(October 22 – written by Dave)

Yesterday was PBV day, chilled, relaxed and really not much to do.  I did have one job however.  In the early afternoon I received an email from Frederik.  It turns out that Seb had lost his swimmers (swim shorts) somewhere and they wanted me to check around their beach hut.  I checked the hut, and then walked the path they took from the hut to the restaurant and finally out to the highway.  I figured that Seb would have forgotten to tie them on and that they would have bounced off before returning the highway.  No shorts were found.

I duly sent an email back to the boys, offered to keep an eye out today while riding and forgot about the whole incident.  Some readers may remember back on 9 Sept when we recounted Frederik catching a thief in large part because of his “loud” shorts.  The rest of Seb’s short story certainly doesn’t involve a thief but it further reinforces the notion that loud or memorable shorts are the way to go.

Nancy and I had lunch in the bar/restaurant where the view is perfect and they have WiFi.  I wasn’t going to do a post but thought it would be fun to throw up a few of the fun photos we took during the day.  So while Nancy headed back to the room, I whacked out a quick post.  Being early season, there were few other customers.  The owner (Nathan) and his right-hand-man (Juan) came over to chat about life and the universe.  Once these topics were completed, Nathan mentioned that he had seen the guys out swimming late last night.  I casually mentioned that Seb, one of the other bikers, had lost his swimmers and inquired if they’d seen them.

Nathan suddenly burst out laughing.  Juan got a funny look on his face.  The penny dropped for me, Juan was wearing Seb’s swimmers.  He had found them on the path between the hut and restaurant and because he couldn’t find an owner, he decided that they would be his new shorts.  He really liked the colours and had proudly shown them off to Nathan.  We were all busting up laughing at this point – before Juan ran off to his trailer to quickly change.

Juan returned minutes later with Seb’s shorts in a bag, saying that Seb need not worry because he had showered two days ago.  I didn’t have the heart to tell Juan that Seb, being a poor travelling cyclist, had not showered himself in days.  And no prizes for guessing who, between Nancy and me, is carrying the twice worn, need a clean, swimmers.  We hope to catch Seb in La Paz and return the shorts.  I’m committed to carrying them that far but no further!

Back to today – what a great day riding we had.  I mentioned the wind coming up yesterday afternoon in my post, but didn’t mention the direction.  Well, it was coming out of the north and unlike the day before, the wind did not die down overnight.  We got an early start at 7:10 to beat the heat and we had a ripper tailwind from the get go.  We were riding right at sunrise and boy did we have smiles on our faces.  Eventually we had to climb away from Conception Bay and the hills slowed us but for a good part of the day we averaged 30 KPH and we weren’t peddling all that hard.

Oh yeah, the morning light and sunrise was great again as well – I have to be careful not to take these for granted but we do get a nice sunrise almost every day.

We only made two stops all day (other than photo stops).  The first for empanadas and a cold drink, the second at a military checkpoint where there was a small store and we ate our sandwiches.  We rode into Loreto at 12:30, having covered 100k in near record time.

Great navigation took us right to the town square and a find local restaurant for fish tacos.  We spotted the Canadian cyclist at the other end of the square and also learned the Seb and Frederik had ridden on in the morning (no shorts hand-off today).  While sitting there a fancy motorcycle, with sidecar rolled in as well.

We lingered long enough for the motorcyclists to wander down to our restaurant and what do you know, it was a couple that we’d met up in Alaska on the 3rd day of our trip.  Nancy recognised them right away and before long we were exchanging trip stories.  They travel further each day than we do but also have their young daughter with them so they are not super fast.  They may be here for a day or two, like us, so we hope to catch up with them again tonight or tomorrow.

Last stop of the day was our AirB&B – where we will be spending 5 nights.  What a find.  It’s not far off the main square has lovely American host by the name of Joa (whose real name is Nancy but only her mum called her that when she was in trouble so we committed not to call her that!).  The fridge was stocked with cold drinks and it is the cleanest place we’ve staying in Mexico – Nancy gave it two thumbs up.  If that wasn’t enough, Joa informed us that Wednesday is the 320 year anniversary of the founding of Loreto and that there are events in the square all week.  So, we’ll have plenty to see and do while also getting some rest.

We have WiFi and phone signal for the first time in weeks.  But I’m not sure how many posts will get written between here and Friday.  Time will tell…