El Rosario to Bahía de los Angeles

No road construction today!.. and not much traffic either. Today's challenge was the wind. We traveled 300K through arid hills and desert plains. At times it was struggle to not be blown off the road, especially when passing oncoming trucks. The scenery was interesting though. The desert landscape changed throughout the ride.

There is, what I call beautiful desert and ugly desert. The ugly desert is flat dry land with with sparse vegetation and a boring blandness. On the other hand.. the rolling terrain filled with tall cactus, bushes and rocks is interesting and attractive. Perhaps it was the hills and curves that made it interesting ,but this terrain made for a much more pleasant ride. I never thought I'd say I, but this really was “attractive desert”.

Bahai de LA is 60K off the main road. It is a paved road all the way to the Gulf of California coast. The “Bay of LA” is one of the main check points in the Baja 1000 off-road race. It has also tried to develop a tourism economy... albeit unsuccessfully. To put it bluntly.. it is not worth the 60K side trip!

We found an overpriced hotel on the main drag. There were some Baja 1000 competitors staying there too and it was interesting talking to them about the race. The race doesn't start until November 17 so the people we talked to were riders/drivers and team members checking our the the course.

We found the locals unfriendly, the area not all that attractive and quite depressed.