Gino's Travels

Thursday, 16 May 2013

All Roads Lead to the Moon Episode 8

So after hours of working on this short film, its ready, Central America, hope you enjoy! Please let me know if you enjoy it!

Loreto to Santa Rosalia

We reluctantly left Loreto this morning, amazing place to chill out and the 1697 resturant rocks, if you are in the area they have great rooms for rent and do brilliant food, thanks to Kieran, Norma and their son Patricio (Paddy) for a great time and fantastic hospitality. We had a great run up to Santa Rosalia, only around 130 miles but we needed to stop here. An interesting place with some great history, it is a mining town and the French had the concession for the mining over 100 years ago, they built wooden houses (which are still here) and the hotel we are in the Hotel Francais is a wooden build place which feels like it hasn't been touched for 100 years, really authentic. The crowning jewel though is of course the church, Designed and built by the French engineer Gustav Eiffel who displayed it next to his tower at the 1889 trade fair in Paris, the Tower of course is world famous now as a monument which symbolises Paris, the church was flat packed and sent on the company sailboat to here, I won't bore you with the details but this plain building has many interesting and clever features. The only downside is we seem to be attracting the mental dogs here, got chased here, managed to land a good one but it persisted and tried to bite through my boot, with the state of my socks it would have got a shock if had broken through!!

The fabulous Kieran, Norma and Patricio!

This was round the corner in a welders yard, really don't know what its about

Sunshade next to the plankton eating shark statue

This worried me, clouds!!!!!!

Our view to the square from the fantastic 1697 resturant

Looking out of Hotel Francais Santa Rosalia

Authentic buildings

The famous Eiffel church, small sister to the tower (and actually bought in Belgium) The first flat pack church.....before Ikea

Toon hall...authentic

Nice building

interior of hotel, untouched for 100 years

Bikes at rest (My Steering head bearings have gone, after 14000 miles, crap......)

Hotel & Assorted railway ornaments

Monday, 13 May 2013

San Javier

Not much to report from our week “off” really, had a nice ride up to San Javier (about 25 miles away in the mountains) on Saturday, this is a small misson town (very small) and Saturday was their festival, that basically meant a load of Caballeros rode into town, posed for pictures in front of the very pretty church and got blessed by the local priest. It had a really nice feel to it but we left around luchtime to head for a interesting “Western Saloon” type place (Del Barracho) back near the main road, the kind of place where typical Harley guys would love to hang out I suppose!

The Owner seemed very friendly and even caught me out with a practical joke which I won’t reveal until I’ve caught a few others out with it! Last night we went to Mass which was interesting and very pleasant, it was full and half the congregation were teenagers, much different to the demographics back home I think. I have to admit to trying a Margarita last night, pleasant but why serve it in a girls glass!! We plan to head North again on Wednesday and with a bit of luck cross into the USA on Saturday.....or we may hang about on the Baja longer.....who knows. One thing, I have had a question from a well known Paisley man (now in Peebles) about the blue stuff in the photos, George, that’s what the sky looks like when it’s not full of clouds....it was new to us too!

The nice Mission Church at San Javier

Impressive backdrop, seemingly brought here from Mexico City by Mules several hundred years ago

Small, pretty place

Typical house, not sure the roof would last long back home!

Caballeros ride into town

Some horses were less well behaved

Riding towards the church

To be blessed by the Priest

Is it legal to use your phone whilst riding a horse?

Outside the mean Saloon Del Borracho

I was watching a film on the telly, a western funnily enough

Enjoying a strange drink in an even stranger glass!

Sunday, 12 May 2013

La Paz to Loreto

The ride up the Baja from La Paz to Loreto was windy, quite a strong headwind in fact, so much so that we were on reserve at just over 130 miles, 50 miles earlier than usual. One other factor of course is that it’s been a while since we could sit at 70mph plus so that has a huge bearing on fuel consumption. The last 40 miles of so into Loreto is quite dramatic scenery wise, a curving road with great scenery and the sea hovering in and out of view.

We rolled into Loreto and found our way to the 1697 restaurant bar & Hotel where we met out hosts Kieran and Norma and their son Patricio. A welcome beer went down well followed by several others with a great meal.

Loreto is a small town, (founded in 1697 by Jesuit missionaries) touristy, catering for the Americans and Canadians getting away from their weather, its a really nice place and well worth a visit. We took a boat trip out to one of the island and were blown away by the amazing wildlife, Cormorants, Pelicans, Osprey’s , Sea lions, and n amazing show from some dolphins passing our boat, we even saw a whale but weren’t fast enough to get a photo! On a quiet white sandy beach we ran into Julie & Neil from Chicago who we’d met the previous night, of all the beaches in all the places ......

So we’re here for a few days rest from riding the bike then heading North towards the USA which is still around 700 miles away.

Our Home for a few days, 1697!

The town Hall

Especially for my sister, Loreto Church

Scary Fiona

Cool Place (But hot!)

For my Telecom pals, stealth Palm tree!!

View of the town centre

Cactus

Pelican in flight

And again

Shadow of bird looking at crabs, mmm food

Blue footed Ducks

Sea Lions, very noisy & smelly

In for a swim

Osprey

Dolphins showing off

Thar she blows

Life on the road....OK on the beach!!

Leading the way

Pretty harbour

And its goodbye from him

And him!!

Wednesday, 8 May 2013

Onto the Baja

We left the nice little town of Zamora (although even little towns are big here!) and had a great ride through the mountains to Tepic. On the way we passed Tequila (the town not the drink) and just outside we saw the cacti being cultivated which are used to make the drink (not the town) We rolled into a hotel at the North side of Tepic to find that it had been partially taken over by the police. Business must be slack so they were using half the hotel to house the cops and as a station. Police with guns everywhere we parked the bikes next to the pool and next to the shelter they seemed to have their breaks in, hopefully safe there then!
A very early for us start (before 8!!) saw us in Matzalan to organise a ferry to the Baja Peninsula before 11am. Luckily we got a space on the ferry but it appeared there were no spare cabins or seats, we were told to try when we got on the boat or we would just have to sleep in the bar!
We had the usual military check and waited around having a cold beer in the scorching sun while we waited to load. On the ferry (much smaller thn the North Sea ships) we made our way to reception to put our name down for a cabin and settled into the bar and started drinking in an effort to numb the pain of a possible sleep there! We did in the end get a basic cabin, but the drinking carried on, with our new Mexican friend Juan and his trucker pals, it all got very messy and nobody felt great this morning.
The ferry should have got in at 10, it got in at 11.30 then it took 3 painful hours to get through the military checkpoint. Speaking with a guy who works for a bearing business behind us in the queue I asked how businesses could operate in this environment, he admitted it was another day lost and it was a regular issue. We decided to spend the rest of the day here in La Paz, tomorrow hopefully we meet up with Kevin Raftery's brother Kieran and his wife Norma in Loreto where we'll have a few days rest!!