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Monday, December 22, 2014

Tailwind! December 21-22

We're up at 6:00 but on the road by 8:30. This is because we must haul our bikes over the rocks and cacti that are between our campsite and the road and then fix two flat tires. But when we start riding we quickly forget the rough start to the morning. We have a tailwind!! All day it blows us onward and we cruise. Along with the surrounding cacti we start seeing lots of Yuccas, some relative to the Joshua Tree. In the distance are red-tinged desert mountains, buttes and mesas. This part of the desert is beautiful.
Awesome cacti everywhere.

In no time at all we're in the first "town" of the day. We stop at one of two shops selling tires to get some water. The guy working there gives us purified water for free- our Christmas present, he says. We very much appreciate it.
Continuing to ride we start seeing more trees of the white, spiny and gnarly variety. The increased plant life means we can find a good spot of cool shade for lunch. We stop once more in another small town to get more water and tortilla chips to enhance dinner, then  continue until the sun begins to set.
Winter solstice today! More and more daylight to ride by each day now. We're thinking about and sending warm hugs to our freezing friends in Fairbanks.
- Tamara

December 22
We´re going to try today to make it to Guerrero Negro.  Hopefully the wind cooperates.  We make good time to Nuevo Rosarito, a small town.  It´s not even the smallest dot on our map, yet there´s only a restaurant and a small shop.  Not much, but enough to fill up water, thankfully.  We bike through rolling hills, small hills with mountains in the distance.  Scraggly Joshua Trees here and there provide all the excitement the vegetation can provide, and we can see the ocean way out in the distance.  Gradually the terrain flattens out even more, and a tailwind picks up!  We discuss Spanish grammar and words as we ride, and the gaps in my knowledge become apparent.  If you ever think you know something, try and teach it.

We have a great lunch in Villa Jesus Maria, another small town.  The usual cheese and cucumber tortillas are supplemented by avocados and a bean and cheese burrito each.  Stuffed and happy, we ride fast.  Mostly we´re riding fast because of the continuing tailwind, which is much appreciated.  Maybe the wind is making up for our time in Canada.

The environment, our surroundings, are the most boring and uninteresting I´ve ever ridden through.  It´s completely flat other than a dip here and there, some small flowers and bushes sparsely dotting the sand, and that´s it.  There´s no shoulder, so the infrequent trucks passing do keep things a little bit interesting.  Eventually we see a gigantic flag in the distance: the 28th Parallel!  Baja Sur!  The entrance to the new state is marked by a military zone, in the middle of which is a big gray whale skeleton and an info board.  We stop, and the soldiers take an interest in our activities, so we quickly leave.  Why have an info board in the middle of a military area?
The giant flag!


We´re in Guerrero Negro now camping behind a hotel.  And apparently there´s a party going on at this internet cafe from where we´re writing all this...
- Danny

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