From Anchorage to Ushuaia by Bike

After the rains, the sun returned and once again the temperatures rose to over 25°C. We ran into two other cyclo-tourists: David (Canadian) and Eckart (German). David had started out from San Diego and hoped to reach Ushuaia, Argentina, in seven months. When we met him in Guerrero Negro, however, he was so disenchanted by the all problems that he had had that he was thinking of going home to Calgary. Eckart is just on a three week bike trip through Baja California.

Two new encounters and two new cyclo-tourists who had traveled the same route that we had but who had very different experiences. It’s very interesting how differently people perceive and respond to the journey.

It’s also interesting to see the wide disparity of cartographic information that is provided to us by our maps. Between the five of us (Anja is still with us), we have four different maps and it rarely happens that they say the same thing, especially in terms of distances. Just recently, one map showed 80 km between two towns, while another said 100 km. And often, the order the villages along a stretch of road is entirely reversed from one map to another.

In the town of Vizcaino, for the first time since we arrived in Mexico, we didn’t feel safe. For the first time we found that the people of the town weren’t very welcoming and lacked the usual smiles. As we looked for a place to sleep, we were approached by some people clearly under the influence of mind-altering substances. A few minutes later, a caravan of military vehicles raced up and soldiers jumped out, faces covered and weapons in hand, and surrounded one of the houses…

The next day in San Ignacio, it was like a whole new world. All of the cities that we have passed through up so far looked like standard North American cities – wide roads, straight and perpendicular to each other, without a real centre to the city. But San Igancio was like a European city – it had a central square with a mission (church) that dominated one side, and narrow, winding roads. We were simply delighted! We camped under the palm trees and ate dates for breakfast.

Mulege, where we rested for a day, was as warm and welcoming as San Ignacio.

Sébastien