Loreto – La Paz – Mazatlan – Escuipina – Rosamorada – Tepic – Peñita de Jaltemba: 446 km

Montezuma’s wrath has caught up with us. It has slowly been creeping around the corner, making our bathroom visits longer and more frequent. Here in Loreto, it destroys Marijn for a day. We have a beautiful morning at the beach snorkelling, but as we get out of the water Marijn turns the same colour as the white sand under our flippers. We had planned to take the bus to La Paz in the afternoon but there’s no way he’ll survive. We book another night in the hotel and drowning in sweat with the air conditioner is on full blast, I get him some fruit and yoghurt. Like clockwork, I get it the next day. Luckily not as bad, and the five-hour bus ride to La Paz is more or less doable.

Yes, the bus ride to La Paz. We’re cheating. The last days, or must I say week, has been so humid and hot, we’re not all that excited about the ride through the dessert. It is seriously warm. Every time we pack up out camp, we’re already completely drowning in sweat, and then the cycling still needs to start. We get sweat attacks at night in our tents, making it hard to fall asleep. It reminds me of Death Valley, there at least it was dry. Anyway, we take a bus to La Paz.

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La Paz is another nice little town. A bit bigger than Loreto, a bit more touristy too. But the tourists are not here, it’s too damn hot. The summer is off-season. We understand. But our main reason for coming to here is to take the ferry to the main land. After 1500 km, we’ve reached the end of Baja and it’s time to cross the Sea of Cortez. We do so the next day. The boat ride is long but comfortable once the blearing televisions are turned off during the night. We sleep on the floor and once we wake up, we’re nearly in Mazatlan.

We’re covering quite a bit of distance in these past days without a single paddle stroke. It feels quite good to be honest. But both Marijn and me are ready to get back on the saddle. We have a day here and we use it to cyle around the boulevard that stretches for kilometres along the shore. Mazatlan is a party town, and drunk domestic tourists pile out of the open beer cars that cruise past us. We meet a local with a bike and have beers watching the sunset. Another day in Mazatlan is needed because Montezuma has come to visit me again. That night it rains like I’ve never seen before. There’s a storm coming, and the rain that travelled ahead is incredible. It floods the streets in a matter of seconds. I wonder if we actually can set out tomorrow. The hostel’s WhatsApp group is telling us to get supplies for the coming days because the shops might close. How bad can it be?  

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We wait out the worst of the rain the next morning, and decide to cycle nonetheless. The hurricane is now declassified to a tropical storm. The clouds pack together grey and ominous. We do get completely soaked but to our amazement the wind is not that bad. The cheap hotel we stay in, in Escuipina is completely full with villages from the coast. They have evacuated themselves due to the storm. The supermarket is crowded with people who expect nothing to be open the coming days. But it all doesn’t happen. Except for the rain. The day that follows we get possibly even wetter. In Rosamorada we try to dry our clothes from the last two days of rain, but it’s too humid. We smell like wet dogs as we set out for Tepic. Although the rain has passed, the humidity feels like we’re cycling underneath water. The climb up to Tepic is one of the hardest ones I’ve takin on this trip. Maybe not so much for the gradient, but the sheer heat and little oxygen in the air makes today sheer agony. The climb is long, the road is busy. Once we get to Tepic, I can wring she sweat from my shirt, and even my shoes are completely soaked. We stay with a friendly Warm Showers host who takes us out for tacos and shows us the best roads to take pretty much all the way to Guatemala.

In La Peñita de Jaltemba we have another host lined up. But first a thrilling downhill out of the city towards the shore. And thrilling it is. Here, on Mexico’s mainland the landscape has changed dramatically. Gone are cacti as far as the eye can see, and the desert sand that wrecks our drivetrains. Sinaloa is lush and green. And with the rain we’ve experienced, it feels like a jungle. Palm trees grow everywhere, and on this descent, we’re surrounded by avocado’s, jackfruit, bananas and other fauna that I don’t recognize. We go endlessly downhill, and it feels like heaven. Jaltemba is a little and surprisingly cute fisherman’s town, right on the beach. But what really makes our stay is our host Tom. He moved here from The States with his husband and they’ve built beautiful house together overlooking the sea. His husband is out of the picture but Tom decided to stay, and I can see why. His presence is most relaxed and welcoming, and when we arrive there’s a big pot of chili simmering on the stove. When we discover that Marijn left his wallet in Tepic and needs to take a bus back, Tom happily allows us to stay another day. I’m not all that sad we get to stay longer.