Morning in the courtyard at the Hotel Los Arcos
Day 2 in Mexico: After waking up, we wandered a block away to get Dennis and we all had a wonderful breakfast at the Hotel Los Arcos. Our host Tom and his staff took great care of us and made sure we had everything we needed during our stay there. This is a place I would definitely want to return to and there are local hot springs that I want to hit when we come back. We got a late start due to some bike maintenance in the backyard area of the hotel and due to our time of departure, Tom recommended, that we head straight to Hermosillo where, at the time, our destination was the coast. Originally, we had mapped out a less direct route to the coast (Southeast then West) which would take us on secondary and “other” roads as they are referred to on the map but Tom didn’t feel comfortable with us going that direction with our later start time. Unfortunately he doesn’t know my husband and how when he gets a idea in his head it doesn’t change so easily. We headed out East and again the surroundings were beautiful. Milton kept saying over and over how it was January and we were on motorcycles in t-shirts in Mexico. What an amazing life!!
Church at town square where we stopped to get pesos
We found a wonderful little town with a bank so Dennis could get some pesos and we found a little place to eat lunch at, went to a market for some fruit, and then rode until dusk where we found a hotel in Mazatan. The room cost us about $19.00 US dollars and we probably overpaid since it did not come with hot water but it did come with plenty of spiders so we slept in our sleeping bags on top of the bed and Dennis pitched his tent outside. It did have a courtyard behind a wall where the bikes could be parked out of site so that was kind of a plus. From the front of the building it looked like it was abandoned so we drove by it a couple times thinking it couldn’t be the hotel that the woman told us about, lo and behold, it was exactly where she was talking about. Total miles for the day was less than 100. We are in no hurry and it’s nice.
Day 3 in Mexico: After a not so restful night, we packed our bikes and stopped down the road to cook muesli on one of the little turnoffs we found. After breakfast we continued east and the sun was so bright I had a hard time seeing which made riding a little challenging, especially when trucks were coming by at a speed much quicker than we were riding. Fortunately the trucks didn’t come that often. At about 11am we rode into this little town named Soyopa in Sonora. Every town we rode through people would wave at us and dogs would chase us, me especially, because I had Jackie on my bike. Most of the towns have a little town center that seems to be centered around a church and I love that so much color is used on the buildings. None of the blah neutral colors that we often use in the states for our buildings but colors like orange like a sunrise or red like a sunset. As we drove through the town we passed a group of people that consisted of a couple of police officers and some others who looked important, and as we were getting ready to leave the town we pulled over to ask directions from one of the men and soon after we had the police there and then a man who introduced himself as Juan Pedro asked me where we were headed. He was carrying a stack of something in his hand and at first I thought he might be trying to sell them, next thing I knew this important looking man came up to me and said Buena Tardes to me, shook my hand, and then went to talk with Juan Pedro and Milton. Come to find out the important looking man was the town mayor and Juan Pedro worked for him and after a fishing discussion with my husband they offered to show us how to get to the river just outside of town.
We followed them in their car, made one quick stop as the police had gone to get us water, and continued on toward the river. Along the way, I was directly behind the car with the mayor and they were going at quite a quick pace and before I knew it I came across a cattle guard with the metal grate slats running parallel to my tires with the distance between the slats wider than my tires and somehow I made it across without even my thought. Milton was behind me and later told me how much it scared him to watch me ride over it at 30+ MPH. Not sure how I made it, probably pure luck. The river was beautiful, it had an old school playground. It also had a large covered area for community events. Juan Pedro told us that the mayor wanted us to know that we were his guests and that we were invited to stay and camp at the river, he’d have the Chief of Police come by during the night if we wanted to stay but that if we wanted to leave if we had any trouble at all to tell people that we were his guests and even took pictures with us and said we could show the picture as proof of it. He kept emphasizing that we were safe there, that we would have no problems there or in the surrounding areas. Found out later that the mayor was also the mayor of six other towns, so we had connections all over the area. It was amazing how helpful and friendly they all were. So after only traveling about 50 miles that day we decided that we would stay the night in Soyopa. Later that day they had a little party under the gazebo area and fed us, there was music and some dancing. I had the cutest group of girls come us and attempt to talk with me but since my Spanish is so limited, they just laughed at me but they all did want to take pictures with me. The oldest was Paulina, then there was Sofia, Alex, and Angie. Paulina was the main spokesperson and she kept hitting herself on the forehead and laughing when she was trying to communicate with me. The music played until about 9pm and then I heard the police ride by once on a quad and both Milton and Dennis saw them go by later in the night with their lights on, probably just letting us know it was them.
Day 4: In the morning, the Chief of Police and one other officer came by again to check on us, made sure we slept well and offered to escort us to the next town even. We watched some men haul a truck across the river on a barge that they pulled across with a rubber type rope. I absolutely fell in love with the town of Soyopa. Such friendly and warm people and they want us to tell people to come visit and that it is safe. Another place that I will definitely return too.
Soyopa morning
When we left we headed towards San Antonia. This was a rocky dirt road all of the way with lots of turns and more cattle guard crossing. Got to use a lot of the techniques I learned in my off-roads course so huge thanks to Greg and Brett at Puget Sound Safety Off-Road, cause I didn’t crash once.
The day was hot we had little water so we stopped in San Antonio for water and more pictures then continued in a south easterly direction headed towards some waterfall in one of the national parks.
Water break on a dusty road
The roads were good with lots of twists and we climbed higher and higher. The foliage changed a few times with the elevation changes and views were spectacular. We finally came across a tiny village where a family invited us into their home for lunch and fed us deer tacos that he actually hunted himself and Dennis had me running down the street so a local cowboy could pretend to lasso me while he attempted to catch it on video. (Watch out Tacoma, because when Dennis returns he’ll really know how to operate that iPhone and none of you will be safe from his shenanigans either). For the night we, got a clean little room in a hotel called the El Dorado, and yes it has hot water, but unfortunately the handles are switched so Dennis didn’t know it and had to take a cold shower again. I was able to figure it out tho and the hot water was wonderful and a long day on the road. Total miles ridden today was ???