Well, decisions were made indeed, and I am on my way south, going solo. Steve decided to go home to heal, he rested one more day and then limped back to Tucson, or somewhere in Arizona where he has a friend, and where he could store his Ténéré. We shared each other locations on a map app on our phones and yesterday I could see he made it home safely.

I am not writing every day, and I am not on any kind of pressure to satisfy my avid readers thirst! Some days I am just too damn tired in the evening, the day was too banal and adventure free, nothing important to report. When I say banal, doesn’t mean boring in the least, it’s just that the road was long, straight, and incident free, thanks Dog!

I left Creel, and Steve, on Tuesday last week, today is Monday, how time flies! It had snowed overnight I discovered opening my hotel room door, and the roads were so icy they glimmered in the winter sun… We gingerly trotted to breakfast, our last meal together, and hoped that the snow and ice would melt by the afternoon, I willed it anyway and it worked! We said our goodbyes and promised to reunite at some point in this Trip. Hopefully he’ll make it to Panama City and we will sail together to Colombia where he may rent another motorcycle… Lots of ifs and buts, research to be done, he’ll do all that, we’ll see, Que sera sera…

I left in the early afternoon, leary of ominous warning signs of “Tramo con hielo”, icy roads. That was true, lots of ice still on some passes in the high sierra, I was extremely cautious and driving ultra slow so I made it to the lower plains without any problem. I arrived just as the sun was setting in Chihuahua City, found a nice and comfy hotel, an international hotel chain, so great wifi, great breakfast buffet, the works… Numb with all that driving, I slept like a log and didn’t blog.

Had to do a little housekeeping in the morning, fortunately a lavanderia, a launderette if you prefer, was found nearby, so I’ll have fresh socks and underwears for another week. I’m readying myself for the next few days, I’ve gotta make time, long riding days in perspective, my next deadline is February 1st when I’m scheduled to skydive in
Puerto Escondido, something I don’t want to miss…

1400 miles to go, no sweat. I took that challenge like there was none, been doing that all my life. The road was long indeed, not uninteresting mind you. But mostly straight, not a lot of curves, not very hilly, huge valleys to infinity, lots of farmland, and lots of wasteland, jungles of cacti, and plains with beige blond grass, the kind of colors you always see in winter, pale sky and pale brownish earth, the greens not always the same… Crossing forgotten cities and small villages, the mind wonders, you pay attention to the small insignificant details, the differences in road cultures between the huge country to the north you know so well, and this newly discovered land with all its strange idiosyncrasies. The road signs here mean well, they apply well to the situations, curvas peligrosas, no kidding! I pay really good attention to the falling rocks signs now, as approaching a hillside once, I actually saw a huge boulder, the size of a small car, well, let’s say a supermarket caddie, fall right beside me! The roads in Mexico are not that bad actually, let’s say 80% of them are really good, sometimes as smooth as a baby’s behind, like black silk of fresh asphalt with bright yellow and white lines well defined. And then, for no apparent reason, it seems that the workers stopped on that stretch, and the road turns another color, the grey dirty kind we always dread, with its uneven surfaces, and rectangular patches of covered potholes, damaged sections of the road appear for a few miles, undoubtedly tortured from these millions of relentless truck tires… So being on a bike, you have to be very attentive to the road conditions. Being a soloist, I can set my own pace, so I speed of course, everybody does. I switched the odometer to kilometers since it’ll be another 13 countries of metric system to go. I can now see realistically how much faster I go from the posted speed limits, but I could really go faster as America is all for it, like a young mustang yearning to run free.

Of course the Mexican truckers love speeding as well, they pass each other with glee, going uphill full blast, 130 – 140 kilometer per hour when the speed is limited to 100? No judgement here.. There is a nice custom though in this country, when a trucker sees in its rearview mirrors that you intend to pass him, they veer a little to the far right side of the road, and flash their left turn signal as to indicate: Go buddy, the coast is clear ! Actually everyone is doing it, I saw in front of me a police car flashing its red and blue, could have been a Guardia Civil vehicle, letting a pickup go pass, crossing the obvious continuous and unbroken yellow line and speed right after a very visible do not pass sign on the Autopista with total impunity.
Yes, I’ve decided to take the toll roads. Until Puerto Escondido at least. I don’t mind the daily $15 to $18, the time gained compared to the Libre (free roads) allows me to drive longer days, meaning longer distances. On top of that, these roads are supposed to be better maintained and should be more secure as everyone says in the riders forums… Nevertheless, I’ve seen some very interesting sights on these toll roads, some you’ll never see on US freeways, like a loose cow in the middle of traffic, miles from any town or sign of civilization, a small tricycle motorcycle hauling 3 calves, a family of 4 on a small cylinder motorbike, the father holding his young son on his knees, the mother behind him with an enormous plastic bag containing who knows what, carrying a backpack in which was a sleeping baby! I saw a half naked very elderly barefoot man walking crouchingly against traffic, his long grey beard touching his exposed belly button, no hat though, couldn’t have been a wizard…

Marathon days indeed, getting up early and driving up to eight hours per day, I finally made it to San Luis Potosí, gaining a full day on my schedule and I’m back on track, on my initial schedule, the one I had planned all along, way back in California.

Say what you want and rail against social media, Facebook to be precise, of course everybody hates it, I concur, it is evil etc. etc. However, if there was no Facebook, I wouldn’t have had this welcome interlude happen to me. Let me explain, last May, as every month of May these past few years, well, excepted for the covid stay-in-place year, I went to Ensenada to play Pétanque. I’ll explain later for the non initiated. Being a social butterfly as I have been accused to be, I enjoy meeting different people, engage in conversations readily and constantly and easily make new friends, even if it is for a short time.

I met Pablo last year, and we exchanged Facebook addresses or handles as we call it, for we would probably see each other again on some pétanque tournaments . We appreciated each other’s company well enough to become Facebook friends. Pablo is a young French native turned Mexican as it turns out, and he ran into one of my postings online. Seeing as I was driving thru Mexico he kindly said that if I was passing through Querétaro, I shouldn’t hesitate to contact him so maybe we could play pétanque together ?! I had never heard of Querétaro, didn’t even know this large city existed, but intrigued, I looked at the map, and indeed it was only about an hour away from San Miguel De Allende, a beautiful city I had intended to visit and stay at. So I gladly accepted the invitation and during our brief typed conversations, this nice young man of 26 years, offered me to stay at his place, I have “une chambre d’amis” he said, notice how the french say a bedroom for friends when in English it is a “guest” room ? Plans were made, I should have lunch in San Miguel De Allende, and then ride to Queretato, I was looking forward to get off America for a while and was eager to play pétanque, one of my favorite pastime, my third hobby as I like to say, after motorcycling and skydiving…

It was not to be as smooth as it should have been though. After a delightful but brief visit in San Miguel, the most scenic and postcard like town I’ve seen so far on this trip, a wrinkle was thrown in, is that a saying? Ok, so a few dozen of miles out, suddenly I felt America swaying back and forth, something was not right, I immediately realized: oh no! I’ve got a flat tire! Fortunately, this was not a dangerous situation, I was driving slowly, approaching a curb, in a small town called Santa Marias, with an S! I was able to park America off the road, and it was right in front of a very small shop with a lot of beers advertising posters. I approached the dark entrance of the minuscule shop where 3 men were standing and playing a game of cards. They were laughing loudly and speaking terribly fast, slurring even, and even the man in front of me, behind some sort of a counter, didn’t acknowledge my presence as they were in a fit of hysterical laughter, tears in their eyes! All right, so these 3 guys were totally drunk and apparently unaware of my being there, me politely waiting for a break in the hollering to infer my need for assistance! Just then a small Coca-Cola emblazoned car stopped for beer buying, and these 2 men were more attentive. I explained my problem to the one who seemed to be the Coke manager, using a translation app on my phone, and this nice cream of a man managed to ask the owner of the shop if he knew of anyone in town who could help me changing a tire…

That took a long while. While (I love the poetry of these words repetitions) waiting, I took off all the bags of America, put her on the center stand, a procedure I had practiced with Steve a few days before, and took out the hidden tools under her seat. Finally, Pedro arrived, the typical grease monkey outfit on, with dirt under his nails, all this reassuring me of his manual abilities. Pedro was quick and able and understood what to do right away. He had a compressor in his small red truck, and took off the rear wheel in no time. Taking the tire out of the rim took longer and I had to help holding the wheel in place while Pedro labored arduously. The tube was shredded, good thing I had a spare one huh? All this planning, all the Amazon purchases, all this equipment hidden in America’s crevices, all this paid out! I even had to make good use of duct tape somehow in the process, Pedro was impressed. I was proud of myself a little bit, I even bought a round of beers for all of us, the 3 card playing compadres, the Coke executive and his apprentice and myself, all congratulating each other as if it was, I don’t know, Happy New Year of the Rabbit ?? We’ll we had a laugh, that was needed, Pedro wanted 300 pesos for his services, I gave him 500, about $25!! A steal !

And I was on my way to Querétaro, and pétanque, and on towards new adventures, but this will be recounted in the next installment of this diary, ok? Stay tuned folks…