Into Loreto

First off, congratulations to Queen's football team for their Vanier
Cup victory this weekend!

We spent one night in the charming town of Mulege which is situated at
the terminus of the only year round fresh water river in Baja. As I
had mentioned earlier Mulege was devastated by a hurricane in
September. It appeared that most of the damage came from flooding;
the river rose 10 metres above its normal level which was still
readily apparent by the branches, blankets, and countless other items
wrapped up high around the towering palm trees. There was no
organized relief effort visible in the town but the locals were hard
at work clearing debris, rebuilding walls, buildings, and roadways,
and just generally carrying on as that is their only option. I almost
got the sense that it wasn't such a big deal to them that a good
portion of the town had been destroyed; life goes on.

From Mulege we cycled along rolling terrain adjacent to the coast
until Playa (beach) Santispac. We camped a few meters from the
water's edge alongside a palapa for shade. We had finally arrived to
the warm beautiful waters of the Bahia de Concepcion. The beach was
not too busy but mostly occupied by Americans and British Columbians.
We were befriended by a wonderful couple from San Diego travelling in
a bright yellow converted mini school bus. They very graciously lent
us their snorkeling gear as well as their kayak in order to explore
our ocean playground of islands and waters teaming with fish. They
were great. A fifteen foot whale shark was spotted in front of the
beach so we attempted to find it using the snorkeling gear.
Unfortunately, our efforts were to no avail.

After three days on the beach Torill decided she was bored of paradise
so it was time to continue south 114 kms to Loreto. I had started
feeling pretty ill with a sore throat and fever but I guess she
figured strenuous exercise might cure me, or make it way worse, either
way something would happen. We left really the beach quite late at
about 10 am and it was a very windy and challenging day of cycling
with countless big rolling hills and one long hot ascent to a
beautiful desert plateau. We made it into Loreto slightly before the
light began to fade which was nice as I preferred a bed to sleeping in
the middle of the desert, this time anyway.

After downing a few litres of water we headed out to for food, ending
up at Super Burro, home of massive burritos,
45-centimetre-circumference-massive, and jammed with the most
delicious tender beef. Price, $5 CDN. Thankfully Torill only got
through about 3/5 of the way through her's, so good. In the course of
the day yesterday Torill went from saying, at lunch, that she was
going to go back to the strange land of vegetarianism to proclaiming
her love of meat at dinner time.

B

PS - Torill asks that I add that yesterday's bike ride seems to have
helped and I am feeling better today.

PPS
Photos from the last post: lighthouse at Mulege, dog with eyeliner
(yeah), sunset in Mulege, the remains of a hurricane ravaged bus in
Mulege, sunrise behind our palapa on Playa Santispac, climbing up from
Bahia de Concepcion, Super Burro's BBQ, and lastly Torill's Super
Burrito.
Attached photos: Playa Santispac and the birds and a boat of the rocky
beach off downtown Loreto.