El Sacrificio – Cataviña – Restaurant Terramar – Guerrero Negro – Villa Alberto – San Ignacio – Ejido San Lucas – El Requeson – Loreto – La Paz
10 days | 751 kilometers | 6050 meters elevation gain
The next day, we get even more of these comic book landscapes filled with desert sand and cacti. And just like the comic books, also in the real world it comes with a cruel burning sun. There is no escaping from the sun, no shadow, no breeze. The only breeze we can get is by cycling. So that’s what we do. And when we stop, the sweat that has been dieing to escape from our bodies escapes like there is no end to it. We completely drain.
Everything is dusty here. The dry climate makes perfect way for the dust to settle everywhere.
The jeans of the people we see are always sand colored at the bottom. At the end of the day our arms and legs are black from cumulated dust mixed with sweat. People in the streets sweep away the dust on the curbs of their shops for the dust to go and settle on someone elses curb.
Tonight we sleep in a little town called Cataviña. We ask a fancy looking hotel if we can put up our tents in their backyard. “No problem”. We sleep in a field with cacti and are witness of a beautiful sunset in the desert.





Jacko is suffering from flat tires again. I feel bad for him. I know the feeling, every time checking your tires to see if you didn’t loose any air. Also there’s the changing of the tubes in an environment with no shade and a burning sun in your neck. He seems to have bad luck with patching the tubes and every time we think we can start cycling again the tube starts leaking again. We decide to fix the problem by putting my 26 inch tube in his 27.5 inch wheel. This does not increase his confidence in his equipment, but at least we’re riding again!
We stop for the night at the intersection between highway 1 and 12. There’s one restaurant here and we ask if we can set up camp behind the restaurant.
The waiter asks if we also want to have dinner.
“Yes definitely! But maybe in an hour or so?”.
“No problem.”
An hour later we arrive at a closed front door of the restaurant. The lights are out and nobody inside. Damn. We said we wanted to eat something, right? Time to improvise. What do we still have left? Some sweet crackers with expired canned tuna. Great. Oh, and two packs of freeze-dried food that we got from nice Dutch people in Capitol Reef National Park that I have been carrying in my bag ever since in case of an emergency. I guess this is an emergency. We need to fuel our bodies for tomorrow.





That night I’m struck with the inevitable stomach issues that have been luring at us since we entered Mexico. Eating a bunch of street food does not come without risk. I wake up in the middle of the night with pain in my stomach and need to go to the bathroom five times that night. Too bad there is no toilet here. The Mexicans here call it Montezuma’s revenge named after the last Aztec ruler before the empire was conquered by the Spanish.
Another day in the cactus desert. We decide to drive on to a fairly big city called Guerrero Negro and to check in a motel there. Our friend Chi from Taiwan that we’ve been seeing regularly the last days is in the same motel as well. The first day I met him was back in the US, days before San Diego. And here in Baja we see him regularly having his lunch under a tree. Therefore we started calling him Chi Tree.




Well rested after our first night in a real motel we head back to highway 1 to lead us to the east again. Shortly after we leave Guerrero Negro a police officer stops us next to the road to tell us that 70 kilometers from here the highway is flooded. What can we do? There is not really another way to go south. We push on. When we stop for lunch another sweat attack happens to us. It is freaking hot again. When we get closer to where the road is supposed to be flooded we see a line of trucks and cars. Truck drivers lie under their vehicles to take advantage of the shadow. When we get to the front of the line we see the army and workers being busy lugging sandbags to where the water smashed away the road.
We inform about the information at a police officer. He says that maybe with our bikes we can cross the river because the water is not that deep. We take off our shoes and take our chance and indeed the water is not that deep. We can cross safely. Another point for bikes over cars. We enter a city with an unpronounceable and unmemorable name. We found a bike shop on Google Maps and want to buy some stuff. The guys at the bike shop are nice. Five minutes in and we find ourselves already enjoying a beer with them on the front porch. We can even sleep in the backyard of one of the employees that lives across from the bike shop!





On the road in Baja California we’ve seen a lot of army trucks loaded with army people and sometimes even a guy standing in the back with a huge automatic gun in his hands. At first this was always a scary sight, it looked like something you only see in war movies. Well, I guess there is a war going on here: a drug war. We’ve noticed that those 10 fully armed military guys in the back of the army truck are always looking at us, 10 pairs of eyes following our movements. I decided to wave one time and immediately 10 hands shot into the sky to wave back. Friendly guys! Today we come across a military check point and the past 5 military checkpoints that we’ve crossed we could just continue our journey right away, but today we get stopped. We have to open our bags. The army guy takes out all of our stuff, but then also puts it perfectly back in the place the item was. Very neat!
Today we end in a real oasis. After another hot, dusty, sandy, desert-y day we see patches of green, palm trees everywhere and a river making all of this happen. San Ignacio. We camp at a so-called Casa de Ciclistas (cheap accommodation specially for bicyclists) and head out into town. The town square is nice and reminds us of European town squares. We get stopped by two other gringos and we share a table to hear each other’s stories. They are American middle-aged newly-weds and are travelling all over Baja as their honeymoon. They have to leave but insist on paying for our dinner. The gratitudes we receive from so many people is getting abundant.
When we get back to our casa for the night, guess who’s there? Mister Chi Tree!



Montezuma’s revenge has gotten to Jacko today as well. While I’m feeling a bit better, today Jacko feels like a wet towel. Steady we make our way to the Golfo de California on the east side of this huge peninsula. After almost thousand kilometres we finally get to see the sea on the other side.
We make our way to a small town called Ejido San Lucas. On our camping app we’ve found an RV Park here and we want to check if we can camp there. When we get to the park the gate is open, there are a bunch of RVs parked on the waterfront, but there is nobody around!
After making a few rounds and still cannot find anybody we decide to just put our tent next to the water and we’ll see what happens. We take a dip in the super warm water of the sea, get dressed and cycle into town for some food. We get introduced to a Super Burro, a burrito on steroids, like the Mexican variant of the Dutch “kapsalon”, perfect fuel for us. When we head back to the RV Park we see a huge tarantula crossing the sandy road. It’s the size of a fist! We strongly hope they didn’t also find their way into our tents.







The east side of the peninsula is by far my favorite side! It’s getting really tropical. All day we drive along the coast. The coast is filled with white dreamy beaches and the water is as blue as it can get. We come across the first aggressive dog in Mexico and he nearly misses my Achilles heel, but does get a bite into one of my bags.
We pick a spot on Playa El Requeson. We have the beach for ourselves. We swim, make sausages over a campfire and enjoy the spectacular milky way that reveals itself for us.
In the morning we wake up, make coffee and see a lot of dolphins making their way to the south. It’s like a dolphin highway, every ten minutes another school of dolphins passes us, cheerfully jumping out of the water, what a sight! After a morning swim it’s getting hot already. Time to pack up camp.
For sure one of the best spots we’ve camped during this trip!







We first cycle next to the coast but then deviate from the coast to go back into the mountains. We enjoy a hell of lunch at a roadside restaurant.
We reach Loreto, one of Baja’s pueblo mágico‘s. We decided to have a rest day here. We cycle up to the pretty town square, park our bikes and enjoy some margarita’s. After 15 minutes I’m still sweating, but the booze is making up for this discomfort. We check into a hotel. The next day we don’t do much.
I read a book on the beach, in the night we meet some Swiss tourists that we have dinner with. The next day we cycle one town further to do some snorkeling. The water is nice and the fish impressive. When I get out of the water we are invited to chill with a group of old guys. They offer me a beer but I start to feel bad again. Stomach issues again. We cycle back to the hotel and ask if we can stay another night, because I feel terrible. The rest of the day I lay in bed.



I feel better the next day. But us both suffering from stomach issues, the intense heat and the not so promising next days make us decide to take a bus to La Paz. We take the bus at 10.00 in the morning and arrive in La Paz around noon. La Paz is a bigger city in the south of the peninsula, from here there are boats going to mainland Mexico. I get tickets for the boat of tomorrow evening. That means one and a half day in La Paz. We chill at the hostel, I fix my sleeping pad that had a hole in it, we do laundry and clean the bikes.
The next day we cycle 18 kilometres to get to the ferry north of La Paz. We board the boat, put our bikes in the department where all the cars are and lock them. We take some stuff from our bags and go upstairs. We’ve heard horrible stories about this overnight ferry ride to the mainland, but we think the boat is pretty nice. In the evening we roll out our sleeping pads and go sleep in the walkway, everybody seems to do the same.



After a perfect night of sleep I wake up on the boat. When I look out of the window I see skyscrapers, a bunch of islands off the coast and mainland Mexico. I feel pretty excited! This feels like entering a new country. This definitely feels different than all those small and dusty villages in Baja.
Jacko has decided to cycle with me to Mexico City, then take a flight to Cuba to cycle around there and after that to go back to Spain to temporarily work in a coffee bar before getting back to the Netherlands.
I will continue my trip southward. He already is soliciting for jobs in Spain and is busy with typing mails and updating his resume. I’m happy for him that he knows what he wants and I try to be supportive. But it also feels like his head is already not here anymore. While I on the other hand am super excited for starting the journey on mainland Mexico!
nice Marijn! i’m glad you found the way out of that gigantic ‘cul de sac’ 😉
According to some travelers, in latin america, “one cocacola a day keeps Montezuma away”.
The downside is, you probably will get addicted to it forever.
PS Glad to see you didnt get fat 😀
Csabalicioussss! Haha well we drink a coca-cola everyday so that myth for sure is busted!!
Potverdikkie Marijn wat een avontuur, geweldig mooi om te lezen. Ik hoop dat je maag went aan het Mexicaanse eten. Maar goed, gewoon rustig aan doen dan komt het allemaal goed. Uitkijken en heel veel plezier. Groetjes en een knuffel van Marcel en Annemarie
Superleuk om weer te horen, Berkstraat 13! Ik hoop dat alles goed gaat met jullie! Groetjes
Marijn… You left part of a red onion in my refrigerator. Are you coming back for it?
I truly enjoyed being with you guys. I look forward to reading more as you continue your trek. I am extra interested read about the route when you cut east, away from my coast.
All the best, Amigo.
Tom!! I’m currently on the bus from Guadalajara to La Peñita! I’m coming for that onion.
Haha! Tom, honestly it was really nice to stay with you, i think the three of us had a good click. All the best in your little paradise!
Prachtig verhaal met nog mooiere foto’s van
bv de ondergaande zon
Hopelijk de fysieke trammelant weer getackeld ( with help from a friend 😉 )
Geniet nog even samen en dan op naar het avontuur in je eentje
Leuk maar ook spannend , blijf goed op je hoede
XXX
Thanks mamsie!!
Hey Marijn, wat is het toch geweldig om je indrukwekkende verhalen te lezen en je prachtige foto’s te zien. Ik vind het spannend, soms eng en heel sneu als je ziek bent! Maar bovenal vind ik het zo ontzettend gaaf wat jij doet! Dappere, stoere neef! Carpe Diem Marijn en laat ons nog volop genieten van je verhalen. Blijf gezond en pas goed op jezelf! Tot het volgende deel! Liefs ook van Ans, knuffel van Kaat.
Lieve Kaat, en ik vind het geweldig om deze reacties te lezen!! Gracias por todo!