Nov 16 th, Batopilas, Mex

I got up early for some breakfast. I was felling pretty good about taking a day off down here. On my way out, I met the owner of one of the local general stores. He said that he had to make tortillas until 9:30 , but after that I could come by to use his workshop. Cool, some tools at my disposal.

When I came back later, he let me into his workshop. There was a guy in there reassembling a Chevy after a complete paintjob.

Great workshop for the day

I fixed my Piaa headlights (hopefully for the last time), installed the hand guard spoilers that I’ve been carrying since Houston , adjusted the length of the gear shift lever, and tightened every nut and bolt I could find. It was a little disconcerting to find out how many bolt were loose or missing. I’m glad I do this once in awhile.

I found some computers on the second floor of the library. The connection was terrible, but I was able to check some messages regardless. I was up there for awhile and they locked me in by mistake. I had to yell down to someone on the street to get me out. The locals enjoyed this event thoroughly, while they abused me verbally. I felt like a helpless captive in a fairytale. A good time was had by all.

On the way to dinner I noticed a 2006 BMW 1200GS Adventure parked right in front of mine. Sweet, someone to ride with! I got the owners room number, knocked on the door and met Ian. He was beat from the ride in (a different route than the one I took), but we made plans to ride out of the canyon the same way I came in.

I had another great dinner with Steve and Richard. They are both investment bankers back in Utah . These guys are avid mountain bikers. Richard is in the process of setting up a mountain bike tour group for Copper Canyon . I’m sure it will do really well; Copper Canyon seems ripe for that sort of undertaking. As we were eating our Chile Rellenos, Steve was telling me how he and his very large family make the same dish. It was a pretty elaborate recipe. I love it when people come home from work and really enjoy making meals from scratch. There are shortcuts available but, nah; people like Steve make their own tortillas when it is time for some Mexican food. As a Chef I respect that a lot.

Towards the end of dinner we met a Mexican heart surgeon, Arturo. Arturo rode down the canyon with an assortment of very specialized, young, bright surgeons. As it turns out Arturo is in charge of the Mexico Community on Horizons Unlimited. He heads the annual Creel meeting. Arturo is planning an around the world trip next year. He was sixty something and didn’t look it. Cool guy. He and Richard exchanged folklore about the canyon. It was a very interesting conversation.

Nov 17 th, Batopilas, Mex to Hidalgo De Parral, Mex – 500Km, on route 45

Ian’s BMW 1200GS Adventure, we are getting ready to head out in the AM

Ian and I got out of the canyon pretty quickly. I dropped the bike going up a hill again. I was looking over my shoulder for Ian. I stalled and dropped the ‘Ol girl. I fell on my arm which in turn pressed into my chest. I hurt my ribs near my sternum. Nothing serious (although when I’m typing this two weeks later it still hurts). I broke one of my front turn signal blinkers. I have spares. Ian helped me pick her up and we were off. It sucks to drop a bike the first day you are riding with someone. It took awhile to get my swagger back.

Road to Batopilas taken from a helicopter

We hauled ass to Parral. These were amazing twisty roads. I know I say that a lot but the roads in this part of Mexico are perfectly paved and almost completely deserted. Twisty roads are great on a motorcycle. You can really tuck into a turn on a bike, much more so than a car. You can lean way down, scraping your footpegs on the pavement as you continue through the turn. You can achieve this even at low speeds. If you’re lucky the last turn you just finished to the left is followed by a similar turn to your right. At which point the bike lifts itself and you back to an upright position and then quickly down again on the opposite side. As you learn to ride, these actions become subconscious to a point where you perform them poorly when actually thinking about them. Something else that is interesting if you never rode a motorcycle before, when above 5mph you push instead of pull your right handlebar to turn right. It’s the opposite of a bicycle.

It was rush hour when we got into Parral. Neither of us had much patience for traffic. We stopped for some coffee and met an English class of varying ages at the coffee shop. They practiced their English and helped us find a hotel room for the night. We all laughed a lot. They were fun. It was a nice way to end the day.

Ian is great to ride with. He has 13,000 miles logged on this trip already, with that number again still to go. I am able to pick up some packing techniques and riding habits that will help me get more miles out of my days on the pavement.

Nov 18 th, Hidalgo De Parral, Mex to Palmito, Mex – 600Km, on route 45 and 40

The two of us made good time to Durango for lunch. I ate three very dodgy burritos. I was hungry. I knew the integrity of these little beauties were extremely questionable given their tepid temperature. My stomach held steady and true.

It is always tricky heading directly west into the setting sun. You can barely keep your eyes open, much less see, even with sunglasses on. I almost rear ended a broken down Jeep Cherokee. He had his hood up and was trying to fix his car at the apex of a blind, uphill curve, in my lane. I couldn’t get around him; the road was too tight with a white pick up in the oncoming lane. With the sun in my eyes and shining off of the pavement I was just barely able to see the situation and make it to a complete stop just behind his bumper. As I came to a stop and the bike settled, I was pretty much standing the bike up on the front wheel, I almost dropped it. In the end it was probably the good old ABS which saved the day. It was the perfect set of outside circumstances along with a little too much speed that would have resulted in much worse situation. I drive slower now.

We started looking for a place to spend the night at El Satla. Neither of us felt very comfortable with that idea. It was a very poor town, we felt unwanted, and maybe a little like targets. We continued on to La Ciudad. It turned out to be more of the same. We donned our cold weather gear and got ready to ride after dark. Just to spice things up a bit, the next section of road was called the Devils Backbone. It was the exact opposite of straight. Bummed at the dramatic scenery we were missing in the dark, and the fact that this was more than a little dangerous, we were glad to find lodgings relatively quickly in Palmito.

There was a truck stop near the Hotel and we managed to get a great dinner and a bunch of beers for next to nothing. We talk bikes, grab some cookies and head back to get some rest.