Updated from http://www.RideDOT.com/rtw/49.html



A few days ago, while talking to our fellow Canadians at the McDonald's in Moab, Jacques mentioned The Wave, a very cool-looking geologic formation, which really intrigued us. However, we found out that to visit it, we needed to obtain a permit. Unfortunately, only 20 permits are given out per day - all chosen by a lottery system. Uh oh. Apparently 10 of the 20 permits are issued 4 months in advance over the Internet, so too late for half the permits. The other 10 are picked via a manual lottery at the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) office, so we decide to take our chances there.

We rode all the way to south Utah, past the phenomenally large and imposing red rock mountain/sculpures of Monument Valley, but didn't stop since we had already visited it on our last trip. Our home base was set up at the town of Kanab, where the BLM office was located and we showed up bright and early the next morning for the lottery. Apparently in the summer, the number of visitors swell to over 200 people, all crammed in the tiny lottery room every morning. The largest number was 260 one day in the summer, all vying for 10 permits! Today, the BLM officer told me we had a record low of applicants - 17! 10 permits. 17 people. Our chances look pretty good! We were assigned a number and one by one, balls were drawn out of an ancient hand-cranked bingo machine, the kind that spins the balls first and spits one out of a small hole in the bottom.

We didn't win. Such good odds and we were so unlucky! One of the permit winners, a European couple exclaimed in joy when their number was drawn. Apparently they had come every morning for the last 5 days, and finally today they won a permit! Good for them, I guess we'd come back tomorrow and try again. But we decided if we didn't win tomorrow, we'd move on.


Beautifully coloured rocks line the Wire Pass as we hike towards the slot canyon

There were still a lot of other sights to see in the Grand Staircase-Escalante area. Coyote Buttes is home to a bunch of slot canyons - canyons that are far deeper than they are wide. So we rode down a 13 km dirt road to visit some of them.


Slot canyons are formed by rushing water through very soft rock. The walls of this canyon are sandstone

Slot canyons are very dangerous to hike in if there is any precipitation in the forecast, since the walls are 30-50 feet high and some of the longer canyons have very little open space or footholds to climb up to escape flash floods. We are hiking part of Buckskin Gulch, which is 21 kms long. We can't hike the entire distance because previous rainfalls have left pools of water hip deep and it's too cold to wade through them. In warmer weather, hikers bring a tent and break up the Buckskin Gulch hike over a few days, wading through the much smaller pools in the heat of the Utah summer.


Sunlight plays against the walls of the slot canyon


Obstacle course

Falling rocks and logs from above sometimes block the slot canyon and it's necessary to climb over or under obstacles. The walls close in very tightly in some places - we had to take our backpacks off and slide sideways to get through. So glad we skipped the cheeseburgers the day before...


Amazing formations on the slot canyon walls caused by different densities of rock carved away by the water


No hip-waders so end of the line for us

We encounter our first pool of water at Buckskin Gulch. The BLM office warned us there would be much deeper ahead, so we decide to turn back here. In the summer, the reflections of the sun streaming down the top of the canyon and hitting the pools cause amazing reflections against the canyon walls, but this late in the year, the sun barely makes it overhead, leaving the canyon in shadows for most of the day. Would be fun to come back here and wade through some of the pools in July!

The next morning, we show up at the BLM office again but we're disheartened when we see many more lottery hopefuls also attending - 27 in total. Our odds are much slimmer today. Our lottery number is 13. I'm not superstitious, but Neda considers this a lucky sign. When she was born, the hospital gave her a bracelet with a number matching mother to baby - her number was 13.

Sure enough, the first ball that dropped out of the lotto machine - number 13! We felt 25 pairs of envious eyes stinging us from all sides. The permits were written up for the next day and we were given instructions on how to get to The Wave as well as what to bring. It's a 10 km round-trip (I HATE HIKING!) to The Wave and there isn't a marked trail, so the BLM handed us a Treasure Island-style map (""50 paces to the Orange Rock, turn left at the Sandy Hill...") and told us to bring lots of water, and a flashlight in case we stayed out past dark. They recommended not to hike in the darkness for fear of falling into a slot canyon. Great. Now I was starting to worry... Would we get lost? Fall into a slot canyon in the dark? I saw 127 Hours and I didn't want to have to cut my arm off with a Swiss Army Knife...


No trail. We're just wandering around, kinda like our motorcycle trip

Early the next morning, we rode out to Wire Pass again where we hike much further past the slot canyons to get to The Wave. The mornings are getting very cold: -9C (-15F) and we were frozen like popsicles when we arrived. Thankfully, the temperatures would climb to a balmy 16C during the day.


Along the way, we met up with a couple of other lottery winners - Sherry and Dugan from Alaksa! They seemed to know where they were going, so we just followed them...


It took us a couple of hours, and as we got closer to The Wave, the rocks start exhibiting some psychedelic properties


Dugan's a geologist, so this is a bit of professional curiousity


This is it! The Wave! So surreal, the pictures don't do it justice!

The Wave was formed when 190-million year old sand dunes were packed down with other layers of rock and sandstone over time, then this whole mass was slowly carved away by wind and water, leaving behind one really cool acid-trip of a sculpture! We spent 3 hours walking around the area mesmerized by the undulating layers of red rock that to me, resembled the musculature of an anatomy doll with it's skin peeled back.


If Salvador Dali ever made sculptures out of stained wood, it would look like The Wave


Even with 20 people visiting The Wave, we couldn't help but get in the way of each other's pictures

The Wave does not cover a large area, so I could imagine if the BLM opened it up for public access you would not be able to enjoy the beauty of it without having other people crammed in that small space. The 20 permit holders had to take turns getting shots of The Wave, while we each hid behind the hills or hiked elsewhere. I think there are actually 5 people hidden in the picture above.


Hardwood floors at The Wave. Helps to increase the property value...


Surfs Up, Dude!


We ? The Wave!

We've been in Utah for nearly two weeks, there's so much to see and do here, but I fear that if we don't leave soon, we'll have to convert to Mormonism and stay here permanently!

__________________
Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com

Great photos!

What Camera do you use?

Most of the on-bike shots were taken with the Coolpix AW100 - best ruggedized camera ever! And big buttons so you can use them with gloves. When we're off the bikes, we're using a D3000 primarily, sometimes a D60 and a few of the shots are done with the iPhone. Surprisingly good camera on those iPhones!

__________________
Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com

Updated from http://www.RideDOT.com/rtw/50.html



We've been holed up in Vegas, fugitive-style, for the past few days, peering out at the world through our hotel window. With rooms only a few dollars more than campsites (subsidized by the casinos), we've Pricelined our way through a 4 different places all over the strip and old Vegas, moving each day as if we were evading the law.


Vegas sunrise against the mountains



Before leaving, we did venture out one evening to take in the colourful lights of Sin City.



Neon landscape


Canopy of lights over Fremont Street

We strolled through the 1/2 km stretch of Fremont St while 12 million LEDs flashed hypnotic commercials overhead. The street used to be a popular place for pickpockets targeting tourists distracted by the light show above them, before the city boosted the police presence. Cops on bikes blend in with the street performers and costumed human statues, and we're barraged by a constant cacophony of music from two stages, street musicians and aerial commercials.


We weren't tempted by the casinos at all, but the Deep-Fried Twinkies caught my attention. Wonder what they'll replace them with now that Hostess is out of business?


Every hour on the hour, the casino and store lights dim. A 10-15 minute video is played overhead, set to music. This is the Fremont St Experience!


Watching the lights of the strip from the top of the city

__________________
Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com

Updated from http://www.RideDOT.com/rtw/51.html



A few weeks ago, Mark from ADV sent us an invite, opening up his guest house to Neda and I. So we spent nearly a week with him and his family, during which time they basically adopted us!


Mark and I installing engine bars on my bike

After getting the bikes powerwashed and cleaned, we got to work installing the SW-Motech crash bars that I had ordered and sent to Mark's place. My big GS has eaten more gravel in the last 5 months than in the last 6 years I've owned her. Since we're showing no aversion to dirty, gravelly, sandy roads, I thought I'd quit being such a tough guy and give her a little more protection. Mark told me he builds and fixes airplanes for a living, so I guess he's qualified to help me out.

Actually, not being very mechanically-minded, I was quite nervous having an airplane mechanic look over my shoulder while installing something as simple as crash bars:

"Um Mark, could you hand me one of those thingies with the C-thingie on the end?"
"You mean a wrench, Gene?"
"If that's what you Americans call it...!"


California oranges growing in Mark's back yard

Mark lives in a small community just north of San Diego, and the weather there is perfect! We've spent so long outrunning the freezing cold, riding further and further south, and outside of Death Valley, this is perhaps the first time we've reached such an ideal climate for riding. And we've got a bed and roof to sleep under as well! We spent a lot of time with Mark and his family; they had us over for dinner, we had them over for dinner (in their own guest house) - they are a really close-knit family with a love for travel and motorsports. Exactly our kind of folks!


Giving Susie some tips on riding. Here I'm showing her how short fingernails facilitate in the braking process

Susie, Mark's wife, mentioned that she was looking to do more street riding but needed to brush up on her skills. Since Neda and I were motorcycle instructors in our past life, we totally jumped on the opportunity to help her out. We borrowed a TW200 from one of Mark's friends and rode it out to the airport where Mark works for some parking lot practice.


After a quick lesson on push-steering, Susie slaloms like a pro!


I try out the TW and AHHH!!! No unbalanced panniers, bike turns too quickly!!!

Mark invited us to stay till after Thanksgiving, telling us that the traffic would be too bad to travel over the holidays. This was our first ever American Thanksgiving, in America, with Americans, and it was such a heart (and belly) warming experience. Mark and Susie don't have a lot of family in the area, so every year they have an "Orphans' Thanksgiving", inviting all of their friends who also don't have family nearby to spend the holidays with. We definitely fell into that category!


Neda helped cook, I just stayed out of the way. But I did put the marshmallows on the yams!

Mark is an excellent cook, timing all the dishes to be ready at the same time with military precision. Neda picked up some great recipes from him, and I was astounded that you could put marshmallows over potatoes and have them turn out so delicious! Copious amounts of brown sugar and pecans also help!


Thanksgiving with our adopted family. Neda and I had such huge grins over the whole week!


Susie made pumpkin pie. Sean, their youngest son in the background


Mike, their oldest son was celebrating his birthday as well!


Mark and Mike and a few of their friends took us to some of their favorite twisty roads in the area. We rode Hwy 76 around Escondido and then up the road to the Palomar observatory

After spending a week with Mark and his family, we're leaving in much better shape (round is a shape, right?) physically and mentally for the journey ahead. The time was well spent gathering new maps, new insurance and new currency. We rode away from our temporary sanctuary waving ecstatic goodbyes. I hope we'll see Mark and Susie and their family again soon in our travels!

__________________
Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com

Updated from http://www.RideDOT.com/rtw/52.html



Mexico beckons us southwards, promising warmth and a change-up in culture that we've been inching towards our entire trip. We've done more preparation in the last week, than we have in the last 5 months on the road, researching border crossings and paperwork. All the reading we've done says to avoid Tijuana, the congestion at the border is horrendous. Do we cross at Tecate? Go as far west as Mexicali and then cut back into the coast?

As usual, we ask the locals. Mark said we shouldn't have any traffic if we just headed directly south since we were crossing over during Thanksgiving weekend. So we threw out all of our plans and crossed at Tijuana anyway.


A quick wave of a guard's hand and suddenly we are in Mexico!

As promised, there was very little wait-time at the border, and the passport control to enter the Baja Peninsula was non-existent! We found out that we did need a visitor's permit if we wanted to enter mainland Mexico, but this could be done in many places on the Baja. We got our permits and passport stamped at the Banjercito (bank run by the Mexican Army) in Tijuana anyways, but our Temporary Vehicle Import Permit (TVIP) would have to be obtained further south if and when we decided to cross into the mainland.


Mex-1 hugs the western coastline of the Baja Peninsula south leaving Tijuana

Piercing the veil between San Diego and Tijuana, we were assaulted by the acrid smell of pollution and the haphazard sprawl of shanties lining the hills. My immediately thought was, "It's India all over again!". We weren't frat boys looking for some illicit weekend excitement, so we didn't linger in Tijuana very long. Instead we immediately got on the toll road southbound and I was relieved that the stench of Tijuana evaporated away, replaced by the beauty of the Baja coastline.


Big Mexican flag in Ensenada

Mexicans love huge flags! You can see Tijuana's Mexican flag almost from San Diego, and as we approached Ensenada (about 90 minutes south of TJ), we saw yet another over-sized flag on the beach. We rode past the large cruise ships that dock here and vomit gringo tourists out into the streets of this port town. That should have been our first clue that this really wasn't the Mexico we were looking for. On a side-note, I was trying to figure out if "gringo" was a derogatory term or not. And was I a "gringo"? Or maybe a "chingo"? Then I Googled the term "Chingo"... and found out it was a swear word in Spanish! It means "a shitload" (a whole lot of). I've really got to learn some Spanish before I offend any of the locals with my ill-translated gringo puns!

As we were trying to find affordable accommodations, we found out everything is expensive here because all the tourists are willing to pay US prices on their Mexican vacation. Chingo de Gringos! Not good. We paid dearly for a run-down room on the outskirts of the downtown. It was the most we've paid since leaving Canada!


First Mexican meal in Mexico! Paying gringo prices for not very chingo tacos...


Serenaded in Ensenada. Hey where's his Mariachi outfit...?!?


Blurry photo because we were ready to bolt from the surly-looking mariachi who obviously didn't want his picture taken...

The next morning after breakfast, we met another rider, Johnny, who I'm guessing owns a Ducati dealership in Chicago. He visits Baja California quite often and he told us that Ensenada was a dump and to get the hell out as soon as we could. We were originally planning to take some Spanish classes here in town, but this conversation convinced us to go elsewhere.


Hitting the road again! Mex-1 southbound out of Ensenada

El Rosario is about a 3.5 hour ride south of Ensenada. Neda read about a great place to stay the night, very cheap and nice, called the Baja Cactus Motel. We scooped up the last room, a luxury suite above the lobby!


Neda is 3Ging on our balcony

So we got Neda a SIM chip in Ensenada for her iPhone and now she's addicted to the 3G down here. We're very surprised at the telecommunications infrastructure in Baja. Seems like they've got more coverage than some parts of the US! And cheaper as well!


Framed pictures of all the Baja racers line the walls of Mama Espinosa's, many of them personally signed. And Neda is still 3Ging...

For the next couple of days, we frequented Mama Espinosa's, a well-known seafood restaurant beside the motel. El Rosario is one of the first check-points in the famous Baja 1000, which runs the 1000 off-road miles from Ensenada to La Paz at the southern tip of the peninsula. While motorcycle racers complete the course in a little over 12 hours in riding time, we're taking a much more sedate, and less sandy route towards La Paz.

We stayed for a couple of nights in El Rosario, taking advantage of the motel's internet to Skype into Sidestand Up, an Internet radio talk show that we had been invited to participate in. It was a really fun experience! Before our segment we got to hang out in the chat-room and talk to some of the followers of our blog. It got a bit stressful when our Skype session dropped us from the call though, as I frantically tried to get us reconnected and Neda gave a play-by-play in the chat room.


Posing with the cactus trees

The next morning, we continued our own Baja 1000 southwards. Mex-1 is very nicely maintained, great pavement and the sections that weave through the mountains of the peninsula are very twisty, which gives us a bit of entertainment. Unfortunately, we can't apex properly through the left-handers because the road is so narrow and has no shoulders. This means that on-coming trucks and 18-wheelers consistently run over the yellow line into our lane for fear of running off the narrow road. And the faster they drive, the more they encroach on our side of the road! We run a pretty tight curb line through all the blind curves up and down the mountainside.


Hiking around the crazy cacti

There are tons of cacti here. And all sorts. Tall, skinny ones, short and fat ones. All different shapes and sizes. Thousands of them line the landscape on either side of the road and I imagine they are spectators on race day, watching Neda and I zoom through the curves of our Baja 10000. Speaking of which, we found out that we just missed the real race by a couple of weeks, that would have been amazing to watch!


Not sure what would have happened if she actually caught hold of it. 'Cause my topcase is already fulll...

__________________
Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com

Updated from http://www.RideDOT.com/rtw/53.html



While we were in San Diego Mark put us in touch with his friend in Mexico to help us out while we were traveling in the Baja Peninsula. Dan lives in Bahia de Los Angeles (LA Bay), which is on the east coast of the Baja, and he invited us to crash for the night in his cabin by the beachfront on our way south. We've been e-mailing Dan for the last few days as well, and he told us that the Spanish school in La Paz was pretty good, so we're kind of of glad that we're out of Ensenada.


Dan's place by the beach

We left El Rosario pretty late in the day, so the sun was setting fairly fast as we rode Mex-1 southbound and then took a detour eastwards on Mex-12 towards the Gulf of California. The road winds up and over the Sierra de San Borja mountains, and we're barraged by the high winds that the area is known for. It's pitch dark (and only around 5PM) when we arrive at LA Bay, and Dan's place is nothing but a GPS latitude and longitude co-ordinate outside of the town, down an unmarked sandy road that runs parallel to the beach. We had a rule before entering Mexico that we wouldn't ride in the dark - didn't take long to break that rule. We may have to get up a bit earlier now that the sun sets so soon...


The full moon is as high and bright over the Sea of Cortez - view from Dan's cabin

Dan and Nancy greeted us with lots of alcohol and fresh fish and we spent the evening getting very lubricated with them. Dan served us some yellowtail sashimi from a catch earlier on in the day, and we were in heaven! We don't eat sushi very much any more these days and it was such a treat. We got a great sense of what brings ex-pats down to LA Bay, living a cost-effective lifestyle and enjoying the simpler things in life - in Dan's case, it's sport fishing and there's no better place in the Baja for it than LA Bay!

Later that night, a well liquored-up Neda passes out in the cabin. Meanwhile, I am enthralled by the view and walk around the area taking lots of pictures. I don't sleep too much as I want to get a picture of the rising sun over the bay.


Pastel colours in paradise


Dan's cabin, rising sun behind me reflected in the window. And the moon is still visible!


Sunrise over the Sea of Cortez

The reason why LA Bay is such a great place for fishing is that it's one of the few safe harbours in the Sea of Cortez that is protected from the high winds and waves by the number of large islands in the bay. Which also makes it a popular place to dock boats in the marina. Dan told us that not all is paradise, as there's a large drug problem in town and a result, rampant property theft from tweakers looking to support their crystal meth habit.

This is something that I've been wary about, as Mexico does have a very bad reputation in the North American media for the drug-related crime and violence. Neda and I have done a lot of research, trying to balance the Canadian and US state-issued travel advisories, the news articles and what other overland travelers have written about their journey through Mexico. We suspect that there's a truth that lies somewhere between sensationalism and Pollyannaism.


GS slowly warming up


Ex-Pat dreams by the beachside. I've been wandering around taking pictures for over an hour and Neda is still asleep


Cacti against the rising sun over the Sea of Cortez


Dan and Nancy hooking us up with restaurants and things to see and do in the Baja Peninsula


We got treated to a great Mexican breakfast by Dan and Nancy


Nancy at the restaurant


Our very kind and generous host, Dan

We've run into so many awesome people on our trip, and meeting Dan and Nancy really gave us some insight into life as ex-pats in Baja!

__________________
Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com