Peenie Wallie

"Is it legal to drive on the beach?"

"Well, technically, no, but people still do it. There's a beach road down there. It's not marked or anything. Just you can see where the sand is packed down."

And of course, you know what I did. As soon as she told me that I was like "I'm going to drive on the beach," which I did. I found the beach highway and drove down it for a bit but I've got too much air in my tires to be on the beach for any length of time. It's hard to keep it upright when you've got an extra hundred pounds or so of gear strapped to the gas tank.

I actually ended up driving off the beach very near the stuffy Plams Hotel in Los Barriles. As I drove through the walled front of the Palms Hotel compound, I came the closest I have yet to having a wreck. I could not see and I pulled out into the street as a car was coming past. There was no way I could have seen him so I should have been more diligent, but we both stopped in time, by a slim margin. And I went on my way.

I am making a conscious effort to drive more carefully through the towns for two reasons 1) policia y 2) to prevent accidents in which I might re-arrange my bones.

So I roll into a Pemex station (I clarified it's pronounced "Pem-ex", not "Pee-mex") and filled it up. Now, understand that you do not pump gas in Mexico. It's like Oregon. There are no self-service gas stations. Now, it's not truly full service. They're not filling your tires or checking your oil like they used to, but they do pump the gas. Usually without spilling it all over your motocycletto, but not always.

So I roll out of town for the short drive to Cabo San Lucas, of approximately 80 km I think.

There is a problem with the motorcycle which has been insidiously developing ever since I left San Diego, namely, my back tire is wearing down. Now, I have no idea how many miles you're supposed to get on a rear dirt bike, as I've never driven one a thousand miles in a week before, but there's not much left of the rear tire. It's basically smooth.

Locking up the brakes on asphalt all the time isn't helping things any, but this is where we are. This is my cross to bear.

After a short drive, Mexico 1 leaves the coast and cuts across the Baja peninsula yet again and I'm driving uncharacteristically slow because Igor's not with me any more and now I'm taking the opportunity to get some shots of the landscape and enjoy the short drive to Cabo.

As I'm driving across the Mexico state of Baja Del Sur, I come up behind a Federale. They drive navy blue cars, so they're easy to spot. I'm not behind him long though, when he pulls over and appears to start talking to some man driving a truck.

And I, of course, go by and I wave it him. I don't know why, but I always do. They're watching me, I see them, so I'm saying hello. In any event, today I'm not driving like the wind. I'm taking my time and I get about a kilometer or two down the road and pull over to take a shot of the mountains and here he comes flying down the road and passes me again.

So now, I see what their game is. They're doing this intentionally. They're pulling over to let me go by, then waiting about 60 seconds or so, and then trying to catch me from behind while I'm speeding. This is the exact same thing that Federale did to me on Day 1 only he added the trick of turning on his lights. It's all a little cat and mouse game that they like to play.

Only this cop does it to me, then goes ahead and stops again. So, when I passed him the 2nd time, I went a little ways down the road, pulled over and waited for him. Like, OK buddy. Two can play at this game. I wanted to see how long he waited before he came tearing after me again, but this time he never returned.

In San Jose del Cabo, I had another federale come up behind me and this time I quickly pulled into a Pemex. At this point I was thinking, "OK buddy, if you want to try something funny, let's get some witnesses on my side."

When I pulled into the Pemex, another federale had another motorist pulled over but I just drove up to the Pemex store like it was all no big deal and none of the federales bothered me.

At the gas station, I met two guys on dirt bikes. One of them was driving an XR650R exactly like mine. Same IMS 4.6 desert tank and everything. So, I started talking to these guys, and they told me that they were going to drive to Cabo San Lucas from San Jose del Cabo (or possibly Las Barriles, I wasn't clear) by following an arroyo up and across the mountain.

The explained that they were driving it today because tomorrow there was a big race.

Which sounded pretty fun, but not something I was ready to tackle with my smooth back tire and zero riding gear, aside from my helmet, gloves, and boots.

Neither of their bikes even had license plates. No turn signals. No brake lights. Nada. And they were driving them down the street with the federales following them and the federales didn't bother them at all.

The one guy, Nacho, was as cool as the other side of the pillow. And was bilingual. So, I asked him where I might could find a tire for my bike in Cabo and he pointed me toward the Yamaha/BMW shop. Then, I asked him what motor oil I should use, because I had a sneaking suspicion that I should be using a heavier weight oil than what I'd been running for the last thousand miles through the baja desert.

"Should I use 10W 40 or 20W 50," I ask him.

"20W 50," he replies.

For those of you playing the home game, the "W" indicates the weight of the oil in the Winter. The invention of multi-weight oil was a huge improvement in oils because what it does is allow the oil to act as a thinner oil in the winter, when oil is naturally thicket.. So, a "10W 40" oil acts like a 10 weight oil in the winter and a 40 weight oil in the summer. So, a "20W 50" acts like a 50 weight oil in the summer which is what I need to be running in the desert in October.

So, I made a note to change out the oil in Cabo.

But that's the beauty of talking to strangers. These guys are so friendly. So nice. The one guy gives me his home number and says to call him if I need any help at all while I'm in Cabo. And this is exactly what Igor told me. He said he constantly runs into people that would give him the shirt off their back. It's the beauty of turning off the tv, disregarding the fear-mongering media, and going out and living your life by your own rules.

I begin to feel like there is no reality. Like we're all just living in a dream of our own creation.

So I pull out of the Pemex and the federales don't follow me and I keep rolling down Mexico 1 toward Cabo San Lucas.

That Girl in the Elevator

OK. So, the real reason that I'm going to Cabo, aside from Peter DeLeo's adventure on his XR650R, is something a girl said to me in an elevator 14 years ago.

I was working for a major oil company in Denver and I was in the elevator with some people and this girl was going on and on about her trip to Cabo and I said something, I have no idea what, but basically I was looking down my nose at Cabo and she got the hint. And she turned to me and said "Have you ever been to Cabo?" and I was like "uh...not really, no." And said words to the effect of "you should go there before you start passing judgement on the place." Which shut me up pretty good, as well it should have, no doubt.

So, it sort of made me think that it might be a pretty cool place. And no, I never had been of course. But that always bothered me that that girl in the elevator had called me out and I can't stand it when someone starts talking about a place that I haven't been. Makes me want to drain my checking account and drive to the airport.

So that's why I didn't take the ferry with Igor yesterday to Mazatlan. Truth be known. There it is.

Plus, I'd always set out with the intention of driving to Cabo San Lucas, and to pull up short at La Paz just seemed like sacrilege.

But I really have no idea what I'll do when I get to Cabo. I really don't. That's basically the end of the plan. Once I'm in Cabo, I'll have a motorcycle and a gringo to get back to Colorado. I could drive back. Or fly back and sell the bike (or ship it back). It just gets so complicated to even begin to think about it and there are so many unknowns. So many variables.

The state of California has my title floating around in their bureaucratic nightmare somewhere. Seriously, if someone reading this can call the California DMV and find my paperwork I would be so greatly appreciative. I can't get in touch with them and it costs like a dollar a minute to call from Mexico to the U.S. on Verizon and without that registration, I'm not clear that I'll be able to get the bike off the baja peninsula onto the Mexican mainland, much less back into the U.S.

So, seriously, if anyone can call the San Diego DMV office and ask them what the deal is I'd greatly appreciate it. What I did is follow this "expedited 5 day process" where you mail in your information, and they mail it back to you. That's how it's supposed to work. All I'm trying to do is get the title transferred into my name. Shouldn't be that big of a deal.

All I currently have is what the DMV in San Diego gave me when I walked in - a "Temporary Operating Permit" number "LAA 2646096" License Plate Number "78B96L" The VIN number on the bike is JH2RE01156L700083 or possibly JH2RE01156K700083. It is a 2006 Honda XR650R.

I wanted them to send my title and registration to 9215 Ronda Ave San Diego CA 92123. And I filled out all the paperwork and wrote them a check which cleared but I talked to the people at this address and they have not received the paperwork and without the title and registration, I'm not clear that I'll be able to bring the bike back into the U.S.

So I keep driving and I have a lot of apprehensions about Cabo. Mostly that it will be overdeveloped with red lights. Just an urban nightmare like Mexico City or San Diego or something like that. So, I'm not really looking forward to it, quite honestly. There's a lot of concern that it will just be death and pain and squalor but I'm going, of course. This is all for that girl in the elevator.

My neighbors have already told me that you probably have to take a boat to the arches that you see in all the photos. So, I'm not really clear what to expect. I begin to think that the arches I've seen are tucked away in some secluded place where you'll never see them unless you go on some secret boat ride.

But instead, I roll down the hill into Cabo San Lucas and it's just like driving into a dream. Just stunning. Like, you don't look at it and wonder "who would want a resort here?" More, you look at it and think "right on".

This is what it's like...there's these rock formations that stretch out from the coast into the (Pacific/Sea of Cortez? Dealer's choice. Take your pick.) This is the southern tip of the Baja peninsula and it doesn't just fade out. After an 1,100 mile jaunt down the peninsula, it doesn't just peter out. It terminates in a spectacular breathtaking tour-de-force.

And I'm just like, "Wow. That is nice."

But before I can go there, first, I have to go to the Yamaha/BMW store and see what kind of deal I can get going there. I'd like to evaluate the possibilities of selling the bike, shipping it home, or repairing it and continuing on the journey to nowhere.

So, I walk into the Yamaha shop and the first thing I ask them is if they want to buy my bike. Since I don't know Spanish, this is difficult. At first, I believe they thought I was robbing them and asking them to open the safe, but eventually we got it all sorted out and I tried to get them to buy my bike.

A lady named Norma is the one helping me and she's the nicest person in the world. But she indicates that basically, they don't buy used bikes from people of my caliber, and also with the economy as it is, no one in Cabo has 3 grand that they want to hand to a gringo with a bike with no clear title.

So, that means that a lot of the options I was considering are closed to me. And lets be clear on this. What I want to do is keep rolling. I'm not tired. I'm not wimping out. I'm not afraid. I'm not too old. Too feeble. Or too scared. I want to continue rolling across this earth so that one day, when I'm in the old and grey, I can bore anyone within earshot with my stories about the time I drove across half of Mexico on a dirt bike.

To make matters worse, a gringo walks in and is ordering some parts for his bike. I can tell he's American, so I ask him where he came from. California, as it turns out. He's just sailed down a boat he bought in Monterey and he's got some other deal going on I'm not clear what exactly.

But then I ask him if he's ever been down the coast of the mainland of Mexico. And he's like "Oh yeah. Cancun, Cozumel, the Yucatan is beautiful."

But I'm like "No. I'm not talking about the Yucatan. I'm talking about the western shores of mainland Mexico. From Topolabambo up to Rocky Point. Have you ever driven that?"

"Oh yeah. It's beautiful. It's a jungle like Costa Rica," which was exactly what I was afraid of. That broke me right there. This is a deal changer.

Now, it's just a matter of getting the bike in good enough shape to continue the journey. I want to get a street tire, as Igor suggested, and throw that on there so that it won't wear down so fast.

So now, I'm trying to explain to them that I don't want to sell the bike. Instead, I want a new tire, oil filter, and 20W 50 oil in it.

They're probably thinking I'm insane, but they wouldn't be alone in that, so now they're all on the phones, but it's hard to know what they're doing. They're talking in a different language. They could be calling all over Cabo San Lucas trying to find a 120/90-18" street tire for my bike, or they could be wagering on the cock fights. I have no clue, truth be known. But one doesn't want to force the issue unnecessarily. It would be rude to call them out when they're all working like rented mules in the mid day sun for this gringo loco that just walked in off the street.

So, I keep refilling my cup of water from their spring water jug and I'm drinking it like there's no tomorrow and it's free and I have a feeling I'm going to wish I'd stolen everything in the store if they ever manage to find a tire.

After a while, they tell me that they can't find a tire anywhere in Cabo. Can not. So, I'm like...Christ. I mean, sure, I can drive to La Paz. I can catch the ferry to Mazatlan. But I'm not clear how far I can make it on that tire. Not very far, I don't think. Maybe another hundred miles or three. But I'm a LONG way from home at this point.

So now, I tell him I want a tire but instead of "para camino", now it's "para arroyo". Meaning "off-road", but I don't know how to say off road in Spanish. I'm trying to put something together in a 3rd world country. Trying to keep this deal from unraveling.

So then, he's like, basically "oh, then you can have this one here."

Now this tire looks to be significantly larger than the one that they took off. But he assures me it will fit and what the h3ll do I know? If he says I can use a 120/100-18 instead of a 120/90-18, I'm not a mechanic. So, I'm like "OK. Fair enough. Quanto es?"

So now, it's going to be about $130 just for the tire, which is highway robbery. So I start trying to get them to come down, but instead I get them to give me a free oil change with Castrol 20W 50 and a new oil filter which I no doubt needed because I've never pulled it off the bike, I can assure you.

And then I tell them that I'll need a hotel and a ride to the hotel for free also, because I'm not sitting around and watching them work on my bike. I'm not that excited about it. So Norma starts calling around and she finds me a hotel in Cabo...she's like my own personal travel agent at this point...and I'm in her office with my boots up on the table and drinking cool spring water. The hotel is centrally located in Cabo and is pretty decent and she writes out directions on how to get there in English and I walk up to the mechanic (Nacho) and say "Vamos, amigo."

So the mechanic drives me across Cabo to my hotel but just before we get to the hotel, he starts trying to tell me something but I'm not getting it. It just doesn't sink in. I'm can't get what he's saying. He doesn't speak a word of English and I normally do OK in Spanish, but not always. Grammar is one thing, but pronunciation has a huge impact on the comprehension, and I'm just not getting it, so I keep saying "No comprendo. Repitir, por favor."

And he keeps going on about what I'm not clear and finally I just say "necessitas dinero?" Like, if you're shaking me down for money, then it's not a big surprise. What for?

But no...that's not it and finally I understand that he doesn't want his boss to know that he gave me a ride to the hotel, though why this is I'm not clear. It's no more than a kilometer between the store and the hotel, but there it is.

So he drops me off and I check in and it's a lot more than I'd expected. They're wanting ocho cientos pesos para una noche and I'm like, "that's too much. I'm living on rice and beans. Times are tight. How about cuatrocientos pesos?" All just straight out of Igor's playbook. I mean, don't get me wrong, he'd be sleeping on the beach somewhere in a tent, but he's never been known to overpay for anything. He's a skilled negotiator.

So finally, they go and get the manager and now, there is a special rate for me and there is no problem and I go to my room and the first thing I want to do is go to the beach at Cabo and swim in the ocean. I have not done this yet on this trip. I've put my hands in the Sea of Cortez to test the temperature, but I've not been swimming, per se.

So I ask the girl at the front desk where I can find a bathing suit and I walk out into the street with my camera and suddenly it dawns on me that I'm in Mexico. Like, everything around is just a photographer's dream and I don't know where to begin. I'm just wandering around and shooting like mad.

I find the store and buy a bathing suit for $49 pesos and catch a cab to the beach for like 4 U.S. dollars and the beach is just about what you'd expect in Mexico.

At a bar on the beach, people are competing in a drinking contest emceed by some nut with a mic and an amplifier and this is not spring break mind you. It's October. But they're having this drinking contest and there's a guy up there on stage that's racing people pounding beers and losing. He's had 22 shots of tequila, according to both the announcer and the waiter standing beside me.

Local peasants are walking up and down the beach selling straw hats and fake jewelry to anyone they can reach. But they're not allowed to enter the little roped off areas around the resorts so tourists can relax on the beach without the peddlers molesting them like flies on camarones. It's sort of a DMZ for the natives hawking their wares, which is nice. Like, if you want to buy something, there it is, but they can't come stand over you and play loud music until you bribe them to go away, like in Rosarito.

I'd wager good money that there are no beaches in the United States where it's legal to have glass bottles on the beach. But here, they have champagne buckets full of bottled beer on ice all along the beach...say every 4 meters or so.

You can rent jet skis, take glass bottom boat tours, or hop on one of the boats running out to the cape to view the arch. People are para-sailing in between the enormous yachts, dodging the jet skis. Just madness out there really.

I walk down to the ocean and wade in and it's a perfect temperature. Warmer than any part of the ocean I've ever been in that touches the west coast of the United States. The sand is a little coarse, and not as white as it could be, but it's not a bad beach. It's nothing to turn your nose up at in the elevator over. So, I have to hand it to the girl in the elevator. She was right. There's a lot to like about Cabo.

So after I swim around a bit, I come out and take some photos of the madness. The girls, the boats, the peddlers. You get the idea.

But now, it's time to be heading back because the motocycletta dealership closes at 7:00 p.m. and I don't want them to close with my bike inside the dealership cause then I'd have to break in and liberate it and I'd die a slow and painful death in a Mexican prison.

So, I walk up the beach to catch a taxi back to the hotel, only I'm not clear what hotel I'm staying at. I check my room key, but it's not on there and I don't have the directions any more. I don't have my GPS or my cell phone and I'm not 100% sure what the name of the hotel is. I think I know, but if I'm wrong, it's gonna suck.

So I ask him how much it will be to take me to the Comfort Inn and we settle or like 4 or 6 dollars I think and I settle into the passenger seat as he heads off in the totally wrong direction, but before long, he pulls up in front of my hotel and it's the right one.

I tell him to wait and while I go and change into my street clothes and now the same taxi is taking me back to the Yamaha shop while I'm calling the United States at a dollar a minute trying desperately to see if anyone can find the title to my freaking motorcycle.

So, when I get back to the Yamaha/BMW shop, he's not finished (big surprise), and they close at 7:00 p.m. and at 6:30 p.m., I go down to the garage to get some photos of mi amigo Nacho (a nickname for Ignacio) working on my bike and it's not been touched. There it sits, same as I left it 3 hours ago. No change. Tire resting beside it. Instead, he's working on a CRF450 and I'm not happy. So, I go upstairs and tell Norma that he's not even started working on my bike and it's closing time and I'm in a bad way.

So, she gets on the phone and calls down and tells him to stop working on the CRF, but he's already finished and he explains to her why he was working on it instead of mine to her on the phone. Because I only hear her but she keeps saying, "Si. Si. Si."

So I walk back down and now the CRF is off the rack and the old-skool XR is up there and a few minutes later this crew drives up to fetch the bike. They're all wearing the same shirts that have some team name / race slogan on them, but in a nation of peasants, they look like money.

Now, the patriarch comes up and is admiring my camera and I explain that I have driven down from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas on the XR and we're all friends now. They explain that there is a race tomorrow, though I'm not clear exactly what sort of race. They're all going to leave from the Walmart parking lot at 6:00 a.m. tomorrow morning, and I should come out there to shoot the event. First motorcycles, and then the cars start at 8:00 a.m.

I'm not clear if this is the same race (carrera) that the guys were talking about in San Jose del Cabo or not. But they're just the nicest people in the world and they're explaining to me how important the family is to them and the guy gives me his home phone number and tells me to call him if I ever need anything. Anything at all. And I'm just floored, but I think that there are different parts to this. Part is that I'm running into a lot of people who are out doing what they enjoy doing. The other part is that I'm out doing what I enjoy doing, so they see that and react to it. The first step in joining the mutual admiration society is you've got to be happy with what you're doing. If you're not, you'll find it very hard to be happy for others.

So, finally, at about 8:00 p.m., Nacho rolls my bike off the rack and kick starts it and I get on it for a little test ride in the dark with no gear because, if it's not running right, I'm not paying for it. It's no use to me if there are any problems and so I'm driving around out back in the dark in the sand and I notice that when I turn to the right, it dies. I'm not clear why, but it certainly wasn't doing this before.

So, I take it back to him and I say "Problema grande." And he starts tying to loose the front hand brake and turn it down because he knows right away what the problem is. The cable on the compression release is too short, or not run properly, so it's activating the compression release when you turn to the right which kills the engine.

But I'm like, be that as it may, it doesn't change the fact that it wasn't doing this when I brought it in. You fvcked it up and now you have to fix it and I've paid y'all $172 and you're damned well going to fix it.

But he's pointing to the desert tank and acting like that's the problem so I just grab the socket wrench out of his hand and start pulling everything off. I start pulling the seat and the tank and now he decides to try to solve the problem instead of ignoring it and pretending it's not there.

So I pull the seat and he pulls the desert thank and now, he grabs the compression release cable and reruns it. The engine is still so hot that it's burning his hands. Reminds me of Jack Walker working in his shop. He's re-running the cable and you can hear it burning his hands. You can smell it. But he reroutes the cable and I help him reassemble the IMS desert tank and the Baja Designs seat and I take the opportunity to put a couple of Baja Designs stickers on my bike and this time when he rolls it out for me, it's 8:30 p.m. and now it's working fine and they all have waited...Norma and the others and they all leave together and I climb on my bike and roll back toward my hotel.

At the hotel, I go inside and ask them where I can park it so it won't disappear. So she calls the "pool boy" Juan and he comes and around and makes it clear, eventually, that I'll have to drive around the hotel and come in on the other side, so I get on the XR with zero gear in the dark and I'm riding a wheelie through the streets of Cabo. Like, how freaking great is that? A guy on a quad comes up to the intersection and sees me. He stops. I let it down and make the turn.

So I park the motorcycle behind this huge steel gate which Juan, the pool boy has opened for me, and then we walk inside and gets all of my gear and brings it to my room and I tip him 10 pesos and I can tell by his look that he's not overly excited. Only then do I realize I'd just tipped him 77 cents. So, later I chased him down and gave him another 10 pesos.

When I get to my room, there's sand all over the floor because when I came back from the beach, I was covered in sand and brushed it off on the floor. But now, it's driving me nuts so I call the front desk and tell them that there's sand all over the floor and I lie and say I have no clue how it got there because I haven't even been to the playa today. And Juan comes and sweeps it all away and this time I tip him about 20 pesos, but I'm giving him all my change because a peso is worth only about 7 cents, so it's like carrying around dead weight.

And as I turn in for the night, I'm thinking, I owe that girl in the elevator one for this. She was right. Cabo is a nice place.