Where the Autopista Ends
Two motorcycle bloggers in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Huamantla
Posted on October 31, 2013
My cousin Cesar sprinkles water on our Abuelita’s grave in preparation for Dia De Los Muertos. Photo: Alex Washburn
What kept me motivated in the 11 hour ride from Guadalajara to Huamantla was that I knew once we arrived we’d have nothing to worry about. We’d be able to roll the motorcycles into a locked patio, a comfy full size bed heaped with blankets would be ready for us and my Aunt Sylvia would feed us something hot and delicious before we crawled into it.
These expectations were fully met when we rolled into town an hour or so after dark and after parking our motorcycles we were whisked off to my Uncle Andres and Aunty Sylvia’s home to be fed and make plans for the few days we would be in town.
The first rounds of gets sits down to plates of carnitas at a Huichan family party. Photo: Alex Washburn
As the time for the party approached on Tuesday things got busy around the house and then relatives started to trickle in… and they kept coming for hours. I think Nathaniel had to say ‘Mucho Gusto’ at least 100 times so it’s a good thing I made it one of the phrases he learned before we left California.
By the end of the night the 103 lb. pig was more or less gone and most people left in some state of dizzying food coma brought on by copious amounts of fried pork, tortillas, candy, rice, refrescos and beer.
During the party several of my relatives asked to take photos with Nathaniel (and by relatives I mean young females). I thought it was hilarious and Nathaniel fully embraced his role at the family gathering as ‘el güerro’.
To disturb the neighbors as little as possible the butchers decided to kill the pig in a field a few blocks from the house. Photo: Alex Washburn
My Spanish got the biggest work out of the trip (even tougher than dealing with immigration) as a bro-mance began to form between Cesar and Nathaniel. They used me to make jokes at each other back and forth for days and I told them I was glad they couldn’t directly talk to each other because then we would all be in trouble.
Boys herding sheep on the edge of town. Photo: Alex Washburn
Although we did a lot of family stuff I was really glad Nathaniel got to experience Huamantla and meet all the people he’s heard me talk so much about. It was fun yet exhausting and now we are looking forward to some low key adventures surrounding day of the dead.
For all you motorcyclists out there – the drive from Puebla to Oaxaca city is about 5 hours long and the last 2-3 hours are gorgeous well paved and wide mountain roads.
***Note: Nathaniel would like me to add a footnote that he does not agree with me using the photo of the pig slaughter in this post and he is afraid of it offending our viewership.
Bye Bye Baja
Posted on October 29, 2013
Eva and Rick are the lovely people who own Baja Backpackers in La Paz Mexico. Because of the problems with our paperwork we ended up staying at their hostel for over a week and Alex created a new web site for their business. Photo: Alex Washburn
After a week of being in a holding pattern in La Paz, Alex received her documents in the mail via DHL (thank you Val!) and by Wednesday we had everything we needed to board the ferry on Thursday. We got up early, did a little maintenance on Alex’s bike (which involved taking the gas tank completely off), packed all of the gear (which took longer due to a week of rust) and headed off to Pichilingue to get our importation documents for the motorcycles and board the ferry.
Several hours later, we boarded the ferry without any problems (it’s amazing how fast bureaucracy works when you have all the right paperwork!). Waiting to board the ferry, a fellow motorcyclist pulled up and helped us while away the time with good conversation. Jim was riding a BMW down from Seattle to his second home in Mazatlan. He had great stories of family, and his own adventures riding through Mexico, Belize, and Guatemala.
After securing the bikes on the ferry (which consisted of tying them down with rope) we headed to our seats, which were pretty comfortable and proceeded to watch some movies and sleep for the next 16 hours. Untied the bikes, and disembarked in Mazatlan without any instances, though while on board Alex had determined that we were going to have to ride 700 miles in two days to reach her family in Huamantla.
The first day we left Mazatlan at 11am and rode all day aside from a gas stop, and two tip overs, one by me and the other by Alex, into a car (count is 4-2 with two dinged cars), until dusk to reach Guadalajara setting a new one day record of 300 miles. The country between Mazatlan and Guadalajara is some of the best I have seen, and one name I thought of for this post was going to be ‘The Road of Butterflies’ as there were sections of road with hundreds of butterflies on either side (and sometimes in the middle).
We pulled into a nice looking hotel in Guadalajara and intended to check into it until Alex saw a more “cost efficient” business across the street. The room was about $24 USD but it had hot water and was clean. Photo: Alex Washburn
Less than 12-hours later it was back on the bikes as ‘Alex the whip’ drove us on to Huamantla. From Guadalajara to Huamantla was going to be over 400 miles, my reaction the night before was:
“I don’t think we can do it, but fuck let’s give it a shot.”
We left just after sunrise and made it to Santiago de Querétaro by 2:30pm with only one stop for gas and food in between. That is when the things got really tough.
What some that haven’t rode a motorcycle or haven’t gone long distances don’t understand is that there is a slow deterioration of the feeling in one’s gluteus maximus as the day goes on. In the morning you’re fine, smelling fresh flowers and grass, listening to the roar of the engine and the wind past your helmet, meditating in your own world as the country passes you by. But as the day goes on you begin to loose feeling in your posterior, the smell of flowers is replaced by truck fumes, and the wind becomes a relentless howling echoed only by the constant drone of the hell-beast that is your horse trampling down any resemblance of a thought in your head.
At 4:00pm we stopped for gas (again), with rain clouds on the horizon of Mexico City D.F. my spirits were low, reflected in the idling of my engine, that had lowered as well, due to the altitude we had climbed that day. Alex insisted we could make it, and I had to channel a new inner level of zen to sally forth past the thoughts of doubt that continued to haunt me during the ride.
Our route from Mazatlan to Huamantla
A couple of drops of rain, some heavy wind, and another 100 miles brought us to the doorstep of Alex’s house in Mexico, in a little town named Huamantla that sits in the shadow of a mountain called ‘La Malinche’. A new record setting day of 432 miles came to an end with empty stomachs (and gas tanks) and sore bottoms. It was all made worth it when we were welcomed by family, given a hot meal, and a warm bed to collapse into.
You always reach your destination, even if it wasn’t where you planned.
Swimming With Sea Lions
Posted on October 21, 2013
Off the coast of La Paz floating in the Sea of Cortez are two islands: Isla Espíritu Santo and Isla Partida accompanied by an outcropping of rocks too small to really be considered islands.
This is my ‘I just found out I have to go swimming today’ face. (Selfie: Alex Washburn)
Because – baby sea lions.
These rocks are home to the largest California Sea Lion colony in the sea of cortez and because this is Mexico- someone decided boating tourists out to the rocks to swim with them was a fantastic idea.
Koalas are to Australians what Sea Lions are to Northern Californians… Cute, not very exotic and sometimes a total pain in the butt.
Unlike koalas however, sea lions are carnivorous and the idea of bobbing about in the water near hundreds (thousands?) of them seemed really crazy.
Nathaniel with his GoPro strapped to the monopod I gave him was way too eager to hop in (he is from Santa Cruz).
After I slipped (flopped) into the water with him and got my breathing under control (stopped hyperventilating) it ended up being an amazing experience.
A tourist reaches out to touch a sea lion in the waters surrounding Isla Partida off the coast of La Paz Mexico. (Photo: Nathaniel Chaney)
The babies are curious and like to come up close and poke people with their noses as they tumble over each other in the water like a litter of puppies and the younger adult females will slide in super close to swimmers and put on a flirtatious show of twisting and twirling. Their ability to accelerate in the water is just incredible.
After swimming with them we lunched on Isla Espíritu Santo and headed back to La Paz.
We hope you enjoyed the video!
(My 5D isn’t too fond of water so the imagery in this post is all because of Nathaniel and the GoPro.)
First Rain Ride
Posted on October 15, 2013
Loreto Mexico – our accidental stop.(Photo: Alex Washburn)
Yesterday we awoke at dawn to leave Santa Rosalia hoping to make it to Ciudad Insurgents. Keyword – hoping.
The man working our hotel’s front desk struck up a conversation with me on the patio about our motorcycles and mentioned that it was going to rain; I thanked him for the information and as Nathaniel and I rolled up our motorcycle covers and slipped our clothing bags into our panniers someone else wandered by and said it was already raining where we were going.
Getting up early and watching the world wakeup is one of my favorite parts of travel. In the more touristed parts of the world I think it helps you connect with the soul of a city and gives you a wonderful sense of optimism about life.
So, with the news that we were riding into a rain storm I was grateful for the information but I wasn’t ready to hunkerdown over a maybe.
After a quick stop at PemMex we rolled out of Santa Rosalia about and hour after dawn with me in the lead. Since I am the only one of us capable of reading street signs other than ALTO I’m usually in the front.
Everyone says Santa Rosalia is gorgeous but for me it totally lacked charm. It’s on the coast and has a beach but do you really want to go swimming or eat seafood in a town that is two miles south of a coastal landfill? No. No you don’t.
If you make a similar trip through Baja I suggest stopping in Mulege (about 50 miles south of Santa Rosalia). Mulege is beyond adorable, it’s on the coast near the desert but because it’s located in a canyon it has greenery worthy of a rainforest just a few miles from never-ending cacti.
As we rolled through it, I was envious of Mulege, and in a minute we were past it and driving down a perfectly paved coastal road, desert hills complete with Looney Tunes Cacti to our right, broad beaches and docked fishing boats to our left. Overhead loomed threatening clouds but even the sprinkle of rain couldn’t mask the movie quality scenery we were speeding through.
Then – the rain really got going. And it kept coming.
And coming.
Loreto After the rain. (Photo: Alex Washburn)
Nathaniel and I rode about 120 miles yesterday and all but the first twenty of them lacked rain. Sprinkling, dollops, mist, pitter patter, deluge… I think we experienced every kind of rain you can experience except for hail. It wasn’t cold but if you get wet even the mid 70’s can feel pretty chilly.
We stopped in the city we had pre-determined and started to look for our first meal of the day. It was almost noon and we were soaked. We have gortex gear but it’s still not a substitute for true rain wear. We literally had to wring out our gloves before putting them out in the sun to dry today.
Being unfamiliar with the town we decided to grab food at a local supermarket and in the parking lot Nathaniel fell over (he says his kickstand was up) and hit the car next to him which was unfortunately a nice car AND occupied with people. I got off my bike as the guy got out of his car and in my mind I was already deciding how much money I though it would be worth to make this problem go away. Mentally I decided on 500 pesos and started to apologize to the man as he got out of his SUV.
He was actually very nice about the whole thing but he explained that it wasn’t his car, that he didn’t know what it would cost to fix and said that he didn’t want to call the police to ding Nathaniel’s driving record. After some casual chatting I asked him how much he though it would cost to fix and he thought for a moment before deciding on 200 pesos ($15 usd). I thought that was an incredibly honest answer and was feeling some white person guilt that we were able to pay our way out of a problem like that.
So I told the guy: “Si, gracias señor. Eres tan amable pero es su culpa y pienso que el necessita pagarte mas que eso.”
Translation: “Yes, thank you sir. You are really nice but it is his fault and I think he needs to pay you more than that.”
In english I asked Nathaniel to give the guy 500 pesos ($38 usd) and we all left happy the incident ended so easily although Nathaniel told me I am the worst girlfriend ever.
After we bribed the gentleman in the SUV Nathaniel watched our gear as I ran inside and bought us tamales and Pan Dulce for brunch. We stood under a plastic tarp eating tamales and weighing our options. We were already wet so riding another 100+ miles didn’t seem that terrible, but there was no guarantee we would be able to get through any wash-outs in the dessert road we were about to cross.
We sat there a while hoping the rain would let up and it never did. Today at breakfast I overheard one tourist telling another it had rained for 24 hours and dumped almost 4 inches of rain on the area. Judging by the level of our hotel pool this morning, I wouldn’t doubt it.
This afternoon we went to clean and oil our motorcycle chains because of all the water and they were already rusting. (Photo: Nathaniel Chaney)
We ended up staying at ‘Hacienda Suites’ for $80 USD a night. Normally we would try and find a hostel for half that but we were kind of desperate. Riding through town yesterday the foot pegs on my bike were fully submerged at times and I was constantly afraid of riding into a pothole. The final drama of the day was when the hotel agreed to let us park in the patio and I fell over trying to ride up the water slicked ramp of the front steps.
The front desk clerk ran outside and told me he thought it would be easier for us to ride in the back gate… and it was.
In the morning we discovered the roads were closed in both directions so we decided to spend a second night in Loreto and enjoy ourselves before doing a little bike maintenance. Tomorrow we hope to make it to La Paz although at this point we are shooting for the Thursday Ferry to Mazatlan.
Overall – I’m glad for the rain because it forced us to get to know an adorable town that we otherwise would have blown through.
Motorcycle maintenance before we take off tomorrow. WD40 and some chain lube. (Photo: Nathaniel Chaney)
We Are Tumbleweeds
Posted on October 14, 2013
Something Nathaniel and I quickly realized on the Baja Peninsula is that it takes you twice as long to get anywhere as you would expect.
We’ve ridden about 500 miles in the past two days and they’ve been a long two days. Mex 1 runs through the center of a ton of small towns and they’ve constructed speed bumps and s-turns to keep trucks and tourist from blowing through at 70 mph.
Overall the asphalt has been wonderful and other than a few towns doing road construction a regular cruiser bike would be able to make the trip.
I’m sorry for the small number of photos on the blog thus far.
At the moment we are focused on making a boat in La Paz on the 15th which is why we haven’t had much time to stop and smell the tortillas.
We literally got up at 6:30am today – were driving by 8am and didn’t stop for the night till 4:30. Other than a quick taco/gas 
stop in Guerro Negro it was all riding. 250 some odd miles of gorgeous desert, rolling hills and a roaring engine.
There was this beautiful sweeping turn on the way to Guerro Negro and as I came half way around it I saw a flock of vultures eating something just on the side of the road.
They started to rise up into the air as I barreled down on them and I didn’t have time to stop. Realizing how disastrous hitting an animal the size of a vulture could be I may have yelled inside my helmet.
I let go of the throttle and flattened myself on my gas tank praying that extra foot of space was enough to go underneath them. It was – but it was a close call that left me rattled for a few minutes.
Today we leave Santa Rosalia and hope to get more than half way to La Paz.
Where the Autopista Ends 