DOWN MEXICO WAY

Dee and I decided to get some winter sunshine by riding northern Mexico and the Baja Peninsula. Baja California is hot, dry and seemingly inhospitable, while northern Mexico is arid semi-desert until you reach the northern foothills of the Sierra Madre Occidental range. We have previously ridden similar landscapes in Africa, South America and the USA, loving the emptiness, solitude, mountain ranges and giant cacti that characterise landscapes like these.

Texas-based Moto Discovery Motorcycle Tours would be our guides, providing a 2017 Africa Twin and taking us from Nogales on the USA/Mexico border, south through San Carlos and El Fuerte to catch an overnight ferry from Topolobampo to La Paz at the southern end of the Baja Peninsula. Then we'd ride through the southern beach resorts of Todos Santas and Los Barriles before heading north and alternating between the Gulf of California and Pacific coasts of the peninsula, through Loreto, Guerrero Negro, Catavina and Ensenada, to cross the border back into the USA at Tecate.

STRONG START

Crossing into Mexico was fairly straightforward. The process of temporarily importing the bike