10-14-05

It was great weather during the meeting. At 8000+ feet it wasn’t what you would call warm, but it was comfortable walking around in just a shirt during the days. It did get cold at night and there was frost on the bike cover in the morning. I stayed in a motel with Dale and Ted and we each had our own rooms.

 It was really nice to have a two big beds and a bath. One bed held all the stuff I took off the bike. There was a window with my bike parked right out side. I left the window open and there was a stack of blankets on the bed that made it hard to turn over under. The cost was only 150 pesos so it was roughly $13.50 or so a night. The yard was locked at night so we all felt comfortable that noting would happen to the bikes.

Town was really nice little place with some restaurants and lots of little hotels interspersed with the small local shops. There are a lot of tourists that come here to visit the copper canyon. Yah gotta watch you step on the sidewalks though as it is in most of Mexico.

I went with a ride one day out to Divisidaro to look at the canyons from the top. I think I remember someone telling me that there are three canyons that come together and they are like the Grand Canyon in size. I didn’t see anything like the scenes I saw in the Grand Canyon but it was beautiful nonetheless.

There were quite a few of the Indian women selling craft stuff out there. They are really colorful women and all wear long dresses. I was told not to take photos of the Indians as they do not like it. The story is that one tourist continued to take photos of them and the Indians stoned him to death. Not good plan eh? I did take this sneak photo of these Indian women and child that I hope doesn’t get me into hell, so far no rocks thrown in my direction.

 There were bikes all over the town at all the hotels as well as a few camped out near the meeting place. I didn’t bring my little camera to the tech session that we had yesterday and surely do wish I had done so. There was a changing tire demo that was held in the afternoon with a guy that had a really bad tire on a KTM bike. I had just gotten an email from my friend Bill Shockley about changing his tire on his KTM and how it was a bitch. Well I can sure understand why it was so. Grant did a really good job of explaining all the finer details and I am sure glad I went to it. I have done lots of tires but I learned a lot from it.

 One evening there was a guy that brought his bike in the meeting room that was all packed up. He had been traveling for four weeks and he opened up all his stuff and unpacked everything. It was amazing how well he packed and what he packed. This guy is a pro for sure and as he said, he has been riding and camping for almost forty years and has it down pretty well.

The small town of Creel is really nice and there was a lot of selection for hotels and restaurants. I still don’t know what all the menu stuff is but I have been trying several different things. I learned that when one thing is on a menu one place it doesn’t necessarily mean it is the same product in another place.

The town dogs are quite an interesting bunch. Mostly they get along but there sure are territories that must be obeyed. The dogs leave ya alone and don’t beg so I guess mostly Mexicans don’t feed them. Most of the dogs are fairly good looking and don’t seem to be the skinny mangy ones that I saw all over Baja and along the coast.

I met some folks that were leaving in the morning for the country south of here and heading over to the west coast. I decided to go along with them as I hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Rich. I don’t know if he was even coming here or not. He might have changed his mind and decided to go elsewhere.

We met in the morning for breakfast and headed out somewhere around nine in the morning. It was much warmer this morning and we had a good ride up in some really nice mountains. The forest is mostly pine trees and there were nice views of big rocky cliffs. It really reminds me of the Rocky Mountains. We went about a hundred miles over a spectacular road before we met any thing on the highway, which was a bus, headed the other way. It is so amazing to see people just standing along the road way out in the middle of nowhere. They are waiting for busses I guess. They will be small families of the parents and five kids or so to lone men or kids. These people are mostly the Indians and they dress very different from the average Mexican. The women ware long dresses (girls too) and the men sometimes nothing but a diaper type of thing. One guy today had on only a shirt with a long tail or at least that was all that was visible.

I met a lot of really neat people at the meeting. They were similar to the folks that came to the meeting in Colorado that I went to. At this meeting there were more dirt bike type of riders though. There were several that made it on down all on dirt roads.

We must have ridden four hours or so when we hit some rain showers. We got into some really heavy rain at times and it made the traction of the tires very slippery. We all noticed it. The road was freshly oiled and was very smooth. It sure gets your attention when you thing you are about to go down and slide off the road. We also hit a bad stretch of heavy rain and hail that was hell for sure. I had to open my face shield because it was all fogged up and the hail really hurts when it hits on the face.

We finally made it into Parral and were trying to find a hotel that had been recommended to us. When we were out on the edge of town and about to turn around and give it another try, a guy in a jeep came up and asked if we needed help as it looked like we were lost. He led us back into town and right to the hotel. He learned English in school and works in a business that he has to deal with customers in English. It is so nice to meet folks like that,  that go out of their way to be helpful. I need ot try to do more of that myself. After we got settled in we headed out for I was not sure what but it ended up we were looking for a bar to have a beer. The deal is that women cant go into some bars unless they have a hookers license. Howard said he would buy a license for his wife Elsa so she could go in with us but as it turned out we found a bar that would accept her. After a couple of beers we headed down the street and found a nice restaurant. I had a hamberguessa with pappas which was a burger with fries. The bun was terrific and the whole thing was great. It seemed like everyone tried something different and it is fun to see what was served. There was some underground miners stuff in the restaurant and I asked the waitress what was mined. It turns out it was silver and copper, or at least I think that is what it was.

Here is the group I rode out with. i
Duke & Tammy-Jason-Elsa&Howard

10-15-05

Well it was an interesting day headed south for Durango. Just after I got going good down the road and not really sure if I was on the right road or not (this is the same road I traveled on last year, only in the opposite direction) a couple of bmw’s passed me. I was really just dogging it along and didn’t even try to keep up with them. I did meet them down the road 70 miles or so when I stopped to get gas. They are a couple of Canadians and they were headed to Panama but after hearing the terrible reports of the damage down south they are thinking of a change of plans. I figure I will head south anyway and play it by ear (that ought to be good as I am near deaf at times). Everyone asks what route I am taking and where I am going. I haven’t the foggiest…

I had a beautiful ride south until I got about 30 miles of Durango when off to the west was a huge thunderstorm. Lightning and all. I sure didn’t want to get hit in the middle of another storm whether it was just rain or if it had some of that dang hail with it. I made into town before it hit and was looking for a hotel when I asked a lady in the car next to me ‘donde hotel’
 It turned out that her passenger spoke excellent English and she said to follow them. She led me to a very grand hotel but said if I didn’t like it to go on down the road to the square and I could find several others. The grand hotel it turned out was what I thought it was and the rooms were 975 peso’s or about 90 bucks. Ugh.. I went on down the road and stopped at another hotel and there were two motorcycle helmets on the counter. It turned out they wanted 580 pesos and I was out the door to look for another place when I met up with the Canadians. It turned out that they had been walking around and checking out the hotels and parking was going to be difficult other than this one. I ended up getting a petty good deal and the room is excellent. It sure blows the budget for the day, but what the hell, when in Durango ya gotta live high and mighty. There is a huge tv with probably fifty stations but no weather channel. I wonder why they don’t have that here. It would be nice to know what to expect. Later tonight I will try to find an internet shop and get on line and see if I can find out what the weather might be. It is supposed to be the dry season but maybe I am a little early.

I went out to eat with the Canadians and we found a really nice little restaurant about five blocks away that was full of locals. The food prices were so low that I figured that the portions must be small so I ordered two burritos since they were only two bucks. It turned out that they were huge and I could only eat one. The difference between local and nice tourist restaurants prices is large.

10-16-05

There must have been something extra in that burrito as I got pretty sick and had the runs last night. It was so bad that I decided to stay another night as I didn’t get much sleep and I really didn’t want to be out on the devils backbone sick and tired. The devils backbone is the name they give the road from Durango to the coast near Mazatlan. It is supposed to be one of the best motorcycle roads but will take a days hard ride over it I hear.

I have spent most of the day in the hotel room just laying around but I did go down to the square and to the big church that is across the street. The church is really a huge one and must have cost a fortune to build. One of the bc guys said that this is a city of a half million people, wow, what is a desert dog doing here?

There is some sort of big music speicial happening just around the block form the hotel. The music is very loud and I walked over ot see what is happeing. It is a huge square that is filled with people. There are grand stands or bleachers set up and a huge stage with lights and enormous speakers.

10-17-05

I have a wonderful ride across the devils backbone. The road was in excellent shape and I found only a few small potholes. The roads are so much better than the mainland.

This is the view from the top looking back along the road.

You can see the road along the mountain in the background. It was quite an engineering feat to get that road put in. There was a scenic spot along the top where I took these photos and stitched them together. It is just range after range of mountains.
I think the road is somewhat less than 300 miles across and it is all mountains with a few little towns along the way. As I was going through one of the little towns I had to slow down at the topes or speed bumps and bought a doughnut from a vendor who was showing his wares to those traveling the road. These are handy and sometimes what they are selling look really good. I know that fried and baked goods are safe to eat and I was still cautious about food. I had to drink a lot of water to replace what I lost with the diarrhea. I brought along some of the powdered Gator Aid to help replace the lost electrolytes.
It was harvest time in the mountains and they were cutting and stooking their grain. I think it was oats that they were cutting. I could see the guy out in the field with a scythe and two guys gathering and tying the bundles. There were very tiny fields some of them maybe ten feet square.

I had to stop in one little town and take this photo of a little train engine. There are remnants of tracks all over and I think this little engine was used to haul logs around the hills to the lumber mill. This was in a medium size town along the way that had two big mills and several smaller operations. The small ones are making stuff out of limbs and short lengths of logs. It looks like they mostly are making boards for the little wooden boxes that they use for the vegetables.

I stopped along the road where these guys were cutting rebar for the bridge project that you can just see in the background. I think they must be building one of the ‘couta’ or toll roads over to the coast for those that want to travel faster and not have to look at those little poor towns. I try to take the ‘librae’ or free roads when ever possible unless I need to make some miles in a hurry.

The higway crossed a small river and this one they just let it flow over rather than run it under. It was only a couple of inches deep and an easy crossing. The little pickup across the way had several guys that cheered when I made it across. There was another car up a little way that had their car out in the river and were washing it. I guess an opportunity carwash.

I made it down out of the mountains south of Matzatlan and the temperature was very high compared to the high mountains where I have been. Anna remarked about me sending my warm weather gear back and said that it was cold in lots of places in SA. I didn’t send all my cold weather gear back. I kept two pairs of long johns and a couple of long sleeve tops. The main cold weather item is my electric long sleeve liner for my jacket. I had it on several times on the way down but haven’t needed it in Mexico yet. It is really nice little cool weather coat that I wear in the evenings. It sure does help keep the cold off when riding in cold weather.

I rode south looking for a little town that was recommended to me by a friend and it was marked on the map. The town is called Teacapan and it used to be down twenty miles of bad dirt road but is now at the end of a pretty good paved road. I pulled in to town and there isn’t much going on. I did finally find an Internet store and parked the bike on the street and walked in. It was just opening up in the afternoon after siesta I guess. I was the first customer but it was soon full of young kids playing games and such.

When I walked out there was a gringo looking guy that said something like “it is a long way from Montana to here.” YUP, it sure is, but a nice road. He introduced himself as Bill and he is from Idaho. I asked about camping and he told me about a couple of places and then offered his yard to camp in if I wanted. I took him up on his offer of his yard as it was getting late and I didn’t have much chance to look around before dark.

I set up my tent in a small grassy place and we walked up town for supper at a little street stand by the internet shop. We each had a couple of chicken taco’s that had some wonderful tomato and pepper salsa. When I went up to pay the cost was 20 pesos for both of us, or about 90cents each. I like these non-tourist prices. Bill and I talked until late and then I crawled into my tent.
10-18-05
It was a miserable night. It was so freaking hot and muggy and the little mosquito’s that snuck in when I crawled in the tent. Those little skitters are really tiny but hungry.

When I got up in the morning I snapped this photo of camp with Bill in his yard. He gets money off the rent for his yard work. He it training some of the bushes into strange shapes and has rocks put around plantings. Everything is well weeded.

Bill has been here about five months after moving down from Matzatlan where he lived for a year. He has been divorced or separated from his wife for a couple of years but is seriously considering getting back together with her. Where he is now is rather small and he is thinking about renting another larger place for them. Bill has had enough of North America and is intending to stay the rest of his life down here. He is going to look for a place to rent in the mountains for the summer and come back here for the winters. He is very comfortable in his life now and spends his days working lightly in the yard and reading and listening to his extensive music collection. His little house is nice and has an air conditioner. I write this in his house and it is nice, but outside is going to be tough.

 We walked down to take a look at it this morning and it will need a lot of work to fix it up. It doesn’t take long to get hot in the morning. Bill says that this is cool weather from what it has been and laughs at me complaining. It is true I am a wimp when it comes to humidity. Heat doesn’t bother me anywhere near like the sticky feeling I get from the humidity. I may not make it through central America if it is going to be like this. I don’t remember it being like this when I was down here last year but then I was here in March which may be much cooler than now in late summer.

The dogs are smaller and short haired down here. There have been a few pretty tough looking ones but then again there are some nice looking ones too. There are horses that cruise around town and we saw/heard the guy that goes around town on his three-wheel bike selling newspapers. He has a huge loudspeaker system that blasts out that he is going by. The interesting thing is that he is so old now that he can’t pedal the bike anymore and has his grandson pull him with a burro. Pretty cool.