Our tour through cactus land comes to an end

Total distance cycled to date: 5489 km
Flat tires in Mexico to date: 0
Tortillas eaten to date: 370
Days in Mexico to date: 17
Days without a shower in Mexico: 17

We made it to La Paz. The Baja peninsula is done, having cycled over 1400 km, in 17 days. It was a great experience, and an almost unreal landscape at times, and it went by quite quickly. We can't really believe that we're already here waiting to catch a boat to Mazatlan, and the mainland of Mexico. In fact, we don't really have any idea when or from where the ferry runs - we're planning to just get on our bikes and start riding and come across it soon. We've been pretty good at that sort of thing so far. We might be leaving tonight, or maybe not until Tuesday - it seems like every website we looked at had different information on it. But we won't worry about that yet.

We somehow made it all the way here without really knowing what we were doing at all. Our Spanish has already started to improve - we try to use our words now instead of just smiling silently. We even have managed to carry out a few broken conversations with some locals that we've met along the way. We had planned on studying every night after dinner, but that time has always been taken up by going straight to bed, and so we just don't study very much at all. It's something like being back at university. We're also trying to learn what time it is. So far, every publicly displayed clock that we've seen (4, in the past 2 and a half weeks) has shown the time to be an hour later than our watches. So we just don't know what time zone we're in. We might be living our lives off by an hour - we just don't really know. And, it really just doesn't matter, except that we could tell ourselves that going to bed at 7:30 is much better than 6:30.

The landscape of the Baja is pretty crazy. It varies so much from place to place - and, the highway cuts across from one side to the other, and then back, and then to the other again. We bike through desert, and across mountain ranges, and through cacti forests, and then back across mountain ranges again. We've had no trouble camping since those first couple of days, with every night being spent in the middle of nowhere, and yet just off the highway. Our clothes are permanently covered in small cacti needles and thistles and incredibly sticky leaves that seem to be made of super-velcro.

We've been met with great drivers as well - that was a complete surprise. The truck drivers here in the Baja have been great to cyclists. They slow down behind you and wait for a break in traffic before passing you, and there is almost always a friendly honk and wave. It's great. We received more waves in the first 2 days here than in the entire US and Canada - we've never waved back at so many people in our lives. You're just constantly waving at traffic that's both oncoming, and passing you.

We're looking forward so much to finding a hotel or hostel or something to stay in when we get to Mazatlan. We've only taken 1 rest day in the entire Baja, which was nice, but not quite enough. We need a shower, desperately. And laundry - or even just a sink to rinse our shirts out in. They are so clogged with salt that they look white in places. It's a little gross, we'll admit. We're ready to get clean.

We've uploaded our first Baja photo album, from the northern half of the peninsula. We had so many pictures it was hard to pick out just a few, but we hope that it does this place justice. We'll try to get Baja South album up as soon as we can. For now, we hope you'll enjoy these ones.