The baja dispatches
I set out to ride the Baja Divide again, backwards this time, in a pursuit of the still lingering questions from my first ride down the peninsula. I wondered about the state of Baja amidst the influx of bikepackers and their impacts, who these riders were and why they decided to come here for the winter, and what the future of the Baja Divide is likely to look like. I wrote a four part set of dispatches on the divide following my interviews with over 70 riders and dozens of ranchers that have been impacted by the influx of foreigners on bicycles traveling through their land. I lived on a ranch, I went fishing, I got into it. This is the closest I’ve come to a magnum opus. Please read the dispatches below.
dispatch 1
My frame gets welded back together, I meet a cute young couple, ride with several characters, and begin my La Paz interviews by staying at the infamous Warmshowers.
dispatch 2
More interviews from La Paz, and I set out into the wild vastness of the desert. I stop in a fishing village and spend a week on a ranch to live amidst the locals. I meet Aly, a solo female traveling with Retinitis Pigmentosa, and understand the value of this whole enterprise.
Dispatch 3
I meet more characters from the trail, including Richard, who’s Wikepedia page tells of a life full of wonder, and Greg, the bikepacker traveling to qualm his chronic depression. My girlfriend joins me, and we together are dug into by the claws of the desert.
Dispatch 4
I begin the long push home, back to San Diego, and try and wrap this whole thing up. I talk with a Polish couple on the road for several years and they reflect on their life, and I reflect on bikepacking, travel, Mexico, and life as a whole in this messy wrap up.