November 12 - 87 miles

We left Batopilas and headed for Creel, which is a known meeting place for adventure motorcyclists. Horizons Unlimited hosts a meeting there every year. We missed it by about a month. Rex, who I met on the Pacific coast, had been to that meeting.

The road from the turnoff to Batopilas, to Creel, was amazing. Twisty like a snake, clean, and mostly pothole free.

The truck in this picture is a modified delivery van, with Danish plates. We didn't meet the people, or get to look inside, but it looked pretty tricked-out, and had been in Batopilas. We passed it on the way out that morning, but after taking a break at the end of the road from Batopilas, they overtook us.

It was a beautiful day: crisp and bright. Perfect for riding a motorcycle.

I was a little sad to be back on pavement. I felt like we had just scratched the surface of what was available in the area. Next time... always next time...

The rock formations were just truly amazing. I took a ton of photos from this road, but I won't bore you with them. These are just the highlights.

Yummy!

Creel
The hotel room we rented. Nice and rustic.

Creel was kind of a shit town catering to the tourists who come to ride the train that passes along the top of the Copper Canyon. There's even a Best Western there with spa services. Yuck!

Yes, a huge inflated Tecate can, right in the middle of the sidewalk. Ok, I'm getting a little too worked up about it. It was a pleasant town, and we did enjoy ourselves there.

We met a couple in the 60's from New Zealand while walking on the sidewalk. They had been on the road for a year and a half, or so. Had spent most of that time driving around the US. Lucky devils. We met up with the guy later that night, as the woman was tired. He called over a young couple from Austria and we all sat around talking and drinking for most of the evening.

There was an off-road rally in the area and all of the trucks were pulled up at the central square. The Corona girls were there too, as were cheap Coronas. Most of the guys we talked to were pretty nice, but they were obviously the rich of Mexico since not many people in Mexico would be able to afford something as frivolous as a truck driven just for fun (kind of like a motorcycle driven just for fun).

November 13 - 261 miles

This would turn into one of the most grueling days of the trip.

We left Creel early in the morning and it was pretty cold. Looking at the map I saw a road that led off to the northwest that would connect with the highway we wanted to take west towards Hermosillo. There was also a larger-looking road that went to the northeast, but wanting to save time we took the one going in the direction we wanted to go.

The road ended up being much longer than anticipated, and dirt! It was compact dirt, but dirt none-the-less. It was also extremely dry and dusty. This required us to keep our speeds down, which added time.

When we were riding on especially dusty roads, we'd usually keep our distance from each other so that the person in the rear wouldn't eat too much dust. I thought that if I kept close enough to Doug, I'd escape the dust. No such luck.

Though the route was disappointing in that I knew it was going to put us behind schedule, it was also really beautiful, and therefore a surprise treat. I did keep thinking, "where the hell is the highway?" while trying to take in the scenery. The GPS didn't help much, other than to show that we were running parallel to the highway, just to the south.

This was a little farm, though I'm not sure if they were actually growing anything, or if they just kept livestock.

Little touches of fall. Or maybe something else. Pretty, none-the-less.

If your cow dies on the side of the road (or more likely, if you hit a cow with your pickup truck), just leave it. The vultures will take care of it.

Shortly after this, as we were winding through the hills, I spotted a bicyclist on the side of the road. I pulled up to see if he needed any help, which he didn't. He was from California and was bicycling around Mexico. He wasn't very friendly, so we moved on.

We finally hit pavement and with a whoop and a holler we picked up the pace.

We were excited to get back the States, even though I did wish the trip was longer.

Cows in the road. You have to keep your eyes open.

This is the sign you pass when exiting the state of Chihuahua and entering the state of Sonora.

Like on this map, my map showed the highway between here and Hermosillo to be somewhat straight. It was definitely not, as you'll see.

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