El Refugio De Potosi

El Refugio De Potosi

On the way to Barra De Potosi I was. About 250 some km to ride, meaning that with snack stops and gas, about 4 hours total. As I’m riding towards the beach, I come across El Refugio De Potosi. It’s a small educative refuge for animals, birds, insects and reptiles in need of attention and shelter. Since it was still a couple of hours before sunset, I decided to check it out. Laura is in charge or the refuge. She is the sweetest lady I have met on this trip yet. She tells me a bit about the refuge and hands me over to Tesie for a tour of the refuge. Tesi is super nice and knowledgeable. She is studying Biology in Victoria and doing her internship in Potosi. She takes the time to tell me about every living creature there.

After the tour, while talking about my trip, Laura asks me where I will be staying for the night. I was hoping to camp on the beach once again, but this town doesn’t have any campgrounds and everything seems to be pretty private. She offers me the option to set-up tent in the refuge. How can I refuse such an invitation?! It’s by far one of the coolest places one could camp at. I had access to clean bathrooms, a kitchen, hot showers, etc… And being surrounded by animals, birds and reptiles was awesome.

Once again Laura, thanks for your hospitality! It will be one of the best memories of my trip.

Here are some pictures I shot there:

So I realized while loading my camera that I forgot to post a couple of important pictures.

They kinda have a mascot. She is the cutest and weirdest porcupine I have ever seen. So cuddly… her name is Lala

And finally and most importantly, they have found the remains of a Sperm Whale. I am not sure if I remember this correctly, but I believe Laura said that it was the largest one found in North America. It’s a huge discovery and the only resources they have are what you see in this picture. 🙂

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Mexican cocos on the coast

Left Puerto Vallarta, the great big American tourist town and now I’m sitting in Acapulco which feels more like Florida. In between these 2 larger super Americanized cities, I had great time to Relax.

Met up with these 2 really cool Germans in PV at the hostel, Linda and Wolfgang, and we all decided to meet up again in Barra De Navidad. Ended up renting a small apartment type room with a kitchen and everything for 500 pesos a night (about 43$) and stayed in Barra De Navidad for 3 nights. BdN is a smaller touristic town with a really chill atmosphere.

This guy was hanging out on the beach. Dogs and cats are everywhere here, but all the one’s I’ve seen on the beaches are really good. I only had to kick a really big one in the face once while riding as it went straight for my leg. Something about dogs and trying to bite bike rides….

Pacific sunset

After Barra de Navidad, I headed to Nexpa, a small surfer town of about 400 people. On the way there I met Daniel, riding an 800GS, who stopped to say hi while I was having a fresh coco on the side of the road. We rode together to Nexpa. He is going from Mazatlan to Guatemala, so I might see him there again.

Daniel: If you’re reading this, e-mail me buddy, I put your business Card in my swim suit pocket and went for a swim… so your contact info is gone.

On the road to Nexpa:

Camping once again right by the Ocean

Spent 2 nights in Nexpa and I headed south once again. Someone told me about Barra de Potosi so I thought I’d check it out. I had an awesome time there… info to come in the next post.

The Baja

We did the Baja! We’re currently in La Paz at hotel Plaza Boulevard. It looks like we might be stuck here for almost a week. We need to get a permit for our bikes in order to take the ferry. It’s a temporary import permit that we couldn’t get at the border because we went through on a Sat. The thing is that the Ferry is on Sunday, but everything is closed Sat. and Sun. so we wont be able to get the permit till maybe Monday. Because of Halloween, kids don’t have school on Monday and Tuesday, therefore, the GVT offices might be closed as well. So we might not be able to catch the ferry till next Thursday. The good news is that our hotel is only 250 pesos a night (20$), has a color TV, refreshing showers with “hot” water, the room is clean and the parking is pretty safe…. oh and it has AC! Not bad for 10$ a person… La Paz is a really nice little touristy town with some nice beaches. Should be pretty cool for HAlloween.

So back to the Baja. We have been camping up to now. Thanks to the great American propaganda, the campgrounds were empty and we got some great deals anywhere between 3-4$ a person per night. The beer has been costing us more than the place to stay. Besides that, what can I say about the 1600km or so of this desert. It’s dry and dusty. It kinda reminded me of Burning man, where within 24 hours everything you owned would be covered in dust. I would say that the highlight of the Baja is the observatory that’s about 2800 meters high and you can see both sides of the peninsula from up there. Really chilly at night though from the 2500m high camp. The campgrounds by the bay are also pretty sweet. The road is nice throughout the Baja. People are amazingly friendly. Many retired people = not much partying.

Pictures:

HDR from 2850 meters altitude:

Hornitos? Si! Por favor!

Had a bit of trail fun with the KLRs.

Sone nice folks at the campground fed us a tone of freshly caught fish and pizza:

The view from my tent at the campground by the water. Not bad for 3$ pp a night… 😉

We had lunch at a restaurant just before splitting up with Evin:

The view from the restaurant window… some jack ass parked his bike there… grrrrr…

Plants along the way:

Some really nice ladies we met at the taco stand. The lady on the left fed us some really good fish tacos:

On a 100km baja 1000 type dirt road, we found this “mission”…

We had this guy pump our gas today.

And finally, just tonight, in La Paz, we met a bunch of welcoming bikers at a fast food place. I think they made us part of the gang as I received one of these… now I just have to find a leather place to sew it on my jacket:
http://www.guaycurabikers.com

Meeting Yosh and Evan

So I realized that I forgot to post on here how I met up with Yosh and Evin. We all met up at the San Diego hostel. Evan already knew about me from Adam who I had met at another hostel a bit up north of LA. So I guess introductions are to be made. Evin is from Canmore AB, while Yosh is from Japan. Evin just started riding a few months ago (like 3) and decided to get a KLR and head south as far as his pockets will allow him. Yosh shipped over his 98 DR650 (which is in mint condition) to Vancouver from Japan and will be heading south to Argentina. He is also hoping to have enough pockets to do Africa next year.

So here’s the gang:

And here is Evan all mighty whom we lost today as he went to visit some family friends on the east side for a few days: