This is one of my favorite rides in Baja. For years travelers were warned not to take the road south of San Felipe because of the rough and dangerous conditions. Even today most maps show the road as unpaved. 

The truth is that for the past few years they’ve been adding more and more pavement and it’s nearly paved to Gonzaga bay. Most of the road follows the Sea of Cortez. 

Here’s a “selfie” (now that it’s an official word). 

It was a beautiful sunny day with temperatures in the mid 70’s. Perfect riding weather.

Stunning vistas along the road. 

The pavement ends just before Gonzaga bay where we stopped for gas at the local Pemex. 

All gravel from here, time to turn off the ABS system and get on the pegs. 

Typical road surface, some rocky sections, some sandy sections. 

Hydration break stop. 

Here is a short You Tube video of the road.

One of the rewards of riding this road is a stop at Coco’s corner. You can read a little more about him HERE. We were glad to find this legend home and holding court with some other tourists. He looked at us and gave us a big welcome and said “I haven’t seen you in two years!” Wow, really! I couldn’t believe it. We were last there almost exactly two years prior. Two years and two days to be exact. Coco has everybody sign into a giant log book and encourages everyone to write something about themselves. He’s been doing this for decades and we were one of the first entries on volume #9. Volume #8 was sitting out so I flipped through it and found our last entry from 12/31/11 just to prove to the disbelieving onlookers that Coco was correct.

Here is a picture of Coco with his guest book. The guy standing is Dale, he and his wife Maria were visiting from Ellensburg Washington. We ran into them again later that day in Bahia de Los Angeles and again in Mulege where we had dinner together. 

Famous fence and cans. 

Deby and Coco. I wish it hadn’t turned out so blurry. I look forward to visiting him again. 

After we left Coco’s it was another 20 miles of rough rocky road to the main highway. We were told that they were going to eventually pave this whole distance to become a major route for truckers going south. It’s too bad that Gonzaga bay will probably transform from a sleepy fishing village with no electricity to a truck stop and the road will go right past Coco’s changing it from a well earned destination to a quick stop along the road. People we talked to had very mixed feelings about that.

Once back on highway 1 we continued south for a short ways to the turnoff east to Bahia de Los Angeles. We had been there twice before and it’s been a favorite spot ever since. Along the road we came across this pickup truck with a local pushing it down the road. 

We had to stop and offer assistance. He had run out of gas so we gave him our spare gallon but the the truck wouldn’t start because the battery was dead. Another gringo stopped to help and we tried to give him a jump but it was clear what wasn’t going to work. Finally, he asked us to go to the gas station and send someone to get him. We rode the 10Km to the nearest PEMEX and went inside and with our best Spanglish and hand signals we went into a lengthy explanation about the hombre that needed help and was pushing his truck (what is the word for that?). We were very visual with pushing gestures and arm waving for about 5 minutes before the man answered with a big grin that he spoke English. We both laughed pretty hard and Deby commented that he was just going to let us go on for the entertainment.

Our good deed done for the day we checked into the Costa del Sol hotel where later we ran into the gas station attendant at the bar having a drink with the owner and having a good laugh about the gringo’s. At least we were in their good graces for helping out a local and they seemed to appreciate that.

We were rewarded with a nice dinner, dining outside on the patio. 

The local catch of the day smothered in garlic and butter. You know that fish was swimming in the bay across the street just hours ago.

Usually there is internet access at Bahia de Los Angeles but we were without luck this time. They have a satellite connection that sort of came and went on the download but the upload was just about nonexistent. I’m not sure what backhaul method they use but it wasn’t working. I managed to get out a few short messages but that was it.

Tomorrow – South to Mulege