Monday, January 23, 2017

Jan 23--Pacelining to San Ignacio--An Oasis and Mission

We did sleep a little longer this morning as it doesn't get light until closer to 7:00. We didn't have to take down tents, so we were on the road by 8:00. We stopped at a small mercado to get water (and for Harry to get food) before we completely left the town.

We were riding Mex 1 a lot today because of a couple of very large agricultural farms (there aren't any roads). There were a couple of off road sections--mostly just to get off Mex 1. When we got to the first short bit off Mex 1, Harry suggested just staying on Mex 1 since the traffic was light. We were fine with that.

When we got to the next section off Mex 1, we again decided to stay on the highway. It would get us to San Ignacio today instead of tomorrow (45 highway miles vs 66 highway/off road miles). Harry had said he would hang with us as long as he could. I thought if we could paceline, he would be able to recover when he wasn't in the lead. I decided 2-mile pulls would allow for good speed, and good recovery. When Brent was in the lead, I'd tell him to rotate to the back after two miles (he doesn't have a computer). I'd do the same with Harry. It worked so well, that our average speed at around 38 miles in was 15mph! You'd think we were riding road bikes instead of plus bikes!

Just outside of town there is a bike hostel called La Casa De Ciclista. There's tent camping for 100 pesos. There's laundry, showers, and wifi. Rich and Amy are here, as are Sarah and Tom Swallow (haven't seen them since Tecate). They're not camping here tonight, but we had a great time chatting with them.


After we got our tents set up, we went to explore the town. San Ignacio is a little oasis of palm trees and water. We are about 66 km from Laguna San Ignacio (we'll get there tomorrow). The Mission San Ignacio is also right in town. It is an active church. We saw Rich and Amy. They recommended a Loncheria in town. After riding around the town square, we stopped in at the Loncheria. I had sopas, which I'd never had before. They were pretty good. The owner of the restaurant was pretty funny. He rattled off the menu in English. Said if it wasn't fresh, we didn't pay. Well, it was fresh and delicious! Still, it cost me 100 pesos ($5.00, and that included a Coke). Then we went over to a Datil (date) place and got datil cake (I ate the cake for dinner).


Afterward, we rode back up to the bigger mercado, and bought way too much food! Still, I managed to get it all packed away. Now we are back at the hostel. Shane, from Arizona, is road touring. He is here tonight too. We noticed in the guestbook, that not too many Baja Divide riders have stayed here. I think it's because it's a little off the route (by little, I mean maybe a mile or so).

It was good to get here today, and have time to explore. We'll move on tomorrow.

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