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| On to the Pacific coast we went. The right rear tire went flat and we had it fixed in Choix after a roadside lunch of salty pork and tortillas. The fix only lasted a few miles. We went back to the tire shop. Turns out that the tire was bad--there was a bulge in the sidewall. The bulge had been causing the vibration I'd noticed since leaving Colorado. This shop did not sell used tires, so we hit the road with our baby spare on (our full sized spare made a lot of noise at speeds over 35 mph), taking it easy and looking for a shop with used tires. It wasn't long before we found what we were looking for: a good looking used tire for $20. We hit the coast at Topolobampo and had dinner overlooking town and the port. Lots of kids. Went to the beach at Marivi. Had a few beers on the beach with a few students from Los Mochis. We helped them push out their truck from the beach. They were like many American college students: they had part time jobs, were involved in sports (baseball and soccer), and found time to study too. Slept in a fold of the dunes to the dismay of the local dogs. Up the next day for a long drive towards Mazatlan. The highway here runs along a costal plane irrigated from reservoirs on the rivers coming down from the mountains to the east. Big-time agriculture. Strange behemoth farm equipment droves down the shoulder of the highway. Endless monoculture. Workers packed into the back of trucks, standing like livestock, going to the next field. Brimming truck loads of cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, and orange marigold blossoms. What do they do with the marigolds? Evening was approaching and we were getting close to Mazatlan. We spotted a finger of land heading out into the ocean and with a little exploring found a way down to the beach. Got Mo stuck in the sand and had to dig him out. Hiked down the beach at sunset amongst flocks of birds. Found a Momma dog and 4 of her puppies eating a pelican. Are the stray dogs of Mexico a new breed of wolves? Another peaceful night’s sleep on the beach. One thing I like down here in Mexico is the lack of air traffic. I go days or weeks without noticing a single plane. Camping out in the wildernesses of Colorado last summer it was hard to go 15 minutes without hearing a plane droning overhead. Went paddling in the ocean after breakfast. Waves 4-5 feet maximum, but fun to get oriented to ocean wave surfing--my first time. Paddled around the point and surfed the break on the other side. The beach here was steeper and the waves broke faster. I was pitched by a wave and came down on the bow of my kayak on the bottom, jamming my toes into the end of the boat and scraping them up. Bummer! On the paddle back I saw some dolphins and gave chase. Two of them surfaced not 10 feet from my kayak then disappeared. I was disappointed that they did not stop to play and make friends, Disney style. Oh well! On to Mazatlan on the "Cuota", or toll road. The Cuota is much faster than the "Libre", or free road, but the toll can be as much as $10. Cuotas are more or less freeways, were the libre road winds through every small town and is littered with a motley assortment of vehicles transporting workers, farm animals and produce, and Coca-Cola. The Coke truck makes it everywhere in Mexico. Even on some of the roughest roads we went on, red Coke trucks would come rumbling toward us trailing a plume of dust. Another joy of the libre road is the ubuquitous "tope", or speed bump. Traffic laws are rarely enforced so the only way to slow the Mexican traffic in populated areas is to put a tope every 100 yards. A long day of driving on the libre road involves bouncing over several hundred topes. Nice thing about the toll plaza before Mazatlan was the shower--my first since leaving Colorado! My hair had become like burnt meringue. The other night in Los Mochis dust in the creases of my skin and around my fingernails glowed purple under the black lights of a club we stopped into! A kid selling refrigerator magnets descended on me as soon as I got out of the shower. He was fascinated by our car and all the stuff inside it. Asked all sorts of questions. I gave him a stick of herbal-flavored chap stick. His buddy ran up and wanted one too. Rolled into Mazatlan. It was like an amusement park. Taxis--all modified VW bugs--swarmed the road. The spring break crowd hadn't hit yet. Instead the streets were full of fat, slow, clean, and old Americans that looked like gold fish exploring their bowl. Quite a change from the outback of the Barranca del Cobre. Walked around and checked out some of the shops and assessed what things cost here. Went out to the beach and ordered a Pina Colada. Watched old, retired, and very wrinkled and tan American men play bocce ball on the beach. Nathan bought a pair of silver ear rings for 65 pesos. He talked the guy down from 200. I bought a hat for shade, some post cards and a few bracelets for gifts, and we hit the road. We headed out to what was supposed to be a good surf spot, Isla de la Piedra. Stopped for dinner at a taco stand. Had a thin slice of beef sautéed in onions and tomatoes, beans with goat cheese crumbled on top, and yes, a tower of tortillas. Washed it down with a Fanta orange soda in a worn recycled bottle. A woman was selling some sort of pithy, golf-ball-sized palm seeds in syrup. She let us try one. Maybe we should have bought some, I don't know, but they were kind of hard to eat with a hard seed in the middle and woody flesh that got stuck in my teeth. The woman had been at the cemetery across the road all day trying to sell them. It was all she had. Darkness fell and we finally found a deserted road through a neglected copra plantation out to the beach. Another night to sleep by the surf. Awoke to people moving up and down the beach, most seemed to be on their way to work. I changed from my light weight long sleeve underwear to my pants, socks, and a light long sleeve shirt. I'm just recovering from the first onslaught of sand flies in the Copper Canyon. A thin layer of clothing, especially around the ankles and elbows, seems the most effective way to avoid bites. Not always the most comfortable in hot weather, but worth it! Power plants smudge the sky here. They burn oil and there seems to be little effort to clean the smoke. The sunset south of Mazatlan was like the ones I see at home when large forest fires are burning nearby. Headed out the libre road today. We were tired of the high tolls and wanted to see more of the local life. After a few slow hours we stopped at a road side restaurant and had a splendid lunch of lemon chicken, rice, iceberg lettuce and tomatoes, salsa, and a mountain of tortillas. Washed it down with an iced down coconut, the top cut open and a straw inserted to drink the juice. Later in the afternoon, we stopped in Tepic, an inland college town. I was in the pharmacy looking for an antibiotic remedy to help heal my toes faster. As I was talking to the pharmacist lady, a guy interrupted me and asked, "Are you from the states, man?" Between the three of us we decided a sulfite powder would be my best option--there is no antibiotic cream here. The guy invited Nathan and I to stop by before leaving town. We followed behind his motorbike to his apartment. Up a few floors and we walked in. His room mate was watching motocross on TV. A beta fish sat in a bowl on a table. Newts lived in an aquarium beside the couch. One wall was covered in writing--their friends would come over to party sometimes and write thoughts and poems in Spanish and English in magic marker. This guy had lived in Sacramento, CA with his mom for 4 years. He was excited to see and hang out with Americans again. We discussed several travel options on maps on his walls. Before leaving we asked him if we could give him anything. He said,” Just don't say anything bad about Mexico." Back on the road 'til dusk and we ducked into the bush near Ixtlan to camp. A star-filled night. I tried to take pictures of some constellations. The bow held by Orion was clearly visible. Looking through Nathan's binoculars I counted almost 50 stars in The Pleaties. Driving through agave heartland today. The dusty blue spikes soften to a hazy blue blanket to the horizon. On to Guadalajara eating sugar cane hearts. I bought a bag of them, cane peeled back to the woody core and cubed. You chew the sugar water out of the wood and then spit out what looks like a few chewed-up tooth picks. Guadalajara is a huge city. Surprisingly clean and metropolitan. I felt like I was in Madrid. Had lunch at a sushi bar run out of a small trailer on a street corner. They had tapped into the overhead power and phone lines and had a lively delivery business. On to down town to see a few monuments. Stopped at a laundry. Got directions from a blind man for the way out of town. He closed our conversation with "Hecho"("Done!"), a favorite Mexican saying second only to "Sale!" ("Get outta here!") and "Andale!" ("Hurry up!"). If you're really on the ball, you can put them all together: "Hecho! Sale! Andale!" As "tranquilo" as Mexicans are most of the time, their enthusiasm to get things done seems a bit ironic. Mo isn't driving properly lately. He does well idling and at full throttle, but has little or no power in between. Drove 'til dusk. Found camp up hill and up wind of a smoldering dump outside of Ocotlan. Woke up in the morning and the breeze had shifted. The odd acrid smoke of who knows what all burning got us on the road quickly. I had a weird itching sensation about two hours after we left. I hope it wasn't from some weird chemical in the smoke! A long day of driving on the high mountainous desert of central Mexico to Ixmiqiulpan. The pavement in Mexico is usually in quite good repair. Compared to "American" standards not nearly so safe--tight corners, light posts right at the edge of the pavement without any guard rails, abrupt shoulders and steep embankments. But because of this, people are better drivers--you have to be alert. They aren't so self-absorbed as Americans are driving solo in their SUV's. Painted on their windshields and tail gates are slogans to their faith in God: "Dios es mi Guia"--God is my Guide, or "Si no regreso, estoy con Dios"--If I do not return, I am with God. Surviving on the road is a spiritual experience. The roads are often crowded with slow trucks and people pass how and whenever they can. I've been run off the road by busses passing on blind corners in my lane! Often paint has been wasted on the Mexican road. It is at most a suggestion how the road might be used. This is the natural response the Mexican people have to what is offered them. They are smart, unconventional and resourceful, and make the most of what may seem at first to be very little. In this way many are rich. They are less burdened by their material world and more in control of it. Asked a guy about the weather. There'd been a little rain, but not a soaking rain since July. Parked near a plaza in Ixmiquilpan with flowering gardens and benches and a marvelous fountain topped by a well muscled and endowed bronze statue of a woman drawing a bow. The main mission here was to buy a bicycle. We found the bicycle shop area in the large covered market. We went to several shops asking for their cheapest, ugliest, most used bicycle. The reply was that they sold only new bicycles. They showed us one small bicycle that hadn't quite been restored to "newness." It was offered for 40 dollars. After going through several shops, where often one of several people we had already talked to at another shop stuck their head in and helped us out. It seemed that the 10 or so bike shops here were all run by the same family. It became obvious we wouldn't get a "new" bike for less than $60. We settled on the biggest bike we could find, "El Mercurio." It was still way too small. I guess they don't sell many large bikes in a town where the tallest person is 5 foot 8! We needed the bike to run shuttles on kayak trips, thusly: unload all the gear at the put in, drive the car to the take out, ride the bike back and then paddle down to the car. Easier and cheaper to do this than hire a taxi or depend on hitching a ride. Bought some fruit and veggies in the covered market for very reasonable prices. Golden mangos from Chiapas are the best in the world! I got lost walking back to the car, but was rescued by a few guys who gladly walked with me until I got my bearings. We headed out of town to the put in for a section of the Tula River and camped out for the night. Got up and going early in the morning. Had to drive Mo 30 miles to the take out at an uncertain location over mountainous terrain. I did not find the take out described in our guide book. No one I asked seemed to know anything about the roads described there in. It was getting late and it didn't seem to make sense to head out onto remote gravel roads. I found a paved road down to a reservoir on the river. Accounts from all the people I talked too described it as a small reservoir, only 3-5 km to the inlet of the Tula River. Seemed good enough. I parked and started to ride. In less than a mile I picked up a ride in the back of a pick-up. They took me almost 15 miles to Zimipan. I had 15 more to go to the put in. I stopped at a roadside stand where they were cooking meat over a grill on top of an oil drum. I got 5 tacos to go for lunch. Talked with a local baseball fan. I told him I was from Colorado and he proudly told me of a Mexican star who played for the Rockies. I pedaled with vigor up the steep winding road. I reached a summit and wizzed 7 miles down switchbacks to the put in--a true test for El Mercurio. A little wobbly in some of the corners, but I made it. Found Nathan waiting in the bush, keeping a low profile. We ate the tacos and shared a beer and a tangerine and we were on the river. The water was a bit low, but there was enough to make a go of it. We found a couple of maybe class III rapids, but none of the 15 miles of class IV described in the guide book. Dogs barked at us occasionally and we passed under a kid fishing from a branch 10 feet above the water. A bull jumped in the river just in front of Nathan and swam across--a bit spooked by the kayaks I guess. High water was evidenced by trash filtered out by the bushes. The Tula starts just north of Mexico City and has a bit of pollution in it. Three or four miles into the run, the river mellowed dramatically and began to widen. Small boats were parked all over the shore. It was becoming apparent that we would have a 10+ mile paddle out over the reservoir, rather than 2-3 miles. A bit later we passed a dog swimming in the middle of the reservoir. Dogs, they are everywhere in Mexico. We paddled a couple of miles and encountered a block of trash across the surface of the reservoir, a half mile wide and a quarter mile across. They had strung lines across the reservoir to catch all of the bottles and floating trash, preventing it from polluting the entire reservoir. We portaged the raft of trash, carrying our boats across the steep and rocky shore. We paddled out into the ever-expanding reservoir. It began to feel as if we had been plopped down in the middle of Lake Powell. We took one wrong turn up an inlet as the sun was going down. The reservoir opened up and the head wind picked up. Waves crashed over the tops of our little kayaks. We rounded a corner and the wind switched direction. I could almost surf the waves rolling up from behind me. The sun had gone down and we were contemplating camping on the rocky shore. We rounded one more corner and we could see the home stretch. Just a couple miles over open water now. There was a head wind again and the cranberry and tangerine clouds colored the waves. Finally, just before dark, we reached the take out where Mo was parked. Cooked dinner and drank warm beer with lime. I climbed up onto a platform above the parking lot and fell asleep amongst the donkeys and dogs. |
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