Baja trip: day 3

Today we rode from Santa Rosalia to Guerro Negro. It was a low mileage day so we took our time and decided to take in some scenery. Today was also the Mexican Labor Day, which is a National Holiday. While eating breakfast, the town celebrated the holiday with a parade and we were lucky enough to see it. 

Before leaving Santa Rosalia, we stopped over by the church that Alexander Gustave Eiffel designed. Eiffel, as you may have guessed, is most famous for designing the Eiffel Tower. 

We left Santa Rosalia after breakfast and then went back to San Ignacio to have some ice cream and rest for a bit.  There were a lot of Palm trees on the drive in, so we stopped for a photo op. 

While we were in the square, there was a local artist making goods out of palm fronds, so I purchased a couple of flowers from him and zip tied them to the right mirror in my bike. I can now say that I've modified my bike to be "girlie". 

Some of us also made friends with the locals. 

After relaxing for a bit, we got back on the road to head to our destination of Guerro Negro. We pulled into the hotel pretty early in the day as our group had split into 2 smaller groups. 1 group went straight to the hotel while the other went to see the cave paintings, which were down a pretty gnarly dirt/sand road. I chose to head straight to the hotel as I needed to upload my videos to my computer as my GoPro SD card was full and I've had no experience in sand. We checked into the hotel, unpacked our bikes, and got some food and drinks at the hotel restaurant. I ordered the local bay scallop ceviche as well as the local raw oysters. Wow, fresh food always tastes so amazing!

Something super awesome that happened, but wasn't planned, was that the NORRA 1000 Baja Race was going on simultaneously, so we have seen some awesome vehicles. 

After lunch, a few of us rode out to explore the town and we stopped at the salt flats. I snapped a pic of my bike there. 

From there I went back to the hotel and hung out with the guys while waiting for our other group to return. It was getting late and we were all getting concerned, but they came rolling into the parking lot, at least some of them. During their ride, Justin's front sprocket came off. The guys all found this very concerning, but I told them I actually had the same thing happen on my FZR and that it's a common problem with the FZRs. Unfortunately, though, we did not brig a spare but, so Justin had to MacGyver a fix and boy did he!! All he had was some zip ties and safety wire, but his fix held for their 70 mile ride to the hotel. Check out his super impressive handiwork!!

When I mentioned that only part of the group came back, I guess 2 of the guys rode to find someone to help with the nut, but as they were riding back they passed the group along a median filled with trees, so they didn't see them, so one of the other riders turned around to chase after them. These guys ended up rolling in pretty late and we were all very relieved to have the whole group back together. 

The plan for day 4 is to get Justin a new nut (insert joke here) and the rest of the group will proceed on to the hotel in San Quintin and we will all meet back up in San Quintin.