Trans-American Trail by Motorcycle, 2013

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Thumbing through the thousands of pictures taken over the summer, I came across these - the last pictures taken at the last light of the last day of my three month motorcycle trip across the United States and Mexico. A reflection of a dirty, tired and roadsore traveler, thinking of home; a reflection of the Western odyssey and 12,000 unforgettable and hard won miles, now dimming in the half light of memory.

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EPILOGUE

Its been a week and a half since I came home from the greatest (off)road trip I have ever known - nearly 12,000 miles over three months in two countries. Dozens of wrong turns, scores of breakdowns, hundreds of dirt roads, and an equal number of tacos in our southern neighbor.

Life is quickly moving forward. Chris is already on his way to a new job with Tesla Motors and I've found work with a marketing company in Atlanta. I have also already sold my motorcycle. The thousands of hard miles I have put on it have left it looking like an old and overburdened Himalayan pack mule, unsure if the next step will be its last. There will be more adventures in the future, but work to be done in the meantime.

The trip was a year in the making and, leaving my job for two wheels and a dirt road and spending life on the run for a summer - it has been a fantastic thing. I have learned a little about motorcycles, a lot about the kindness of strangers, and, hopefully, a bit about myself along the way. The wild adventures of the last three months still seem as improbable and impossible as before their start. And as magnificent.

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BACK TO THE US

Leaving Mexico City, Chris and I began the long, two day ride north to the border.

Mexico City is bordered by a long mountain range of steep mountains that were completely unexpected. The geography looked like what I would have expected to find in Austria, not central Mexico. There are no interstates in this direction, and our route followed a small, slow two-lane road that hugged the range. Sure to Mexican form, there are few guard rails to protect you from the consequences of running off the road. It made for spectacular riding.

The houses in this area hang suspended on the mountains like multi-colored specks of paint, splattered on a wall. There is little level ground to be found. In one of the many small mountain towns we passed through in the region, an airport had been carved into the mountain. The approach seems horrendous. With one end of the airport blocked in by a steep wall of mountains, take off and landing is only possible in one direction - no matter what the wind conditions, with a drop off measuring in the hundreds of feet within yards of the end of the runway. Incredible. We ended the day cruising into the flat land and on the coast in Tampico, where we celebrated the end of our trip by drinking rum from coconuts, the only tourists in town.

Waking up early, we put in another long day - nearly 400 miles - that finished at the border. After a hot wait in line, we made it through to the United States again. Of course, the story wouldn’t be complete without one last hiccup. We’d forgotten to cancel out Vehicle Import Permits and Visas. So first thing yesterday morning, we woke up, went BACK to Mexico for an hour to cancel our permits and visas, enjoy another hot wait in at the border in 104 degree weather, and immediately follow the all of the above with a 300 mile ride to Houston.

Three months after leaving on the most incredible journey I have ever taken, this is where me and Chris will split up and head in different directions. He will be staying in Houston for a while before leaving for his home state of Maine and I will be taking the road back to Atlanta.

Mexico is a wild place. It’s what I imagine travel in the 1940’s must have been like, before reliable maps, cell coverage, signage and heavily enforced traffic laws made travel exceptionally easy. Road rules there are pretty much just suggestions and completely unenforced. Aggressive driving is the name of the game, which, in turn, makes you drive aggressively defensive. It’s not uncommon to see an 18 wheeler pass another semi on a double yellow line in a blind corner. We must have seen it happen 50 times in fact. In many towns, conveniences America takes for granted - phones, air conditioning, wifi, credit cards - do not exist. Especially in Baja. In Bahia de Los Angeles, on the Sea of Cortez coast of Baja, they still do not have a land line connecting their town to civilization. Every bit of electricity consumed in the town is produced by solar panels, which makes electricity a scarce commodity.

Much of Mexico also experiences a level of poverty unheard of in the United States. Most cities outside of the biggest ones - Mexico City, Guadalajara, Leon - may only have one paved road and its not uncommon to see full families living in 3-walled, roofless cinder block houses, or hovels in the ground covered in sticks. This is especially true in the rural areas.

Eating and drinking in Mexico can be the greatest and the worst at the same time. Walking through a Mexican open air market is one of the biggest sensory experiences I’ve had. Fresh fruits and vegetables, most of which I’ve never seen, are being hocked to you by kids and the whole place is a general madhouse of people talking, laughing, and eating. It’s like a giant dinner table for the town. In every town square there are carts that will cook up the best taco’s or burrito’s you’ve ever tasted right in front of you. 3 tacos and a coke will usually run you about $3. Unfortunately, none of the faucet water is potable and we successfully stayed away from stomach bugs coming from it. But this also leads to another problem - it’s incredibly difficult to eat healthy in Mexico on the go. All water must be bought bottled at the convenience store, where soft drinks are sold at generally the same prices. Low calorie, low sugar drinks are non-existent. As appalling as many facts about American diet can be, I’ve come to appreciate having access to a salad and a non-sugared drink.

There was always the question about how safe travel is in Mexico. We never had a single problem - not a one. That said, we were very smart and conservative travelers. The one rule of Mexico is to not travel at night. This is not to say that the streets become instantly crowded with thieves and criminals when the sun goes down, but as tourists with an incomplete knowledge of the language and area, it’s nearly impossible to tell by dark what is, and is not, a good area since Mexico is generally without streetlights. It would be too easy to end up lost, not knowing the language, and possibly in a bad situation. By day it’s very easy to identify the good parts of town and stay out of the bad.

Of course, there ARE bad parts of Mexico. We got advice from locals and expats at every chance and were told to not even touch the state of Michiacon - where some of the worst violence is. One hallmark of Mexican travel are the military patrols. As you near the US border, there are military checkpoints on all of the roads, where they will ask where you’ve come from, where you’re going, and will sometimes poke through your gear. On the highways, it’s common to see a half dozen military convoys in a day with humvee mounted machine guns and a man with his trigger finger ready. We saw a number of humvees pockmarked with bullet dents.

I came away with a huge sense of sadness for Mexico. They are full of potential and possibilities, but are hobbled by the drug war. Not only has the war killed tens of thousands of people, but it has destroyed a massive part of their economy. From our conversations with expats living there and locals, Mexico was booming meteorically before the drug war devastated their tourism industry and brought construction to a halt. Everywhere there are buildings standing two stories high, with the first floor uninhabited, the second floor left unfinished and derelict, and the rebar for a planned third level sticking 10 feet out if the concrete - as far as they got when the money stopped. Tens of millions of people are having their lives, livelihoods, and futures hobbled by this war.

Mexico is a phenomenal place, filled with wonderful people. Everyone we met was curious and more than eager to help. When my poor Spanish skills broke down, it wouldn’t be uncommon for someone to go far out of your way and walk us where we needed to go to make sure we got there. On our last day in Mexico, we needed to cancel our visas and Vehicle Import Passes. My Spanish failing me, a customs agent motioned that he was going to get on my bike with and get us where we needed to be. On my bike, already loaded with gear, we rode through the customs buildings, with him pointing left and right until we got to the right buildings. We found incredible generosity in Mexico everywhere we went.

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Turning point

Having a look at our bank accounts and considering the things we still need to do back in the states - find a job, mainly, Chris and I have decided Mexico City will be the place we turn back north toward the Texas border. We had hoped to make it to Guatemala and explore there, but we agree it would be better to do be able to really do it, instead of being hampered by a shoestring budget. Texas is still two or three days away, though, with more of Mexico to see still. But it looks like this is where we're making the sad call we've known would come at some point on this adventure.

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Yesterday we visited the Mayan pyramid complex of Teotihuacon, just outside of Mexico City. The site has two massive pyramids along with over a dozen smaller ones. It's an incredible place. The entrance to the park is filled with street vendors and we spent the later half of the afternoon bargaining for trinkets. Bargaining is something that's become a game for us as we've crossed Mexico. Nothing ever costs as advertised we've discovered.

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A few pictures from our afternoon in Leon this last Sunday. The whole town turns out for mass, afternoon picnics in the park, and shopping in the hundreds of small street market shops. More sounds and smells than you can imagine.

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Today started off pretty lazy with a bit of sight seeing around Leon, Mexico. It's a very European town with lots of shops, restaurants and street artists. They have two massive cathedrals that we stopped by and happened to catch bits of Sunday Mass. In the town square, there was an orchestra that was playing the greatest hits of 1895 and 1995. I put a little compilation together above. We then hit the highway to drive into Mexico City and toward Teotihuacon, the Aztec/Mayan pyramid complex. Pulling through a toll, I noticed my radiator blowing smoke and pulled over. We won't have a complete diagnosis until tomorrow, but it looks like my radiator's got a major leak in it. I spent the rest of the drive in to Teotihuacon whispering sweet nothing's to my bike, hoping she's make it, filling it with water every 10 miles. We'll see how this story develops tomorrow.

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DAY 8 Just a lazy cruise through central Mexico, riding from Tepic in the mountains to Leon. Today we hope to make it to somewhere around Mexico City. Our goal is Teotihuacon, the Mayan pyramid complex just outside of Mexico City.

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Mexico just won't stop.

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Above: We waited for 7 hours in the 100 heat of La Paz to finally board the ferry to Mazatlan. We pulled out of the bay and left Baja behind as the sun was setting and woke up to a view of the Mexico mainland. Below: After 7,000 miles of riding - off road across America, now on road a 1,000 miles into Mexico - my chain had stretched a bit and I needed a link taken out. We found a little shop in Mazatlan on the main drag, where three guys immediately tore into the job. A half hour and 120 pesos later (about $10 bucks!), we were back on the road. Great, helpful people.

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DAY 7 After a night on the ferry, hanging out under the stars, and later trying to sleep in the cramped ship theater filled with people snoring in Spanish, meeting and mining an ex pat for Mexico travel advice, and meeting a Brit on his way to bicycle to Panama, we entered Mazatlan. After a layover in a McDonalds to abuse their wifi and gain our bearings and form a plan, we rode south and finished the day right at dark in Tepic.

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DAY 6 Catching the La Paz ferry to Mazatlan.

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DAY 5 Loreto to La Paz.

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We've been a few days without a decent wifi signal, so here comes a slew of videos for the last few days of Mexico riding. Here is Day 4 - Bahia de Los Angeles to Loreto. Lots of desert, heat, cacti, and gorgeous views.

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MAZATLAN

Yesterday after a long, hot wait in th sun, we took the 14 hour overnight ferry from La Paz, Baja to Mazatlan on mainland Mexico. We didn’t want to she’ll out the extra 1000 pesos for a room, so we slept on the deck under the stars.

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The view from the malecon in La Paz last night. Our parking job in the lobby of our hostel, our bikes watched over by Jesus. We probably need it.

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BAJA SO FAR