(18) Guerrero Negro
Well, the trip has officially gotten real. Tonight we are in Guerrero Negro, Baja Sur Mexico. Neil and I left Bullhead City on Sunday September 11th and made a fairly mundane ride to El Centro CA. Lots of heat and lots of desert that day. We’ve been watching the weather related to hurricane Kay that was making it’s way up the Baja peninsula. It appeared we would miss the hurricane its self but we were not expecting the aftermath that we would find once we went into Mexico.
On Monday the 12th we headed out of El Centro for the border at Calexico/Mexicali with our intended destination for the day of San Felipe. The border crossing was not bad but turned in to a bit of a chore when we were pulled over from the “nothing to declare” line coming into Mexico and told we had to pay duty on the spare tires we were carrying. I had no idea that auto parts were a declarable item! At least they didn’t accuse us of trying to smuggle them in since they were hanging in plain view on the bikes. The tires cost us about $300 and the duty to bring them into Mexico was $57 for each of us.
Our second mistake was trying to be efficient and applying for our tourist visa online. We each had the application printed out and presented it at the immigration window. In order to get the document we presented we had to pay $30 US on line. Unfortunately both of us forgot to print out the receipt for that purchase. Therefore, the visa application we presented was not accepted. There was nothing to be done but to pay again and fill out the paperwork a second time. Chalk one up to stupidity on our part. So in the end the border crossing was pretty smooth, but cost us $87 more than we had planned. Lesson learned!
Before we left Bullhead I had messaged another rider via a Facebook group I belonged to who seemed to be on the same route and schedule as we were. We had made arrangements to meet at a hotel in San Felipe. Sure enough as we were pulling into the hotel we see his bike in the parking lot and pull in next to him. A few minutes later Serge (pronounced “surge”) walked up carrying a six pack of Tecate beer. Serge is a Canadian guy originally for Quebec but now living in Ontario. We spent the evening getting to know one another and seem to get on very well. We’ve made plans to travel together at least through Baja and possibly also through Copper Canyon.
After several beers we all decided to stay in San Felipe an extra day. We spent Tuesday the 13th walking around San Felipe and then riding out to a beach south of town and spending the afternoon swimming in the Gulf of California. A great day all around! At least until the ride back to the hotel. One aftermath of the hurricane is that there was sand blown over the road in several places. On the way back from the swim I hit one of those patches and had my first crash of the trip. Luckily I was going pretty slow by the time I fell. No harm to the bike at all and the only harm to be is a bruised shin where my right leg hit the foot peg as I went down. I knew I was going to fall at some point. I just didn’t figure it would be on the first day in Mexico!
In the aftermath of the hurricane San Felipe still had no WiFi and intermittent cell service. Cell service came on late last night and I was able to get enough service to start working out what we could do today. We chose to head down Highway 5 to Guerrero Negro. Highway 5 had just reopened after the hurricane and we were concerned as to whether or not we could make the trip. In the end the road was fine, but there were still lots of sand on the road, rock slides and washouts that had to be navigated. My bigger concern was where we would get gas. As a result of the hurricane many gas stations were reported to be closed. Neil and I could not make it all the way to Guerrero Negro without one or two gas stops. We bought an extra gallon of gas in San Felipe this morning as we filled up and strapped it onto my bike and headed off anyway. I was really glad to have Serge with us as a third bike in case of any issues.
As it turned out fuel was not an issue. We were able to fill up as needed and Neil and I never had to go below 1/3 of a tank. One thing that has become clear however, is that my fuel gauge is really not accurate. My bike shows at least one “bar” lower on the gauge than Neil’s does, but when we fill up we take almost exactly the same amount of gas to fill the tank. The bottom line is that I have to rely on the miles/km we travel to know how much gas I have left rather than look at my fuel gauge. Or, I can just ask Neil what his reading is :-)
We are really hitting it off well with Serge. He is going to be a great traveling partner for the next part of the trip. Today I did the lead for most of the day. I’m the slowest rider and Serge is happy to let me set the pace. He brings up the rear and Neil is in the middle. We just had a tech session in the courtyard of our hotel tonight and managed to get all our comm gear synced up so we can now all talk to each other as we are riding.
Tomorrow Neil and I will go to the local Banjercito here and see if we can get our temporary import permits for the motorcycles. These are not required in Baja but are mandatory before we go back to mainland Mexico. If we can get them here it will be significantly less wait time than were we were planning on getting them in La Paz. We shall see. The plan for tomorrow is to make a short day of it and go back to the gulf side of the peninsula and end up in Santa Roselia. I’ll post a few pics from the ride today in the gallery. It’s good to be on the road again and in Mexico! Fun times!!!
