Peenie Wallie

The Sea of Cortez is just beautiful. Breathtaking. Like something you'd see in another country, but not your own. Ok. I know. I've driven the coast of California and Oregon and there are some cool formations near Astoria and Sea Side and Tillamook. I've seen them, OK? But this was nice. Just nice, in and of itself, and we both kept stopping to shoot photos so that, after two hours, we'd probably only gone about 60 miles and Igor commented to me "You know that we'll never make it to La Paz today"

But I just shrugged. Like, La Paz is his deal, not mine. I'm going to Cabo. La Paz is his plan. Not mine. I've never heard of La Paz, Mexico, until I started reading Baja maps.

So, we're trying to drive south, but not making much progress because the scenery is just so breath-taking. Just stunning, really.

The landscape has changed and is more verdant and green and the mountains look very much like the windward side of the Hawaiian islands. And the bays and the islands are just indescribable. Nothing I'd expected really. So we're driving, and shooting and heading south.

And we blow past this tiny little building. Just one of countless little spots on the most protected secluded bays I've ever seen and we blow by this one that has a little boat with cacti growing in it and I think what a nice photo it would make but we really have to get going. We've got 300 miles to go still, so we have to keep moving but now Igor is turning around.

He makes a hand signal that we will eat and normally, I only eat one meal a day on the road and it's normally dinner, but he wants to eat so we roll in and I drive my bike right onto the beach of the sea of cortez just to do it. Just to feel how warm the sea is. Much warmer than the pacific.

We go and sit down and he orders rice and beans and I order camarones con arroza y frijoles y tambien una coca cola fria por favor.

And this is what he likes. Eating at these little shanties instead of town and I wouldn't have stopped here in a million years, but this is one of the things I've learned from him. Instead of stopping and looking for food in the towns, he likes to eat outside of town. Obviously, his way is better.

The shrimp are sautéed in garlic and butter and split down the back like the lobsters we had for dinner last night.

So we eat a lunch and then get back on the road heading south.

I think that we should start out talking about the dangers of driving a motorcycle. Now, keep in mind that we're rolling down Mexico 1 at roughly 80 mph. For Igor, this is not an issue. He's running at about ½ throttle. I'm running balls out. Wide open.

When I'm driving at 80 mph, it seems like a rational thing to do. When I'm following Igor, I get a different perspective. When I follow him, he looks precarious. Feeble. Endangered.

Now, this is in no way meant to be an insult to his driving abilities. He's crossed 6 continents in 3 years. So, that speaks for itself. Only I'm saying that the whole idea of racing down the road at 80 mph on motorcycle seems somewhat unbalanced, on the whole.

But this is where we are. The two of us, racing down Baja as fast as practicable. There are many things that can go wrong. There are obstacles in the road, for instance. Cows, bricks, palm fronds, pot holes, birds, stones falling into the road from above. All of these are issues to consider and avoid, if possible.

Other impediments to safe driving are distractions. I find myself trying to mentally convert miles to kilometers, pesos to dollars, and liters to gallons, and back again as I'm driving. This is a distraction, of course, when we're rolling down the highway at breakneck speed. This is what I'm thinking. "If 8 liters of roho (premium) gasolina costs 80 pesos, then how many U.S. dollars would it cost to go 1,000 miles?" This is something that can't be worked out without chalk, and a blackboard, and about 7 hours. In my case, anyway.

And then, there is an inconceivable amount of road construction going on. We're blowing through Baja 90 to nothing and we're constantly passing guys with flags and cones and shovels. They're digging and paving and lord knows what out there in the hot sun and we just roll by like the world is our oyster, we do.

Then, of course, there are the cameras. Igor has some small camera, and a video camera as well. And I, of course, have a couple of cameras with me. So, we're shooting as we're driving. Shooting from the saddle, as it were.

So we're driving down a road that neither of us has ever been down before, , with all of this construction going on, racing across the playa at 80 mph, sightseeing, gazing around, taking photos, dodging traffic cones, rocks, and cows, and converting kilometers to miles mentally, as we go. This is where we are. So, ok. Maybe you get the picture now. Just insanity. Lunacy.

And, don't' get me wrong. I'm not advocating this sort of irresponsible. Just trying to explain the zeitgeist. Just trying to lay it out for you so there's no misunderstanding..

Eventually, the landscape becomes more arid, and I figure I've seen plenty of cacti, so I get in front and just hammer down and we finally start making some time. We stop every 100 miles so that I can get gas, In theory, I can go 150 miles on a tank, but driving across baja is a game. For every Pemex you pass, you have to consider how much gas you have in your tank, and wonder how far it is to the next station.

Basically, you're driving from one Pemex station to the next. Each Pemex station should have a big sign out front that says how many kilometers to the next station. But they don't. It's all word of mouth.

There is no law down here. That's a given. So, when we come to the towns, I've given up all pretext of following any types of laws. I run every single stop sign I come to (ok...I slow down..that's all.) I speed. Pass on the right. On the left. On the shoulder. It doesn't matter.

See, they like speed bumps down here in mexico. I mean, if you want people to slow down for a curve, or in town, you put speed bumps in that will take the frame off a Subaru and, guess what? People slow down.

But on the XR650R, these speed bumps have no effect. I mean, you get a little bump, but a dirt bike is designed for this and much worse. So, basically I go around, between, and through the cars as they slow to a crawl. This is how I get through the towns. Like Mad Max in Beyond Thurderdome. As though a "Lord of the Flies" type of societal breakdown has occurred and the others on the road just aren't aware as of yet.

So, we blow through one town like this. I'm driving in the wrong lane through town (against facing traffic), running every stop sign, and speeding. Locking up the brakes if someone dares to intersection. Seriously. This is what I'm doing. No joke. Like I own the freaking town.

But of course, Igor is falling behind because he has these old fashioned notions about laws and things and he wants to take it easy in town. Whatever. I'm looking over my should for him to see if he's coming and I manage to stall my bike as I'm driving it, which is hard to do. So, it dies and he comes by and I give him the thumbs up. Like, I'm ok. I'm an idiot, but the bike is running fine. I'm just not used to using a clutch, I suppose.

So I get it started and these intersections are odd. There's like this divided thruway through the middle of town, and then frontage roads on both side of it. I've seen this in a few Mexican towns. It's not a road layout I'm familiar with in the U.S.

Each intersection seems to be a 4 way stop, which means, of course, get the h3ll out of my way because I'm trying to catch up to Igor. There's a new guy in town and I'm not stopping.

So I'm just blowing through these intersections. And sometimes there's an "ALTO" sign, and sometimes not. I'm not honestly sure if I have t stop. So I'm rolling through like a tornado inferno and we get out of town and I just really open it up then. I mean I've got it skint back and I'm running 82.5 mph with the throttle wide open and leaning down over the handlebars and it's running like a dream.

You get into a sort of rhythm with the bike. I can hear when the pavement changes. I can sense every little vibration the wind causes. You become one with the bike. You become much closer to it when you live on it. I can tell how much better it runs when the tank is low, as it's much lighter. And we're running now. Flying.

And the next thing I know, I see blue and red lights flashing in my rear view mirror and I think. "Oh boy. Here we go." Like this is what everyone's warned me about and why have I been driving like civilization ended long ago? Just because I'm in another country?

[Update: In retrospect, my best guess is that this town we had just passed through when the policia stopped us is Ciudad Insurgentes, BCS. 10/28/2017.]

Just because half the cars down here don't have license plates and just because they other calls all run the stop signs and speed...does that make it OK?

Apparently the police don't think so and I roll off the throttle and start to panic. This is worse than running out of gas in the desert, I think. This is going to suck in a big way.

But he comes by me and drops in behind Igor and pulls Igor over. I get a couple of shots of the local policia pulling over Igor.

And Igor stops and I drive by the police and I'm looking at him real close like because I'm certain that he's going to be waving for me to stop also and if I don't, he'll forget about Igor and come after me. That's how it works, because "failure to yield" is a whole different ballgame.

But, instead, I drive by and he ignores me and I look at Igor, but there's nothing I can do to help him and I don't stop. I just drive by like I have no clue who he is.

Now, you might think this is the wrong thing to do. And you might be right. I dunno. But, I can tell you that, at the time, my thought was that if I stopped, we'd both be in trouble. He had to pass me to get to Igor and we were both going the same speed to within 1 mph, I would think. So I wasn't clear how I could help, and I didn't feel like dealing with the issue, so I just kept going.

I came to a little store and bought an ice cream (helado) and a Coca Cola. Normally, I drink Diet Coke exclusively, but they only have Coca Cola Light down here and I despise that stuff. Truly.

And I'm sitting there and I think "Igor is going to be pissed. Furious that I left him. Probably won't talk to me for turning tail and running."

Also, I feel bad too because I never explained to him how the police are down here in Mexico. They're different that police in the U.S. It's a whole different deal, and we never discussed payments and how to settle these little issues and I'm feeling bad bad bad as I fight to keep the flies off my ice cream.

But pretty soon, Igor pulls up and he looks pretty shook up. He walks into the store with me.

"Did you have to pay him any money?" I ask..

"Of course," he replies.

"How much?" I ask.

"I'll let you guess," he replies.

"A hundred dollars," I state.

"That's what he started at. I talked him down," Igor hints.

"Then either $20 or $50," I reply.

"Tres."

"What? You got him down to 3 dollars?"

Igor is all smiles.

So, to back up, when I left Igor, this is what happened, as Igor explained it. The cop pulled him over, but Igor has driven across 6 continents. So, he knows how to handle the police. He's no novice. Far from it.

The city cop explains that he'd broken some law back in town, and the city cop had raced out to apprehend him. What we do on the open road, no one cares, but in town, is different apparently.

So, when the cop starts hitting him up for money, he begs off that he has no money, and what little he has goes towards rice and beans and gasolina. He even shows the cop this hand-made cardboard beggar sign that says, in two languages, "I'm Igor on a world tour your donations are greatly appreciated, please help".

So, in the midst of this sensitive negotiation over the amount of the bribe to get out of a ticket, Igor has the balls to ask the cop if he would wish to make a donation to his 'around the world' fund. Balls. Balls my friend.

Eventually, he convinces the cop he is destitute and talks the cop down to 3 dollars (from 100) and then goes to dig out 3 dollars from his wallet and has to dig and dig to find 3 ones among the C-notes, which the cop sees, of course.

The cop is furious, of course, for being out conned, but Igor just tells him it's gas money or some such nonsense. Classic.

So then we start rolling south again and Igor drives a little more slowly through the towns, but not me. After all, I wasn't the one that got stopped. He was the sucker. Not me.

So we're rolling south. Just flying and trying to get to La Paz before dark so he can catch the ferry across to Mazatlan. I don't really want to catch the ferry, but I want to see how much it costs, when it runs, and if they'll let me on it.

As we get closer to La Paz, we're hearing different stories about where the ferries leave from, where they go, how often they run, how much they cost. All of this is discussed. Also, there's now a rumor that you have to have some paperwork for your bike, which is fascinating considering that the travel all occurs within the country of Mexico.

But this is where we are and we drive all day and then, in some little town, Igor says "you should top off yout tank here". He has a paper map and he's figured out that it's going to be another long haul between stations again, so I top off my tank and we roll south toward La Paz.

[Update: In retrospect, my best guess is that this town where we stopped to fill up was Ciudad Constitucion, BCS. This is about 130 miles north of La Paz. 10/28/2017.]

As we're smoking down this road, I was in the lead and I flushed a covey of quail going about 80 mph. One of the birds flew up right in front of my face and I was sure that it was going to hit my face and turned my head as a reflex. I missed that bird. I don't know how. That would have hurt in a big way.
We came to some more road construction and it was like gravel on top of fresh tar or creosote so that every car I passed was showering me with rocks and one went into my shin and it hurt pretty good. At 80 and all. Note to self - shin guards would be a good idea.

And we drive and drive and drive and there's just not any gas stations and after 120 miles or so, my engine starts to cut out and I switch over to reserve and I don't tell Igor, of course. I'll just drive it until it runs out of gas. I do pass him and get in front so he won't miss it when I run out of fuel. I have another gallon of gas in my black backpack, but I won't get it out until the tank runs dry and finally, we see the Sea of Cortez again and I roll down the mountain into La Paz on nothing but fumes.

[Update: The last leg was 140 miles between gas stations. The gas station we stopped at is on the north end of La Paz at the bottom of a long hill. 8/1/2019.]

So, we're driving through La Paz looking for the ferry to Mazatlan and it's a good distance to the ferry. And we follow the signs now to Pichilingue and drive about 15 km through La Paz before we finally find it and we go in and the girl tells Igor that he can't put his motorcycle on the ferry without permission. Like no one is really clear what she's talking about. He produces some kind of crazy paperwork. I have no idea what it said. He got it in Mexico somehow. Paid someone $21.00 for permission for something, but I'm not clear what exactly.

I have nothing. Like, when I rolled across the border into Mexico, they just waved me through. The State of California has my title circulating at the DMV somewhere. I have pretty much nothing. A fake license plate and some photoshopped insurance forms. Not much, really.

So, she tells Igor while I'm standing there that he can't put his motorcycle on the ferry until he goes to customs and asks them for this "permission" that he needs, which no one is clear about. And Igor's Spanish is worse than mine. He's never spoken Spanish before this week, but he's a quick study.

[Update: In retrospect, I'm not sure what document they wanted. He had his Temporary Vehicle Import Permit(TVIP). Mexico requires these (as do many other countries in Latin America), because they don't want people riding motorcycles across the border to sell them, effectively bypassing their Import Tariffs. So, when you cross the border, you have to put down a cash deposit that says "I'll have my motorcycle out of your country in 2 weeks (or so), or else I forfeit this money to the government of Mexico." Mexico does not consider the Baja peninsula to be part of Mexico, really. So, when you cross the border at Tijuana, they don't really care if you have a TVIP. However, now that he's planning on crossing to the mainland of Mexico, they do need him to have a TVIP. However, he had his TVIP, so I'm not clear what additional paperwork they were asking for. Whatever it was, he said he didn't need any additional papers, and they let him on the ferry. 8/1/2019.]

So we get on our bikes and drive back to customs and he talks to them and I'm not sure what they said to them, but he says to me this: "I'm just going to go back there and tell her that they said I didn't need permission."

Like, how ballsy is that? Jesus Christ this guy just slays these third world bureaucrats. Like, my assumption was that there was some document he needed. He marched back in there to that same office and told the same woman "they said I didn't need permission", and she said OK.

"Two motorcycles and two personas?" she asks.

"Oh no. Not me sister. I'm going to Cabo. This is where I get off."

So, I say goodbye to Igor and wish him luck and then I start backtracking through La Paz trying to get back to Mexico 1 so I can head toward Cabo San Lucas.

Problem is that, the sun is getting closer to the horizon and I've got a solid 120 miles to go, and it's already after 6:00 p.m. So, it's going to be close.

So I fly out of there. Just really tearing across La Paz. Passing on the right. Running every red light. Like, I'm on my own now. I don't have to wait for some old grandma like Igor to follow me through the ciudad.

And I get lost, of course, so I stop at a Pemex and another guy on a motorcycle gives me very specific directions, in English, no less. He wants me to go to Todos Santos and stay and such and such hotel and I have to be careful at the town of San Pedro to make the right turn and blah blah blah.

And I tell him to his face. "I have to think that it's well marked...the road to Cabo San Lucas."

"Yes, but..." he whined but I just tuned him out.

I'm like fair enough. I'm going to the town he wants me to. Todos Santos. It's only 60 miles, instead of 120, so I should be able to make it before it's totally dark.

So I start just flying down Mexico 1. Really flying now because I'm burning daylight and I want to get there before dark because I don't have a high/low beam and I have no idea how well the headlight works, at this point.

There are little crabs walking across the road.

A little tropical storm came through here just recently. The Hurricane hit further up the coast (North), at the town of Mulege.

So I come to the bridge he told me about, and I saw two signs that both said "Cabo San Lucas" and "Mexico 1". So, I went straight and I was watching my odometer and after I'd gone about 45 miles, stopped and asked some gentlemen in the street to help me find Todo Santos and that was when the wheels came off the tracks.

Slowly they made it clear to me that I'd gone the wrong way. See, Mexico 1 splits outside of La Paz. This was what the guy was trying to hard to explain to me at the Pemex. Both signs say Mexico 1 and both roads go to Cabo. But one follows the Pacific coast and one follows the Sea of Cortez. I'd inadvertently gotten on the Sea of Cortez route, and was no where close to the seaside town of Todos Santos.

And it was getting dark very quickly.

So, I decided to call an audible.

"Donde esta hotel en la mar?" I asked the strangers.

They explained that, about 18 kilometers down the road, I'd see a sign for a town that had a hotel on the beach. So, I jumped on it. I raced down there and got there just at dark, but when I pulled up to the hotel, it was just death.

It was some fancy hotel on a golf course. Just not the type of place I want to spend any time in, quite honestly.

So instead, I asked a hot dog vendor in the dark where another hotel was, and she directed me down the beach another 8 kilometers to another hotel called Los Barriles.

So, I'm driving down a little road following the coast in the dark and then the road turns to sand and I'm having a hard time keeping the bike up. It's sliding in the sand and I have no clue where this hotel is the girl at the hot dog stand told me about.

And I'm when I'm thoroughly lost and tired in the dark, I thought about something I'd learned from Igor. He told me that the best places he'd stayed were when he stayed with people in their houses. That he asked people to eat dinner with them and stay in their houses and that this happens all over the world.

And I see a lit kitchen in a little house by the playa with a girl and her mother cooking dinner and I pull into the yard and kill the bike. Dogs come out barking and a man emerges.

Now, this is the part in the story where most people cringe in fear and the guy comes out with a machete and butchers the trespasser and throws his remains in the bay and then hides all of the strangers valuables until the search for the gringo loco has died down.

"Ola amigo. Donde hotel Las Barriles?" I say above the barking of the dogs.

And he tries to tell me but it's all in Spanish, and I'm not getting it. So he jumps in his truck and says "follow me". And I follow him through the dark, back across the sand, slipping and spinning in the dark, and he makes a few turns that I never would have figured out in a zillion years and then we stop outside this hotel and there are four wheelers parked outside and people speaking English around a bar and drinking beers and the lady shows me a room for the night and it's the coolest little bungalow you could imagine and I say "I'll take it." And I tip the guy for leading me to the restaurant and one very tired gringo checks into the hotel and pulls up to the bar.

Three Pacificos later I ask Guiermo the bartender "Quanto es" and he replies "biente tres" and I'm like "pesos?"

"Si, amigo."

"Like...how cool is that? Three beers for less than two dollars."

And I crawl into bed for the night.