3-1-05

I forgot to put in a couple of  photos around the Nexpa surf camp.

This was an interesting cactus tree with pads that looked like cow tongues.

here is a common cabin at this beach. They rent for maybe $300/month

 

There were several people out surf fishing. in the morning I went down to watch the surfers and the pelicans. The pelicans dive from about ten or twenty feet and come straight down and fold their wings when they hit. I think they did better than the fishermen the night before although one guy went out with a throw net and was filling a five gallon bucket with small fish.

this is a better photo of the lavanteria or laundry common to lots of Mexican houses. The big tank holding water is on the right. dip out a bucket and I put some in the blue pan with soap and soaked some. Then I took the clothes out and put it  in the cement sink and proceced to rub and roll  and squish the soap through the clothes. The bottom of the sink it very rough pebbles finish. I hung everything up but it hadn’t dried by night fall so I left it hanging. By morning it was dry. I guess there was enough breeze all night to dry them. they look surprisingly good and clean.

I pulled out of surfer camp at Nexpa fairly early. The surfers were out just about sun rise. One of them still was in his hammock and I asked why. He  said it was still a little chilly with the wind blowing and the waves would get better in a bit. I told him I didn’t know about this surfing deal, it seems like all work and no fun. He just laughed and said he could handle it.

As I was heading down the coast a pack of BMW’s passed me. There were five on them all riding new or nearly new GS oil heads (boo). I thought it would be fun to talk to them if I got  a chance so I sped up but couldn’t catch them until I came around a corner and they were just stopping at a turnoff to a restaurant. I pulled in right behind the last one and I watched as he was balancing the bike on the slant. His left leg on the ground but  when the bike tilted a little too much to the right his leg wasn’t long enough to reach the ground. It was like a slow motion event. He just slowly fell  over and down hill. He really took a hard fall and bonked his head good. A couple of the other guys came over and helped him up and it took all three of  them to pick the bike up from the down hill side and get it upright. Oh, oh, too much and they tipped it over on the other side. I was laughing so hard by this time I just backed out and left. Poor bastard, but it would have made a nice video.

I made it down the coast until I hit the road that heads inland. The change was dramatic. The road climbed up this amazing canyon with flowering trees dropping petals on the highway. A lot of the trees have no leaves but some are in full flower now. As I got higher I could see that some of the trees were showing signs of water stress. One of the surfer guys said that they had one little rain since December and I can sure believe it. The grass was short and brown and overgrazed as well.

 this photo was up on top of a mountain range and  it was the most open range I have seen so far. Most of the mountains are covered with small trees and most of those have no leaves. There are a lot of mesquite type trees as well as cactus.

I met this small flock of goats along the road. I saw several flocks  being herded by boys along the way. Mostly they were doing side of the road stuff but I saw many pastures that were way over grazed by the goats. I have an idea that they second photo above was an area that had been heavily grazed by goats since there was little underbrush.

As I was passing through a little town I sas this guy adding wood to an adobe oven. They must have been going to have  a big bake day. It would be interesting to hang out and see what they were going to bake.

He had quite a fire going and not half a block away was another oven being fired up. It amazes me how these folks copy one another. The little stores on every block have exactly the same stuff. When people are selling stuff on the road, they are all selling the same stuff. You will see ten women selling coconuts and then there will be twenty selling watermelons in the next town and over and over again.

I went through a small forest fire that seemed to be burning with out anyone getting any kind of control over it. I guess they just burn until they go out. I was going to dodge a big stick in the road when it zoomed off to the side. It turns out there are a lot of Iguanas around this part of the country. The biggest was almost three feet long. I think they are vegetarians but they sure do look scary.

I finally found an internet café that let me hook up my laptop to their line and it worked. I tried earlier at another one but for some reason it wouldn’t work. these connections are a real mystery to me. I looked first for a wifi as those are real easy, but the only one I could find was secure.

I like the mountain and valley interior. I can tell you that they hammocks really get a lot of use around here. almost every business on the highway has someone sleeping in one in the afternoon. a shady place and a hammock looks like a good plan to me.

3-2-05

I found a camp just off the road for the night. It was a small road so there wasn’t much traffic. I was parked next to this little stream and you can see that they have piled a few rocks in it to get more water out of the head gate.

The road today was one of the best I have been on so far in Mexico. I was able to keep to the small back roads and not have to get on the freeway road. Traveling these roads means you have to deal with Topes.

And they are truly bastards waiting to catch the unwary. Often times they are not marked but most are. If you are napping and rubbernecking as I am from time to time. The first thing that happens is the front suspension bottoms out, then everything on the dash is thrown in the back seat, next the rear suspension bottoms out and everything that is in the back is thrown on the back of your neck and the dash. One or two full speed hits will make a believer out of you. You will watch the road like a hawk whenever you get near a little settlement. It is a sure fire way to get people to slow down, but they are a real pain. Most of the day I spent traveling at less than 25 mph. I crawled up the mountains often behind a smoking old overloaded truck.

Some of the trucks  smoke  so bad I had to pull over and wait for a while. They smoke just as bad or even more on the way down the hill.

I stopped at a fruit stand way up in the mountains. This woman  had a very nice display of fruit. I could identify most of the stuff but not all. she had nectarines from Chile which I thought was interesting. These little stores have a lot of different stuff, but mostly just a bottle or two. The photo above is actually two photos stitched together. I just found the program to do it again. I couldn’t get the whole display in one shot so I  took two fotos. These photo programs can do anything it seems.

this was the other side of her display. Mangos, jimaca, grapefruit, squash, oranges limes, tangerines, avocados and I don’t know what the big thing are. oh, she had flowers and plants for sale too. just down the street was this pickup and trailer that had small trees. I went through lots of tree plantations where they were growing trees and flowering plants.

Mango trees I think. They must have a million acres of mangos and more coming on all the time.

As I kept gaining elevation I started getting into mixed pine and even this tree which I think was a fir. The pine trees had very deformed bark at the base that I couldn’t understand until I got to a place where someone had cut the bark off in a vertical patch and had nailed a tin can to the base of the cut. I guess they were gathering pine pitch. It sure is hard on the trees it seems.
I came back down out of the high country to the town of Patzcuaro. I couldn’t figure out what was happening but it looks like there is a big lake there and out in the middle of it is a island mountain with a town built on it. I have no idea why they would do this but there must be a reason. I took a short cruise through part of town on the mainland and found a street with wood carvings. I guess this must be a big tourist attraction here.
 
they had tables and chairs, trunks, little ox carts and on and on. I never did make it to see what the island city was all about but got out of there and down the road I went.

I finally made it to Morelia and found it to be a huge city. One thing I hate about Mexico it the lack of road signs. I made two complete passes through and around this city and finally after an hour and a half to two hours I got out. Asking directions when you don’t know the language is the pits. I had several people try and with out them  I would still probably be there. The road got the best out of there though and I had a wonderful trip up to some very high country.

Taking a photo with my little camera of this scene is almost a waste of time but I thought I would throw it in anyway. It  is sort of like a photo of the grand canyon in that you don’t get the feel of the height and depth. The fruit trees were in bloom up here around the houses. I have no idea how high it  was here but it was dang chilly for sure. When I stepped out in shorts everyone stares. I finally had to put on long pants and they felt good. The surfers wouldn’t like it up here for sure. I haven’t even seen a hammock up here either. I do see lots of signs for ranches and every so often there are cattle on the road. the grass is green and the cows look much better than down below. They have some beef cattle blood in them here as well. The houses have windows and doors that close up as well as I see tin roofs now at the higher elevations.

I made it to Zitacuaro about a half hour before sundown. I am headed to Anganqueo where my contact said that they went to find the butterflies. I saw one sign on the road with a tree and a butterfly so I must be on the right road. it is really difficult to find a camp spot so I am camping across the road from a Pemex gas station that is open 24 hours. The trucks are rather noisy but I think they will settle down for the night. One thing I am finding in the interior is that it is harder to find a campsite. All little roads have gates and there are very few turnouts that I would feel safe at. On the beach areas there was always someplace for lil red to pull up for the night out of the way and out of sight. I had to take this photo of two Mexican trucks.

I  just love the way these guys overload their trucks. I don’t know how much weight this guy was carrying but he sure had a big load. The big trucks, twin screw, are almost always double gross vehicle weight, they must run 125psi in their tires. On these little back  roads the pickups are generally full of people. I often see a little Toyota truck with ten or more guys standing in the back if it has a rack. If no rack they usually sit on the sides and the little trucks just go whizzing by me, wallowing down the road over loaded.

There is some logging going on and I didn’t get a photo of one of the trucks. They don’t have logging trucks like we think of  them. they use their regular trucks but cut the logs in eight foot lengths and carry them cross wise. Like they do back east with their oak logs.

After I headed inland, I haven’t seen one gringo, but did see a pickup with Oregon plates driven by what looked like Mexicans.