{"id":4444,"date":"2019-05-26T05:15:35","date_gmt":"2019-05-26T12:15:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/?p=4444"},"modified":"2019-05-26T07:29:11","modified_gmt":"2019-05-26T14:29:11","slug":"baja-2009-the-klr-khronicles-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/2019\/05\/26\/baja-2009-the-klr-khronicles-part-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Baja 2009: The KLR Khronicles Part II"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a story about a 2009 Baja KLR ride.\u00a0 In Part I<\/a>, we covered the ride from southern California to Rosarito Beach.<\/p>\n

\n

The breakfast at Velero’s in Ensenada was impressive (it always is), and it was a glorious morning as we rolled south.<\/p>\n

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Two KLRs headed south in Baja.\u00a0 John forgot his toothbrush, and I wasn’t going to let him use mine, so we stopped at a farmacia so he could buy a new one.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We had several offroad explorations in mind as we rode deeper into Baja that morning, but our first stop was at a farmacia<\/em>.\u00a0 I like Mexican pharmacies. \u00a0 Here in the US in 2009, all the stories in the news media were about the drug wars in Mexico.\u00a0 Right church, wrong pew, as they say: The US news media had the wrong story.\u00a0 The real drug story in Mexico was (and still is) how cheap prescriptions are down there.\u00a0 You don\u2019t need a prescription in Mexico for many of the drugs that require prescriptions in the US (like penicillin, and prednisone, and Lord knows what else), and meds are trivially inexpensive.\u00a0 The drugs are the same as what we get in the US (literally, the same, from the same US manufacturers in many cases).\u00a0 I wish our so-called “investigative journalists” would write an expose on that topic, but they were too focused in 2009 on killing the tourism industry in Mexico with distorted news about the drug wars. Go figure.<\/p>\n

We continued south on the Transpeninsular Highway.\u00a0 There’s about a dozen miles of traffic leaving Ensenada, and then Baja switches suddenly from squalor to splendor as the road climbs into the mountains and descends into Baja’s wine country.\u00a0 It really is spectacular.\u00a0 If you’ve never made this ride, or if you’re idea of going into Mexico is TJ or Ensenada, you need to venture further south to start to get a feel for the real Baja.\u00a0 Trust me on this.<\/p>\n

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John and his KLR on the Transpeninsular Highway in Baja’s wine country.\u00a0 This is where the beauty of Baja begins to emerge.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ah, Baja.\u00a0 It was beautiful. It always is.<\/p>\n

Our first excursion in the dirt would be to the abandoned mission in San Vincente, well into the desert and well south of mountains.\u00a0 We saw a sign for the mission and took a dirt road heading west from the Transpeninsular Highway.\u00a0 As it turned out, there was a lot more out there than just an abandoned mission.<\/p>\n

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The sign pointing to the Camino Real mission ruins.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We first saw a building we initially mistook for the mission. It was a private home (one of several). We were stunned. The homes were magnificent, tucked away in the hills down a rough, soft sand road.\u00a0 I’d been by San Vincente on many prior Baja rides, but I had no idea the hills held such secrets.<\/p>\n

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Wow. \u00a0 Who knew this was back here?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We saw a young lady and asked her for directions to the mission.\u00a0 She pointed and told us to go over a hill. \u00a0 We did, and the first thing we found was a well-maintained rural cemetery.<\/p>\n

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I’m in no hurry to be buried, but when it’s time, this might be nice. If there\u2019s such a thing as elegance in a graveyard, this place had it.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There was something about the cemetery that was simultaneously captivating and tranquil. It seemed to come from another era, and after reading the headstones we saw that it did. It was meticulously maintained.\u00a0 It’s always nice to see that.<\/p>\n

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Impressive. A family plot. The wife lived to be 100.\u00a0 Imagine that.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Magnificent. I shot all the photos in this series with my old Nikon D200 and the first-generation 24-120 lens.\u00a0 It was state-of-the-art in 2009.\u00a0 I took a lot of pictures with that camera.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After the cemetery, we found the San Vincente Mission. The local folks are restoring it.\u00a0 I’d seen signs for the mission on the Transpeninsular Highway, but this is the first time I’d ventured off the asphalt to see it.\u00a0 John and I were the only folks out there that day.<\/p>\n

The San Vincente Mission was built about 300 years ago.\u00a0 It’s one of several that run the length of the Baja peninsula. I’ve been to several, and a few are still working churches. \u00a0 What’s left of the San Vincente Mission is not.<\/p>\n

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What’s left of the San Vincente Mission.\u00a0 The restoration was a labor of love. The mission’s adobe walls were being resurfaced. I need to get back there to see how it looks today.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The mission walls underneath the restoration.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We rode through the soft sand back toward the Transpeninsular Highway to the town of San Vincente’s contemporary church (which is visible from the highway).\u00a0 It offered great photo opportunities and we took a bunch. We wanted to enter the church, but it was locked.<\/p>\n

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San Vincente\u2019s church in 2009.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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John relaxing in front of the San Vincente church.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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John yanked on the cord, and that bell was loud. We stopped. We didn\u2019t want the San Vincente residents to think they were being summoned.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It was fun being out in these remote areas on the KLRs.\u00a0 The experience was a lot different than seeing Baja from pavement only, and John and I were enjoying it.\u00a0 I’m normally not a guy who likes riding dirt, but John had talked me into getting off the highway and I’m glad he did.<\/p>\n

Shortly after leaving San Vincente, it was time to check off another item on our wish list, and that was seeing the Isla Del Carmen<\/em> shipwreck. I wanted to see it, but I didn\u2019t know exactly where the wreck was other than that it was somewhere off the coast near San Jacinto, so we took another dirt road due west for about 8 miles and hit the Pacific coast.\u00a0 Our plan was to intersect the coast several miles north of San Jacinto, follow it south, and find what was left of the Isla Del Carmen<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The dirt road along the coast was rough, and I’m being charitable when I call it a road. It was mostly soft sand.\u00a0 At one point the sand was so deep it was nearly impossible to control the KLR, so I wrestled the Kawasaki up into the weeds. It was a marginal improvement. I couldn\u2019t see where the wheel was going, but at least the sand wasn\u2019t calling the shots anymore.\u00a0 And before you tell me the trick is to get up to speed and float on top of the soft stuff, all I can say is hey, I was there.\u00a0 You weren’t.<\/p>\n

Then we encountered something we hadn\u2019t expected:\u00a0 Dogs.\u00a0 A pack of dogs, actually.\u00a0 And they were pissed.\u00a0 At us.<\/p>\n

Well, that’s not quite accurate.\u00a0 Their anger was focused on me.\u00a0 Specifically, me.\u00a0 At least that’s how I felt.<\/p>\n

In California, you almost never see a dog off a leash. In rural Mexico, you almost never see a dog on a leash. Those things are aggressive, too.\u00a0 We were chased by more dogs on this trip than I have been chased by in my entire life. They weren\u2019t just interested in scaring us or getting a good laugh. Those things wanted us for dinner.\u00a0 Or rather, they wanted me for dinner.\u00a0 I’ll tell you more about the angry dogs of Baja as this story progresses, but one dog story at a time for now.\u00a0 And this one was enough.<\/p>\n

I don’t like dogs. I was mauled pretty badly by one when I was kid, and I still have the scars to prove it. I know that those of you who have taken the Motorcycle Safety Foundation course or who have read about such things are thinking that being chased by a dog is no big deal. I know about slowing down, letting the dog calibrate his intercept based on your reduced speed, and then accelerating to confuse the cantankerous canine. That works on pavement if there is one dog. Try doing it in soft sand when there\u2019s pack of four or five that are fanned out along your flank. In that situation, you are not just a motorcyclist. You are a potential meal.\u00a0 And that was the situation I found myself in that fine Baja afternoon.<\/p>\n

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A tranquil scene, don’t you think? It was right after I shot this photo that the dogs descended on us.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We were approaching a rinky-dink little fishing village, eyeballing the coast for the shipwreck, when the pack of dogs came after me. I think it might have been my green fluorescent riding jacket.\u00a0 Maybe they had an unhappy childhood.\u00a0 Maybe someone unfriended them on Facebook. \u00a0 Who knows.\u00a0 Whatever the reason, they were snarling and spitting and literally smacking their jaws as I tried to fool them with the slow-down-speed-up maneuver. In soft sand. Trying to keep the motorcycle vertical.\u00a0 Wondering what the hell I was doing down there.<\/p>\n

Then it happened.\u00a0 One of the dogs got me.<\/p>\n

I felt him crash into my right leg, and when I looked down, the thing had clamped down on my motorcycle pants just above my ankle.\u00a0 The dog was literally being dragged along for what seemed like an eternity.\u00a0 It locked eyes with me, and if there’s such a thing as telepathic communication, or maybe interspecies body language, the dog’s eyes said it all. \u00a0 It was not a pleasant message in either direction.\u00a0 The dog might have thought I was a sonofabitch; I had no doubts about him being one.\u00a0 I’ve known some SOBs in my life, but this bastard was the real deal.\u00a0 I didn’t feel any pain, but that’s normal in a traumatic situation.\u00a0 I didn’t know if the dog’s teeth broke the skin around my ankle, but I knew what it would portend if it had.<\/p>\n

“Not good,” I thought.<\/p>\n

I could see it all the while that miserable sonofabitch was clamped down on my leg, as he was being pulled along at 30 mph.\u00a0 What I saw was me making a beeline for the border to get medical treatment. Rabies shots, and who knows what else.<\/p>\n

To be continued…<\/p>\n

\n

Hey, check out our other Epic Motorcycle Rides<\/a>, and watch the ExNotes blog for the next installment of the Baja KLR Khronicles!<\/p>\n

Like what you’re reading?\u00a0 Sign up for our automatic email updates, and you’ll be eligible for our quarterly drawing to win one of our adventure motorcycle books<\/a>.\u00a0 Want to read about our other Baja motorcycle adventures? \u00a0 Order your own copy of Moto Baja here<\/a>!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a story about a 2009 Baja KLR ride.\u00a0 In Part I, we covered the ride from southern California to Rosarito Beach. The breakfast at Velero’s in Ensenada was impressive (it always is), and it was a glorious morning as we rolled south. We had several offroad explorations in mind as we rode deeper … Continue reading “Baja 2009: The KLR Khronicles Part II”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[654,235,392,63,89],"tags":[3,711,709,315,11,710],"class_list":["post-4444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventure-motorcycle-books","category-amazon","category-back-in-the-day","category-baja","category-motorcycle-adventure-ride","tag-baja","tag-baja-missions","tag-dogs-chasing-motorcycles","tag-klr-650","tag-mexico","tag-san-vincente"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4444"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4444\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4500,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4444\/revisions\/4500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}