Mexico - Day 9 - The long and (not very) winding road

The hotel had a much better than average breakfast and I was packed and ready to go earlier than normal. I stopped at the PeMex station to fill up and the attendant saved me some hunting around by pointing out the correct road, which was not the one I was going to take.

Along the way I stopped for more gas and found this motorcycle. Why anyone would want to name a motorcycle after one of the worst cities in the U.S. I have no idea but there it was.

This was a day of just riding and stacking up miles. The Sierra Madre was long gone in my mirrors and I was looking ahead to endless prairies. In my journal I noted that,

"This road is about as exciting as driving from Winnemucca to Elko Nevada."

For a while there was more road construction with little oncoming traffic so I was able to let the AT pull ahead and have some fun but otherwise it was just sit and ride.

At one point I pulled over to check my luggage straps (code for I had to pee) and met a rancher who was taking this road. We chatted for a while and I should have asked to see his ranch. I missed a few opportunities like that on the trip. I'll know better not to be so shy next time.

And on, and on ...

How boring was it? Watching all the digits on my odometer line up was one of the high points of my day!!

But it was beautiful as the sun was setting and I wound through some hills. I arrived in Cuatro Cienegas de Carranza while there was still plenty of light and was able to locate a hotel for the night. Modernish with WiFi, I was able to pick up my email and catch up with the world. 

Across the street was one of the ubiquitous open air restaurants and I sat down to enjoy my meal. We started chatting and one thing led to another. I whipped out the Fuji instant camera and once again we were all instant best friends. I knew this was going to be my last night in Mexico and couldn't think of a better way to spend it.

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Mexico - Day 8 - Out of the canyons

Lupe and the Africa Twin

I got up in the morning and was ready to hit the road. It would have been nice to have stayed a few more days but it was time to go. I may have mentioned how hard the seat on the AT was. I had a lot of riding ahead of me and thought that maybe a fluffy bath towel might make a decent seat pad. I asked Lupe, the manager, if I could buy the towel I had used but she said no. Then she hurried off and returned with a freshly laundered one for me. When I asked how much she refused anything and said it was a gift. Could there have been a better send off?

I filled my tank at the local gas station. I have no idea where the gas came from but it didn't give the engine any problems.

Here I'm heading out on the road along the river and decided I wanted a picture of me with my New England Trail Riders t-shirt. We ride anywhere and everywhere.

Another picture of the canyon landscape. I'm winding back through all of the construction to get to the highway.

And I get to wait. 3 ½ hours to be specific.

That is the same Cat D-9 clearing the road again. This is their biggest model and you can see how tiny it looks next to the drop off the cliff. I'm glad he knew what he was doing because it looked pretty perilous!

Finally past the construction it was a look back at what I was leaving.

And a look forward to where I was going. 

It wasn't until later that I realized that I had lost my tent in all the bouncing around. The tent, in its slippery nylon bag, had taken the opportunity to jump free and stay in the canyons. Lucky it!

The rest of the day was spent riding down out of the mountains and onto rolling prairie. There was no excitement until the engine coughed, sputtered, and died. I flipped it to reserve but that was no help. I rolled to a stop and tried the starter and got nothing. The battery was too low to even turn the engine over. Arrgh! The regulator had died again!

I turned off the headlights and let the bike sit for a couple of minutes. Then I rolled down the hill and tried bump starting it. I caught on the second try and ran fine without the lights. However, I had lost so much time waiting at the construction site that it was late afternoon. Since I had lost my tent camping was not really an option so I hurried to Hidalgo del Parrall without stopping for any more photos.

Hidalgo del Parral is a big city, it was getting dark, and I only dared turn on the parking lights so that people could see me. My guide book suggested the Hotel El Camino Real as a good place that was clean and cheap. However, this was no small village and my chances of finding it were slim and none. I just kept following the flow of traffic through crowded streets trying to find any place to stay for the night. It seemed to be going on forever and my anxiety was growing by the mile.

Then, once again, luck smiled on me. There, on the corner I was about to turn, was the Hotel El Camino Real. It was with much relief that I pulled in and inquired about a room. 550 pesos for the room with breakfast in the morning. I would have paid twice that to get off the road with no lights. I was a very happy camper as I laid my head on the pillow.

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Mexico - Day 7 - Batopilas

Courtyard

Having arrived and taken a hot shower I was ready to hit the town. This consisted of walking out my door, across the central courtyard of the hotel, turning right on the street and walking two blocks. The town is very small.

Veranda

I immediately got lucky and met a couple of other travelers, Anna and Carlos, from Madrid. They were traveling with a guide, Noel, who drove them down from Creel. They were leaving for dinner and invited me to join them. We walked a couple of blocks to Resturante Carolina. A tiny place where we were the only patrons. However, the trout we ate was obviously swimming in the river that morning and was quite tasty. They politely tolerated my Spanish and corrected my pronunciation when it implied another word that didn't fit. There was a lot of smiles and laughter.

This is the place I was hoping to find when I first started planning on visiting Mexico and the Copper Canyons. If not for the modern Chevy pickups it would be easy to imagine that I was transported 100 years into the past. I stayed for a couple of days to soak it all in. Batopilas is an old mining town in the bottom of the canyon at the edge of the river. 

Town Plaza with Gazebo

Church across from plaza

In the morning we all went out for breakfast and then Anna and Carlos went for a hike while I walked around town and poked into things without any plan.

Women washing clothes on the rocks in the river

I ran into Noel later and he pointed me towards the abandoned mines.

I never found the mines but I did find an empty house that I was thinking would make a nice winter home.

I walked back to town along a canal built to supply water to the town when the mine was in operation.

I met these teenage boys who started to tease me a bit until I whipped out my Fuji instant camera and took their pictures. Immediately I was their best friend and welcome to hang out with them any time. This camera is the best ice breaker in the world and I've used it often in my travels.

After a siesta I rode the bike, with no luggage, to the next town of Satevo. I had a blast sliding the rear around the corners on this class 2 road. Keeping in mind that a trip over the edge of this one lane road might be fatal ...

I ran into Anna, Carlos, and Noel at the church in Satevo and we explored the interior.

It looked as if it were little used any more.

The bell tower was a temptation not to be passed up although the ladders to the top were pretty shaky. The upper one merely rested on a ledge with nothing to hold it. I trusted that today was not the day God would be calling me.

While the others went back I wanted to explore a bit more and continued down the road to see where it led. 

It wasn't long before I found out. I would have to cross the river if I wanted to continue. Either ride it across the foot bridge or take it swimming. I decided against both.

It was with a certain melancholy that I realized that I had arrived at the apex of my trip. This is as far as I was going, everything from here on out would be heading away from Mexico. I had a long way to go but now I was heading home to Connecticut.

At least I was leaving on high note. Sunday night at the plaza was a treat. Women were selling homemade food from tables around the edge while music played from the gazebo. This was small town Mexico at its best. Couples walked around chatting with families who sat with their babes in arms. Children were running around like children will, shouting and playing with energy I could only envy. 

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Mexico - Day 6 - Part 2 (the hard part)

Humming along, singing my song, thinking that everything was going a little too well to stay that way, I wondered where the adventure was. My friend Kevin had visited Batopilas a couple of years before and told me that the road was complete paved now.

Crap! How can I be a rough tough biker guy when the road is so smooth and curvey?

OK, make that a lot of curves! Suddenly I'm faced with switchbacks to match anything the Stelvio Pass has to offer. It drops like a rock and is as tight as a drum.



Fun. But also a lot of work on knobbie tires.

Then I met Daniel. He was the flagman on the construction project I hadn't expected. His guess was 30-60 minutes to wait until I could pass. Since I was the only one on the road we wisely decided to wait in the shade until the All Clear came through. It was a great chance to practice our Spanish and English on each other.

This is what lay around the curve for me. All that adventure I was yearning for was waiting for me in vast quantities. Massive rock slides had totally wiped out the road.



You can see me following a Cat D-9 that was punching a notch into the rubble so I could get through. I followed him a little too closely and missed the cutoff for the switchback that would take me down to the river. Trying to make a U-Turn by skidding the rear wheel without launching me over the edge was a bit nerve wracking.


Crossing the bridge I found more of the same going up the other side of the canyon. The Africa Twin and the TKC-80 tires dug in and gave me as much confidence as was possible in the situation.

When I finally rolled into Batopilas I was tired and it was getting dark. I had expected to have time to walk through the town and look for the hotel that my trusty guidebook recommended. What I got was a tour of the town behind a pickup truck full of the local police militia. They were friendly and waved to me but I wanted to make sure they took no special interest in me so I followed meekly behind them. I took a turn that I hoped looked like I knew where I was going and ended up in a dead end.

It was getting dark and I was not happy. As I retraced my path an old woman yelled, "Do you want a hotel?" I stopped and said I was looking for the Hotel Minas. She replied that this was the Hotel Minas. My gringo suspicion kicked in for a moment before I looked up and realized that I was about to drive past the very place I was looking for.

I asked, "Agua caliente?" She replied, "Si" The gods had smiled upon me. There would be a hot shower tonight.

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Mexico - Day 6 - Part 1

Note: I've been back in Connecticut for about 10 days. The recent posts are to back fill and expand the spaces where I wasn't able to post pictures or complete reports while south of the border. Some people's comments implied that there was some confusion about this.

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Breakfast at Margarita's was good and I packed up and hit the road. My plan was to visit Urique for the night and then bushwhack over to Batopilas the next day. As usual, my plan was long on imagination and short on reality.

Everything went well as far as El Divisadero. It was a pleasant road on a warm morning that paralleled the railroad tracks. I was hoping to see one of the trains but was disappointed. I would have checked the schedule if I had known how close they were.

At El Divisadero I paid my 20 peso fee and entered the Parque Ecoturistico Barrancas del Cobre. This is somewhat amusing as the Parque is composed only of a few viewing points into the canyons. 

However, the view is worth every peso!! This is four photos stitched together and it doesn't begin to convey the immense size and scope of the grandeur before me.

I walked from point to point trying to take it all in. I couldn't. At the Grand Canyon there were defined edges, this is the south rim, that is the north rim, those are some pinnacles sticking up. Here it was just too big. No matter where I looked it just kept going, on and on. If my eyes focused on one thing they lost something else.

So I got back on my bike, more than a little humbled by the landscape, and headed for Bahuichivo. There were plenty of signs and a brand new road. An easy ride today, What could go wrong?

In the U.S. they pave the roadbed, then they put in the guard rails, then they paint the stripes, and finally they open the road. It seems in Mexico they do it all at once. The pavement just stopped. As you can see the guard rails are in place, and the stripes are only a hundred meters behind me. I cautiously moved forward thinking that the knobbie tires would take me through the construction site but there was nowhere to go. They hadn't dug out the route yet and there was only the hills and cliffs on the other side. Not that anyone cared. If I had given it a try I'm sure they would have cheered me on and laughed when I tumbled into the canyon below.

What seems to have happened is that there was a sign that diverted me over to a detour. This was up a pretty sketchy single lane road that had loaded dump trucks coming down. They would have considered the mighty Africa Twin no more than another bump in the road as their brakes squealed in protest all the way down the hill. In this confusion I seemed to have missed the road for Cerocahui which would have led me to Urique. 

Now it was past noon and I had used up a lot of gas. I wasn't expecting to find more along the way so I decided head back towards Creel and then directly to Batopilas. I refilled my tank at the PeMex station where I turned off towards Cusarare. I was surprised to find Lago de Arareco (Lake Arareco) so close to Creel. There appeared to be cabanas for rent and it is something I will definitely investigate when I come back.

I named this Beauty Break Point

The road was filled with more of the same beauty that I was becoming familiar with. A wonderful ride on a wonderful day. The only problem was, Where was the adventure?

More about that when I return next time ...

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Thanksgiving

I haven't gotten anything done lately because a wicked cold has taken me off the grid.

Against all the platitudes of today, and all the madness that will follow tomorrow, I will post an article from James Clear who I have a lot of respect for.

How to Be Thankful For Life by Changing Just One Word

by James Clear — Get free updates of new posts here

My college strength and conditioning coach, Mark Watts, taught me an important lesson that applies to life outside of the gym…

As adults, we spend a lot of time talking about all of the things that we have to do.

You have to wake up early for work. You have to make another sales call for your business. You have to work out today. You have to write an article. You have to make dinner for your family. You have to go to your son’s game.

Now, imagine changing just one word in the sentences above.

You don’t “have” to. You “get” to.

You get to wake up early for work. You get to make another sales call for your business. You get to work out today. You get to write an article. You get to make dinner for your family. You get to go to your son’s game.

I think it’s important to remind yourself that the things you do each day are not burdens, they are opportunities. So often, the things we view as work are actually the reward.

Embrace your constraints. Fall in love with boredom. Do the work.

You don’t have to. You get to.

James Clear writes about science-based ideas for living a better life and building habits that stick. If you enjoyed this article, then join his free newsletter.

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Mexico - Day 5

I arrived in Creel after dark and it looked like a scene out of American Graffiti. Seriously, there were all these cars and pickups driving up and down the single main street. My first thought was, "Wow, what a lot of tourists!"

I had a map in my guide book and was looking for Casa Margarita which was described as a "bustling backpackers scene". It sounded like my kind of place. However, after a couple of ventures into the area where it was supposed to be located I gave up. I was tired, it was dark, and I was losing hope. This was not a sleepy little logging town anymore.

So I found the Hotel del Centro. Simple enough, it was off the main street, had parking for the bike, and looked clean. I had to go around the corner and ask in the grocery store about a room. They asked 350 pesos, I told them I would pay 300 peso, they agreed. Score!

Only one problem, the two handles in the shower were Cold and Not Quite As Cold. It made for a very refreshing shower. And a very quick one. I went out on the street for a while but it was too hectic and I was too tried. Off to bed.

In the morning I had breakfast at the Cafe Veronica and walked through town to get my bearings. My impression was much more positive in the daylight. Much more colorful and much less touristy than I thought.

NEW RULE: When entering a new town, park the bike and walk through the town. It's the only way to see and learn anything.

I found Casa Margarita right where it was supposed to be. I had missed it in the dark the night before due to the lack of any prominent sign. I went in and found that it had gone upscale since the guide book had been written. Still, it was a destination I'd been looking for and it had a hot shower. I took it for the night. This gave me two rooms but I didn't have to move the bike or my gear so I chalked it up to experience.

The day was a rest day to relax and explore. I took my time wandering around and found an internet cafe to catch up on my email and post a couple of pictures.

The train station is off the plaza and runs once a day in each direction. It's the famed El Chepe that runs along the canyon rim providing spectacular views.

Stolen from the internet

I bought some postcards and sat in the plaza writing notes while watching the world go slowly by. There were people selling native crafts and things but I had no room on the bike to store them so all I could do was offer my admiration.

At the post office I made a bit of a fool of myself. I walked up to the door and pulled on the handle to open it. It seemed locked and didn't budge. I looked at the schedule posted and it should have been open. I stood there for a few moments wondering what to do when the Postmaster came and opened the door for me. I should have pushed rather than pulled. We both laughed and shrugged it off. I got my stamps and beat an embarassed retreat. Oh well, I've done dumber things ...

Dinner was included in the price of my room at Margarita's so I went there to eat. Curiously, nobody asked if I was supposed to be there. It was a fixed menu and when I sat down they brought me food. It was a different staff so they didn't know me from when I rented the room, they just trusted that I should be there. Try to find that north of the border.

The evening traffic seemed much less frenetic than the previous evening and I went to bed early. Tomorrow, the canyons.

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