Now we are two. Or three, or four, or five.

I had no intention of joining another cyclist on this tour. I imagined and anticipated weeks, if not months of relative solitude, speaking only casual Spanish to the multitudes of mini-super clerks, soldiers at ubiquitous military checkpoints, restaurant owners, and occasional curious strangers. But, things almost always pan out differently than expected, and to quote Lao Tzu, "A good traveler has no fixed plans..."
After eight days of solo travel through Mexico, two of those through the Parque Natural de Desierto Central de Baja California, it came as a welcome surprise when a tall, skinny, relatively pale and red-haired gentleman approached me outside of an abarrotes (mini-market) in Cataviña.
"Where are you headed?" came the standard bike-tourist greeting, asked in perfect-yet-German-accented English.
Pascal was touring, alone and with an open-ended schedule, after having completed studies in Germany. He was staying at a small campsite just South, so I joined him for the evening. We shared beers and small talk and a few songs on my little travel guitar (the one military checkpoint personnel always assume is a rifle). It was good to have company.
In the morning, he was much faster breaking down camp, so we bid each other farewell. There's only one main highway down the Baja peninsula, so the likelihood of encountering another, traveling at more or less the same speed, is very high. We met up again that evening, and the following, under similarly casual circumstances.
"Hey, buddy! Good to run into you again, I figured I'd lost you. Well, maybe see ya down the road?"
In many ways, it's an ideal traveling partnership. No falling back, no waiting up, no expectation, stress or argument. Just the possibility of meeting up later on, for a couple beers and some great conversation. Or maybe not. But the road seems to make happen what should.
Anyway, it's a week later and I'm lounging in a hammock strung between two palms, next to a cool river in the desert oasis of San Ignacio. It's idyllic, and one of the few-and-far-between yet totally crucial days of rest and escape from the sweltering desert tarmac. In my company are Pascal and three other touring cyclists who arrived last night, two from Alaska and one from Tijuana. It's our little tribe, and it feels uplifting. We may all leave tomorrow, some of us may not, but it's all okay. Sometimes it feels good not to know.