Maps.  Thus, highway 15 is my only option, along with the only option for cars and trucks travelling North to South on this side of the country.  It is generally two lanes per direction, separated by a wide median, but under perennial reconstruction.  Sections being reconstructed will have 1 of the directions’ two lanes closed off, with traffic diverted to the other half, which becomes a non-separated, often shoulder-less, one lane per direction highway.  This is the worst of all possible roads for cycling, as you have to take the one and only lane from every vehicle sharing your direction.  So, the far more prudent choice is to ride the side under construction.  Sometimes this means several miles of several lanes of brand new concrete to yourself, in which case you can pretty much ride with your eyes closed, or focused on your phone.  Often it means passing construction workers and their large equipment, which itself commonly entails taking the alternate dirt road around the construction of a small bridge or other project.  I’ve been at this for five days now, and I dare say, I’ve gotten pretty good at navigating this particular obstacle course.  When the concrete slabs end, there’s often a 1 foot drop, along with 1 foot spaced sections of 1 inch diameter steel rods sticking a foot out of the side of the drop from about halfway up.  The most efficient thing to do here is to fly off the edge, pulling up on the handlebars so that you clear the rods and both wheels land at once, minimizing impact shock to the loaded bike.  But sometimes there’s a makeshift gravel ramp covering some or all of the edge, or there’s a pit or a sandtrap just after the edge, and in this case, a flying dismount is extremely ill advised.  It’s impossible to know for sure until you’re within a few feet of the edge, so it’s important to be going fast enough to clear the rods, but not so fast that you can’t stop.

I’ve learned a number of things about navigating highway construction sites that I won’t bore you with.  I’ve also learned a lot about how roads are built, or at least have learned to have a deep appreciation for the massive amount of work it involves.

Food-wise, I’m absolutely loving the roadside taco stands.  Tacos for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  I’m not getting primarily tacos only because it’s something I can manage to order, but because it’s kinda synonymous with “light meal” in the sense that you can get pretty much any tasty morsel you can imagine scooped onto a couple of tortillas, which themselves come in considerable variety.   The women that work the stands have all been, in my experience, patient and happy to help me navigate my choices.  Several of them have seemed perplexed by my disinclination to have a coke or soda along with.

So, we’ve covered food and transit, which leaves, at least for the last 5 days, sleep.  The first night I slept just North of Guaymas, having been unable to extricate myself from one last extended conversation with enough daylight to go into town for dinner before camping.  It was a beautiful site, next to a massive organ pipe cactus, with a fireworks show of heat lightening off in the distance.

The second night I slept just short of Ciudad Obregon.  I fell asleep taking a quick break to rest my eyes just after arriving at the site, with about 45 minutes of light left.  I woke up with insufficient energy to deal with the mosquitos that I suspected I should…but I was also in some denial.  This was the first night that bugs were really any consideration whatsoever.  I was covered in bites by morning.

The third night I took a $27 room at a nice, resort-ish hotel with an outdoor pool.  I stayed up until 3am attending to a mental to-do list that included sewing stuff, minor bike repairs/adjustments, low-key-ifying my rig (no more cell phone mount on handlebars or USB attachment to generator hub) and doing a dry-run setup of my bug net.  The hotel was right outside of Navojoa, the town South of which the US DoS’ travel advisory stops and its travel warning begins.  I wonder if because it’s on the edge of what is understood to be cartel territory that it’s such a pleasant, thriving, but low key town.  I had a great time cruising around with my unloaded bicycle, going on my doomed mission to find an actual, physical roadmap, and buying supplies.  There are lots of busy businesses that clearly cater to a local middle-class income, as opposed to Los Mochis (that I would get to the next day) that has a lot of flashy establishments and casinos and stuff.

Coming into Navojoa, I spot the first of what I’d categorize as a long-haul cyclist, in action, that I have since getting into Mexico. I notice him when he’s maybe 500 meters ahead, and it takes me a good 3 or 4 km to catch up to him. We’re in total nothing-land, and he’s sporting only the slightest satchel. I’m of the belief that when you’re on super flat, smooth terrain where the main source of loss is air resistance, having some dense weight on your bike is something of an advantage once you reach cruising velocity, so even though I over take him, he’s definitely hauling ass. Not to mention the visible wobble to his wheels and generally less than dialed-in rig. As I pull up along side him, I ask him if he has any water. He says yes and starts to maybe pull it out of the tiny satchel, but then I ask if he wants any water, and pull one of my 1.5L bottles (it alone is easily 3x the volume of whatever is in his satchel) out. I’m super excited to have encountered him, and doing nothing to conceal that. He gives a nodding shrug and reaches for it while we ride side-by-side, at at least 15kph, probably closer to 20 on the wide highway shoulder. He uncaps it deftly, puts it to his mouth and takes a pull, and then re-caps it and hands it back with a smile that reveals very few, very dirty teeth. I slip it back in my bottle cage and mentally downgrade its contents to tap water. I’m no germphobic bio-snob, but I do have my limits. He seems content and intent to go back to pounding the pedals, so I wish him well and pedal on ahead, using my weight advantage to its fullest once I get back into cadence, but 15 minutes later when I need water, and hence need to swap the downgraded bottle out with one on my back rack, it takes him less than 3 minutes to catch up. So, I pull out the bottle he drank from and hold it out and say “I give to you” (or at least try) as he passes. He gives me a smile and a ‘no thanks’ nod as he taps his satchel, and passes without slowing down. About a minute later, I start back up and I can see him in the distance. I gain some ground on him, but don’t catch up completely before he crosses the highway. Not long after that, I see another guy on a bike, then another, and then it’s apparent we’re in the greater Navojoa ‘suburban’ area. It’s about 6pm, and I realize that these are bike commuters. I see at least a dozen more, probably closer to two dozen when I cruise into and out of town from the hotel after checking in. I haven’t seen bike commuters around, especially with such ubiquity, in other cities so far, and not for not being in their greater areas come quitting time. I have been for Hermosillo (albeit on a Saturday), Guaymas, and Ciudad Obregon, so I suspect this large population of bike commuters is another novelty of Navojoa. In any case, making such an exuberant fuss about crossing paths with this first one must have struck him as pretty odd. But I’m guessing he’s not the first local to see me and think ‘gringo loco’.

The fourth night I camped off the edge of some cultivated land, where there wasn’t a lot of flat, obstacle free area, and where the mosquitos were ferocious.  I set up my net successfully, and fell asleep gratifyingly watching several dozen attempt to get in, but was dismayed come morning to see that I had bumped a side of the net so that it was propped up by some straw-grass and now there were several dozen blood-gorged mosquitoes attempting to get out.

The plan was for the fifth night to be spent on a ferry to La Paz, Baja, but the ferry that usually admits passengers is out of service for repairs until June 15, and the other ferry only allows “cargo”, which means any vehicle (including motorcycles) and driver, but no passengers, ruling out the possibility that I could hitch a ride.  This was the possibility I had in mind when I made the 30km trip out to the terminal, even though I had learned of the “cargo only” thing in Los Mochis.  That, or that they would allow me and my loaded bicycle to be considered a “motorcycle”.  I met a trucker in front of the terminal who spoke some English and took up my cause, pleading with them that I had bicycled several thousand kilometers.  As his pleas seemed to turn to protestations and a woman from the ferry company that looked like she was in charge said something to him likely along the lines of “if you keep it up, we won’t let you on the boat” to which he turned around, walked away, and threw up his arms, I knew my case was lost.  Outside, as I got ready to ride back in defeat, he and a parking lot security guy suggested that I could take a bus to Mazatlan and take a ferry from there.  I hadn’t conveyed that going by ferry at all was, in large part, a means of getting to Mazatlan.  I didn’t see any point in driving that home, so I agreed that this sounded like a good option, but if I were to bicycle to Mazatlan (a ferry cheat seems acceptable, a bus cheat less so), was it dangerous?  For me, yes, it’s dangerous, but mostly at night.  I get the feeling that if I stick to staying on main roads in daylight, and keep my head down, as it were, I’ll be fine.

On my way back into town, I’m thinking I’ll take a room in one of the many cheap hotels I saw heading out to the Ferry terminal, when I pass a sign for a beach 8KM off the highway.  I’ve come all this way, anyways, I thought, and scoping it out on Google Maps, seemed like there should be some good camping options.  I’m up to 80 miles for the day when I see some kitesurfing kites.  Excellent, I bet there’s other foreigners there and that they’re probably camping at or near their kitesurfing spot.  I get there, and there’s about a dozen people hanging out and a half dozen in the water, though no other people that are obviously foreigners.  I ask the people behind the bar about the possibility of camping, and they seem to have to ask someone else.  I pull my bike into the bar, disrobe down to shorts and take a glorious dip in the perfect-temperature sea.

I’m reading my kindle in the bar and snacking when Alfredo, the owner of the place, introduces himself.  He says I’m welcome to sleep here, but do I have sleeping things?  I’m not sure what he means, though I suspect he means bug netting, and I say I do.  He also says I should expect a lot of people to be back come morning as it will be Saturday and they have a big event planned, involving a lot of jetskis and those rocket attachments that hoist people out of water (one of which is in the water at the moment).  We talk about his kitesurfing school and the possibility of me doing a session or two the next day.

As the sun is setting, the sand fleas come out in force.  I feel bad for Alfredo as they immediately empty the place.  The only real defense on hand is to be standing in front of one of the industrial strength fans they have scattered about.  Without this, they attack viciously.  My bug netting is some cheap stuff I got on Amazon before I left, and it’s great for mosquitos, but it’s so coarse, I’m certain it will be useless for these tiny fuckers, so I pull out my bivvy and am relieved to see that it’s section of bug netting is sufficiently fine.  I’m scrambling to get it set up when an older guy that offered to sell me some repellent for 100 pesos restarts the power that had been cut to the fans and moves one to point directly at the spot I’ve made for myself behind a DJ stand and platform made entirely of wood pallets.  This stays on all night, and is key to not overheating in my bivvy as I squirm around with it sealed closed via the screened section.  I don’t even seal it closed when I’m using it to protect from rain…it’s extremely tight and pretty uncomfortable.

It’s the next morning, and when the guy comes back to continue his duties (emptying garbages and such) I give him the 100 pesos for the gesture of setting up the fan and looking after me (as I noticed he had been doing throughout the night).  He gets the repellent, of which I take some and hand back the bottle.  He has a questioning expression as he pats his pocket with the peso note and I point at his pocket, then the fan, and say “esta bien”.  Head dip, slight smile, and we’re on the same page.

It’s 9 in the morning and I would have thought the people would be here by now, but then, the heat is just now getting to the point where the sand fleas are fucking off back to wherever they don’t die during it.  I’m now covered in both larger mosquito provided spots, and smaller flea provided ones, but I’m quite happy at the serendipity already provided by my change in plans.  I’ll stick to the coast on the mainland, and in about 4 more days of pounding out taco (and caffeine) fueled miles, I’ll be in more verdant climes and out of El Chapo’s turf.