Mulege

The road out of San Francisquito is marked as graded, which it is. But there are long sections of deep sand. At that point, I was still having quite a bit of trouble with deep sand. I could get through relatively short stretches by cranking up the speed a bit and holding on. As the sections get longer, the front wheel starts to dig in and before you know it the bike has jumped to the other side of the road, or worse is riding up and over the shoulder. In New Jersey, this means trees.  (I have a great picture of tree trunk embedded in the bash plate from one of those). In Baja, this means cactus. While I do have a high tolerance for pain, I take no real pleasure from it. So I much prefer not to have cactus embedded in the bash plate, or any parts of my anatomy.

Fortunately, I was following Brian in the Land Cruiser and the road was well rutted. I held my breath and steered my way through the ruts for what seemed like a LONG time. I think I went down once, maybe twice. Not bad, considering. 

At this point, I had my tires at something like 19 in front and 22 in back. On the way North a couple of days later aired them down to 12 and 14. At those pressures, the bike handled much better in sand. Still exciting, but a bit less so.

Eventually, we climbed out of the sand and in to some hills, making it to El Arco. From El Arco, the road really is graded and speeds of 40+ were possible. We made it back to Highway and pavement by lunch.

From here, Mex 1 goes past the Tres Virgenes (photos of that on the way back) and in to Santa Rosalia which has some really hairy switchbacks. No, there are no guard rails. Yes, there are road side crosses. It's not the most scenic, but you do tend to pay attention.

We continued on to Mulege for gas and tortillas...

And then started looking for a place to stop for the night. The clouds were getting pretty thick by this point, and a light rain had started. We opted for a cheap cabana. It had a working shower and toilet! Hoo booy! The shower was a pipe coming out of the wall (but the water was clear and cold). The toilet flushed!

The rain was on and off and we didn't really think much of it (until the next day).  

Used baling wire for this field repair :). Otherwise, the mule was in good shape. Didn't realize until I got back to Arizona that I once had a mud guard. Obviously extraneous!