| 10 cycling days | 668 km | 6725 m ascent | 0 rain days |
Heading to Mexico from San Diego gave us two options: crossing the border in Tijuana or crossing it in Tecate. Tijuana would have been just south of San Diego, but the border crossing there is super busy, with lots and lots of lanes. On the map, Tecate looked a lot calmer, with only one small crossing point and the extra day of cycling seemed worth it to us. On top of that, it would give us a way cooler starting point for cycling in Baja California!
Saying goodbye to Kevin and Lucky was harder than thought and it was nearly lunch time, when we finally rolled out of the building. During our time in the US we had collected (very few) reward points at Domino’s Pizza and made sure to redeem them for free food that afternoon. That night was our last one in the US and we wild camped on public lands. That area seemed to regularly be used as a shooting range, with lots of trash and empty shells. The next morning, we seized the opportunity to finally try out our spare bear spray, which we had found in the US a while ago. There was no way we’d continue carrying the extra spray anymore, and without a label we couldn’t sell or give it away with a clear conscience anyways.
The next day, we arrived in Tecate and had one last lunch break in the US, before we rolled to the border. An officer waived us over to the pedestrian lane and we walked right through the gates. We missed the immigration office at first and had to turn around – we nearly accidentally walked straight into Mexico and nobody would have stopped us! After filling out some paperwork we had to walk to a building across the street and pay for the visa. We used the waiting time to withdraw our first Mexican Pesos as there was an ATM in the same room. Unfortunately, that ATM chose to withdraw money from the account without giving us the cash! There was nothing we could do on the spot, so that was a problem to be solved later on. After paying 861 MXN per person (~40€), we were issued a tourist visa for 180 days, got a stamp in our passport and before we knew it, we stood on the other side of the border, surrounded by beautiful Mexican chaos.
It was the first time in Mexico and it reminded us a lot of our last experience in a Spanish-speaking country, Chile. We immediately liked it! The roads often are an adventure by themselves, there’s always music coming from somewhere and every car was missing at least one part! After such a long time of spending way too much money on food alone, the first visit to a Mexican supermarket felt like heaven on earth. Other products, fresh “bread” (at least without hundreds of ingredients) and way better prices!
Baja California is beautiful and, despite the few roads, in parts very remote. Often, phone reception is limited to bigger towns only and at times we will have to carry water for several days. There is a very popular bikepacking route that zig zags across Baja California from North to South, called Baja Divide. Most of it is too bumpy or sandy for us with our relatively thin tires. Parts of it are both beautiful and doable for us though and we tried to incorporate as much of it as possible. After following the main road out of the city centre of Tecate, we turned onto a dirt road, following the Divide route for now. The road was sandy, but manageable and the landscape looked cool! We cycled for a bit and pitched our tent in the bushes, just when the sun set. No car was coming by the whole night.
We cycled on sand the entire next day, with hardly any traffic (if at all?) and a few burned cars at the side of the road. It was a lot of uphill in the morning, in parts very steep. We reached a farm around noon and refilled our water supplies. The road slowly flattened out and in the afternoon we even had some downhill! We arrived at the small town of Ojos Negros well after sunset. Unfortunately, the campsite looked very closed and we didn’t have any other option than staying in a hotel. With 30€ it was one of the most expensive ones we stayed in in Mexico until today. The rooms were fairly spacious and we were able to take both bikes into the room without a problem.
Manu and Thiago would be crossing into Mexico soon and we arranged to meet in San Felipe. That meant that our next few days were predetermined, but after Ojos Negros the road was paved and the distance we needed to cover wasn’t too much. We had two beautiful days of cycling with little traffic, lots of different cacti and good weather. We camped at a small restaurant, the owner let us stay for free and we had dinner at her restaurant. She took lots of pictures and made sure we followed her on Facebook! We arrived in San Felipe just a few minutes ahead of Manu and Thiago. Another Swiss couple they had met at the border in Mexicali joined us and we all spent the evening together.
The next morning, we said goodbye, not knowing, we’d soon see Manu and Thiago again! Unfortunately, they got into a small accident later that day and returned to a friend in San Felipe to assess the damage and get back on the road. We relocated to their place and we ended up spending nearly a whole day together, talking and enjoying the hospitality of their friend. Hans, originally from Austria, moved to the US years ago and spends most of his winters in Mexico.
Mexico is a country that can be quite overwhelming at first and I am not gonna lie – it took us some time to adjust and stop feeling scared all the time. When planning which route to take and where to sleep, we kept running into warnings of armed robberies and other things. The military (and even local police) are visibly present and armed heavily. You’ll see military checkpoints on the highway, their vehicles passing you on the road or parked at the gas station. That said, they usually don’t even want to talk to us. The few times they did, they only asked where we’re from and where we’re headed, or told us to have a nice day.
Without exception, every person we met so far has been incredibly friendly and even happy to see us, drivers honk at us cheerfully and some even handed us chocolate through the car window while passing. Truck drivers give us a ton of space on highways, even if there’s no shoulder for us to ride on. With every day, we felt more and more comfortable and learnt to enjoy our time here. (To be honest, I was way more afraid of the US before going there, as I was just not used to the high presence of weapons and the dangers that come with it.)
We followed the east coast of the Baja Peninsula south. Every now and then we could see the Gulf of California (also known as the Sea of Cortez) and had the opportunity to camp at the beach. We were even spoiled with a beautiful sunset! The sandy roads weren’t always the best ones to cycle on though…
We passed the Valle de los Gigantes, a valley full with “cardón cacti”, the worlds tallest cacti. Apparently they can only be found in a handful of regions in Mexico and they were indeed quite impressive! They can grow up to 18 meters in height and weigh up to 25 tons. The amount of gun holes from people shooting at the cacti were impressive as well, unfortunately…
Puertecitos is a small village on the coast with natural hot springs nestled in the rocks. We camped at the adjacent camp site and spent some time in the hot pools. We met a group of German overlanders at the camp site and were generously supplied with water and wifi. The next day we stopped at a little kiosk-like shop for snacks. Just when I was about to tell Sebi that now might be the time we have to start looking very carefully at the best before date (because stuff tends to be in the small stores for way too long), we saw the first mouldy bread on the shelf. I remembered that we had the same “issue” back in Chile in remote areas as well.
We continued to a small village in a gorgeous little bay and had the privilege to stay with two very lovely people. Mark and Cathy are avid (motor)cyclists and Mark had approached us a few days before in front of a supermarket. We had our own little guest room with bathroom, went snorkeling and shared some beautiful and inspiring conversations. We felt so relaxed and welcome, that we ended up staying a whole day!
Upon leaving, for the first time ever we forgot something and only noticed it after some 20 km of tedious uphill… After snorkeling, we had put the action cam somewhere to dry and didn’t see it when leaving. out of sight, out of mind! Without any phone reception, we had no other choice than turning around to pick it up, but Mark was kind enough to give us a lift back to where we turned around. Another ride on the back of a pickup truck, for Sebi at least!
Published on March 06, 2026
Experienced from 06.12. – 17.12.2025
