Zacatecas, Mexico

I stayed one night in Flagstaff, Arizona and in the morning rode to the south rim of the Grand Canyon. The canyon is stunning and spectacular, with visitor centers perfectly designed to accommodate thousands of tourists, and which managed to slightly spoil the experience. Wanting to head into Mexico, I rode north to Monument Valley in the Navaho Nation Reservation - a welcome change of culture from other parts of the US. It was the wrong direction, but the valley is at least as amazing as the Grand Canyon and I was pleased I took the detour. I then waited in Phoenix for a few days while some parts I ordered for the GPS unit I’d bought arrived, so I was happy to have met the sculptor David Therrien in a bar on my first night in town. Over the next few days he showed me his work, his studio and around Phoenix. I have a feeling we’ll be doing some work together in the future. It was really nice to see my good friend Brian in Phoenix too. His parents live there and he was over from Britain to see them. Very kindly they’d also been my delivery address for the GPS system I’d ordered from San Antonio. So, with just one more night spent in the US, staying with Beth in Tucson (who’s a friend of David’s) I left for Mexico.
I ended my first week in Mexico at the city of Mazatlan on the central Pacific coast. I traveled there from Nogales where I crossed Mexico/Arizona boarder, via Guaymas and the Barranca del Cobra or Copper Canyon. In Nogales I met Omar. He was riding a GS like mine so we stopped and talked. He helped me get my paperwork sorted out with the officials on the Mexican side; which turned out to be pretty straightforward. When I arrived in Guaymas the carnival, which occurs in towns all over Mexico in the days before Lent, was just getting underway and went on all night. But after just one night there I rode to El Fuerte to catch the Ferrocarril Chihuahua al Pacifico. This is the train service that runs from Los Mochis on the Coast to Chihuahua. I left my bike in El Fuerte and took the ferrocarril through the stunning Copper Canyon to a small town called Creel high in mountains. It had been hot in El Fuerte and assuming I’d left the cold weather behind me I didn’t bring enough warm clothing for the snow flurries found at that altitude. A blanket borrowed from the hostel kept me warm and made me look a little like one of the regions indigenous Tarahumara Indians, but still very obviously a tourist in a blanket. Partly as a consequence of living in such an isolated and inaccessible region the Tarahumara have managed to retain many of their traditions. In fact some Tarahumara still live in cave dwellings, one of which I visited. From small stalls the Tarahumara women sell beautiful hand woven baskets, jewelry and brightly coloured cloths. I felt privileged to have met them and also a little uncomfortable; theirs must be a fragile culture that is easily eroded by contact with the western world.
Leaving El Fuerte I rode along the Pacific highway to Mazatlan. A road that judging by the rusty signs and broken tarmac must be at least twenty years old, but doesn’t appear at all on my GPS map. The toll roads are expensive too; I must have spent over 50 dollars on tolls since Nogales. But Mazatlan is a tourist town, and there are too many American accents, so I rode inland road towards Zacatecas and the northern central highlands. It’s a great road. I kept stopping to take photos when I thought the view just couldn’t get better, but it did. Zacatecas, where I am now, is a beautiful colonial city. I’ll spend tomorrow wandering about; there are apparently some excellent galleries and museums, and a cable car to ride. I also need to get some more pants and socks - some strange person at the Phoenix hostel stole most of mine!
I just found out that I was frontpage news on the Silver City Press, Arizona. www.scdailypress.com 02.06.2007 was the issue. Mileage 9836.

Flagstaff, Arizona

Flagstaff, Arizona. 6th February 2007
I stopped in New Orleans for a couple of nights sleeping in an empty apartment near the French Quarter belonging to a friend of Marty’s. It was so cold that I slept in the kitchen and heated the room with the oven. New Orleans was interesting - I listened to some good live jazz and enjoyed the Cajun food. From there I rode for 9 hours to reach San Antonio, Texas. There wasn’t much I wanted to see in between, so a long blast on the bike and a whole day in San Antonio seemed like the best idea. I stayed with a guy called Dan who used to work with Gareth at Soft. Very kind of him to welcome a cold, wet and smelling of road biker I thought. Saw the Alamo of course and had the starter motor changed on the bike. Expensive but its been playing up, so I thought I should have a new one fitted. From there another long ride to Marfa in Southwest Texas to see the Chinati Foundation and Donald Judd’s sculptures. The landscape in that part of Texas and in New Mexico is breathtaking. Some of the roads took me across mountains of over 8000 feet and it was bitingly cold. I had to stop to warm my hands on the cylinder heads even though I have heated grips. Beautiful winding roads, I videoed some of the best bits by taping the camera to the front of the bike. I rode through the White Sands desert and stopped for a night at a place called Silver City and spent most of the following day at the nearby Gila Cliff Dwellings, built by the Mogollon at the end of the 13th Century.
Today I’ve traveled only a short distance and spent several hours the meteorite crater not far from here. Its three quarters of a mile wide and is the best-preserved impact crater in the world. And although its 50,000 years old you can still clearly see a crater much as it was when it was formed. Tomorrow the Grand Canyon.
Mileage: 7265