Anyway, after that was fixed I had planned to go down to Batopilas, but my new riding friend Andrea (sorry, he's an Italian guy! :) ) wanted to go to a different town called Urique instead. I didnt mind, so we went that way instead.
The road was about 50Km of pavement to a point in the mountains at 2400m ASL and with spectacular views... There is so much limestone cliff in this area, I predict it will become a significant rock climbing destination within a few years :)
From there, the road becomes dirt for the next 120Km and it descends way down into "Copper Canyon" to the little town of Urique at 600M ASL. Its a very steep windy little road and it took us about four hours to get there, but for all that, it is in fact quite a "polite" little road.
Once we got to the bottom, we had a bite to eat and then decided to go see the "end of the road". The road heads South out of town and goes for about 15Km. At that point it crosses the river and becomes more of a "trail" for about 6Km before it crosses another river and then becomes a good road into the town of Batopilas. It is a "loop route" that I wanted to ride, but it has been very rainy here in the last month, and the rivers are all too full to cross with a bike. When I was here two years ago it was much drier.
Anyway, the road continued South out of Urique for about 15Km and it was becomming a little less "polite". Then it came to a very new bridge, but on the other side of the bridge, the road became down right "impolite"!
Its possible Im sure, especialy if you have a small light off road bike, but not for me on the big road bike with road tyres and a heavy load.... Maybe next time!
So, we rode back to town and started in on the beers - Its way hotter down in the valley than up on the mountain tops.
It was good to do some rougher road on my bike too since I modifed the bike suspension since last I was in the area. I raised the bike 5cm. This is good in that the bike no longer bottoms out on rocks and lumps like it used to, but the seat height being higher is a bad effect and its far harder to do the footwork on rough ground... difficult!
But now I can do something about it by geting "more severe" with the modifications to the seat padding :)))
We had trouble finding accomodation in the town that night, since all the hotels were full for some sort of town party. We eventually found a nice little hostal out of town by about 700m or so (its a small town!) and that was good. Then it was back to get some dinner and have some more beers.
There was indeed a party that night, and the place we were at was entirely filled with the local men. In fact, I think we were the only two foreigners in town... It was great, the locals did whatever they usually did and we got included in good natured conversation all evening.
And, that conversation seemed to revolve almost exclusively around the locals work... Which is mostly growing illegal Ganga :) It makes sense, there were lots of very big and new 250 size pickups in town and no visible source of income for the area (no mines or factories or farms).
It was all good natured, but the locals did keep trying to get us to buy their "product"... and it was cheap too.. Only $50 for a kilo of really good quality sticky "bud".
They kept suggesting putting it inside the gas tank and taking it back to the US... I kept responding with, "If its such a good idea, why dont you do it your self?"... and that usually brought broad smiles and slightly guilty laughs :))
After a few hours and quite a few beers Andrea and I walked back to the hostel. I didnt sleep much, and I have to admit that I did hear a few gun shots but I think they were in "good spirits" from the ongoing party in town.
Next morning we just tooled around for a few hours... helping fix the hostel owners motorbike, eating copious quantities of citrus fruits from his trees etc...
Then we headed back the way we had come since the "through route" just was not practical at the present ( My bike, the river height, the mud on the trails etc)
But about 1/4 of the way back we took a different return road to Creel which was nice.
There were however some issues!
One of my front shock absorbers started leaking oil out of the top (not the oil seal as would be the normal failure), and Andrea got a suddenly very flat tyre in a little town on the way. I decided I could deal with my shock absorber at a later date, and we fixed Andreas tyre... but it was a damaged tube, and he was not carrying a spare... And that lead to more troubles for him since the patch was not good (near the valve), and he eventually had to get the bike brought the last 50Km back to Creel on a truck...
But alls well that ends well, and after that it was time for a shower and a rest.
Tomorrow I will head down to Batopilas and Andrea will see if he can find a new tube for his wheel some where.
