Baja Adventure Ride
Day 1 - US-Mexico border at Tecate, Mexico to Jardines, Mexico (244 miles)
The
first official day’s ride starts from our hotel in Tecate,
Mexico. We crossed the border and arrived the previous afternoon
in time for dinner. This gave an opportunity to settle in at the hotel
and meet the rest of
the group that we would be riding with for the rest of the trip, while also
enabling an early start for the first day of riding without having to go
through the logistics of customs.
For those interested in a self supported ride into Baja, you can find parking areas on the US side of the border to leave a truck or trailer for your bikes that look relatively cheap ($5~$10 per day). There is also a gas station on the US side along with a convenience store and a place to change your money. I ended up converting about $300 to pesos. This lasted me the entire trip, while trying to use my credit card for most gas stations or fancier restuarants. Also, if you plan on crossing into southern Baja, you are supposed to get a Mexico tourist card. This costs about $30 that is best paid and picked up just inside the Mexico border. Frankly I think it is just another way to fleece the tourists, and was never asked to show this in the 20 or so checkpoints we crossed during the ride.
Wanting to try the blue route down the Compadre Trail, I ended up riding with Bill on a DR650 along with Donn and Deby on matching WR250R's (These folks have been everywhere on their motorcycles, including a year trip through South America. Check out their blog here), and Keith also on a WR250. This ended up being a good grouping given a similar level of riding skills and pace between all of us. My original plan was to ride with some other folks on bigger bikes I met the night before, but that fell through when they got a late start when one member had a bad hangover from too much drinking the previous night.
The Compadre Trail consists of about 45 miles of dirt via a backway into Ensenada, with some stretches of looser sand, but nothing too technical. It was a good break-in and taste for the typical Baja type of terrain.
Although our group fared well, we encountered other riders with some mishaps along this route. The first was with Stu on his KTM 1190 riding with a faster group, who hit a large pothole at too much speed, just as the asphalt was starting to transition to dirt. This ended up denting his front rim and blowing the bead on his tubeless tire. Fixing this required pulling the stem from the rim and installing a tube in the tire. But this turned out to be just the start of a longer saga for Stu...
The second mishap was more severe with the Toby on an Africa Twin,
being the first official casualty for the ride (pictured on right at the
border). He was flying down the
trail with the enthusiasm of a spring buck, but failed to hold his line over
a blind rise with a tightening bend and a loose shoulder on the outside.
This resulted in Toby and his bike striking a large granite boulder, causing
significant damage to the bike and stunning Toby until other riders happened
upon him. Given the lack of cell coverage, some other riders with
Toby's group managed to hire some locals to haul his bike back to the
border, while Toby was able to get back to the states on his own two feet
after some time for recovery. It appears that Toby did not break
any bones, but may have suffered a concussion given his state and a damaged
helmet (just my opinion).
After gassing up in Ensenada and picking up some more bottled water, the route was asphalt until the town of Punta Colonet. From there, our group peeled off for the dirt blue route out to the Pacific coast. This ended up being quite scenic, following a trail parallel to the coast for another 20 miles. Some of this was sandy in places, with the biggest challenge being a few creek/ravine crossing where the water empties into the ocean, with some crossings being a bit steep and/or rocky. While taking this route we also noticed a number of locals harvesting larger "beach rocks" that apparently are popular back in the US for landscaping. Some of these people looked like they lived out there trying to make a living of what looked like hard labor.
Getting back to the highway at Camalu by dusk, we when made our way to our hotel on some farmland just inland from the town of Jardines by nightfall. Some of the riders part of Toby's group (Dan on an Africa Twin and Paul on a Husky 501) did not get to the hotel until late that night due to the logistics and time to get Toby back over the border, and then all riding back here. Meanwhile, everyone else enjoyed some excellent Mexican food and beer at the hotel's restaurant that ended up being the norm for pretty much every night.
Images (click to select the larger view at bottom)
Intro Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7 Day 8 Day 9 Conclusion