So for those of you who have Facebook (FB), you’ve probably already read Milton’s last FB post. Here is my last couple days experiences.  February 2 was my day to lead, (we have been alternating between the three of us of who leads, how we get to whatever destination we choose, and when we stop to eat).  So on February 2, we all made the decision we wanted to head to the coast for some warmer weather We started in San Juanito and wanted to head towards Los Mochi, which is in northern Sinaloa, Mexico.  When we headed out, we were headed in the direction of Urique.  The ride was amazing through the Copper Canyon area, the cliffs overlooking the canyon allowed us to feel like we were on top of the world and the rock formations were so beautiful.  Very little cars on the road with good pavement for a lot of the way until there wasn’t good pavement anymore.  Eventually, without much warning, the pavement ended (we are finding that this is pretty common here in Mexico).  We continued on unpaved road towards what I thought was Urique but we got turned around somehow. And in my defense, it is easy to do when you come upon a small village that isn’t on the map and it’s hard to know which dirt road to follow once we enter.  At one little village (don’t know the name of it) we stopped for a snack and followed the road out that appeared to be the main one leading out of town.  We usually ask directions before we leave, but with the language barrier it’s often difficult to get answers.  Milton is our best interpreter but even his Spanish is limited and the locals talk to fast that he can often only go by pointing to map and asking aqui ? (here?) and then again pointing to map and saying  there (ahi).  He did ask a few local teenagers and although they enjoyed joking with Milton with his limited Spanish we obviously didn’t get very accurate directions before we left because we ended up in Temoris which was west of our destination.

The road from the little village was again all rocky dirt but it was a relatively easy go for us but slow.  After about an hour of riding up this mountain with lots of switch backs, we came across a construction site where they were installing a pipeline pretty much straight up a mountain side.  This was an amazing site to see so we stopped for a moment to watch and then watched at a slow roll as we went down this hill.  At the bottom on the hill, we had to make a sharp right in an area with some loose dirt. Milton went through, of course, with no problem but as I went through, I think I had my feet out to give me a feeling of control (huge mistake) and I slipped in the dirt and went down with something hard crushing my left foot, (think it was my pannier).

Area where I crashed and hurt my foot.

Construction workers ran to help me get the bike off my foot, helped me up, and I hobbled over to sit down, removed my boot and didn’t note any visible injury but when I palpated my foot, I had pain along the top of my left foot.  Another worker came over, (he appeared to be the foreman) and said something about 5 minutes.  Dennis thought he meant we had to be out of there in 5 minutes so I put my boot back on as Milton came up, he helped me up and we told him we had to leave.  He was not happy with that but I assured him I could move my foot and would be okay to leave.  Come to find out that the foreman was trying to tell us that the ambulance would be there in 5 minutes.

Being checked out by the medics.

After getting checked out, the medic put some type of topical anesthetic on my foot and a light wrap on it so I could still get my boot on and off we rode.  Shifting was hard but luckily I did not need to shift much due to the terrain but I did discover that I could shift with the heel of my boot.  By the time we got to Temoris, it was dusk and we were anxious to find lodging for the night as we didn’t want to camp with my foot being hurt. I had ice, elevation, and ibuprofen on my mind.  We found a small simple hotel with a nice room but they wanted to charge more than Dennis wanted to pay for his portion (he said it was the attitude of the innkeeper) so we left and ended up having to camp that night not far out of town as there were no other hotel in the little town.  We did find a beautiful site and the sunset was amazing but I would have rather iced my foot rather than only elevate for only 11.00 USD more.  We did get to sleep under the stars and besides the pain, it was one of the more restful nights that I have had while sleeping outside.

The next morning, I noted my foot was too swollen to get into my boot so I had a boot on my right foot and a tennis shoe on my left foot.  We continued along what we thought was the right direction and after about 20-30 minutes of riding came upon a little town, which we discovered was Guazapares, where we got to eat a delicious breakfast and saw first hand where the meat that I was eating that morning came from.

Morning Menudo and tacos, I look exhausted.

And hungry!

The first thing I noticed was a young woman sweeping up the dirt courtyard, then I watched this cowboy walk by with an ax and some knives and then the cow was led out from behind the house.

Cow being brought out to be slaughtered.

It all clicked together then.  It was really hard for me to watch the cow be tied up.  First they tied up her front legs, then her rear legs, then pulled her to the ground where the rope around her neck was brought over her back and looped around her tail and then her neck was stretched back and she was tied tight  They spun her around by her tail to get her in the right position and when the pails were brought out, I knew the knife was close to coming out.  I did not see the actual knife being thrust into the cow’s throat but I finally decided that if I was making a conscious decision to eat meat then I needed to be willing to watch the process and stand in honor of this living being who was sacrificed for my food. After the cow was dead they propped her on her back with her legs in the air with pieces of wood placed on either side to keep her in that position.  We left before the butchering was started.

Family of where we had breakfast of menudo and tacos.

During this time, we discovered that we had been heading north and needed to go back past where we had camped for the night.  Milton had always said that he had intended for us to get intentionally lost, don’t know about the intentional part, but we definitely were lost.  We headed back and took the correct turnoff which put us going south.  Today was Milton’s day to lead and again the mountain roads were rocky dirt but he did stop to ask if we wanted to go over the mountain or skirt around it.  My vote was skirt around it as I only had thoughts of resting my foot somewhere as close to a beach as I could get.  Looking at the map, he thought he saw a way to skirt around it.  Not true, there was no way to skirt around it and yesterday’s day of riding was the hardest thing I have ever done.

We finally came to the town of Chinipas, where we were still under the impression we could skirt around the mountain, so we stopped to ask a local who seemed to tell us that we could follow the river to reach our destination.  Hooray, I knew that the river couldn’t go uphill (that gravity thing would prevent that) so I felt relief that there would be no steep hills for me to climb today.  We got lost a few more times, (headed uphill of course), asked for directions again, Milton was chased by a horse (it was beautiful), we rode through deep water crossings and I did not fall thanks to Milton telling me to stay on the throttle (we did get all wet and muddy tho). Before we knew it, we were going up again and after a particular area with deep ruts in the road, we stopped and told Milton we thought we had to be going the wrong way.  He did not agree with us but talked us into going a little further to see what was around the next few bends.  More uphill, that was what was around the next few bends, but by then, we didn’t want to ride down what we had just came up so we continued on, me with great reluctance and a lot of muttering under my breath.

The roads were so steep with switchbacks and they kept saying we were almost at the top but every time we’d get around a bend there would be another steep hill where I could see another switchback.

Up, up, and up!!

Wish I could say that I rode it with no problem but being able to only apply pressure to my right foot made it really challenging for me.  I fell so many times, I lost count.

Another crash! Milton attempting to talk me through what I could have done different.

Luckily each fall was at a low speed as I couldn’t get out of first gear due to the steepness of the hills but none of it was a pretty site.

We finally came across a shrine on the side of the road with water coming out of plastic pipes in the side of the mountain.  As we were resting, a truck pulled up and Milton asked if we were on the right path to Alamos.  One person jumped out to fill up some water jugs while the others tried to help us, drew us a map, and assured us that the roads got better.

At the Shrine..

People we met at the shrine who gave us directions. The guy in red is named Daniel and is a kindergarten teacher. Again we’ve met the nicest people here in Mexico.

Come to find out they didn’t get better for a long, long time.  But, as they left, I felt better with their assurance we were going the right way and road improvement.

Found out that the roads were not improving at all and that we still we not anywhere near the top of the mountain.  At times, after I would wreck on a particularly challenging area, I just would start walking up the hill, exhausted and sure I could go no further.

About three or four times, Milton rode my bike over a few of the more technical areas but as soon as he got the bike past, he would have me get back on the “horse” and talk me through the next part.  All the while, through my communicator, he’d remind me of what I learned in my off-road class; stay on the throttle when going uphill to keep my momentum up, clutch control, look where I want to go, not where I don’t want to go, soft hands, set myself up for the hairpin turn, take the outside line and power up the hill,  let my bike do what it was designed to do and don’t fight it, and at times, most importantly, breathe.  At times, I rode over some really technical stuff and was so amazed at my ability and then I’d crash and get discouraged. But since there was only one way off that fricking mountain, I had to keep going.

He would also be my lookout in the front and let me know when other vehicles were coming on the road.  Sometimes we had enough room to pull over, sometimes we had to keep riding so we’d move as far over as we could. He’d ask me what I see up ahead to get me used to scanning the road to look for signs of dust which would mean another vehicle was either coming towards us or was in front of us.  At one point, as it was getting closer to the time when we’d rather be off the road, we passed a pickup with about three men in the back, one was wearing a mask, and another with an automatic weapon.  They did not look friendly but I waved anyways and was glad when they paid little attention to us and kept going in the opposite direction.

We finally reached the point where we were going down more than we were going up and I was riding well again and after a particularly long stretch of downhill, I noticed that I did not have any rear brakes.  Now I wasn’t using much brake at all, mainly just keeping it in first and rolling through but I did need my brake occasionally so we stopped and noticed that in one of my crashes that my rear brake lever had gotten bent. We straightened it out and continued on our way.

It was beginning to turn dusk, we still were going uphill so I knew we were still far from Alamos so we began looking for a safe area to camp for the night.  As we were on the side of a mountain there weren’t really any options but the one area that was a possibility was the place Milton found the mask so we decided that probably wasn’t a safe place to stop for the night.  We finally came to some fence posts so I knew we were getting closer to homes and villages and we found an area with a couple farms where one family said we could camp for the night.  Only downfall there was there was no ice for my foot and they had a number of large dogs and we all had an image of the dogs spraying out tents all night so we motored on.  The next town looked almost deserted and we saw nothing like a hotel or even a restaurant to eat at, so we kept going.  By now, the down hill was way more frequent than the uphill but the dusk was creating shadows that made all the rocks and ruts look larger than they were. Again Milton stayed on the communicator telling me which line to take, that the shadows made things appear larger than they were and that we picked the bikes we did cause of the nice big front tires and how it would just roll over stuff if I let it.  It was easy going and I felt my confidence return, and then we hit some sand.  In the dark,  in the sand, I had a hard time finding the tire tracks to ride in and a couple of times I got into the deeper areas and wiped out.  Again I was not hurt but frustrated.

One of my final crashes of the night.

We finally found a small town were we were able to get fuel. My odometer said we rode 97 miles that day.  We had been on the road since about 8:30 in the morning and it now was about 9pm and had only covered 97 miles but they were really hard miles.  I was so relieved when the gas station attendant said that Alamos was only another 10 minutes away and about 15 kilometers before Alamos we finally hit pavement.  At the very beginning of this journey, I realized how much I have missed by living my life on the pavement but this time, I have never been so happy to hit pavement in my life.

Hot dogs, Mexican style, for dinner.

Exhausted and filthy but grateful to be done with the day’s ride.

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 ???