I awoke in the morning to the chatter of birds in the cholla under a cloudless blue sky.  The sun was warming the high desert quickly and drying my damp gear on the boulders I hid behind in the previous night's wind. A feeling of abundant comfort and peace washed over me with the promise of warm and sunny weather for the next few days.  Traffic was light out on the narrow and twisty Hwy 1 as I motored into the Valle De Los Cirios.  My destination was only 120 miles away so there was plenty of time for breaks and some GoPro video.  Mid morning, my phone shut off after a particularly rough patch of road. I swapped batteries and attempted to turn it on and finally resorted to a factory reset on the side of the road.  Without any service, the phone went into lock mode and needed to verify that I wasn't a theif.  It suddenly occurred to me how much I rely upon this micrcopmputer for navigation, fuel tracking, e-books, music and photography.  Not letting the hiccup get me down, I pressed on and soon ran into a cluster of camper vans at the small Llantera where the road splits off 66km to Bahia De Los Angeles.  I introduced myself to the small gaggle of English speaking travelers and gathered that most were on their way to the Bay.   Naturally, everyone passed me by on the desolate desert road where I stopped often to breathe in the perfume of pink desert flowers in bloom mixing with the drying creosote bushes. The Borja, a Seussian deciduous tree that grows only in this specific region, populated the desert, it's red blooms a unique spring occurance.  Hummingbirds buzzed past to the blooms in a frenzy of activity and buzzing wonder.

Rounding a bend, the azure waters of the Sea of Cortez washed over the tan desert under a baby blue sky.  Abrupt volcanic peaks ringing the Bay of Los Angeles form a natural amphitheater to this critical spawning habitat for whale sharks, turtes and whales. The town appeared unchanged since my previous visit two years prior.   Running into the van folk at  Dos Pinos Cafe de Mariscos, they had just wrapped up dinner and drinks and were heading for Playa La Gringa on the north end of the bay, the end of the road.  I borrowed the wifi password to restore my phone then set off toward the free beach.  The paved road fizzled out and became rocky riding up toward the hillside where "Welcome La Gringa" was written in white painted rocks. A few other RV's were positioned on the sandy crescent shaped beach.  A striking view of the nearby mountains reflected off the calm water where brown pelicans floated past and the depths beneath teaming with sealife. Although the water was in the 50's, I took a short swim in the salty water, admittedly mostly for bathing purposes than pleasure.  The cold immediately took my breath away but was equally invigorating. Two traveling Vanagon couples I met were great company on the cool beach.  Out in their wetsuits, through snorkels they say rays, baby shark, many fish, abalone and scallops.  Sipping a cold beer on the beach beside a campfire surrounded by laughter, my head tips back to the sky where a dazzling spectacle of the heavens sparkles in the clear Baja air.

You can follow Mak and Owen on their great website and instagram:
http://www.boundfornowhere.com
https://www.instagram.com/bound.for.nowhere/

The next few days were spent relaxing along the beach with the odd 10mph crawl into town on the scooter.  Having the small mercados nearby with affordable vittles made life easier on me since I'm limited on total food and water capacity.  I picked up a few beers each day which were sold individually for about $.50 a Tecate.  The curving beach terminates at a small island which offers stunning 360 degree views of the Isla Angel De La Guarda, Sea of Cortez and the volcanic remnants ringing the Bay of Los Angeles.  Winds blew from the northwest during most of the visit with some days being blustery but enjoyable in the abundant sunshine behind a wind block of some sort.

On the first night camping at La Gringa, a short but stocky man of about 45 or 50 walked up as I was collecting scraps of wood for a campfire.  He asked if I wanted any wood so Matt and I accompanied him on a walk down the beach.  He spoke rapidly in Spanish and I struggled to keep up but learned he was from Nayarit and spent December to May here in a home built along the beach.  He told us he missed his children who live in Bakersfield and Sacramento.  His dog was quite excited but incredibly obedient, a gorgeous golden brown short coat and sensitive eyes like caramel drops.  Pushing the stout door open on a small outbuilding, he reaches down to a knee high pile of hand chopped wood begins handing the arm sized logs out to us.  We take a couple then have to refuse, realizing there isn't a tree in miles and he must have walked far to get this wood which he probably uses to heat the cabin on cold nights.  We asked how much he wanted for the wood and he refused payment saying it was a gift.  Accepting our invitation back to camp for a beer, Chelo returned with a bundle of wood himself and delighted us with his big smile, storytelling and joyful persona.  As the fire died down, I watched Chelo's figure lit by moonlight fading westward down the beach, his trotting companion obediently by his side. Here's that "Bad Hombre" I was warned about. 

After a few days on the chilly oceanside, my bones longed for a sun-baked desert of cactus and creosote bush farther inland. The towns south along Hwy 1 here are employed mostly by the large fruit and vegetable companies with sprawling acres of greenhouses and factory buildings for sorting, processing and packaging. Sooty retired schoolbuses with colorfully painted and old script stenciled print shuttled the workers from towns up the highway to their jobs in the fields and plants along this strip. In San Quentin, I pulled in beside a mid 80's Ford truck sagging under the bed full of oranges. A sign read "3x25" which I assumed meant three oranges for 25 pesos ($1.25). "Tres naranja por favor" I asked the weathered woman who pulled out a black shopping bag and began stuffing it with oranges. The scale balanced to 3 kilos and she handed me the sack. To my astonishment it was not three individual oranges but 3 kilos for that price! At least I wasn't going to get scurvy south of the border.

The sunshine I sought was soon reddening my nose in the helmet and forcing me to take breaks in the rare shade trees along the highway. The small villages along the highway were a fine stop for gas, snacks, fish tacos and fruit. At this rate, it seemed like the $500 I converted to pesos would last me until next year. Climbing up to the central portion of the peninsula situated at 3000 feet, I was happy for the low number of trucks today as the winding roads had no shoulder and often precipitous drops where the brightly colored remains of fiberglass semi body panels signaled their fateful descent. Rolled and flipped vehicles sat hundreds of meters down ravines, completely stripped of all useful engine and transmission components by the resourceful and wily locals. Roadside graves, adorned white crosses and sturdy concrete shrines dot the spartan highway as memories of those who passed on this dangerous stretch of asphalt. More rain greeted me in the high Desert and I drove into the back end of drenching storms that also blew my way so they became more intense until I had cleared the frontal boundary. With all this wet and cool weather, I had started to second guess my vacation down here as though I'd have been better off in coastal Oregon. Wet and shivering, my numb fingers struggled to snap together the tent which was sodden once finally erected, just in time for the stars to come out and coyotes yipping at the full moon. Oh man did those stars shine bright against the oppressive moonlight.

The red sky I spotted in the morning was reiterated as the day progressed by the unusual bands of clouds racing Northeast. When the wind was above 25mph, it would blow the desert sand into billowing clouds that expanded across the wide expanses of former seabed. I kept my visor closed to avoid sandblasting my face. The tailwind was quite favorable however and I found that at equilibrium with the windspeed, the orange flag on my scooter would sit slack at the pole.

Once in San Felipe, I cruised around the small city in search of WiFi but gave up after finding the quality so poor as to be unusable for updating my reset phone. The typical touristy downtown Malecon was full of street vendors, bars, taco stands and sunburnt gringos in their 60s. Stopping up on the highway at a delightfully smelling quesadillaria, I ordered a quesedilla and ate it amid the blowing sand on and small plastic table that threatened to take flight. Finishing the last crunchy bites of my gritty lunch, I figured I'd seen enough of this area and would see if I could find a place out of the wind and sand to camp or break.

Riding north from San Felipe, the highway widens and passes miles of private resorts and guarded condo communities until turning inland to the inhospitable dry lake bed of Laguna Salada where a sandstorm blew across the expanse and foreboding clouds dumped on the western mountains. MexicalI was only an hour ride away and something kept pulling me northward with a comfortable finality that I was still grappling with. Originally I had intended to spend a month down here but without a set destination, friends to meet or specific goal in mind, the desert sw of the US seemed just as comfortable a destination as the tip of Cabo. I was okay with that and the gusty tailwind seemed to affirm my decision.