+ Week 3 Bad Hombres Go South Of The Border to Copper Canyon, Mexico

[LtCrashDan]

Day 4 started out with some amazing views:

Once someone gets out of the way, you can see the real view:

Jason did tell me the master link was on backwards, but I do swear the directions explicitly stated towards the direction of travel with an image. Well I was carrying several spares, he says we shall see when we change the master link, no big deal easy enough if it does happen, at least I have a case saver....

The extra piece of sandman case saver bolts into the lower right stock hole from the stock guard. The chain hit this, and took out that connecting piece of the case saver, and pulled the entire stock threads and part of the case with it. We got it back together with JB steel Stick. And then rode easy until we got oil from a super friendly guy from under his hood. Through my broken spanish he started speaking english, and when I asked tu habla ingles? he goes, shit I didn't even realize I was speaking english. As Jason said, this lead us to learning a great lesson early in the trip. We got fresh picked herbs, and muy picante salsa with some exceptional huevos rancheros.

and I now have enough oil to help me feel secure.

Across from the store there was an old church and cemetary

and further down a cool old abandoned church

Que Carajo though with that bad hombre and his barbed wire. Was that a gringo toll?

Closer to Urique we wanted to explore a valley we saw on google maps and e32, it lead to nothing really, but a cool ride none the less

We go back to the same Urique Hotel, and do some exploring of some local roads in which our e32 maps try to get us to take some crazy goat path.

A cool old building in Urique now a little shop

We ate at the Plaza restaurant. Super nice lady, and probably the best cheese I have ever had. Super reasonable prices too and cool decor:

Day 4 ride:

 

[LtCrashDan]

Here is my video for days 3 & 4, I didn't have a lot of time to work on it, so its a bit choppy:

 

[Yinzer Moto]

Day 5: 200KM

Urique to Batopilas, the long way around

We learned our lesson about the Urique gas station a couple days ago and had gotten gas the evening before. So in the morning, all we had to do was get breakfast and hit the road. I believe we ate breakfast at the Plaza restaurant again. She brought us all one pancake to start and honey to put on top. I have never had honey on top of a pancake and it was delicious.

We then left out of Urique to the south east, the way we came in a few days ago. It was a fun climb up the mountain.

It was a fairly short ride over to Batoplias and we crossed the low water bridge in the late morning.

While waiting for the others at the bridge, I had time to play with the GPS and look for something that might take a few hours. I found a loop that was about 75 miles. I did not look at the elevation or where it was exactly going but by the chart above, you can see the fun we had. We basically just crossed the paved road that enters Batopilas from the north and went back off into the mountains.

Soon, we were over 8000ft. The way the terrain changes in Mexico is just spectacular. I really loved the riding when we got up around 8000ft. The trees got bigger, the roads were covered in pine needles. There even seemed to be a little more dirt and less sand/rock. We also saw the effects of the rain storm from a couple days ago. There was snow of signifiant depth.

This snow was 2 days old at this point, they may have had a few inches up here a couple days ago. The houses with metal roofs had piles of snow that were a couple feet tall that had slid off of the roofs. This loop was not really planned and turned out to be really fun.

Continued....

 

[Yinzer Moto]

Day 5 continued

We dropped back down he mountain and were getting close to Batopilas again. There was another water crossing to get back on the correct side of the river. There were 3 options. 1 was a vehicle bridge that was under construction, they were setting rebar to prepare for the concrete pour. So it was not really an option. Second was to cross the river. I dont like water, noting can ruin your day faster than crossing deep water and dropping the bike. The potential of ruining a motor is too great. This crossing was not too deep, maybe 18" but it appears to be lined with bowling ball sized rocks. The last option was a foot bridge. There were no stairs leading to the foot bridge, so I opted for that. I did the math in my head I figured my bike and I weighed about what a Mexican family would weigh and I just saw a family cross it.

This video is from the next morning. My first crossing is in the video in the next post. I made the mistake of standing and that caused the bridge to start swaying back and forth. It was a little scary but fun at the same time.



Danny opted to cross the river. I am not sure he has had to deal with many drowned bikes and the effects, he is not very scared of deep water or puddles. Many times hitting them at scary fast speeds for me. The water was splashing over his front fender as he crossed. If it was a smooth crossing, I may have considered it. He got across without much trouble other than wet feet.

Ron crossed the bridge behind me.

Then we visited the Mission, Danny had heard a lot of things about it and really wanted to see it.

Finally, we entered Batopilas. A word of caution, Mexico does not mark much on their streets. We were riding along the river and I was looking at the sights and I look back and I am coming up on a loading dock. Thankfully, I looked back, I was able to blip the throttle and pop off of it, the others saw this and just followed me. There was a guy working on his car, he saw the whole thing and was in shock.

Similar to Urique, we did a bunch of laps around town till we found gas. It is a beautiful town. We ended up getting gas through a metal hatch in a wall.

Then we got a hotel room from a guy who was not real interested in helping us. He was supposed to open a set of doors so we could pull our bikes inside but he just got into his truck and left. We wandered around for 20 min or so but the door had a padlock on it. He eventually showed back up and seemed confused why we were wandering around. It took him a while to find the keys, FYI, they are kept in the shelves of the little table near the door.

We got unloaded in the room and walked around town.

 

[Yinzer Moto]

Day 5 video

I think this might be the best one yet.

 

[LtCrashDan]

The way up to the top from Urique was much easier than coming down (I prefer hill climbs than decents), and we made pretty good time. We stopped at a rock outcropping a good portion of the way up that we could climb. Originally driving by, I thought this was an aloe plant, but I think this is a variant of Agave, what so many of liquid refreshments we would have were made of:

I thought this was a cool shot from up on the ledge looking down at the left side of the valley:

Panoramic of the entire valley

We would ride up to the famous signs, and snap one of my favorite pictures of the ride @racerron coming up the hill. It looks fake:

We would continue on riding the road at elevation until we got close to Batopilas. You can slightly see the road to the left we decided to take to loop around Batopilas, and the road to the right looks like it would be awesome as well, I'm pretty sure we came in on the road following the river, and left that way the next day too.

As we looped around, we went from lower desert type terrain to well over 8200 ft. As we lowered in elevation we rode the rim of this valley which looked cool, but I don't think picture does it justice:

We would stop at the mission as it seemed like a popular spot. I don't know I would suggest it to others, maybe because it was closed at the time, and a lady did come to open it for us, but just seemed to want to rush us around and ask for money. Some of the buildings near there were pretty neat though:

We would end at Juanitas, who I believe I was told she was currently in Chihuahua. The guy also didn't seem to want 3 of us to stay in a room and wasn't going to give us a third towel. An american couple pointed out the price sheet that clearly said 4 person occupancy for 2 double beds 500 pesos. We would meet Mensa (not sure if that is her name) here who would offer to guard our bikes for us. She also told us she had rooms for 100 peso's per person (something around that), but we had already booked at Juanita's, who she says is her niece.

We would have dinner at a place across from Restaurant Carolina's, at a place the american couple suggested. They said Carolina's was only OK, but this lady had a rotating menu of about 4 items she would cook every day. On the way to dinner, we passed a hardware store that had saddles for sale right up front on display. I should have grabbed a pic, but I had dinner and cerveza's on the mind.

Day 5 graph and track:

 

[LtCrashDan]

I snagged a screencap from a video of the the road that just drops off in Batopilas. Looks like Jason is staring at it:

 

[Yinzer Moto]

Day 6: 310km

Batopilas to El Furte


Deflating........

We were up early as usual and got the bikes loaded. It was fun riding them out of the hotel. Mensa (english speaking lady next door) lured me in for breakfast. I convinced the others. I am sure she has good intentions but it seemed like she was trying to fleece us for as money as possible. She said she does a lot of charity work with the money she takes in.

We hit the road with full bellies and left town to the south, the same way we came in. Across the suspension bridge. The roads were nicer today. More sandy and clay and less rolling rocks. Not too long into the day, Dannys left rack loosened up to the point that the rear wheel ate the tool tube that was attached to it. The lower in elevation we went, the more sand that was on the roads. They were getting faster and faster. We stopped in a town for gas and a snack. the Gas was passed though a fence in a hose.

Danny ended up with his first (of many) flat tire as we passed though a town. We found a nice little spot to change it.

We finished out the day in El Fuerte. At a random hotel. They started with a pretty high price but Danny's negotiating skills got the price down to a reasonable $500. Then they would not let us park the bikes inside. As we were about to walk, the girl at the desk caved in.

 

[Yinzer Moto]

Day 6 video

Things are getting smoother. The next few videos are a little slow but stay tuned, the last couple days are the best.

 

[LtCrashDan]

Day 5&6 Video:

For Day 6, I didn't grab many pictures, we covered a lot of ground in the second half of the day as the elevation change was very gradual.

As Jason said, Mensa lured us in and told us stories about how she will house the needy and feed the Tarahumara Indians. She seemed to think I really needed to eat more, and poured a whole can of beans on my plate... We each donated $20 peso's to the coffee fund, but told her we had no where to put her book. She said lots of bike riders stay at Juanita's, and that she is happy about it, because they bring some money into the area. Later we would be told by several people that the mayor of Batopilas is pretty corrupt, and lets some unsavory characters hang out there. Also apparently most of the stolen vehicles around the border end up here, if you look closely, you will see many vehicles with punched out locks.

Most of my pictures this day are from Batopilas before we left:

I also didn't grab much video this day as I suppose it was somewhat uneventful. on the way out of town, I crossed the bridge this time instead of fording the river again. I thought second gear would be more smooth, but should have stuck with first, but made it across.

We would also find that gas from a barrel is a bit more expensive than the pemex stations, typically around $23 per litre vs the 18/19 at pemex.

We breezed through to el fuerte, where we ended up ordering more food for dinner than we realized at La Parillada Asadero, and tried to find Mezcal again unsuccessfully. I believe we stayed at Hotel La Herradura that evening.

Day 6 track and chart:

 

[Yinzer Moto]

Day 7: 350km

El Fuerte to a wild camp spot

We loaded up and went in search of breakfast. We found street vendor who was open and she had some tables. We sat down. She was making a pulled pork taco thing. It was delicious About 3/4 the way through my meal, I began to regret the decision to eat street food in Mexico. There was a bowl of lettuce and water on a table near us. I assume the vendor was washing the lettuce. A bird landed on the edge of the bowl and began to drink out of it. Then the bird spun around so its ass was hanging over the bowl. I did not see it poop but that was enough for me to regret my decision. None of us got sick but I think ill stick with food from a restaurant from now on.

We followed a bit of asphalt out of the city but even when the roads turned to dirt, they stayed very fast. Danny got another flat. I had to ride a good ways back to find him and Ron. By the time I got back there, they were finishing up.

The roads started climbing somewhere around the top. I noticed Dannys rack was broken. We fixed it up with a little duct tape. While we were finishing up, the sound of automatic gunfire lit up the woods near us. I think someone was concerned about us hanging out and wanted to send a message. We moved on quickly.

Eventually we were across the river from Chinipas. We did not need anything from that town, so instead fo fording the river, we moved on. The roads were very narrow and steep, it was a really great time.

We kept riding until the day got late, it was obvious we were going to have to camp out. We found a nice grassy field to setup camp, where our only neighbors were some horses and cows.

These are the only pics I took today.

I also did not shoot much video and it is combined with the next days video.

 

[LtCrashDan]

I wasn't a fan of the Pinguino's, I preferred the pineapple pastry thing.

I don't have much to add to day 7 myself. I had a concern about the street food from the getgo, as I had a couple co-workers get sick in Mexico City both off of street food. However it was an adventure after all, and the street vendors seemed to be more popular than the restaurants typically. The tacos were delicious, and they had coffee, although still instant.

We took the more northern route by the reservoir which quickly turned to dirt/gravel. It was pretty dusty, but the reservoir was neat to see. Just after there is also an art installation apparently some kind of fountain. We didn't stop, but i got a picture of the Aztec style statue near it.

We stopped in Alamos for gas, but didn't even stay for lunch, we got there so quickly and it was so busy, we blew right through.

Closer to Chinipas the riding improved, we actually ascended back up to 6k feet from under 300, and then dropped back down to 1600 to Chinipas and then back up just over 6k afterwards. We contemplated the water crossing there, but we saw an SUV back out and decided against it. The day before my girlfriend had said she was sick of all the mountain pictures, so I made sure to grab her this shot on the way:

The temperature dropped quickly once the sun went down as it was very clear, and we were far enough off the road and away, we got a nice fire going (we made sure we had a nice big fire ring as it was super dry). We had no Cerveza's this evening, but all in all a good night camping out.

 

[Yinzer Moto]

Day 8: 200Km

Wild Camp spot to Uruachi

Tubular Day

We had wild camped, doing that tends to leave us low on water. Especially after coffee in the morning. So once we hit the road, I was keeping my eyes pealed for a little store somewhere. It still feels so weird that we were out in the middle of nowhere but there are stores everywhere. Every little town with more than 5 buildings will have a store and possibly gasoline. After an hour or two, I rode into a small town. I stopped at a house that appeared to be a store but they were not. I got directions.

I waited at the road for the others but they did not show up. I rode back a way and they were changing another flat on Dannys bike. We were dumbfounded why his rear kept going flat. I checked that tire many times and could not find anything. We were stuffing 21" tubes in and some flats appeared to be occurring where the tube was folded over on its self.

Once back on the road, we rode into the town and bought some water at the store. Then rode down the road to the other store who had gasoline. I had to take on 2 extra liters of fuel because of all of the riding back to find the others with flat tires.

I think Danny got a pic of it but if I would have taken the pic a little higher, we were parked under a clothes line full of drying meat.

From here, we continued north to Basaseachi Falls. The roads were more main roads and improved in quality. Including a few stretches of asphalt. The park had a fee to enter. We pulled up to the gate and the guy wanted exactly $72 each despite the sign behind him saying $40. We tried to talk though the language barrier but could not figure out the discrepancy. In the end, it was a dollar fifty each extra and not really worth worrying about.

We got about 100 meters before Danny had another flat. We were using up our supply of tubes. Ron offered up his last tube. I installed it. It would not inflate, it had a hole in it. So we tried to patch a tube. Assembled everything and it would not hold air either, possibly another hole elsewhere. This was starting to get old. I had a pair of spare 21" tubes, I put one of those in. It held. We cleaned up and rode to the waterfall.

It was a nice sight. I am not sure it was worth the ride all the way up there but we were not on a tight schedule so it only cost a little gas and time. The ride back down to Uruachi was easy.

We stopped at an auto repair shop at the entrance of town to see if they could patch the tubes. They directed us into town and to look for a guy grilling meat on the street. He was pretty easy to find. He seemed like a really happy guy. I went into the store across the street to grab some snacks and when I came back out, Ron said Danny had gotten into a car with the guy and took off. I paid my respects for Danny and said it was nice knowing him.

A short time later Danny showed back up with 4 tubes and a patch kit. The guy had a motorcycle shop in town and opened it up for Danny. When the shop is closed, the guy grills meat for free in the street outside of the store. I think he is related to the person who owns the store. You go into the store, buy meat and he will grill it.

Continued....

 

[Yinzer Moto]

Day 8 continued....

We set off to find a hotel. The guys father was trying to rent us a cabin outside of town for $1000 but that did not seem appealing. We kind of wanted to be in town. We found a place on the other side of the river. Danny will remember the name. The owner was also a really great guy. He had a nice secure place to store the bikes. We got room 14 which included a nice balcony view of the intersection below.

The bikes tucked away and a majestic looking horse near them.

You might be wondering why the intersection below was important. For some reason, everyone in town from 6pm to 8pm would start driving around and they all would pull down to this T intersection and make 3 point turns. We say every vehicle many times. It was like rush hour in the city. I can't believe that we did not see any accidents. It was extremely entertaining, we sat up on the balcony, drinking tequila and beer.

Speaking of beer, the unmarked door to the left of the ice machine is the beer store.

There was a nice restaurant across the street too, where we ate dinner and breakfast

 

[LtCrashDan]

My Day 8

It was a cold morning as well, I was happy to get my coffee and oatmeal, but once on the road we quickly got warmed up. That was probably due to what seemed like an endless hillclimb out of the valley this day. We tried to camp at as low of elevation as possible, and ended up being very near to an area of natural protection quite a bit lower than the area around it.


The shop we ended up stopping at was very interesting, it was filled with boxes of shoes and clothing in plastic wrap like they just came off a truck. But they were clearly making the beef Jerky they were selling, and some locals came and got some other local looking goods in jars. I had to tell Ron to look up at what he was standing under:

We moved quickly, but unfortunately did not cover a lot of ground due to flats. We made it up to Basaseachi which is a pretty cool overlook. We met a character up top who spoke good english and watched the bikes for us. He offered to trade his 125 for one of our wr's, I told him I would have, but unfortunately it looked like his had been dropped before, and mine clearly has only ever been rubber side down... I wish I got a picture of his bike.

We then headed back to Uruachi. As a Jason mentioned, we went looking for a man grilling Carne Asada, his name was Hector. We couldn't communicate super well, but Hector was one awesome and helpful dude. He took me to his shop which he opened up for me, sold me 2 18's, 2 21s, a repair kit, and then gave me a bag full of stroop lemons or something like that. It was basically a mix between a lemon (lime as the mexicans call it) and orange. Unfortunately they weren't super ripe, but I bet if they were, it would have been delicious. I don't have the name of his shop, but if you ever need anything in Uruachi, look for Hector grilling with a Michelob ultra infront of a red building, or make your way to his shop here https://www.google.com/maps/place/2...5!1s0x0:0x0!7e2!8m2!3d27.87043!4d-108.2141753. He also connected me to his shop's wifi while we were there in case I needed it.

We got back, and made our way to Don Lalo hotel. I asked for a room with 3 bed's, which the guy said he had, but then he kept telling me he had rooms with 1 and 2 bed's as well. It wasn't until I went to get the key for our room that I realized he was making a joke. He showed me all the keys he had, and it would appear we were the only ones not form Uruachi in town. We would be sent to a womans home to buy beer a few times, and drink the rest of our tequila that night while watching the cars u-turn at our intersection. On one occasion a supply truck with a 25ft ish concrete pull would make the u-turn as well, and take out part of the fence.
Our hotel room would also have the best picture of any hotel room i've ever stayed in:

The director of tourism of the town actually came up and introduced himself to us as well, although the language barrier was pretty bad, he explained that the cars driving was a nightly tradition. I'm not sure what it was about Uruachi, I think the people, but I really enjoyed that town.

 

[Yinzer Moto]

Day 7 and 8 video.

Nothing too exciting, just good Mexico riding

 

[LtCrashDan]

My Day's 7 and 8 video, not too much it was mostly fast paced boring stuff I got besides an endless hill climb heading towards Uruachi:

 

[Yinzer Moto]

Day 9: 240KM

Uruachi to Cerocahui

We got up and were on the bikes a little after 7am. We did a bunch of laps around town looking for the gas station. Eventually we found it on the north end of town on the main road leaving town. Then we went back down the restaurant next to the hotel for some breakfast. We headed out of town to the south around 8:30. The scenery was just stunning. This part of Mexico is just fascinating in how much the scenery changes. We got up to 9000 feet in elevation pretty quickly.

We stopped at a little store for gator aid and some snacks.

I grabbed this screenshot from he video. I love how even the dog is on the truck.

Continued.....

 

[Yinzer Moto]

Day 9 continued....

I really wanted to ride up that hill over Ron's left shoulder.

We followed the dirt until it hit asphalt. We played with the GPS' for a few min, trying to figure out where to go. The first ADV type person we have see went zipping by on a BMW. We decided to hit up Temori for lunch and then try to get back to Bahuichivo for the evening. We headed out in the same direction as the BMW rider. Eventually we caught up with him and passed. Eventually the road turned to dirt again, it was well maintained dirt. Then Danny got another flat.

Luckily I only had to ride back a short distance. The BMW rider had stopped and was chatting with us. It turns out it is @VTbeemer. We all decided to go have lunch together. We set off first on the dirt because VTbeemer had some more road oriented tires on his bike. When we got to Temori, he was not all that far behind, he was hauling ass on those slick tires in the dirt.

After a fun lunch of chatting with a fellow adventure rider, we headed back toward Bahuchivo. I was having a hard time with these roads. They are more main roads and traffic is moving a lot faster. There are also semi trucks. It was a bit of cultural shock, after riding little tiny roads for the last week. As we approached town, the police had the road closed ahead. Luckily we did not need to go to that direction. We saw two hotels in Bahuchivo but neither seemed to have any secure place for the bikes. So we rode on to Cerocahui. Danny had a hotel bookmarked on the GPS there. When we got to the hotel. They wanted $4500 for a room! The girl was nice enough to suggest another place. As we walked out, Vtbeemer showed up. We all went to the other place and split 2 rooms.

I met a friend outside while there were figuring out the rooms for the night.

Our hotel had a nice courtyard with chickens in a tree.

We had dinner at a house that was a few doors down

 

[LtCrashDan]

For day 9, I have hardly any pictures. I think I had done such awesome terrain and views the first half I got so many pics then, and saw less I wanted a picture of. There was a nice view at the beginning of the day Uruachi. Our plan was to head towards Bahuchivo and then another day we might take a route through Maguarichi, we never did make it that way, but it looks like a sweet ride too (for next time). I did get one last scenic pic before the we hit pavement:

The way to Temoris was dusty dirt, and we would take this road back out as well. I would get to test my new Mexican tubes and see if they would hold up (its still in the bike now and held up the rest of the trip). The way out was much worse, and traffic was very heavy. I came within 5 ft of rearending a jeep parked in the middle of the road. A big truck swerved left, and i thought i had an opportunity to overtake him on the inside, well a jeep appeared out of nowhere in the dust, I could see it just in time. We would have to pass a few other vehicles on this road as we wound our way out on the very dusty dirt road. We told @VTbeemer we were going to stay in Bahuchivo, and figured he could make it to Cerocahui no problem as he was heading further south. There were 2 hotels in Bahuchivo, but I don't think one was even open, and the town did not look like a great place to stay. We passed a cool looking inn/hotel that was probably out of our price range, but no one answered anyways. Then the Hotel mission which was empty, and they would not budge on their price. The place had hot tubs, pools, and a wine vineyard. It took us 15 minute just to find something, kind of odd as they didn't seem to be expecting guests either...

I didn't see a name of the place, but the store directly across the plaza from the church had rooms including breakfast and so they said hot water.... 500 pesos per room with breakfast though, not bad:

The only restaurant we could find was in a house 2 doors down, but she was closed. She asked if we wanted chicken and mushrooms and it sounded great, so we did and she opened up for us.