So we made it to the touristy town of Creel, Chihuaha. I originally had plan to stay 2 nights here, to allow us to take the famous train ride to the bottom of Copper Canyon. This being the most scenic railroad trip on the continent, gasp! with over 37 bridges and 86 tunnels, rising as high as 2,400 m (7,900 ft) above sea level (thanks Wikipedia), I had my facts straight and a number of my Mexican friends had strongly recommended this not to be missed excursion. 

I thought this was a done deal, I had communicated to my riding buddies my intended itinerary all the way through Central America and they both said that this was a fine plan. I guess that our conversations with Luis, the restaurant owner in Guerrero, come on, you’ve got to follow the story, who gave us so much information on Chihuahua’s wonders, too much at a time I now realize, changed Steve’s mind when he declared: I’m not taking the train, let’s ride through the canyons… I’m not set in my ways, I’m flexible, so sure, why not? I had no clue on the roads conditions, so we decided to ride down to Urique. But we did not know that to get there, we’d have to ride 54 km of the road of death!

Our ride started very pleasantly, but on the way there, we took a wrong turn and got our first taste of off-road riding on The Trip! It was not bad at all, we crossed 3 shallow rivers, realized that our gps were not infallible and simply turned around after about half an hour to get back on the right track. This gave us the opportunity to have a nice little lunch in a small Indian village. After this break, great weather, we’re all good and our first real adventure began!

Back to the pavement and after a few miles, the road simply disappeared, we were now on a trail, no more asphalt until the bottom of the mountain, we’re now deep in Copper Canyon. Aw shoot! I dropped my bike in an easy turn with loose gravel! I was so mad at myself! Steve was way ahead of me and didn’t realize I was down, not able to lift America back up, with all the luggage this beast must weigh 300 kilos now. After about 20 minutes cooking in the sun, finally a pick-up truck full of smiling kids with their father appeared from the other direction. A very friendly Mexican cowboy family man with bad teeth helped me and we were able to put America back up. Steve had turned back to check on me, he arrived just as I was saying my goodbye to the nice Samaritan, and didn’t need to help as I was fine and ready to go.

OK, we carried on. The fools that we were! This was surely the most beautiful ride ever, but it was also crazy dangerous. This off-road driving was very difficult and very tiring, we were literally crossing mountains on uneven trails full of boulders, with loose big slippery rocks in the middle of the road, if we can call it that, with big unpredictable holes and sand and 36o degrees twisties and no barriers on the side of vertiginous cliffs thousands of feet high… That was very scary but we finally made it, all sweaty and overwhelmed, to the village of Urique. This hamlet has no paved roads leading to it! Unreal, everything has to be trucked in from the same road we just descended, mind boggling!  We found a nice hotel, and had dinner with many cervesas to calm our nerves down! Later on that evening, we tried to synchronize our emergency gadgets with not much success, I blame Mr Tecate.

The next morning, we had a very nice breakfast and made friends with the owner, Rafael. After much discussions, we decided to press on with the difficult roads and go on to Batipolas, the last city at the bottom of copper canyon.

I had to gas up, fortunately there was a gas station in the village. Steve didn’t need to as he put a bigger gas tank on his bike. Surprisingly, the gas attendant spoke English. I asked him how bad was the road to Batipulas, he said that we should not have any problem on motorcycles, little did he know! So off we went, the off-road trail started immediately upon reaching the end of town. As I said, there are no paved roads leading into Urique, everybody and everything has to be trucked in over vertiginous trails, no other way. I guess everybody in this town stay put. Literally all vehicles owned by the inhabitants of Urique have to be off-road capable, mostly pick-up trucks and large SUVs. Well, I guess all these people are used to this type of road, they have known them all their lives and don’t realize how difficult they are. They’re just used to bump up-and-down while traveling and they lose many people and vehicles falling off the cliffs, it’s their way of life! That’s why we’ve seen so many altars with flowers and garlands and shrines to the Virgin of Guadalupe strewn all over the trail memorializing all the dearly departed…

We shortly realized that the way to Batopilas was going to be even worse than yesterday, indeed the most difficult terrain we’ve ever seen! It was very difficult, people in the know, cold that uber technical! Steve, after his first tumble, told me that he was not going to continue on this extremely challenging path.

I agreed, and we decided to go back to Creel, taking the same road we took the day before. After all, we had already conquered that road, we should be able to go back up the mountain the same way. So we did, but then almost immediately after the pavement ended, looking over my shoulder I saw Steve take a really bad fall with his bike. Of course I stopped, managed somehow to turn around and backtracked to go help him. This was a very bad fall indeed. He was limping and complaining about acute pain in his left ankle. It was so hard to get his bike out of the ditch and put it back up again, this took us a good half an hour and much efforts. I had to clear the part of the trail where his bike laid upside down by removing hundreds of rocks in front of both his tires. But we finally got his bike up. We had to take off all his bags, I had to do most of the work since he was hurting so much. He told me then that he was not going to try to continue, his ankle was really swollen and he was in pain…

We decided to go back to the village a few miles down the road and we should try to hire a truck to put those bikes on and return to Creel. This was the wisest thing to do, Creel being the biggest nearby town, relatively speaking, there should be a hospital there and he could get medical attention. We slowly returned to our hotel in Urique where Rafael, the owner we had befriended, was resourceful and very helpful. After maybe a half hour on the phone, he told us that a truck was found and that someone could bring us back to Creel for 8000 pesos. We immediately agreed, no negotiations, had lunch and waited for the truck to arrive. The owner of the truck, an old and burly guy with a glass eye, showed up but his pick-up truck was simply just not big enough to carry both our bikes. Fortunately, he said he had a larger truck that could do the job but that would take another hour. This was apparently Mexican time but two hours later, a young smiley man showed up with a badly beaten up old Dodge.

This could work, however, the young driver, who happened to be the son of the one eyed man, didn’t seem very bright, although very personable and enthusiastic, but with not a word of English in his skill set. We communicated in broken Spanish and hand gestures.  That was fun. To my horror, he suggested to drive up the bikes onto the truck bed on a very narrow plank of wood he had brought! I tried to explain that we needed a ramp, or a hill side, but nowhere near the hotel was a suitable place to accomplish this task. Fortunately, Rafael suggested that the truck goes to this open air Plaza, a few blocks from the hotel, where there was a possible incline allowing us to drive the bikes on the truck with less danger.

The wooden plank idea which I rejected couldn’t work but fortunately we could use the wooden panels from the truck bed and I was able to drive right in both bikes aboard without too much problems. There were enough straps to tie up the Ténérés on each side of the truck bed. That took a while, and I personally did all the strapping myself because the young driver, Adrian, simply didn’t seem to know the best way to do that. Finally we’re back to the hotel with the truck, the bikes on it, and we loaded the truck with all our luggage and gear. Steve insisted to help even though he couldn’t walk a step without wincing, I thought this was brave, silly, but brave. I I understood he must have felt awful and probably a little guilty. I give him a lot of respect for helping and keeping up a good front.

I fervently hoped that this mishap will only be temporary and something to laugh about in a few days. Anywho, we finally left the hotel about 3 PM after much salutations, and Mucho Graciases to Raphael.  Adrian made a stop at his father’s garage where he filled up the truck with gasoline from a large jerrycan. I noticed laying on the ground of the garage, a long, but narrow piece of metal which I thought could be helpful to unload the bikes. Adrian and I were able to load up that metal thingie which looked like a fat railroad iron. And off we went. The drive up the road of death was chaotic and awfully scary, especially when another truck was coming down the other way, sometimes we had to back up to find a wider portion of the road to let the incoming vehicles pass us down. Somehow it only took us about two hours to finally reach the pavement on the other side of these mountains. Another two more hours to finally arrive at Creel at the hotel I knew how to get to. This was a very good decision indeed, as there was an adequate location nearby to unload the motorcycles. I could write a whole chapter only to discuss the hardships of this difficult and arduous process, suffice to say that my lucky find of this iron plank was the life saving of the whole operation!

After we took our rooms, Steve insisted that we should have a drink somewhere to celebrate our survival. He was still in pain but still could hobble. Fortunately, a bar restaurant was found not too far and we had our first margaritas of the trip. The hamburgers  were very forgettable, okay, disgusting, but the help was young and friendly. We met the night watch man of the hotel who spoke perfect English, we figured he had probably lived in the US before. We had a brainstorming session on the local ressources and how to proceed next.

First of all, Steve had to go get checked at the local hospital, this was decided to be the first task the next morning and then we would evaluate our choices and decisions. Victor, the night watchman, offered to store Steve’s bike in the hotel parking lot at no charge after he checked with his manager, so that was helpful.

I am constantly in awe of the generous disposition of all the people of this country. We hobbled back to the hotel for a well-deserved rest. The next day I was surprised to be in pain myself, my left knee was hurting and it felt like I may have torn a ligament or two, probably with all the physical moves of the previous day.  I can walk, but it is sometimes painful to bend the knee, as Jon Snow would say, anyway, I discovered that trying to put my pants on!

Just around the corner, luckily, was a little Cantina where we had breakfast. Over over-easy eggs, we decided on how to proceed next. First of all, we are going to stay one more night at this hotel, we will rest up, and we will see if Steve can manage and continue this trip tomorrow, providing he could still shift gears with his bad ankle.

He had gone to the hospital in the early morning, fortunately, only a ten minute walk from the hotel, no Uber here. The x-ray revealed a compound fracture in his ankle, a couple of broken ribs and several bruises. I guess the adrenaline kept him going the day before, as he was still pushing himself so hard immediately after the fall to lift the damned motorcycle up, but today was another story. I was dispatched to the pharmacy and the ATM to get him some more cash and ibuprofen. Steve needs to contact his insurance and research all viable options. He considered flying home, leaving the bike here in Creel and come back later when he’s healed, or trying to drive to Chihuahua, the capital of the state, where he could rent an Airbnb and rest a few days to let the swelling diminish so maybe he could continue on the trip.

In any case, Chihuahua has an airport and this will be the next logical destination. If he can’t mount his bike, he could take the train or the bus from here. We are at this stage now, waiting for tomorrow to test his riding ability with his bad foot. I called my lovely wife to appraise her of the situation regarding Steve’s condition and our possible solutions. I am to continue on this trip even if it’s solo, this was a given, but I was soundly admonished and instructed to make better decisions regarding road choices. I promised, and as usual, instructed her never to worry for me. I don’t believe in angels, but the one in charge of guarding me is doing a pretty good job so far! I applied some CBD cream on my knee, and the pain magically went away immediately! Some ibuprofen and a two hour nap did wonder for my well-being and I was able to catch up on my writing.

So this is where we are now, tomorrow will be another day and hard decisions will be made. I will press on regardless, of course I will try to help Steve to the maximum of my abilities, I have a little bit of flexibility in my timing, we’ve gained a few days by altering somehow our stopovers but I have a calendar to respect and some deadline to abide with for I am definitely going to Costa Rica to the skydive boogie. After all, I strategically planned the whole Central America itinerary with this in mind.

We’ll see…