Oregon Cycling Magazine

by Peter Marsh
It’s been ten years since I turned 50 and started taking a winter biking break south of the border. Ten years later, I’m still game for more adventures in Mexico and points south, but “an unfortunate series of events” around my 60th birthday caused me to take an interesting detour in December. Almost every morning for ten days, I found myself commuting to Mexico on a borrowed bike for a fascinating half hour ride from Yuma, Arizona.

Once past old Fort Yuma and over the small bridge across the Colorado River, I entered California and a back road that took me through some of the most fertile farmland in the world. I rode past irrigated fields filled to bursting with lettuce of all colors and shapes, past one trailer park surrounded by palm trees, then onto the Quechan Indian reservation where the rocky ground was dotted with travel trailers inhabited by the more resourceful of the area’s winter population of “snowbirds.”

After a short climb, I crossed over the I-8 freeway and joined the line of traffic for the last half mile to the Mexican border. While everyone else was busy finding a parking space, I rolled into Mexico—having ridden through two states, two time zones and two countries! The reason why the town of Algodones (”the cotton plants” in Spanish) is such a magnet for tourists is not the typical beach, pyramid or market—Algodones is the home to more dentists per block than anywhere else in the world!

Having casually visited Latin American dentists every winter since 2001, this was not a new step for me—I’ve even learned how to keep a little conversation going—in Spanish—with my mouth full! But this booming border town has built its reputation for “medical tourism” by delivering high-class low-cost dental treatment to the American retirees who flock to the Arizona desert every winter.

While I loved riding the old road parallel to the freeway in the morning, this region is really not “bike friendly.” The city of 90,000 has just three blocks of “old town” that are suitable for strolling and contains some of the widest side streets in the world—about 6 car lanes could fit across them! I only saw two older people on bikes in a week, and they were both on the sidewalk! In fact you won’t see many young people here at all, because they too must drive everywhere.

The other advantage of “cross-border dentistry” is that there is no waiting, but after three days of gum examination and treatment, I was told I had to heal for a few days until I could be fitted for the new bridges I desperately needed. So I got up the next morning with my temporary teeth in place, got back on the bike and started exploring around my friend’s property and mobile home south of Yuma out among the citrus orchards.

Each orchard is crossed by wide sandy access-roads packed down by farm vehicles that make for great big-tire riding. After a few minutes, I came across an added attraction, one of the irrigation canals that brings the water from the Colorado River that turns the desert green. Riding the riverbank is one of my favorite routes in Oregon, and I happily settled on “canal cruising” as the local substitute.

The sky was blue with temperature in the 60s, the canals ran for miles in straight lines with only an occasional turn, and I rolled on for 15-20 minutes on each leg of a big square course until I came across sheep grazing on green pasture with date palms growing nearby and only sand beyond! When I moved back into the orchards for the last leg, I was back among the lemon trees, which made the discovery of edible fruit a goal. Eventually, I passed a lone grapefruit tree with the last of the crop lying at its base and loaded my pockets with ripe fruit,

The next week it was back to the border-crossing routine on Tuesday, with only a two-day wait until my bridges were ready. Thursday, the final day, I took my last ride to the front of the long line of cars waiting to enter the US, was waived ahead by the border guards, and set off up the hill and over the freeway. But this time, I turned west onto a dirt road that by-passed the California border inspection station, almost came to a halt as the dirt turned to sand, then struggled out to a black-top side road that led to the remarkable settlement of Felicity.

It’s hard to describe this place in a few words: it is the dream-come-true of Jacques-Andre Istel, who wrote the children’s book “Coe, the Good Dragon at the Center of the World” and decided to put the imaginary center of the world in the title at the foot of the existing Chocolate Mountains. The pyramid was suggested in jest by his wife as he wrote the book “It’s in the desert, why not a pyramid?” As men are wont to do, he took his wife seriously. So why not go ahead and make it all real? The author built the pyramid, named the town for his wife, and thereafter ran for Mayor!

Be generous, kind reader, for in a town named Felicity (www.felicityusa.com) how can one think unkind thoughts? For a nominal fee ($2) you too can stand at the center of the earth inside the pyramid, receive a certificate attesting to this achievement, then inspect the encyclopedic “highlights of the collective memory of humanity” engraved in granite on 100’ long triangular walls. All this just a stone’s throw from the freeway in the middle of the Sonoran Desert!

Conveniently adjacent to Felicity is a California Highway Patrol station, where I was told it was permissible to ride on the freeway shoulder to the next exit—the only alternative being the sand pit! So with a cool wind at my back, I began the two-hour ride home, avoiding the rush hour in Yuma by following the canal path through the middle of town. I was beginning to see the advantages of wintering on the borderline…

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