In October 2009 it had been a year since my last motorcycle trip in Baja, and that was entirely too long. I was good to go, but most of the guys I hung out with here in So Cal were timid. They believed what they read in the LA Times. You know, about Mexico being dangerous. Me? I knew better. I needed to get my knees in the Baja breeze. My good buddy Baja John felt the same way.
My first journey into Baja was with John back in 1994, and it would be good to ride with him again. Our earlier trips were on cruisers…John on a Viagra (spelling intentional) and me on a Harley. We’d both be riding Kawasaki KLR 650s this time. I bought one, and after listening to me rave about it, so did John.
Don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing wrong with a Yamaha Virago, and if driveway jewelry is your thing, there’s nothing wrong with a Harley (Harleys are the world’s most efficient machines for converting gasoline to noise and self-perceived status upgrades, you know). But the KLR 650s…those were real motorcycles. No pretense, all business. I wish I had kept my KLR. I let the guy who bought it know that I’ll but it back. But that will be a story for another time.
The plan for this trip was to explore places off the Transpeninsular Highway. On previous trips, we’d seen signs pointing down rough dirt roads to the ruins of various abandoned Spanish missions, the marble quarry at El Marmol, and a few other places promising adventure. On those prior trips we quite appropriately opted not to take our cruisers down those gnarly dirt roads. This time, though, we had the right bikes and we would go wherever we wanted. Dirt? Soft sand? Mud? Banditos? Rabid dogs? Hey, bring it all on. We were ready.
So, here we go.
John rode south from Tehachapi to meet me near the Cal Poly campus, and we left late on a Thursday afternoon (John worked his job at Palmdale AFB, and I taught that day at Cal Poly).
We made it to Rosarito Beach Hotel that first night, my favorite hotel in that town. It’s a classy joint with a great restaurant, but the adverse publicity and overall economic climate in 2009 were killing the place. Think unending stories about drug wars and purported lawlessness in Mexico, and the worldwide Great Recession. My guess is that fewer than 10 rooms were occupied that evening.
Our plans for this trip were purposely vague, other than to head south and consume large quantities of Tecate after the bikes had been put away. We briefly talked about doing a banzai run all the way to Cabo San Lucas, but that would have been a push. It was already dark when we passed through Tijuana, and south of TJ, the Pacific Ocean mist was fogging my faceshield. I thought about Susanna’s restaurant in Rosarito (more on that in a bit), and all thoughts of Cabo vanished. For that night, Rosarito Beach was it. And that was a good thing. I love having dinner in Susanna’s. Susanna’s is the best restaurant in town, and maybe the best in all of Mexico. A stay in Rosarito Beach without dinner at Susanna’s would be a crime against nature and good judgment.
After a five-star dinner, Baja John and I walked around downtown Rosarito Beach for a bit. It was deserted.
The next morning we rolled south along the Pacific coast to a great breakfast in Ensenada. Good God, we were packing on the calories. My favorite breakfast spot in Ensenada is Velero’s, a place near the ocean just behind the Corona Hotel. The clientele is mostly local business folks, the breakfasts are great, and it’s the hot ticket. They bring a large plate of light, delicious pastries as soon as you sit down. The coffee and the orange juice are superior. That’s followed by a tortilla with melted cheese and salsa. I could have (and should have) stopped at the pastries and the cheese tortilla, but I went for my customary two eggs over hard with the fixings you see below. It was as good as it looks.
After a great breakfast, we were on the road again, headed south out of Ensenada toward points south, including the aforementioned abandoned missions, a shipwreck on the Pacific coast, and more.
To be continued…
Hey, we have a couple of pages you should check out. One is our Baja page, which includes great info on taking a motorcycle into Baja. The other is our new Epic Motorcycle Rides page. Take a look and let us know what you think!
It takes 60 shovelfuls to fill the adobe mixer. Originally designed for mortar, the outside drum of our mixer looks like an inverted lunar landscape. Dimples as large as a quarter, back when a quarter was worth 25 cents, protrude far enough to run afoul of the mixer’s I-beam chassis. It’s the rocks, see? Mixing adobe eats up the rubber wiper blades on the paddles and as the gap between the blade and the drum grows larger things start going south. When the gap grows large enough the mixer paddles wedge into the rocks and a sharp pop, like someone hit the machine with a 16-pound sledgehammer, is followed by a lurch of the heavy machine. Another dimple has been created. If the conditions are just right the mixer blades will lock up solid and it takes a quick hand on the clutch lever to prevent a smoking V-belt.
With adobe mixing the show must go on so Pappy and I work in silence. Not total silence though, because we have to keep count of how many shovels we are throwing into the hopper. “I’m at 13,” I tell Pappy. “15” for me, Pappy replies. The mixer locks up, I grab the clutch. We move loaded buggies to the block-making area then we shovel more dirt into the hopper. Soon the injury is forgotten. “Is that good?” “More water.” Pappy says. “4 more shovelfuls.” “Ok, that’s good. Let’s let it mix” Pappy feels bad about yelling at me, I feel bad for hurting Pappy. We are a team again. I’ve got to be more careful working around others.
“Who wants to give it a try?” Pat asks and several would-be adobe builders jump in and start laying blocks. Instead of cement mortar, more mud is used to set the Adobe blocks. I’m cutting a bevel into the blocks to create a space for small volcanic rocks. The rocks are fitted into the bevels and held in with a white lime mortar. Once these protruding rocks are set the lime plaster will adhere to the rocks, hopefully keeping the plaster from sloughing off the wall.
There’s another, even older method of finishing adobe walls borne from necessity: More mud. Mud plaster doesn’t last as long as lime plaster but if you don’t have lime what’s a poor boy to do? Think of mud plaster as a sacrificial coating. It erodes so that the adobe blocks underneath don’t. Mud plaster is applied by hand or trowel, and re-applied every few years as needed. As Pat’s students, we got to try all application methods with special emphasis on the difficult ones.
Cool stuff. Stop by their site (
Interesting stuff, to be sure. Most of the variability you see in the above table (and you can see that there’s a lot) was me. A machine rest would have provided for better groups, but you get what you get, and what you get here is me.
.
In San Diego I lived across the street from a Safeway food market. Man, I never ran out of anything. That Safeway is now a West Marine boat supply store. They got nothing to eat in the whole damn place. But back then, around 1980, it was a great food source.