Scorpion Bay – no Santana….

The water was about 20” deep at the deepest part, and there were rocks on the bottom, but I managed to thread in between the biggest boulders. Lucky. I got to the other side, put my feet on the pegs, stood up and took off to get my dust ahead of Rick and Santana. 

The course turned fast again. The course starts on the Pacific coast, winds through to the Sea of Cortez coastline, and now we were nearing the Pacific Coast again. It would wind back to the Sea of Cortez side again, back to the Pacific side again, and then back to the Sea of Cortez one final time for the finish in LaPaz. You see a lot in 1134 miles! The terrain, type of sand or rocks, and vegetation would change often. Quite amazing to see various desert environments this way.

We could never make it from San Ignacio to Loreto on one tank of fuel. There was an intermediate town between them right on the Pacific Ocean called San Juanico. It is known to American surfers as Scorpion Bay. Apparently the surfing there is always awesome, so the tiny town is a popular retreat for surf bums. We still had 80 miles to get there.

The course spilled me out onto salt flats. These are perfectly flat tidal mud flats that I suspect get wet only when a storm pushes an extra high tide in. The hard parts are like concrete. But there were areas that seemed dry on top, but a few inches down it was mush. You could see where vehicles got stuck and other vehicles had to pull them out. That’s the thing about this course – when it looks difficult – beware. When it looks easy – beware. If you hit a soft patch at 80 mph, you can go over the bars.

The salt flats gave way to sand whoops, and then dumped you back on the flats, alternating back and forth. Then graded roads peppered with rocks. There were three more rocky river crossings, but not as much water in them as the one I had crossed 50 miles back. The race promoter had paid someone to pipe them and fill them in with aggregate for a crossing for the race. I appreciated that. One was done, one was half done, and one was yet to be done. We followed the fast roads at 75 mph. They rolled up and down now, like a long stretched-out rollercoaster. I worried about oncoming vehicles coming over the rises, but there were only a couple vehicles for 40 more miles.

Finally, ahead of me was a tiny town. The tallest structure was one story. The main road we were on turned to asphalt, but there were no paved roads in town. I stopped. I knew I was in Scorpion Bay when I saw the Pacific Ocean and the waves. Beautiful. I didn’t see too many people. None really. A dozen vultures were hanging around. Rick rolled up.

We waited for Santana. We waited more. A guy pulled up in a jeep. An American. We started talking. He was a Baja 1000 racer – retired. Gary. He had a lot of stories. We hung out on the side of the road while he was parked in the middle of the road talking to us. He didn’t block any traffic – there was none. Another little surfer jeep pulled up with palm thatch on the roof. It was his buddies – laid back hippie surfer types in their fifties. They wanted to know if he wanted to go fishing. He would have otherwise, but he found us to talk to so he told them he’d catch them later.

We noticed we were almost out of gas. I didn’t see any gas station. Something was wrong. We had waited over an hour for Santana. No Santana. We covered a lot of miles, but surely he wasn’t that much slower than us. What happened? Should we go back? But we don’t have enough gas to go back. And if we did, how far would we have to go?

The American told us to follow him to the gas station. We went into town on dirt streets. A few blocks in, take a right, and one more block to a shipping container. A local comes out and opens the doors of the container to reveal gas cans and barrels. This was the gas station. We filled up. There were race team stickers all over the walls and door of the container, so I stuck a few of ours up there. 

Now we had gas and had to make a big decision. Go back and look for Santana. We could be going back all the way to San Ignacio. Rick last saw him about 20 miles in, and that was about 120 miles back. And if we rode that far back, we’d be out of fuel again, and have to come back…unless we went to San Ignacio where we started this morning. We could potentially have to ride an extra 240 miles today, on top of the 150 we’d already gone, and still be 90 hard miles from our truck and the hotel in Loreto. 

Survival was potentially the main factor. When you are in a place like this, you have to make the right decisions. But we couldn’t leave Santana. Something must be wrong. We decided to go back for him.

I started my bike. “Gracias!” I clicked it in gear and began to roll away. 

Just then, at that moment, the phone on the wall in the makeshift station rang…