Things got pretty real today. We rode from Mazatlan to San Blas (~300 km - at least the longish way we did it). It was so chinga hot last night we decided to get up at 5 and be on the road by 7 or 8 (yes kids, a.m.). It was so hot there was heat lightning most of the night. A little thunder, but mostly heat lightning and sweating. Luckily it wasn’t too bad this morning, and it got seemingly cooler the further we got along Hwy 15 (which was to be our route most of the way). Neither one of us had any idea what to expect on our first day in mainland Mexico. It was not at all what we expected. So in no particular order...
Jungle. Lush. Crazy jungle lush. It was probably the biggest surprise of the day. We even talked through it a bit when it was particularly jungle-ly, asking ourselves if maybe it isn’t that lush but we think it’s lush because we just drove through Baja… But after comparisons Ernie made with Costa Rica and I made with equatorial Africa we concluded, yep, it’s lush. Like a postcard of Guatemala where there are hills and small mountains with lots of dimension in the background and it is all covered in a thick layer of green!
Mangos. Hwy 15 is the highway of mangos. Mangos on trees, mangos for sale, seemingly abandoned mango orchards and stands, mangos on sticks in the shape of flowers. I wanted the ride to smell like mangos there were so many mangos, but alas it did not but rather a pleasant earthy smell. Mango trees are so charming - that silly botanical string they hang from!
Butterflies (or mariposas). Mostly pieridae (sorry, can’t think of common name of them…) but quite a few swallowtails as well. I asked Ernie earlier today how many mariposas we saw today and he said 10,000. (And Ernie doesn’t exaggerate).
Forgot to mention this yesterday - the dinosaurs! Ok. Not actually dinosaurs… (I exaggerate) but large and bright enough to actually be referred to as reptiles rather than lizards. Well over a foot long and bright, bright green. And really fast! Saw them in town and at camp last night and this morning. No sightings so far this evening.
The birds. All of you who know me know I am not a birder, but I have to admit I’m getting really curious. Lots of LBBs (little brown birds, which who cares), but lots of LCBs too (little colorful birds) that I would like to see while not going 80kmh. Flashes of orange or red! One that went in front of me had a tail much longer than its body. And there are so many! Something with wings that is either a raptor or has a patch of something curious flies by at least every 10-20 minutes.
The hilarious and dopey hamster like animal that ran across the road in front of us today. To Laurie (LD!) what dopey hamster like mammals live in central Mexico? It’s poor locomotor abilities must surely be a clue to its identification… Was like a drunk lop.
We may have seen our first monkey today. But if it was, it was roadkill monkey…
The bridges! Just like Baja the country of Mexico names its river-bridge relationship after the bridge and not the river. This makes sense here as 1) the river can’t be counted on, 2) the bridge is what is permanent, 3) what people have made and been a part of. It was nice to see this tradition continue into mainland Mexico. It was also nice to see (so far anyway) that “abierto” actually means OPEN in mainland Mexico. We shall work on changing our funny “Mexi-abierto” to a more appropriate “Baj-abierto”
I think we have entered BYOTP territory (i.e., bring your own toilet paper). Check. And still know to put it in the garbage (basura).
The highway from 15 to San Blas - gorgeous. Views and enormous trees. These huge trees just appeared… Curves in the road. Some parts were even like green tunnels where the trees had grown together above us. We may be able to continue on this road to get to Hwy 200 and the rest of our Pacific Mexico highway, but if not, I will not be upset to take that road twice.
Our Nat Geo map has mistakes. This is frustrating and disappointing as National Geographic has had well over 100 years to get it right and sell it to people like us. It took on us on serious detour today. We drove through this town…my goodness. Acaponeta, in between Tepic and Mazatlan. Reliving it in my head it is quite possible we are the first gringos on motos to ever have paraded ourselves through the entire town. On BOTH major one way streets looking for the highway they clearly said was there! Despite the dozen or so hazards we avoided that could have easily ended up with busted selves or bikes, we made it back to where to we started. Was stressful, but probably in the end great practice for city riding on our motos. There was this one part on the east end of town that had a cobblestone grade up to a set of railroad tracks and the tracks were set down from the cobblestones. Oh and big puddles we couldn’t see the bottom of. Yikes! But yay for remaining upright! (And to be clear, these things aren’t really a concern to Ernie… I’m the stressball in those situations. Today my strategy was to do it and talk about how awesome I am while attempting to do it, repeating things like “Awesome ends with ME”, and I think Ernie was laughing at me - in the good way :). And then another error - we went a different road than we otherwise would so that we could make our exit/highway connection. Totally didnt’ have to. Nat Geo GRR.
At an RV & Camping spot. Lots of mosquitos. We are the only people here. They advertise on their sign that they can fit 120 spots. 120 what I’m not sure, but big enough for a few dozen RV’s and some campers for sure. Apparently we are to watch out for the coconuts that could fall from the palms. Ernie is playing guitar.
We arrived in town about 3 (so yeah, a long day of riding). We were stiff and sore and hungry, and San Blas was seemingly a cute town that was walkable. We took a quick stroll to the beach, but that was a microcosm tourists and touristy things (key word being micro), so we headed back to the part of town that was lined with bars and restaurants with animals cooking on sidewalk grills. After five or so days of crap food, nothing but 6 am granola in our stomachs not at all afraid of the temperature, humidity, bugs, or city layout, we take off on foot to find those restaurants. (Important side note: this was after a memorable and disturbing drive-by of a Mexi chicken farm/slaughter house, so I went back to being a vegetarian for most of the day today… Ask clw for the details). After only about 30 minutes of walking we find the restaurants (and actually to my surprise, happily) they are mostly whole animals caught today from the ocean. This is how most meat consumption should be done. Translation - “We got 20 snapper today - they are on the grill - when they are sold we close”. There was also marlin and shrimp, and the shrimp are what this town is known for. That is actually why Ernie and I walked down to the beach, because apparently after the fisherman come back they lay their shrimp on the beach to dry, then package them up. I guess it makes sense in this climate to sell dried shrimp and then have the “chef” rehydrate them into whatever they are making…. ecologically sound practices I suppose, but for Ernie and I just another reason not to eat shrimp. Anywho, in the smattering of grills we saw there was on with chickens. And (sadly) the kind still in the shape of chickens with their legs spread out. But the smell… and the scene. This woman in her house, chickens in her house, she was the one who killed, prepped, and sold the chickens as her living. There was a back room “kitchen” kind of thing that had strange bottles/containers of spices, and there were more than enough to make it good advertising. We asked (in perfect spanish of course) “Hola! How much for half a chicken?”. Long story short, the tortillas weren’t hers, but her salsa was. That chicken was fucking delicious.
Moto culture in San Blas. Wow! Lots of men, women, and children on motos and scooters. Sometimes even 3-4 per scooter (yeah, thats like 1 person per 15 cc). And they cruise! Up and down and back and forth. Cruising the strip… Giving each other rides. Friendly beeping honks. Was fun to see a small touristy town off season.
While in the plaza/downtown there is a “famous” church that Longfellow wrote a poem about. We didn’t even know the story or the poem until getting back to the camp and googling it. It was by far the most attractive thing at the town square/plaza. Or I should say it was the thing that caught both of our eyes and we both walked to and stared at. A new church is next door, but the old one was quite a sight. Dopey longfellow never even visited this church. He was probably the ghost of the hamster that crossed the road today. Dopey.
(Pause)
I thought about it a lot today, and I think what it is for me… vulnerability. For truly the first time on this trip all my safety nets are gone. They weren’t real safety nets I suppose, just the ones that I had arbitrarily assigned before we left. Things like “there will be tourists” or “there are only so many roads so we can’t really get dangerously lost” or “we haven’t crossed a body of water” or “there will be someone who speaks English”. I had justified this set of excuses or exceptions like “lots of people have driven through Baja so this is all no big deal”. But today… after we arrived to the jungle and the small towns and the mango farms and really and truly seeing a place that I couldn’t connect to with my previous experiences…. I was anxious most of the day. Nervous. And again, after thinking through it, it is because I feel (for the first time) truly vulnerable. And this is good! I know it is. Growth doesn’t happen from the comfort of the line you have drawn around your life.
(Pause)
The reality is that today is probably just a taste of what is to come. Right now that is equally scary and exciting.
Ack!
“Ernesto, what did you think of today?”
“It is nice to get away from tourist towns. You can’t always entirely trust your map, although it seems to work out in the end. I’m surprised how much water and how wet everything is here… that is entirely unexpected. And at least if we break down here we can live off mangos and coconuts.”
Jungle. Lush. Crazy jungle lush. It was probably the biggest surprise of the day. We even talked through it a bit when it was particularly jungle-ly, asking ourselves if maybe it isn’t that lush but we think it’s lush because we just drove through Baja… But after comparisons Ernie made with Costa Rica and I made with equatorial Africa we concluded, yep, it’s lush. Like a postcard of Guatemala where there are hills and small mountains with lots of dimension in the background and it is all covered in a thick layer of green!
Mangos. Hwy 15 is the highway of mangos. Mangos on trees, mangos for sale, seemingly abandoned mango orchards and stands, mangos on sticks in the shape of flowers. I wanted the ride to smell like mangos there were so many mangos, but alas it did not but rather a pleasant earthy smell. Mango trees are so charming - that silly botanical string they hang from!
Butterflies (or mariposas). Mostly pieridae (sorry, can’t think of common name of them…) but quite a few swallowtails as well. I asked Ernie earlier today how many mariposas we saw today and he said 10,000. (And Ernie doesn’t exaggerate).
Forgot to mention this yesterday - the dinosaurs! Ok. Not actually dinosaurs… (I exaggerate) but large and bright enough to actually be referred to as reptiles rather than lizards. Well over a foot long and bright, bright green. And really fast! Saw them in town and at camp last night and this morning. No sightings so far this evening.
The birds. All of you who know me know I am not a birder, but I have to admit I’m getting really curious. Lots of LBBs (little brown birds, which who cares), but lots of LCBs too (little colorful birds) that I would like to see while not going 80kmh. Flashes of orange or red! One that went in front of me had a tail much longer than its body. And there are so many! Something with wings that is either a raptor or has a patch of something curious flies by at least every 10-20 minutes.
The hilarious and dopey hamster like animal that ran across the road in front of us today. To Laurie (LD!) what dopey hamster like mammals live in central Mexico? It’s poor locomotor abilities must surely be a clue to its identification… Was like a drunk lop.
We may have seen our first monkey today. But if it was, it was roadkill monkey…
The bridges! Just like Baja the country of Mexico names its river-bridge relationship after the bridge and not the river. This makes sense here as 1) the river can’t be counted on, 2) the bridge is what is permanent, 3) what people have made and been a part of. It was nice to see this tradition continue into mainland Mexico. It was also nice to see (so far anyway) that “abierto” actually means OPEN in mainland Mexico. We shall work on changing our funny “Mexi-abierto” to a more appropriate “Baj-abierto”
I think we have entered BYOTP territory (i.e., bring your own toilet paper). Check. And still know to put it in the garbage (basura).
The highway from 15 to San Blas - gorgeous. Views and enormous trees. These huge trees just appeared… Curves in the road. Some parts were even like green tunnels where the trees had grown together above us. We may be able to continue on this road to get to Hwy 200 and the rest of our Pacific Mexico highway, but if not, I will not be upset to take that road twice.
Our Nat Geo map has mistakes. This is frustrating and disappointing as National Geographic has had well over 100 years to get it right and sell it to people like us. It took on us on serious detour today. We drove through this town…my goodness. Acaponeta, in between Tepic and Mazatlan. Reliving it in my head it is quite possible we are the first gringos on motos to ever have paraded ourselves through the entire town. On BOTH major one way streets looking for the highway they clearly said was there! Despite the dozen or so hazards we avoided that could have easily ended up with busted selves or bikes, we made it back to where to we started. Was stressful, but probably in the end great practice for city riding on our motos. There was this one part on the east end of town that had a cobblestone grade up to a set of railroad tracks and the tracks were set down from the cobblestones. Oh and big puddles we couldn’t see the bottom of. Yikes! But yay for remaining upright! (And to be clear, these things aren’t really a concern to Ernie… I’m the stressball in those situations. Today my strategy was to do it and talk about how awesome I am while attempting to do it, repeating things like “Awesome ends with ME”, and I think Ernie was laughing at me - in the good way :). And then another error - we went a different road than we otherwise would so that we could make our exit/highway connection. Totally didnt’ have to. Nat Geo GRR.
At an RV & Camping spot. Lots of mosquitos. We are the only people here. They advertise on their sign that they can fit 120 spots. 120 what I’m not sure, but big enough for a few dozen RV’s and some campers for sure. Apparently we are to watch out for the coconuts that could fall from the palms. Ernie is playing guitar.
We arrived in town about 3 (so yeah, a long day of riding). We were stiff and sore and hungry, and San Blas was seemingly a cute town that was walkable. We took a quick stroll to the beach, but that was a microcosm tourists and touristy things (key word being micro), so we headed back to the part of town that was lined with bars and restaurants with animals cooking on sidewalk grills. After five or so days of crap food, nothing but 6 am granola in our stomachs not at all afraid of the temperature, humidity, bugs, or city layout, we take off on foot to find those restaurants. (Important side note: this was after a memorable and disturbing drive-by of a Mexi chicken farm/slaughter house, so I went back to being a vegetarian for most of the day today… Ask clw for the details). After only about 30 minutes of walking we find the restaurants (and actually to my surprise, happily) they are mostly whole animals caught today from the ocean. This is how most meat consumption should be done. Translation - “We got 20 snapper today - they are on the grill - when they are sold we close”. There was also marlin and shrimp, and the shrimp are what this town is known for. That is actually why Ernie and I walked down to the beach, because apparently after the fisherman come back they lay their shrimp on the beach to dry, then package them up. I guess it makes sense in this climate to sell dried shrimp and then have the “chef” rehydrate them into whatever they are making…. ecologically sound practices I suppose, but for Ernie and I just another reason not to eat shrimp. Anywho, in the smattering of grills we saw there was on with chickens. And (sadly) the kind still in the shape of chickens with their legs spread out. But the smell… and the scene. This woman in her house, chickens in her house, she was the one who killed, prepped, and sold the chickens as her living. There was a back room “kitchen” kind of thing that had strange bottles/containers of spices, and there were more than enough to make it good advertising. We asked (in perfect spanish of course) “Hola! How much for half a chicken?”. Long story short, the tortillas weren’t hers, but her salsa was. That chicken was fucking delicious.
Moto culture in San Blas. Wow! Lots of men, women, and children on motos and scooters. Sometimes even 3-4 per scooter (yeah, thats like 1 person per 15 cc). And they cruise! Up and down and back and forth. Cruising the strip… Giving each other rides. Friendly beeping honks. Was fun to see a small touristy town off season.
While in the plaza/downtown there is a “famous” church that Longfellow wrote a poem about. We didn’t even know the story or the poem until getting back to the camp and googling it. It was by far the most attractive thing at the town square/plaza. Or I should say it was the thing that caught both of our eyes and we both walked to and stared at. A new church is next door, but the old one was quite a sight. Dopey longfellow never even visited this church. He was probably the ghost of the hamster that crossed the road today. Dopey.
(Pause)
I thought about it a lot today, and I think what it is for me… vulnerability. For truly the first time on this trip all my safety nets are gone. They weren’t real safety nets I suppose, just the ones that I had arbitrarily assigned before we left. Things like “there will be tourists” or “there are only so many roads so we can’t really get dangerously lost” or “we haven’t crossed a body of water” or “there will be someone who speaks English”. I had justified this set of excuses or exceptions like “lots of people have driven through Baja so this is all no big deal”. But today… after we arrived to the jungle and the small towns and the mango farms and really and truly seeing a place that I couldn’t connect to with my previous experiences…. I was anxious most of the day. Nervous. And again, after thinking through it, it is because I feel (for the first time) truly vulnerable. And this is good! I know it is. Growth doesn’t happen from the comfort of the line you have drawn around your life.
(Pause)
The reality is that today is probably just a taste of what is to come. Right now that is equally scary and exciting.
Ack!
“Ernesto, what did you think of today?”
“It is nice to get away from tourist towns. You can’t always entirely trust your map, although it seems to work out in the end. I’m surprised how much water and how wet everything is here… that is entirely unexpected. And at least if we break down here we can live off mangos and coconuts.”