Have been following your ride, You have been achieving what a lot of us dream about. will be looking to follow your further adventures, Keep up posting your travels. Stay safe.

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.