Friday, January 27, 2017

Jan 24--A Long Day of Salt Marsh Riding



As expected, we were the first ones up and packed this morning at the bike hostel. Rich was up when we left, but no one else was.

We headed back into San Ignacio to pick up the route. We rode a paved road out toward Laguna San Ignacio for the first 38 miles. The road then turned to hard packed dirt. There was some road construction going on that we maneuvered around, waving to the workers.

We made it out to the lagoon, then rode a little bit south until we came to a good spot for lunch. There were a bunch of pelicans down on the rocks. The gulls were making a hilarious cackling sound.

There were a number of tracks. We just followed the purple line of the Garmins. Eventually, we came to the salt marsh (sand flats). We just rode across them. It was surreal! There was one spot where it was a bit mushy, otherwise, just a flat expanse of packed sand. We dodged a few puddles, but generally, it was easy riding. We also had a tailwind.


After the sand flat area we were back on more of an actual dirt road. At one point, the track became quite sandy. Then we realized we weren't on the route. We bushwhacked a hundred yards or so to the road we were supposed to be on. It was much better.

Originally, we figured we would just get as far as we felt like, then camp, and go through El Datíl the next day. Well, with all the pavement, and the tailwinds, we managed to make it all the way. That was 75 miles! We pulled into El Datíl, a fishing village, at about 4:20. We stopped at the aberrotes and got something to drink. I asked the gal if we could camp in El Datíl. She said we could camp wherever. Well, we rode around the village. There are a surprising number of people here. Lots of fishermen and boats, of course, but also lots of kids.

We kind of did a loop, looking for someplace out of the wind. What we settled on was a partially built cinder block building. It even has a roof over most of it. It also came with a bed frame and a box spring! Don't worry, we're not sleeping on it! We set up our tents inside, using rocks to hold the corners down.




I stayed with the bikes and tents while the guys went and got 4 gallons of water. We have 90 tough miles until the next services. We figure it'll take three days.

We're pretty proud of our 75 mile day, and pretty tired too!

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