Kansas HSTA

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Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 19:17:57 -0800
From: Steve Rosenblatt
To: Honda Sport Touring Association information exchange
Subject: Trip Report Ride the Rio and Mexico (long)

This year the trip to Texas and Mexico started on
February 11 with the 1995 VFR in the bed of the F150
and an uneventful two day drive to Houston. After
taking care of some business and getting together with
friends for various lunches and dinners it was off to
the Big Bend National Park on the Mexican border.

For that leg of the trip the VFR came off the bed and
a two rail trailer was hooked up to the F150 to carry
my friend James? Blackbird XX. The weekend rally was
headquartered near Stude Butte, TX right close to one
of the Park entrances. Unlike last year where the
riding in the Park was off road, this year it was all
road within the park. We left the famed River Road, TX
170, which runs from Stude Butte to Presidio for the
trip going into Mexico. The Park has roads with nice
sweepers and a few more technical sections. It is
mainly desert with rocky mountains in the background.
One Park road goes to the Santa Elena Canyon where
raft trips are frequently run on the Rio Grande. You
can walk most of the way into this canyon and it is
particularly peaceful and scenic close to sunset.
Another road leads to the Lost Mine Trail which goes
mostly up for 2.5 miles to a very scenic vista of
mountains partly obscured by low clouds and many
varieties of cactus along the trail. I had the good
fortune to hang with a buddy Todd who is moving to
London for three years in June. He had his young son
with him to pace us up the Lost Mine Trail. We also
hit the hot springs that percolate into the Rio Grande
into a walled off area that is now mostly in ruins. A
Mexican had a shack across the river and was eager to
display the fish he caught on his unattended lines
laying in the river. The flow was strong due to recent
rains so that walking across the river was not
possible. The merchandise he displayed on the Mexican
side went begging for customers.
After much tire kicking at the weekend rally and the
big dinner at the Starlight Theater in Terlingua it
was time to make tracks for Mexico. So we ripped up
River Road to Presidio. River Road is challenging
because it follows the land contour which creates
peaks in the road where you can?t tell which way the
road goes until you actually get to the crest. The
faster you go the shorter the time to correct your
line and the greater the odds you will be making such
a correction while fully airborne. Yes, there is a
chance for loose cattle or maybe donkeys, as many
parts are in open range. The Texas state flower is the
bluebonnet and at this time they are in full bloom. In
sections the bluebonnets were 3 feet deep on both
sides of the road. That fun goes on for 67 miles with
no intersections lots of elevation changes and a few
straight parts with dips to test suspension and peaks
to catch air.
We gas up one last time in Presidio because Mexican
gas at Pemex is about $2.60 a gallon. Next stop is the
border checkpoint on the Mexican side to get the bikes
into the country and a tourist visa. Many have done
this in tears past and if your paperwork is in order
it is fairly well computerized and you sail right in.
About 20 miles into Mexico you display the paperwork
at a toll booth. About 80 miles later is a military
check points with young Mexican soldiers about 20
holding AK47 and asking questions about where you are
going and why and wanting to check your luggage for
drugs or guns. Some years the whip out cameras and
want pictures of themselves next to or on the bikes.
It is pretty dull working the checkpoint in the middle
of nowhere.
We are off on the free road toward the city of
Chihuahua which is the capital of the state having the
same name. We have about 18 people and 15 bikes. The
plan is to stop just before Chihuahua in Aldama in a
fairly OK restaurant where we customarily break for
lunch. One guy somehow misses the turn and never shows
up to lunch. He has a history of running off according
to some of his buddies who remained with us. He was
fairly fluent in Spanish and we figured he?s doing his
own thing. While having lunch two Mexican bikers pull
up in 70s vintage road bikes one Suzuki and a Honda
inline 4. We make small talk with them and get going
again after lunch toward Cahuatemoc that is just west
of Chihuahua. We are now being led by Daniel on a Gold
Wing pulling a trailer. Rather than taking us around
the outside of Chihuahua he takes us on a slow parade
through the center of the city. We stop for gas on the
far side and without much hope I suggest that if he?s
going to lead us I wouldn?t complain if we picked up
the pace. After Chihuahua there are twisty sections
and Daniel and his Gold Wing and trailer go into hyper
speed. He knows these roads as he has a home in the
area to which we are heading. Those Gold Wings can fly
with the right pilot. He takes us to Anhuac a small
town just short of Cahuatemoc. We fill up a little
hotel at $15 for a double room and head for the bar.
The bar features a jukebox and waitresses that get up
on the bar and dance while strip teasing to their
underwear. Some of the ?older? guys seemed to
especially enjoy that. The highlight of the restaurant
we went to was a mural of a topless mermaid. You can
actually picture the photo ops with that mural after a
few cervezas. It was a family style seafood restaurant
nowhere near the water. I ordered coffee and got a jar
of instant and a cup of hot water. Mexican cuisine in
these little towns that don?t get many tourists is
edible but not great. I carry two boxes of granola
bars to use if I get a really bad feeling about a
place.
Next morning we find a typical Mexican
home/restaurant. It is a storefront that opens to the
kitchen of a home with a few tables at the storefront
windows. We were on our way after eggs and what looked
like beef stew and, of course, tortillas. Now we are
headed west toward the Gulf of Cortez on Highway 16.
Not too far out of town it starts to seriously twist.
The weather is perfect despite the rising elevation of
the roadway. There are warning signs about ice on the
road but that was not a problem that day. The real
hazards were loose animals of the steer and donkey
variety and rockslides and potholes. It seems there
had been monsoon rains a week before and that loosened
a bunch of rocks in the canyons. Some of these slides
nearly blocked one of the two lanes making up the
roadway. The sneaky ones would be around blind turns.
Oh, did I mention the burned out car hulk in the
travel lane. It looked like it had been there for a
while. Every now and then a highway crew was there
trying to get the boulders off the road. Sometimes
they even had machinery to help them do this.
The first goal of the day was a 950 foot waterfall at
Baseschic reputed to be the highest in North America.
It comes out through a hole in a cliff side and falls
to a large pool at the bottom. Getting there on 16
included a good 4 hours of non-stop twisties with all
the aforementioned hazards. The falls had a view point
from the top looking down and then you could drive to
another vantage point that is now paved for a full
frontal view. After that is was out west again on 16
to see how far we could get. Well between the falls
and the next town was another 2 hours of nonstop
twisties. We made an executive decision to stop in
Ycora. The gas station attendant advised that the King
Hotel was the best in town. To get there you had to
ride about 5 blocks of unpaved and potholed ?road? to
an intersection of the King Hotel, the King
supermarket/general store and the King restaurant.
Check in was at the grocery checkout. I did the
negotiation in Spanish and got the rate for everyone
down from 400 to 300 pesos. There are about 11 pesos
to the dollar and everywhere takes dollars American
but change is made only in pesos. We ate at the King
restaurant another of those restaurant home
combination structures. The tamales went down well
with cerveza.
Next morning started off cold but quickly warmed. Two
of our party driving a truck and bringing contraptions
that combined a propeller on your back with some kind
of parachute decided to turn back and go to Creel near
the Copper Canyon. Their plan was to jump into that
Canyon with the rigs and take video while flying into
the Canyon. They had plenty of beach footage from
Galveston, TX so they punted on making the drive west
to Bahia Kino on the Gulf of Cortez. We continued
west. There was a variety of bikes in the group
including 2 ST1300s, a variety of BMW models including
the LT, a GS and an RS, a Victory cruiser, YZF 600R a
Gold Wing and an ST 1100. My buddy James and I took
the lead as our pace was a little faster than most.
The day?s objective was to go west through Hermosillo
to Bahia Kino. The road was twisty for the first 3 to
4 hours but also featured immense boulders in the road
from slides. At one point the slide took out one whole
lane and the remaining lane was full of loose rocks
about 2-3 in diameter. There was no warning of this
slide but a small pink ribbon hanging on a tree around
the blind corner. I didn?t carry enough speed over the
rocks and it just tipped over on me ever so slowly. No
sweat it is my Mexico bike that seems to get a least
one low speed drop each trip. Last year it was sliding
backwards on a mountain pass in the snow. While having
an apple by the side of the road waiting for others by
the slide I learned that the guy on the GS lost his
top box somewhere. He was in front of me as was the
couple on the ST1300 and 600F2. He reported one of
them had a flat up the road. Everyone else got though
the huge rockslide without incident and James and I
motored on. It wasn?t about 2 miles down the road at
the crest of a hill that I ran into a huge pothole. It
was big enough to brake in after I realized I was in
it. However when the back tire climbed out the whole
rear end came down giving the effect of heavy rear
wheel braking. I came to a stop in about 50 and just
stood straddling the bike until James pulled up about
50 feet behind me. He hit the pothole right after me
but I didn?t know that then. I just couldn?t
understand why he stood over his bike without coming
to help me. Both of us sheared a bolt hole on the
triangular plates that support the lower end of the
shock allowing the tire to come into contact with the
rear fender. We did a temporary fix with a washer over
the sheared bolt hole and application of German torque
specification ?guten tight?. We were 100 miles from
Hermosillo at the time in the middle of nowhere. It is
a sinking feeling as you contemplate the options but
fortunately the collective crew was resourceful enough
to get us going.
We all regrouped at the outskirts of Hermosillo where
I had a long talk with a traffic cop about how to find
a bike repair shop. He drew me a nearly worthless map.
After a few wrong turns leading a sub group of 4 bikes
we stopped at a Pemex to get ?better? directions. The
rest of the crew went on to Bahia Kino. While at the
Pemex station a moto officer rolls in on a 1973
Kawasaki 900 with a fairing straight from the Ponch
and Jon era on CHIPS. He takes us to a first store
that had all scooters made in China. He then takes us
to a Kawasaki shop. We thank him as he leaves without
fixing his broken tail light.
The GS needed a new rear tire. The two ST1300 had
rear rim dents from that same pothole and I needed the
triangular brackets for the lower end of the shock.
They quickly serviced us all right there on the
sidewalk next to the shop. For the STs, the mechanic
removed the wheel and broke the bead and whooped on
the rims to reduce the dent size. He then applied glue
to the edge of the tire and re-inflated. They were
good to go. They found a tire for the GS and for me
the mechanic took off the broken plates and went to a
sheet metal supply house and replicated them
perfectly. I even go the choice of steel or aluminum.
We motored on to Kino to get there just in time for
the pizza but we missed the awesome sunset over the
bay. We sat under the light of the full moon drinking
beer that never tasted better covered by a thatched
roof with a great view of a bay with an island in the
distance. At $85 for the night it was the most
expensive room on the trip but it was also the best
room with a great view of water.
Next morning there were more people interested in
going to the bike shop for new tires and James on the
Blackbird needed the same repair to his shock mount.
The RS rider had obtained a spare from another BMW
rider who carried a spare front and rear and his wife
on his bike. The lady on the 600 Yamaha was not
looking happy as I informed her that her size would
take the next afternoon for air shipping from
Guadalahara. Then I remembered the rear tire cast off
the afternoon before by the GS rider. That discard
still had enough rubber to make it back to her tow
vehicle in Big Bend and what do you know it was still
lying in the same spot as the day before. So it was a
150 not a 160 with a mismatched tread from her front
tire but any port in a storm. While waiting for all
the repair work to get done two others joined. One was
Leroy who is over 80 and still riding. He did a little
low side in one of the twisty sections a few days back
and this morning he was having trouble with a stiff
neck. His protector and riding buddy Rufus from
Kerrville, TX agreed with him that it was time for
them to make a run for the border.
So we parted ways in Hermosillio and James and I
headed south for Alamos near Ciudad Obregon. Alamos is
a colonial Mexican town built around a church and a
square. Aren?t they all? Many of the buildings around
the square featured facades of multiple columns
separated by arches. James pulls out some book about
moto trips in Mexico and we try to find this hotel but
we get lost despite another local-drawn map and a
detailed explanation. Alamos is literally at the end
of the paved road at the foothills of the Sierra
Madre. You know you are lost when the cobblestone
stops and the dirt begins. Now James bike is smoking
coolant so I make an executive decision to go to the
square and ask for a nice and close hotel. We park the
bikes and I walk to an art gallery having a party.
There are many Americans retired or otherwise idle and
living there. Naturally, their interests turn to the
arts. Standing in front is a lady about 60 and well
preserved speaking English, so I ask if she knows a
nice hotel and she snaps right back with ?mine.? She
has her SUV parked there and leads us to her 8 room
hotel. Turns out she is an architect and she bought
the property and designed a hotel to go on it. The
remnants of a house belonging to Maria Felix, the
Marilyn Monroe of Mexico remain on the property and
the hotel is built around them. She lives there too
along with 4 rescue dogs and two cats. She has a Maria
Felix museum on the premises and a great pool with an
open hut with a thatched roof that is the bar or will
be when she gets a liquor license. Pastel colors
abound and these rooms were awesome for $50 a night.
They were colorful and highly decorated and had
recessed shell patterns at the end of the bed with
great lighting. We had an open air dinner on the
square after walking down the hill with a flashlight
she gave us. I could have spent days there but we
didn?t have that kind of time. The hotel is the Casa
Maria Felix.

Next morning we hit the auto store for premixed
anti-freeze and do a little problem analysis on the
Blackbird. The radiator fan fuse is blown but Honda
provides a spare in the fuse box. I suggest we twirl
the fan to see if it spins freely. We discover the fan
is jammed due to the pothole impact of two days ago.
We bend back the offending metal and the Blackbird is
good to go. We decide to make a run for the border at
Nogales. About a hundred miles out the VFR is doing
the weaving and hunting thing that can only mean a
flat tire. Sure enough the rear was flat with a pin in
the tread. Luckily it was a clean hole that we plugged
with a mushroom cap and aired up with the battery
powered mini-compressor. As we reached Nogales on the
toll road it grew dark. We blitzed right by the
Mexican office where you and your vehicle officially
check out and they scrape the tourist sticker off your
bike. No sweat, we were heading to El Paso and the
border was right there for us to do the paperwork.
Now we are running for the truck still at Stude
Butte, TX on I-10. We snake through downtown El Paso
and go over the bridge thinking the office to check
out is right there like in Ojinaga where we entered;
nope. The office is 30 kilometers inland. I look at
James and we decide to cross right back. We hit one
bridge with little traffic but you have to have a
transponder for the prepaid toll. I argue with the guy
as I can see the USA right there and I don?t feel like
finding the free bridge, wherever it might be. I lose
the argument and we go to take off and the bike won?t
crank over. James had a spare battery he charged just
before leaving. I stick it in around the bungee cord
holding up the fender damaged in the pothole. The
spare battery is stone dead. We put mine back in and
James pushed me downhill of the bridge. The bike fires
and we scoot for the Americas Bridge. It is jammed
because it is free. Standing between the cars are
dozens of Mexicans selling food and ?stuff?. We decide
to go to Wal Mart for a battery and a charger to
energize the battery for use. By then our nerves were
so frazzled it was El Paso for the night. Next door to
the hotel is, what else, a Mexican restaurant called
Andale, which means get walking. There is a rock
/country band signing in Spanish and mariachis fill in
when the band takes a break. We eat and drink to
excess as we are now in the USA and the food is
generally so much better.
Next day the new battery is charged up but the bike
starts with the old battery. I replaced the voltage
regulator in the Wal Mart parking lot but that was not
the problem, it seems. All VFR riders on long rides
pack a regulator. After that it was fairly cold
running across west Texas back to the F150 at Stude
Butte. We loaded up and drove to Kerrville, TX and
made Houston the nest afternoon. A little more
business got taken care of in Houston and I was on the
way to Plano to meet a long lost friend that found me
by Goggling my name and motorcycle. He found a picture
of me at another rally in Big Bend National Park and
tracked me down from that. All that and I didn?t even
owe him money. We had a nice visit and a day and a
half in the truck later I was home on March 2.
Unfortunately, winter had not ended in my absence
since February 11.
Every year the Mexico trip is a little different.
This time we bypassed the Copper Canyon altogether but
hit the beach and the beautiful colonial town of
Alamos. I?m ready to go again.
Steve in Haddonfield NJ

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