From Anchorage to Ushuaia by Bike

The Mexican state is known for its wide variety of culinary delights.

We’ve tried lots of little restaurants both in the towns and at the side of the road. It’s about 2€ each… burritos, quesadillas, tacos, tortas… Except that all these Mexican specialties involve a tortilla of varying size and crispyness, meat (mostly beef) and guacamole, and are often accompanied by beans. “Where is all this supposed variety?” you may ask. Good question… we have no idea! It might take us a little while to figure that out. But not to worry… every day we eat well.

It’s known for its warm climate.

Since we arrived 6 days ago, the temperature has only gone up – during the day it’s about 30°C in the shade! So we need a lot of water (bottled, of course) – about a litre each for every two hours of biking. But there are lots of stores by the side of the road, and so it’s easy to replenish our supplies.

It’s known for the people.

We’ve received a warm Mexican welcome, and along the road people say hello and honk their horns to support us.

It’s known for its tourist prices.

We’re just now starting to know the prices we should be paying. We often end up negotiating the rates at motels, which might seem uncalled for, but is actually quite necessary unless we want to end up paying the inflated American tourist prices!

It’s known for its fearless drivers.

Drivers who pass us on the road regularly move all the way over the left – whether or not they can see up ahead. While it’s nice for us, it’s also very scary since we know that there isn’t much choice for the drivers between another car coming head on and two cyclists on the road… We try to make sure we always have an out, just in case the driver has to suddenly move back over to the right side of the road.

It’s known as a great natural playground for the Americans.

Baja California is quite a popular destination for Americans, a little too popular in our opinion. American drivers don’t pay any attention to us, they just barely miss us as they skim by acting like they own the place in their RVs, towing their pick-up trucks often loaded down with ATVs or motorbikes.

In the end, it’s been scary but not too serious…

A long line of cars, a truck behind us and a right turn coming up. The truck had no visibility ahead but wanted absolutely to pass us, and wouldn’t shift even a centimeter to the left to give us some space. All the sudden, Sara saw herself leaning left and getting pulled under the wheels of the truck. Her immediate reflex was to move quickly over to the right, on to the sandy shoulder. The front wheel sunk into the sand and Sara flew through the air. Sébastien was behind her and leapt off his bike to help her up, badly shaken but not injured. Fortunately it was nothing serious, Sara had only some bumps and bruises, and the bike was fine, but it could have been a lot worse!

Sara & Sébastien