As I was checking out from the motel, I met two French guys in the parking lot who were going in the opposite direction. One of them was apparently living in the States (L.A. – I think) and had his own bike, a BMW. The other one was visiting for a couple of weeks around the region and had rented a Harley. They were targeting Tucson so I mentioned that the Sabino Canyon was worth the visit. I left my card with them and then took off for a 2 1/2- to 3-hour ride to San Diego. For the first time, I had found a host on couchsurfing.com who agreed to host me for one or two nights… hurrah!
The I-8 leaving Yuma was very quickly crossing a desert area with sand dunes and I noticed many people riding the dunes on ATVs and off-road bikes. I don’t have much tracking of my stops that day, at least until 11am, when I realized my tracker was off. I believe I refueled once in El Centro, which was a little city that amazed me because it was in the middle of the desert but still had green fields everywhere.
My first non-refueling stop was when desert started to give space to some mountains and the road started twisting around. Reaching the Desert View Tower, I parked the bike to enjoy the view; however, was a bit worried by the amount of wind that was starting to blow. The view was impressive – rocks, rocks, and more rocks. It looked like the hills a mining company would have left behind.
With the wind getting stronger and stronger, I then continued my way through the twisty road in the Campo Indian Reservation. I was feeling a bit tense and fearful, due to the wind gusts that were pushing the bike from time to time and started riding with my hazard lights on so that cars or trucks passing me would be careful. I didn’t see any other biker on the road that day, but it must have been fun watching me ride with a constant leaning angle of 20-30 degrees. Despite the beautiful landscape, I don’t remember that day as being my best riding day – some 100km of that stress was not so much fun.
Once passed the mountains, San Diego began to reveal itself. I rode to downtown and stopped at a Starbucks, where I spent a few hours waiting for my host to get home from work. Coming closer to the time he had suggested I could show up, I decided to move to another Starbucks closer to his place. That was a terrible decision as I reached that Starbucks totally soaked by the rain that started right after I left. Shortly after that, I got a message my host was home so I headed to his place.
Rafael and his tenant really made me feel at home and gave me back some hope with the couchsurfing system. We went out for dinner to get some Thai food at a place nearby. On Sunday, the amount of wind that was blowing in San Diego kept me at Rafael’s house, since I didn’t want to experiment riding again like the previous day. We went to Barrio Logan in the afternoon for a late lunch at Salud, a local taqueria.
Rafeal drove me around some parts of the city so I got to know it a bit. It rained pretty much the rest of Sunday so we ended up watching movie, inclusive of one of Rafael’s favorites, Anne of Green Gables – it reminded me of the Little House on the Prairie I was watching as a kid.
I planned to get back to Barrio Logan the next day and also visit Balboa Park before leaving for L.A. My only hope was that the weather would improve…
