Page-2 Ultimate Baja Dirt Bike Adventure 2022'
Day-5 Motorcycle adventure camping has always been a favorite activity and here in Baja it's even more fun. This is the first time in decades I’ve relied on a camp fire to make coffee and heat food. For sure it’s an added challenge, and pleasure if successful.
“Learn from the past, set vivid, detailed goals for the future, and live in the only moment of time over which you have any control: now.” Denis Waitley
Black coffee and warm beans on the beach, perfect way to start a day.
When I pick a campsite I make an effort to situate the tent to have an unobstructed view of the rising sun if possible, this makes all the difference at morning camp.
My father was a long haul Appalachian trail hiker and a front line soldier in WWII. I’ve hiked sections of the trail with him and I always remember him stressing to leave ‘no trace’ behind at our campsite. It just feels right, and good.
Even when the temperatures are not hot it still feels good to rest and regroup in shade. In the desert you often have to be creative and take advantage of whatever you can find.
My face happy to make it to San Ignacio. I’ve ridden through here a few times during NORRA races but never returned to enjoy it. I am sure enjoying it today.
Attempting to reach Scorpion Bay today via the northern route which is rumored to be a tough stretch on a motorcycle. Nothing too bad just deep sand sections with hidden rocks and beautiful constantly changing scenery, no problem.
I study this section on foot before crossing. Solid, all good.
San Juanico (Scorpion Bay) Heidi and I first rode here on our Sportster 15 years ago! Back then even the southern route was mostly dirt and deep sand. Wow what a challenging ride 2-up on a Sportster, we still talk about it.
My face happy to be at Scorpion Bay. This is my first pay camp site $10, the cold shower and utility sink for laundry alone makes it well worth it.
Set the tent up right at the edge of this cliff. After when I look, I see it’s a 100’ straight down to boulders cliff! I move the tent back several feet. Even then I tie a string with a bag attached to my big toe to help me remember the cliff is there if I happen to get up in the middle of the night. I'm known to sleepwalk!
I collect a bunch of dry firewood from other vacant camp sites. The fire is roaring when SNAP! A hunk of wood spits out hot embers several feet away. Humm… I think not good. Before I react another bigger SNAP with hot embers fly inside my tent burning a big hole in my air sleeping pad and the tent floor! Da! I learn my lesson but now I don’t have a nice soft mattress to sleep on. Humm….
“Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next.” Gilda Radner
Morning camp coffee. I did not walk over the 100’ cliff in the middle of the night, glad for that. It’s another beautiful day. The plan now is ride side dirt routes as much as possible heading toward La Paz, most likely a couple days. No idea of where I’ll camp tonight, should be fun. My only concerns are long silt sections. I know a lot of races do these trails including NORRA. I constantly have to remind myself that I’m solo, I need to be cool and get myself back to Heidi in one piece, otherwise she’ll kick my A__! ;)
15 years ago Heidi and I stayed in a hut just to the right of this photo.
Gassing up in town before heading out. I love these Baja gas stations.
Nothing but beautiful scenery.
And bad roads, what’s not to like?
More fun fuel stops.
My turn for fuel, Ciudad Insurgentes is larger than expected with lots of great and fun street food.
It’s been a long day and I am fried. Tried a few dirt tracks and then the bike dies, had a difficult time starting it again. My thermometer says 96F so maybe a heat thing, don’t know. I bailout and double back to the tarmac once I got the thing started again and into Ciudad Constitucion. I try two motels I knew of, both have no vacancy. I stock up on supplies, water and food and head out into the desert along this year’s NORRA 1000 track. It is not hard to find good desert camping here. It is kind of eerie, the desert floor looks like it’s been swept and cleaned, just perfect, I mean ‘perfect’! As if this area was flooded recently and anything loose has been flushed away. Just great!
Day-7 Baja Adventure Ride - Silt
"Everything is so dangerous that nothing is really very frightening." STEIN
Day-7 camp coffee with cavebiker. Beautiful clean desert spot, a lucky find with plenty of dry sticks that burn, perfect.
Coffee noodles H2O, this is working.
It’s important to me to have a comfortable spot in the tent that I can sit up for reading. I can spend hours in a good location reading adventure stuff and studying maps, a dream come true on this ride for sure.
The dirt track I have plotted for today is the long way to La Paz. The start is straight to the Pacific coast, then south fifty miles before turning east again towards the city, a 100 mile track. Fantastic trail with scenery constantly changing with more of a southern Baja feel.
While zooming along I encounter a couple ‘Oh S!’ moments hitting small silt beds at speed and almost kissed some large cactus. Didn’t think it was silt, I have to learn to spot it better! Or ride it better? Further down the trail I slam on the breaks before hitting a massive silt bed. Every direction looks bad, real bad. I crashed too many times this year in the Mexican 1000 race, all of them in silt I didn’t see. It still hurts. I take inventory, wimp out and turn around to ride another day. It will be a great ride back. I tell myself “I will Not Crash” in the two small silt beds I need to cross! I know where they are...
“Fesh fesh” “Silt” whatever you call it it’s like riding through air. If your good you just ride straight through it. If you are like me you start sliding sideways then all sorts of bad things happen :| I turn around here.
La Paz! I found this motel during this year’s NORRA race when the hotel on the Malecon wouldn’t honor my reservations. A real score, more in the locals part of town with great Mexican food close by. At $20 a night you cannot beat it in La Paz! The Malecon is just a walk away, perfect. I take two nights so I have time to checkout a rental for next season. Plus, at day-7 I am ready for a little chillen ;)
Mandatory taco shot, or in this case enchiladas de pollo with special homemade sauce shot. Just around the corned from the motel, real Baja food at local prices. This is the same place my chase driver Tom C and I ate at during this year’s NORRA race, just fantastic.
”If you can dream it, you can do it.” Walt Disney
Day-8, street food in La Paz. These are the types of places I look for when searching for Mexican food. If a place is filled with locals, is right on the street and looks permanent or at least semipermanent, bingo. Prices are a fraction of what they are on the Malecon just a few blocks away and I would argue you cannot beat the quality and flavor.
Looking for street tacos…
Street food flourishes starting three or four blocks away from the Malecon.
You add whatever you want and as much as you want. I’m simple, lots of pickled onions and whatever the homemade hot souse is. Fresh fish tacos made to explode with flavor in your mouth, just super.
Malecon La Paz always a favorite destination.
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