Motorcycle Ride to Mexico's Pacific Coast...I should have known...

Ruta Ochenta

Mexico 2021

"Should’v Known"

By Geoffrey Huppé

"I know better but what the hell, shouldn’t be too big a deal. Let’s go”. You know what, I’ve said those same words too many times to count. The fact is I really never learn. I’m a “what the f@#K!”junkie. I always look for experiences where I know I’ll say “what the f@#K!”

I said those words bunch of times during the day today. I rented a bicycle in Mexico City. It’s done electronically. What the hell isn’t. It took a day to figure out how to sign up. When I was done I really didn’t want to go for a bike ride anymore but I am my father’s son and there’s no way in hell I wasn’t going now that I paid for it. Walking is an event in Mexico City let alone riding a bike. I will never ride my motorcycle here, I hope, but you never should say never if you’re me. Riding a bike is a serious challenge here. Not only do you have to find out where the electronic corrals holding the bikes are but somehow you have to negotiate the meter set up to unfetter the metallic ponies that will whisk you away to your destination. Today it was the City’s Anthropological Museum. An amazing modern warehouse holding some of Mexico’s greatest antiquities. I am an antiquities junkie too.

There are bike paths here. One way paths or so the signs say. One way except for the other bikes, mopeds and motorcycles going the other way. Parked cars, people selling stuff on the path and roads a goat wouldn’t walk on are a constant threat. The bike paths lead right into busy cross-sections where cars will turn right...that is right into you. You’re guard must be up all the time. The worst WTF moment was the situation that I’m always ready for but still scares the hell out of me. The inadvertent door opener on the left passenger side (right side for the Anglophones). My hand was an inch from the sharp edge of the door and I was ready for the searing pain and the inevitable fall. It’s amazing what can run through one's head in a split second, I saw my hand opened up, not for the first time, and thought what a Mexican Hospital would be like. But I screamed “WTF” in English and the door shut just enough for me to wriggle the handlebars out of hazards way. I’m out of shape as it is after being shut in with Covid for the last however long it’s been. But I wasn’t worried about the car door anymore it was the intensive care cardiac unit I was now facing because I knew my heart was gonna blow. It didn’t; “WTF”?

But riding a bicycle isn’t what this story is about. This story is about riding Pearl, my 1994 BMW 1100 RSL motorcycle, to San Patricio, Maleque, Mexico and Ruta Ochento (route 80) from Guadalajara. 

People seemed surprised, when I left the Guadalajara Language School on Friday for the coast, when I told them I was using the “direct” route. The other way, the road normally used, looked ridiculously out of the way. Route 80 looked like there were some good twisty, turny, parts so I figured that’s why I was here in Mexico. So I went in search of some ”WTF”. I got it right away and right in Guadalajara.

Here’s something I wish I would stop saying to myself while driving in Mexico: “this road looks right”? It never is right. It should be right but it just isn’t so. “Biker- man”, “now what cha gonna do”, I could hear Pearl say in her sexy German/Spanish accent. She then went on to say, “Let’s break out the GPS before I decide to throw the clutch or something else. I will come up with some other disasters if you keep going needlessly in circles”. “And”, she continues, “why are we in the scariest part of town again”? “Weren’t you a big badass pilot”? “Didn’t the Navy teach you how to read a map”? Anyone who has read Stephen King’s, “Christene” knows how pissed off motorized vehicles can get, right?

To appease Pearl I broke out the cell phone and figured a way out of the jam. Or so I thought. Here’s the problem. In Mexico there is a system. I believe it is a system of one way roads that confound me despite the fact I have ridden here, by motorcycle, three times. There are huge roads in the cities with 5 or six lanes. For all intents and purposes they should be two way. They are not! All five or six lanes in the middle of the city go one way. Once you are on them, that’s it. Hold on tight! Signals are useless and the driver has got to get over all five lanes and hope to make a turn to the left. Then the next hope is that one can find an opposing 5 laner. There is a knack to it but often you go way out of your way to make a U-turn. This usually occurs at about noon to two o’clock when the Mexican Sun come out to boil blood and motor oil.

I made the U turn. Made another wrong turn but decided to just go with it. I found, via GPS, there was an alternative way to route ochenta. Eventually I was so happy to finally find the road that I stopped for a cup of coffee at my usual road stop “OXXO”.

OXXO is a 7 Eleven type of convenience store. It is a safe haven from the odd places one finds on Mexican roads. I know I can get a simple cup of coffee, cheap.

The road now wandered through the Mexican countryside which is currently colored in mixed hues of brown and green. There are areas of thick flora and equally thick ground cover in browns of every shade. As the miles passed I started seeing the Mountains of the coast. Thrusting tectonic shapes shoved up from the convergence of the continent.  I was riding on this plate as it floats on the hot liquid below.  The magnitude of the convergence (or subvergence or some kind of vergence) was awe inspiring.  I knew it was soon time to get busy. It did and I did. The road began to climb then descend. The road curved. Then it curved some more. The curves tightened like a belt after Thanksgiving. The BMW was in her glory and loved every second of it. I did too. It was glorious. The road dropped off below and went straight down where no bottom was visible. The mountains were not round. They were precipices. The vegetation seemed to hold on the sides of their homes with claws. The vistas were continuous and breathtaking.

Finally Pearl and I made it to the first waypoint, Autlan de Navarro. I paid strict attention to the road, a necessity for not getting lost. Got some fuel at the PEMEX. PEMEX is the state owned petroleum company. We were off for the next stage. It looked like we were going to make great time. So I thought. However, Ochenta was far from done with me and Pearl.

Pearl and I moved on. Things were good. The road continued to meander then emptied out of the mountains into a verdant plain filled with farming. From what I could see it was mainly sugar cane. Miles and miles of it. The next waypoint was a town called La Huerta. This is a place I will never forget. I knew that after La Huerta there was one more stretch of mountain curves. The last stretch was about 60 kilometers. Even in the mountains this was do-able. So Pearl and I roared off. After a few unexpected “topes” (speed bumps) we reached the end of town. Without any warning the road closed. Just stopped. No warning no alternates just ended. I believe the hurricane that had past through had washed out part of the road. This happens often on these roads. The sides of the cliffs are so steep and so unstable that heavy rains take them out easily. I remember riding through Guatemala and the same thing happened. I should have known better. I am not a geologist but the nature of this volcanic terrain allows for very hard rock dispersed with lots of sand. There never seems to be much gravel, just rock and sand. A geologist will read this and correct me I’m sure. That’s ok, these are just observations I’ve made.

I was at a loss. I looked at the GPS but the signal wasn’t strong and I couldn’t find a road to take me to the coast. I saw one but it looked like it would take hours. This was confirmed when I talked to some taxi drivers I saw waiting by the bus terminal.  However, one of them said there was a route that would only take about an hour and a half. It would go to a town on the coast called Cihuatlan. I saw the route but still asked one more person before I took another wrong turn. Wrong turn? Me? He made a point of saying I should be able to do it but the road stopped being paved after awhile. So off Pearl and I went, off to Cihuatlan and the Pacific coast.

I was pretty depleted by this point in the day but the thought of a new adventure spurred me on. I found the road and all was going well. I saw a turn to the right and convinced myself that this must be the turn. A quick check of the GPS would have told me differently but my ego overruled and I kept going. By the time I asked for assistance I had gone pretty far and knew I had made a mistake. Two local police confirmed my error. They both took pity on me, the wayward gringo, in no-man's land and told me to follow them. I did and they took me back to the turn off I had ignored. There were no signs. It is local knowledge that rules here. Now I was back on track. I ran through another town and was lucky enough to see out of the corner of my eye a handwritten sign pointing to the road to Cihuatlan. A close call and one that would have really sent me down a thorny path. I now knew I was on the road to success. I was confident. I should know better.

The road started to descend and then, turned to sand. My BMW is made for the autobahn. It is heavy and the tires are smooth. It doesn’t seem to mind but I do. I do not like sand under my wheels. Underneath the sand was smooth rock so I would go from good holding to ice-like slick. The road would drop away into nothingness to my right and my left. When I had a chance I would take my eyes off the path for an instant and see absolute splendor in the vistas around me. Taking my eyes off the road for more than an instant was sometime too much. I hit the inside corner of a turn and the rear wheel went down and went squirrelly. The inside of the turn felt like it was giving way. For an instant I felt myself going over the edge into the nothingness below. I punched the throttle just a bit. Too much and I would lose control. Too little and I would sink and fall. I made it but that was the last time I came close to the inside corner. I met a few cars coming the other way but only a few. It was good to have a motorcycle because with a car it would have been an awkward duel to see who had the guts to back down or go up.

I came to a fork in the road. To me the GPS was wrong. It wanted to bring me to the right. The road looked more traveled to the left. I was there deciding and was about to take the right (wrong) way. A car passed and gave me a beep. I was pretty sure that it was a warning. I believe the road was washed away on the route I was going to choose.

The road now got steeper. I am amazed at the quality of the BMW motorcycle. Though I know the brother to my bike is called the GS and is better suited for this kind of terrain I was continually amazed by the way my bike kept me safe and sound as I got weaker and weaker. The GS BMW and the RSL like mine are different only in their geometry. Hands off to BMW and their engineers and technicians.

When I thought I could take no more the road became steeper and more grueling. We kept going and finally saw the outskirts of Cuhuitlan below. I made it to the town. Stopped for a much needed coke a cola. Realizing I was going to be riding in the dark, a taboo motorcycling in Mexico, I set off for my final destination. I found it after a further exhaustive search due to more road work. I eventually found my hotel in San Patricio. There was a good restaurant around the corner. After a burger and fries I went to the hotel and welcomed a sound sleep.

There were times during this trip that pushed me beyond what I thought were my limits. As much as I do not want to admit it at 64. I do not always have the capacity and endurance I had as a younger man. The truth is the younger man part of me will not stop. The younger man tells the older to keep moving even when the older self knows better. This is perhaps the most difficult part of finding one's mortality. It becomes obvious that things are changing yet the self does not want to let go of what was. When I think about how I feel now I start to understand the building of the monuments of antiquity. The pyramids of the Maya and of the Pharaohs in Egypt never made sense to me. Why would anyone spend all that time and energy and resources for such immense projects. Even though I know they did it "because they could". It seemed ridiculous as to the "why". I now know the why. As I age I want to hold back the oncoming inevitability of death. I want there to be vestiges of my youth left. I want to be remembered for having been here. It is obvious that it’s not totally possible. Some structures will last as will some art and literature. Eventually all will fade away into what was.  It is for the clever to know that the NOW is the most important part of our lives. It is not the future nor is it the past because both are fleeting and will not last. The NOW gives us all what we need because we have no more and never will.

I should know, better.