One imaginary line, and the whole world changes...

Total distance cycled to date: 4268 km
Number of "wild" dogs that have chased us in Mexico to date: 7
Number of times somebody has woken us to tell us we're sleeping on their land: 1
Nights in Mexico to date: 3

We left San Diego heading to the border with our new short term cycling team, the 5 Canadians heading to Argentina. We all had a very similar style of leaving everything to the last minute, and so all of us needed to stop at various bike shops for parts on our way out of the country. We suddenly were asking each other, "how many tubes do you have?", "have you ever replaced your brake pads?", and "oh, you got a new chain? Should I?". We finally made it to the border, and after an amusing attempt at getting our bikes through the spinning turnstyle we were in Mexico. Just like that. We stopped at an immigration desk and paid for our tourist cards to make it through the country, and started to ride, the 5 of us in single file, past all the taxi drivers calling out to us. We had a small map, and a bit of courage, and we started pedalling fast. Since reaching California we hadn't heard a single good thing about Tijuana, and those people who didn't tell us to skip the city altogether told us to get out of it as fast as possible. So, with no choice but to bike hard we simply did it, following the roads that we believed would lead us out of the city. And, with no drama whatsover we made it out of Tijuana and into the Baja.

We've realized that it's not as easy to just camp on the side of the road as we had planned. There are a lot of fences. And towns. And people. It's not the ideal deserted desert that we thought it would be (although it is very hot and dry). Our first night we pulled into a "trailer park" as the sun was setting, and paid the owner(?) 3 dollars a person to camp for the night. They even supplied us with free water, out of a garden hose into a rain barrel. Nobody even got sick from it!

The next day we found ourselves biking until the sunset again, with no options for camping along the way. Our group of 5 asked as many people as we could around the entrance to a small, dusty town, and nobody seemed to have an option for us (or perhaps, just didn't understand what we were looking for). Finally, after the sun had already set we found ourselves following a Mexican rancho down a dusty, rocky, bumpy dirt road that would have made for a decent mountain biking trail. He told us he has somewhere safe for us to camp for the night, and he seemed trustworthy, so we followed. And followed. We finally came to the land that he had for us, and we all turned after his truck, or so we thought. I (Keenan) was leading the way, along with 2 of the other Canadians. We followed the truck. Jeff and Aki, however, had fallen behind and somehow missed the turn in the dark. They kept going, and going. We sent somebody back the other way to look for them, and finally we figured they must have missed the turnoff. After spending a very long time explaining to our rancho friend the problem, he called out "Vamos!" and called me to hop in the truck with him. He revved the engine and rolled back to the road and we started after them, stopping only to search on the floor of his truck for another beer. (Don't worry mom - it wasn't that bad). He even explained to me that one or two beers made him drive better, but too many made it worse. So I hoped that this was beer number 1 or 2.

We did find Jeff and Aki quite a ways down the horrible road, and when we found them I think it was a feeling of anger and relief for them. We then threw the bikes in the back of the truck and made it back to our "campsite" for the night. He left us soon afterwards, and we settled in for the night. After all of this, the next morning we awoke to a truck honking, and a man calling out his window, asking us why we were camping on his land. Much thanks to our rancho friend.

Yesterday we parted ways with our cycling friends, deciding to make our way down the Baja in two parties. We like to get a bit earlier starts and take frequent breaks, whereas they like to take it easy off the bikes, and then go hard when they get on them. We're hoping to continue seeing them down the road, and seeing as there's only one road to take down the Baja, I'm sure if we continue our same paces our paths will be crossing again soon. Last night we also found our first true stealth camping spot, on a piece of land with no fence around it, high on a hill overlooking the highway. It was a great spot, not visible from the road, and we had a great sleep without our fly on the tent, just lying among the cactuses underneath the stars.

It's a whole new world riding in Mexico. It's actually pretty crazy. The highway is so skinny that if two big vehicles meet, we just have to get off the road. The towns are full of dusty dirt paths, and there seem to be animals all over. We haven't met a whole lot of people that speak English, and we've realized that we can't seem to remember any Spanish when we need it. That will have to improve.

We've already sampled a number of roadside taco stands, which we are loving so far. We even tried our first fish taco today. It was pretty tasty. We hope Steve in Oregon is proud. It's more difficult to find food than we had anticipated - there are no more supermarkets, even the bigger towns down the Baja seem to just have small corner stores. We've also started to drink a lot of water. Which I'm sure is good - that's what we're supposed to be doing. But since crossing that border we drink a lot of water. We even buy it sometimes - on our second day we were filling our bottles from the bathroom sink of a taco stand, and then we noticed that everybody working there was drinking bottled water... and yet - that bathroom sink water wasn't too bad at all.

We're not sure how often we'll be able to find internet here - it really is a whole new world. But a fun one, and an adventurous one. We're enjoying this. It's pretty crazy. We're biking through Mexico. That's just kind of crazy. I'm sure we'll continue to collect some interesting stories as we go. Until next time...