Day 2 - Ensenada to Catavina

We left Ensenada at 10:30 this morning after sleeping in later than we had planned, but still not too bad after getting in at 1 am last night. After eating breakfast at our hotel, we bundled up for our ride, planning on a few hours of colder temps. At 5:30 pm when we checked into our hotel in Catavina, we were still bundled up and shivering. We spent the entire day battling high winds and unseasonably cold temperatures, but the scenery on the ride made it all worthwhile. The route was a motorcyclist's dream - winding roads that climbed to elevations of 2000 feet then back to sea level with very few other vehicles on our southbound road. The topography of the Baja is not at all what we expected - rolling hills, green pastures, and vineyards, changing to flatter lands butting up to the Pacific with red flowers covering the desert floor, to more typical desert landscaping with lots of saguaro cactus, to a mixture of cactus, rocks, and huge boulders as far as we can see. We even saw a few prickly pear cactus farms, growing cactus to make nopalitos (cactus tacos). We stopped in El Rosario for a quick lunch at a quaint B&B owned by an American and his Mexican family, including a 3 month old Chihuahua and a 2 month old part-Rottie puppy. When we arrived in Catavina, we were very ready to be off the bike for the evening. We checked into the Desert Inn, a very nice hotel in a very tiny town. We met some other Americans, Maggie and John, who are travelling north to Seattle to John's home from Maggie's home in Los Barrillos, between La Paz and San Jose del Cabo. They joined us for happy hour at the hotel and we spent a few hours swapping stories. Maggie gave us some insights as to where to stay in our upcoming towns and the bars and restaurants that we need to visit. Although the margs won't be an entrant into the best of Baja, they were still quite tasty. We all enjoyed tortilla soup for dinner, then after everyone else retired for the night, Steve and I went out for a quick walk to look at stars and enjoy the evening. It didn't last long because it was cooold. We got to bed at a decent time, looking forward to the next day's ride.