Trans Americas 2009 - The Blog

Woke early and with breakfast not available until 8am, packed my bike and phoned Tracy before heading up to the restaurant on the 1st floor, this time for the poached eggs, which came highly recommended, but took and eternity to come... but they were very good, so mustn't grumble... With my stomach attended to it was time to head out, but my riding buddy Nick's bike was parked up near the van, Jeff busying himself with preparing to load it inside.. Seems the rather excellent looking garlic shrimp Nick ate last night have disagreed with him badly, and he was up being sick and “loose” all night, and was now too weak to ride. Ed was also suffering, but was able to ride, albeit only with Lorraine not sitting on the back (she went on the van until clear of town, then Aaron took her with him).

Then my bike wouldn't start. It took many attempts before it finally fired into life, and even then a warning light was on, one that usually means the brake light isn't working, but it was... I had no idea what else it could mean, so had no choice but to ignore it and set off anyway... the bike seemed fine once on the move, and just out of town I stopped at a large supermarket to see if I could get a faster SD card for my camera (it takes ages to write each image, meaning it can't take 2 shots in quick succession, and I've missed several good pictures as a result). The shop didn't have faster cards, though, but at least when I returned to my bike it started OK and the warning light had gone off... so, not a completely wasted trip...

The route away from San Miguel followed a major road towards Queretaro, and then on the ring road, the first 120 miles intended to get to the start of the better roads up into the mountains. The fast dual carriageway turned into the usual mass of roadworks, part of the road torn up resulting in all the traffic trying to squeeze onto a narrower section of remaining tarmac and trying to avoid the severe drop-off onto the dirt section where the road had been stripped back. Remembering my ditch incident, I kept my eyes firmly on the stretch of tarmac in front of me, avoiding the temptation to even glance at the 6' drop at the side of the road, inches from my wheels...

The route notes called for a left turn onto highway 85 signed “Neuvo Laredo” which was supposed to be around mile 134, but I didn't see it, although I was riding along highway 85. After about 160 miles I pulled over to the side, confused as I'd not seen any of the others, either passing them or at a stop by the roadside, which is unusual. Looking at my map, I realised I'd completely missed the turn and was heading the wrong direction. There was an alternative route to the destination that would avoid retracing my steps, but that would mean I'd miss the recommended road (and knowing how good they are, didn't want to miss it) and also mean I was without the van in case of trouble. So I turned back and retraced my steps, and after much searching found the turn, in the middle of the roadworks and signed “NVO Laredo” on a single sign some distance from the road on the left side... no wonder I'd missed it...

Now on the right road, I upped my pace a little to claw back some of the time lost as a result of my 50-odd mile diversion and soon started climbing round the side of a mountain, on perfect tarmac and with left and right bends of varying degrees of severity leading one after another... great road indeed... I saw the van parked up and waved to Jeff, glad that now he'd be behind me and continued on my merry way, swaying from side to side and paying particular attention to the bends marked “CURVA PELIGROSO” or Dangerous Bend, largely because they offered great opportunity to get “reet over”... If these roads were in Europe, there would be thousands of motorcycles riding up and down them all day, every day... here, they are largely empty...

Soon the road climbed up and out of the desert landscape that has been the predominant feature of Mexico to date, albeit green desert with lots of desert shrubs brightening up the sandy fields. Now the road climbed up into dense forest, with heavy mist hanging in the trees, making visibility difficult and the roads slick from the humidity, which left me feeling soaking despite it not raining (yet). Slowing my pace accordingly, I climbed up and up into the mist, the dense rainforest obscured from view, passing little villages of wooden shacks clinging to the roadside, the constant humidity turning the ground to mud and making everything look dirty. The roads were full of the usual hazards too, from knackered pick-up trucks, donkeys standing in the road on blind bends, dogs chasing the bike in villages, cows wandering aimlessly across the road as I approached, turkeys and chickens attempting to commit suicide, and of course, pedestrians. These were joined by a new hazard, and one which I often wondered about as a child when we toured Europe and saw the signs on the mountains warning of falling rocks. I'd always imagined this meant there was a danger of being hit on the head by a rock breaking loose, but here in Mexico, it's clear that's not the real danger... the real danger is that around the next bend, half the mountain has fallen onto the road, blocking at least half of it. Most of these were easy to avoid, but some of the rocks were at least the size of a small sofa, so concentration levels had to remain high...





Exiting on village, I spotted a group and stopped, then tagged along at the back when the group left. No sooner had we left the village than we were once again in dense mist, this time so thick I could barely see Andrew's rear wheel in front of me. Then the rain started, covering my visor with large droplets and further reducing visibility. Overtaking the very slow moving pickups and buses and lorries was challenging, the straights between the bends no longer than a couple of hundred yards, and the group kept concatena-ing apart and together as it made its way past these mobile roadblocks. The riding was challenging, and very tiring, and we were all a bit relieved when we arrived in Tamazunchale and Julia led the group into a petrol station to fill up, with just 20 miles left according to the notes. Taking the opportunity to break away from the group, as I prefer to have open road in front of me, I followed Richard & Karen and Max & Christine out of town while the rest of the group were still parked up. Soon Julia's group had caught us up and then we saw a sign for Huejutla centro (the town we're staying in) and Richard headed on, and as I was 2nd with Julia behind me, I waved her past so she could lead us direct to the hotel... but she didn't go straight on, following the road round to the left... confused, I followed, as did the rest of the group, with Richard performing a u-turn and joining at the back. We then rode for what seemed like miles, in pouring rain, through countless little villages with the collection of topes (sleeping policemen) causing us to slow down, stand up, go over, speed up and repeat (the constant standing/sitting was causing me a little grief with my knee). Finally we turned left into a side-street and then the route seemed to make sense, at last matching the route-notes and we rolled up outside the hotel, where Kevin's bike was parked up (he'd left at 7am this morning to get here and arrange the rooms). We were then directed round to a parking area through some gates, riding the bikes onto a surface resembling an ice-rink, soaked wet and with mould at the edges, causing my front wheel to slide, but fortunately I managed to stay upright...

Once checked in to our room, I put the air-con and room fan on to full, which circulated the humid air but failed to prevent me from feeling like I needed a shower just seconds after I'd dried myself from one... With the rain stopped, I joined Nigel, Gerald, Andy and Aaron for a wander round town in search of food, all of us complaining we were very hungry, now we seem to have got the better of Montezuma after a long battle...the town is not a tourist town, being just a small provincial town well of the tourist trail, so restaurants were few and far between, but we managed to find a pizza place (more of a take-away with some tables & chairs) and ordered medium pizzas all round.. greed being what it is, we still had a pizza and a half from the 5 we'd ordered when we'd all filled our bellies, but it felt good to be able to eat something without fear of being more than a few feet from the banos...

We then wandered round town a few times before heading back to the hotel for a nightcap (beer) and chat before turning in...