Days 4 and 5: The cave paintings, Mulege, Concepcion Bay, and San Ignacio!

I had no Internet service in Mulege last night, my friends, so my apologies for the one-day delay in posting this latest installment of the Baja Boys Adventure Tales!

And before I forget…Barbara, Keith told me you are a faithful CSC blog follower.   So from the Baja Boys to you, a hearty blog-based Baja Hola!

Yesterday started with a 60-mile blast through the fog and the mist out of Guerrero Negro, headed for the cave paintings.   We’ve made portions of this ride optional, and the route to the cave paintings of Sierra de San Francisco was gnarly….way more gnarly than it was on last year’s CSC Baja Adventure.  Everybody rode out with us to where the dirt road began, and then 8 of our 14 rode the remaining 15 miles or so in the rough stuff.   J took the others on to San Ignacio.  They visited San Ignacio’s magnificent Mission (it was built in 1728!), and we all regrouped for a nice San Ignacio lunch.

Folks, that road our to the cave paintings was rough, but it sure was worth it.   These paintings were done approximately 10,000 years ago by a civilization that vanished from the face of the Earth.   No kidding; it’s real Indiana Jones stuff.   It was a hoot seeing it!

These paintings are awesome.  To see the paintings and realize another human being painted these animals 10,000 years ago is humbling.

Here’s a photo of my good buddy Mike (who rides a fully-equipped and tricked-out orange RX3) posing with one of the more mysterious paintings.   Check out the black-faced human figure on the right.   There are over a hundred cave painting sites in Baja and nearly all have human figures.  Only a very few have a human likeness with a black face.   No one knows why.

The site at Sierra de San Francisco is the most accessible cave painting site in Baja.  Getting there involves a 2- or 3-day ride from the border and, as I said above, about 20 miles or so of the journey is on an extremely challenging dirt road.   There’s another cave painting site in this area, but it involves a 5-hour ride on a mule to get there.   Someday…

My good buddies who made the trek to see the cave paintings…

The guys above are the intrepid adventurers who took their RX3s where few people dare to go.   From left to right, it’s Keith, Mark, Mike, Dave, Gary, and Dan and Dan.

Our next destination was Mulege.   A few of us posed for a photo beneath the arch at Mulege’s entrance…

The “Heroica Mulege” description refers to an action by the residents of Mulege in the mid 1850s holding their own against a numerically-superior invading force.   I couldn’t recall who Mexico’s enemy was in those days and I was telling the group about the “Herioca Mulege” descriptor at our dinner last night.   Our waiter overheard me and he told us the battle was against the Americans in 1848 in the Mexican-American War.   Oops!   I asked our waiter to let the chef know that the RX3 riders in our group had nothing to do with that military action!

We stayed in the Hotel Hacienda in Mulege.  It was a cool place.   The rooms were $17 per person.

The Hotel Hacienda even let us park our RX3s in the hotel’s courtyard.   After dinner, we sat around telling stories.   As you might imagine, a lot of the conversation was about motorcycles.   A lot of it centered on seeing the whales, too.   Everyone was blown away by that experience.  I’m glad we got to do it this year.  It was fun.

After a fine breakfast this morning, the group split up.  J took 5 of our group all the way down to Loreto.   I rode with the rest and we visited the Mission in Mulege…

Father Willie, blessing the RX3s…

Here’s a photo of the church’s interior.

And another, with my flash lighting up the reflective portions of our jackets.

Mulege is another oasis in Baja.  It’s a date-farming region, like San Ignacio.  The Jesuits introduced date farming to Baja in the late 1600s/early 1700s.

The Mulege Mission was also used as a prison for a time, and evidently if you were going to the slammer, Mulege was the place you wanted to be.  The prisoners had jobs tending the date farms.   In order to get in, you had to pledge to assist the prison officials in tracking down any escapees.   From what I’ve read, though, not many people wanted to escape.   Mulege was considered a plum assignment.

Here’s a photo of Mike above the Rio Mulege and the date groves.

This is Dan, who is from Colorado, posing for me in the same spot.

Many of these guys are active on the ChinaRiders.net and other forums.   They all told me their screen names and they all had a good laugh when I told them they seem a lot nicer in person!

Engine guards that were put to good use on this trip!

After visiting the Mulege Mission, we rode south for another 25 or 30 miles to see the northern end of Concepcion Bay.  It was magnificent.   Here are a couple of shots from the saddle of my RX3…

asdfadsf

The weather has been magnificent.  Not too hot, and not too cold.   We turned around and pointed the bikes north after visiting Concepcion Bay, and we’re on the return leg of our adventure now.   We stopped today in Santa Rosalia for lunch at the El Muelle, and like always, it was exquisite.   We’re staying in the Desert Inn in San Ignacio this evening.   J and the Loreto contingent are due in any time now.   Good times.

And that’s a wrap for today, folks.  Tomorrow is a high mileage day…it’s a cool 351 miles from San Ignacio to San Quintin, and we want to get in before nightfall.  The RX3s are up for it and so are we!