[Riding South] Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety Jig

[Eric]

Greetings,

A few pictures at: http://picasaweb.google.com/e.apt.dudfield/MexicoMainland

I write to you from New England. I've decided to cut my trip short. Why? As Sir Francis Bacon said "Those that want friends to open themselves onto are cannibals of their own hearts." I've grown weary of all the solitary travel through remote places. And the constant passing through peoples lives - always forming friendships and leaving - was too much for me. Perhaps in the future I shall continue with a good partner, but for now I look forward to settling down in New England. But how, you might ask, did I get from La Paz to New England?

I left La Paz for the Mexican mainland on a ferry. It was a large modern boat, carrying many dozens of cars of trucks, sleeping berths and a cafeteria. I sat on one of the enclosed upper decks and watched Baja shrink while movies played at maximum volume. The ferry arrived after dark and I managed to find a small hotel in the port town. There, a small room with a flickering light awaited me. And I watched the paint peeling off the walls and the cockroaches skitter across the floor.

For the next few days, I cycled inland across flat, farming country. The people here seemed much more genuinely friendly away from the tourist supported economy of Baja. And in many of the towns had a history of several hundred years old. I stayed in several towns with narrow cobblestone streets that surrounded old Spanish churches.

But soon enough, the road approached the Sierra Madre mountains and I took the detour off the pavement. It changed from packed dirt to washboard dirt to a rocky path with 2 wheel ruts. At one point, the road led directly into the a river. Eventually a small ferry,  patched together by old pieces of machinery and driftwood brought me up river through a canyon. At this point, my map departed from reality and ceased to show a road in the direction I was traveling. But, spurred on by conversations with the single men returning home from the U.S., I had faith in the small road. It led through a narrow canyon, huge cliffs rising on either side, to the small town of La Reforma.

Here, as has often been the case in remote Mexican towns, I was first approached by a few curious men. Then the children wandered over. And soon I was surrounded by a large group - the children poking at my bike and laughing, the men asking me many many questions. Where was I going? Where had I come from? Why was I traveling in this way? After a hour of struggling to answer the men's questions and amazing the children with my gear, I was offered food and a place to sleep.

The next day, refreshed by the hospitality and piles of food, I followed the road up. It quickly became too rocky and steep for me to ride on a loaded touring bike. So I began to push the bike. For several days I followed it, occasionally meeting a man on horseback or foot, occasionally traveling through towns too small to have a store. The road led a twisted path up many thousands of feet and plunged several hundred feet back down to small streams or gullys. As I ascended, the temperature began to drop. At first it was pleasantly cold. Then it became downright cold. At night the water bottles froze and frost covered everything. By the time I reached Chihuahua, the freezing rain and snow had begun.

After several days of the rough travel, I had my most impressive crash of the trip. I had reached a point where the roads had begun to improve, becoming packed dirt again. While descending one hill, I hit a patch of loose gravel and went into a sideways slide. My back wheel hit a large rock, buckled into a potato chip and sent me aloft. I flew for a bit, first using the palms of my hands as landing gear and then bouncing and rolling. The bike slammed sideways into the ground, bending various components and landed upside down, ready to be serviced. After jumping up and walking in circles to clear my head, I patched up my cuts and began to work on the bike. Several hours later I had changed the wheel from potato chip into wavy O and was able to ride gingerly ahead.

The bike and I limped along until we reached the tourist infested town of Creel near El Barranca del Cobre (Copper Canyon). Here I rested for a day and formalized the decision I had been gnawing over for the past month. After so many days of riding alone, seeing very few people, and always seeming to settle down into an empty tent or hotel room, I was weary of travel. I found myself not looking forward to the next adventure, the next short friendship, or the next tourist area. I longed to unpack and stay unpacked for months at a time.

So, instead of turning south towards Mexico city, I continued north to Chihuahua. I stripped my bike down, gave away the damaged parts, caught a bus to El Paso and then flew home. And now I'm preparing to move up to Burlington, VT and not move for a long while.

In the end, despite its shortening, I feel the trip was a success. I've watched the land change slowly under my wheels. I've meet many people and learned from them. I've had adventures, formed strong memories and learned many things about myself. And I've beat the urge to travel out of me, at least for a while.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Eric



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Posted by Eric to Riding South at 12/24/2006 12:52:45 PM