Friday, continued
Something was wrong. I noticed I could only see 1 rider in my review mirror so I pulled to a stop. After a few minutes of waiting for the rest of the group to catch up, no one showed. Bill and I made a u-turn and headed back in search of our lost riders. The 2nd bike problem of the day had surfaced – Scott’s rear tire was flat on his KLR. No problem, he had a spare tube and repairs were underway. Unfortunately, he had to completely unload his bike to get to his tools, which made the job longer to complete. By this point is was mid-afternoon and getting uncomfortably warm. There were no trees so there was no shade to be had.
Bill waiting on the rest of the group to catch up
Scott fixing his flat
Uncle’s solution to the lack of shade problem.
At this point, 2 issues began to exert themselves – time & distance. We had been riding steadily since 9 a.m. and the afternoon was nearly gone, but we still had a really long way to go. Would we arrive in Muzquiz before dark? Not at the pace we had been traveling and certainly not if we had any other bike issues.
Everyone says don’t ride after dark in Mexico, which is probably darn good advice. We had come prepared to camp, but that presented a whole different problem. Where could we camp? You might think that all we need do was pull off to the side of the road, out of sight somewhere, and set up camp. The challenge with that is that the mountain terrain we were in was thick with thorny plants – cactus, mesquite, etc. It seems like every plant in the desert has some sort of long, sharp thorn as protection. To pull off the road far enough to be out of sight would entail riding through lots of these types of plants, meaning we would likely get multiple flats on the bikes. We had been advised not to camp right next to the road in the event that drug smugglers used this route. One of the other motorcycle groups that had come through here had camped out in the desert their first night and around midnight two vehicles had passed their location running east in the dark with all the vehicle lights off. Presumably they were Federales troops driving with NODS (night observation devices), but it isn’t out of the realm of possibility that it was drug smugglers driving with the same devices. In any case, if we were forced to camp it would be in our best interest to get out of sight of the road and not make our presence known to anyone.
We didn’t have to make a camping decision at that moment as we still had several hours of daylight available. A new sense of urgency was upon us though and a decision would have to be made at some point as it was becoming evident we might not reach Muzquiz before dark. Once Scott’s bike was repaired we mounted up and headed out at the fastest pace we could safely maintain.
After many miles of beautiful mountain riding, we entered a large valley. I knew the “town” of Morelos was up ahead, but had no idea what services might be available there. The ride report of the last group that went through here 3 years ago indicated there were no stores but they had been able to buy some gasoline from someone who had a 55 gallon drum of fuel. We hoped to be able to do the same. We had been riding all day and I knew our fuel tanks were getting low.
The road was running through the valley was in a little better condition and we were able to ride a bit faster. Eventually we reached Morelos. It wasn’t a town, only a small collection of houses spread out here and there. I kept looking for some indication of gasoline for sale but nothing caught my eye. As we reached the southern end of town I spotted a house with an old, metal Pepsi sign hanging outside. Perhaps a small tienda (store)? I quickly pulled in and sure enough it was a little store. They didn’t have much for sale but they did have cold sodas. A cold soda never tasted so good. I asked the older woman running the place about gasoline and she indicated she didn’t know of any being available. Our quest for fuel would have to continue beyond Morelos. Sodas finished and feeling somewhat refreshed we rode out with Muzquiz as our goal.
We were forced to modify the route yet again. Our route called for us to ride a small, trail that paralleled a river running through a 25 mile long valley. From my map and Google Earth reconnaissance it looked to be a spectacular path, perhaps the best of the entire expedition. But, if we were able to average only 15-20 mph on what the map indicated was a “road” what kind of pace would we be able to maintain on something the map indicated was a “trail”? There was no way we were going to be able to ride that trail and have any hope of making it to Muzquiz this day. Instead, we stuck to the unpaved road heading south out of Morelos leading us to pavement 30 miles away. As we passed the turn-off to the trail, I saw it disappearing into the distant valley between some awesomely huge mountains. I so wanted to take that left turn to the valley, but it was not to be during this trip. One day I’m coming back and riding that trail.
Finally, at end evening nautical twilight, we reached pavement at Hwy 93. The Federales (Mexican Army) had a checkpoint set up here and waved us to a stop. It was the first one we had encountered all day. They were quite curious as to what 6 dusty, tired gringos on motorcycles were doing in this part of Mexico. I explained the situation to them and then started asking about gasoline. At this point we had traveled 190 miles and I knew we were getting low on fuel.
“No gasolina” they said.
“Donde?” (Where?), I asked
“Muzquiz”, was the reply
“Cuanto kilometros?” (How many kilometers?)
“Ciento treinta” (130)
I did some rough math in my head and figured out it was about 80 miles to Muzquiz. I broke the bad news to the group. We had already come 190 or so miles, we were low on fuel, not sure if we could make it another 80 miles on the fuel that remained, and it was dark in Mexico. Not the best of situations to be in. On the plus side we had 4 spare gallons of fuel so maybe, just maybe, that would be enough to get us all to Muzquiz.
The group discussed our options and finally decided that our most prudent course of action would be to continue on and see if we could make Muzquiz tonight. At least the road was paved the entire way and seemed to be in reasonably good shape. With the best headlight in the bunch I led out, keeping the pace to 45 mph to minimize risk and to conserve fuel.
For almost 2 hours we made our way south down Hwy 93 toward Muzquiz. I kept a close eye on my rearview mirror to ensure I didn’t lose anyone. Just 10 miles prior to reaching Muzquiz the headlights in my rearview disappeared. Scott’s KLR had been on reserve for the past 30 miles and he desperately needed fuel. We tapped into our reserve putting 1 gallon in his tank and 1 in my Wee. Everyone else said they were okay.
About 15 minutes later, after 13 long hours in the saddle, we pulled into a Pemex gas station in Muzquiz. We had made it. Without question this had been the longest, hardest day I had ever spent on a motorcycle. I loved it.
At this point a reasonable person would have just found a motel, a bite to eat, and gone to bed. Turns out none of us were reasonable people. Then we met Paul and our adventure took a very strange turn.
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