Have Tacos, Will Travel
Originally published in BMW Owners News.
The other day I was talking to my riding friend Ken, and we both agreed that retirement is about the busiest we’ve ever been. What with the motorcycle riding, motorcycle repair, attending motorcycle events, reading about motorcycles, and the rare household chore, there’s hardly time for anything else.
How did I get all this done when I was actually working? Answer: I have no idea.
But since I believe it’s important to enrich one’s life with a rich slate of activities, I decided to go on—you guessed it—a motorcycle trip.
But where to go? It’s been more than a year since I’d gone on an international adventure. My daughter is getting married this summer, so it’s likely to be a busy one. I figured that if I’m going to go, I’d better go now, in mid-winter. How about Mexico’s Baja Peninsula? It isn’t far from my home in northern California. It’s warm there. I’d been practicing Spanish for a year, as a brain exercise. If I went with a group, chances are I could put miles on a new R 1300 GS rental bike, which I’ve been wanting to do for a while. The idea checked a lot of boxes.
Turns out that MotoQuest, based near Long Beach, California, offered just such a trip. I could take the short flight to southern California, pick up the bike, and head south with like-minded riders. The nine-day trip, in early February, would cover 1,500 miles, with one rest day that included a whale-watching excursion. Then I’d fly back from San Jose del Cabo and the next group would ride the bikes north. Clever!
Life with Phil
So off I went. For this trip we’d be in the company of Phil Freeman, who founded MotoQuest in 1998 and who has been, among other things, a fly-fishing instructor, a river guide, and an English teacher in Japan.
I’ve always thought that the best kind of humor seems to come easily, like falling out of bed. And Phil always seems like he just fell out of bed, literally and figuratively. He’s a gangly guy with a tussle of hair, always wearing rumpled Hawaiian shirts. And for this trip, he sported a special touch: one of his front teeth was missing, awaiting replacement.
When I first saw Phil at the headquarters in Long Beach, I thought: “What have I signed up for?”
I needn’t have worried. Beneath the disheveled appearance and irreverent personality, there’s a very professional motorcycle guide who cares deeply for his “guests.” Phil’s a good rider, and an expert on Baja. Plus, he might just be one of the funniest people I’ve ever met. In one of our first discussions, he related a dream that involved motorcycles, oceans, flying through space, all ending up on the streets of Japan. For him, this was a normal occurrence. It’s a good thing the trip was only nine days because I almost busted a rib laughing so much.
We’d also be in the company of guide Jeff Acton, who conveniently lived and taught English in Mexico in a previous life, and Scott Slavinsky, the ever-patient mechanic and driver of the support truck.
Best of all, I’d be on a bare-bones R 1300 GS (no quickshifter, adaptive cruise, or dynamic mode). But I’d still get to experience that great 1300 engine, on beautiful twisty roads with few policia.
Escape from LA
Why is it that every tour contains a form of penance—a period of relative misery before you get to the good stuff? For us, this occurred leaving Long Beach, amidst a dystopian assortment of clogged highways, surface streets, and interminable stoplights. Here, sadly, Orange County is still in the process of surrendering itself to the bulldozer and grader. It’s only at Cook’s Corner, the legendary biker bar in Trabuco Canyon, that we truly become free of our big city entanglements and visit other portions of the tires.
Cook’s is cool. There are probably 100 Harley-Davidson riders circulating in the parking lot and at the bar. Bikes gleam in the sun, the air rife with F-bombs and laughter. It’s not my jam, but I appreciate it just the same. I may not wear a leather vest or carry my wallet on a chain, but I still think a Harley is a beautiful thing.
Turns out the area is teeming with biker bars, and we stop at every one (but not to drink). On our way up the Ortega Highway, we visit the Lookout Roadhouse, overlooking Lake Elsinore with snow-capped peaks in the distance, and Josie’s Hideout Saloon, where a KTM rider introduces us to his doggle-wearing canine, its head poking out of a hole in the rear top case.
It’s also here that I acquire my nickname for the trip. Turns out there are four Jeffs: Big Jeff, from Florida, named for obvious reasons; Vermont Geoff, also known as Birthday Jeff, since he celebrated a birthday on the trip; and Action Jeff, the guide noted for his incessant energy and work ethic. As for me, I’m Proper Geoff, for the unusual spelling of my name. Before long this was shortened to just “Proper,” which I grew to like, since no one has ever accused me of being proper before.
It doesn’t take long for our little gang of misfits to gel. We have an entire family from Long Island (mom and dad on one bike, brother and sister on another); two commercial airline pilots from Anchorage who routinely fly together; two doctors riding two-up; a lone woman escaping the heat of Texas; and a smattering of others.
Finally, we arrive at our destination: Julian, California, a California Historic Landmark and former mining town that sits at 3,200 feet above San Diego.
Tomorrow: Mexico!
On to Baja
Julian is a proper mountain town, and it’s in the low 40s when we leave at 7 am, heading for the international crossing in Tecate. Ironically, it will be pushing 90 by the time we finish at the southern tip of Baja, eight days hence.
Border crossings in Mexico are infamous for random paperwork and senseless delays, so I’m almost disappointed when we breeze through in 45 minutes with no jail time or bribes along the way.
It feels good to be in Mexico, where things seem immediately different. Mom-and-pop taquerias are everywhere in the dusty pueblos, along with packs of roaming (but friendly) dogs.
And the riding is great. I’ve spent a lot of time in Death Valley, and Baja reminds me of that landscape—with the addition of a turquoise blue ocean. It’s a stark beauty, with sculpted hills of red and gold, long, flat valleys sprinkled with saguaro cactus and occasional wildflowers. I love it. You may not. Stark beauty is an acquired taste, and I sip that cup whenever I can.
I’ve been fascinated with Baja off-road racing ever since watching Malcolm Smith smile his way to victory in On Any Sunday, released in 1971. So, as we rode along, it was a thrill to see the sign for the iconic Mike’s Sky Ranch, leading down a rutted two-track. The ranch served as a historic checkpoint for both the Baja 500 and 1000 over the years. We don’t take the road on our big Beemers, but I still feel like I’m on hallowed ground.
Though our route doesn’t compare to the rutty pilgrimage to Mike’s, it’s still challenging. Mexican road maintenance seems to be allotted according to patronage, pesos, or some other mysterious process. One minute the roads are perfect, and the next we’re playing dodge-‘em with massive potholes that seem to extend to China. At least one person in our party ended up paying out his deductible for a new front wheel. Despite my best efforts, I hit one of these enormous divots straight on, and had some anxious moments watching the front tire pressure monitor for the next few miles. Thankfully, no harm done.
Before the day is over, we pass the sign for another legendary waypoint on the Baja 1000 route, Coco’s Corner. Eventually we pull into the Costa del Sol hotel in Bahia de Los Angeles, where the doting, elderly “Mama” presides with her amiable Great Dane, Rocko.
Mama serves up delicious fish tacos at a long, outdoor table as we gaze out toward the sinuous Isla Angel de la Guarda in the Sea of Cortez. A proper Baja day.
Life with 1300
One of the reasons I wanted to take this trip was to get some saddle time on a R 1300 GS, and see how it compares to my 2016 R 1200 GS, which has been a great motorcycle but now shows 60,000 miles. If I’m honest, there’s no real reason to replace my old bike, other than wanderlust. But as we age, we buy lots of stuff we don’t need, because, well, when will we have another opportunity to waste so much money?
Aside from the large TV screen that serves as a speedometer, the new GS seems pretty similar to my old one. The ergonomics are perfect for me, and it does a passable imitation of a sportbike on the kind of roads most of us ride every day. For that brief moment, my bank account was not under threat. A thousand miles away, my wife breathed a sigh of relief.
Then I twisted the throttle. Above about 4,500 rpm, the new boxer pulls like god’s own freight train, eliciting a broad grin, and leaving the old 1200 for dead. Fun! Eventually I found myself letting big, half-mile gaps open just for the pleasure of pinning the throttle and watching Baja rendered in a kind of saguaro cactus blur. As the saying goes, one can never have too much horsepower.
Because the 1300 is a base model, it lacks some of the extras on my 10-year old bike, like dynamic riding mode, electronically adjustable preload, and a quickshifter. The trip makes me appreciate how often I use those features, and I’d surely want them if I bought a 1300.
Bikes to Boats
San Ignacio is our rest day, and it’s nice to spend two nights in the same hotel. I’m up early for a quick run, as I do most days. Never once did I worry about my safety on these solo, early morning excursions. Mexico in general has a reputation for risk, and the everpresent policia, riding through town in pickup trucks casually displaying automatic weapons, can be a little unnerving. But our guide Jeff, who has traveled widely and lived in Baja, assures us things are different here than on the mainland. Often I was in dark, unfamiliar neighborhoods, but all I got was a friendly buenos dias.
We all crawl in a van and take a rutty dirt road to the marine sanctuary at Laguna San Ignacio. Because I live on Monterey Bay in Northern California, I’ve been on plenty of whale watching adventures. Whale watching in Monterey Bay is awesome but it’s also a bit like the cruise on Gilligan’s Island—long, sometimes cold, with passengers often doing the technicolor yawn off the sides of the boat. This is different: it’s 75 degrees, the ocean is dead calm, and the boats are small and maneuverable. Humpback whales breach close enough to be audible, and we can feel their spray. It is, by far, the best whale watching I’ve ever experienced.
I usually do international moto trips with my wife, Meredith, but for whatever reason, she wasn’t interested in Mexico. So I decided to take a flier and share a room with someone I’d never met: Andre, from Montreal. Turns out to be a good choice. He amuses himself (and us) at every stop flying his tiny drone, which I christen the “Mosquito” since it looks and sounds like a bug on steroids. Every stop is an adventure with the Mosquito, as it threatens to fly beyond his control. At one stop, we had to convince a street sweeper to retrieve the errant device in mid-air with his broom.
On this afternoon, to his dismay, Andre finds himself locked in our bathroom, because the door hardware was installed backward and couldn’t be unlocked from the inside. Much hilarity ensued, until Andre was finally liberated and his nerves calmed with a margarita or three.
After days of beautiful riding, the next day we get to experience Baja at its scruffiest in the town of Santa Rosalia on the Sea of Cortez, which includes skeletal hulks of buildings, a gravel pit, and what appears (and smells) like raw sewage. At least it had a prison. Fortunately, the ensuing miles, along the Sea of Cortez, are lovely enough to merit a group photo at a scenic overlook.
The Spirit Moves Us
Before stopping for the night in Loreto, we take an out-and-back ride to Mission San Javier, a stunning piece of well-preserved architecture dating from 1699. The journey also includes some of the most spirited riding of the trip, made even more exciting by big piles of gravel in the corners. Here, the better riders gravitated toward the front, and we had a fine time testing the traction control on the big bikes.
Loreto is one of the larger towns we visit, and that evening I enjoy a walk down the pedestrian Calle Salvatierra to the sea. Along the way I even find some earrings of Mexican silver for Meredith and stop to listen to a group of locals saying prayers and singing in front of the town’s lovely mission, which dates from 1744.
The route to La Paz the next day takes us to a beautiful, high plateau that evokes the American southwest, before dropping down to some of the straightest, longest, most boring roads of the trip.
“Hey, did you notice that one curve back there?” Phil deadpans. Sure did. How could we have missed it?
Wasting Away in Margaritaville
Could this really be the last day? Enroute to San Jose del Cabo, we traverse some undulating but straight roads that evoke images of Leonardo DiCaprio’s famous and slightly nauseating car chase in One Battle After Another. We also take a side trip to the handsome and historic gold mining town of El Triunfo, which neatly prepares me for re-entry into normal society by furnishing the only cappuccino of the trip.
Phil had given us the traditional last-ski-run-of-the-day lecture before leaving La Paz that morning. You know, the one about the guy who tears his ACL because he decided to let his guard down on the last set of moguls.
And we almost made it. With less than a mile to go, we enter an absolutely hellish construction zone, complete with potholes, deep sand, and drop-offs. Two of our party go down. Locals rush to their aid. Cars honk. It’s an exquisite moment of chaos, but fortunately, no one is hurt in the process.
Once at the hotel in Cabo, it feels like we’re already back in the US of A. I look down from my veranda to see pale-skinned gringos lingering around the pool, sipping umbrella drinks. “All this scene needs is a Jimmy Buffett song,” I think to myself. And when I get down to the pool, you guessed it: Wastin’ away again in Margaritaville blares over the loudspeakers.
Still, it’s been a great trip. The tally: 1,500 miles, nine days, two countries, eight (!) tipovers, one actual crash. No hospital visits. I’ve done a lot of group motorcycle tours, in a lot of different parts of the world, and this group was one of the best. I don’t think we could live in a commune together, but for nine days, we got along just fine. Not a cross word was heard.
But the most important number? By my count, I had just under 40 tacos, every one of them delicious. So when Meredith picks me up at the airport in San Jose, California, and suggests we go to a taqueria for dinner, my answer is: you bet!
¡Buena comida! ¡Buen viaje!
(Good food! good trip!)