October 21 - 247 miles

Changing money in Eagle Pass, TX before crossing the border into Piedras Negras, Mexico.

An artful display of mufflers in Piedras Negras, Mexico.

The terrain was similar to what we had ridden through in southwest Texas. I guess that shouldn't be a surprise, since it's the same land, just across a border.

These were also the best roads we would see in Mexico. At least the most similar to what we're used to in the US.

Most towns in Mexico have some kind of statue either at the entrance to town or in the middle. This town had a great metal statue of the Mexican coat of arms: an eagle standing on a nopal cactus eating a serpent. Cool!

We wanted to get off the highway, so we picked a rural route that would take us in the general direction of our destination for that day: Cuatro Cienegas.

We thought we were going in the right direction and were on some rough dirt roads, when a police SUV coming the other way waved us down. He asked us what we were doing there, wanted to see our vehicle import permits, and to check them against our VIN's.

I told the guy in charge that we were heading to the main road, and asked him if this road would take us there. He said "no," and that further down the road was the compound of the main drug cartel in the area. Whoops! We promptly thanked them and turned around.

As we were riding out of there, Doug went through a deep puddle that caused his bike to run on one cylinder only. When we got back to the town near the highway we pulled over to find out why.

Doug wanted to see if it was a faulty plug wire and pulled one to see if the other cylinder would fire. Since we were checking to see if the problem was electrical he had pulled the gas tank off and the fuel lines were left sticking up from the carbs. Doug removed one of the plug wires and mistakenly placed it too close to the fuel line. When he hit the starter to see if the bike would fire up, the spark from the removed wire ignited the fuel in the fuel line. Flames shot up from the fuel line, and all I could think was, "Holy shit, we've only been in Mexico for two hours and Doug's bike is on fire."

Doug was frantically blowing on the fire to get it to go out. I yelled, "Grab your jacket," which he then used to smother the flames. Luckily the fire went out quickly and didn't cause any damage other than melting the plastic coating around his choke cable. Whew! The fire could have melted all kinds of exposed wires, or been sucked down into the carb. It was a close call.

The problem turned out to be a faulty plug wire. Once replaced, the bike ran as it should.

After these first "adventures" we thought it might be best to play it safe until we were a little farther away from the border. We jumped back on the highway, which as you can see, was pretty much flat and straight.

After riding through the desert and scrubland of Texas and northern Coahuila, it was exciting to spot some mountains on the horizon.

Wow.

The road leading to the town of Cuatro Cienegas, with desert on the left and mountains on the right.

Cuatro Cienegas
It was starting to get late in the afternoon and we wanted to get to the campgrounds where we had agreed to stay that night.

Doug refers to the Lonely Planet guide to Mexico - a great reference used often for this trip - to get us going in the right direction.

The church in Cuatro Cienegas.

Poza de la Becerra
We had read about the natural lagoons and camping available at Poza de la Becerra, and decided that it was a perfect place to begin our adventure.

Here, Doug is swimming in the crystal clear lagoon, which hosted all kinds of unusual fresh-water fish. It was pretty weird swimming with fish in the middle of a desert. The water was as warm as bath water, as well.

We camped alongside the lagoon on powder-fine sand.

After the sun went down the wind picked up and I found that I had to secure my tent with some big rocks. Thanks, rocks!

The campgrounds and surrounding area was pretty desolate, which made the mountains a stunning contrast.

October 22 - 176 miles

On our way out of Poza de la Becerra we decided to check out some of the salt-flats on the side of the road. They weren't actually salt-flats. More like gypsum-flats. Gypsum was mined in the area for decades, until the government decided to protect the area.

There is a hill east of the town of Cuatro Cienegas that has a statue of some guy on a horse (forgot to write down who) on top of it, and a viewing area. This was taken from up there, looking back west at Cuatro Cienegas.

This is looking east.

I wanted to get off the pavement and into some dirt to really get this adventure started.

I found a road on the map that would take us on a 60 mile detour to the highway we needed to get to. After conferring with Doug, it was decided that we'd go for it. We had enough gas to take us at least another hundred miles, and each had about a liter and a half of water.

The road wasn't on my GPS unit, but by estimating the route, and checking the topo lines, it looked as though we would wind through some mountains, valleys and passes.

A couple of nerds in the middle of nowhere.

To make sure we were on the right track I would stop every time we saw someone to ask if we were headed in the right direction. This was really the only road around, and the GPS track was pretty much following the direction of the road on my map, so I was pretty certain. Doesn't hurt to ask, though, and it allowed us to interact with some ranchers and farmhands.

We met some pretty interesting characters who were surprised to see a couple of gringos on this road. One guy, pulling a trailer with a horse and cow in it, just kept laughing as I told him what we were doing. Well, I did keep refering to us as "loco gringos." I guess we were a strange sight anyway.

The road was in pretty good shape for the most part, though we hit some rough spots and a little sand. Luckily I had those knobby tires on my bike, as they really helped maintain traction. Doug found that he was sliding around quite a bit, which I attributed to his tires, and that he had too much gear with him which made his front-end too light.

Long and straight. I could get the bike up to around 40 to 45 mph at times, but would often come across craggy and rutted vados (a vado is a dry wash that allows flood waters to cross the road) that would require much slower speeds and more care. I didn't want to wreck the bike (or myself) out here in the hinterlands.

It was a blast, though, blazing down these roads.

Doug striking what he thought was a pretty manly pose. Hmmm...

Heading for a pass in the mountains.

It was hot out there in the desert.

We were stopping every 45 minutes, or so, for water. It was nice to actually be able to look at the scenery, which was difficult to do when concentrating on the road.

Toward the end of the road we ran across this mining operation. I'm not sure what they were after, but they were putting some ugly gashes in the mountains.

Back on the highway and headed for Saltillo.

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