magazine clutch

We here were
like merely
all professional
salsa-testing
motorcycle
riders who were looking for the
first warm tortilla. That night, we
found it in the unremarkable town
of Guerrero Negro where we ate and
slept and wished it didn’t cost $5 a
minute to call home. The next day
was a favorite. We discovered some
real treasures in the Peninsula’s
southern state, Baja Sur, beginning
with an unplanned breakfast stop
in historic San Ignacio, where date
palms grow as thick as prairie grass
and an unlikely lagoon oozes mist
like steam from a witch’s cauldron.
After being stunned by the town’s
huge 18th-century church, built by
Baja’s first settlers, Jesuit missionaries,
we happened into a little coffee
shop and devoured stuffed dates
and homemade bread and jam. Our
lunch break found us in another
palm-laden oasis, colorful Muleg,
filling up on fish tacos before the
highway swept us down through
fields of towering cactus to the edge
of an emerald-green and azure
Sea of Cortez. You shouldn’t ride
through Baja if you feel a strong attachment
to things like toilet paper
and hot water. Clean freaks should
just stay home. The Amigos were
ripening, a condition accelerated
by a sultry tropical humidity that
would turn to heavy rain by the end
of the day. Of course there had been
no way to check the weather, so we
were unaware of a tropical storm to
the south, spinning wet tendrils our
way. When we pulled into La Paz we
as were wet as fish. That was when a
local laughed at us.
“The terrain is amazingly diverse
and geologically quite beautiful.”
19 28 CLUTCH December 2020