Roar and I left for our adventure around 1 pm from Huntington Beach on Wednesday, February 6th. Our motorcycles are 2007 Kawasaki KLR 650′s, an enduro type bike that’s good on and off road (Mine’s red and his is black). Both of us have the same hard saddle bags, which are modified Pelican cases. We made some modifications to the bikes, which I can cover in a separate post for the people interested in specifics.

The ride to San Diego was an uneventful hour and a half ride down I-5. We planned to arrive in Ensenada, Mexico the first night since it’s normally a 3-4 hour drive by car from Huntington Beach. Our general plan was only to ride during the day and avoid riding at night, if possible. In Latin America, nighttime riding is dangerous, especially to motorcyclists. Aside from the threat of bandits and drunk drivers, you just can’t see those potholes, cattle, sand, cars with no lights or other endless hazards before it’s too late.

We arrived on the U.S. side to buy insurance at around 3:45 pm and crossed over to the Mexican side shortly thereafter. Usually, on the straight shots to Ensenada for a weekend of fun my friends and I never stop at the border. It’s not a requirement for short gringo trips.

MexicoInsurance

This time, however, we pulled right over once we got through the initial gates to get our visas. We paid our twenty bucks, had our passports stamped, and walked towards our parked bikes when Roar spotted our first bit of luck on the trip….a four inch rusty nail had punctured one of the knobbies on his rear tire! It was kind of like a gross earring in the tire but, thankfully, it didn’t puncture the tire or the tube so Roar snapped a photo and just pulled it out. A punctured tire at that point would have been like Wiley Coyote lighting off a huge Acme rocket, only to have it fizzle and drop on top of him. What a bummer that would have been! A flat tire at the busy, Tijuana border near the end of the day…

NailInTire

The other thing we needed was to get an import permit for the motorcycles. Given the chaotic nature of Tijuana it was surprising how easy it was to find. We paid our thirty bucks, which let us keep the bikes in Mexico for up to 180 days and hit the road by 4:30 pm. I was a little bit worried about the time since the sun was about to go down but I was familiar with the road and with Ensenada so breaking the “no driving at night” rule wouldn’t be such a big deal this time.

The scenic toll road to Ensenada rolls through coastal bluffs and follows along the Pacific coast. I’ve taken this road at least a dozen times but I’ve never seen it so beautiful. I’m serious. It sounds cheesy but the day was extremely clear (a bit cold) and with the last long rays of the sun, the whole coast had this incredibly soft, golden glow. That, plus the fact that it was the start of our trip, made it the best drive ever down that highway.

There are a couple of really curvy sections with no guard rails that I knew would be coming up that concerned me. Our motorcycles are not very aerodynamic and gusts of wind find the parts of the bike that wish they were wings instead like our fenders. Racing to beat the falling sun we were hitting top speeds of 85 to 95 mph. On my old streetbike, that speed would feel like driving 55 mph in grandma’s car. On these bikes, everything rattles and shakes.

I got my first bit of adrenaline when we hit one of those curvy stretches of road with the steep cliffs to the ocean. The heavy gusts of wind hit me and I fought my weighted down bike to keep it from drifting into oncoming traffic or down a cliff. Funny, how you can go from a smooth, incredibly fun, gorgeous ride to one where you’re afraid of losing control and getting killed. Thankfully, that stretch was over in a few minutes…just in time for Roar to race past me and pull over to tell me that my lights were out.

Great, I must’ve blown a fuse since I noticed that my heated grips weren’t working and the instrument panel was dark as well. Roar took the lead as the light started to fade. Fortunately, we had another 16 miles or so and we were out of the twisties. We switched positions since Roar couldn’t see me in the rear view mirror and I went on into the darkness. There were only a couple of totally dark curves but I slowed down considerably. Hard to ride when you’re blind. We rolled into Ensenada and stopped right away into the El Cid hotel.

Excited and exhilirated at having finally started our adventure we went to a nearby steakhouse for fat steaks and well deserved beers. The nightlife was dead on a Wednesday so we hit the sack around midnight intending to get a full day of riding the next day….