01/08/02 - Creel, Chihuahua, Mexico

Buenas dias amigos! The Mexican tour is taking shape. From Creel I will travel to Hidalgo de Parral through the Copper Canyon via Guachochi. I will remain in the scenic central Mexican highlands on to Durango, Zacatecas and then Guadalajara. I may enroll in Spanish laguage courses in Guadalajara and will likely take a bus to Mexico city if I can find a safe place to store my motorcycle for a few days. The 20 million plus people and 4 million cars of the worlds largest city drain my motivation for riding into the city. Continuing southward from Guadalajara I'll make my way to the Pacific and travel along the coast through Acapulco, stopping for a break around the beaches of Puerto Angel before moving on to Belize and Guatemala.

Reviewing the past few weeks after my Boulder, CO departure, my motorcycle and I caught a ride to Santa Fe to avoid as much of the cold as possible.  After very nearly literally freezing my balls off in the freezing rain on the way to Boulder I wasn't excited to repeat the experience. Thanks for the lift Ron! I entered Mexico on the 21st through Santa Anna near El Paso. At the actual US Mexico border a guard was carefully placed to wave his hand in a forward motion if any car begins to slow down. After riding into Mexico for about 10 minutes without any papers or contact with authorities I turned around and went back to the station. With friendly hand gestures I learned that there was nothing to do there and moved on. Ten minutes into my second trip into Mexico my motorcycle promptly broke down.  Luckily two rubber bands carefully wrapped around the ignition switch were enough to hold the connection.  My papers for onward travel were processed fairly easily about 20 miles past Juarez.  By entering Mexico at the new border crossing outside of Juarez my intention was to avoid the city as much as possible and get into 'real' Mexico.  

My ignition switch failed terminally one afternoon just after I entered the city of Chihuahua. Many thanks to Walter for allowing me to walk my motorcycle to his house and then driving me all over the city on a Saturday looking for the parts to fix it. I grudgingly replaced the ignition switch - now I have to carry two different keys in my pocket at once, previously I only had to carry one which contributes to a very light, free-spirited I'm travelling kind of feeling. From Chihuahua, I deviated from the main highway to head towards Creel and the Barrancas del Cobre (Copper Canyon), said to be  both larger and deeper than the Grand Canyon. The canyon roads have outstanding motorcycling possibilites and great scenery. From Creel, the 135 km road to Batopilas has mixed aspalt and gravel for the first 75 km before it becomes a single lane dirt road that descends 6000 ft to the beautiful Batopilas area. This road probably has more traffic from domestic animals than cars, including goats, pigs, horses, donkeys, burros and cows. The newly paved black ashpalt road to Divisadero is a sharp contrast and well work the trip since the view from Divisadero is one of the best in the canyon.

(1) The shops at Divisadero. (2) Me, happy because the ride and view were great and because I don't know that I'll wreck on the way home. (3) Stopping to piss and rest my ass while touring the Copper Canyon.  Note the gas tank safely bungeed to the luggage rack.

I had a slight mishap returning from Divisadero which left my bike and I sliding peacufully across the pavement. After looking out over Divisadero at the excellent view, I felt fairly mellow and was riding back to Creel slower than my trip out. Unfortunately I attempted to pass a vehicle at a railroad crossing on the left side while approaching a sharp left hand turn. The road would not forgive my mistake. Immediatly following the accident two Mexican pickup trucks stopped to help and my motorcycle was quickly lifted over the broken tailgate and stuffed in behind the three adults already there. We had a surprisingly comfortable ride back to Creel. Operation duck-tape on myself and clothing was a raging success with the exception of a quarter size hole remaining in my clutch cover.  Sadly my motorcycle is temporarily out-of-service.

"A Batopilas, Por que No" The question is almost comical after visiting for six days. Despite the single lane dirt canyon road that descends 6000 ft to the city and answers the "Why not?" question, it is well worth the trip. Batopilas was the second city in Mexico to have electricity after Mexico city due to a rich mining history. Today there are excellent ruins and several nice day hikes in the area. I arrived by the Creel-Batopilas bus which was slightly unpleasant due the father with the baby with the full diaper sitting next to me. This forced me to open the window and breathe dust the entire way.  Hitch-hiking back was better.  I waited for one hour in the morning on the road out of town until a Nissan pickup came along.  They had travelled to Batopilas to purchase a goat which was roped in the back and had made quite a mess of the truck bed.  Luckily driver took pity on us in the back of the Nissan pickup with his newly acquired goat and allowed us to sit in the back seat after 2 hours.  I don´t know if his attempt to set the land speed record from Batopilas to Creel was successful or not but if not I assume he'll keep trying.

After returning to Creel, I have just learned that my replacement parts may take another 2 weeks to arrive (or longer). Since I have no interest in making lemonade, I'm off today to the beautiful Baja beaches of La Paz, Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo for windsurfing, swimming, fishing, catching some sun and maybe a cold beer or two!

The cow standing in the courtyard of a Batopilas hostel after eating the last 500 pages of a book that a friendly Spaniard was planning on reading.

Dave McManamon

Creel, Chihuahua, Mexico