November 23, 2018
The effects of the hurricane
Near Peurtecitos to near Gonzaga Bay
After our little scare the night before it was a relief to wake up in the morning having not been disturbed in the night, and any suspicious characters were now long gone. We packed up our things and resumed our ride down the coast.
| Heart | 6 | Comment | 0 | Link |
| Heart | 2 | Comment | 1 | Link |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encelia_farinosa
5 years ago
The road at first appeared to be truly excellent once again, a good paved surface with a decent shoulder, and almost no traffic. It seemed perfect. But it wasn't long before we arrived in the area worst hit by the recent hurricane and found sections of the road that had unfortunately disappeared. The hurricane must have brought with it truly incredible amounts of water, which had clearly swamped the waterways. What were now just innocuous dry riverbeds in the desert must have been temporarily transformed into raging torrents, and the bridges and underpasses for the water to flow under the road had evidently not been built to withstand such a huge volume of water. Time and again we came to sections where the road had been partly washed away, and several times the whole thing had been carried off out to sea. Fortunately dirt road diversions had been set up so that we could easily continue our journey, but the destruction was really a remarkable sight, and a reminder of what Mother Nature can do when she gets angry.
| Heart | 3 | Comment | 0 | Link |
Another effect of the hurricane, a more positive one perhaps, was the effect that it had had on the desert. Back in San Felipe Luis had told us about how the water had transformed the desert. "There isn't supposed to be grass in the desert!" he had said, and we saw it now for ourselves. Mother Nature had greened the desert, and there was really only one contender for the desert plant of the day now.
We stopped once to swim in the sea and watched pelicans fly low over the water, but generally we just enjoyed the good road. There was not much traffic and what there was seemed to mostly be American holiday makers who waved at us as they passed. Many of them would have been going to or from Gonzaga Bay, a tourist town that we were aiming for. It's built in a bay that is supposed to be exceptionally beautiful, but for us it was the store full of food and water we were most after. As it turned out that was on the highway, away from the town itself, and by the time we'd restocked it was already getting late. We decided against riding into Gonzaga Bay because of the lateness of the hour and instead rode on a little further then pushed our bikes into the desert to make camp. This worked out perfectly for us, as we had a really nice private campsite, and still got a view of the bay across the desert. As an added bonus we weren't close enough to the water to be witnesses to anything untoward, and we relaxed in our tent happy at the end of another nice day in Mexico. And then the gunshots started.
Today's ride: 72 km (45 miles)
Total: 445 km (276 miles)
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 9 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 0 |