Day 1 - Sierra Vista, AZ to San Carlos, Mexico. 386 miles

Wet and cold, we crossed the border without even being stopped.  In the rain I looked everywhere for the customs and immigration offices but could not find them.  Right or wrong I decided to continue on thinking we might find these offices down the road as they are at the Nogales crossing.  Once out of town the weather broke and we had a great ride started.  About twenty five miles into Mexico we came to an Aguna Revision inspection station.  “Do you have your vehicle permit and tourist cards?” the young guard asked.  “No.” I replied.  “Why not?”  The conversation went downhill from there.  With a friendly but firm command, we turned around and headed back to Agua Prieta for the proper papers.

No sooner do we get turned around and we got back into the rain.  Only now it is raining harder.  Once we are back to town there is rushing water everywhere.  The puddles that were previous six inches deep are now more than a foot deep.  The cars and trucks were navigating the streams of water and puddles cautiously.  I was praying.  There is an uncertain feeling entering a stream of rushing water at unknown depths on roads with potholes holes big enough to swallow a motorcycle.  I kept hoping we wouldn’t find one.

Once we located the customs and immigration offices everything went smoothly.  A friendly young man who spoke good English walked us through the process in no time.  Even the weather broke.  It stopped raining and the overcast sky turned to scattered clouds.

We headed out ot town again and found the same route 17 heading south, the long way to Hermosillo.  Again, it appeared this would allow us to skirt the worse of the weather.  Arriving at the Aguna Revision station, we waved without stopping and the same friendly guard who had previously turned us around simply smiled and waved us on.

Within a half hour the skies turned blue and we were in a motorcycling paradise.  This lonely route began to twist itself along the river, wind itself up, over and through canyon after canyon.  It was clear that there had recently been some serious rain in the area.  All the washes were running and had signs of flash flooding.  I was cautious every time we came over a rise and faced another crossing of a sand wash.  Most had water and/or sand and rocks in the bottom.  Some had rushing water.  Other than the numerous wash crossings and an occasional vehicle, it was incredible riding.  I was reminded, however, much like it is in Baja, you have to be prepared for everything when riding these roads south of the border.  The Mexican engineers think differently about roads than the DOT engineers in the United States.  Down here you have turns that keep bending at increasing rates that you just don’t experience up north.  You come up over rises and find yourself in the middle of a turn that you would never come to expect.  Along the road are countless reminders of the hazards.  You find remains of automobiles over the edge of many sharp turns. You find personal monuments and wooden crosses everywhere.  If the hazards of the roads were not enough, you get the added risk of sharing the road with other creatures.  The roads here are open range.  There are no fences along the roads to keep animals out like we find up north.  We found wild horses, cattle, snakes tarantulas, and other livestock on or next to the road much of the time. 

We came to one section of the highway along the river where most of one land was taken out by a flash flood.  You didn’t find a supervisor and a half a dozen DOT workers standing around stopping traffic.  You found a warning sign and a few pylons.  Down here they assume you will exercise common sense and work it out if you face oncoming traffic on the now one lane road.  I actually found something comforting in this.  One of the things I admire about life down here is the lack of laws, rules, and regulations for every conceivable incident.  We like to talk about freedom in the United States but over time we had eroded those freedoms by over governing.  We have laws about everything.  When you boil it down we have taken away our freedoms, we have diminished respect for human nature and the ability for people to do the right thing on their own and it has had an impact.  I see it more clearly down here.  Less rules, more expectations for people to do the right thing on their own.  Perhaps that is why the overwhelming majority of people down here are so friendly and helpful.  Sure, there are some who break this natural law and raise havoc on others.  But rather than try to legislate that away while eroding the human spirit, they deal with it in another way.  Enough rambling for now.

Because of the border crossing delay, weather, and road conditions we were not making very good time.  We were, however, having a blast.  We stopped for lunch at Moctezuma.  On the north edge of town we found Chieval’s.  This was a very nice, new and clean restaurant and hotel owned and operated by Luis Carlos Teran.  We no more met Luis and we had a new friend.  He was interested in our adventure and we were interested in his little oasis in the middle of paradise.  He told us about many small nearby towns and mountain roads in the area.  I decided right then that I will return someday to visit with Luis and travel the nearby roads.  Since this would also be a great gateway to Copper Canyon, perhaps I will make this stop a part of a future adventure to the biggest canyon in Mexico.  If you travel through this town stop and say hello to Luis for me.  You will be glad you did.

With the sun lowering in the horizon and having traveled only about half the miles planned for the day it was time to roll.  As an old Kawasaki slogan used to say, “Let the good times roll.” 

I thought the road into Moctezuma was awesome.  The ride up out and over the mountains to the West was even more so.  Clara and I wore big smiles on our faces as we leaned the excessively overloaded KLR into and out of turn after turn and over and down mountain after mountain.  Wow!  I have ridden some of the very best motorcycle roads in the world and none of them have anything over this road.  For over a hundred miles I don’t recall a single stretch of highway that was straight or flat for more than a quarter of a mile.  The difference between this road and some of the other great motorcycling roads in the world is that this one lacks traffic and has very, uniquely, Mexican bends.  The high desert landscape is also a pretty as any other landscape I have ridden.  What a motorcycling meca!

While eventually making our way out of the mountains, the temperatures kept climbing.  Earlier in the day we were cold and wet.  As the sun was setting, we were hot and sweating.  Motorcycling allows you to experience the pleasures of nature very directly.  Sometimes more harshly than you would like.

The downside to all the unexpected play and long hours on the bike was the looming darkness and SORE butts.  By the time we got to San Carlos, our destination for the day, I had broken three self imposed rules.  One, don’t exceed 75 mph.  Two, don’t travel over three hundred miles in one day.  Three, don’t travel at night.  Clara and I were still smiling but we re-committed to exercising more discipline going forward.

Day 2 – San Carlos to Juan Jose Rios (just south of Los Moches). 262 miles

After pushing the previous day, we elected to be a bit more relaxed this day.  We got up later than usual and spent some time updating stories, the web site and catching up on email.  It was mid to late morning before we got on the bike and headed out of town.  We had two hundred miles to cover but this day would be ridden on the toll road.

Mexico’s toll road is kept in excellent condition.  It is a four land divided highway and  even has shoulders in parts.  However, it is anything but exciting.  It is as straight and flat as any road I’ve ridden.  The desert landscape is interesting but even it loses its glamour when it changes little over two hundred miles.  This is a day I call “doing time” or “paying dues” in terms of riding.  Nothing special going on but you know you are getting closer to a pay off down the road.  Another down side to the toll road is the cost.  Toll fees added up to over $25.00.  It makes me want to hurry to some of the countries further south that don’t charge toll fees for motorcyclists.

Of some interest was trying to get through the large town of Obregon.  It has a population of over 350,000 people.  We saw several companies familiar to us back home; Walmart Supercenter, Sam’s, Burger King, Travel Lodge and the like.  However, navigating a big city in Mexico is not like it is up north.  There is much more going on in Mexico.  People are walking in all directions on all streets; there are bicycles, mopeds, cars, semi trucks all battling to get to the same places at the same time.  Somehow, the locals seem to manage and everyone goes about their business.  I found if I stayed aggressive and alert I did just fine but I can see how this could be very intimidating. 

I never saw any traffic accidents in town but we saw two accidents on the toll road.  Both involved large trucks.  One went off the road (where there was not a shoulder) and flipped and the other ran right into the back of a smaller truck.  Both appeared to me to be dozing off types of accidents.  I suspect both were fatalities.  There were no emergency vehicles or road closures.  The closest travelers simply got out of their vehicles and took care of things.  Simple and effective.  An upside of traveling the toll roads, at least in Sonora, are the green angels – folks who travel the roads in green and white vechicles looking for people to help.  I don’t know how they are funded it is reassuring to see them on the road.  I saw one replacing a tire for a stranded travler.

We stopped in the next large city, Navojoa, for lunch.  I found some irony in the fact that we were North Americans who rode a Japanese built motorcycle into Mexico to eat Italian food.  You can’t call us non-international.

The way they control speed down here is through the use of LARGE speed bumps passionately known as topes. You better slow down for these unless you want to get a lot of air and lose half your luggage upon return to the terra firma. Most of the topes are concrete stretched across the road. However, in cities and at some of the toll booths they use steel balls. It can be interesting crossing them on a motorcycle, especially when they are wet.

The scenery finally changed as we approached the next large city, Los Mochis.  Water was abundant and consequently, the countryside became agricultural.  It felt like I was in the Midwest as we traveled through town seeing large tractor stores, UAP, Cargill and the like.  It was also nice to travel through a city lined with big shade trees. 

We opted to travel through Los Mochis out to a point on the water to see if we could find a hotel in Topolobampo.  Unfortunately, we didn’t find a hotel.  It was a run down dock town.  A ferry runs from there to La Paz in Baja.  We headed back toward Los Mochis and found a new, clean and modern looking hotel that was only $11.00.  We pulled into the grounds and was led directly into a garage.  I thought, “This is neat.  We can close the garage door and not have to worry about the bike.”  Then we opened the door to the room and found out what was really going on.  Clearly these rooms were intended to be used by the hour and not for the entire evening.  Clara and I were out of there in a heartbeat. 
 
Somehow we ended up going back through the large town of Los Mochis on a truck and industrial loop.  It was starting to get dark and we didn’t find a single hotel.  So far, we had kept the self-imposed rules we had broken the previous day.  We were at risk of breaking them again.  Fortunately, it wasn’t far to the next small town.  It didn’t look promising as we made our way down rough, rocky dirt roads looking for a room.  We finally found a room with a gated parking lot and night security guard.  After getting the last room with two beds we were ready for a hot shower.  Yeah, right.  Okay, a cold shower and some dinner.  Guess again.  This was a small place and the restaurants had already shut down.  We walked to the town square and found a night vendor who had some pizza slices left.  Cold pizza and fruit soda hit the spot.  At least we could get a good night sleep…

Day 3 – Juan Jose Rios to Mazatlan.  240 miles

It was hot. It was difficult to sleep.  It only got worse when I heard the motorcycle alarm go off in the middle of the night.  I jumped out of bed and ran to the balcony so I could see who was disturbing the bike.  The night security guard looked up at me with shrugged shoulders and said something in Spanish I couldn’t make out.  I turned the alarm off and reset it.  I suspect he was trying to get a closer look at the bike and bumped it.  I wonder if he pee’d his pants when the 118 db alarm went off in the middle of the night. 

I was in no mood for sleep so after lying in bed for a while I got up and started packing.  It was dark.  My moving around woke Clara up.  She didn’t seem too put out at the suggestion we get an early start.  We rolled out of the hotel about 7:00am.  It was very busy out.  We hit the early morning commute to work!  There were many more people mingling about than I thought the town could have held.  People were walking, riding, catching a bus or an already overloaded pickup.  People were headed for the fields.

For the next hundred miles we were riding though deep agricultural land.  The irrigated fields and early morning chill created a cold ride for a while.  It was a great time to be on the bike.  We watched the sun’s glow in the distance horizon change colors as the sun began to surface.  It was a pretty sunrise up over the Sierra Madre Mountains to the East.

We stopped at a Mexican version of a truck stop for a late breakfast/early lunch.  It was tacos and coke or nothing.  I was feeling like some eggs ranchero but it wasn’t going to happen.  Oh well, you can’t go wrong with tacos.  Something went wrong with my tacos.  I don’t know what kind of meat they were using but it wasn’t anything I had ever had before or something my stomach wanted anything to do with.  Of all the times I’ve been to Mexico over many years I have never had a bad meal until this one.  I hope it doesn’t cause me any problems down the road.

About mid way to our destination, Mazatlan, the landscape began changing from desert and agricultural to topical.  The vegetation became more lush with broader leaf trees and plants.  The under brush was thick.  Somewhere in the middle of this change we crossed the Tropic of Cancer (about 23.5o north latitude).

For 20 miles or so we ran across a section of land that had been severely destroyed by a recent hurricane.  There was also some road damage including a few bridges that were taken out.  It reminded of my last trip along I-10 after Hurricane Katrina.

With the quick exit from the restaurant, I didn’t bother to fill up.  I didn’t expect a problem since we had only gone about a hundred miles and we had been seeing a Premex station every 20-30 miles.  We have a range of about 250-300 miles.  The section of road, autopisto, from Culiacan to Mazatlan is about 100 miles of uninhabited country with no services.  At 200 miles we ran out of gas and I switched to reserve.  That was worrisome because we shouldn’t have hit reserve yet.  Either I didn’t get the tank as full or I was using a little too much throttle.  In any case I figured I could get another 30-40 miles.  However, the countryside showed no signs of civilization for as far as I could see.  About 30 miles down the road we finally hit another toll booth.  I was glad to see this one.  However there was no Premex station.  I asked the attendant where the closest station was and she said “ocho kilometers.”  I figured I had another 5 or so miles but not much further.  10 miles down the road we still hadn’t come to a Premex station and the bike’s engine died.

After several days on the bike I was pretty relaxed about things but this incident didn’t make me any too happy.  I wondered if the toll booth attendant was laughing and saying something about silly gringos or if we had simply mis-communicated.  Based upon past experiences I should have known that distances mean different things to different people. 

As far as we could see in any direction there was no sign of civilization.  It was hot and we were out of gas.  I knew the design of the KLR gas tank holds some fuel in the lower right side of the gas tank.  We got off the bike and I rolled the bike over to the left side and we remounted.  The engine started and we started rolling down the highway with a very smooth throttle hand.  The road had become hilly so I turned the engine off and coasted down each hill and restarted the engine for the uphills.  We ran out of the extra fuel.  I knew the KLR possibly had two splashes in it.  Off the bike again.  Roll the bike over to the left as far as we could possibly go.  Remount, start the engine and go conserving as much fuel as possible.  Engine off for downhills, on for uphills.  Repeat.  Finally, an exit!  The one for Mazatlan.  I could see a Premex station.  The engine sputtered and died.  Just another quarter mile I thought out loud.  I pulled in the clutch and coasted to a near stop letting the clutch out to see if we bounced enough fuel into the float bowl to give us one more burst of acceleration.  The engine fired and I used the rest of the fuel to gain enough speed to coast into the Premex station as the engine died from the last of the vapors.  That was close, too close.  New rule – don’t pass gas with over a hundred miles on the tank.

With a full tank of fuel and sweating profusely, we headed into town to find a hotel.  We found Walmart, McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, Ford dealership, John Deere, AutoZone and the like but no hotels.  Ah, I thought, they are down on the beach.  We headed toward the beach and found enough hotels to satisfly anyone’s interest.  I stopped at the first smaller hotel with a gated parking lot.  They had a nice room with two beds right on the beach.  Time to unload and hit the water!

Day 4 – Mazatlan to Guadalajara.  330 miles

After two long, hot days riding the costal lowlands we decided to head toward the mountains instead of continuing on the costal route.  That was a good decision.  We left Mazatlan fairly early to get some riding in before it got too hot.  We were sweating before we even got on the bike.  Before too long we were in the costal foothills and the temperature dropped enough to keep us warm but comfortable.

Riding along and through the foothills we could see high mountains in the distance.  Along the way the vegetation became more and more tropical.  Lush undergrowth with fruit trees everywhere.  As we climbed higher the landscape took on various forms of tropical, oak and pine trees.  At times I thought we were at widely different elevations at the same time.  It was always scenic.  The road was also fun as it twisted up and down and in and around the mountains.

About a hundred miles into the ride we stopped and had a late breakfast at a nice family outdoor restaurant.  It was neat watching everyone in the family efficiently going about their business.  Dad was making repairs, mom was cooking up some food that smelled very good, the young daughter was keeping tables clean and serving guests, and the smaller boys were doing some sort of school work.  In any case I had some excellent huevos ranchero.  I swear the eggs must have just dropped because I never had any so fresh.  Clara ordered the same thing but she is not much of a fried egg person.  See was looking for tacos carnes but it was too early for that.

After a short visit with the father we headed out on the worse road I have ever been on.  The road conditions themselves weren’t that bad.  It was like many of the roads I’ve traveled in Baja.  It was a narrow two lane road with no shoulders and many potholes to dodge.  However, the traffic made the conditions horrible.  For about a hundred miles there was no parallel toll road so this old, small road riddled with potholes had to handle the load that two roads had been handling.  The route was windy with many steep grades.  There were severely overloaded trucks that could barely make the grades crawling up at less than 5mph and newer, larger engine trucks that were trying to go 90mph while severely overloaded.  Throw in a bunch more traffic and you have a nightmare going.  It took all the riding skills I’ve developed over the last four decades of riding to keep us safe.  Without shoulders, the edge of the road often simply dropped several feet.  If a car so much as dips a wheel off the edge it will flip.  You drop a motorcycle wheel off the edge and it gets real ugly quick.  We saw one truck that dropped a wheel, flipped and lost its load.  We saw another truck go off the edge at speed to avoid another truck that was passing over a solid double yellow line going up a hill.  We’re sure that one had at least one casualty.  This was the first time we saw actual emergency vehicles headed to accidents.  They were going to accidents we didn’t see. Thank goodness.  I don’t know what the real numbers are but my guess is that Mexico loses about ten lives a day on that stretch of road.  I was never so happy to see the next toll road.  With traffic split between the toll road and the free road conditions returned to normal.

All the while we continued to enjoy some very nice mountain scenery.  We both commented on how much we liked riding through the large town of Tepic.  Once we got to Guadalajara I felt we were navigating our way through Los Angeles.  Clara really likes this town.  It has everything.  We found a hotel with Internet access.  We took hot showers then walked across the street and ate at McDonalds. 

Tomorrow we try to navigate our way through what I believe is the largest city in the world, Mexico City. It appears we will get to do so in the rain.

Day 5 –Guadalajara to Mexico City,  343 miles

It rained most of the night.  By the time we got ready to leave the rain broke and the clouds got lighter.  The roads were damp and wet but at least we weren’t having to deal with rain on our face shields.  The ride out of Guadalajara was breathtaking.  In fact, the entire 300 or so miles to Mexico City was beautiful.
The air was cool and we had scattered clouds all day to keep the sun’s heat at bay.  We rode over hundreds of mountains.  Over each mountain was a fertile valley with a town centered around a cathedral and large farms and ranches around the town.  This has to be the bread basket of Mexico.  In size it is similar to the San Joaquin valley in California or the large fertile valley in Chile south of Santiago.  These continuous valleys were surrounded by mountains and lakes as far as the eye could see.  This ride gets logged as another great motorcycle riding road of the world.

It did eventually rain on us. It rained hard for only about an hour.

We almost had another gasoline issue.  Since I’ve become accustom to seeing Premex stations so frequently I rely on them.  When there is a section of road that doesn’t have a gas station for over a hundred miles I think they should inform drivers.  Given the last experience I do top off anytime I’m over a hundred miles on the tank.  At 98 miles I saw a Premex but it was on the other side of the divided highway and no way to get to it.  I didn’t worry about it because I knew I had another 150 miles or so on my tank.  A hundred miles later when I went on reserve in the middle of nowhere I started to worry.  Fortunately, we found a Premex station about 50 miles down the road.  I had at least two to three more miles left in the tank so I guess I worried about nothing.

For the first time we saw other long distant motorcyclists.  We passed two couples on BMW’s from Sonora, Mexico.  We saw several other solo riders on large displacement motorcycles.  One we got to Mexico City we saw lots of motorcycles, solo and two up.  At one toll booth a young attractive guy stopped his car, jumped out and greeted us. In very good English, he said he loved riding motorcycles, gave us his business card and asked us to call him if we have any trouble with our motorcycle ride in Mexico.  At another time we were in an open air restaurant.  It didn’t appear that anyone other than us spoke English.  As one family was leaving the dad came over to us and in English said, “We’re glad you are here.  We hope you have a great time in Mexico.”  It is nice to feel so welcome in a foreign country.

We continued down the road through more beautiful country all the way to Mexico City.  The last 20-30 miles wind through heavily forested mountains.  I thought we were back in Colorado.  We should have stopped in those mountains just short of the City.  Instead, we pushed on thinking we could get through the city on a less busy Sunday afternoon.  Yeah, right.  This city never stops.  It is amazing how big it is.  Since my map was completely useless lacking any significant detail, I headed off in what I thought was the generally correct directions.  We rode tens of miles over a couple of hours and saw lots of the city but never had a clue as to where we were.  Once it got dark we stopped at the closet hotel and called it a day.

It turns out my internal map wasn’t too far off.  We rode further than we needed to and will have to backtrack about ten miles tomorrow.  The good news is we passed the route with all the early morning traffic and will not have to face that nightmare once we get going.  If the bumper to bumper traffic we rode through today is “light” then I certainly don’t want to experience Mexico City’s commute traffic. 

Other than traffic, this is a pretty neat city considering it has something over 20 million inhabitants.  It makes some of the small suburbs of a half million people we went through seem pretty small despite being the size of Denver.  I understand they have good year round weather.  I can also see why so many people chose to live here.  I’ve heard the smog is bad.  Since we came through after it rained the air was clean and fresh.

We stopped a couple of times to try and get directions but the lack of fluency and the complexity of the city’s layout made these attempts futile.  However, like the other places we have visited in Mexico, the people are always friendly, happy and try hard to be helpful.  Though I hadn’t planned to stay in the city I am now glad we did.

Day 6 – Mexico City to Boca del Rio,  260 miles

“Oh, my god!”  That was a phrase heard often today.  We had been on the bike for only a few minutes before I heard Clara scream out loud, “Oh, my god!  Now I know what hell is like!”  I heard that a few more times before we got out of the city.

We spent about two hours driving into the city after passing the city limits sign the previous afternoon.  Since we were in the middle of the city I suspected we would have to ride another couple of hours before finally getting out.  This proved to be true.  Only today’s ride was much more intense than the ride into the center of town.

First, we didn’t know where to go.  We asked five different hotel staff people how to get out of town and to the next city on our itinerary.  They all had a lost look in their eyes and ran off to find a map because ours didn’t have nearly enough detail.  We ended up with five different maps and five completely different set of instructions going in five different directions.  Does anyone in this town drive from Mexico City toward Guatemala?!  I finally got a couple of the staff to confront each other to build a consensus.  It didn’t happen but it was fun watching people trying to talk intelligently about something they didn’t know anything about.  There was one staff person who was obviously trying to be careful because he was in front of his boss.  However, he would look at me and point to a different direction on the map and quickly say something about “go and don’t stop.”  The problem was the road on the map he pointed to stopped.  However, none of the five maps were consistent and it was in the direction I knew we had to go.  He seemed to actually know more than the others so I decided to follow my instinct.  I finally said, “Gracias” a lot, folded up the maps and said to Clara, “Let’s go we will have to find our own way out of here.”

Then we got on the roads.  Though I started with no such intent, within minutes I had my race face on.  “Oh, my god!” was an appropriate phrase.  You don’t drive through the downtown streets of Mexico City – you do battle.  Don’t come without your A game.  It is ride or die. This is serious stuff.  Lanes, arrows, traffic lights and signs, police officers all mean nothing.  This is each driver out for themself and may the toughest win.  It is also a place where size does matter.  If you are driving a semi truck then you can drive into, over or push a smaller car or truck off the road.  Motorcycles are at the bottom of the totem pole.  If you are timid, slow or overly cautious you will simply be ran over and nobody will stop to ask questions.  You simply become another of the many “topes.”  It was a mix of moto-cross and demolition derby.  I was in full race mode, hard on the gas or brakes or both all the time and never in cruise mode.  I was jumping topes, being cut-off and doing some cutting-off and constantly shooting gaps trying to keep upright and from becoming traction for someone else.  If I thought my handle bars would fit between two semi’s than I gassed it hard before one moved closer to the other.  I knew that my big boxes in the back stick out just more than an inch on either side of my handlebars but I was ready to swap paint if I had to.  For Clara, it was, “Oh, my god!  I now know what hell is like!”  For me, it was, “Oh, my god!  This is awesome!”  There is a twisted part of me that has always thrived in extreme adverse conditions.  Those who ride with me much know this condition all too well.  I knew it wasn’t right but I was having way too much fun.

My advise to anyone traveling through Mexico City by vehicle, but especially if you are on a motorcycle is to stay on the “Autopistos.”  At least you have a fighting chance there.  The downtown streets of Mexico City are jungle warfare.  You snooze, you lose.  Unless you share my twisted sense of fun, don’t do it.

After about two hours of battle and some off-roading we made it out of the city.  I felt like I had just finished a long, grueling enduro.  Now we were in a more calm environment.  We were simply in the overcrowded suburbs with horns, sirens, police whistles and the like going on.  There were still slow cars, parked cars and racing cars, animals, pedestrians and other unknown stuff on the roads.  You still had to do a lot of dodging and rolling with the flow but I thought to myself, “This is nothing, mere child play.  This was more like navigating through New York City or Los Angeles.  Clara finally had a chance to relax some.  She had been puckered up for two hours.  She had been “tucked” and prepared to roll, jump, run or whatever she had to do to survive.

Throughout the trip there had been places where I thought to myself it sure would be nice if Clara could have ridden her own bike.  Not this morning.  As good a rider as she is she simply isn’t equipped for that kind of warfare.  She would not have made it out of the city.  She readily admits that.

Once out of the suburbs, we climbed rapidly up into the pine forest and had a beautiful ride over a high pass that reminded me of riding in Colorado.  We were passed by a group of eight local BMW riders who waved as they passed.  The overloaded KLR could scream her guts out but she wasn’t going to stay with those other bikes with larger engines and less weight.  Many hours later just before the end of our ride they passed us again.  They must have taken longer stops or stopped more frequently.  In any case, it was nice seeing other motorcyclists having fun on a great road.

After we crossed the pass we dropped down into a long valley.  Like everyplace in this fertile country, we found countless farms and ranches and lots of rural cities. 

After a couple of hours riding through this large valley we started climbing.  We climbed some more.  We climbed until we entered the rain forest.  The fog was thick and it started to rain hard.  Clara was having a blast.  I could hear her laughing.  I couldn’t see five feet in front of me but I dared not slow down for the fear of getting run over.  We rode up and down several passes and through a number of tunnels before we started to drop out of the fog.  There was a beautiful town, called Mendoza, at the eastern base of these costal mountains. 

If it had not been raining so hard we would have stayed there or in the next town of Cordoba.  I could see some lighter clouds ahead so I elected to push on.  We rode all the way out to Veracruz on the Gulf of Mexico.  I thought Mazatlan and Cabo were Americanized but not compared to Veracruz.  We saw all the normal American based companies we saw in other cities but I was blown away when I saw Sears and my favorite store, Home Depot.  Then we got to the beach.  Wow.  This has become quite a resort but appears to be somewhat undiscovered.  We rode over to neighboring Boca Del Rio and got a room at the Holiday Inn on the beach.  It was pricey at $72.00 but I thought it was a night we could stretch the budget a little.  Our room has a nice view overlooking the beach.

It is time to go to the bar with Clara and have an adult beverage and thank the gods for making it out of Mexico City alive.  I think tomorrow I will look for one of the larger roadside monuments/temples and leave a little money and offer up some prayers.  I will add some for my friend, Greg Frazier, who has ridden his motorcycle around the world through many dangerous places five times and stills walks the face of the earth.  He is now in Asia and I know he is planning to visit a Buddhist temple to leave some money and offer up similar prayers for Clara and I.  Something tells me he already has.

Day 7 – Boca del Rio to Villahermosa, 296 miles

We woke this morning to the sound of breaking waves and a view of a lovely beach. It looked to be another wonderful riding day.

On an early morning walk I was surprised to find the BMW's we saw on the road in our hotel parking lot. Now I know we are being stalked. Actually, it brought a comforting feeling seeing other motorcycles on the road. At breakfast we ran into the riders.  It turns out they are from a BMW club in Hermosillo and are riding to the big annual BMW convention that is being held in Cancun.  It turns out most of them have been to the United States on motorcycle tours and, especially, liked Colorado.  I’ve been amazed at how many people we have talked to who have visited and traveled throughout America.  These are Mexicans who love Mexico but enjoy traveling to the United States and then returning home.  After swapping some stories we departed and wished each other well on our respective rides.

Today was a wet one.  We started with warm temperatures and scattered clouds.  We rode along the coast through many little towns for about two hours.  Each town was bustling with activity.  One of the things that stood out today was the number of mopeds we saw.  I guess with so many towns close to each other this has become a favorite way to commute from town to town.  As usual, we got a high number of smiles, waves and stares.  If you watched long enough you see the stares slowly turn to a smile.  Curiosity and wonderment was running at high speed today.

The downside to these back roads is the excessive use of topes in the towns.  Topes are a good way to control speed when you don’t have traffic lights.  But these towns used dozens of them.  And these topes are not your average speed bumps.  These have a very steep face to them and if you hit them at more than 5mph there is no telling when you will get back to the road and what condition your vehicle will be in after it lands.  The large semi’s come to a complete stop for each axle.  Sometimes we were backed up for a quarter of a mile trying to get into and through town because of these topes.  I didn’t count, but I bet we crawled over at least a thousand topes today.

From the coastline we headed up into some lush coastal mountains.  The countryside was filled with crops and other vegetation, all painted in a deep green.  For a while, I imagined that we must be in Ireland.  Again, the road had hundreds of little towns spaced apart by only a few miles.  This time, they lined the side of hills.  It was a beautiful ride through the mountains with an occasional rain shower.  It looked like we were climbing into another rain forest.  At places the trees have grown over the road and created a natural canopy. 

A couple hours later we stopped at one of the many mountainside restaurants and had lunch.  Before we finished the skies opened up and it started to pour.  The owner invited us to bring our motorcycle into his restaurant to keep it dry.  That is so Mexico.  Of course, everything was already wet so I politely declined. 

The temperatures were warm enough that we didn’t put our rain gear on.  We left in the rain and rode most of the rest of the day in the rain.  Occasionally, the rain would stop and we would start to dry out.  About 30 miles short of our destination it quite raining and we thought about getting a hotel in that town.  We didn’t.  We should have.  We left in the dry and within ten minutes was in a torrential downpour.  It was thundering and lightening around us and the sky went from light to dark almost immediately.  Traffic slowed to a crawl.  We were tough though and stuck it out.  The rain let up as we neared Villahermosa. 

Villahermosa is another large city (I didn’t see a population sign in the downpour but I would guess around a million).  We entered the city at rush hour.  I didn’t think we would ever get through.  I wasn’t about to start exploring side roads for a hotel so we took the first thing we saw, a Best Western.  I told Clara we are going to have to quit stopping at these American hotels south of the border.  They are killing our budget.  They are more expensive than their counterparts to the north but then they are newer and sometimes nicer.  In this case, that wasn’t so.  I said to myself, well at least we will have Internet access in your room.  The room smelled like cleaning solution.  The Internet access did not work and the staff didn’t seem to care.  The hotel restaurant food was not very good.  That’s three strikes in my book.

In thinking about Mexico after spending a week riding through it I found I had some old perceptions validated while some others have evolved.  Mexico is clearly a country on the rise.  It has had to struggle with its massive population growth over the last couple of generations.  Now a lot of that new growth is at productive years.  Everywhere I look, Mexico is busy.  People are working hard and its starting to show.  With some notable exceptions, the highways are quickly being built to the same high standards we see in the U.S.  The infrastructure from banking, telephony, higher education, etc. is quickly improving across the board.  The economy is clearly strong.  There are millions of automobiles on the highway and at 90 percent of them have been built in the last few years.  Gas and diesel is readily available throughout the country at about $3.00 a gallon. 

There is a huge middle class.  We rarely here about this but it is very evident if you visit down here.  It seems most families have a home, a new car, electricity, television, phone, plenty of food and, increasing, are well-educated.  So many people I have talked to in small out of the way towns have gone to college, speak English and are well-traveled or, at least, knowledgeable about far away places.  It is as though Mexicans travel to or study the ways of other cultures and are bringing back to Mexico successful elements of that study.

With an increasingly educated population, plenty of oil, food and other natural resources, Mexico is changing rapidly.  It is time for us to work on and improve relations with this country because it has the potential to be a much better neighbor than Canada has ever been.

This is not to say Mexico is without problems.  There are still plenty of areas that need to be addressed.  You still have to ask why so many Mexicans are still trying to get into the United States.  Enough of that for now.

We haven’t commented on health.  I guess I can say that no news is good news.  Neither of us have had any ill symptoms once so ever.  That’s pretty good when traveling to any foreign country, but especially when tasked with the extra demands of riding a motorcycle.

As for the bike, it has run without any issues.  At times I have wondered if I selected the right bike.  It is overloaded and Clara and I have just enough space to fit so there isn’t any room to move around to try and get more comfortable.  Given the overall quality of the roads we have been on it certainly would have been nice to be on a bigger GS, KTM Adventure, V-Strom or something similar.  However, when we do hit some of the bad highways and dirt roads to come I will probably once again feel we made a good choice.

All the hours of bike preparation have paid off.  Other than adding a little oil to the engine and chain here and there I haven’t had to do any other work.  All the loctite is holding up well to the vibrations of a big bore single.  I’ve only lost one bolt so far.

As for the upgrades, I am so glad I added the Progressive front fork springs and rear shock along with the front fork brace.  The overloaded KLR still likes to wallow about more than I like but it would have been downright dangerous with the stock stuff.  The oversized front brake rotor has already paid for itself.  I just wish Dual Star had sent me those steel braided brake lines when I had ordered them and they were in stock.  The KLR still needs some additional braking power.  The Happy Trails panniers have been flawless along with the Givi rear trunk.  My $6.00 tank panniers I got from target (when Dual Star couldn’t get me the $90.00 ones they sell on time) have been awesome.  The seat ‘from KLR650.com simply sucks!  I’ve never had a seat on any of the countless bikes I have owned over the last forty years that worked so poorly.  Shame on me for starting a 12k mile adventure with a seat I didn’t try out before I left.  This seat may be better for the passenger than the stock seat (Clara did not test the stock seat) but it is clearly inferior to the stock seat for ‘the rider.  And the stock seat is not very good.  I’ve only been riding with this seat for about a week now and the cover is already wearing through and starting to tear from use.  Three hundred miles in a day on the stock seat was never an issue for me but with this seat my butt is constantly sore.  I tried to get a Corbin but the KLR650.com guys talked me out of it.  Shame on me again.

As for the rest of the bike I now wish I had gone ahead and replaced the rims and got them trued and balanced.  This bike didn’t have too many miles on it before I left (about 2,500) but they were hard miles.  I used the bike to lead the A riders on the last two Big Dog Rides and thoroughly thrashed the rims in the rocks of the Rocky Mountains.  I straightened them as best I could but I can still feel the damage.  When you spend all day on a bike day after day even the little things add up.

Well enough for today.  We have another day and half in Mexico before we enter Guatemala.

Day 8 –Villahermosa to Ocosingo, 168 miles

This was an awesome day.  It was also a Mayan day.  The first couple hours out of Villahermosa we rode along the hot low coastlands.  Nothing new here other than seeing some workers along the road who had captured a huge 3-4 inch diameter black snake.  They cut the head off and threw the remaining ten feet or so of body onto the road.  Then we turned westward and headed up into the Mountains.  We saw a sign that said we were on a Maya route.  At first it wasn’t evident.  We kept climbing and as soon as we came to the first large city, Palenque, we saw an entirely new part of Mexico.  The Mayan culture dominated the city and landscape.  For the next hundred miles we knew we were in a special place.

Earlier I thought about taking a different route that looked like it would really wind through the mountains to the north of this route.  One of the BMW riders I had visited with advised me not to go on that route because it was too twisty.  Now, to a motorcyclist, can any road be too twisty?  Well, perhaps so.  We didn’t take that route so we don’t know for sure.  But the route we were advised to take and did take appeared relatively straight on the map and it was as twisty as any other road I have ridden.  It took us four hours to cover a hundred miles without any stops.  It was an awesome road to ride but that took a back seat to being overwhelmed by everything around us.  We had climbed up into the Mayan jungle.  It was beyond spectacular.  It consumed us.  The jungle was rich with life unlike anything else we had seen so far.  The trees grew onto and over the road.  We were on nice pavement but you wouldn’t know it from the wild growing vegetation that wrapped around us.  Most of the time we rode under a solid canopy of vegetation that took at least ten degrees off the temperatures we experienced when we would come out of a canopy. 

If the jungle vegetation wasn’t enough, we rode by a solid stream of Mayan descendants living and working the land much like their ancestors had.  Mothers were working with their daughters and fathers with their sons.  All were busy with well-rehearsed tasks.  The older ones stayed focused on their activities largely ignoring us but the young ones would pause just long enough to throw out a wave and grant us a big smile.

This part of Mexico has not undergone the rapid change I had seen in the northern parts.  But it struck me that this was by intent.  It seemed to me that there was a conscious effort by the older generation to keep their well established way of life intact.  Their houses were simple; there were no automobiles except those used solely for working; electricity was routed overhead but appeared unwanted and unused; children were being trained as their parents had.  However, the younger generation was clearly curious and had a spark in their eye that told of the story to come.  And thus is the ongoing battle of the ages.  One generation trying to hold on and preserve that which they know well and defines much of their life.  And the next generation who can not help but be curious about things that are new and different.  It would appear these Mayan descendants have been rather successful in preserving much of their cultural uniqueness while much of the rest of Mexico is on another path.  Who’s to say which path is better?

We continued to climb until the jungle slowly gave way to large pine and fur trees.  Then we would drop back into jungle vegetation and repeat the process numerous times.  Eventually we came to Ocosingo and looked for a place to stay.  We had planned to stay in the next large town but found ourselves far behind where we thought we would be due to the slow going. 

We found a great little gem of a hotel in Ocosingo called the Real Plaza.  The place is modern, well-kept and extremely clean.  The price for two people was about $26.  This was twice the price it would have been for one person.  Not sure why it is that way but many of the hotels down here have that kind of pricing.  It didn’t matter.  Compared to the American chain hotels we had been staying at this was a bargain.  It sits on the outskirt of town on a hill and has a great view of the city and surrounding mountains.  The hotel has a restaurant that serves a great dinner.  Clara had filet mignon for $6.00 and I had the best top sirloin I have ever had for $8.00.  This is the Mexico I remember and have come to love over the years.  Unique culture, wonderful people, nice hotels and great food for very reasonable prices.

Looking back, this was the shortage mileage day we have had in Mexico and yet it has provided one of the richest experiences.  We were in the saddle just as long and had butts just as sore but somehow that didn’t seem to matter.  This was an awesome day.

Day 9 –Ocosingo to Fontera border crossing, 150 miles

We got started a little earlier than normal to try and get to the border early in the day.  We knew we still had about 150 miles to the border so we took off in the cool mountain air.  We climbed high in the pine forest again.  This time we stayed high for a long time.  It turned out that the next hundred miles wound through the tight mountains as the previous day.  We were not making good time.  Giant topes every couple of miles didn’t help either.  We decided just to enjoy the ride and see what happens.

We eventually came out of the mountains into a long valley where we could let the KLR stretch her wings all the way to the border.  We were moving quick but still being passed by everyone with a fast car.  The drivers in the state of Chipas have to driver faster than any other state in Mexico.  They must all think they are race car drivers.

Most of the rest of Mexico had been over taken as the Coke capital of the world.  Everywhere there are signs and Coke is sold.  Somehow, they missed this valley.  Everywhere we look here it is Pepsi.  This continued into Guatemala.

Exiting Mexico ended up taking no time at all.  We got our vehicle permit cancelled, turned in our tourist cards and got out passports stamped.  Quick and easy and it was just past mid-day.

After nine days of traveling over two thousand miles through most of the states of Mexico we had to say goodbye.  But not without acquiring many wonderful memories.  We would have liked to stay longer but we went into this knowing that we would move quickly through Mexico and Central America so we could take a more leisurely pace through South America.

To read about the start of our ride into Guatemala click here.

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