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REAL Adventure Riding in Mexico

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Bienvenidos a Mexico!




Good Grief!
I lived for about 12 years just 2 blocks from this corner! :eek2:
And look where I find a photo of this oh so familiar spot... :mrgreen:
Saludos desde Reynosa.
macnifico
 
Quality water? oh where is the picture?


Here it is.
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This was taken directly downstream of a ranch. We used to water for cooking and cleaning... none of us got sick.

As far as finding water? Bienvidas farmacias (Goodlife Pharmacy) has a nice selection of .5ltr to 1.5ltr bottles. Mexico isnt unlike the US, you can get purified bottled water at most gas stations. Remote locations... you're better off drinking cokes or beer... "No tenemos agua," was the common response.


Gasolina. We filled up every 80 miles or so. 109 was the farthest we went without gas, but that was hwy... gas could be found though. Can be done as frequently as 50miles if you ask around a little.

Pumps like the US. Pumps out of large barrels. Pumped into buckets and then gravity fed into your bike. We got it all.

T.I.M.
 
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We went to sleep with full bellies and stary skies and awoke to a beautiful sunrise and growling stomaches. Oatmeal cooked with filtered cow poo water.

This morning we headout to Galeana to get gasahol and then head south to Real de Catorce. A lot of hwy today... I whined and moaned about it. Straight roads. Knobbies. Windshield strapped to the back.

In Galeana, we stopped at a farmacia and we were promptly attacked by a pack of wild chihuahuas.
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Remember my experience with the prickley pear???
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I learned two new words this day. "Ferrateria" and "Guantes" . The gloves are reminiscent of Michael Jackson's stylin gloves. Or maybe I am really too young to remember?

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Head south out of Galeana.

Take in the wildlife.
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South of town you can get a good view of Cerro Potosi. Look closely you can see God's golfball. Not Allah's golfball, we're in Mexico, and Mexicans are Catholic.
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T.I.M.
 
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BaBbahborring.

We clicked away about 80 miles of this stuff.... Lets go ahead and fill up on gas.
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We were instant celebrities. Never before had they seen this many gringos pass through their town on motos.
The senor with the white hat... has worked in Arkansas and Minnesota.

While on the hwy, I noticed the steeple of an iglesia.

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There was a big compound here. The church and several side buildings. I'm guessing a town was formed here. Maybe a nunastary or munkastary.
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Whatever it was, it is in ruins now.
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The silt was a few inches deep here.
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Replace our motorbikes and helmets with horses and hats... listen to the wind blowing through the trees... if only the surroundings could magically change to the old days. Then you realize you are on a motorcycle adventure in Mexico.
This Is Mexico
 
Si senor.

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Lunch was good. More central plaza tacos.
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Richard mentioned the road to R14. Its best when hit at 50mph. 60mph seemed too squirrelly. 50 was good.

Monkey? what Monkey?

I went first. Richard Second. Jim last.
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Whoops, Missed a great picture.
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a look around. From our balcony. Nice view. Too bad it was mobile....
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Notice the **** white car? Yeh. That posed to be a problem en la manana.


Lets take a walk around.
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Jim was excited about the iglesia.

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Despite what you think. Real de 14 is extremely flat. It really reminds me of Louisiana.


Dinner time.
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These two, from Austin, didnt know what they were in for when they said to sit with them. No passports or tourist visas.
 
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Richard and Jimbo went to sleep. Notice my dancin shoes??? I went out for New Years. Sorry, no pics, only video. :evil
 


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Now thats a nice ***.

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Going back to Real.

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Rubber side up.... going downhill.....
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Rubber side down... the right way to go down the hill.....

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At the bottom of the mountain of Real de Catorce, is a small village. Actually, it is sporadic, but about 3-5 miles long, roughly following a riverbed. It was very narrow, and there were lots of kids... I was actually worried one might run infront of me so I went slow... Jim gave out more suckers.
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People in the states would kill for this type of jeep.... and we saw several!
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Jim adventure riding in Mexico...

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I think he's enjoying it.:nod This is his 'muy fuerte' look.

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Someone said they like my self portraits, so here you go.

Now we are down the hill. Off to the dessert, or desert, desert for dessert.



 
Really like your photographs. You have a great eye.
And just a small correction:

"Bienvidas farmacias (Goodlife Pharmacy)"


The name is "Farmacias Benavides". Benavides is the last name of the founder.
Saludos desde Reynosa.
macnifico
.
..
...
 
Really like your photographs. You have a great eye.
And just a small correction:

"Bienvidas farmacias (Goodlife Pharmacy)"


The name is "Farmacias Benavides". Benavides is the last name of the founder.
Saludos desde Reynosa.
macnifico
.
..
...

Thanks for pointing that out. I just knew it "was something like that" for I didnt take a picture of the sign.... never really read the sign.... :giveup:
 
This is from the KLR guy....:cool2:
PigTrail said:
Real de Catorce was a pretty cool place to spend New Years and a town I'd like to spend another day walking around in next time. The tunnel from the east side of town is over a mile long through the mountain and is the primary entrace to the town. Traffic is one way and the tunnel floor is slickr'n greased pig snot. I think Scott goosed his throttle in the tunnel and almost dropped his camera and more. His video should be pretty cool once it's compiled.

The architecture is Real de Catorce is pretty cool...

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This guy rode in on the burro and as he hopped off he turned around and punched the burro in the face. It stumbled down the hill a bit before righting itself.

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After our night of deep slumber interupted by M80's outside our window we took to the hills west of Real de Catorce in search of a steeper exit. Beautiful vistas...

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Finally we headed back to the little town after realizing that the route we had planned to take was no more than a narrow goat path. The downhill route was more hand laid stone.

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After descending a few 1000 feet we were back in the valley jumping speed bumps and followed the rail line north out of Estacion de Catorce before heading east.

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Lots of prickly roadside diversions...

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More.
PigTrail said:
Now the route to Catorce from Galeana was all blacktop and much of it was VERY straight. Aiming for a more interesting return trip we scooted north about 20 miles on highway 57 and then turned east to cross the mountains by dirt. This was by far our best decision of the trip. Using our superb sense of direction and a little help from the E32 mapset we navigated out way north and northeast back to Galeana. This took the better part of 2 days as we were plauged by several wrong turns and a flat tire on Jim's beamer.

Road leading east from highway 57.

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After a lunch stop on the hill we were ready for some more

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Spent several hours negotiating our way through SMALL towns and wide open washes. A lot of it looked like this...

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Unfortunately about 4pm Jim's tires picked up the first of 2 flats he had on the trip. Both were in the front, so we made short work of the tube switch. A calibrated trash-bag and stack of rocks comes in handy.

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After fixing Jim's flat we rode for another hour before settling for camp in a valley all to ourselves. The ony thing we heard that night was a lonely coyote.

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More
PigTrail said:
BTW Beef Stroganoff is my favorite freeze-dried meal. Mmmm good. Scott also whipped up some 2 year old freeze dried cheesecake. Surprisingly good.

The next day we broke camp, push started Jim's bike...those pesky BMW's are always having issues, and pushed on to find a route back to civilization. Traversing some routes that were clearly used for nothing more than hearding goats we made our way back to blacktop. Heading north for about 20 miles on the slap found us turning east yet again to find our dirt way back to Galeana. Luckily E32 and mother nature provided all the elements...

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In Galena we picked up some lunch at a square-side stand and headed back out the DSDoubleDragon towards Mimbres.

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Instead of turning east to loop back to Galeana we headed north out of Mimbres towards something something toro...I'll have to look that name up. Beautiful views for the next 30-40 miles.

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Seems that some of the locals think highly of the northern neighbors...

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We just came from that pass.

Not much was seen between the last picture and this picture, but we tried taking the desert tracks to San Vicente. We came, we saw, we turned around at the fence.
Jim wasnt enjoying the double track bulldust on his loaded down dakar.
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Sooooo back to the Hwy. I wanted to avoid hwy today, and kind of showed my annoyance because I wanted to go towards San Vicente, taking a desert route. Whine whine, MMMMM MMMMM. The route we took, is probably better, but more pavement, maybe only 50 miles.
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Richard covered our lunch spot pretty well.
He didnt cover the white rock road....
White rock road.... white dust.... white boogers
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I dont know the name of this town, but everyone was extremely friendly and remember the fella on the caballo? If you notice the big mound behind Richard, the fella on the caballo was atop it when I pulled into the town, and he raced down behind us. He streeeeetched his hand to give shake ours.
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Their directions to El Pequeno was to go down he road and take a right.

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Yeh.... well that wasnt the right road..... Back to the town. Antes de la agua. Yep... this is the right road.

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Oh, on the rong road back a couple pics. Full of sand. Deep washes. Jim lowered his tire pressure... we get going a little ways and while waiting for Richard to pee again, I noticed his front tire was a little low.... "Well, I did just lower it, We useta run 12psi in our tires." Me- Yeh, well yall didnt run on many rocks either....

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Yep. He got a flat.

And in the desert.... you must find something to hold the bike up with... here was our solution. Of course Jim parked atleast 100ft from the 20lb rocks...
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They nearly put the tire back on and started airing it up.... well, of course, I'm documenting the process. I ask if they made sure there wasnt anything stuck in the tire..... Its a **** good thing Scott was there to save the day again!

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Bike pron

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Reinstalling the tire.

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Jim watering the desert plants.... We marked the location on the GPS. this time next year, we are going to go back to the same place to see if the vegetation has increased in size, color, and function.

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More sand and washes. Jim, come this way.


 

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In some places, you hit the sand and it explodes. Watch the Dakar rally. Sand flies in front of you. Several instances, Richard and I hit the sand so hard that it plumed up in front of us and then hit our legs... pretty hard. First time for that to happen to me. I like desert for dessert.

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I loved this stuff. Jim hated it. Of course, I hated the road up Cerro Potosi, Jim loved it. Richard stayed at a Holiday Inn Express the night before both of these... so he was good.

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Iglesia en el medio de nowhere.


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Jim giving suckers to kids....

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Kids running from Jim...

This is the sight where Richard's bike messed up a bit. He began noticing a lot of drag from his bike. So we stopped to check it out, sure enough the rear caliper locked up. Our guess was a rock. We unbolted the capliper, kicked it off took the pads off and opened the piston. Put back together, problem solved.



Someone told us not to camp in Mexico. We dont listen too good.
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Beef Stroganoff for Richard. Red Beans and Rice for Jim. Steak and potato stew. 2year old cheesecake for dessert.

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We shut our eyes with the yelps of a coyote on the surrounding hills.
 
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