August 18-19 2007
The second annual La Bufadora Adventure Race was held Sunday August 19. The event is now a 2 day affair with classes on kayaking and rappel held on Saturday and the race on Sunday. This year saw the first children’s race “La Carrera del Niño’s”, held before the Adult race.
Saturday
Baja Aquatics graciously loaned us 25 double kayaks on Saturday to teach people how to kayak, and then prepared those boats for the race Sunday. After 4 PM we had their staff, who normally give kayak tours for the cruise ships, teach over 100 people, from small children to adults, how to paddle and rescue themselves should they tip the boat over. There was no surf which took away the scare factor, and many people, some who never even raced, took the opportunity to try kayaking for the first time.
At the same time we had volunteers from the Ensenada Search and Rescue and the local climbing gym showing how to rappel.
Lined up and waiting, the first 50 people grabbed kayaks soon after 4 PM and the remainder went over to the rappel. After about 90 minutes these two groups swapped.
The kayakers got to paddle over to the blowhole and some were surprised to see it puff up once or twice. Not very big in my estimation (because I have seen it on a rough day when the blowhole shoots 400+ ft into the air), but they did get to see it from the ocean side. There were sea lions peeking at the group which made for a very exciting afternoon for the many children present. One girl found a sea snail on some kelp and an impromptu biology lesson followed. As well as learning it was a fun afternoon of paddling with family.
On the ropes more than 60 people learned how to buckle in and walk backwards down the cliff. The place chosen was a dirt cliff that you can actually walk down without a rope, but the idea was to instill confidence in people and let them experience having all their weight on the rope leaning back. Most of the children thought it was fun, many having more bravado than their parents.
The huge group stayed rappelling and kayaking until the sun went behind the hill and then it was dinner time; a couple of beers, margaritas and tacos. Most of our group was into bed by about 10 PM, trying to sleep as some obnoxious motor home people sat around a campfire cussing each other as they swilled beer. They were bummed that our tents took away from their ocean view.
Sunday
La Carrerra del Niño’s
At 8:30 we had the children gather where they were broken into age groups (4,5,6 – 7,8,9 – 10,11,12 and teenagers). Each was given a map and passport and volunteer helpers explained in English and Spanish how the race would work.
There were 7 points within a 2½ mile area, but the younger children (4,5,6) had to go to just 4 points all within about 1 mile. As age increased they had to go to more points. They also had to take a trash bag with them and pick up as many pieces of trash as their age. As organizers, we were all very happy how enthusiastic they were at picking up the trash. An earlier email to the parents had explained why it was important to pick up trash (something we want to ingrain in the children as our environment gathers more trash by the day) and the parents were great at explaining it to the kids. In fact this turned out so good that many in the adults race gathered trash also.
The 20 racers started the race early (you don’t keep children waiting once they understand what they have to do), and the first one was back in about 30 minutes. He was one of the 4 year olds who went to one point and lost interest. But he still got to get a bag of chips, a bag of gummy bears and a box of juice. The second child was back 2 minutes later, he got all 4 points so we declared him first place in the 4,5,6 age group. Each child got the same prize and we purposely never had any award ceremony as we wanted them all to feel like they were winners.
The Adult Race
I had made a mistake on the instructions and everyone (from Mexico) was giving me a hard time about it. I called the children’s race “La Carrera del Niño’s”, The race of the Children, and wanting to be a bit different I called the adults race “La Raza de los Adultos”. This is translated literally as “the race of the adults”, however “raza”, I have now learned, is “race” as in your ethnic origin. Oh well !
We had 79 people in the adults race and they were on 31 teams. Some were solo, some 2, 3, 4 and we had one 5 person team. This is all about fun so we don’t really care how you race. There were more people than kayaks, even when some people had their own kayaks so we had to start some teams on the bike then they came back 2 hours later and did the kayak before finishing with the run section. But most started on the kayak, which took about 1 hour, then they did bike and run. The run was really a fast walk as it was on a steep hill to the radio towers and a mile of it was bushwhacking, across the cactus and chaparral.
The kayak section had 2 checkpoints but those using the sit-on-tops had to gather just one of the points (about 4 miles). The contestants in the faster boats (and those wanting more of a workout) paddled 3 miles further to get the second kayak point. The additional distance showed in the final results as the more experienced racers were 5 minutes behind the first finishers.
After the kayak, the racers had about a 16 mile bike and hike-a-bike. They had to navigate their way through the housing around Rancho La Bufadora and locate a small single-track that took them onto an uphill road out to the main road. Then they descended onto a newly graded dirt road along the north side of Punta Banda to the tip of the point and the lighthouse, which was bike checkpoint 2 (Todos Santos Island in the background of the picture below). They continued around the point looking for newly cut roads rather than using the map which only had one road marked. This led them to a harrowing single track along the southern cliffs. For most it was a 1 mile hike-a-bike. This section was made optional as a fall would have been very painful onto any huge cactus, or over a 40 ft cliff to a rocky shore. But everyone elected to take it easy and they all negotiated the narrow, but distinctive, trail used by local fishermen. The reward at the end was a fast downhill on paved road back to the TA.
The last section of the race was the 7 mile “run”. It started with a heart pounding steep uphill on a rough trail to the flatter plateau. Then they followed critter trails to the next checkpoint, purposely placed so that they had a choice to go to the next checkpoint cross-country up one of two ridges, or the safer and almost 1 mile longer backtrack to use roads. Most were in the competitive spirit and elected to bushwhack through the cactus and chaparral. This took them to the top of the hill with the radio towers where they were rewarded with spectacular clear views all the way back to Ensenada and along the coastline of Punta Banda.
With a fun race like this, it was hard to declare a winner as teams took different routes and some went the long course and some the shorter course, plus, we started them at different times as some did the bike before the kayak. So the first 5 teams to complete the course were all declared the winner as either; first overall (3 hrs 48 minutes), first solo (also 3 hours 48 minutes), first 2 person team, first long course solo and first long course team. A couple of teams dropped along the way and a couple of teams never had bicycles so skipped that section. But most teams completed the race and those from the USA then had the long journey home on a Sunday through Mexican traffic, a long border crossing and then San Diego to LA traffic.
Many have already signed up for the race next year as it is more about a fun weekend and a good workout in a relaxing atmosphere, than about winning – the adult prize is free entry in next years free race. For the price its easy to see why we had so many repeat racers this year and why we expect them to keep journeying south of the border to enjoy the seaside camping at Rancho La Bufadora.
A big thanks to Victor from Baja Aquatics for the loan of the kayaks, to Jim, Elaina, Eddie, Carlos and Juan for taking the time to teach the kayak and rappel and to Rancho La Bufadora for the free camping and a beautiful site to have a race.
