GO TO MEXICO
PART ONE
It is with some puzzlement that I find myself on a plane to Los Angeles. Whilst I wouldn't concede to being haunted by past words I am conscious of the fact that for several years I have been known in mixed company to proclaim : "There are two places in the world I have no ambition to visit and one I have no intention ever to return, these being specifically, Las Angeles, Las Vagas and the Gold coast." Given this jaundiced prejudgemental perspective and a stay of 24 hrs restricted to the Airport and the coastal suburb Longbeach a more reasonable man might hesitate to criticize. Reason, as the post-modernists would say (now I'm jumping in with unfamiliar bedfellows!), is subjective to a degree. If you can't write a travel diary to please yourself - reinforcement of one's own biases is always comforting retreat - then who are you writing for, given the potential readership of a few loyal friends a clutch of crusty relatives and a sprinkling of motorcyclopaths? Ah that quotes better; having offended most of a potentially meager audience we now we know where we stand!
California seems a curious place. While obesity and a preponderance to speak only at maximum volume and mostly over the top of each other in conversation are rife, courtesy and consideration of a visitors needs feature prominently. The city is flat, smoggy and sprawling. The pollution report was favorable (relatively speaking remember) as we left in Mohammed's cab from the LA International Airport (what was that pop song?) allowing visibility of a kilometer or so nearer to the CBD as we passed on the extensive multi-lane freeway. This is car culture in it's mature phase (pre-extinction?). Nobody walks, everything is spread too far apart; for every 100 square meters of buildings there is a surrounding acre of car parking usually incorporating a drive through, no matter what the industry classification. Want to pawn that ring after the big divorce Californian style? Drive through pawn shop on the way back from the courthouse? - "you got it!". This and the preponderance of pre-packaging and disposability - cheaper restaurants provide plastic cutlery only, so do the motels with their continental breakfasts - clashes heavily with visible evidence of consciousness of the consequences. Containers are prominently marked with extensive instructions regarding not only the recycling of materials but also ratings as to the degree of adverse environmental impact. Street drains bear inscriptions warning that "this water flows into our oceans - do not dispose of waste here".
The LA public phone system is abominably expensive. Timed local calls of 3 mins cost 35 cents - that quote is a quarter and dime to you bud. There are numerous area codes within LA, understandable given the size & population but, wait for this, from one area code to the next is long distance rates. Effectively this means local calls at 35c per 3 mins are restricted to about 10km radius. The public phone swallowed $US3 worth of coins in a couple of minutes making two calls - both to locations within LA! Come back Telecom, all is forgiven! Remember this the next time the government starts making noises about deregulation allowing timed local calls. Deregulation and competition haven't helped make communication cheaper for the American consumer.
By comparison collecting the purple swinehunt (our heavily modified '89 BMW R100 G/S for those yet to have confronted the world's ugliest motorcycle) was at least easy if similarly expensive. I can't fathom why it should cost more for handling the bike at this end than it did for the actual shipping from Melbourne to Los Angeles. The sad state of the Oz Peso is only a partial clue. Fortunately money was all that was required. (Not the tears of blood required by Chilean Customs officials in 1996 South American trip- but that, literally is another story.) Sign a form, pay $US25 for them to clean up the mess and they pulled the crate out of the warehouse and plonked it down in the truck loading bay under the mid-afternoon sun. The assistance of several Chicano laborers from the warehouse made light weight of extraction. The bike was in perfect condition thanks to the carpentry skills of my man in Geelong who knows how to build an indestructible crate and secure a bike properly within it (Name and phone number supplied on request if your contemplating similar - forgotten your medication? I know the problem well!)
L.A., Tecate, Phoenix - where? (1/9 - 2/9)\par
A tank of petrol, a few adjustments to handlebars, replacement of mirrors & indicators, a crank on the button; mercifully the swinehunt bursts into life, at first spluttering to clear it's venturis of the Pacific salt air, finally filling the air with flat flatulent drone distinctively, unemotively a BMW twin. The blandwurst and soukraut of acoustic engine design. Satisfying the need rather than enhancing the appetite. Not capable of really getting the juices flowing - much the prosaic German rather than the flamboyant Italian.\par
We're off, concentrating to maintain the right side of the road, spatially disorientated at the first few uncontrolled right turns at intersections. Finding the freeway south to San Diego. It certainly is no difficult to use the road system. Enormous multi-lane capacity, well sign posted. Getting excited about the roads from a motorcyclist's perspective is another thing - a bit too much like a futuristic version of the Geelong freeway. Just the thing I've run away from on holiday. For 300 km with hardly a rise of turn past the barren undulating coastal plane with ocean glimpses (as a shy and sensitive Californian real estate salesman might say).
We detour inland through the City of San Diego to avoid Tijuana, having chosen the small border town Tecate further inland for our crossing point. After a wrong turn we find ourselves off the freeway, travelling down a major road on the outskirts of San Diego when a BMW motorcycle shop looms up on a corner. Inside I find exactly the front tyre I'm sure I'll want on the dirt roads of Mexico within the next two weeks, agonize over carrying it around for that long, finally leaving it on then shelf. I'll stick with plan one and try to source one closer to the Copper Canyon - Hermosillo best bet.
Tecate is great! How re-assuring that this far north and you can't get any closer to the USA border, Latino culture still flourishes. The town is a little bit shabby around the edges. The important ingredients are however all there. These include, a sense of community centered around the central plaza (or Zocalo as they seem to be called in most of Mexico), the chaos of an under-regulated life where streetscapes are fascinating for their unexpected variety and surprising improvisation. Where the streets have life and that life itself inspires and underlines the diversions of urban interaction. The Yanks are losing these important components from my brief experiences in Long Beach.
After a cruise around thee hotels we discover that the cheapest one has the most secure motorcycle parking - bonus! The guy behind the desk wants us to bring it into the office for the night but the Swinehunt is wider than either of the doors. An hour later we are in a small dim restaurant facing onto the zocalo. The beer is cold, flavorsome and cheap, brewed a few blocks away at the Tecate Brewery, one of Mexico's largest. The food however is the revelation. Anyone who has eaten in one of those restaurants referred to as "Mexican" in Australia, forget those experiences, they cannot guide you in imagining how Mexican can taste. Perhaps a hint of what you won't find might be more illuminating. No Nachos, no plates stuck down with mozzarella like cheese toppings, no taco shells, no tired mass produced tasteless red sauce. These things aforementioned are Yankee abominations exported to Aussie menus the same way that sandwich bars have become "Subways". It's great to see that right on the border the Carl Jr Hamburger joints and their multiple clones disappear.\par
Poor Mexico
So far from God,
so close the USA
Mexican refrain
From Tecate, moving east shadowing the international border, the road splits into a toll road which resembles a freeway as we know it and the routa libre where all the traffic is! This free road is very up and down, and a lot curvier than the toll road, which it usually keeps in sight of. The country is dry and rolling, mostly given to grazing. The two road types converge at the edge of the escarpment before the dramatic fall to the Desierto de Altar. The first indications of change are bizarre rock formations like a malignant Lego land on acid! Giant rounded pebbles appear to be stuck to a jagged landscape. Suddenly around the umpteenth bend a vast vista opens like a hole in the sky. Fifteen meters below (a 100 or so below sea level) the desert expanse licks at the hazy western horizon. Nowhere to go but down, in stream of tight switchbacks, grossly distracted by the view, the occasional carcass of errant vehicles showing the evident penalty applied. The searing heat of early afternoon rises to claim us, sucking, wringing the moisture from our lungs, searing our faces penetrating behind the polycarbonate windows of our helmets.
At last we're down. The exhilaration of the descent replaced with an endurance test across the barren plain which looks like it long ago lost any competition against the relentless rays of the sun. We pass a great salt lake to our right. I indicate to Mary Ann that we should abandon the tollway and cross it - as we had before in Bolivia navigating by compass - but she indicates, by the sign language developed by 20 years of pillioning that she is unimpressed with the concept. After the temporary relief of an air conditioned luncheon on the outskirts of Mexicali the perspiration continues for a couple more hours. Gradually the rocky ridges intervene shortly followed by the appearance of cacti. Yes those classic candelabra types but rarely the perfect three pronged pitchfork version. More bizarre origami like forms plus other cacti species of diverse sizes shapes and styles. We're within 100 km of our night's destination when my right boot begins to feel a little slippery on the serrated footpeg. Looking down to the right my mood is crushed by a slick of oil covering the carb whipped by the windstream down the side of the bike. We cruise to a halt at the roadside, cacti looking on dispassionately, the silence of the desert our only companion. Without looking I know what the outcome will be. Confirmation comes as the source of the leak is traced to the cylinder head gasket area. Another cylinder stud has pulled out, after half of the total 12 were replaced and thread repaired before we left! We limp into Sonoita keeping to under 100 km/h. The leak is slight, particularly if you keep the revs/oil pressure down but it is 1800 km to the nearest BMW service center in Mexico (N. E. city of Monterrey) but only 275 km back across the "septic tank" border to Phoenix the capital of Arizona state. It is tempting to trust the likely thread repair to a local mechanic but I can't be confident about their skills and the facilities amount to a dirt floor with some corrugated iron propped up by a few poles to dodge the heat, surrounded by the ugly scars of rusting battered vehicle parts. A few phone calls locates a BMW dealer whose service manager advises if it is one of the previously thread repaired studs extra metal may need to be welded into the cases to allow a second thread repair to be performed. This seals our decision - you can't trust alloy welding to a "bush mechanic". Welcome back USA!
Phoenix, Nogales, Hermosillo (7/9 - 8/9)
Yankees, are always on the TV
'cause killers in America
work seven days a week
I'm so bored with the USA
I'm so bored with the USA
But what can I do!
The Clash, London Calling Album
USA! Another five days if it. What have I done to deserve this? I should be more specific (notice, judiciously avoiding the word fair), only a very small part of America. Not the whole apple pie, just a small slice of it. But what about the ingredients? Has it all been in the oven a bit too long? From the battering our (Ozzie) culture suffers one would expect certain of the familiar toxins to be present. And they are - crap food, suburban boredom, rampant omnipresent de-humanizing advertising, intellectually stupefying television. What I didn't expect is the isolation brought about by the endemic culture of the motor car. Life in Phoenix comes in four flavours 1. driving between garage and carpark (including all manner of drive thru shopping experiences), 2. parking in vast ugly parking lots, 3. shopping in faceless air-conditioned retail malls, 4. watching commercial television (remote in one hand, beer and/or junk food in the other).
What is hard to communicate is the vastness of the carparks. Buildings are set back hundreds of meters from the street. This requires huge towering advertising to get your attention while driving past. The trend seems to be giant electronic screens what flash keywords like "WOW", "HERE NOW", "LOOK", "TURN HERE". Best to keep it to those one syllable words - the scripts of the top rating TV programs confirm this!
I do have some praise however, all reserved for the friendly and helpful people at Victory BMW in the 'burbs of Phoenix. The "Victory" refers to a line of Harley Ferguson type copies, which they also sell and service, with even bigger 45 degree V-twin motors but in the familiar low technology, poor dynamic mould. We dropped off the hemorrhaging Swinehunt late Thursday. They had it stripped down Friday got hold of the correct thread repair kit but couldn't complete the job due to racing commitments over the long weekend. They don't get many long weekends in the USA working year but the following Monday happened to be Labor Day. The shop races a BMW R1100S in the "Twins" category. That's the more sporting (for a BMW - hey all things are relative!) model with the half descent, only caressed rather than king hit with the ugly stick, styling. Thus the 5 days, four nights penance.
At least I had a motorcycle to ride. Generously (neigh, don't mutter foolishly!) they gave me a F650 demonstrator single. This is no bad thing. Riding another bike always brings home how awful the swinehunt is. I'm just not used to sharp brakes, brisk acceleration from a revvy crisply carburated modern motorcycle. It was a lot more road orientated than I expected. Slow stable steering, firm suspension at both ends. Not really the sort of thing to take bad dirt roads two up - couldn't fit the luggage on anyway, it's too small. It made a useful tool for an excursion out to "Firebird Raceway" only a few km from the edge of town; easy to find off the Tucson motorway. It was witheringly hot. I seemed to be one of only a few of the several hundred in attendance that had worn both a helmet and jacket. (Neither are compulsory in Arizona State. This leniency extends to front number plates on cars, allowing the septics to substitute something really 'cheesy' on mid front bumper like their favorite baseball team emblem or "Arizona Grand Canyon State", complete with cactus motifs. The hard wired headlight was a surprise in contrast. I digress. A common failing.) The "raceway" is a drag strip with a medium fast left after \'be mile, followed by a series of slow L,R,L,R,etc until the final left hander back onto the main straight. Basically an oval with one side turned into a squiggle. Because of the long straight and the difficulty of passing up the back due to the narrow one line nature of this part of the track, the drive onto the last corner before the "straightaway" is omni-important. Those readers carrying the legacy of old road racing injuries (I can feel a twinge coming on now can't you?) would be heartened by the nature of this particular corner. The entry is an almost dead stop left where it is common for wouldbes to try the outbraking maneuver on the inside leaving you the only option of the comfort of the concrete wall. Shame about those big gaps between infrequent hay bales. The white paint is a bit unfortunate too the way those old red stains hang on over the seasons past! Once you commit, still blinded to the exit by the drag control tower on the inside, the exit runs directly across firstly the mound of rubber left by drag lane one, then a thoughtfully white painted area between the lanes before the next rubber mound which finishes inches before that concrete wall which continues right around and up the length of the straight. I commented to a couple of other "race fans" on this radical change of surface on the exit to the tracks most important corner but only got blank expressions from the few that were enthusiastic enough to creep out from the shade under the stands. Perhaps they were drag race fans with the wrong fixture calendar or maybe it's just my strine accent.
At 2.30 pm, before I'd had a chance to view a twins race, the only source of viable liquids i.e. the caravan in the pits flogging burgers and soda pop, decided that business wasn't brisk enough and packed up. 110\'b0 in the old septic scale, fresh from the middle of a Melbourne winter and nothing to drink. Exit stage left.
Another adventure, on the little German thumper with the Austrian heart, this time two up, was in search of the cultural heartland of Phoenix\'85\'85\'85\'85\'85 Oh, sorry,! The closest we came was a bar in the 'hip' suburb of Scottsdale. Dim minimalist stripped down decor. Beer on ice in open eskies behind the bar, friendly clientele and management. Is it not a little ironic that the overall theme was Mexican hard drinkin' Cantina without the cultural challenges associated with confronting the real thing? We also went to visit the winter studio of late Frank Lloyd Wright, who is considered the USA's most accomplished architect. On arrival we were informed that the final guided tour commenced 15 mins ago. The bookshop was worth a squiz but hardly justified the trouble finding the place. We took a couple of external photographs between the cacti from the carpark then vamoosed.
Come 10 am Tuesday morning I had the loan bike back in one piece. I'd refrained from telling Victory BMW that our American Insurance was valid only for California. Our initial plans to visit Spain, Portugal and Morocco had already fallen over due to the vagaries of insurance so I wasn't about to miss out on a bike for the weekend. There was a two hour wait for the Swinehunt repairs to be completed. I had the privilege of talking to Don who had grown up around New England where "the roads are great but it's too cold to ride in the winter snows". He had his BMWR1100RT in for service. Six hours he told me but he was going to wait around. His other bike is one of those new BMW cruisers. That's correct, one of those hideous cowhorn handlebarred, pig ugly malformations that has caused many a stomach cramp in Australian showrooms. The latest example of the bankruptcy of German aesthetics - and don't forget that my judgement credentials are hard won - I own one of the most ugliest of the ugliest myself! I broke the Ozzie reaction to his bike gently but a the concept of unfavorable aesthetics seemed unfathomable to him. He was about to ride to California for a week or two. Over two thousand kilometers across desert like terrain on strait, flat, multi-land motorway roads. With the expectation of creating an impression on me he boldly stated that he almost always wears a helmet (compulsory in California) and with greater emphasis "for longer trips, long sleeves to beat the sunburn". We happened, at that moment, to be standing next to a rack of ventilated leather jackets. I inquired as to whether he had ever stepped off at speed to which the expected reply was in the negative.
They charged me less than $US200 for the repair even including throwing in the rest of the thread repair kit, fork oil and a spare head gasket. Shockingly they also washed it! Fortunately it survived this extraordinary experience. Felt like the dinosaur it unquestionably is after the F650.
The road south to the border crossing at Nogales was uninspiring, the scenery interesting enough in it's desert starkness. The temperature appeared to drop 15-20\'b0 south of Tucson approaching comfort zone with the assistance of wind chill. I shan't quickly forget final few hundred meters with their the cogent contrasts. The road narrowed to a pothole marred uncontoured swerving meander over the hills, dropping around a corner to reveal \'85 the chaos of M\'e9Mexico ! What a relief, not a carpark or drive through in sight. The narrow streets were crammed with people, mostly shouldering along the footpaths. Spilling onto the pavement from every window and door were goods of every likely and most unlikely description, the air heavy with the pungent odors of street food sellers mixed with their beckoning cries to sample the offerings. The colour, the atmosphere, the giddy crush, the utter attraction of the unexpected, the spontaneous, the unregulated. Where the action of the individual is still free to both smell the roses and suffer the consequences of their actions without government or bureaucratic interference. Disconcerting for some perhaps, but for myself, fresh from the shores of one of the world's most over-governed countries (that's Oz not the USA) utterly intoxicating.
Hermosillo, Basaseachic (8/9 - 9/9)
Hermosillo was unremarkable. I had a knobby front tyre fitted in preparation for the Copper Canyon (see later). The computer connection from the hotel room failed in contrast to the easy access from USA cities. Next day we rode on.
This is what it's all about. Those lingering doubts of the "is it all worth it?" variety have been banished; conquered by the exhilaration of a magic days ride. The parched plains of the north west give way outside Hermosillo to a gentler greener, more productive landscape trapped between distant rugged rocky ranges on all sides. The locals have exploited this fertility by production of fruit and grains. We rode south east to the hills in flight from the welling demon heat of the morning. The roadsides were waist high with cereals germinated from stray grains lost from passing bulk transport trucks. Within 50 km the hills began mounting in front of us, at first rolling foot hills. Then the sinuous climb began. The Sierra Madre Occidental (western mother of a mountain range!) was the source, 350 km of scratching road, 2 super and supersub and super supersub gear corners, blind varying radius bends, stray animals, fallen rocks from vertical cuttings. Everywhere nature was on the rebound. The air peppered with dancing butterflies, attempting to mate mid air, the road was littered with grasshoppers locked together piggy back style being fruitful. This was a real distraction at times, avoiding running off the road while trying to line them up with the tyres. Most impressively almost every second corner exposed a bird of prey either resting on the sunny bitumen, circling overhead, or caught in the act of devouring prey. Once we disturbed two birds on the side of a cutting who, lumbering down the road trying to get airborne we nearly collided with. The swish of powerful wings was imminent, even through the earplugs as I braked and we ducked to avoid being king hit off the back of the swinehunt by these formidable avians. Having forgotten to pack our inflatable ornithologist I cannot be more specific about which creatures these are. I can however report a lack of circling buzzards overhead so far. They obviously know nothing of "legendary BMW reliability! With luck we won't learn them.
Several hundred kilometers of demon riding roads - were we prepared? Does two up with kitchen sink (i.e. 400kg), 35 HP (down from the usual 50 due to 1500 -2000 m altitude), knobby Taiwanese front tyre sound prepared? Without contesting that point I can at least tell you it was a lot of fun. Too much fun actually, the day's end target of the Barranca Del Cobre (Copper Canyon) proved several hours too long. Roads that appear on the map as reasonably straight in reality are several times as long with reduced average speeds due to the rugged geography. Realizing that the fading daylight is going to beat us, we encountered a small hotel in a minute settlement (Baseachic) in a national park. Minutes after having parked the swinehunt outside the front door and toted the luggage inside my request for two cold ales is countered by the confession that the National Park is a "dry area". Bad service and ordinary food from the Manager and his dippy teenage daughter. We do however next morning, visit the longest single fall waterfall in Northern America - don't ask how many meters, I've forgotten.
Barranca del Cobre (Copper Canyon) (10/9 - 12/9)
OK, hands up those who knew that Mexico has a canyon that is of equivalent depth but FOUR times as long as Arizona's Grand Canyon? Is this a pertinent answer to those who inquired "Why Mexico?" on hearing our last minute change of holiday plans? I haven't seen the septic tank version. Five days stranded in Phoenix was as much of Arizona as I am ever not planning to see! One of many contrasts between these two geographical phenomena, I understand, is the vegetation. The Copper Canyon is green, covered with conifers who's thick spiny coating if violated relentlessly by shear layered sandstone buttresses reaching for the sky. The result is both a motorcycling tourist nirvana and a dilemma. The roads that cling precipitously to the escarpments tangle themselves in knots falling there, rising here, you often catch a glimpse of the road you were travelling on kilometers ago, now on the opposite side of the valley. The dilemma is that the roads are so unforgiving - good surface but one meter out of line means over the edge or into the cutting face, yet the canyon views are so spectacular that distraction is inevitable. The best solution is to actually stop and take in the views for a minute or so from the most scenic locations before getting back on the job.
There is a "World Famous Railway Journey" through the Canyon, including umpteen tunnels, etc, which I'm sure railway buffs will be familiar. There is however a road that travels much the same route and many other roads in the region that give different but equally spectacular views. So why go by train when motorbicycle is available?
We attempted a route that apparently nobody recommends by any form of transport. Our base was the railway stopover town of Creel. A forgettable town in itself, but more on it's meager highlights later. Our failure to reach the tiny subtropical town of Batopilas deep in the bottom of a distant corner of the canyon could be attributed to several failings. Among those I'm prepared to admit, cartography and climate figure prominently. We have two maps of the region and three tourist guides with us which also provide maps interspersed within the text. I can truthfully report that between these five there would appear to be a similar level of consensus to that achieved by rival team supporters on the referee's performance down the pub after the game! Satellite geography hasn't reached this corner of the world yet.
We set out, notions of banana plantations amid steamy tropical vegetation lingering. The first 45 km was good bitumen. This luxury ended abruptly at the town of San Rafael where the last millimeter of pavement met as series of moon- like craters big enough to swallow the blunt end of a F100 pickup. This was the main road through town. We rode through, emerged on the other side, but had to go back for verbal confirmation that this was indeed a continuation of one of the areas major roads. While we are somewhat accustomed to these conditions overseas, and the Swinehunt has suffered hours if torture from some of Australia's most innovative technicians to mould it's performance envelope to same, we were somewhat surprised at the steepness of the roads. This may be due to their relatively recent (I hesitate to use the word) "construction". In the South American Andes many of the roads evolved from the traditional tracks which were never too steep to lead a fully laden Llama up or down. Enough transport theory! Along with the steepness the roughness and amount of loose dirt and rocks on the surface kept me quite busy at the bars. No mud bog holes however. Despite the breaking of the three year drought (the eastern Pacific suffers el Ni1o along with Oz) water does not easily collect on the sides of mountains. We were confronted with several mystery "Y" junctions, unfeatured on any of the aforementioned maps. In a couple of cases we were able ask passing vehicle drivers the correct fork, at other times used the compass or took a punt.
The punts led 50 km later to a swollen creek crossing, on the wrong road, sufficiently deep to drown the swinehunt, if the force of the current didn't claim it first. Rafting to the bottom of the canyon wasn't the preferred method though I was tempted to throw it in now that it had developed an oil leak from the driveshaft / gearbox seal. Initially, after the disaster of the cylinder stud repair in Phoenix caused me a great deal of introspection and a frenzied needle attack on the BMW voodoo doll. More recently the rate of leakage has not proved to be more than a cosmetic problem - so far.
We were back in Creel a few hours later. It was Sunday night. Many of the main streets shops, restaurants, etc were closed. Despite this the streets were a hive of activity as the local community partook of the traditional "paseo" (stroll) exchanging greetings with friends and relatives, children tucking into ice creams, teenagers flirting, grandparents supervising trundling grand children. Those who weren't on foot were clogging the street cruising and waving, music streaming from open windows. In a town heavily dependent on tourism there seems no evidence of the cultural poisoning that has occurred in say the tourist & re3d light districts of Bangkok, Thailand. The resilience under duress is a feature of Latin American culture that we have noticed elsewhere.
Hidalgo de Parral (13/9)
The ride out of the canyon was spectacular if a little disjointed. Initially the twisting bitumen was wet from heavy rainfall overnight. The dry patches were about to coalesce into a dry spiral when, shock horror, the carbs sputtered onto reserve. A glance at the trip meter confirmed less than 250 km since both the main and auxiliary tank were filled. Both the swinehunt and my riding style have a long reputation for woeful fuel consumption. Additionally the high altitude makes the motor run rich due to the lack of oxygen. Forty five liters will always last further than this, no matter the conditions. A moments reflections on the possible explanations laid the blame squarely at the foot of a fleeting fuel thief during the night. Bastard! The bike is always chained and locked to an unmovable object in a an off street carpark. We refuse to stay in accommodation that only provides on-street parking. Motel type off streeters have their security limitations, only partially counteracted by chaining the bike directly outside the room door. Locking petrol tank caps are impotent when fuel lines are easily pulled off.
In the middle of the Barranca and reserve can only take us a max 40 km. Unless the Mexican's (no slouch at unlikely construction techniques given the haphazard nature of outer shanty towns) have developed a method of constructing petrol stations on the vertical faces of mountains we weren't about to roll around a corner to the local browser. A tiny restaurant at a crossroads 10 km later had no fuel but we were pointed in the direction of some muddy ruts leading to a village "quite close". The damp clay descent into the valley and the first shallow stream crossing were managed without drama allowing us to roll up to the dwelling with the rusting "Shell" petroleum company sign outside. Our relief was short lived due to the disclosure that there was no petrol, try the other side of the village. After somewhat conflicting directions from a clutch of locals encountered within the next 300m we concluded that yes the house in question was indeed on the other side of the swollen stream. Mary Ann dismounted and walked to the edge of the swirling brown water. She even offered to wade in and check the depth. What a girl! I couldn't let her do it however, it is at my insistence that we take motorcycling holidays, usually not in the easiest conditions. Moments later I was able to confirm, by the high tide mark on my trousers that the level was above cylinder height. Horizontal twins have a lower center of gravity and less vibration than other configurations. These advantages don't extend to waterproofing however with the spark plugs relatively low. There were several alternatives after eliminating riding across. These revolved around the options of disconnecting one or both tanks, wading across, filling up and wading back to the bike. It is very easy to disconnect the auxiliary 10 liter tank and it's no problem to carry, even when full. Ten liters could not however be guaranteed to get us much over 100 km - possibly not far enough to reach the next petrol station. The main tank came off. Unfortunately being an agnostic skeptic the waters refused to part! After tripping across invisible submerged rocks I made the other side only to discover that the key to the petrol cap was still in the ignition! The air went blue momentarily.
After a short walk interspersed by shouting for directions from locals on the opposite bank, 23 liters were disgorged from a drum and hand pump. The arms were getting a little fatigued by the time I reached the stream again. Mid torrent there was a delicate moment where due to stumbling on a submarine boulder it was necessary to break from brisk two step directly into a tango. Visions of head butting the bottom with tank still firmly clasped to chest remained unfulfilled - just, as I rose up out of the firmament on the other bank. Just another day in the life of an occasional world motorcycle traveler I guess!
Parral is a pleasant town with a small sense of bustle around the central plaza and commercial area. The highlight was the Hotel Acosta. Almost perfectly preserved '50's decor and furniture, 3 stories with great views of the town from the top story rooms and particularly from the roof garden. Swinehunt parking was provided in the hotel foyer at the management's insistence. That's the service I like!
On the way we stopped at one of the infrequently encountered motorcycle shops to replace the front knobby tire fitted in Hermosillo to cope with the canyon dirt roads. This was starting to look rather sad after copping 1500 km of bitumen along the way. The correct size was not in stock but resourceful as they have proved in the past the lad behind the desk leaped onto a customers sad GS 850 in for service and a few minutes later returned with a more road orientated Taiwanese offering. For $50 US he fitted it then led us to our hotel.
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