Riding to Patagonia

[1.21GW]

1.21GW, please give me an ETA to Panama.

Looking like January.  Will have a better sense once I get through Mexico.

Currently in Midland, TX.  Marathon tomorrow, entering Big Bend Nat'l Park Thursday.  In Mexico Friday.  I expect ~2 months in Mexico, ~1.5 months for all the countries in between, then Panama in January 2017.  Of course, nothing ever goes as I plan, so take that all with a grain of salt.

[Monsterlover]

The adventure starts when the plan ends

[DarkMonster620]

gotcha

[1.21GW]

Ok, so I haven't been taking many pictures since I'm trying to get out of the USA pretty quickly, mainly because it is expensive and also I just want to get into terra incognito.  But to sate the crowd, here are a few things I've seen between CT and TX:


A church at night in northern VA.  I've been trying to learn how to take decent night shots, so I've been a little trigger happy when the sun goes down:





In Chattanooga I ran into a nasty summer storm.  Saw the dark clouds forming and they even had a twist to them, which made me a little more cautious.  Once the rain hit it hit hard: limited visibility and tightly packed cars on the highway.  Not fun, not safe.  So I pulled over under the next overpass.  This guy came up behind me maybe one minute later.  He was a local who has lived in various towns in the region over the years but also in Alaska.  Ridden his bike all around the US.  It was funny to see me an my thumper with all the ADV bells and whistles, my Gortex riding gear, my full-face helmet with shield, etc. next to this guy that was harley all the way: jeans, t-shirt, leather vest full of patches, brain bucket helmet, and a pair of Maui Jim sunglasses he bought on deep discount at Unclaimed Baggage in Scottsboro, AL.  He said the deal was so good he bought four pairs!  Sunglasses in torrential rain seem more a hinderance than advantage, but I guess I'm just a riding wuss. 

In the end, I was reminded that if you ride two wheels you really don't have trouble finding friendly conversation anywhere.





Rainbow over downtown Asheville, NC.  In Asheville I stayed with a rider I met on ADVrider.  He (and to an extent, his wife) has done a lot of riding in the SE USA and in Mexico, so after dinner and a few drinks at Asheville's fine microbreweries (over 20 in town!) we broke out my Mexico road map and he gave me some great advice and suggestions.  I continue to be amazed at the hospitality that strangers on the road provide without any expectations of anything in return---maybe I've spent too much time in New York.





Light hitting a fallen tree in the forest along the Natchez Trace Parkway in Mississippi.  The Trace was an old colonial-era trail that ran from Nashville, TN to Natchez, MS.  Sections of the sunken road remain, though most of it has been consumed by the forests.  The ride is largely a seamless stretch of clean asphalt that runs between dark alleys of southern pine forests and open fields comprised of grass, rail fences, lone trees, and the occasional cotton field.





In Dallas I stayed with a friend and we went to the Texas State Fair.  The highlight was watching a bunch of young kids get instructions on how to show their goats for the following day's livestock judging.  The goats weren't cooperating and the kids were growing tired but to their credit they stayed 'til the end and pulled and poked and adjusted the stance of those poor goats until they were blue in the face:








I stopped in Austin for two nights to visit friends and we went to Austin City Limits, a music festival.  Weather was perfect and both nights saw spectacular sunsets:





West Texas is as flat and windy as they say.  Nothing but empty fields, pump jacks, and wind farms.  The wind was particularly bad in certain areas and was throwing me and my bike around like a rag doll.  Not good.  I spent 340 miles in a MotoGP tuck, which is particularly uncomfortable on a thumper with 90/120mm front/rear tires and a set of panniers and tail case that acted as a parachute:

[Monsterlover]

I'm jealous already! 

Man that sunset pic is awesome. 

Keep it up

[muskrat]

You head straight down I 10 in TX?  There are so many rides from Austin to Marfa, TX, Big Bend Country where your terra firma will be on full display.

[1.21GW]

You head straight down I 10 in TX?  There are so many rides from Austin to Marfa, TX, Big Bend Country where your terra firma will be on full display.

I did I-20 from Dallas and ended up going through Big Bend National Park and crossing over through Presidio.  I'm in Ojinaga now.  Border crossing was relatively painless, even with the bike.  I was interested in Marfa but I ended up choosing the Big Bend route via Marathon.  Next time.

I'll post some pics of Big Bend and highway 170 when I get a chance.  Hotel internet here is dial-up speed so I'm off for some tacos al pastor and hopefully they'll be uploaded by the time I'm back.

More later.

[muskrat]

glad you made it there.  Crossing into Mexico is easy, it's getting back. 

[1.21GW]

After racing through west Texas like I was trying to escape hell, I ended up in Big Bend National Park.  West Texas is the northern extension of the Chihuahua desert, one of four deserts in North America (others: Mojave, Sonora, Great Basin).  It is what I will technically call "shitty desert": vast emptiness, flat landscapes with nothing to see but plants that are crying out to be euthanized, dust seemingly everywhere, hot temperatures and a constant penetrating sun that makes everything scorching to touch.  Scenery consists solely of pump jacks and pickup trucks and the occasional roadside grass fire.

But approaching Big Bend you enter a more lush and active desert, what I will technically call "awesome desert".  Still hot, still dusty.  But wildlife comes alive around Marathon, a town ~60 miles from the north entrance to the park.  Hawks and eagles perch atop cacti, jackrabbits lope across the road, lizards, snakes, and other crawly things enter the road and retreat at the sound of approaching engines, and butterflies are everywhere.  At the same time, the flat landscape that defines west Texas disappears and is replaced by small and then big mountains.  This is the view of the Chisos Mountains in the center of the park, taken from the north entrance road:




Big Bend National Park butts up against the Rio Grande, covers 1,250 square miles, and is the only US National Park to contain an entire mountain range.  Needless to say, there were a lot of camping options.  For comfort reasons, I elected to head up to the Chisos Mountain Basin at over 5000' in order to find cooler sleeping conditions.  The centerpiece of the basin is a peaked called Casa Grande:




The park itself offers excellent riding: clean, smooth pavement curves around and over the mountains and hill sides.  As the park is rather inaccessible compared to its peers Yellowstone, Rainier, Yosemite, etc., the roads are nearly empty.  I went a good 5 to as much as 20 minutes between seeing another vehicle.  It's just you, your bike, and more stunning views of nature than an Ansel Adams monograph.  One typical road:




Because of the variety of mountains and their patchy groupings, sunrise and sunset are particularly good times for site seeing.  Additionally, the weather is cooler and makes for comfortable riding in the morning until about 9-10am.  Sunrise in the desert:




And sunset in the mountains:




I don't have any animal photos, mainly because my camera is fixed lens and any living thing more than 10 feet away is the size of an ant in my photos.  However, the wildlife really is abundant.  I've been to a dozen or more National Parks and none compares to the variety and activity I saw at Big Bend.  Granted, most was at dusk and dawn, since these creatures want to escape the midday heat as much as you or I.  Crossing the road ahead of me just this morning I saw: a roadrunner, numerous jackrabbits, various snakes (Western Diamondback Rattler are common, though I was going too fast to identify), red tailed hawks, a gray hawk, and of course turkey and black vultures picking at roadkill.  There were hikers that saw Mexican black bears near the trail when I arrived.  We heard javelinas near the camp at dusk.  And I also saw a tarantula try to crawl under the bathroom door at the campsite before someone opened it and inadvertently swept him away into the grass.  Grasshoppers and butterflies were everywhere.

The plant life is equally diverse and active, but I don't know how to identify much beyond prickly pear and ocotillo.  Here is some ocotillo; sadly, though they were green none in the park were blooming right now:




Some Mexican gold poppy and what I think was Havard's Nama (the purple flowers at the bottom).  That's Santa Elena Canyon in the background, through which the Rio Grande runs.




And of course, some prickly pear along Texas Highway 170.




Which leads me to Highway 170, a beautifully paved and empty road that takes you from Big Bend's SW entrance along the Rio Grande, in my case leading me to the Presidio/Ojinaga border crossing.  As you can see above, the road is twisty and smooth.  Here's another typical stretch:




Though barren, the few sites and small towns that populate 170 are a throwback to the bare life of the old west.  For example, here is the cemetery in Lajitas:





Ok, so to sum up:  Visit Big Bend National Park.  Ride along Highway 170.  Live a full life.

[1.21GW]

After experiencing some of the best riding and scenery I ever had on two wheels, I ended up in Ojinaga, the bordertown across the river from Presidio, TX.  Getting my visa and aduana (temporary import) for my bike was easy and I was on my way in less than 30 minutes.  Ojinaga is a rather forgettable place, but a night in a hotel allowed me to get settled and plan my route for the next few days.

When I got up the following day, I decided to check my chain, which was installed new in Dallas.  After 600 miles of riding, it probably needed a tightening.  It did. But I also noticed this:



Actually, my first clue that something was wrong was when I saw that the fuel line from the petcock to the carb was disconnected.  I was baffled, but then I saw the indentations on both sides of the tank and it all came together.  At first I worried that someone had done something to my bike, but then I realized that it must have been the effect of the intense desert heat.  Note to other riders: don't buy black plastic tanks, and try to park in the shade when possible.

The odd this is that the tank was nearly full, so I was a bit confused why the indentations occurred.  Maybe it expanded during the afternoon and then over-contracted during the night...?  In any case, I was left with a dented tank that has spread so wide that I needed a new fuel line.  Lucky for me, an AutoZone was literally one block from my hotel.  New fuel line installed and chain adjusted & lubed and tire pressure set, and then I was off.

I took the old road to Chihuahua rather than the new toll road, per advice from ADVriders.  It was a bunch of twisties over and around desert mountains for the first hour or two.  Nice riding, but I realized how remote it was and given my bike problems in the morning it would have been nicer to take the more trafficked path in case something when wrong.  Oh well, luckily everything was fine.

After the mountains the desert becomes more lush and the roads straighten and pass through wide open valleys.




There are a lot of butterflies.  As I write this, a week-and-a-half and hundreds of miles later, I can't believe how many butterflies there are around the Mexican highways.  They paint my bike and helmet each day with yellows and oranges and greens and blacks that look like a Pollock painting.  Here is one that died in some other manner than a high speed impact.



I stopped in a town called Juan Aldama for lunch, but couldn't find any hotels and with a big storm chasing me I decided to book it to Chihuahua City, where I knew I'd find something.  As it turned out, there was an arts and culture festival that started the day I arrived, so most of my time was spent wandering the old city at night and seeing the street performers, listening to musicians, and engaging in general people watching.

The baroque gazebo in the central square:




A man window shopping for boots.  The cowboy look is more common in Chihuahua even than Texas:




The central cathedral in the old city.  Water spits out in colorful patterns in the open space in front of the church:






The statue of the city's founder, Antonio Deza y Ulloa, stands opposite the cathedral like a conjurer calling forth the liquid light:




Of course, what would the Chihuahua City, the capital of the state of Chihuahua, be without a giant mural of a Chihuahua:




A jazz series was performed in a nearby park on saturday, so I headed over there for the evening.  First group (pictured), a trio, was very good.  The second was a little too jazz fusion for my tastes.  When they started covering Jeff Beck, that's when I left to see what was going on back in the old city.




Quintas Gameros, the mansion of a wealthy family that is tied up with Mexican and regional history, is lit up like a haunted house at night.




Chihuahua city is populated with all manner of statues celebrating a diverse set of ideals: indigenous rights, fallen police, Aztec warriors, renowned writers, and of course, politicians.  There is an even a statue to emigrants that left their homeland and family in search of a dream (quien dejó patria y familia buscando un sueño").  This one is of writer José Fuentes Mares:




After two days in Chihuahua enjoying the culture fest, I headed out to Ciudad Cuauhtémoc.  Unfortunately, it was a sunday and so the city's most unique attribute, its large enclave of Mennonites, was inaccessible.  I did see some on and about the town, their blonde hair and blue eyes sticking out even more than me.  Dinner included a papa relleno with Mennonite cheese, something for which they are known.  It was delicious.

The church in Cuauhtémoc:





Then off to the Barrancas...

[1.21GW]

Ok, so the Barrancas are a series of canyons throughout the Sierra Madres, basically the extension of the Rockies down into Mexico.  Copper Canyon is probably the most well-known barranca as it covers a larger area and is deeper at is maximum depth than the Grand Canyon.  The canyons are home to small towns separated by dozens of kilometers with nothing in between but rocky hillsides and pine forests.  This offers a great level of solitude to a rider, who can peg dance from switchback to sweeper to  chicane.  Though main roads are paved, they are usually in disrepair.  Often, the worst sections are right in the apex of the curve.  Nevertheless, the riding is world class.

A typical section will look like this:




Or this:




Or even this:




And the few flat and relatively straight sections offer a moment to relax and just take in the scenery:




This was taken from an overlook at Barranca Sinforosa.  It requires a 12km (8mi) ride on an undeveloped dirt road, but it's 30km (20mi) if you, like me, take the wrong road at the fork and have to backtrack.  Took my first spill an this road, right in front of a group of school children.  Anyway, was worth it, given the view at the end.  Not too shabby:




The area is a big logging region, so you get a fair share of large trucks that you need to ride around.  They rarely do more than 10-20 mph uphill, and frankly, that's okay since the few that do exceed that speed do so by another 30-40 mph, which is a little scary when you encounter one coming in the opposite direction around a blind corner.

[koko64]

Thanks for sharing. Amazing.

[1.21GW]

Thanks for sharing. Amazing.

No problem.  I got a bunch of pictures stored up and need to get them posted.  It's been over two weeks since I took those.  I'm already on the coast of central Mexico.  Anyway, more to come.

[1.21GW]

Mexico's two tallest waterfalls are located in the Copper Canyon region: Piedra Volanda (453m) and Basaseachi Falls (246m).  Basaseachi is the more accessible of the two and (I believe) more developed in terms of access.  A paved footpath leads to the top of the falls, where a bridge crosses the river and allows access to the edge of the cliff, protected by metal bars.  Even still, gaps and the overall low bar level provided little sense of comfort or safety.  I bet the Mexican Parks Department did not have the same team of lawyers advising the US Parks Dept.  Anyway, on to the pics:

A rope bridge (technically, it's braided steel cables) along the path to the falls:




Here you can see the metal fencing that provides inadequate fall prevention:




The view looking out over the valley:




Looking down the 246m (807ft) drop from the top of the falls:




There is a 300m rocky trail of switchbacks down to the base, which few visitors took while I was there.  It was definitely worth it: at the bottom was an elysium of solitude protected by towering cliffs to the north and dense forests to the south.  Looking up at the falls on the trail down to the base:




Viewed from the distant overlooks positioned around the park, the falls appear peaceful and hypnotic, the water like spilled flour floating down the towering rock face.  Standing at the base near the edge of the collection pool is a wholly different experience: the noise is deafening, the winds a constant bluster.  The force of the impact is so strong that it atomizes the water into a thick mist that sweeps across the valley floor.




And a video that shows the power of the falls:

[koko64]

Those last few shots remind me of the Garriwerd/Grampians national park, except for the trees being different . Garriwerd is my favourite place to visit in my state. Its kind of semi-arid forest with a great sense of space, which is the feeling I get from your pics. Seeing this makes me want to modify my bucket list. Are their traditional indigenous custodians of this land?
Love your pics.