Cheers

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You learn a great deal about yourself when you step outside of your own comfort zone. Of the two of us, I would have to say that Lori has pushed that comfort bubble much more than I have so far. Mexico however seems to have levelled that playing field. We have both kissed whatever comfort zone we had goodbye as soon as we crossed the border. After several weeks in Mexico, we find ourselves discussing the possibility of a course correction. I mean what do you do when everything is uncomfortable and unfamiliar? You seek out what is familiar and comfortable, that's what, right? We were discussing Plan B & Plan C, maybe spend some of the winter months hanging around Florida or California, do some more riding in the south part of the US. Lori even scoped out a flight home for under $190 from Cancun as we discussed our options. But before we get to that part of the story, let's rewind a bit and start at the beginning (of Mexico that is).



From Tucson we rode straight south towards Nogales, AZ, where we stopped to fill up and get things like water, you know just in case they don't have any in Mexico . I also took advantage of the currency exchange place at the side of the gas station and swapped out some of our US bills for Pesos. Crossing the border into Mexico proved to be quite an easy task actually. The immigration building was on the right immediately as we left the US. The friendly border official stamped our passports and 10 minutes later we were on the road heading south. Our 6 month visa came to a whopping $56 for the two of us. He also gave us directions to the Aduana where we needed to make the bike legal. I've heard enough stories about getting directions in Mexico or Central America, so I was a bit sceptical. But 21km straight down the highway seemed pretty straightforward. Sure enough, 21 clicks later there it was. Although not as cheap as us, the process was even easier as the girl in the booth spoke English. 6400 pesos for the bike, most of which we'll get back when we leave Mexico, so long as we leave with the bike of course. Considering how nervous we were about everything, it turned out to be quite an easy process overall.

Riding through Nogales was quite a sobering experience. I should actually rephrase that as we technically only skirted the city on the highway, we didn't actually ride through Nogales. Most of the buildings we saw would be condemned never mind passing any sort of code back home, yet people were clearly living here. This was "home" for many. It's an image that has stayed with us both the entire trip actually.

Soon enough we were cruising down the highway trying to put some miles between us and the border, after all it's supposed to be the most dangerous area of Mexico. Our destination, Hermosillo. The drive down the cuota (toll) highway was pretty uneventful for the most part, except for that Camaro passing us. I never even saw it coming up behind us and only became aware of it when I felt the lateral shift of our bike as he overtook us. One of those jump out of my seat moments. I guessed it was going 180km/h, maybe more. The posted 110km/h a mere suggestion apparently.

Made a lunch stop in Santa Ana at some random road side place. Seemed a little on the sketchy side although there were other people there (which meets one of our self imposed rules for eating out in Mexico and beyond). We ordered a couple of quesadillas, one pollo (chicken) and one machaca (like a dried pulled pork essentially). The machaca seemed almost hairy and was super dry. The chicken was pretty good but I think Lori was a little grossed out.

We got into Hermosillo later in the afternoon with no clue as to where we’d be staying that night. We thought we’d just ride around and find something that looked good. Now Hermosillo is kind of a large city, about the size of Hamilton with a population of about 640,000. We found ourselves a little overwhelmed with everything to be honest. We passed lots of hotels along the main road and eventually came across a Starbucks of all places so we decided we better look online to see what we can come up with. Lori found us a nice place, Hotel Ibis and even though the online rate was pretty good, we decided we could do better in person. How wrong we were. The posted rate once we got there was significantly more and although Lori tried to bargain for the online rate the guy at the front desk wouldn’t budge. Apparently booking something online would have been better after all.

We left deciding to go back to SB and find something online, but got stuck in some rush hour traffic in the city. It was also getting to that point in the day where we were running out of daylight. I caught a glimpse of a Hampton Inn on the GPS less than kilometre away so we thought we'd try our luck there. By the time we arrived, the sun had already set. I think walking would have been faster. Our rate? Even higher than the Hotel Ibis. We weren’t riding after dark (another self imposed rule) so we sucked it up and took the room. The place was brand new, literally, in fact some of the rooms were still being worked on. Our room was small but very modern. Complete with over half a dozen pillows on the bed and fresh construction dust on the floor which made us think we were the first ones to actually stay in that room.

Once we got upstairs and unloaded our gear, we discovered our computer not working. Great! Just like the beginning of our trip back in May, this next chapter of our trip seemed doomed to start with that much familiar “I must break you” (said in that Dolph Lundgren voice). At least we had the iPad to troubleshoot with online. After trying everything we found online, still nothing. Our Macbook was Kaput! I even messaged one of our online followers, Macdoc who knows a thing or two about Macs and he basically re-affirmed what I suspected. Either the screen or Logic board were fried. The good news is that the Macbook is still covered under Applecare. In the morning a call to Apple confirmed the bad news: there aren't any Apple stores in Mexico, in fact the closest one is back in Tuscon, AZ. Seriously, this couldn’t have happened yesterday?

I suppose we could function without the computer for a short time but ultimately we rely on it quite a bit. We also didn’t know when we’d be able to get to an Apple store to have it repaired if we simply carried on south. From Hermosillo we were essentially a 1 day ride back to the states to have it fixed. The lady I was talking to at Apple booked an appointment and less than 24 hours after getting to Mexico we were back at the US border. Crossing back was actually easier than crossing from Canada to the US, only question we faced was "you rode that bike from Canada?" We decided not to stamp ourselves or the bike out of Mexico since we’d be simply coming back a few days later. Something that may or may not have been a good idea, I’m not sure yet.

No surprise, it would take at least 3-5 days to have it fixed. As frustrating as this detour seemed, the computer could have died 3 weeks into Mexico or somewhere in Guatemala.

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Our second attempt at Mexico went a little better, or at least we lasted longer. We checked out of the hotel in Tucson and hit the Cracker Barrel for some of that hashbrown casserole one last time before heading south. On the way we rolled over 40,000 on the odometer.

Crossing the border was uneventful. We rode right past the immigration and skipped the Aduana, after all, we already had all the required paperwork. Crossing into Mexico isn't like riding into Canada or the states. At least not in Nogales. No booth, no border control officer asking how long you're going to stay for, or if you have anything to declare. When I say we rode right past, I mean we literally rode right on through. In retrospect, perhaps not the smartest thing we’ve done since there’s no record of us ever leaving the states, at least not according to our passports. Hmmmm!

We ended up in Hermosillo once again and booked our stay at the Fiesta Inn online. Nice place, modern, clean. The next morning while Lori showered I scoped out a roadside food stand across the road from the hotel. From our room, I saw dozens of people coming and going, surely an indication it must be decent. Now I should tell you that my Spanish vocabulary consists of "dos cervezas por favor" and "lo siento no hablo Español". We've been trying to absorb as much as we could using an app on our iDevices, Duo Lingo, but I think Lori's the only one absorbing any Spanish. I think I’m better built for absorbing the cervezas . So we get across the road and unlike Canada or the US, there's no menu or prices listed on a board somewhere, it's just the stand. They lifted a lid off a pot and we simply pointed at what appeared to be a soft tortilla filled with something and said "dos por favor". So what was it you might wonder. Yeah, us too. Whatever it was, it was totally delicious though. I went back and asked for 2 more. Our breakfast came to 85 pesos (about $7) and we were stuffed. For perspective our hotel served up what they called an "American Breakfast" which included juice, fruit, tea or coffee, egg and toast, all for 184 pesos or about $15...each. That's loco! Hey another Spanish word in my vocabulary.

While packing up the bike we got talking to a couple of guys visiting from just outside of Mexico City, curious about our trip and they spoke pretty good english. One of the guys gave us his business card saying "anything you need while in Mexico, just call me." Back on the road and out of the city, we passed a lot of dilapidated homes. Houses without windows & tarps for a roof, the poverty becoming more and more obvious as we went along. Even so, people seem to be happy and friendly as they waved at us, from Cowboys on horses at roadside farms to construction workers to kids in the back of trucks. The photo moment of the day (that we missed because our pocket camera was acting up) was a pick up truck heading the opposite way on the highway with a horse shoved in the back along with a cowboy. We both did a double take.

Ended up in Navajoa at the El Rancho hotel, our first what I call real styled Mexican hotel Nice property, restaurant on site and beautiful pool. Complete with a cobblestone parking lot that felt more like an obstacle course to navigate. It didn’t have secure parking for the bike and was just off the main road. We were however able to park the bike in front of our door and left it undercover of our magical cloaking device (bike cover). Majority of the bikes we’ve seen on the road in Mexico are scooters or little 125CC or 250CC at most, so a big bike like ours kind of stands out, even when parked. But put a cover over it and it literally disappears. No more curious looks, no more finger pointing. It’s like Ewan McGregor waved his hand and said “this is not the bike you’re looking for!”


This isn't the santa you're looking for either. One of the many Christmas decorations at El Rancho.


Lori has to have gotten over her fear of bears it seems.

We had a short ride from Navajoa to Los Mochis the following day so we decided to take a detour to Álamos which has been designated a “Pueblo Mágico” or magical village. The town is about 380 years old and full of colonial architecture that totally defines how we envisioned Mexico. We happen to get there on a Sunday and the town centre was alive. Full of vendors selling either clothes, nicknacks or food. The mouthwatering smells of Mexican dishes wafting through the centro as we rode around. Unfortunately Álamos turned out to be a little like Hotel California, we found our way in but couldn’t find our way out. It’s quite a maze of one way streets and getting out proved difficult, or at least the way we wanted to go. The plan was to ride all the way around on route 188, but it never occurred to me to plan an actual route on the GPS. When I looked at it on Google maps, it looked quite simple. Unfortunately after about 30 minutes of riding around, even our GPS couldn’t find us out of there except for the way we came in. Oh well. Thank goodness for the breadcrumbs we left behind.

More sobering images of poverty filled the landscape as we made our way south to Los Mochis for the night. It was starting to become quite disheartening. The next morning we decided to push through all the way to Mazatlán, hoping the ocean would cleanse our minds and give us the boost it usually does. Turned out to be a very boring day, all cuota and lots of it. I think we spent about 200 pesos for the day, that’s about $16. Yikes!


This was a common sight during our first several days in Mexico. We guessed burning was their way of clearing a field.

We realize we can’t keep booking our stays online everywhere we go so we decided to simply make a list of a bunch of hotels that looked good and go knocking on some doors instead. An hour and a half after arriving in Mazatlán, we’d checked on 5 hotels and nothing, or at least nothing within our budget or with parking. It was getting dark and we caved once again and settled for something well north of what we are hoping to spend for the average night. In all fairness Mazatlán is a pretty big city not to mention a gringo destination, both of which tend to increase prices.

Here are some of the sights from Mazatlán:


Hello, delivery? Seems to be the vehicle of choice for delivering food, these guys are absolutely everywhere in the cities.


Lori said they were taking this coliseum down. I couldn't tell. What do you think?


Christmas was in full swing here. I realize I'm not going to get any sympathy votes for this but it's hard to get into the swing of Christmas while it's 28 celsius outside.




The Bug is alive and well, it's just moved to Mexico.


Siesta time…






This tree has a very photoshopped tinge to it, but I assure you it was quite real.

Out for a walk on the Gringo Strip (not sure if that’s an official name for it, but it’s what I called it), I saw a car go past us and come to a stop. A lady jumped out of the passanger seat and starts making a b-line for us. Apparently we had been marked.
“Hola, where you from?” she asked as she approached us.
“Toronto, Canada”, we usually stick to saying Toronto because odds are they’ve never heard of Brantford and saying Paris will totally throw them off.
“Toronto? I have an…”
Wait, wait! Lemme guess, you have an aunt in Toronto. Didn’t we meet in Vegas? I have a feeling I know where this is going. Ok so she didn’t have an aunt in Toronto, turns out she was trying to get us to come to an “open house”. I smelled 90 minutes of my life I’ll never get back sitting through a time share presentation. No gracias!


Beautiful sunset from our balcony.

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“Where do you want to go next?”
“I don’t know, where do you want to go?”
This is a conversation we’ve had many times during our trip. Without a specific plan or agenda for Mexico, it was one we’d have again many times. Sometimes looking at a map will help us make this terribly difficult decision.


Road between Mazatlán and Durango City. Yeah…this will do!

In Mexico you have a choice of travelling by the cuota (toll road) or taking the much slower Libre (free) roads. The cuota is typically much more direct (read boring) and isn’t all that cheap. The downside of the Libre roads is that they are indeed much slower as they go through all the little towns. Each of these towns has between 2 and 8 topes (or speed bumps). Not sure I know why any town needs that many topes on the main road but they all have them. More on that later. One look at the map above and it was an easy decision between the two.

Ruta 40 was a blast to ride, super twisty and in decent condition. It was the most fun I’ve had since Angeles Crest in California. For a while it felt like we had the road to ourselves, kind of eerie actually until we noticed something multi-legged and bright orange crawling along in the middle of the road. Slowing down to catch a better glimpse of the next one, “I think those are tarantulas” I said to Lori over the intercom. We later learned these were the Mexican red-kneed tarantulas. “Great we’re alone in the Mexican jungle with orange tarantulas, let’s not break down anywhere around here, ok?” Lori said. Breaking down wasn’t so much of an issue for us as becoming roadkill, when we leaned into one of the many blind corners only to see a dump truck sharing our lane with us. It’s alright, I didn’t need the whole lane anyway!

Much, much to my dismay, we had to get off the road not quite halfway through as Lori began feeling extremely nauseated for some reason. Not sure what the cause was but the constant rolling from side to side definitely wasn’t helping. We switched over to the much less twisty and more major 40D cuota, and put it into overdrive towards Durango. As far as highways in Mexico go, I have to say this was one of the smoothest and nicest ones we’ve been on so far, it’s also brand new. With 63 tunnels and 115 bridges, it’s definitely not a boring ride either. One of the bridges is 1,124 metres in length and is 403 metres above the valley floor, making the highest bridge in the Americas and third highest in the world.

Another nice thing, or so we thought was the absence of toll booths, at least for most of the highway. Of course when we did finally stop at one, it was 120 pesos (or about $10) por favor! Apparently taking this highway end to end would cost about 500 pesos for a car. Yikes! I think that even tops the 407ETR back in Ontario for end to end cost.

We lost an hour as we found our way back into the Central Time Zone and the state of Durango. Mexico has a total of 31 states and one Federal District. Durango would be our third. Lori was excited about only being one time zone away from the kids.

While the Mazatlán that we saw had a very distinct gringo feel to it, everything from the english speaking wait staff at every restaurant we ate, to the rock music, heck we even watched a Canadian hockey game at one restaurant, the city of Durango had a more authentic Mexican vibe to us. I admit that we didn’t see all of Mazatlán nor did we venture out too far into the older part of the city, so I‘m not knocking the city.

We had written down a few hotels but settled on the first one we checked in on, the Casablanca. With a name like that and an exercise bike in the room, what’s not to like. It was also within walking distance to the Plaza De Armas and Catedral Basilica Menor. We knew we wanted to explore a little here and checked in for a couple of nights. Durango is a fantastically beautiful city.


Wasn't kidding about the bike.


The view out our top floor window wasn't bad either.

Ordering dinner at the restaurant, brought to you by wifi. We’ve been using a couple of translation apps (google translate and iTranslate) on our phone to help us out whenever we get stuck, which basically means we use them all the time. Even so, things get lost in translation sometimes. We ordered a grilled cheese and we literally got a hunk of cheese that was grilled! We both laughed out loud when it arrived. You know what though, it was absolutely delicious.




Plaza De Armas beautifully decorated with Christmas lights.






What stood out right away was the social atmosphere. We’ve read that Mexico is a dangerous place and one should never venture out after sunset. Hmmm! We saw kids playing with bubbles and water fountains, people shopping for Christmas gifts, couples sitting on benches making out. All around us people were out enjoying the evening.




Fanciest looking McDonald’s we’ve ever seen.


Catedral Basilica Menor beautifully lit up. The original cathedral was destroyed by fire in the early 1600's. Construction on the the new one began in 1695 and wasn't fully completed until 1844 as I understand it.


A peek inside.




The next morning we found a little cafe a few doors down from the hotel. Like a lot of places in Mexico, it didn't really look like much from the outside, but they had this cute little outdoor patio at the back. Perfect spot for morning coffee and brekky.


We’ve actually seen poinsettias growing in the wild in Mexico.


Hey dude, got a light?


Templo de San Augustine.


I’m not exactly a history buff but it’s easy even for me to get lost in the beauty of this 451 year old city.


Parroquia de Santa Ana, built around 1734.


Vancouver Donuts circa 2014. This was an interesting find downtown Druango that's for sure.




We capped off our stay in Durango with a stunning sunset.

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While loading up the bike in front of the hotel the next morning, we were approached by someone from a Mexican magazine, Enlace, and ended up doing an impromptu interview. We fielded questions about Durango and whether we felt safe, about the missing students and also about Obama’s immigration bill.


We crossed into our fourth state today, Zacatecas and stopped in the city of the same name. We passed the hotel we were aiming for on the opposite side of the divided highway and in trying to turn around, we quickly found ourselves being sucked into downtown amongst some pretty insane rush hour traffic. Traffic here is way more chaotic than back home, cars going every which way, pulling out into traffic from a side street to merge when there’s really no room, bikes filtering everywhere and yet strangely it seems to have a good flow to it.

One of the first things that stands out about the highways in Mexico is that drivers tend to keep to the right (unlike in Canada or the states). Back home there is almost like this sense of ownership of the lane people are in, especially the left lane. I don’t know maybe they really did adopt that part of the highway. At home bikes typically ride to the left side of the lane on a one lane highway. Here that would be construed as more of a suicide attempt. Here people use the small shoulder like an actual second lane, moving over as much as they can to let another vehicle pass. Now us on a bike, we don’t really have to invade the opposing lane at all when this happens. However larger vehicles do. If you don’t keep to the right you will quickly find yourself face to face with a transport or a full sized bus sharing your lane with you as they pass someone. As the saying goes, ye with the biggest toys wins. The concept of keeping to the right is pretty much self regulating here in Mexico, essentially a survival tactic. I find drivers are pretty aware of their surroundings here. Transport trucks seem to be the only exception, but I don’t think it’s a lack of awareness. I think they just don’t care all that much since they’re the biggest thing on the road.

Another thing drivers do as you are about to pass them, they turn on their left blinker. HUH? At home turning on your left turn signal, signals you’re about to make a left turn, right? Here, it means the way is clear for you to pass. A little confusing the first time it happened to us as I wasn’t sure what the driver we were passing had in mind, so I gunned it and gave him lots of room just in case.

Riding in the city is another ballgame all together, almost like a controlled chaos. Some of the roads in the city have no distinguishing marks to indicate where the lanes are. So you have vehicles EVERYWHERE! If the road looks like it has 4 lanes, there are typically 5 or more lanes of vehicles occupying that space. Forget about leaving a safe amount of space between yourself and the vehicle in front as someone will quickly try and fill that void whether you like it or not. There is a subdued sense of order in all this chaos as people do what needs to be done to get from A to B. It’s definitely not a place for uncertainty and tame driving though. Looking around, no one seems angry and we haven’t seen a single case of road rage anywhere so far.

Flashing your headlights is a tough one to figure out as it seems to mean various things depending on the situation. If a cabbie does it as he’s approaching you, it means he’s asking if you want him to stop and pick you up, honking is the same. If you see flashing headlights in your mirrors approaching quickly, it means “get outta my way”. It could also mean “hey I’m here, just so you know”. It basically means what ever they want it to mean. Your job is to figure out why and if you need to do anything about it.

Signage. All signage seems to be more of a suggestive concept. We passed a sign indicating it was 90km’s to the next city. A kilometre or two later we passed another sign that indicated it was now 78km’s. A few clicks later, it had gone back up over 80km’s to go. Speed limit signs fall into this category as well. Most vehicles move 10-20 km’s over the speed limit, similar to back home, except the odd few that travel at warp 8.

Topes (speed bumps). Ahh the one thing that can bring Lori to articulate herself in the most creative ways - not suitable for minors of course. Topes are absolutely everywhere, small towns, big cities, even highways. Yes highways. They are the bane of our motorcycling existence. They come in all shapes and sizes, some are just huge humps, some have massive potholes on the other side for an added degree of difficulty, some are marked with yellow paint or lines, some aren’t. Some are huge metal half domes (about the size of half a cantaloupe) - these are especially fun when wet, some have almost like a ramp leading up to them. There is no real consistency to any of them other than the fact that every town has a minimum of two, one at either end of the main drag, although most towns have at least half a dozen. Hitting one of these bad boys at anything more than 1/4 impulse speed is not recommended.

We’ve had a couple of heart pounding moments on the highway because of these things. We were doing about 100km/h when out of nowhere I see a bunch of yellow lines only a few feet in front of the bike, and yelled “OH SHIT” into the comm unit bracing for what I thought was surely an impact with a tope. Turned out to be just lines but my heart was going 100 miles a minute. The next one I saw the lines and knew it wasn’t a tope but Lori thought it was. Same reaction only coming from her. I jumped out of my seat not knowing what she was yelling about. I’ve discovered that keeping an eye on a vehicle somewhere in front of us is pretty helpful as far as getting an idea of where exactly the topes are.


Back in Zacatecas, we clawed our way through the traffic and came across hotel Don Miguel directly in our path, so we thought we’d check it out. We almost didn’t stop because the place looked way too nice. Turned out to be pretty reasonable actually, still a little over our budget but I wasn’t heading back out to play in that traffic. We also didn’t feel like going out much after dinner and decided to call it a night.

Sadly our Lumix pocket camera that we picked up back in July has finally kicked the bucket so we’re not taking any pics while underway. It began acting up back in California with the focus having random problems but now it won’t focus on anything and the camera just shuts off moments after turning on.

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Hi sounds like you are having a continuing interesting trip. Reminds me of when I was in Europe regarding the vehicles you encounter. Right of way is directly proportional to the size of the vichicle you encounter but not necessarily in that order.

I think this might be one of those unwritten universal laws that you respect if you want to survive.

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Somewhere over the last few days we've began feeling pretty homesick, almost 7 months on the road and it hits us now? With Christmas fast approaching it’s only going to get harder I think. There’s no doubt that there are good days and bad ones but we’ve noticed we’re having more of the bad ones lately*for some reason.

Mexico seems like a paradox of sorts. It has some of the most amazing architecture we’ve ever seen, the buildings, cathedrals, every town is beautifully decorated for Christmas, people are nothing but friendly, well dressed, platform shoes and high heels are totally in at the moment. On the flip side the poverty is almost overwhelming. You can’t drive through a small town and not notice it, even in larger cities. Some of the buildings are so dilapidated it’s hard to imagine anyone living in them. Driving through a small town we watched a family doing their laundry in the creek, 50 feet upstream another one doing the same thing. We wondered if that was also the town’s water supply but if they’re doing laundry in the creek, it’s possible there is no running water at all.

Stray dogs are everywhere. Dead ones litter the roadsides and the ones that are alive are so emaciated it’s heartbreaking to see first hand. The language barrier doesn't help either and just seems to make everything that much more stressful. We were having a difficult time processing everything emotionally and have found ourselves essentially shutting down by the end of the day some days. We've gone from everything being essentially easy and fun to everything being a struggle. What's going on? It didn’t hit us till about a week later that what we were experiencing was culture shock!

We passed through another 3 states today: Aguascalientes, Jalisco, and Guanajuato, taking our tally up to 7 states. As we approached the city of Aguascalientes we came upon a massive traffic jam. Under threat of construction (since I didn’t see any constructing going on), the highway went from 4 lanes to 1 and it seemed like there were a million vehicles out here. One thing I forgot to mention in my previous post about driving, is that there is no real emissions control in Mexico. So there we were sitting in stop and go traffic with buses and trucks literally spewing thick black smoke all around us. No windows to roll up, no recirculate on Tigger's dash (unless our lungs count) *cough*cough* *hack*hack*, and they say smoking takes years off your life. Maybe we're just not used to it but it left us dizzy and with a massive headaches. I eventually noticed some bikes snaking their way*around all the stationary vehicles and thought I’d do as the Romans (or is it Mexicans?) and was able to keep moving a little by following them. The fun continued once we got further into the city where we encountered some of the worst roads on our trip so far. The entire road surface was one pot hole after another, giving Tigger’s suspension a thorough workout.

We eventually made it out and got to Guanajuato to discover a maze of cobblestone tunnels throughout the city. It was just stunning! Guanajuato is a UNESCO world heritage site and apparently very popular with tourists. We were lost not only in the beauty of this place, but I think we were actually lost. We didn’t have a specific hotel in mind before getting here and after 45 min of driving around aimlessly, we decided to stop at one of the guys waving his arms. They were all over the place, some trying to sell you maps, some a hotel. “What you need? Hotel? Right here!” he said as he pointed to the beautiful courtyard just through the gates behind him. “Cuanto cuesta?” I asked (how much). "1450 pesos!" Yikes - no gracias! He then offered to take us to another place that was a little closer to our budget. He hopped on a small motorcycle with his friend and guided us through more single lane alleys and up a very steep cobblestone roads. We ended up in pretty nice place with great views of the city below. I waited with the bike while Lori went to check on the room. She came back disappointed a few minutes later, said the room was a bit sketchy looking and she didn’t have a good feeling about it. Good enough for me. The 2 guys obviously a little disappointed we didn’t stay since I’m sure they get a cut for bringing us there.

We made our way back out of town and stopped at the 3 hotels we had see on our way in only to find prices ranged between $120 and $200 (that’s USD, not pesos). Did I mention this was a tourist town? It was starting to get dark and we backtracked all the way back to Silao before finding something reasonable at the 7th hotel we stopped at. One of the more frustrating and exhausting days we’ve had so far.

The overnight rain swept away the previous days clouds and we awoke to a beautiful sunny morning. After breakfast, Lori strapped on the good camera and we rode back into Guanajuato for a another look. It was Sunday and Guanajuato was even busier than yesterday with all the open air markets.


On the way into town, Lori spied this funky building.








Feels a little snug in here, even if you’re not claustrophobic.


The tunnels were very cool. This one barely the width of an SUV.


If only walls could talk…












I think that's a fish...with head statues in its body. Bizarre!




It was little less touristy just outside the downtown core.

Here's a little video riding around through the tunnels and cobblestone roads in Guanajuato.


We were glad we made a second run through Guanajuato this morning under less hurried conditions. It's easily the most unique city we’ve ever been to and we would have loved to spend more time exploring the place. It would actually be a great place take a week off, of course it might take that long just to find your way out of the maze of tunnels. Maybe that's how they get people to stay longer...hmmm?? We made tracks for Morelia instead.

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We had a very short 174km’s to Morelia and our 8th state (Michoacán), and even with our morning detour to Guanajuato, we made it there with plenty of daylight left. We managed to hit another huge traffic jam navigating our way downtown to the first hotel on our list. Nice place but parking was an issue as I would have to get the bike up the rather significant sidewalk curb, through the main door, over the raised threshold and into a small sunken courtyard right next to the nativity scene. There was just enough space to park the bike but not enough space to turn around to get out of the sunken courtyard.

The girl at the front desk told us about another hotel a few blocks over with secured parking and drew us a little map. Looked good but parking was across the road although in a secured building. We thought we’d try the other hotel on our list first, the Hotel California. But the GPS took us out of downtown into a much more depressed part of town, down some alleys we both thought were questionable and of course no hotel in sight when we got to our destination. Back to #2 it was.

On the way there, we were behind a pick up truck waiting for a light to change when one of the kids in the back of the truck yells something to us in spanish. “Lo siento, no hablo español,” I replied. The girl next to him then yells back in perfect english, “do you know where the theatre is?” Seriously? You’re asking us for directions? BWAHAHAHAHA! It’s easy to forget that we’re not the only ones visiting a new town.


Old West indeed!




We came across a local artist. Just fantastic stuff and not very expensive, we wished we could have bought this piece.








Morelia in love.


Stopping for dinner at a random street side restaurant. Check out this presentation. Food was delicious! Our overall experience with food here in Mexico so far has been nothing but fantastic. In fact the only time my stomach questioned anything is when I had a burger back in Durango. It was obviously hand made but had a weird taste to it.


Moments later these guys show up and begin serenading us. They were actually quite good.


It was Sunday and the Plaza de Armas was just warming up. I'm not sure what these guys were saying but they really had the crowd going.


Sunday is always THE day to see the main plaza of any town. The sound of the buskers, the open air markets, the smell of fantastically delicious food wafting through the air, the colours. There's just such an amazing atmosphere to it all.


Brother from another mother…


Turns out Morelia is also a UNSECO world heritage site. That's two in one day for us. Wow!


Cathedral of the Divine Savior of Morelia was built over the 17th and 18th centuries.




Some of the decorations around the plaza.


Plaza de Armas also goes by the name Plaza de los Mártires (or Plaza of the Martyrs), named in honour of those executed here during the Mexican war of independence.





We found ourselves walking around Morelia in this weird state of ambivalence, still very much feeling the culture shock yet at the same time falling in love with the city we were seeing. It just seemed to have a more relaxed atmosphere than either Durango or Guanajuato for some reason. Morelia really epitomized how we envisioned Mexico before we came here.

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We didn’t roll out of our hotel till the crack of noon and encountered more bumper to bumper traffic pretty much right outside our hotel door. We eventually found ourselves in a very ritzy part of town after missing a turn the GPS wanted us to take. Beautiful new homes, security guards everywhere, we were worried one of the guards would run us off for trespassing. The GPS rerouted us straight through the subdivision and a few minutes later we found ourselves at the end of a cul-de-sac facing a really crappy looking dirt path with the GPS urging us on. According to the GPS, this is a through road. Hmmmm! A moment later a cab zipped right passed us and down the dirt road. Ok, I thought, if he can do it…

The road went from bad to worse pretty quickly and we saw the cabbie pull over at a construction site. The driver and two other guys stood there starring at us like “look the circus is in town”. We tried asking about the road ahead, one guy gave us the thumbs up saying it’s ok, the other shaking his head side to side and pointing us back the way we came. We’ve heard this is typical when asking for direction in Latin America. I might have gone with a majority vote but the third guy kept mum. As tempted as I was to keep going, we decided the more prudent thing would be to ride back. Besides, I really didn’t feel like picking up the bike today.

It was almost 2pm by the time we got back on track. The GPS said the cuota and libre roads had the same ETA so we stuck to the libre road. We encountered more of that stunning mountain scenery and as we climbed in elevation the temperature dipped down to 11 celsius.

We eventually made it to Angangueo but somehow managed to drive right past our hotel without noticing. In fact the GPS indicated it was one street over and routed us up a pretty steep hill. The road went between cobblestone and broken up concrete and the truck in front of us came to a near stop trying to navigate a really crappy section. I came to a stop about 20 feet behind him trying to give him room in case he rolled back a bit and no sooner had we stopped moving forward, we started moving backwards. (Stupidly) I had only engaged the front brake but without any weight over the front wheel we began skidding backwards immediately and gaining speed. Oh oh! I was too busy back pedalling and trying to keep us upright to be able to put my foot on the rear brake and next thing I know BAM, we’re on our side sliding down the hill. I know we’ve all heard this before, but “it all happened so quickly.” We’ve had a few close calls with tip overs but this was our first 2up fall.

Before we could even get up, an oncoming car stopped and a guy jumped out of the drivers seat asking if we were ok. We seemed to be fine. We quickly removed the top case and the Wolfman bag to lighten the load a bit and he gave us a hand picking up the bike while traffic started to build up around us. Apparently this was a main thoroughfare here in Angangueo. How exactly do you pick up a heavy bike on a 40 degree hill? Very carefully! We were lucky we didn’t slide too far as there was about 40 foot drop off to our right. Our Good Samaritan spoke pretty good english and offered to show us the way to our hotel. I felt a little annoyed once I realized we had ridden directly past the place following our GPS. Stupid GPS!

After checking into our hotel and unloading our gear, I took a closer look at the bike.
Damage report:

Seems fine at first glance.


The highway peg and the left side case seem to have taken the brunt of the fall. The highway peg is barely scuffed but the case is a bit twisted up.





Our biggest worry is that all the electronics were located on the outside of the case that we landed on, including our newly fixed computer. We opened it up and…nothing broken - whew! The lid still closes but with great difficulty and it certainly doesn’t sit right.


The rack itself seems to have bent in a little bit and the spot it mounts to on the bike has an obvious fracture. Still seems sturdy enough and stepping on the rear peg doesn’t cause any additional movement. I removed the side case and was able to stomp on it straightening it somewhat. Lori also realized she hurt her arm a little more than she initially thought. I guessed she stuck it out to brace herself when we went down.

The incident seemed to take even more wind out of our already leaky sails and we began entertaining thoughts of possibly not continuing past Mexico. We wondered if any of the other travellers had ever experienced some sort of culture shock or been irresolute about carrying on.

On a positive note we had a very delicious 4 course dinner at the restaurant downstairs. The Plaza Don Gabino hotel itself had a very rustic and authentic Mexican feel to it.







There’s also no heat at the hotel which made for a chilly night when the temp dropped down to 3 Celsius. 3 Celsius! Yes, we’re in Mexico but Angagueo is 8400 feet above sea level so it tends to get a bit chilly. For the record, it was 2 Celsius in Brantford that same night and at least they have heat back home…just sayin’!

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Quote "The incident seemed to take even more wind out of our already leaky sails and we began entertaining thoughts of possibly not continuing past Mexico. We wondered if any of the other travellers had ever experienced some sort of culture shock or been irresolute about carrying on.

On a positive note we had a very delicious 4 course dinner at the restaurant downstairs. The Plaza Don Gabino hotel itself had a very rustic and authentic Mexican feel to it." end quote


Hi Mark Lori, wow that was a bummer, but on the bright side no one was hurt & tiger is oke. Culture shock hits us all, wondering why & if we should carry on as well. It will get easier with time.

I travel a lot (motor cycle low budget) in Asia, Europe & Morocco & have experienced culture shock. When it happens I look for a nice place to hole up with tourists around, some nice familiar food & get over it. The desire to travel takes over again. Think that you could be sorry if you give up now.

You can't change the world, but in so called poverty there is a richness that we have lost, openness, friendliness, willing to help. You don't have to be rich, own a car, tv etc to be happy. You also can make a difference, sometimes just by supporting businesses with you custom, talking to the locals etc etc. One thing you are never alone. Witness the people that helped you pick up & dust off the bike. I seem to experience culture shock when I return to Western Europe to work.

My advice for what its worth is to give each other a big cuddle, sit back relax & chat to each other & people around.

That has happened to me as well, fully loaded bike. Now I keep her in gear when I stop on a steep hill, use the engine as a back break, if need be hit the kill switch.

So my advice ..... and then and have loads of

So go for it ...... chances are few & far between Best wishes Vince

Thanks Vince, didn't think of the kill switch at the time, but that's a good tip.

Not to get too far ahead but our culture shock is done and over with. We took some time off and seemed to have acclimated to everything nicely. The people here in Mexico are nothing but friendly and helpful that's for sure and we're enjoying the country very much!

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Back when we visited the Geo Centre in St John’s, Newfoundland, we saw Flight of the Butterflies, a fantastic 3D movie about the Monarch butterflies and their migration from eastern Canada and the US all the way down to Mexico. Canadian zoologist and Scarborough (Ontario) resident Fred Urquhart, discovered that the Monarch butterflies migrate all the way down to Mexico for the winter by tagging them. Angagueo just happens to be located a short ride from the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve where the Monarchs migrate to. Coincidence? Naw. We made up our minds about coming here back in Newfoundland and it’s exactly where we headed next. Of course it wasn’t long before we had another gravitational incident with our bike.

One of the downsides of travelling by motorcycle is the lack of ability to lock things up securely, especially when travelling 2up. There’s just no free space to be able to store our helmets and jackets inside our panniers and leaving our gear on the bike is always one of those uncomfortable things that I would rather not to do. Our preferred method is to leave all of our stuff at the hotel but we were carrying on today so we had to bring everything with us. In those rare times that we leave our gear on the bike, we weave a steel cable through our jacket arms & helmets, lock it all to the bike with a heavy duty lock, then cover everything with a bike cover.

What do butterflies and locking your gear on the bike have in common? We were putting the cover on the bike in the grass parking lot at the Biosphere Reserve when I asked Lori to tug on the right side so I could reach the little hook underneath the bike and fasten the cover. Well tug she did, maybe a little too well. I really didn’t think the bike was all that precariously parked but never the less over it went glancing off Lori’s already injured arm as she scrambled out of the way. Of course I reached out and grabbed the first thing I could to stop the fall. Just for the record, you can not stop a falling motorcycle by grabbing the kickstand. “Well at least it’s the other side” Lori said. Another Good Samaritan ran over to help us right the bike, cover and all. No damage other than Lori’s arm, again.


We rode in to the butterfly area on horseback but had regretted it within a few minutes. The horses looked malnourished and didn’t seem to be doing too well going up the rocky hills. Once at the top we said we would walk back instead, much to the disappointment of the guy leading the horses as we just cut his fare in half.



The Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve is another UNESCO World Heritage Site. Millions of butterflies call this preserve their home from October to March every year. Today turned out to be a crappy day to visit because of the weather. It was overcast and never got above 15 Celsius while we were there. As a result all the butterflies were dormant, some were moving around but very few were actually flying around.


What appears to be brownish leaves at the end of the branches, is actually thousands of butterflies huddling together to preserve heat.




Of all the places to run into a news crew. These guys were doing a piece on the Monarch Biosphere and wanted to interview some of the people there. Our second interview in Mexico. No idea what ever became of this one since we never even grabbed a card or anything. Probably left on the cutting room floor, or maybe we’re famous in the Mexican butterfly world…


Lori found other things to take pics of on the way back to our bike.








This kid was hanging around us when we first arrived and then ran across the hill to our bike once he spotted us coming back, no doubt to let us know he had been watching it all along. We wanted to give him some money (even though he never asked) but didn’t have any small bills so we offered him a Cliff bar instead.

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In the hope that some sun and beach time would lift our spirits we booked an ocean front condo in the Yucatán over Christmas and spent the next few days motoring east. Something we would later come to regret, not only because we blew through 8 states in such a short time, but also because we missed some of the spots we planned on seeing. Not to mention the small fortune we spent on tolls as we mainly stuck to the cuota covering over 1400 km’s over 4 days.


We came across a couple of noteworthy (token) runaway ramps along this very twisty stretch of highway in the mountains heading towards Córdoba. The first ramp was all downhill and had a couple hundred feet of gravel just before coming to an abrupt stop at the face of the mountain. Guaranteed to stop any vehicle from any speed I suppose. The second one had an even shorter gravel section resembling the end of a ski jump ramp aimed directly out over the edge of the mountain. Past the ramp was a several thousand foot drop to the bottom of the valley. I called them token ramps, because really, who’s going to use them?

The climate went from cold to hot and humid in a span of a few minutes as we left the mountains behind. Fitting I thought as we entered Tabasco later that day. The stretch of cuota highway from Córdoba all the way to the Tabasco state line was just brutal. I'm not exactly sure where all that toll money is going to, but I can assure you it's not road maintenance. Littered with pothole after pothole it more resembled an obstacle course than highway. Potholes deserving of names such as "bus-eater" and “moon-crater”, it made the topes seem like a welcome break.

Traffic was just insane as we pulled into downtown Villahermosa just before sunset. We watched as an elderly man got hit by a bus. The bus was barely moving but the guy fell over backwards striking the back of his head. I don't know if the bus driver didn't notice or didn't care but he just kept going, barely missing driving over the mans legs as he lay there in the middle of the intersection. Before we could stop and get off the bike someone had already gone over to help the man. You’d think with all the chaos on the roads there’d be more accidents but this was the first one we came across while in Mexico.

We ended up staying in a sketchy (or so it seemed) part of downtown in Villahermosa but we didn’t care. Between the all day obstacle course, the heat, and the traffic in town, we were totally exhausted. It was also dark by the time we found something reasonable. $35 for the night & secure parking - good enough for us. After killing a couple dozen mosquitos in our tiny room and a refreshing shower we went out in search of something to eat for dinner. Much like the roads, the foot traffic was just as insane. It was busy and loud, the sidewalks packed with street vendors and people. We ducked into the first place we found that had food and other people eating. Chinese food it is! Maybe we were just giddy from the long day I’m not sure, but we thought it was funny ordering Chinese food in Spanish and had a giggle at our language barrier.

We could tell we were getting into a more touristy area as we arrived in Campeche the next day. Not only was the temperature on the rise but so were the prices for everything. I mean c’mon, $3 for a ? Sheesh! How is one supposed to survive around here? On a positive note our hotel upgraded us to a suite free of charge. The place was quite the contrast to our previous days accommodations. Too bad we only booked the place for 1 night.


Our suite had a sweet view...

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We’ve mentioned a couple of times that we had hit a low spot on our travels. I’m not going to belabour the low points though because we’ve already kind of flogged that horse. We have been overwhelmed with the positive energy, comments and votes of confidence we have received from far and wide. Our intention in posting about the downside of our trip wasn’t to garner support or attention but to document both the ups and downs of our longterm travels. Life just isn’t perfect either at home or away. We want to remember this when we are old and sitting in our rocking chairs looking back on all we’ve experienced. We also want anyone who cares to know we are aware there isn’t a perfect life, or trip. I remember that before we started out we both read many trip reports and blogs. The one thing we didn’t see in most of them was anything negative. I’m sure that’s got something to do with people wanting to remember the good times and forget about the bad, but I believe the bad times make the good that much more special and we shouldn't be afraid to experience them or talk about them. Suffice it to say since our first post about things not being wonderful we have truly fallen in love with Mexico, the culture, the people and all the things we first found uncomfortable. We will be very sad to leave.

Now back to the regularly scheduled program.

Looking back we probably made our biggest mistake of our travels so far by deciding we wanted to spend Christmas by the ocean. Being by the water is familiar and we’ve always had good times when there so we pushed ahead and rushed our way to the beach. We arrived in the tiny town of Chelem on December 20th. We had found a small apartment through an online website (VRBO.com) which we’ve used extensively for previous vacation spots. The apartment was right on the ocean, it had a small but functional kitchen, laundry facilities and a pool. It was really quite nice. So where’s the mistake in this?



The town was a very sleepy little place. Most of the homes in the area where we stayed were empty either because they were unliveable or because they were holiday homes. There was really very little for us to do. Downtime is good, resting is awesome but we would have benefited from some activities to keep our minds off our dour moods. We spent a significant amount of time cooking, watching movies, playing cards and daydreaming of the turkey dinner with all the trimmings that would be going on at home. On the very positive side of things we were able to spend literally hours on Christmas Day with family in a virtual way because we had good wifi. That was by far the best Christmas present either of us has ever had.

We also got to experience our first Norte which is the strong wind that comes down the Gulf of Mexico during the winter season. It was truly impressive in it’s power. I love beach combing so the day after the Norte blew itself out I was able to find a plethora of souvenirs to squirrel away in the bottom of a pannier. Shhh don’t tell Mark.



Mark making a grocery run. Unfortunately the owner (a Canadian by coincidence) of the property we were staying at seemed a little shifty to us and also to the local restaurant owner. We didn't feel comfortable with both of us leaving as there was no way to lock the apartment with all our stuff inside. It was probably just as well as Mark was riding during the Norte on sand. I think having me on the back may not have helped too much.


It’s an awesome feeling to cook a real meal on an actual stove. A fridge? Pure heaven!


We can get you a good deal on waterfront property if you want.






This place is actually owned by some people from Saskatchewan. The food was fantastic but every person inside was Canadian or American.


Where old adventure bikes retire?

Again I say what was the mistake in this? Well, we rushed to get to Chelem and bypassed so many wonderful places and sites in our desire to get to the water. If we were doing it again we would not have booked anything and just taken it one day at a time enjoying all the towns and cities on the way. It seems we had this problem once before rushing to BC and decided never again. Well I guess never can sneak up on you when you least expect it.


They don't weigh too much honey, really.

~Lori

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