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Expedition Big Bend

Boquillas

The last 24 miles to Boquillas is a very rocky road. Rocks are embedded in the road, making for a very bumpy ride. It reminds me of the road to the top of Mt. Potosi (for those of you familiar with that road), though not quite as bad. It was getting late, I was tired, and my hands were worn out from the pounding they had taken today so the road seemed worse than it really was. The next morning, after a night of restful sleep, we back tracked this same road and it didn’t seem nearly as rough.

We arrived in Boquillas a few minutes before 5 pm. For those not familiar with this area, Boquillas is a small town named after Boquillas Canyon, which is the south eastern edge of Big Bend National Park. The town’s primary reason to exist seems to be to give visitors to Big Bend an opportunity to cross into Mexico and visit a small village. A little taste of Mexico. There has been an unofficial border crossing here (and one in Lajitas, 50 miles or so to the west) since forever and it has never been a problem. But after 9/11 the Feds decided the crossing was a bad idea and cracked down. Some nameless bureaucrat far away in Washington decided terrorist might use these crossings as a route to sneak themselves and weapons of mass destruction into the USA. No more crossing on pain of imprisonment (Political rant: anyone who has visited this area will immediately recognize what a ridiculous statement that is. This area is so rugged, inhospitable, and far away from everything else that it is the worst choice for smuggling people or large quantities of anything. That’s why the drug war has been a non-issue here. Luckily someone at the Fed level finally listened to reason and the Boquillas crossing is now re-opened, albeit as an official crossing rather than an unofficial one. The Lajitas crossing, on the other hand, remains closed.)

When the border crossing closed, Boquillas was left without a source of income and nearly died. Its population dropped from several hundred to around 20 (Lajitas suffered the same fate). Today, about a year and a half after the re-opening, Boquillas once again has a population of about 200 people. 90% of their income comes from the steady flow of tourists crossing over from Big Bend National Park.

Except for the day JT and I arrived. And the next day. We arrived in Boquillas on a Monday and noticed that everything was closed. A local named Raul informed me that the border crossing is closed every Monday and Tuesday, and when the border crossing is closed, everything in town is closed too. There isn’t a reason to open the bar or either of the two restaurants in town when there aren’t any patrons.

Raul lives in Boquillas with his wife and child and earns his living acting as a guide and interpreter. I asked him about gas and a room and was assured both were available. He told us his uncle rents rooms and if we didn’t mind waiting for a few minutes he would go find his uncle and arrange rooms for us for the evening. As promised, a few minutes later Raul’s uncle showed up and we followed him to his “hotel”.
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The place looked nice on the outside but was more of a bunkhouse than a hotel. JT and I paid $25 each for two beds, electricity, and a toilet. Unfortunately, the shower didn’t work and there wasn’t a sink. Still, I was completely fine with this place – I preferred it to sleeping outside on the ground.
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I jumped in the truck with the Uncle and we rode around town trying to find cerveza. Unfortunately, nothing was open, not even for the locals, so no beer for JT and I. We both had food with us –beef jerky, trail mix, crackers, and canned chicken - which would see us through the evening but I was disappointed not to be able to have a cold beer after a long, fun of riding.

As we settled into our quarters, the last rays of the sun lit the evening sky.
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The uncle told us there was a hot springs down by the river and we could wash up. After unloading the bikes we wandered down to have a look. The “hot springs” was a pipe sticking out of the side of a hill out with a small stream of hot water constantly flowing. The pipe was only a foot or so above the ground so the best we would have been able to do was take a splash bath – i.e. use cupped hands to splash water on ourselves in a vain attempt to get clean. We both declined, knowing it would just be a futile effort. (There is another, more common name for this type of bath but this is a family forum and Tourmeister wouldn't be happy if I used that term. :trust:)

With nothing else to do, we walked back to our room in the darkness and then sat outside in the cool evening air, star gazing and eating supper. As mentioned earlier, it was Dia de la Revolucion and Boquillas was celebrating with an evening dance. A band playing on the other side of town serenaded us as we sat outside our room, munching on our food. We thought briefly about walking over to the festivities but decided against it. We didn’t know anyone it town, hadn’t been invited, and we were both pretty tired from the day’s riding. At 8 pm we called it a night and went to bed. I'm an old guy so I wake up early, even when I don't want to. So I figured I would wake up at 0 dark thirty the next morning and end up sitting around for a few hours, waiting for the sun to come up. But, apparently I was more tired than I though and slept soundly for 10 hours. Which is a really long time to sleep. I can’t remember the last time I slept for 10 straight hours.
 
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Tuesday – following the trail of the Coahuila 1000

I awoke about 6 am, fully rested from 10 hours sleep. My body felt good but my hands and forearms were still noticeably fatigued from the previous day’s ride. I’m not accustomed to 9 hours of nearly non-stop riding, most of it dirt.
The day began with a glorious sunrise.
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Our bikes were in the same spot we left them the night before, which is always a good thing.
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My trip meter reading from the day before.
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After packing our bikes JT and I rode to the center of town, hoping to find breakfast and someone selling gasoline. Raul showed up and directed me to Martin’s (pronounced Mar Teen) place. Martin sells gas out of 55 gallon drums and is a living, breathing example of free market capitalism in action. Raul told us to ride past the school and look for the green house. That’s Martin’s place. He stores the gas in the pink building. We headed off to Martin’s place and Raul went off in search of the owner of the Boquillas Restaurant to see if they would open up and feed us breakfast.
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JT and I located Martin and asked about gas. He told us he had plenty and directed us to the pink building. With his daughter supervising and the dog on guard duty, Martin filled both our bikes with much needed gasoline.
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Mexico gas smells very different than gasoline in the USA- either the refining process is different or the additives they use down south are not the same, but it has a distinctive smell - and I could tell by the smell alone that this was definitely Mexican gas. Unfortunately, Martin didn’t have any premium gas, which my Husky prefers.

While the refueling operations were underway, this little girl, with encouragement from her Mom (Martin’s daughter), gave me her sales pitch for the craft items they sell to tourists. She doesn’t speak English so her pitch consisted of looking at me and holding out the bracelets and koozies toward me. Selling handmade crafts to tourists comprises an important part of their income and since we were the only tourists that would be here today (remember, the border crossing is closed) I figured we would be her only sale of the day.
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I bought a bracelet and JT bought a koozie.
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I estimate that we bought about 8 gallons of gas for a total cost of $32. I only had $20 bills and Martin didn’t have change, so I paid him $40. He invited us to his house for breakfast, telling me his wife would make us a fine meal at no cost. I thanked him but declined, letting him know we had already asked the Boquillas restaurant to open for us but that if those plans went bad we would gladly take him up on his kind offer.

Meanwhile Raul had been successful at getting the restaurant to open.
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The skull has the words No Al Muro – “no to the border wall” – painted on it. Not surprising, they are against the border wall as it would once again kill this little village.
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Breakfast consisted of eggs and chorizo (Mexican sausage), refried beans, flour tortillas and a coke. It was hot and good but expensive. $18 was the bill for the two of us. Still, I was happy to have a cooked breakfast rather than cold jerky, trail mix and water.
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A note about prices: Boquillas is a tourist town, a fact reflected both in the prices quoted and the currency of choice. Everything costs about twice what you would pay in non-border towns and the currency of choice is dollars. Plan accordingly and ensure you bring ample cash with you when you come here – they don’t take credit/debit cards.
 
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You are on it this morning Richard . Thanks for getting up early to post "old man".

That town is going to price itself out of tourism.
 
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Great story telling Richard. I can smell the chorizo in the breakfast.

You and JT in the same room? The mutual thunder snoring must have cancelled each other out so I bet it was quiet.
 
Man, how on earth could you resist buying something from that little girl, that smile would have won me over for sure.
 
There is, or was, a hot spring upstream of the crossing down by the river. A roofless stone structure with three or four rooms. The Boquillas locals used it. Kinda funky. It may have washed away during the '08 flood; I haven't been to it in years.
 
One last thing about Boquillas: there is no cell phone service. Zip. Zero. Nada.

To my surprise, while we were waiting on breakfast an older gringo man appeared. His name was George and he is a Terlingua resident that volunteers his time installing solar panels in Boquillas. It is the only source of electricity for some here in Boquillas so George is well known and liked. The restaurant owner called out a happy “good morning George” when he arrived.

George owns a Yamaha WR250R and when he spotted our bikes he felt compelled to say hello. We had a pleasant visit with George, discussing bikes, riding, and this part of Texas. George is also a musician and part of a well-known local band called Los Pinche Gringos.

After breakfast I gave Raul some money for his assistance and then we started putting our gear on. It was time to ride.

A word about our route: When we initially starting planning this ride I knew that, barring any major problems, it would only take two days to ride from Acuna to Ojinaga. However we had three riding days available. What should we do with that extra day? We could have taken the two day ride across Mexico and then spent our third day riding in the Terlingua area. Or we could spend an extra day in Mexico. JT and I have both ridden the Big Bend area a lot so an additional riding day in Mexico seemed like a fine idea.

One of the cool things about the E32 map is that the guys who make it color code particularly note worthy dirt roads. They highlight these special roads in magenta to make them really noticeable. My experience has been that those magenta colored dirt roads are actually worth seeking out. For example, the dirt roads around Galeana, where the annual MexTrek rally occurs, are fantastic and they are all highlighted in magenta.

Well, the E32 had a long magenta colored road in this area. Its northern end started at the paved road running between Boquillas and Muzquiz and its southern end was the town of Ocampo, about 175 miles away. JT and I discussed it and decided it was worth checking out. Our planned route was to run down to Ocampo and stay the night. The next day we would backtrack north and then catch the track west to Ojinago. It seemed like a good plan. We would get a third day of riding in Mexico and get to check out a new magenta road –and, after all, the other magenta roads we had ridden were truly gems worth exploring. You can see the road on the map below.
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Except in this case, it wasn’t worth exploring. As it turned out, this is the road that they use for the Coahuila 1000. We speculated that the race organizers needed the course to pass by Pemex gas stations ever so often and the one in Ocampo was the closest one accessible via a dirt road. So the road wasn’t picked by the Coahuila 1000 due to it being an exceptional dirt road – it was picked for convenience only. A fact JT and I were blissfully unaware as we started our day.

In any case, after waving goodbye to Boquillas, we headed south, backtracking from the day before. I remembered to take a picture of the road this time.
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Upon reaching the magenta road, we discovered it was a gravel super highway. A really long, straight superhighway. There was nothing special about this road but at least we could make good time.
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Unfortunately, things went downhill from here. After about 50 miles of gravel superhighway riding, the road deteriorated badly. The main industry in this area is mining and the big mining trucks are tearing the **** out of this road. It was the worst washboarded road I’ve ever been on. I thought it was going to beat my Husky to death and kill my Garmin Montana with vibrations. It was terrible. There was no speed at which you could ride to smooth things out. The faster you went the more your bike vibrated. And the road went on, and on, and on like that dang energizer bunny.

30 miles. 40 miles. 50 miles. Is this terrible road ever going to end?

I thought the washboard ripples were bad until we started catching the big mining trucks. Remember, this is the desert, so there is sand dust everywhere. The big trucks were kicking up dust clouds so thick you couldn’t see through them and, therefore, had no idea if any vehicles were coming from the other direction. The trucks would see us approaching from behind and would pull over to the right to allow room for us to pass. Unfortunately, we couldn’t see if there were any on-coming vehicles so we had no idea if it was safe to pass. Our only two options were to either ride behind the trucks, which were moving at 10-15 mph, or pass and hope we weren’t killed in a head-on collision with an unseen vehicle.

We opted to pass. Each time we did so, it was an incredible pucker moment. One I would prefer never to repeat.

Finally, after eternity passed, we reached pavement. It is the yellow colored, magenta lined part of the road in the map above.

If you are thinking, “Great, the guys are back on pavement. Everything is good now.”, you are wrong. Unbelievable but true, the pavement was actually worse than the washboard road. No kidding. The pavement was so potholed and torn up it was impossible to miss all the holes and the pounding on our bikes increased 3x while our speed dropped by a factor of 2. When a dirt road gets a pothole, the edges of the pothole are relatively smooth. When a paved road gets a pothole, the edge of the hole is a sharp edged, tire eating, rim bending monster just waiting to destroy you.

The paved road was so bad that even the locals don’t want to drive on it. They have made an impromptu dirt road by riding in the ditch alongside the dirt road. Since this dirt road was created by cars & trucks and not a road grader, it’s just about as bad as the paved road with the extra advantage of the holes and ruts being camouflaged under a deep coating of dust. I couldn’t decide which was worse so I alternated between riding the paved road and the dirt road. I would ride along for a mile or two on the paved road, curse loudly in my helmet, then jump off the pavement onto the dirt road. I would ride the dirt until I finally got tired of hitting hidden holes so big they threatened to crash me and would then jump back on pavement.

Finally, when despair and desperation seemed to be taking over my psyche, we reached the town of Ocampo. We stopped at a Pemex and JT looked at me and said “to **** with that road, I ain’t riding it again tomorrow”. It was a sentiment I completed agreed with.
 
We arrived in Ocampo about 4 pm. After topping off the bikes with fuel, our next task was to find lodging and a place to eat in that order. I asked the gas station attendant who directed me to a hotel next door. How convenient!
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It was a nice enough place – the room had AC/heat, the sheets were clean, and there was both a sink and hot water. It even had in room wi-fi. Sweet!

I think my favorite thing though was the bedding. I felt like I was on safari. 
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JT like them too.
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Once unpacked and cleaned up, we set out on foot looking for a restaurant. The Pemex attendant told me there weren’t any restaurant in town. How could that be? Ocampo was a reasonably large town, surely there was at least one restaurant in town.

The only thing was we couldn’t find one anywhere. We walked all over the place, asked everyone we saw, but no restaurants were to be found. We couldn’t even find a taco stand. I’ve never been in a town this size and not been able to find at least one place to eat.

We were just about to give up and walk back to the hotel when we spotted a faded sign hanging outside a building next to an open doorway. The sign said something about hamburguesas and other food items so we decided to investigate.

An old woman and an old man, appearing to be in their 70s, were the only people in the place. The building appeared to older than either and to be in worse shape too. They had a few small tables and some rickety chairs but assured us they were open and could cook some food for us. I asked the woman if she could make tacos but was told no. She then told us she could make hamburgers, to which we agreed.
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The roof beams were bowed but unbroken. Mostly.
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A few minutes later, the woman served up our hamburgers, consisting of a hamburger bun, patty, slice of ham, and ¼ slice of yellow cheese. No fries. No ketchup, mayo, or mustard. No lettuce. No tomato. Just a bun, some meat, and a little bit of cheese.

I was really hungry – we hadn’t had a meal since breakfast. I took a bite of the hamburger and quickly told JT, “ahhh, this is terrible”. It was the worst hamburger I’ve ever eaten. It was bland and I’m guessing the hamburger patty had been frozen a long time. It didn’t taste rotten and I wasn’t worried it would make me sick. It just tasted bad.

Still, it was the only option in the entire town, so we ate them.

As bad as the hamburger was, the woman redeemed herself by serving up churros after we finally forced the last of the burgers down. Churros are a fried-dough pastry, long and thick, covered in brown sugar and, in this case, a bit of melted caramel. They were delicious. All was forgiven.

After finishing and paying the bill we wandered back to the hotel. A beer run scored a six pack of beer and we settled down in the room for the evening. It was still early, only about 6 pm, but the room was warm and the beds were comfortable so it didn’t take JT long to nod off. I managed to stay awake until 7:15 and then called it a night. One thing about adventure riding in Mexico – it sure keeps us out of the bars at night.

I thought sleeping 10 hours the previous night was quite an accomplishment. Well, I managed to sleep a bit more than 10 hours this night. Wow. Who knew adventure riding was going to be so hard on my body that I could sleep 10 hours two nights in a row.
 
Richard,
Excellent trip report!
I wish I could have gone with you all.
 
Wednesday

I really wanted to ride the road between Boquillas and Manuel Benvides but we couldn’t stomach backtracking on those two terrible roads from yesterday, so we came up with a new plan for the day. We would head due west from Ocampo, across the desert, and then turn northwest to the town of Hercules. The map indicated it was a reasonably sized town and we hoped to find services there (fuel and food). From there we would continue northwest to pavement at La Perla. At that point, we would be done with dirt for this trip. It would be pavement to Ojinaga and the Texas border and they Hwy 170 (aka River Road) from Presidio to Terlingua.

Here is our track for Tuesday (Boquillas to Ocampo) and Wednesday (Ocampo to Terlingua).
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The morning dawned cool but the forecast was for sun and daytime highs in the 60s. Since we already knew we wouldn’t be able to find breakfast we decided our best option was to hopefully find a restaurant on the road to Ojinaga. Maybe there would be some place to eat in Hercules.

The bikes were waiting for us when we awoke.
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The morning view from our room was very nice.
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The air was very brisk but the road was in much better shape than the bad roads from the previous day. While the road wasn’t exceptional in any way, at least the views were better.
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Roadside shrines like this are quite common in Mexico. See that really long, straight road in the background, heading across the desert? Well, that's what all the dirt today from this point on consisted of. Long. Straight. Kind of boring.
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After riding in a straight line forever, we reached the right turn to Hercules. The sign pointing the way has seen better days.
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We made the right turn and then spent an eternity riding in another straight line. We spent so much time riding straight across the desert that when I encountered my first curve two hours later I nearly crashed because I had forgotten how to make my bike turn.

We arrived in Hercules to discover it was now owned by a mining company and the town was completely fenced in and a pass was required to get in. Apparently the mining company bought the entire town and then fenced it in.
Luckily there was a Pemex and a restaurant just outside the gate. Perfect!

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After a good, hot breakfast, we rode west on the last bit of dirt for the day. Then it was pavement all the way to the Texas border and on to Terlingua.

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There isn’t much else to report on the day’s ride. It was mostly boring and uneventful. It certainly isn’t a route I would recommend to others. But that’s the nature of exploring the unknown, it’s a bit of a crap shoot – sometimes you find some great stuff and sometimes you find some stuff you never need to ride again.

We arrived in Terlingua about 4 pm, giving me just enough time to get cleaned up and get to Long Draw Pizza five minutes before opening time. As usual, Nancy’s pizza was excellent.

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So the ride report of my tale ends with an unfulfilled mission. We set out to ride across Mexico from Del Rio to Ojinaga. While we did indeed start in Del Rio and end in Ojinaga, we missed the road west from Boquillas. That road is still there, waiting.

I’ll be back.
 
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I was really hungry – we hadn’t had a meal since breakfast. I took a bite of the hamburger and quickly told JT, “ahhh, this is terrible”. It was the worst hamburger I’ve ever eaten. It was bland and I’m guessing the hamburger patty had been frozen a long time. It didn’t taste rotten and I wasn’t worried it would make me sick. It just tasted bad.

Well, look on the bright side

This is a step up from the lunch experience we had in Weed, New Mexico, earlier this year :eat: :puke:

At least JT got something to eat :trust:
 
You had a bad meal in Weed, NM?! I have always had great meals there.

Great report Richard! :clap:
 
:clap: Enjoyed every word! :clap:

Sent from my LG-D850 using Tapatalk
 
We spent so much time riding straight across the desert that when I encountered my first curve two hours later I nearly crashed because I had forgotten how to make my bike turn.

I did this on my SS1000 run. After riding half the day on the highway I exited to ride the five or so miles to the gas station to get my turn around receipt. The road was windy and I couldn't remember how to make the bike do that after running arrow straight all day. I totally understand this.

It was mostly boring and uneventful. It certainly isn’t a route I would recommend to others. But that’s the nature of exploring the unknown, it’s a bit of a crap shoot – sometimes you find some great stuff and sometimes you find some stuff you never need to ride again.

This is why ride reports are great. Sometimes we find out great places to ride, visit, or eat at. Other times someone takes one for the team and lets us know where not to go. Thanks for being that guy. :rofl:
 
Thanks for a trip down memory lane. In 2004, I road from Ojinaga to Del Rio with two friends. We made the trip on KLRs, and took five days. I don't remember having problems finding gasoline, food or beer. Is a trip taken 13 years ago to old to post a trip report?

Later, Bud...
 
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