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In early January I had the opportunity to ride the Cape Loop portion of the Baja Divide. I took a small notebook with me from Mordechai Book Building, which turned out to be the perfect companion. What follows are my journal entires from my trip. Hope you enjoy.
The Back Story (or how this trip came to be)
The goal of the trip was to ride the nearly 300 mile Cape Loop portion of the Baja Divide. This route has been tops of my list for years but working a corporate 8-5 job for the last 12 years definitely limited my exploration time and left me mainly riding on the weekends (which I can’t really complain about.) Now that I run All Bodies on Bikes full time, I have much more flexibility in my schedule for grand adventures like this.
All loaded up and ready to ride. Not pictured - hydration pack on my back with an additional 2 liters of water.
I pitched the idea on the Seattle Cyclist Discord, an online forum for local bike nerds and soon had a group of 4 ready to take on the challenge. I’d only met one of the others once before, but we planned logistics as if we’d known each other for years - agreeing on safety plans, our itinerary, and travel dates. Before I knew it, I was borrowing a sleeping quilt and a bivvy and packing up my things to fly to Mexico!
If you follow me on social media, you’ll know that I made it approximately 12 miles into the ride before turning around. What was intended to be 9 days of backcountry camping and riding turned into a car-free adventure through multiple cities, ending with nearly a week in Cabo San Lucas.
Without further ado, here are my journal entries from the trip…unedited (but with commentary in italics.)
Writer’s note - I started journaling on Day 2 from Todos Santos, after I decided to quit the bikepacking trip.
Day 2 - Todos Santos, BCS
I’ve never fought such loud voices in my head on ride before. They were all screaming at me that I wasn’t capable of doing it and needed to quit. Eventually I gave in, laid down under a tree, set a timer for 20 minutes and made the decision to turn back to San Jose del Cabo. The ride back was all along the highway.
I felt like I was flying.
I had ambitions to ride all the way to Cabo San Lucas but stopped in San Jose for tacos and lost all momentum.(If I would have done this, it would have been about 40 more miles on a very busy highway, making it a 60 mile day.)
Selfie from my overpriced, but life saving hotel room.
I got an overpriced hotel, showered, cried and ate 20mg of weed. The only channel in English on the TV was showing Independence Day, so I watched Will Smith save the earth before going to bed at 8pm. This morning I felt somewhat better and researched my options for getting here (to Todos Santos.)
Remembering the bus I took from Cancun to Puerto Morelos, I found La Aguila, which for $195 pesos would take me the 50+ miles to Todos Santos. After roughly translating my need to take my bike on the back of a receipt, I crossed my fingers and set out.
La Aguila - My chariot for the next week.
It worked and now I’m here, in Todos Santos waiting for my friends, weighing my next choices.
My friends had continued the ride, so while I was figuring out bus logistics and sleeping in a nice air conditioned room, they were toughing it out in the desert. Hot sands, ferocious climbs and almost no water, except what they carried. Our plan was to meet at the designated camping spot where I would rejoin the ride. Spoiler alert - that’s not what happened at all.
I think I’ll camp with the group tonight and make a choice from there. I’m debating between:
Stay at the hostel here in town and say ‘screw my friends.’ I already missed out on the bonding so why be miserable camping on a beach?
Attempt to ride again
Stay at the hostel for a few days, after camping, then bop around the peninsula
Our camping spot on the beach in Todos Santos
Catching that golden hour light