DAY 3:

Last night's stay in El Largo was comfortable, and we were well rested. A bit hungry, but ready to ride, we set out to get gas, water and find some food.

We decided, we'd head north to Mesa, get gas and water, then take the pavement south to Madera. That should get us to Creel on Friday afternoon. We had given some thought to a dirt road that goes to Madera, but we decided to make time and miles.

The map is clickable to a larger format.

If we continue on the all dirt/offroad route, it is evident we'll miss the whole Horizons Unlimited event - one of our goals of the adventure. So the route today will be Mesa-Madera-Guerrero-San Juanito-Bacoyna-Creel. I figured about 6 hours should get us there.

At dawn, we woke, and reloaded up the bikes. There was hielo (frost) covering the bikes! It was 29 degrees.

Tony (our host), left and Ernesto, middle, came around to see us off.

It became obvious that I'm going to have to make two more trips into Mexico to finish the all dirt route. That suits me just fine, and I'm planning to head back in early December to do the lower parts of Copper Canyon.

After getting fuel, we stopped and loaded up on water. The night before, we had no substantial food and we had no water, only beer. And a Powerbar. Needless to say, we were a little dry this morning. After a quart of Gatorade, we topped off the Camelbacks, lashed and extra liter each of water to the bikes, and headed south out of El Largo towards Madera on a fantastically windy road. With no traffic.

After an hour of twisties and fast straights, we were in Madera, and got a cup of coffee. We were hungry. Not much is open at 1000 on a Friday. It's between meals. We found a place that was open that had tacos. Tacos de cabeza. Translated: Head Tacos. They were a bit funky in texture, but delicious. Did I mention Nescafe sucks? Really bad.

Caffienated and fed, we took off out of Madera, thumpers roaring like we were racing for money. As we headed south towards Matachi and Guerrero, the road opened up into a high desert plain. At 7,500 feet, both the XR and the KTM both maxed out at 92 MPH. Odd they had the same top speed...



My 640's previous owner, Diezel, added an F650 windscreen to the bike. It is great at tossing the wind over my head and leaving me a nice still air pocket at speed. I probably pay a top speed penalty for it, but what's the difference between 92 and 96 mph anyway?

When we reached Guerrero, we took the dirt bypass around town to the paved cutoff that takes us to 16 (the main highway to/from Hermosillo or La Junta). We went east a few miles to 127, and headed south towards San Juanito.



Rick James, with his thong and his 205 MPH bike have nothing on Gaspipe. Nothing at all. Can't touch this.



541 MPH on a 640 Adventure. Yeah baby!

And then we began the climb to Bocoyna and back into the forested areas.



We reached Creel at about 1400 on Friday, got our cabana, and cracked open a few Carta Blancas. Then we met up with a pile of advrider.com talent at the Horizon's Unlimited gathering. We enjoyed mmeting some folks we knew from the web, but never met, and some of the folks we met at the Horizons Unlimited meeting in Stecoah, North Carolina. Again, I highly recommend hooking up with these folks:

Horizons Unlimited

Grant & Susan planned the first event for 2003. Rumour has it that this event at Creel was forged with the help of the Ibarra brothers. This is the second annual event held at Creel held by Horizons Unlimited. In 2003, there were about 60 folks, and in 2004, there were, at last count, at least 94 riders in attendance. If you've ever wanted to see Copper Canyon, or get a good jump off point into Central or South America, I urge you to include this event on your itinerary for 2005 and on. Good people, good fun.

The meeting point was at the Hotel Villa Mexicana. The campgrounds and cabanas were great. There was everything from Africa Twins, a pair of Sportsters (howzit goin Cavebiker?) , KLR's, KTM950's, F650's, various GS's, big Honda ST's, etc.

Friday afternoon, a thought came to me: What are we going to do about our turista visa? We haven't even seen a bank since we left Agua Prieta (which wasn't open yet) on Wednesday. We ran down to Creel, and the bank was closed until Monday. We'll be long gone by then. So we did what any adventure rider would do, we bought a case of beer.

Friday night, the Horizons Unlimited schedule includes some fantastic presentations from world travelers, and is very informative, as well as entertaining. These are all truly fantastic people, and it was great to see some of the same folks I met in North Carolina just a few months earlier. Of course, we drank a few beers, told lies, and had a great time.

What to do about the Visa? Worry about it Monday, and head back to the barrio, and have a buncha beers wiff da boyz. On the ride home, we'll deal with it. Yeah, that's what we'll do.