Seattle to Ushuaia

I woke this morning, groggy and confused, to the sound of loud percussion and brass instruments playing nearby.  It took me a while to place this sound as it seemed so incongruous with the usual early-morning din of a city.  A quick glance at the clock told me that it was only 6:15 AM.  What kind of manic would allow a marching band to play so early in the morning?

After a few false starts at getting back to sleep, which were interrupted by intermittent drum- and trumpet-playing, I finally resigned myself to wakefulness and stumbled into the shower, which was thankfully hot.  Showers have been hit-or-miss so far and I am learning to appreciate them when they have  hot water.

Eventually I made it to the street and over to a large plaza located immediately down the block from my hotel, where I found these guys doing their thing:

See the white building in the background? Yeah, that's my hotel.

OK, so that explains the source of the wake-up call.  I planned to stay in this city for one more night, so I hoped that this was not a daily occurrence.  I wandered down through narrow streets in search of some breakfast and saw all kinds of odd activity.

One of many trucks that I saw with towers of speakers powered by generators.

I found a seedy-looking covered market with butcher shops, fruit stands and several small restaurants, and decided to sit down and see if I could experience a “real” local meal.  I’m not sure if they even had menus.  I pointed at something another patron had ordered and said, “yo quiero eso tambien”.

"Eso tambien" turned out to be two fried eggs, some beans, and a mess of tortilla chips cooked in salsa, all covered with some kind of not-very-strong cheese. Pretty good, and it was only 25 pesos.

My breakfast was cooked by this pretty girl. The "kitchen" was a bit cluttered but she managed.

Sated, and now fully awake, I went back out onto the streets to learn what exactly was going on.  The sidewalks were by now lined with people and I figured that it must be in preparation for a parade – but for what, I had no idea!  A woman I asked informed me that November 20th was the day of the Mexican Revolution – hence the festivities.

People lined the streets past the Catedral de Tepic in anticipation of the parade.

While walking down the parade path, I heard somebody ask, “¿de donde eres?” (where are you from?).  The question was repeated, and I turned around to see a group of seven young kids smiling and looking up at me.  “Los Estados Unidos”, I replied, and we launched into conversation – where are you going? where did you learn Spanish? can I come with you?  They insisted that I take a photo with them:

These kids were very excited about me and my trip. When they learned that I was going solo, several of the girls asked to join me!

The actual parade was a little disorganized and difficult to photograph.  I had fun watching the proceedings, but as the morning went on and the temperature rose, I began to feel the effects of my interrupted sleep and I decided to retreat to the air-conditioned comfort of my hotel to rest.  A little while later, I went back out and caught the tail end of the parade.  After it ended, I snapped a photo of this guy:

Half motorcycle, half cart!

I’ve seen several of these strange-looking vehicles around.  At first, I thought they were some kind of specialized motorcycle produced by a company that caters to street vendors.  Upon closer inspection, I realized that no – these are literally motorcycles, minus the front forks, that have been welded on to metal carts at the point on the frame where the triple trees would usually attach.  The carts have a swivel that allows the front two wheels to turn, making the cart maneuverable (albeit awkward).  I love the ingenuity!

As the daylight drew to a close, I went to the plaza to relax and read my book when I saw this lovely sight.

While eating dinner at a cafe down the street from my hotel, it occurred to me that I hadn’t had any real dessert on this trip yet, so I ordered this:

It was delicious.

Tomorrow I will try to change the oil in my motorcycle (I tried to make it to a mechanic today to change the oil in my bike, but they were all closed – presumably because of the holiday).  I could change it myself, but I haven’t found a place yet that stocks a 10W40 oil.  I’m hoping that a mechanic will have a supply.  If all else fails, I will use a higher viscosity oil, which would probably work just fine in these higher temperatures, but makes me a little nervous.

That’s all for Tepic.  I’ll continue south tomorrow, although I haven’t decided yet whether to follow the coast or head inland.  Oh, what difficult choices I face – c’est la vie!

The last time I updated this, I had just arrived in La Paz, Baja California Sur.  I am now back over on the mainland in Tepic, Nayarit.  Several days have passed so I’ll try to catch up on what’s happened in this post.

I spent two nights in La Paz (Sunday and Monday night).  By pure chance, I found the quirkiest hotel ever.  It was owned by an older man and staffed by his (I think) brother and nephews.  The name is Hotel YNK, and I highly recommend it.  On the first night I spent in La Paz, I finally set out to find some dinner at around 10 PM, but it turned out that pretty much everything was already closed.  The nephew of the hotel’s proprietor cooked up a tasty bowl of cheese/bean/veggie something and fed me for free!

I parked my bike in the courtyard of the hotel in La Paz.

The city of La Paz is very large and I wasn’t able to find a comfortable place to hang out, so instead I took a few day trips out to some local beaches north of La Paz near a city called Pichilingue.  One of the beaches was completely primitive and had the most lovely sandbar that stretched out over several hundred yards.

The Balandra beach had a shallow sandbar that extended several hundred yards out from the shore, never getting more than about 2 feet deep.

I spent most of an afternoon at the Balandra.  Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my bathing suit on this particular outing, but luckily the water was shallow enough to get by with rolled-up jeans!

Standing in the sandbar and enjoying the warm waters of the Gulf of California.

Tecolote beach lies just a few miles east of Balandra.  It is more popular due to its size and the several restaurants and bars that cater to beachgoers.  I had planned to take the ferry over to Mazatlan, and it was not scheduled to depart until 8PM on Tuesday evening, so I spent most of Tuesday relaxing at Tecolote.  It seemed to be a popular destination for families and vacationing foreigners.

Relaxing on the beach near La Paz.

The woman at the ticket office for the ferry told me to arrive at the gate at around 6PM, so I packed up my stuff and left Tecolote as the sun began to set.  I arrived at the port in Pichilingue and got in line with the rest of the non-commercial vehicles, and while waiting for the boarding to begin, I struck up a conversation with two American guys.  Their names were Jacob and Erik, and they had been traveling together from California in an old Mazda pickup truck down the coast of Baja and hitting various surf spots on the way.  I must say that I envied their cargo capacity!  They carried two surf boards, some fishing rods, coolers, camping gear, and a whole lot of other stuff.  Not that I’m complaining – I love my KLR!

I decided not to spring for a room on the ferry, and I think it was an OK decision.  The rooms cost an extra $700 pesos, or about $55 USD, but there are rows of seats available for sleeping on at no charge.  Jacob and Erik loaned me a blanket and a pillow from their room and with my earplugs in I slept for nearly a solid 8 hours.

The ferry from La Paz to Mazatlan is big.  It has a restaurant, a cafeteria, a bar, an arcade, a nursery, a kennel, an on-deck pool, probably hundreds of private rooms, and several common seating areas.

The lower deck of the ferry. Notice the pool in the left side - it was covered, but presumably in the summer months it is available for passengers to use.

Thanks to the increased size it is much steadier in the open waters of the Gulf of California than the ferry that I took from Guaymas to Santa Rosalia, so I did not have to strap down my motorcycle, and I also did not get seasick.  I did, however, come down with the beginning symptoms of traveler’s sickness near the end of the trip.  When we disembarked in Mazatlan at noon on Wednesday I was feeling pretty bad, so I decided to look for a hotel to spend the night instead of continuing on down the coast like I had planned.

The night I spent in Mazatlan was pretty miserable, so I’ll save you the details.  Suffice to say that I’m even more paranoid about watching what I eat and drink now.

The following morning I felt somewhat better, so I packed up my things and put some distance between me and the bad memories of Mazatlan.  I’m a little disappointed because I had heard good things about the city and I expected to enjoy Mazatlan, but I couldn’t wait to get out of there!  I don’t think it had anything to do with the city itself – I just felt sick the whole time.

I was still recovering so I decided to take it easy by following the “cuota”, or toll, highways.  These highways are extremely well maintained and unlike most roads in Mexico they rarely pass through town.  This means that you avoid most of the topes (speed bumps) and rarely have to slow down.  I was unsure of how far I’d be able to ride, so I didn’t really have a destination in mind.  There were signs for a city I had never heard of called Tepic which lay just 200 KM outside of Mazatlan, so I decided to try to make it there.

As I drove, the scenery changed perceptibly.  At first the terrain was the same arid, desert-y landscape that I’d become accustomed to over the last week and a half. Eventually this gave way to orchards, and as the elevation climbed and I continued south, jungle!

At some point during the drive south from Mazatlan, the scenery changed. I am no longer in the desert!

With the elevation gain and the jungle came a welcome drop in the temperature.  I’m excited to see trees and vines instead of dirt and cacti!

I reached Tepic by 4:30 and found a hotel near the historic center of the city.  I spent a few hours walking around the marker area this evening, and I can already tell that I like this place!  It feels much more authentic than many of the towns I’ve visited so far.  I think that it’s a combination of the narrow streets, the old buildings, the open squares and friendly people, and I will probably choose to spend another night here.

Tomorrow I have one important goal: I need to change the oil in my motorcycle.  I’ve been keeping an eye on oil in Mexico, and most places seem to only carry 20w50 grade oil.  The manual for the KLR says to use 10W40, but this is probably only correct for the temperate area where it was sold (USA).  Since Mexico is so much hotter, a 20W50 oil will probably work just fine, but I’m going to do some research this evening to make sure.

I’m going to wrap up this post with a picture that I took today.  The air around here is filled with particulate, most of which I assume is water vapor.  This makes it hard to take photos of far-away things, but it can create some neat effects.

Crepuscular rays radiating out from a cloud. Yes, I had to look that up on Wikipedia.

People in San Carlos have been raving about Baja and the city of La Paz for the last few days, so I decided Friday morning to take the ferry to Baja California for a little 3-day side trip. The ferry departs from Guaymas (just 10 miles from San Carlos) at 8 PM and arrives in Santa Rosalia on the Baja Peninsula after an 8 to 9 hour overnight voyage. However, the ferry does not run on Friday, so I bought a ticket for today (Saturday), which means I spent another day in San Carlos. This town has really grown on me! I think this is the first place that I’ll really miss. It was recently devastated by a hurricane, and repairs are ongoing, so I would love to come back when everything is up and running again.

An embarrassing yet harmless spill in some deep sand outside of San Carlos.

I planned to have a quiet, stay-at-home Friday evening. (Hah!) My new home for the night was a fully furnished condo with a kitchen, so I bought eggs, bacon and milk and cooked up a tasty breakfast-dinner. Just as I sat down to eat and read my book, however, my neighbor John knocked on my door to invite me to a music show. It was early, so I agreed and we drove to a local bar where a classical Mexican singer was performing. We only caught the tail end of her act.

She had a gorgeous voice, but the venue left something to be desired.

Since it was only 8 o’clock, John and I decided to find another bar, so we drove down the main strip of San Carlos and eventually settled on Poolhouse (the same place I’d gone to on Wednesday).

As we walked up to Poolhouse, I noticed a crowd gathered around a soon-to-be-opened restaurant that my french friends, Marc and Ben, were starting. The two french guys were trying out the newly installed wood fire stove by cooking pizza after pizza, so of course I had to stay and sample each one! Eliane was also there, and it was really nice to see them all again.

From left to right: myself, Marc, Benoit

After all the pizza supplies were exhausted, I said goodbye and went up to the Poolhouse where I found John (who left soon after that) and Jen, the cute bartender from Wednesday. I told her about my travel plans, my life in the states, and about my lovely girlfriend. After flirting for a while, we set up a lunch date for the following day.

Our lunch date was very nice – just the kind of one-on-one interaction that I’ve been missing. I picked her up the following day at 1 PM, and together we rode to a remote bar on the beach called the “Soggy Peso”. As it turned out, due to damage inflicted by the recent hurricane, the Soggy Peso had no running water – which means we were understandably uncomfortable about eating their food. So, we took off for a wonderful little restaurant about 6 miles south, where we had a delicious lunch of ceviche, crab and lime & chili-marinated shrimp.

Jen and myself sitting on the beach at the Soggy Peso, listening to live music and enjoying the view!

After lunch, we returned to the Soggy Peso to enjoy the beach and the sunset. We spent the rest of the afternoon listening to a live band, talking, and enjoying the view. So lovely!

Alas, eventually all things must end, and our afternoon came to a finish at 5 PM when Jen had to get to work.  I gave her a ride on the back of the KLR, said goodbye, and left San Carlos behind me.  Onwards to Baja!

(This is the second post today – check the previous one as well)

Emboldened by my successful offroad adventure the previous day, I decided that I would follow a dirt/sand road down to the beach today.  The sand proved to be tricky, and I suspect that 90% street tires that I currently have on are not helping.  I had fun, though!

Parked on the beach in some hard-packed sand. The loose dunes were too much for my tires.

The beach I’d found was large, sunny and completely empty.  In fact, I had only seen one other vehicle on my way in, and it had been parked close to the end of the pavement.  Despite this, I locked up my valuables.  After putting together a little snack and some water, I grabbed my backpack and set off down the beach to explore.

Sea Urchins were all over the place, so I was careful where I stepped.

(There are a lot of photos of this beach, and they’re available in my Flickr photostream)

I spent hours inspecting tidepools, collecting discarded shells, and watching wildlife.  A school of fish was jumping out of the water, and I watched them for a while.  On the BBC’s “Planet Earth” series, a team of dolphins worked together to push a school of fish to the surface where they would be easier to control and catch.  With nowhere to go, the fish would swarm the surface and occasionally jump out of the water.  I wonder if a similar thing was happening today!

I took the opportunity to take a shot of myself at the beach.

After exploring, I decided to sit down and read for a while.  The empty beach was a little lonely, but somehow it fit my mood.

I am most of the way through a very long book by Peter F. Hamilton, and I really want to finish it so that I can reclaim the space that it occupies on my motorcycle!  So I sat in the sand with my feet pointed towards the sea and the sun baking my body for about two hours before I finally ran out of water and realized that I should head back.

San Carlos is surrounded by gorgeous mountains and warm waters.

Back at the hotel, I washed the salt and sand off my body, bought more water, and set out on my motorcycle to return to the Mirador that I visited the day before.  A local had informed me that the setting sun was extremely beautiful from this point, so I brought my camera and took lots of photos.

Tonight's sunset, as seen from the Mirador in San Carlos.

While I sat and admired the last bits of color, a woman approached me.  Her name was Sandra, and we struck up a conversation.  She invited me to join her and her friends for dinner.  This sounded fun, so I agreed to meet them at their hotel in the northern end of San Carlos at 8:30, which gave me time to clean up and get ready.

What I thought was just a small dinner turned out to be a large dinner party for a nationwide Geohydrological conference.  II love saying that word: ge-o-hy-dro-lo-gi-cal)  Sandra did not have an extra ticket for me, but she bluffed her way in and we sat down at a table in the back of the room.

Sandra and me at the geohydrological conference dinner.

We  ate, drank, danced and tried to talk over the extremely loud (muy fuerte!) music.  I enjoyed practicing Spanish with Sandra and her friends.  I have a very long ways to go before I’m fluent, but it’s encouraging to see progress already!

The conference had hired a large band and they played fun music all night.  This made it a little difficult for me to understand what was said in Spanish, but luckily everyone’s English was extremely good.

A shot of the stage at the "Congreso Nacional De Aguas Subterraneas (VII)".

As the night drew on, I informed my new friends that I would need to leave, as I’d planned to catch an early ferry from Guaymas to Baja California the next morning.  Sandra found me a ride and I made it back to my hotel at around 1:30 AM.  However, after a bit of research, I realized that the information I’d read earlier which gave a departure time of Friday at 8:00 AM was actually 10 years out of date, and that the ferry would not leave until 8:00 PM on Saturday.

So that’s that – you’re all caught up now.  It’s late and I’m going to bed!

As always, there are lots of photos in my Flickr photostream.

Boy, if I don’t work on writing this down every day, the stories/pictures pile up quickly!  I am going to try to describe the last couple days, so let’s see how it goes.

I wasn’t enamored with Hermosillo – as a first stop, it was too busy, confusing and above all HOT.  I did enjoy wandering around at night, but I also carelessly stubbed my toe really hard against an uneven edge in a sidewalk.  It hurt so badly that I thought it might be broken (it’s not).  I also found it really hard to find a good place to eat.

This all led me to decide that I should head for the coast.  I figured I could head towards Guaymas, as it is a large city and it should have plenty of nice beaches.  As I was leaving, I struck up a conversation with one of the hotel cleaning ladies, who told me that if I wanted to go to the coast I should instead head to San Carlos.  I am very glad she told me that!

The hotel staff allowed me to park my motorcycle in a hidden little nook in the back of the hotel.

So I left Hermosillo behind me and I continued on towards the Gulf of California and the promise of warm water and cool beaches. As I descended towards the sea, the first thing I noticed was the change in temperature.  It probably wasn’t a huge change, but it was enough to be noticeable, and I was comfortable in my motorcycle gear for the first time in several days.

Guaymas and San Carlos are very close together (15-20km apart) and while Guaymas is a large 100,000+ person city, San Carlos seems to be a much smaller ex-pat retiree destination.  Many of the signs here are written in English, and most locals speak English very well.  I found that most people would automatically default to English in San Carlos, while the Hermosillanos nearly always spoke Spanish to me.

A shot of the crest that the road follows near the entry to San Carlos.

If you follow the main road that runs the whole way through San Carlos, you will eventually come to the Hotel Paradiso.  The Paradiso is a very large and very expensive place, and it sits right on a very beautiful section of the coast.  However, it was way outside of my price range, so I continued on, and the road quickly changed from nice pavement into dirt/gravel/sand.  Finally, something interesting!

Now, don’t make fun of me or anything, but while I’ve ridden motorcycles for six years, I haven’t ever done any serious offroad riding.  This trip is an opportunity for me to explore a new style of riding, and from what I can tell so far, I love it!

My first ever water crossing. Start small!

The road did not stay as nice as it was in this shot, however – it went through lots of undulations, changed from hard packed dirt to sand to gravel to loose baseball-sized rocks, and had lots of mud (which I avoided completely – my current tires wouldn’t do well in that!)  I was fully focused on keeping the bike in line, so I didn’t think to stop and take any photos.  I expect this will not be the last opportunity for good offroad shots.

The dirt road took me through some shockingly poor sections of San Carlos.  There were patchwork houses, abandoned trailers, half-broken fences, and nobody except for small children and dogs.  To see such a beautiful coastline play host to such poverty was a bit of an eye-opener.  Again, no photos, but I’m sure there will be other opportunities.

On the way back to the pavement, I came across this guy. We squared off before he finally gave a disinterested head shake and went back to grazing.

It was still early, so I continued my exploration of San Carlos.  One of the roads that I followed led a winding path up to the Mirador, which I’m pretty sure means “lookout point” in Spanish.  From here I got my first good look at the Gulf of California.

I noticed the similarity after taking this shot.

As it was getting late, I decided to head back into town to find a hotel.  I had asked a few locals for cheap recommendations, and the consensus seemed to be Hotel Creston.  The rooms here are a little expensive ($400 pesos, or $30 USD) but I most other places had much higher rates.  I chalk it up to the large American and Canadian retiree population.

I settled into my new home and found a good parking spot for my bike.

My parking spot during my stay in San Carlos.

Excited to see the nightlife, I locked up and left the hotel.  After checking out the closest beach and snapping some photos of a beautiful sunset, I went to a nearby sports bar where I spent some time chatting with the cute bartender named Jennifer, a local guy named Francisco, and a French dude named Marc.  Several hours later, Marc invited me to grab some food with him and his friends.   We climbed into his Mustang GT convertible and drove to a nearby restaurant.

Marc had lived in Hermosillo for the last 10 years, but had recently moved to Guaymas for a job offer.  The job turned out to be less than he expected, so he had quit and was excited to start his new job as a waiter at a soon-to-be-opened restaurant in San Carlos.  His friend Benoit, who joined us for dinner, was the cook for the new place.  A lovely lady named Eliane also joined us.

Marc, Ben and Eliane were all French nationals, and Eliane only spoke French and Spanish, so our conversations were fluttered with words from three different languages.  It was lovely.  I’m finding that practicing Spanish with real people in real situations is so much more rewarding than it was in the classroom!

After our delicious dinner, we drove to a local bar whose owner was a friend of Marc’s (I think).  We spent a little while there, and eventually called it a night, whereupon Marc drove me back to my hotel.

All in all, a very successful second day in Mexico.

Stay tuned for the writeup of today’s adventures!