Jan 18--A Visit to the Mission, and The Sea of Cortez!

Ah, another beautiful sunny day! They do start out rather chilly though. The temperature in my tent this morning was 50 degrees. How do I know this? My bike computer has the temp on it, and I bring it into my tent so I can see what time it is. Anyway, we waited until the sun dried out our tents a bit before heading out. We were still on the road by 8:00. Brent is a very early riser (I may have mentioned this before), but that's okay since we retreat to our tents at about 6:00pm at the latest. I usually do my blog post, then read for awhile. It's still lights out by about 7:30.

This morning we were headed to the Mission de Borja. It was founded in the mid-1700s by the Jesuits. It was later taken over by the Franciscans, then the Dominicans. It was valuable because it was the farthest north Mission. It was also on the route of the Camino Real. Once the Mission closed, it made travel on the Camino more difficult.

We got to the Mission at about 11:00. Lecia and Socha gave us a tour of the building. It was pretty interesting. The current building was finished in 1801. There was an adobe structure that was likely the original Mission. After the tour of the building, the husband of Lecia showed Brent and I the hot springs. It was down a path through the trees. There was a mango tree that produces 3500 mangoes. He said they weigh 1 kg each! Unfortunately for us, mangoes are ripe in October and November. They also have aguacate trees (avocado). The hot spring was nice. The guy asked us if we wanted to go in, but we were continuing on, so we declined (had we been camping there, I definitely would have gone for a soak). He also took us on a part of the Camino Real path that still exists. Somewhere nearby, there are cave paintings, but we didn't see them.

We ate some lunch before we left. As we were getting ready to leave, Joe and Leah rolled in. We knew they had stayed at the hotel in Rosarita last night. They were going to see the Mission, so we said adios, and headed back to the route.

Originally, we thought we would camp somewhere before getting on the pavement into Bahia de los Angeles. It was quite a few more miles to go all the way to BOLA. However, we made pretty good time (there was a long downhill), so we decided to go all the way. Supposedly, it was 8 miles on the highway into town. Really, it was more like 12 (the first 4 were a gentle uphill, but into the wind--not fun). But, the last several miles were all downhill to the town and the Sea of Cortez.

We rolled into town around 4:00 or so. The resupply said there was camping here. We asked at a hotel that had a sign saying RVs. Young Tomás directed us across the street to the beach, telling me it was 100% safe (I wasn't really worried). It doesn't cost us anything, so it's fine.

Because we got in late today, and we need to do some laundry and stuff, we're going to stay here two nights. Supposedly the Sea of Cortez is warmer for swimming than the Pacific. Might have to check it out...