What follows are all the e-mails that I sent while I was on the road. Mis-spellings and all.
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Some of you may not know this but I am on my way to Mexico. I had this trip planned, roughly since last spring. I got permission to use my leave a while ago. I had hoped that I could postpone the trip until next year due to the events of Sept 11 but I cannot. I am required to use up my leave before the end of the year, and if I don't take this trip I will have to take my leave bit by bit between now and the end of the year. I am going.
Over the summer I tried to learn Spanish. That was a dismal failure. I have been inoculated against everything except Anthrax. I am as close to ready as I will ever be, I guess.
I bought a Kawasaki KLR 650 which is a dual sport motorcycle, designed for both the road and the dirt. It does not excel in either but it works for both and was fairly inexpensive. Besides, I always wanted a dirt bike. It now has large aluminum saddlebags and assorted other gear to make the trip more doable.
I have no real plan. What I roughly plan on doing is to leave work tonight and go to my Dad's house in Connecticut. Then I will head towards the Mexico Border. If I can get over the border and well into Mexico by Saturday, I will. Otherwise I will wait until Monday. It is easier to get all the paperwork during the work week. From the border I plan on heading towards the Copper Canyon, about 250 miles south of El Paso Texas. From there I will probably head towards the Yucatan Peninsula and maybe into the country of Belize. After that, who knows. I would like to hit some places south of Mexico City, but will probably not have enough time.
I would like to keep everyone informed, but that may not be possible. If I cannot get to E-mail, then you will all have to wait until I get home to hear about how I did. If I can get to e-mail, I may also be able to keep my website up to date, although photos are unlikely. Either way, if you want to hear about my trip and get all the details, they should be on the web a few weeks into December. I plan on being back November 31st.
Bob L
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I have decided not to update my web site until I get home. Too much time. Thank you all for your letters of encouragement but I really don't have time to read them all.
Well, here I am in Creel, Chihuahua on Wednesday Nov 7. I thought I would be well past here by now. It took me longer to get to the border than I thought.
818 miles From Seymour, CT to Knoxville, TN - Great weather, great ride. This bike is not too bad for the long trips, but it ain´t no Harley.
978 miles day - Eastland, TX - Uneventful day except somewhere in Texas some girl in the back seat of a car from Iowa decided to show me her breasts. I don´t know why, I have said it before, this bike is a chick magnet. Great weather etc. I realized that I could not make it to the border early enough on Saturday to cross the border.
658 mile day - Deming, NM - Went to the Confederate Airforce Museum in Midland, TX.
300 mile day - Rode to the border to see if I could get insurance for the bike. I did not get it in advance due to my not being sure what was happening. None available so I rode out to Bisbee, AZ. Great little town. From there I went down some dirt roads to the Coronado forest and did some hiking. Ended the day at a great campsite where I was the only one there, just me and the Javelinas.
Finally got across the border. It took longer than it should have. They only had two windows open at one spot that I was supposed to go and that line alone took over two hours. The only insurance offered for bikes is liability. No theft or anything. That makes me extra glad I took the KLR.
It took me forever to get to a little Hotel in some town called Aconchi. Incredible roads. In pretty good shape and no one on them. I was the only guest at the Hotel. It cost 250 pesos, something like $28 So much for Mexico being cheap.
Rode through all kinds of great forests and deserts and everything. This area is like all of the four corner states combined. Up and down hills, super curvy roads. I have ridden as much as one and a half hours without seeing another car.
I stopped in a place called Bassaseachi which is right outside of Bassaseachic Falls. The fourth highest waterfall in North America. over 1,000 feet. Impressive.
It was a 2 kilometer hike, down then 2 km back up to the falls. I met a couple from Arizona and had breakfast with them before hitting the road. Some super twisty roads then I took a dirt short cut. I got to Creel early. I need to adjust my valves and change my oil. I will run off and do that as son as I am done.
The roads are great as is the scenery. Food is not especially cheap, nor are the hotels. It turns out Mexico has had some major inflation and all the process are up there. Hotels are not much cheaper than in the states and VERY run down. They are clean though. Last nights hotel was heated with wood but was nice. I was the only person there, and also the only person in the restaurant.
I think my plans are changing. It takes long to get around down here so I think I will skip going to Yucatan. I will do that on another trip. I am going to stay mostly in the western half of the country. I am not sure of anything above that, as always, plans change.
See you all soon
Bob L
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Durango, Durango? Kinda sounds like a music group.
Well, I'm in Durango for the second time. It's an hour before sunset and I am here checked into a motel and doing this. It takes so long to get from place to place sometimes that you have to stp early. I will get back to that.
When I left you last I was in Creel. I spent two nights there. I was staying at the youth Hostel. I broke down and got a regular room rather than stay in the dorm room with everyone else. The dorms were $6 us and the private room was $20. This included an excellent dinner and breakfast each day. There were tons of interesting people there speaking all kinds of languages. There are some real adventurous people out there. There was even a guy from Washington state that was bicycling from Prudhoe Bay Alaska to Panama. Prudhoe bay is well above the arctic circle, about 500 miles north of Fairbanks down an incredibly bad gravel road with mud so thick that he had to keep cleaning off his tires because they would jam up. There are also lots of polar bears there. Not my cup of tea. There were many people discovering Mexico by public transportation, busses mostly. Now that is adventurous.
Anyway, I saw the sights around Creel, swam in a great, very cold waterfall and did some hiking. The scenery is absolutely stunning. I can't even begin to describe it. Most of the roads are absolutely perfect, with more curves than I have ever seen. I wonder if they even know how to make a road straight? The only problem is that you have to watch out for surprises. I saw two 18 wheelers fresh off the road, one was hanging over a cliff. I would bet that that guy had to change his shorts. There are also critters of every kind, mostly domestic. Donkeys, burro, cows, sheep, goats and lots of dogs. There was even a flock of turkeys. They were standing in the middle of the road running around in circles confused. One of them had gotten hit and the others had not learned a lesson.
I changed my oil and adjusted my valves. I found out later that I lost the washer that goes on the drain plug so now the bike leaves it's mark like an old Harley everywhere it goes. I got a new washer but I am afraid to touch it. It might be stripped. I will wait until it needs an oil change, maybe.
By the way, if there are any weird characters in this text blame it on the Spanish keyboard. It has some strange keys and is missing some critical ones.
From Creel I road down the dirt road to the bottom of the Copper canyon. Not too bad of a road with incredible scenery. This area is much like the north side of the grand canyon but much greener and healthier. That night I stayed in Botapilas at the bottom. Nothing much going on here.
I left Botapilas and went Durango, Durango. It was a convenient place to stop and there were some interesting buildings etc.
The next morning I rode to Mazatlan on the coast. It had been fairly cool and comfortable but Mazatlan was very hot and a little muggy. The road into Mazatlan caused sensory overload. It was continuous twists and turns for almost 200 miles. The scenery was out of this world and never stopped changing. This road is actually the reason I decided to go to Mazatlan. It goes from high desert into a bunch of different types of pine forests into mountainous regions to rain forest. Flowers, plants and incredible views. It was hard to watch the road, I had to keep stopping or slowing to a crawl just to look at it. WOW.
That night I found out there was no drinking that day. I could not get a straight answer from anyone as to why, some said it was Sunday, some said it was voting day, you get the picture. The next day I went fishing. I could not get on any of the expensive good boats so I hired a guy who´s last customers I was able to talk to. They had caught some sail fish, big ones. I was able to out with this guy alone for about the price of the expensive guys with many other fishermen. This guy was cheap because his overhead was low. He had a radio. That made me feel good. He also never went out of sight of the lighthouse that sits way up on a hill. That really made me feel better. I caught a small tuna. That's all.
That was yesterday. That night I wandered around the beach area. This is one great beach, the water was literally warmer than my shower. OK, so I don't stay at the best places. I kinda wished I had gone snorkeling instead of fishing. I just was not smart enough to check the water the night before. When I finally got tired of the beach >I went to Goezoiesterbad. Well, that's what the lady at the hotel called it. It was Joe's Oyster Bar. I was there earlier and it was a nice quiet place to drink on the beach. At night it turned into a meat market with all the drunk American girls being chased by the Mexican guys. Or were the girls doing the chasing? That was amusing for a while until it finally got disgusting. Mating rituals of strange creatures can only be observed for so long. Today I was only able to make it back to Durango. I wanted to get to Zacatecas but that was an additional 4 or 5 hours away. I would have had to ride in the dark for quite a ways. There is nothing between here and there.
Tomorrow I plan to get to Zaca.... whatever it is. I should stay there only one night, see the sights and then to Guanajuato for a night then to the area around Mexico city. I want to see some of the Pyramids etc. I will probably be in that area 3 or 4 days then I will decide whether to head home early or see something else. My schedule is still open.
See you all soon
A 'good' ride is one you can walk away from.
A 'great' ride is one you can walk away from and use the bike again.
Bob L
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I realize I only just contacted all of you a few days ago but often there is little to do at night. I am at a Hostel for the second night. Zacatecas is a great little city set in a very hilly area. It is somewhere around 7,000 feet. There are no straight roads and almost all roads are one way. From what I can tell, they are all geared towards making you circle counterclockwise. If you miss your turn you gotta go in circles to get back. A much easier town to walk around in, which is what I did yesterday and today. Did I mention it is at 7,000 feet? Did I mention that it is all hills. My legs are about to fall off.
Last night after a couple of beers I heard a band outside of the Hostel. The townspeople were marching through the streets behind a small marching band. They grabbed a few of us out of the Hostel and dragged us along. Everyone had small shotglasses on strings around their necks. They were pouring shots of Mezcal, a very interesting Tequila type drink. I was forced to drink many shots of this stuff, very smooth. I was also forced to march up and down the streets. Every once in a while they would stop and dance. I am not a dancer but there was a Congresswoman there that said I had to if I was to continue drinking the Mezcal, that was the official word. So I danced. Did I mention that this town is at 7,000 feet? Did I mantion that all these streets go either straight up or straight down? I was dizzy by the time the band stopped and everyone went home. Back at the Hostel I was dragged out to a local disco and a rich guy was forcing us all to drink many beers. He was buying and he was a very important person. Who was I to argue. Around 2am we left the bar and got into a car. Next thing I know we are driving all over town and stopping at various places. Apparently the rich guy was searching for the Devils Sugar for me. For some reason he got the idea I was into that stuff. When I explained to him that I didn't do that kind of stuff, that all I did was drink and that I needed sleep, he had no problem and brought me and the other people from the Hostel home. I guess Americans have a reputation for doing drugs and he wanted to be hospitable and make me feel at home.
Today I got up early and fealt pretty good. I walked all over the town and up the hill to see some museums and statues and things. THis was an incredibly steep and tall hill. Did I mention that this is at 7,000 feet? From there I took the Gondola that goes to another mountain. It crosses the valley OVER the town.
Towards afternoon the elevation and the previous night started getting to me. I got some lunch and hung out at the Hostel. I saw most of what I wanted to see and had enought of this walking and struggling up hills.
Tomorow I am going to go to some ruins in the area and then head south to Guanajuato, another very rich old mining town with a huge student population.
Then to the piramids near Mexico City then either home or to the beach.
See you all soon
Bob L
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Well I'm home after 10,000 miles and four weeks. I got home last night at 8:30, 20 minutes after the very cold rain started.
I will have a detailed story on the web at some point but for now, here is a quick run down of what I did after Zacatecas.
I went to some ruins then to Guanajuato, an interesting small city. Saw some very unusual museums and some interesting sites. I spent two nights there trying to recover from a cold that set in. From there I went to see the Teotihuacan pyramids near Mexico City. Awesome. Then I needed a break from all the history and museums and churches and ruins. I got to stay at a "Love Motel" all by myself. There were extinct and not so extinct volcanoes. Next was Zihuatanehu? and Ixtapa where I spent two days diving and picking up ocean hitch hikers. Then it was to the gulf coast. I had the privelege of paying $70 worth of tolls in one day. Then another day of diving in Vera Cruz before the blast home. I crossed the Texas border Monday noon and arrived here last night. I got some rain in the Tennessee area then the last bit of cold rain. I went to work today after scraping a quarter inch sheet of ice off my truck. I got home just in time for winter to set in.
Bob L, lost as usual
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This is going to be my final E-Mail about my mexico trip. My photos should be on my website soon as will more details of my trip. Let me know how you liked it.
When I got home from my trip I gave a very short summary of what I did from November 15th to November 29th. Here is a somewhat more detailed summary of that portion of the trip. I should soon have my photos on the web and I hope to edit my journal for those few of you that really like details.
-Up a little later than planned. I tried to get coffee but nothing opens until 8am. Well, they are supposed to open at 8. Actually, open at 8 means that the employees show up sometime around 8 am and start preparing for opening. But they did have good cafe Americano.
-On the way out of town I stopped at the La Quameda Ruins. The ruins were not bad. Lots of climbing at high elevations.
-I took a zig zag route to Guanajuato. Some of the ride was boring, some `was beautiful. On the way into town I got very lost. Then I got unbelievably lost. There are tons of tunnels under the city. There are off ramps or should I say up ramps from the tunnels to the surface streets. I found a hotel for 480 pesos, about $50. I took it. Anything to get out of the zoo.
-I rested, trying to fight off a cold I had caught.
-I walked to the mummy museum. Very weird but not as weird as it must have been when they used candles and had to walk amongst the bodies in the dark. These were not ancient Egyptian mummies. Some of these people were dead less than 100 years. Many were naked. The teenage girls were pretty entertained by the dead male bodies. Very strange. Good for nightmares.
-I walked all over the town, seeing cathedrals, theatres, museums and universities. This is a great town to walk around in.
-I got up later than planned. Since I had all day I got some rest. I stopped at the Tulo ruins which were pretty good then headed towards Teotihuacan.
-The toll roads were way too expensive. $15 US just for today. They do save a lot of time though.
-I stayed at a hotel in San Juan Teotihuacan for $230P.
-I went to the Teotihuacan Ruins from 7:30 to 10:30. It is a great place, huge. Lots to see. There was lots of climbing and walking. Huge pyramids, much of it is restored.
-On the way to Cacaxtla I got to a town and there was a busted concrete telephone pole lying across the road. I went around it on the sidewalk. On the way out of town there was another pole and I could see how traffic was being routed around the poles. The poles were there deliberately to keep traffic out of the center of town. I used the long travel suspension and bash plate to climb over the pole.
-I rode to Cacaxtla Ruins. They were pretty good. I ate outside the gates at a stand. I had some great tacos with a cactus filling. Two for $14P.
-I had decided to try to make it to Amecameca near the volcanoes. There were supposed to be hotels there. The road there was under construction, it was horrible, dangerous, dusty and crowded with insane drivers. The only hotel I was able to find was an Auto Hotel. Also called a Love Motel. These sometimes charge by the hour. This one was $18 per night, as long as you want to stay. The sheets were thin as paper and there were no blankets in the room but I was given one. I used my sleeping bag anyway. It was actually quite clean and if I wanted there was a speaker I could turn on with romantic Spanish Music.
-Traffic was stupid and very aggressive. As I got farther away from Mexico City it got much better. The signs suck so I would occasionally miss turns. It is hard sometimes to figure out which roads the arrows on the signs are pointing at and of course none of them say east or west.
-This area can make a person hate Mexico. Too many people, too much eye burning smog, people on the road can be nasty, the roads are bad, the toll roads are expensive. I spent $12US yesterday, $15US the day before and $12US today. And I was only on toll roads for a short time each day.
-The ride to Zihuatanejo was great in parts but a lot longer than I thought.
-I got to Zihuatanejo about 5:15pm. Way later than planned. The day started out so cold that I had to put on my electric gloves and vest. It ended so hot that I could barely stand it. Zi.... was easy to get into and finding the right street for the SCUBA center was easy. When it was not where the guide said it was things got tougher. No one understood SCUBA. They kept thinking I wanted to go to the center of town. Finally, a business next to the address I was looking for sent me to Playa de Ropa. I went to where the road dead ended and could not find anyone that understood. There was a cop sub-station at an intersection on the way. They understood SCUBA but had no clue where it was. They helped me find the area that had a campground, well OK, they actually just pointed down the road in the only direction I could have gone anyway. I found the campground and the guy told me how to get to the SCUBA center. He said go back the way I came and turn right at the Police Sub-Station then it's a quarter mile down the road. I found it. I told the guy at the place that the cops did not know they were here. The guy said that the cops barely know their own name. Besides a SCUBA center it was also a Dive Resort. I decided to stay here and splurge since it was beautiful, right on the beach. I thought that it would be nice to hang out with other divers. That night there were no other divers sitting around the hotel, or anyone for that matter.
-I was the only diver on the boat. There was the captain, the dive master and me. We got to the dive site in minutes. On the way I saw a flock of Eagle Rays in the water, small ones with lots of markings, and a flying fish.
-The first dive hit a max of 70 feet but was mostly at 60 feet. The rocks looked a lot like Maine but there were lots more fish and the coldest temp the water got to was maybe 80 degrees. We saw lots of fish and stayed down for quite a while.
-The next dive was much shallower. We saw lots of fish on this dive. There were lots of colorful fish, electric skates (shocking fun), big sea horses, lots of small eels with black and white markings and also colorful ones. These eels were fairly aggressive. Live coral, octopus, stick crabs, fuzzy crabs and all kinds of things. Shallower is better.
-Back at the Hotel there was one crocodile sunning himself at a special place they made for him. You can get within a few feet of him. Not very safe though, as the 6 inch wall is not likely to even slow him down if he decided you looked tasty.
-My hotel had huge buckets and swimming pools loaded with sea turtles. They are scheduled for release in December as part of a program to bring back the population.
-The dive was interesting. We had a different dive master. There was two other guys diving.
-The place we were going to dive was a big rock that we could just about see from the shore. On the way out we picked up a hitch hiker. There was a guy in the water with a mask and snorkel waving his arms. He was on an open kayak when a boat ran over him. Destroyed the kayak. he was headed to the same place as us to look for Abalone. He grabbed his bag and his steel pry bar made from Re-bar and hopped on. We dropped him off at the rock we were going to dive near. He climbed up and started to get the shellfish. We dropped anchor.
-We saw lots of the same stuff as yesterday but more of it. We saw one of the electric skates and I showed one of the divers how to get shocked by it. He laughed. Both dives were good, with bigger schools of fish than yesterday.
-I rode south along the coast towards Acapulco. It was a great ride, much of it along the beach. I finally got to Playa De La Cuesta, 6 miles north of Acapulco. I picked a campground. I got the price down to $80P. The beach here is nice and clean and empty.
-The shower in the camp turned out to have salt water. Yeck. So much for washing off the salt.
-During the night I woke up. All of a sudden I felt the ground tremble. No noise, just a weird trembling of the ground. An earth quake. For the rest of the night I kept having strange dreams of Tsunami waves.
-I took the toll road to Mexico city and over to Vera Cruz. I made great time but the trip cost $640P or about $69 US in Tolls for 390 miles. No wonder so few people take them. If I took the free road I would have lost at least a day.
-I stayed in Vera Cruz at the Royalty Hotel for $290P
-The Hotel was near the Mexican Navy port. It was also near the raw sewage outflow and the beach where some people swim. Yeck. Mexico has much to offer but it is often spoiled. I walked up and down the beach before I went diving.
-The dives went well. Different kinds of fish, corral and scenery. There were other divers, mostly from Mexico City. The weather for tomorrow was supposed to suck so I did not plan on diving again.
-I left Vera Cruz at 2pm Eventually I found a crappy little hotel and restaurant. I got a room for $35. The place was in terrible shape, but adequate.
-I went to the attached restaurant. I could not decipher the menu but the kid from the hotel helped me a little. I decided to try the fish soup and one of the fish meals. I didn't notice that the soup was almost $5 and that the one meal I picked did not have the price on it. The meal was $7.50US.
-The soup was a meal in itself. Picture a large, wide crock bowl. In it there is a light tomato and fish broth, lightly spiced. Then picture a whole fish, eyes and all, sitting in that bowl. It looked weird but was actually very good. I think they just boil the fish in the bowl with the soup. The fish was hard to eat but it was a meal in itself. I saved room for my meal.
-The meal was pretty good. It consisted of the big brother to the fish in the soup but deep fried whole and French fries on the side. It was good but not worth the price. I was their only customer.
-This was an outdoor restaurant complete with the first large mosquitoes that I have encountered. I don't know if they were malaria type mosquitoes. The first table I sat at had large black dots half the size of raisins showing up on the table, complete with half sprouted seeds. These were droppings from birds or lizards in the rafters. The second table I found was clean.
-I rode the Tajin Highway to the Tajin ruins which were pretty cool. A lot to see and walk around and climb. The main grounds were not that big, I covered them in an hour. The rest of the grounds are huge but are all jungle. You can walk around there an see un-restored ruins. You could also get lost forever.
-I thought the highlight of the stop was going to be the Velocidores???. These guys hang upside down from ropes and swing around a pole. 6 colorfully dressed men come out, one plays a flute. They looked extremely bored while they performed a long slow ritualistic dance to the flute. Then five of them climb the pole while the 6th collects donations. The flute player sits at the top of the pole while the other four sit on a wooden frame around the flutist. There are ropes wrapped around the pole that the four tie to their waists. When the flutist finishes, the four men lean back and hang from the ropes upside down. Their weight slowly unwinds from the pole as they make 52 rotations to the earth. The number 52 is a magical number having to do with the calendar, but I am not sure why it is magic. When they reach the ground they spin on the rope and land upright on the ground.
-I made it to Manuel a little before dark. I found a Hotel for $150P and a BIG chicken dinner for $25P. I was in bed with nothing to do at 7pm.
-I got up early, was out the door before first light. Headed for the border. I crossed in Phar, Texas. It was windy most of the day but the day was nice. I headed towards New Orleans.
-I stopped in the Baton Rouge area.
Left early. Got some slight rain during the day. Around Birmingham Alabama it started to rain pretty heavy. I suited up and then it rained non stop until well into the night. A little while before I stopped the rain stopped and the moon came out.
10,088 miles for trip
-Out early, ride, ride, ride. Got home at a fairly decent time. Prepared for gong to work the next day.
Bob L, lost as usual