On the road to Tecate.

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Tecate, 05-10-2002.
I leave Tijuana in a cloud of red dust hurled up by the heavy passing traffic, big mexican trucks and huge americam mobile homes, mexicans on motorbikes and rusty old cars overtake me in a mad rush for Ensanada. Luckily for me Ensanada is not my goal, I'm heading for Tecate which is 55 km. east of Tijuana.
Fiftyfive km. for the first day on my bike seems like a nice bit of distance and apart from that I'm keen on visiting the world famous Tecate brewery that brews my most favorite and nr. one beer aptly called Tecate.
Turning onto the highway to Tecate - if you can call it that, just a dusty badly maintained asphalted road full with potholes - I quickly get rid of that carzy traffic rush and finally feel alone, alone with the weirdly shaped basalt rocks, the barrel cacti and agave plants that line the road, gulls high up in the sky and the strange barking of coyotes that echos from beyond low hills.
My mind goes on a certain high produced by the huge amounts of adraline caused by the physical excersize of cycling and the happy feeling of being far away from home and doing something adventurous like this.
The mexican sun is hot and dry beaming down on my unprotected gringo head, my legs do all the work, up and down on the pedals they go. A flock of mexican quail the size of small hens coming out of an organ pipe cactus forest crosses the road right in front of me, disturbed and frightened by my sudden noiceless appaerance they scatter in all directions....I'm engulved by them and stop my bike feeling worried they might get themselves killed in the spokes of my wheels...once they have all settled down I can hear them calling to one another trying to get the group together.
Individual birds quickly cross the road giving me curious looks while disappearing in the cactus forest.
The road goes up across a hill and down again, down to a valley with green meadows and a few lone rancheros, I see no signs of human life, just abandoned old ranch houses, no animals apart from some stray chicken that eye me suspiciously while I cycle by.
Tecate is getting closer and I've already decided to cash out on a bit better hotel as the cockroach- and rat invested hotel I slept in last night, where hard working mexican ladies were hanging out in front of the hotel's entrance luring fat bellied semi-drunk americano males back to their dingy rooms, offering a short time service for a fist full of american green backs.

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