This was a trip I planned for years, and this year, it looked as though it was finally gonna happen. We recently moved to a new town, and the wife received time off, so I could fly her south into Mexico, and I was going to ride, and meet her. No big deal, right?
She has an Aunt and Uncle who own a small cottage rental unit on the beach in Zehuatanejo, just outside of Ixtapa. They coerced us for years to visit them. I got on the computer, booked her plane ticket and started looking advice for riding down Mexico way. I bought the extra insurance required for my bike, started asking questions of experienced riders, and generally got ready to roll.
To my surprise, I was met with a lot of negativity about the whole plan. I wrote to the Bikernet Interplanetary Headquarters, the Bikernet forum, and started grilling all who would listen, and most came back with a lot of negative and scary reports about traveling through Mexico.
I also checked out the guys over at ADV rider, and found that a lot of them do this trip on a regular basis, and they had some good info..Oversight #1. I didn’t ask about the quality of the roads down there, and should have put two and two together as most of these cats were on dual sport bikes, not full dressed Harley touring bikes. More on that in a bit.
Anyway, I erased all the negative vibes and went full steam ahead, which is usually how I roll. “Don’t listen to them, what the hell do they know?”
This attitude usually serves me well, but not always. This was one of those times….
I left new humble abode in the early morning hours of Oct 1st and hit the ferry. After the two hour crossing, I headed straight for the border, and south towards Boise Idaho, or as close as I could get. I spent the first night in Pendleton Oregon. The weather was a bit dicey, but not to bad.
The next morning I rose early and hit the road, for central Nevada, thinking, “Ah the desert, it will be nice there,” WRONG! The closer I got to Ely Nevada, the worse it got. Blowing hard, threatening to throw me off my steed more than once, and raining off and on. WTF?
By the time I pulled in to Ely, it was a full on storm, with wind and rain, and threats of snow by the next day. I sat in a restaurant and met a couple who were there for an Elk hunt they had drawn a tag for, and they were EXSTATIC about the weather…. Whatever,
“Shut up” I kept thinking. I’m kidding, I am an avid hunter, so it was cool to think about their upcoming hunt. I should have got their number to see how they made out. Anyway, next morning, I was up early, and chompin' to get the hell out of Dodge, before snow started to fly.
I was aiming for Vegas to take in one day of the Bike Fest there, and the closer I got the better the weather, although, they projected for a shitstorm. I arrived just after lunch, and took in the Vegas Bike Fest.
If you have been to one of these things, you have been to them all. The one cool part was all the venders there. If you are looking for anything for your ride, strong event draw out representative from various companies so you can speak to the manufacturers behind the components. Usually a smoking deal to be had on anything you can think of, and probably a few things you would never thought of as well.
I was looking for was a new set of tires for my ride, before I crossed over the border in to Mexico, but nobody at the rally was selling and installing rubber, so I had to put it off until another stop. Avon was represented by no installation facility was available. I left Vegas first thing next morning, and headed for AZ, ending up in Casa Grande, via the Hoover Dam, Kingman and a bit of route 66 just to add some nostalgia to the trip.
I had some friends in AZ just outside of Tombstone that I wanted to visit, so that was my next stop, but not before going to check out the OK corral and all that Tombstone had to offer. A nice dinner with friends in Pearce AZ then back to Tucson to spend the night, so I would be close to the H-D dealer in the morning for some new rubber.
I rolled up as they opened, and got new tires installed. That was all yet it was still close to 1:00 in the afternoon before I was able to escape. Unbelievable…. I decided to spend another night in Tucson as it was getting too late in the day to cross-over into Mex, and make it to the first town I had on my route.
I rode to Nogales AZ and grabbed a sleazy room right on the border.
Next day, I fuelled up, and headed for the border, with nerves a bit rattled reminiscing on the negative waves and concerned advice from friends and other riders. I swallowed hard and crossed over into the unknown. When you cross in to Mexico, there is no border guard in the booth, or nobody there telling you where to go, or what you need to do, you just drive across…
That’s it…
I rolled past all the border guards standing around watching me, and into the town of Nogales Mexico, and started wondering if I past something I was supposed to stop at, or what. The first thing that struck me was the poverty in this town. It stared you in the face at every intersection. People attempted to wash windshields at every light, and others tried to sell you a loaf of home made bread while you waited for the light to change. Some just begged for money, plain and simple.
As I worked my way through Nogales, and headed for the highway, I noticed everybody, and I mean, everybody was checking me out. My bike turned every head in the city, and it was a bit unnerving. Every truck, or car driver who went by, or was stopped next to me at a light checked me out, and not all with a friendly faces either.
Some were giving you a thumbs up, or a nod of approval, but others were looking at me like my bike was their next meal ticket, and how could they dismount me, and get away with it? I knew the answer. No one was going to take my Harley!
Once I made it out of the city and on to HWY 15, I felt better, as I was on the move, and not such an easy target, but I was still wondering where the “Frontier” was, where I was supposed to get my permits and what-not.
I finally came upon the frontier about 25 KM from the border, and stopped in to get all the appropriate paper work. You need a visitors visa, and a permit for your bike, which I think totaled about $60.00
I was there for about an hour getting everything straight, but it wasn’t really a big deal, and I was soon on the road again, and feeling good.
I was told to stick to the toll roads, or “Cuotas” so I followed the signs I could read that said “HWY 15 Cuota” and stayed off of the “Libre” roads, as I was told were slow, and contained trouble. I was headed for Guymas, and San Carlo for the first night, about a 6-hour ride. I believe there are only three toll booths between Nogales and San Carlo, totaling about $15.00.
The novelty of stopping at these toll booths and trying to communicate with the attendants was exciting.
The road to San Carlo was rough, but nothing I or the bike couldn’t handle, I thought. “Just take your time, and watch the road.”
Every little town you go through has a series of speed bumps at every crosswalk called “Vibradores.”
They start out about 15 feet apart, but by the time you get to the crosswalk, or intersection they are trying to slow you down for, they are only about a foot apart and taller than the first ones. Plus they are beating the shit out of you and your bike, no matter what speed you go over them at, but I wasn’t letting it bother me.
Then there are the “Topes” or, single speed bumps, or mounds at a lot of the intersections as well. These are fine, and are wide enough, that you can roll over them at a decent speed, and they don’t hammer your suspension too hard. Between all of the topes, and vibradores, there is just the general shitty condition of the roads. Very rough, and you really have to have a sharp eye on the road at all times.
I had to make a gas stop before making it to San Carlo, and thought, “This will be interesting.”
All the gas stations are govt run, and all the same name, “Pemex” and the attendants are all uniformed like an old school stations back home.
I was blown away by the price of gas down there. It cost me roughly $130.00 pesos to fill my FLH, or around $13.00.
Man, that is like half of what it cost to fill it at home. WTF is up with that???Anyway, a pleasant surprise. They are supposed to be full serve stations, but I guess the guys get enough bikes through there that they know to just let the rider fill it himself, so it was never an issue.
I filled up, grabbed a gator aid from the OXXO store, which is very much like a 7/11 and hit the road again. I rolled through the first big city of the trip, Hermacilo, a burg of about 750,000 people. The highways down there don’t skirt the cities, but rather blow right through the middle of them, so you get a first hand look at the big smoke. There construction and detours and I was diverted through cobblestone and dirt roads, which was starting to get on my nerves.
You could hear the bike groaning at every bump, and pothole you went over. I carried on as best I could, and stopped on the outskirts of town to have a look at the bike. Everything seemed to be holding up OK, but I had my eye on it. I hit the road again for the last leg of the day's travels.
I was stopped a few times by the Police at general check points, but they would just wave me on, and give me the stink eye as I rumbled through. Watch out, though. Sometimes they want bribes or gifts. Hard not to feel sorry for a lot of these guys, standing there in 100 degree heat, doing a shitty job, in a dark uniform that must be stifling. I cruised through, in nothing but a tank top and jeans, enjoying the cool air. Well semi-cool anyway…. My head was hot, 'cause there's a helmet law down there, and although I saw a lot of guys riding their scooters without them, I didn’t want to take any chances.
I rolled in to San Carlo around 2:30 so I had plenty of time to look around. I was still in good spirits at this point, and wanted to check things out. I saw a Best Western resort on the main strip. It looked familiar and inviting, so I thought, “I don’t care how much it cost, that’s where I’m stayin.”
I went inside to book a room, and asked “Tienne usted un cuarto?” Do you have a room? The guy behind the desk spoke broken English, so that was a relief. I got a ground floor room right beside the pool, where I could park my bike right outside the door for a reasonable $750.00 pesos.
I was felt secure and comfortable. I unloaded everything off the bike and went for a ride around the small fishing village. Very cool little town.
Back at the room, I jumped into the pool, as it was pushing 100 degrees and I was roasting. The pool felt good after riding in the heat for a better part of the day. I didn’t cover a lot of miles that day, but still, the road was the shits and it was hot… The pool felt good.
I had a great dinner that night, and turned in early. Eating in Mexico is a roll of the dice. The problem stems from the water. Salads are washed in water. Soups and meat are okay.
I was up, bright and early, and excited about hitting the road fresh.I slammed a cup of free motel coffee, and a stale muffin from the continental breaky and hit the road around 7:30.
I was shooting for Mazatlan, the halfway point in Mexico to my destination.
I was tangled in city traffic in no time, in Guymas, which is only about 20 minutes from San Carlo. Again, the highway rolled right through the big city, and not only that, right through the busy grimy industrial part of the waterfront. This place made the port of Long Beach look like an upscale neighborhood.
Dirt roads, with water running through them from somewhere, hopefully just a hydrant or something. Who knows? By the time I cleared the outskirts of town, my ride looked like I had been on the road for weeks, and evading all car washes.After dodging all the roadside sales people, and beggars in town, I hit the open highway once more.FINALY, I was able to open up the throttle I thought, but not for long. I thought yesterday's roads were rough, but it seemed the farther south I got, the worse the roads got. Major ruts, and potholes peppered the road, like a gopher convention and slowed my progress A LOT!
Every once in a while, I hit a smooth section that lasted only a couple of miles, and then it was back to bone-jarring bumps, and vibradores, that threatened to rattle the bike to pieces and chip a tooth at every turn.
I came across several signs while traveling in the state of Sonora, that said “hassle free zone” and had a picture of a motorcycle and a car, with the letters USA above them. I asked a waiter at the restaurant the night before about them, and he told me that it was something they had started a few years before to try to boost tourism, basically giving tourists hassle free zones, where you didn’t have to worry about being stopped all the time.
I was still stopped at road blocks, but they usually waved me right through. The part that was worrying me, was these signs also said “Hassle free zone for next 150 kms,” and readed less and less kms as I went further south.
I found out as soon as I crossed in to the next state, “Sinaloa”The military housed a huge presence. It was like riding across, Beirut.They were all over the highways, driving down the road with two masked guys standing up in the back of the truck with automatic weapons pointed into oncoming traffic, and several more guys in the back of the truck with guns astride their chest. The first few I saw were kind of interesting, but after that, it was just unnerving, as they were all checking me out big time.
As I was grimacing through the rough roads, I came across another road block, this time, the soldier motioned for me to pull over to the side of the road.
“This aint good.” I told myself…
I pulled over to the side of the highway, and another younger soldier came over and started making all kinds of commands. I simply said, “No intiendo,” I don’t understand This seemed to agitate him even more.
He motioned for me to open my tour pack and saddlebags.
I complied, and stood by while he went through my stuff looking in my bags of clothes and various emergency roadside equipment. After about 5 minutes, he was satisfied I didn’t have anything I wasn’t supposed to, and waved me on my way.
I put everything back together, and hit the road. There was a Pemex just down the road, so I stopped in and fuelled up, and grabbed another gator aid.
It was midday, and scorching hot again.I chugged back a couple of bottles, and was getting ready to head out again, when a bunch of federallies pulled in and immediately came over to check me out. They were OK, they were just interested in my bike. So much so, that one of them jumped on it, and had his friends start taking pictures of him.
What do you do?? I took out my camera, and snapped a few shots of my own.One of the cops said to me in broken English, “Where are you going?”
I tell him my destination, and he looked at his pals and declared,”Mucho Loco.”
He said, “Do you have a gun?”
“No,” I said.
“Do you have a will?”
I did my best to laugh at his strange sense of humur, but didn’t do a very good job.
He tolds me to be careful, and they carried on with their business. I gulped down one more bottle of Gator and hit the road. As I pulled out, I could hear a kind of weird noise coming from the bike as I went over the bumps in and out of the parking lot. I didn't pay to much attention to it. I was passing my 5th or 6th “Cuota,” or toll booth of the day when I hear it again, but couldn't pinpoint it, so kept moving. The toll booths were starting to piss me off now, and I was positive I'd snap if I have to stop one more time, and I was forced to stop several more times. I didn’t count them, but I will on the way home. This is nuts.
The road was still hammering the shit out of me, and I started to think, this road-trip wasn’t a good idea. I still had about 1000 miles to go, and I was already worn out with all the bullshit and hassles, not to mention the road.
After a few more stops from the army, many, many more potholes, “topes” and toll booths, I was cruzing along about an hour outside of Mazatlan, and happen to glance in my rear-view mirror, and notice that my tour pack was HANGING OFF THE BACK OF THE BIKE !
WTF?? I slowly made my way to the side of the road, and pull over to investigate what the hell happened. There were no highway pullouts down there and few emergency lanes, I had to pull off into the weeds and hope I don’t get mowed down by a passing truck.
I slipped over the side, and got off the bike to inspect things. The rack that supported the tour pack snapped in half, and the only thing holding the tour pack on was the license plate bracket, and the speaker wires!!
“OK, I can fix this,” I said to myself. I had bungee cords in the saddlebags so I secured it as best I could and got back on the road, as it was now getting late in the day, and I still had to get to Mazatlan.
Suddenly every bump in the road seemed ten times worse, and more treacherous. I looked in my mirrors at every opportunity to make sure my trunk was still with me. I was back on the road and hittin' it hard for Mazatlan, when I looked ahead I saw a bunch of people standing on a highway overpass up ahead. I thought, what the hell are they up to? As I got closer I saw that they were all pointing automatic weapons, and handguns at each other. What the hell is this!?!
By the time I figured it out, I was almost right under them, and hit the throttle hard, just as they OPENED FIRE ON EACH OTHER !!! I could plainly hear the gun fire, and saw a few puffs of smoke, as I passed underneath the mayhem.
The next time I looked at my speedo, I was doing 170 kmh… Just over 100 mph, and still picking up speed.
“OK, OK, slow the hell down,” I thought to myself, before I hit another pothole.
Did I just see what I think I saw?
That’s it, that’s the last straw. Just get me to a room in Mazatlan, and I will turn around tomorrow and head for home. I could handle the odd checkpoint and even the way too many toll booths along the way. The armed guards patrolling the highways, and the cops jumping all over my bike without asking, but this was too much.
I was glad to see the lights of the city, but now I had to find a place to stay. This was a huge city, and I wasn’t having much luck at finding a decent looking motel anywhere. My wife’s aunt told me the best places to stay were the hooker hotels along the way, as they are cheap and clean, and watched quite closely, but all the places I saw that matched her description of a “Hooker hotel” only rented rooms out by the hour, and the max I saw was 12 hours, so I kept looking. It was getting quite dark, and I ran very low on gas. I had a full jerry can on the back seat, but I was in a downtown ghetto. I didn’t think it a good idea to stop.
I found a Pemex and stopped to fill up. I asked, “Donde esta a hotel?” Do you know where there is a hotel? He told me one block west of where I was, was the waterfront “tourista” district and there were lots there.
Kool, that’s where I headed, and there were hotels on top of motels, next to resorts. It started to pour rain, and I took the first hotel I came across to slide out of the deluge. I was soaked when I stumbled into the lobby, and asked about a room and parking. They had no secure parking but I was able to park right on the sidewalk at the front door, right next to the desk clerk's “Vento” bike, a small knock-off of a Fatboy. He was very proud of it, and said he would be on all night, and would keep an eye on the bikes.
He said, “No worries bro,” in a very thick accent. My room had very few cockroaches and a view of the bikes and the activities on the waterfront strip.
I called the wife, and told her of the days activities, and flat out told her, “I think I bit off more than I can chew on this trip.”
I was spent. All I wanted to do was turn around and get back to the states and home to B.C. and she could sense it. She said, “Call me again in the morning, and let me know how you feel”
I didn’t get much sleep that night, but managed to doze off in the early hours.
I was still in the same frame of mind, and called her to let her know. She was a bit disappointed, but knew things must be serious if I was gonna bail on the trip of a lifetime, when I was only a day and a half from where we were supposed to meet.
I battled with myself all night about it, but the bottom line was, I wasn’t having a good time, and as she said,”This wasn’t much of a vacation, if I was gonna be stressed all day and night.”
She cancelled her flight and let everybody know my plans.I hit the road early, as I wanted to get back to San Carlo that night, and knew what the road was like.
I counted the toll booths on the way back to San Carlo. There were nine of them in that one day stretch of road. Major pain in the ass on a bike. I checked out the overpass where the standoff happened the night before, but didn’t see anything that would hint at the previous night's events.
To give you an idea of the condition of the roads, it took me 11 hrs to travel the 500 miles back to San Carlo, and that included riding straight through, only stopping for gas and gator aid. I lived on that stuff down there as I didn’t want to drink anything else.
The day's trip was much the same. To many stops, and check points, and shitty road conditions threatening to knock my tour pack off its bungee corded roost. It made it, and so did I… Back in the pool, and up to the bar for many cervasas, and a good meal. I felt good to be back there, knowing I was only six hours from the border, and beautiful Arizona. I fell asleep early that night, but it didn’t last. I was up at about 1:30 am, and couldn’t sleep.
I watched whatever English TV shows were on until about 5:30, when I packed up and got the hell out of there.
Another four toll booths to go, and a few cities, and I was home free. I arrived at the US border around 11:30 in the morning, and was never so glad to see a border patrol in my life.
I felt safe again. I could ride anywhere, anytime I wanted without worries of the military coming down on me, roadblocks, Topas, Vibradores, nasty cops jumping on my bike or running into the middle of a drug smuggling shoot out in the middle of a highway. I headed straight for the Harley dealer in Tucson again to buy a new tour pack mount.
I booked a room across the street from the dealer, and mounted the new quick release mount, then walked over to the dealer for their grand opening, and “Hogtoberfest” party complete with live band, free hamburgers and root beer, and people I could talk to in English.
That was my first, and last trip on a bike to Mexico. Many people tried to warn me, including Nyla, queen of Bikernet, my own brother, and a few other close friends. I’m glad I checked it out for myself, but if you were to call me and tell me you wanted to ride down there tomorrow, I would tell you in no uncertain terms, “Your fuckin nuts.”
The rest of my trip back home to B.C. was uneventful, with beautiful smooth roads, and loads of good places to stop and eat, or stay. It got very cold going back through the desert again, but I didn’t care. It was heaven as far as I was concerned. It stayed dry all the way to the Seattle area, and as usual, it started to piss down rain for the last leg of my 5,500 mile journey. I got a room in Bellingham, and hit it first thing in the morning for the Canadian border, and the ferry ride home.
I got hassled a bit at the border, but it didn’t even faze me after what I had just come through.
I told the guard of my travels, and experiences, as he was going through my bags, and he just smiled, and said, “Welcome home,” and left my shit scattered all over the parking lot…….
Maybe Mexico wasn’t that bad after all…….
