2-18-05

Getting on the ferry was rather painless. It cost about $150 USD. Next step was to drive on the ferry and I didn’t realize how big this boat is. I was on a ferry on the Inland Passage in Alaska but this one is a good three times its size. It has two decks with trucks below and cars and trucks above on the second deck. I went out and looked over the side and almost got a nosebleed from the height. This is one Big momma.

that is a semi backing up to the upper deck.

I finally found and made it to one of the big grocery stores but they were not selling the chicken dinners at that time evidently. They did have the rotisserie chickens in little plastic bubbles though, which I bought. I then went over an bough some what looks like whole wheat flour tortillas and with a small bottle of Habanera hot sauce, I think I am set for the trip.

I am sitting in the bar section of the ship. I actually don’t know if there are other parts as this is the first place I came and just settled in for the ride. The place is filling up after the excitement of leaving the dock. There is a TV that  I think is playing a movie with captions, not sure but I think it is in Spanish, as I recognize Barbara Strisand (sp?) anyway the one with the big nose. At the same time there is a table of truck drivers drinking beer and just finished a big lunch between them. Just after we left dock a guy gets up and starts singing to sound system set up in a corner. Soon another guy gets with it on a keyboard and the party started. About an hour later a small bunch of small brown mostly ladies came in and  it seems to be some sort of tour group. A couple of girls came in and gave them all wrist bands and then they brought in a cake and after some speeches and picture taking, that part of the room has settled down. It is interesting to sit here and observe what is happening around me. I don’t hear squat any way and  I find it doesn’t make any difference if I don’t know the language or not.  You get the drift by just watching what is happening.

I am sitting next to a guy that just woke up from a nap and saw me writing this. He is going to the mainland to see his folks for a little vacation. He sells oranges, tomatoes and other stuff in La Paz. He said that he spent two years in Bakersfield, Ca. as well as in Las Angles Hollywood. I have been talking with him and showing him photos of Montana and right away he liked the turkey that Sam had thrown over his shoulder. He has now asked me to go to his home and have some real Mexican food his  father makes. His father is a butcher evidently. I was getting hungry and  I had my chicken and tortillas with me so invited him to have some supper with me. We both dove in and had a good little chicken dinner.

As I was showing  this Mexican guy the photos I  had on  my website of the Carnival the guy sitting next to us asked if he could get the website and check it  out. Fine I said and gave him the dezertdog address. It turns out hat he  and his wife are traveling Mexico in a rental car. They are from England and he is an Electrical systems engineer. He is about ready to retire but sure has the adventure spirit. He uses something called Global Pocket Radio System to keep in contact with home/world.

 His name is Allen and I hope to hear from him via my website. He was showing me his Personal Data Storage System (I think that is right) which is about the size of a pocket book. It is blue tooth enabled and when he  turns it on it connects to the cell phone in his pocket. He was able to bring up my website and he is able to send and receive email with it. it has windows and all the Microsoft programs. It will not let him send photos but only text messages. So far he said it works in Europe, USA, Canada and Mexico. I really liked this Englishman, he was easy to talk to and knew farming. He grew up next to a farm and worked on them a time or two when young. He said that the English farmers were getting hit really hard with the cheap Euro imports and it was tough making it as a farmer now. What’s new? It seems like I heard that one before.

I had a good long visit with the Mexican guy and I thought it was all set for me to go to his families house that night. I would stay in lil red and the next day his dad would make a big pot of

Comida=pork food

He seemed ok and I figured if I didn’t like the looks of it I could always split. As we got into the terminal things got really crowded next to the stairs to go down and get the car. I think the people that were just passengers were getting off someplace else. We were standing in the crowd and  when it was my turn to go though the door I went and  looked back to see if  Pacheco was following. He had disappeared like smoke in a hurricane. He was flat GONE. Well I had lil red to get to and get it off the boat, so I went on down. There were six lanes of semi’s across I had to manage a path through and into a corner in the rear of the boat to find her.  They don’t let anyone below decks when they are moving. All was OK and I got off in  record time.  The sound and smell of all those trucks cranking up and blasting off the boat was something else. Both decks were emptied in about 15 minutes. All  the trucks had to back onto the boat so they were positioned to get going fast, and they did. No signs of where to go and  I really didn’t have any idea of where I  was going anyway so I just  went  with the crowd and stopped out in the parking lot to see if the Mexican guy would show. He never did, so I have no idea what it was all about.

2-19-05

I drove that night toward Los Mochis and I have no idea where I was or what  direction I was headed. I couldn’t make head or tails out of their road signs, so when I saw a big gas station  I pulled to the end and spent the night. I just don’t want to travel at night. It was nice a quiet and not a problem until  I woke up feeling something warm and wet on my ass. Yup, shit my pants again, dang. It was the middle of the night and what a mess, but got cleaned up sort of and in the morning I headed back the same direction I came in as there was a big store on that road. I finally found it and  went in and bought three pair of grande size boxers and what looked to be the right size pants. Well evidently I am up a size or two from grande but the pants fit and I was a happy camper again. I was headed down the road again when I saw a store that sells oil, antifrees, etc. These store are common and that is all they sell. I bought a couple of quarts of 20-50 for lil red (red likes to drink) and as I was paying for them the guy seemed to speak good English. I asked him if there was a Laundromat near by and after a long discussion with his partner and looking down the street, they came to the agreement that there was one down nine blocks. It was great, nine blocks down there it was! I gathered up the smelly mess and put it all in my bag and walked in and asked when it would be done. It  was nine in the morning and it  was determined to be done at two. So I had five hours to kill in town. Los Mochis is a big town, maybe little city, it is hard to tell but there is a big down town that really cranks.

On my first expedition I saw this old steam tractor hiding way down a road.

Evidently US Sugar company came down here in the  early days and built a huge factory that is still standing but no longer operational. This must have been the way they got the goodies home to the US or export. There was a man car behind that had a one lunge engine that was really cute.

 The town is laid out in one way streets mostly, or  at least down town. I am finding this is common and I have to watch close or I am going down the wrong way. So far nobody has gotten too pissed off at me. I am actually finally getting the hang of driving down here. when I first got here I stopped at every stop sign. People would honk at me but I figured the cops were our to get me on any excuse. It turns out even the cops don’t stop. The idea seems to be that if there is a stop sign, that means the other  person has the right of way, but if you figure you can make it before he gets there, go for it! If no one is coming you just cruise on through without stopping. It is so much better system that what we have in the US. why stop if there isn’t any reason? Sheesh, why hasn’t someone thought of this before? And we are supposed to be a developed country, the Mexicans could teach us a thing or two. Like I wonder how those girls get into those jeans? They wear tight down here. The girls really dress up to come to town and it is good watching. Oh, one thing that both the Mexicans and the English have in common is that carrying a pocket knife is an offence. The Mexican said I could go to jail for it and Allen says the same thing in England. How can government get so out of hand that people let them tell them they cant have a pocket knife? It absolutely boggles the mind. Some of these dudes carry a two foot machete and I guess that is ok, but a small pocket knife, jail!!!! The Mexican had a shit fit when I pulled it out of my pocket because I didn’t know the name for pocket knife in Spanish. I have it stashed in lil red but I am not happy.

speading of the devil. Here is a cop on a small, maybe 250cc. That  is one of the busses in the background. Oh, he is lane splitting here at a red light. You have to stop at red lights but an interesting innovation is that the green light blinks before it turns orange. That gives you more time to figure if you can stop or gun it on through. That is actually a very nice bus.  They come in all different sizes from small cars to big old school buses. They have their route in white paint in written on the windshield.

The downtown is a very busy place. there are stalls set up along the sidewalk selling all kinds of stuff as well as food. There is an incredible diversity of food available from all different size outfits. Most of the stuff I saw on the street here is similar to the stand that this little boy was running.
 
There are a lot of push carts everywhere as well as people walking through the crowd offering unidentifiable food.

A hardware store with lots of cool stuff out side. This is common practice and you can see the open door policy. Most of the stores have big opening and often stuff out on the street. On of the things that you notice right away is that you see someone sweeping almost everywhere you look. On my way into town I started to count the people  I saw sweeping,  in just ten or fifteen minutes I must have seen twenty people sweeping. They sweep the sidewalk, the stores, the road, the dirt. There is so much dust and sand/dirt blowing around here I guess they have to or it will get away from them. if I was going to sell  something in Mexico it would be brooms. Everybody uses them. A road crew of twenty guys all sweeping dirt into little piles is common. They then take a shovel and  pitch it into a dump truck. People sprinkle the sidewalk and dirt to keep the dust down too. it just has to be hell trying to keep a shop clean with no door. They have big roll down steel doors for night. 
I stumbled across the Farmers market as well as the meat market down a narrow little alley.
the veggies were really nice fresh looking as well as the baskets of dry beans and  ????


About half way down the farmers market alley is the meat market. I didn’t get a photo of any of the red meat guys products but I did see this guy packing  in a fresh hind quarter he just unloaded off a truck that stopped in the street.

That is one heavy load. I remember Tucker telling me that his brother Craig was a butcher and would throw these thing around with out much effort. Well this guys legs almost buckled when they tossed it down to him, but  he made good time getting it to his stand. To the side of this photo is an old lady that is cutting up veggies and putting a mix of then in individual sacks. She and  her husband had a nice little corner and a low budget operation. This is the only time I have seen this done other than what you get in the US stores now that Dole makes.
The meat market was very cool. I just watched these guys filet these fish with the expertise that takes years of practice. On display had what looked like chicken guts on display with the fish.
 
I had to ask, pointing to my guts if that  is what  it was. the kid motioned for me to watch the nest guy.

He is holding up two flounder or sole??. Two eyes on one side anyway and about an inch think.

He cuts the head off.

After he has one side filet he turns it over and there is the roe.

This was such a slick guy to watch. There wasn’t much meat on that fish but he got it all in the filet and as a bonus got the roe.

He wanted his photo taken with that fish. These guys are savy to the digital cameras. They all want to see their photos. You will notice the octopus and I have no idea what those what look like bags of orange jelly are.

Orange Ruffie maybe? Aren’t they endangered now?

 
There were a few big fish but most were less than two foot long.

this guy was pulling apart a block of frozen squid. They have really big eye and found gross to look at. Interesting but gross to think that someone out there is probably selling it  to some unsuspecting tourist. Allen the Englishman said that he would rather order from a menue in Spanish that something translated into English. That way you knew what you were going  to get. A good point I guess if you know what you want in Spanish. I got the chicken word down now but could easily be fooled on other stuff. Like fish taco.
as you know I hate towns, but I had a real blast in this  one. These people are just having so much more fun in town than you can imagine. The steet is packed and narrowed down and the side walk in never flat and  consistant. You have to watch where you go like a hawk.  There are no rules about building sidewalks evidently. It is just as likely to come upon a ten inch dropoff as a twelve inch step up. there are holes and dips and rises and sometimes it is just gone. This all slows foot traffic down and the laughing and talking that is going on all around is almost like a party. There is a good mix of young and old and the smells of the food and music blaring out from a stand is just so different from what I am accustomed to. I like it a lot as it seems so real.

These guys were a trip for sure. The guy in back is pounding on his drum making a really nice constant chatter. The guy in front is holding a box with a hole for change. It appears that they have masks made out of goat skin asses. They didn’t  say a word and sort of mime troup but weren’t putting on a show.  They did stop and  let me take their photo when I put money in their box. They seemed to represent some sort of spirits. I don’t know. They had rattles on their legs as well. A great diversion to the ordinary.
I am really glad I stayed and did laundry, otherwise I would never have seen the 'real' Los Mochis.

I  must have gotten out of Los Mochis around three and got gas at the station outside of town heading to Culican. This is a major stop for the busses it seems and there are vendors there to cater to their food needs. This guy just putted up on his rig and was waiting for the customers. I am constantly amazed at how many food vendors are around here. It must be that people don’t cook at home, but eat out. out on the road you will see small restaurants along the road with maybe three or four trucks pulled over. The stand will be nothing but a few poles and some tarps but the food brings  them in and somehow they must make a living.

the highway is well paved and I am on a freeway only it aint free. It is just  like back east and they have their hand out wanting pesos at the toll boths. Along the way I saw an old guy and his dog doing the road side mowing with a flock of about a hundred goats. This is happening as the cars and trucks zoom past at sixty or more miles an hour. I also saw a man and woman grazing a half dozen cattle the same way. The man had a whip and the woman a stick and  the cattle goats knew not to get on the road or else. I also saw several horses tethered out dong road side mowing.
it is harves time for potatoes evidently as there were lots of guys parked along the road selling what looked to be one hundred pound sacks of white potatoes. Some guys had a truck load and some had only a few bags. For  ten miles there was a person every so often with these bags set along side the road. one guy had two sacks and he must have gotten them there on his motorcycle. I finally figured out that they must have gotten paid for their labor with spuds. I did go by a big what seemed to be a parking  lot. There must have easily been a thousand people milling around. I finally got the reason when I noticed that  there were three armored cars parked across the field. I figure that this was payday, and they got  the money out of the trucks as they seemed to be lined up around each one. I see quite a few of these armored cars (trucks actually and real ones, not the little doge vans with the windows painted black around the edges) and when I went into a store and were putting money into an ATM machine there were two guys with hands on their guns ready for any monkey business.

I am going through a big flat plain that reminds me of the California valley. There are huge corporate farms both sides of the road and for miles and miles. I cant tell what a lot of the crops are but the majority is corn, in several stages, and probably sweet corn as I see some sweet corn on the market as well as people eating ears of corn. The next most popular crop would be tomatoes and then dry beans and maybe potatoes. I have seen some squash and maybe pole beans. With the size of these fields it is easy to see where  the fresh veggies that are in the store in Montana this time of year come from. I bought a small sack of what  I thought were oranges from a couple of boys along the road. I am not sure just what they are but something like a pear looking orange. They peal easy and are so sweet with no seeds. Maybe some sort of cross between an orange and tangerine. This tree ripened stuff is sure nice compared to the green ripened stuff. Oh, one of the favorite vendors are the people that make up a fruit cups that are really good looking, but I have been warned and will pass on them.

It started getting dark and I bailed out at a gas station. There seemed to be a truckparking lot in the rear and that is where I went.  I asked the watchman if I could camp and he said sure and  pointed where. It will be a noisy night but at least I am off the highway after dark.
2-20-05

I woke up to what  I thought was someone tapping on the window of lil Red. It turned out to be a guy parked in his truck right behind me cleaning his fuel filter. He would fill it part way with gas and then swish it around and tap it repeatedly on a hunk of concrete. I guess that it must have worked as soon he had it started again and backed out and I was able to get out of there. I have never seen anyone clean a fuel filter but I guess if it  got plugged up a good washing with gas would help. It  is cheaper than buying a new filter and by the looks of his truck, he was trucking on the cheap side.

I cant seem to find the side road that is supposed to be highway 15 so I am on this dang freeway or I should say payway. I will  have to say that it is wonderful not to have to have my eyes glued to the road every minute for the next pothole.

It is a corporate farm area for sure. I see the signs from the major chemical, seed and fertalizer companies. When you see a hundred acres of trellised tomatoes you know that there is some serious hand labor involved. This is Sunday and I have seen only one field with workers in it, maybe a hundred or so bent over picking something and packing in boxes. There have been miles and miles of corn so I guess they must make feed out of it but have seen very little livestock. They may feed them someplace else.

I went by a place that they must be doing research on plants. It had a high cyclone fence all around with razor wire on top. You know that they have to be doing some serious shit in there. There were exclusion screen cages and lots of greenhouses. I am sure that  they can do all kinds of experimenting down here without all the oversight that they have in the US.  It wouldn’t surprise me to see pig feet growing out of an ear of corn there.

I see a lot of bicycles now. Even though there are signs along the freeway for no bicycles, there are a lot of them on the side of the road. most are the old fat tire one speed. Those old bikes just keep going and going. Almost all the bikes have a milk crate or wooden box on the back. they are all friendly and wave to me as I have my bike on the back of lil red and we are brothers (sort of).

I blasted on down the pay-way and made it to a sign that said the Mazatlan Playa and took off down that road. The ‘Ruta Tourista’, didn’t sound good to me but I just gotta see. Not far down the road I came across a tile factory. Way Cool!! I backed up and went in and got the camera out. no one seemed to mind if  I took photos so I just walked around and clicked away.

This is the extruder where the raw mud tile comes out under pressure in a curved form and is cut in lengths automatically and laid on a belt. Several men took them off the belt and stacked them on big iron racks.

they have the hole punched in and are ready to cook in the kiln.

This is one big dude and you can see the finished tiles coming out of the top ona chain belt.

Another group of guys put them on a belt and then this guy inspects them and if they pass,  go through a water bath to cool them down.

At the end of this belt are a few guys that load them on a cart to go to the storage yard.

It is quite a neat operation. I had always wondered what a real tile factory would look like and now we all know. Cool!!!

It gets worse right away as I figured it would.

Ahh, aint this great RV living. It makes me want to move right in with lil Red.

All along the beach is this kind of thing.

I gotta get out of here after I take a quick bike around. I see that there is an internet café about a half block away so I will post this for now.
It is Hot, overcast and very humid. My tee shirt is stuck to my body. I hope it gets different.