After a whole days rest in Oaxaca, we headed north on a firm timeline. Valerie’s father had arranged for us to spend a week at his timeshare in Mazatlan, and we didn’t want to miss a minute of it.
North of Oaxaca the road winds through the mountains towards Mexico City. We reveled in the cool temperatures and high mountain air as we passed through pine and cloud forests before finally dropping down to lower elevations where the temperature rose along with the insect population. I have not mentioned insects on the road in any of the previous posts, but I will say a few words about them now.
There are all types of insects in the tropics. Although I am no entomologist, I have developed an intimate understanding of many insects of the tropics. This understanding was not gained through careful study of books or bug collections, but by the noting type of pain each bug inflicts when they collide with me at high speeds. Dragonflies are the biggest bugs; they feel like hitting a wad of sticks, but don’t really hurt that much. Butterflies come in all shapes sizes and colors, but they all splatter yellow guts when they hit me. Butterflies tend to hit me mainly in the face, and stick to my sunglasses; they hardly smart at all. There are also these little rock hard bugs that feel like someone shot me in the face with a bb-gun when they hit me. These little buggers tend to hit me in the forehead and on my cheeks, creating instant blinding pain, which fortunately, quickly passes. The worst bugs are the bees and hornets, though. My first bee sting occurred on a lonely highway in northern Costa Rica. All of a sudden I felt this intense, throbbing, burning pain on my neck. At first I thought it was a rock, but the intensity of the pain would drop off and come back as we rode along. When we pulled over a few miles later to buy gas, Valerie pulled a huge stinger with poison sack attached out of my jugular. Thanks Val.
It was on the road north from Oaxaca that the next stinging insect got me. We were driving downhill into a turn along a hot, windy, two lane highway suffocated on both sides by tall green brush when I felt the worst pain ever in my face. I immediately freaked out and started thrashing at the pain-zone, pulling out wads of salt and pepper hair along with something angry and crunchy; it was at this moment that I opened my eyes, regained my self control and turned at the last second, saving us from plunging into a ditch. I pulled over to the side of the road and threw helmet flew off, trying desperately to see the sting site in the side mirror, hoping to get the stinger out before it pumped more of its noxious venom into my forehead. We couldn’t see any evidence of the bite until a few hours later when my face had swollen up like someone had punched me and had begun to itch. This was no normal honeybee that stung me, but a big livid wasp.
When we packed up the next day for our ride to Iguala the swelling was even worse and my face itched like I had poison oak, and in an attempt to avoid future run-ins with mad insects capable of inflicting severe damage I raised the windscreen to its highest position, even though it cut down the much needed cooling airflow; I would rather be hot that stung and in a ditch.
Yesterdays insect event were soon forgotten as we turned off onto the side road towards Iguala. This road was my first really poor road since Guatemala, passing through some incredible scenery, and we felt the adventure spirit again as we dodged mud holes and swerved around potholes. We managed to make 125 miles in about 6 hours, the sign of a true back-road. This road also took us by the highest volcano (Volcan Popocatepetl at 18,000 feet) we had seen since Ecuador. When we made it back to the main road we drove on until we were too tired to continue on.
The next day, a typo on our otherwise trusty map quickly exhausted all our back road enthusiasm. The folks at Nelles mistakenly marked a cart track as a highway, and understated its distance by 100 miles. At first the road seemed to be in great shape as we scraped pegs powering through the turns, but our speed rapidly diminished as the roads condition deteriorated. What was supposed to be a nice road through the mountains turned into the most pot-holed road we had encountered in 20,000 miles. We drove for 150 miles at a snails pace, the bike taking terrible punishment when we hit potholes, our patience slowly running out.
There were a few bright spots along the pothole road, though. We were able to ride for hours without seeing another car or human being, and the few people we did see were either shocked or happy to see us, reactions that were common to the point of annoyance in South America but unheard of in Mexico. Out in the middle of nowhere there was an army checkpoint staffed with obviously bored enlistees. You have to stop for the Army because they have collapsible spike strips they can pull out at a moments notice and flatten your tires. We stopped for them and for some reason they demanded to search our luggage. We were shocked, and flatly refused to open our bags for them. Our confidence must have been flowing as they promptly retracted their demand to search our stuff and asked for passports instead. We deftly handed them copies of our passports after reminding them that US citizens do not need a passport to enter Mexico. It was fun to toy with the army guys and they soon let us move on. When we finally made it to the coast, muggy, suffocating heat and mad traffic were our rewards as we wearily realized we had broken a personal on-bike record that day at 14 hours.
It was a test of endurance as we made our way north along the coast. The heat and humidity and biting insects made rest and picture stops unappealing at best, forcing us to stay on the bike for longer than we normally would. We managed to make good time, though, and passed along some incredible coastline along the way. One part of the Mexican coast, south of Puerto Vallarta, features cliffs that at times fall 1,000 feet to the ocean, like north of Santa Cruz on a grander scale. We stopped at a large turnout to admire the view from 1,000 feet up and take some photos. While we were stopped Valerie spied a rock on the other side of the road, and we knew what to do. We put our gloves on and somehow managed to lug the immense stone to the cliffs edge. Unfortunately, the cliff was soft dirt that absorbed the rocks momentum, so we were unable to see the rock take any huge leaps outward, but we were able to see several avalanches caused by the immense rolling stone.
After passing through Puerto Vallarta, the road took a turn inland, passing through the same monotonous brush covered, insect infested hot hills we had been driving through since Chiapas. Topes (speed bumps) were everywhere, typical Mexican government roads that pass through the center of every hamlet along the way. As we got close to Mazatlan, the low fuel light came on. I wanted to try and make it to the resort with as little gas as possible left, as I was hoping to find a body shop that could repair the damaged tank. When we realized we wouldn’t make it to the resort on the gas we hade, we pulled over at the closest Pemex that had a cold coconut dealer out front. While I pumped the gas and answered questions about the bike, Valerie ran off and bought two cold coconuts for us. The coconuts were the biggest we had ever seen and held at least 2 quarts of sweet young coconut water each, the most refreshing drink you can find on a hot day.
As soon as we entered the city of Mazatlan we pulled up next to this guy driving a beautifully restored 70’s Chevy pickup. This was the obvious guy to ask about body work, and after pointing at the tank and asking who could fix it, he led us to a little hole in the wall motorcycle body shop downtown. The body shop owner took one look at the tank and quoted us $120 for the bodywork and paint. Screaming deal! It would have cost $700-$800 for the work at home. He had it done in one day and it turned out much better that I expected.
We were even happier when we pulled into the timeshare Valerie’s dad had booked for us. It was by far the nicest place we had seen in our whole trip. We had the bellboy take our bags up to our ocean view room with kitchen. We immediately emptied the side bags and headed for Wall-Mart where we stocked up on enough groceries for the week. We were able to cook almost all our meals and saved a lot of money.
On our third night at the resort, Valerie was sitting outside watching the waves when she saw a turtle struggling through the surf up to the beach. We both watched it as it climbed up to dry sand, and when it began to lay its eggs, we ran down to the beach and hid, watching. It was almost like something out of National geographic. When the turtle had finished burying her eggs we took a few pictures and disguised her tracks so poachers wouldn’t find the nest. The turtle was oblivious. The next day Valerie told the resort security about the turtle sighting. After an hour the guards found the eggs (even though I had marked them) and had the local aquarium come and take them to be hatched in safety. Valerie ended up saving 62 turtles.
After five days of relaxing it was time to head north through the desert to the US. There is no avoiding the toll-road along the way unless you want to head inland and go through the mountains. We would have taken the mountain road earlier in our trip, but being so close to home we gave into temptation and took the toll road the whole way.
As we neared the border, mexico started to look a lot different. It was as if Mexico and the US melted together at their border to form a place that was not either, but a coagulation of both countries. We started to see Circle-K' markets and all types of American fast food as well as outsourced manufacturing plats that made all kinds of stuff. The worst smelling manufacturing plant we passed was makingt cat cood for Purina. I think they were using all the roadkill they found out on the highway.
We were unsure of what to expect at the border after hearing some nightmare stories from other travellers about trying to get into post-9/11 America. We were also were unsure if we would have to pay the departure fee for Mexico ($20 a head). As we approached the border we came to a line of cars and split lanes to the front. We were approached by a Homeland Security officer who took one look at our passports, asked us if we had more than $10,000 cash on us (yeah right) and said "welcome home". We hapilly snached our passports back and took off, scared he would change his mind and try to search our bags or demand some sort of fine. We made it into the USA!
We took one look at the border town on the US side and decided to head for Tucson, only 60 miles away. We made it in under an hour speeding along the best road we had been on in our whole trip. We managed to find a cheap hotel in the downtown area and ordered celebratory pizza and beer, which promptly made us both sick. You have to watch out for American food...
We did the Mazatlan-Tucson stretch, a distance of 850 miles, in two days. The toll road was definitely worth it, being much faster and safer than the regular government roads, and cost only around $50 for the whole distance. In Tucson, we headed to the Iron Horse BMW dealer where we found a replacement headlight for the bike. Iron Horse is by far the best BMW dealer we have ever been to. They have every kind of accessory you could want IN STOCK and they are alos very helpful. They also confirmed my suspicions that the rear end is going out again, and gave me advice on how to deal with it.
From Tucson, we headed past Phoenix to Buckeye to visit Valerie’s grandparents who were very happy to see us. We spent four days in the desert eating an relaxing, saving our energy for the ride home. I also learned a great new card game called "spite and malice" that we played every night. It was 100 degrees fahrenheit every day there, but it was actually quite pleasant without humidity.
From Buckeye we set out heading west along I-10, listening to the grinding rear drive. I was hoping (praying, acatualy) that we would be able to make it home without having it explode. My backup plan in case it did explode was to drive the bike home in a U-haul van. But, the more I thought about the rear end problem, the more confident I was that the bike would take us home; it would be to crazy and terrible to ride for 20,000 miles and have the bike break on your doorstep; I am not lucky enough for that to happen.
We drove along the same route that my family and I used to take to visit Laughland and Parker Arizona when I was younger. It was fun to ride along the same road on the bike, seeing all the weird stuff strewn along the roadside and passing through all the quirky towns. We made it to Bakersfield by 4PM and decided to push on for home. We made it to Paso Robles by nightfall and rode the next two hours in the dark, happily shivering and cold for the first time in months.
After 770 miles we made it to highway one in Santa Cruz and I got really excited. It was an amazing feeling of accomplishment when the trip finally came full circle and I was riding on the same roads my bike left on in the box seven months before. We pulled up the driveway on Hidden Valley and just stood there for a minute, marveling at the beauty and tranquility around us. Soquel is still the best place in the world. It is good to be home.
