FFWD: Mulege

This is easy to recall. I met Miron in Mulege and I wrote about that here. You should watch the documentary of his Baja FKT (successful) attempt, and how I was a small part of it.

After the wonderful days in San Ignacio, the ride from there to Mulege was four or five days and flowed past El Datil on the Pacific then across the peninsula to the Sea of Cortez side. But I would also take a side route over to San Juanico which was south of El Datil on the Pacific. This is a place Scott Miller had mentioned to me a few times as Scorpion Bay. When I saw it, yes, it was a wonderful surf break like he described and it was a sleepy town to back it up. I roomed there for one or two nights before backing out and heading over to Mulege, which would be my next waypoint. I would stay for two nights, again, to just take it easy and absorb the ambiance of a seaside village but with the complication of meeting up with Miron too. This was the point at which I would hire a boat to take us across the bay of Conception and land us on “Hornitos” point. From there I would pedal southward along the best dirt roads of the entire ride, along the peninsula of the bay of Concepcion. Miron was gone the second we landed there at Hornitos. And after spending the day out there I was wrapped back around to highway 1 and heading inland again as the sun set. I would camp at a truck stop that night, down in a riverbed, a stones throw from the highway.

There was an obvious duality or dilemma forming for me. It was the contrast of amenity, and staying out on the bike. I don’t suppose this is a ubiquitous issue among cyclists doing this kind of thing, but it seemed a typical juxtaposition. The riding is hard, even at a mild pace, it is akin to any toil, and so comfort is sought, and the mind plays tricks, considers and denies what becomes available from village to rancho to town.

I was experiencing a push and pull for what civilization provides while, when out on the bike, I found the most peace I will probably ever know. I wanted both and on this tour, I was getting both. And it was appropriate and obvious and became a defining truth of who I was in the face of wilderness; that I am a product of my experience and I am not made to live on the bike, at least not with the mindset I had.

I would sink into this dilemma heavily as I moved down and into San Javier, the ostensible end of the “Missions” section of my tour of Baja and a major conclusion in itself. I would stay there again in a back hut of a family home, I believe it was for a week. More on that later. There were many miles still to go.