The varying degrees of Mexico

I did it again, I know I knew better but I let the scare mongering get the better of my first hand experience and judgement. Purely for opening times and facilities I researched the border crossing into Mexico and that's when the bombardment of horror stories started, most of them surely posted by people who hadn’t actually done it, people who watched Fox News and then relayed their ill-informed factless fear onto threads of innocent enquires. There is no point in walking blindly into a troubled area but trying to find facts on crossings from the US into Mexico is like trying to find facts in religious beliefs. So bravely with firsthand experience of a stress free crossing a year ago I rode to the border town of Presidio. From Big Bend National Park, I was told the road following the river which separates countries was a spectacular ride, but one mans spectacular ride is another’s commute. It was though, despite my scepticism it lived up to the hype. There were canyons, hoodoos, and extreme undulations, down into tight bends. It was not unlike the Laguna Seca circuit at times over a blind hump and speeding down into a cork screw bend. If only I had not opted for cheap Kenda tyres, if only I had a fork brace, if only I didn’t have the bike loaded with luggage, if only it was a Ducati. Still it was an enjoyable journey to a shitty destination, Presidio was perhaps designed to encourage you to keep going and cross into Mexico not that I needed any encouragement. A stunningly easy transition. Into an inspection bay for a brief check of my documents, ‘You will need I vehicle permit’ ‘I know, where do I get one?’ ‘Just there señor, your bike will be safe here’ First through a basic immigration formality then to a photo copy booth for a helpful, friendly and perfectly reasonable price I got my copies and was processed with ease efficiency and professionalism. I was free to go. It’s a rare border crossing that is a comfortable temperature, no traffic, no queues, no touts, no confusion, no shouting, no rip offs, no delays. And contra to the forums of fear I was not gunned down by infighting drug cartel. So out of the customs compound and onto the street of food stalls, souvenirs vendors and all things other than a bank. I have no local currency but that is the only concern I have. The road to Chihuahua is barren and brown, sparsely populated by both the permanent or transitory. It’s a little daunting. More from what I’ve read than from what I see or experience. But my tank is full; my bike is running well and its less than 3 hours to the big city. There is a check point, unlike the boarder patrols on the north side of the boarder; this one has smiles, no alarm or supplication, no paranoia or fear inducing authority, just a little inquisitiveness, a little welcome and a blasé bon voyage. And that's all the contact I have until I'm waved through the next check point and the only negative experience I have is my annoyance that once again I had my judgement swayed by the been-no-where ignorant; their loss. Into the Centro of Chihuahua, and a bank which spews pesos’ into my fingerless gloved hand before an unattended bike can become a victim of the opportunist. In fact its appears to go unnoticed by the early evening city shoppers. I can’t find the recommended hotel I'm looking for and the low sun is in my eyes. The hotel I do come across has a homeless bum of clear mental instability sitting on the step. There’s budget accommodation and then there is plane undesirable. After 3 laps of the one-way system I give up on my guide book map, made all the more complicated this year by the donning of glasses to read the bloody thing. I put the book back in the tank bag, hit the side streets and look through my open visor for a sign, and within a few blocks I've found a hotel, in a few more blocks I find a better one. The bike is not off the road but 24 hour reception will keep an eye on it for me. And the day is done. That's how you change countries, with a little common sense, a little awareness, and lot of smiles and a relaxed and gracious attitude. Now for the little things on the list, I need a shower and shave I've been 6 days in the desert. Then it’s time to hit the town, as I pass the receptionist, I get a nod of approval at the transformation that just occurred in the bathroom. I need some thin socks for the imminent upcoming heat. The sock shop epitomises the Mexican hospitality and helpfulness, they split a pack for me and even give me a calendar.

At the convenient store on the way home for a hot chocolate I’m asked a question I don't understand by the young checkout girl, her boyfriend leans on the counter and is keeping her company through her shift. He could be seen as an intimidating youth, he shows me a plastic bag, oh right, I see, no I think I’ll just take it in the cup thanks. My bike is still covered from the ice and snow dispelling nasties that are put on the roads up north. But a short push from the hotel in the morning is a car wash so my cold engine doesn’t crackle and steam when I squirt the high pressure water over it. No soapy bubbles because I can’t read the choices on the dial. Wow now I remember why I brought it, it looks gorgeous when it’s all clean. Whilst it drip dries I address the challenge of going to find, and order breakfast. it’s not so tricky, I know the sign ‘desayuno’, and I know what I want; Huevos rancheros, the restaurant owner, a tall thin man with a permanent smile has travelled all over the country and speaks English to me, he is an electrician, I’m not quite how that lead him to own a one table breakfast diner in a northern city back street, he didn’t say. He wants to talk about women he's known, and what beaches he found them on, I'm not about to interrupt. Contra to the cactus and sombrero symbols of Mexico there is a lot of it that is high altitude snow and ice. Especially in December. For some stupid reason I ride up to Creel at 7000ft. Why? Because I sort of promised to revisit the place I stayed in last time. It was a big mistake, the guy I made the promise too isn’t even around. He had helped with the production of my website last year. The room is expensive, cold, no hot water, no free coffee in the morning, and the restaurant isn’t even open. You should never go back, so on an empty stomach I go forward into the cold but deserted roads of Copper Canyon, I stay on the paved bit, but 200 miles of scenic twisty roads is worth the uninviting self imposed invitation.

I'm wearing the 4 layers top and bottom I left Denver in, it’s a high altitude, low temperature ride 100 miles of which are before breakfast, the same breakfast as yesterday. In a restaurant with the biggest log burner I’ve ever seen.

I've ridden this road before, I'm sure I have but not a single thing I see is familiar. Yes it is, the military check point at the T junction I remember that. But I'm waved through, they are preoccupied with a bus they have just pulled over. It’s going to be one of those ride till dusk days. A mileage eater a destination achiever. The sun decides to revel itself today just as its going down which is just when my road had turned to face it, but that's fine the best scenery of the day had coincided with its decent and misty hills are the last view from my visor today before my helmet is placed on the concrete floor of a perfectly reasonably priced cell for the night.

I walk the street, find a stall selling something that smells good and is freshly cooked, yes I think I’ll point at that and nod enthusiastically. It’s a good choice and once I've scurried back to my cell the smell of grilled meat and melted cheese distract me from the four walls of chosen accommodation. The amber tint window shows a shadow of my mirror on it from my bike parked outside so I know it’s there. Well the mirror is at least, possibly stuck into a bit of Plasticine on a table top. But its comfort enough to induce good sleep. The last of that dinner doesn’t look so appealing this morning and unrefrigerated I think it will not be left overs best just left alone. So back on go the layers, minus one as I'm sure I will be dropping in altitude today, I pay a quid to miss Durango and use the toll road. (Despite what my spell check thinks I did not give a local beauty queen a pound) A pound well spent all the same, the toll road crosses ravines and cuts through mountains. But best of all its smooth and new not a single red light, nor unfortunately a fuel station. Today I've done 120 miles before breakfast. Perhaps that's why I'm feeling a little down. I pull over for a protein bar; it’s over a year old and is all crumbs and crunch. But I need to put something in my noraing stomach. I'm stopped for 5 minutes, no longer and surprisingly I even have reception on my phone, I discover this because it rings, a very short call from a lovely ex. It was all I needed though, I feel ok again now. Food for thought or mental distraction but I move off the toll road and indulge in ‘La Espinosa del Diablo highway’, one of those prestigious mountain twisty roads that will provide adrenalin all the way to the coast.

I really need to eat something though if I'm going to enjoy this. I stop at ‘Fanny restaurant’, there are so many joke possibilities I’ll let you insert you own here.

Annoyingly it was one of those places that questions your presents in their establishment and all I could get was coffee, the stomach kept churning. But they all came out to wave me off. The tires continued to handle with as little confidence as a hungry gringo in a restaurant who can’t speak the language. However the traffic was light and when I dropped through the tropic of Cancer it was time for a change of clothing.

How it all changes when you leave behind the death of winter, the transition to jungle green, chirping and swarming, flying and crawling, I got bitten just taking off me thermals. Do I care? Better than frost bite. Warmth at last, cloths strapped on all over the place, a little gap between the tank bag and dri-bags to fit my skinny arse in. And I wallow the last of the highway in the last of the light, to a place where I can call home tonight. There was a strange noise in the morning, not heard that sound since England what is it again? Rain, bloody rain, I battle snow, and extreme cold; I conquer bland brown lifeless planes. Blind hairpins on reluctant tyres and what do I get? Bloody rain and a forecast for the same for the rest of the week. It’s one of those easy decisions that isn’t easy till you voice it out loud. The bike is under cover, I have Wi-Fi, I have satellite TV, I have a supermarket across the road and how hard will it be getting a room on New Year’s Eve? I’ll stay una noche mas. Just like the end of the world and Christmas this other significant time on the calendar passes by without any real acknowledgement just chatting with like minded biker on an internet chat thingy. The first ride of the year, especially after a day off is all the more enjoyable. And I've got warmth at last, cloud cover but warmth, that turns to rain and stays that way all the way to the the recommended ‘well kept secret’ of a resort. Which turns out to be an utter shit hole, my room overlooks a sewage works that noisily and smellily pumps all night.

Americans to rich or lazy to walk, ride the streets in golf carts and I can’t wait to put my feet into wet boots in the morning and get out. With an open jacket, what festered in the night is beginning to dry in the morning breeze but then I ride into torrential rain. Was that a speed camera just got me? No it’s lightening; when I stop for fuel I hear the thunder.

The road is flooded, the fields are flooded, the rivers are flooded. There are rock falls on the road; I let a car pass me just before I aquaplane across an unseen dip in the road. Oncoming cars project spry at me with such force I feel the darts of water pierce my jacket. I can’t get wetter, I'm breathing in water from my scarf across my face. Monklets weight tripled and he hung like a ‘bad un’ from the bark basher by his cable tie tether, but kept smiling. Another rock to avoid, it has legs and a shell it’s a turtle crossing, it’s too wet for photos, but a turtle says it all, it’s wet and that's all there is to it. In these situations you have to have optimism, you have to assume you will ride the storm out despite no end in sight. It can’t really rain this hard for the whole day. It’s too extreme and after 3 hours its subsides, well I’m riding dry roads at least it’s still raining, so I can be pretty sure its following me. But I'm leaving it behind along with the hills, the road leads back to the coast.

It’s turned into a nice evening, so pleasant and enjoyable in fact I've gone onto reserve and left all towns behind, I was so wet that when I finished my water and didn’t bother to replace it. So now even a wild camp is out of the question. How can I constantly manage to do this to myself? It’s the most annoying aspect of my own company, I have a firm talk to myself but I'm not really listening, I can justify anything. In a one horse town there is no need for a fuel station but I find a man with a hose and a cleaver little siphoning technique who sells me 5 litres of mileage and I get some water too. Phew, 2 miles later is a camping sign, I ride onto the beach under a cabaña. For £2.50 I have a legitimate place to pitch my tent and somewhere to hang my cloths in a sea breeze, funny how in the space of 10 minutes a dire situation can become a scenario that couldn’t turn out better if it was planed. Sleep by the ocean, wake by the sun rise; soft panniers are drier maps less damp, mozzie coils less soggy, only the boots remain wet.

Today for breakfast I stop at an OXXO, it’s a national convenience store, I get yoghurt and press the button on the coffee machine, it fills my cup...and keeps going, I grab another cup...it too fills and the flow continues...on grabbing the 3rd I call for help, I should have filled my cup from the dispenser the machine is designed to fill up not the machine itself. luckily I know the word for sorry, but not the words for ‘that I've spilled coffee all over the counter, the floor and made a load of unwanted extra coffee no one will drink and now have 2 other cups of the stuff getting cold’ but they can see it wasn’t deliberate. I was looking forward to sitting on a stall in the air conditioned shop to drink it but now I'm too embarrassed and sit outside on the curb by my bike. I'm riding with my cuffs open, it’s a net basically I've made a net out of my jacket, I've cast it and eventually I catch something, a bee, it gets to my elbow and upon discovering there is nowhere left to go it stings me. I'm lucky I don't react to such things, well only in so far as perfuse swearing to stop from screaming like a little girl. I stop at a pharmacy, ‘Do you speak English?’ ‘More or less’ ‘Oh, in that case I’ve been stung’ but was willing perform the mime I have rehearsed in my helmet to back up my simple sentence I'm given the cream that isn’t in my extensive first aid kit. And I’ll hang onto the mime until I have, in the next game of charades to silently illustrate an actor, yoga enthusiast and lead singer of a major 80’s pop group. (No not B.B. King)

Today the road had lots of wildlife, vultures preying on bloated road kill dogs; the sickly stench of death is recognisable before the signs of opportunist prey. Lots of lizards sun themselves on the hot tar; even a tarantula crosses my path.

I'm not going to Acapulco, I have not the slightest need to go to such a touristy place, OK I have a little need, I would like to witness the cliff divers, but I'm not going to ride into town in this heat with such a loaded bike, find a room, unload everything, get a taxi to the cliff, pay tourist prices, get hearded and hustled, it just seems like too much effort. I take the bypass, in the hope of finding a place like last night, I don't. I find a rip off little hovel, with a sweet little old lady who would be all the sweeter if she hadn’t just charged me so much for my room without so much as a toilet seat, which makes it a squat really. And the final push, 6 hours 400 kms to Puerto Escondido, I get stung again, not by the money grabbing little old lady, another bee, it flies through my visor and when I stick my hand in to find where it went it leaves its calling card on my cheek. Out with the cream, I'm getting used to it now. I continue to the place where I will stop, where the plan begins, today seems to be about the destination not the journey, I ride erratically, everyone is driving badly, there just seems to be a madness in the air today. Inevitable it ends in crumpled metal and bloodshed, not mine but sobering to see all the same, not that I've had a drink this trip 16 days on the road and no alcohol. Mainly because, well I just want to see what it’s like. I want that delayed gratification feeling of the first beer on the beach. A bridge takes me over a wide, clear, fast running river, it’s too attractive to ignore. I take the track down to it, onto the sandy bed that I'm not sure I can turn round on. That, for me puts the adventure into biking, doing something you wouldn’t do on ya commute to work, stopping by a river and having a wash, spinning out on the sand and standing on the pegs up the track back to the road. That's what you do when you go away on your bike.

OK it’s not actually ‘adventurous’ but it is I think the definition of the freedom of the trip, self contained, independent and taking the opportunities that come your way. Not preconceive, not researched, just an on the moment impulse that needs no explanation. It occurs to me about a month too late if I had looked at the picture from last year, I could have seen the name of the place I stayed, called them and reserved the room I wanted, the one with the ocean view, great to think that now I've just got within 20 miles of the place. I know I'm getting close I start to see white people on mopeds, any other part of the journey this site would have at least have provoked a wave. Now I have become one of many, no acknowledgement needed. So two weeks to ride 3800 miles, from snow, through baron frozen lands, storms, humidity and heat; now I've made it to my beach of choice. I'm recognised, remembered. ‘One room left’ ‘I’ll take it’ ‘The lock doesn’t work amigo’ ‘I’ll fix it.’ A bargain price for a month’s stay, I unload the bike, shower and take a ride to the super market, I know the isles, where everything is. I get my washing powder and supplies and come home to do my laundry and as calculated I go to my local off licence for a 6-pack of Modelo while it soaks. I'm back; in the evening I wander without knowing I’m heading there, to the Split Coconut where the ribs are barbequed. The toilet block has changed since my last visit. I pop my head inside the new thatched hut and am handed a joint. I sit at my table, sip my beer listen to the music, Led Zeppelin is followed by Boston, I push my toes into the sand, I lean back on my chair so my hair falls away from my neck, I look up at the canopy of palms above me and I feel that feeling, more than a feeling, it says this is where I wanted to be. I remember now. Sometimes it’s OK to go back.

A deserted and dry Christmas

I can’t seem to get going?, I had said I wanted to be in Mexico for the end of the world, the end was drawing neigh and I was still in Denver and my ammunition of excuses not to leave was far from exhausted; replenished even, by the predicted blizzard snow storm on Wednesday.

I couldn’t leave before it came as my tires had not arrived; I fitted them whilst snowed into the garage. Wednesday evening alone in the house I could feel myself mentally preparing for the transition to road life. It’s hard to put my finger on any specific part of the transformation but I slept on the couch that night by the embers of the log burner and at first light I knew I would be leaving today. Well rather than lose face I knew I was going to try and leave today, outside the garage door snow had blown 8’’ deep and drifted across steep and winding drive way.

Feet down, I slithered to the dirt road; I know already I was committed. I could freeze here waiting for the thaw or carry on because there was no way I was going to make it back up again. It was my first trip with the bike loaded. Double soft saddle bags the smaller ones as tank bags the bigger ones as insufficient panniers. They were freely available and the saving was necessary. Baptism by ice for my virgin dual sport tires, which one of the 2 was this? The main road was packed snow, the first 7 miles I was not anticipating the journey to come, just extreme concentration, no wondering thoughts of destinations other then the fuel station. The first fill up, my boots already encrusted with snow. I could see the questions in the eyes of the man behind the till but he thought better than to ask and I had nothing but intentions to tell. On to town for some last minute supplies, I didn’t even bother to remove my tank bag of valuables, passport, money and big fat sealable camera. It was too cold to be weary to cold to thieve. Now to the highway and south, lots of soutnness is needed. The snowy white planes turned to their pre precipitation brown and soon only the Rocky Mountains on my right showed any signs of winter. ‘Well that was easy’ I thought. But I thought too soon. Temperature dropped again an in the town of Trinidad a name that suggested I should be able to feel my toes if not touch them, I needed a warm up. I asked the filling attended to recommend a restaurant, she did and I reluctantly took the recommendation back down the cobbled stone main street authentic and enhanced with extra slippery packed snow. The restaurant opens daily from 7 till 9, 7 days a week but closed today. I ended up in designer cafe where yummy mummies cooed over babies and don’t bat an eye at the price of the pretentious food. Pastry with something organic and inadequate wrapped inside and given a multi syllable name and multi figure price. I settled on a $4 hot chocolate it was as disappointing as a mother half my age and was cold before I got to the bottom of my wide diameter but shallow cup of regretful purchase. Feet still cold back on the bike. Let’s try more of that soutnness again. Into New Mexico I was hoping for a drop in altitude but I would have had to bare left for that to happen. I didn’t want diversions I wanted fast distance and a more direct route; I stayed on the highway, then the stupid southerly highway turned. I was riding into the sunset and then the red sky was on my left, what the fuck? I looked at the map in the tank bag but with my shades still on it was futile. I gained altitude, lost temperature, my heated waistcoat and grips had been doing there thing all day, resulting in me being able to ride all day. Now with the loss of light and a sense of heading back to the frozen north I was feeling the coldness like I was fully exposed. I was immersed in it, all encompassed, and willed the highway to turn through the next gap in the ridge that hid the last of the evening light from me. When it eventually did it was too late, I was frozen to the point of pain. Santa Fe was an hour beyond my extended discomfort zone. Off the highway and the first red light, I unclamped my fist from my left grip, removed my glove lifted my visor of misted short shivering breaths, and took off my shades, it’s still dark. The last 2 miles to a motel were not a pleasant delayed gratification but an agony of endurance, it would have been so much easier if I had a ground floor room and the card key had actually unlocked the door. The 2nd trip to reception did nothing to warm me up, ‘that's frustrating’ observed a bystander who innocence was questionable. The loaded sprint up and down the stairs didn’t get the blood flowing. It’s not a damp cold, not an in¬¬-your-bones crippling cold, just a blast, freeze-dried kind of cold and it didn’t last long once I closed the door on the night and let the heater rumble its way to thaw. My feet still cramped from the curling of my toes in a physically impossible attempt to retract them into my feet whilst the freezing air had turned the wind-chill in my Alpinestars to below bearable. They weren’t stars of this alpine environment. The next morning they still hurt but it was from strain rather than frost bite. More southness yesterday has to have been the worst day. I always said 2 cold days and I’ll be OK.

Down towards Roswell although I haven’t the slightest interest in aliens or UFO's. The windswept planes blew the snow across the road and the blue sky let the sun sparkle a million glistening crystals to pierce the scratched polarization of my Oakley’s, that were forced uncaringly into a pocket last night at a red light. I took the truck route to avoid downtown and any more red lights and the feeble displays of little green men. I was warming up, a blood red sunset as I entered Texas and I could switch off my waistcoat and stop for photos.

But I’m not going to camp, not tonight, one more night of luxury, well for the price I paid I would have expected it but all I got was sleaze I walked to a truck stop, a once familiar part of my life. Impatient big diesels ticking over in line for the fuel pumps. I scurry between them like a rat round wheelie bins and into the fluorescent shop, for heat lamp dehydrated pizza and chicken wings of battery decent. This hotel never sleeps, doors bang all night, cars honk their affirmation they are remotely locked and loud voices move to slowly outside my door. It never seemingly ceases, and my dreams are distressing and unstable, ex’s and attractions I thought I’d forgotten about but it seems the file still exists, accessible in a subconscious sleep deprived night, alluring and dangerous. The world didn’t end last night, so much for my Mayan party; I was awake all night in a Motel 6 that felt like a Texas whore house. A new day a new beginning the next solstice is 182 days away. What did I miss out on last night apart from sleep? Other than birthdays I’ll party when I choose to, not when the calendar tells me to. I'm obstinate like that, but it avoids the crowds. I eeek out the morning waiting for the temperature to rise. As I take another load to my bike a ‘fellow biker’ asks of my destination, he has a Russian ‘girl pal’ with him, wants to ride Siberia, ‘have you ever?’ Well actually... he can’t believe me but the mention of Ullan Ude to his pillion and a map in my book removes all doubt. I can’t help it; I haven’t mentioned it for nearly 2 days. Well I’ll never see them again.

Mexican cleaners stand by their trolleys outside my door. Turns out I passed through a time zone and I'm an hour later then I thought. Onto a lonely road that leads to the international boarder.

800 miles and I can revert to fingerless gloves. I stop on a silent road to readjust my multiple layers of clothing, I've entered southness. The bike encrusted in salt, the luggage thrown on with numb fingers, all this can be rectified now, well soon. A nasty little town with over priced fuel and a shitty attitude to match, because there is no other choice. It has echoes of home, the place is called Marathon, I expect it will be changing to snickers sometime in the future. And then down to a national park, Big Bend, imaginatively named by the shape of its border with Mexico. I have to slow down now, now its warmer, I have to get back into road mode, remember it’s the journey, the moment the immersion. Slow it down and take it all in. $10 and I'm a tourist again. So I better go to the visitors centre I suppose, get the lay of the land. As I pull into the car park so does another bike, its Bob, Bob has been riding this park every winter for 19 years, he marks my map with the best off road trails and camp grounds and with that the transformation has occurred, I am synchronised again back in the rhythm of the road. Took 3 days and 1000 miles but now I'm right again. As I apply for my back country camping permit I'm told there is only 1 hour and 40 minutes of day light left, where did the day go? I wanted to eat in the lodge. Instead I get a frozen burrito from the fuel station. I don't have my glasses, how long do I put it in the microwave for? Long enough to buy a tin of ravioli, some water, and kettle chips, another healthy dinner awaits.

And I ride, off the road, on to the dirt, between the rocks, round the hills, to my individual desert camping spot, its perfect. Solitary, silent and I have a sunset to myself. Did the ranger who booked my back country permit read me? Who I was? My desired location? or did he just want me out of the way? Like a hostess seating me in a roadside restaurant, I don't care this is just what I was looking for.

You couldn’t create desert like this in your theme garden with cactus and succulents, tumble weed and the odd trace of a past civilization. Your B&Q sand would lap up to conifers or an interwoven fence, not infinite distance and daunting mountains of red rock, nothing is as authentic as nature. When the distant desert dusk fades behind the biggest mountains, a half moon casts me a shadow and now I'm ready, ready to stop and enjoy, enjoy not being on the road anymore. Utter silence, too few people witness this, the sound of the blood rushing in your ears. The sound of nothing else, no breeze, no crickets, no planes over head no distant traffic, just stillness. It can be scary, 360 degrees of land that has not been changed by modernization. The human mark is minimal, a single light 30 miles away is visible, actually it’s really annoying, bloody inconsiderate neighbours, and I may have to go have a word tomorrow. This place won an award for the darkest sky anywhere in the mainland US; strangely the trophy is quite bright. My camping stove had not been used in 11 months, it still has fuel in it, impressively it still has pressure too, I have forgotten the knack and the hairs on the back of my hand singe with a sickening smell. I boil water for tea, I don't fancy that ravioli now. I'm in my sleeping bag at 6.45 on a Saturday night, I don't care, there is no credibility here to lose, time and days are irrelevant out here. I just wonder what I’ll do for the 12 hours of darkness... sleep is what I did, undisturbed sleep. First light spans the horizon like a shallow rainbow outside my open tent, just where I anticipated it to appear, it’s hard to get perspective on it, could be a head light, or the top of an illuminated dome. But it’s just dawn, just the first evidence of it and its very exciting, to new to miss, to vast to view from my tent so I run up a hill to take it all in.

When the sun and hot chai has taken the chill away, blood, ink and thoughts flow more freely. As I write my diary I hear the rush or wind and look up to see it comes from the wings of an inquisitive crow as it glides over my head. It’s really quite loud before being replaced by the sound of silence.

That’s the sound before we messed it all up, this is a still land, and it can still be found. I don't think I want to leave it for a while. If I had demons they would surely come out to play in a place like this, but I don't, nothing to bad seems to be surfacing. The occasional embarrassing memory, recollection, released from suppression and the song in my head gets spontaneously sung out loud to repress the recounting and cringing. I ride, deciding an unattended tent in this deserted area is safe but not secure I take the trails and my valuables take a pounding, lap tops and SLR’s were not designed for this battering but better broken in my possession than taken in full working order in my absents.

Miles of uninhabited deserted desert roads, then the paved road leads to the tourist sites; I suppose I better have a look and stock up at the all you can eat salad bar. The calling to my silent wilderness is deafening and I happily leave humanity behind. The indecision of the road is back; at my camp tonight my quandary is am I hungry? No. Do I want to carry the ravioli on the bike? No. Do I have an answer to this ridicules dilemma? I could stay another night. I suppose I better see what I'm missing is there somewhere better I could be? How can this satisfaction stay if I don't prove to myself I've found the best of the desert? When I relocate to the a river camping spot, the bike is now hanging like a Christmas tree with gifts of cold weather clothes, it’s not an pretty site, I need to work on this.

This evening the bond with my bike began. We ride up to nearly 6000 feet, its cold but the west side of the park I discover is the most popular for a reason, it’s by far the most scenic. I light is going and it’s a long way back, well 40 miles, every ride out is a minimum of 70 miles the place is so vast and the scenery so stimulation the distances disappear in a constant stream of thoughts and sights. However these 40 miles back I will feel every one of them now the temperature has dropped. However its one of those rare occasions when you warm up as you ride. I drop 4000 feet and the sky ahead is pink, the formations silhouetted against the sky, I have no luggage and the road is smooth and empty, the wind is warm so is the road and the tyres. I lean it more than I've had the opportunity to before it’s quite possibly the best Christmas Eve ride ever. I sing a Bruce Dickenson song out loud even my voice sounds good this evening.

I meet the neighbours, this popular river location means I have to share with 2 others. They live in there camper full time, in the evening they invite me for Xmas eve ordurvs. It’s good to have a little company, keeps the weirdness away, well I try my hardest. They have, they tell me 4 levels of protection, air horn, car alarm, mace and level 4 is a machete. I consider mine, a Swiss army knife with multiple torturing devices from toothpick to corkscrew never underestimate the pain of tweaking tweezers, yeah be afraid, ya better run on home to ya mama if ya know what’s good for ya. And the ravioli lives to see another day. Christmas day perhaps. There is a reason people like me stay in a desert this time of year. I bloody hate Christmas. Hate summer heat and no one minds, dislike autumn leaves and it’s just fine, moan about November rain and people empathise but say you can’t stand Christmas and all you get is ‘bah humbug’ well there ain’t no humbugging out here, ha. So it would seem there is nothing significant that appeals to my being on this date. But deny it as I try, I still have some obligations and have to go to a place of reception. The park of the recreational vehicles. And the chatter of their inhabitants. It’s not my favourite environment. I have to sit in the laundry room to charge batteries and get Wi-Fi. Spinning machines with warn bearings screech they dilapidated displeasure and still the inhabitants talk above the noise. Children scream as they are taken to the showers, and my tranquil existence has been infiltrated and eradicated. Replaced with resentment and repulsion. I leave with loathing for everything, people, location and date. I go ride some trails but the water falls off my bike. I go back to my tent but take the wrong road, where did my satisfaction go. I doze in the sun, calm, I need calm. But some inherent instinct is telling me to do something significant with this day. I ride, unaware that my destination was the lodge, for the all you can eat dinner. It was awful, based solely on indulging Americans in their shallow need for quantity over quality and the unignorable conversations that penetrate my foul mood match the offerings, bland and unnecessarily excessive. I hear a lot but no one is saying anything. The two redeeming features of the meal are the stolen creamers for me morning chai and the use of a porcelain toilet. So this is Christmas. The night is cold, my water freezes, my dawn climb rewards me with a beautiful sunrise but the chill in my hands is saying more southness is needed it’s time to go to Mexico.

One more day of discovering canyons the sides of which divide countries, it would be all the more impressive in the right light, in warmer times and with better ambiance. But the domestic row of a family on the vista trail echoes off the walls, all this yelling just for a photo, and what memories will that photo bring. I take a different path, I always have.

I come across an old forgotten dwelling which once housed a family who would no doubt say all I've experienced here is nothing compared to the lives they lived here. Before there was an all you can eat salad bar, entry charges and convenient paving to vista points. But the silence remains the same (most of the time). Back at camp I run over hills to photograph another stunning sunset.

I'm getting in touch with the beauty of the desert, the plants and occasional wildlife. I could spend more time here but it’s too cold for comfort again tonight. It’s time for the ravioli and no desert.

I think I feel the need for a taco and cerveza its been a very dry week.

The damage done

Well I woke up, that’s a good sign. I can move and everything, this is all very encouraging. Anxious to discover my limitations I try and sort my bike out; hanging parts are relocated, re fastened and reinforced, a shattered lens is tapped into a mirror stalk, reflecting more images than I have memories; lids are perched on bent panniers. And today bungees have greater reasonability’s.

I have perfected the overland high kick. It’s an essential manoeuvre to mount the bike. Tank bags and top box leave a small space for a skinny arse to fit in and no room to wriggle.
Agility, momentum and balance are required to propel myself into the pilot’s seat. I don’t seem to have any of those right now, just determination and necessity. They turn out to be an adequate alternative.

Gingerly, that’s the style of riding now. I have shell shock reactions. The speed is slow, the confidence gone and the fear is rife. I find myself throttle down every time a car comes the other way, it’s a knee jerk, knee trembling reaction of self preservation. But my knee won’t jerk, it won’t even bend, it sticks out, resting on the highway peg like a joisting pole.
Of course now I am wearing all my safety clothing, horse bolted, door locked.

It doesn’t help my dexterity but it covers my vulnerability a bit. I don’t really have a target today, other than stay up right, the accident replays in my head, over and over like an unexpected dumping, heart not broken but battle scared all the same. What could I have done to prevent it? What can I do to prevent it happing again? A crow scarer explodes down a side street, explosions and fireworks are common place here. But now I break instinctively, was that my tyre exploding?
I think I'm glad I'm riding alone, no one to push or pull me beyond my seriously reduced limitations.

I stop at an auto parts shop to replace broken bulbs, blown on impact.
‘Where you going?’ some interested locals in a pick-up ask
‘Veracruz’
‘Be careful man there are drug dealers there; or maybe that’s what you’re looking for’
God, now even the Mexicans are giving me warnings, just because 35 naked bodies of a drug cartel were dumped in the road on a major intersection a few months ago, in a display of power and intimidation, suddenly it’s considered unsafe to go there. The only body on the road that scares me is my own.

Two days of timid riding get me to a familiar city to see some familiar faces. I'm going to be a needy guest. But I'm in the right company. A plan is hatched over breakfast, calls are made and before the bike is striped of luggage the first of many fixers has arrived to view the damage. Plastic is procured to fix the screen, and then off we go in a pick-up. The first 4 wheeled vehicle I've been in for 3 months, I get new tyres, mirrors, and my panniers are dropped off at a car body place.

At the end of a weekend of good food good alcohol and good company, the bike is looking and running better than it did before the accident. And the panniers, they are perfect. It was done so efficiently and precisely. If only my body had repaired with such speed.
Monday morning I pack the bike as the rain pours, the humidity escalates and the mozzies hover. There’s no urgency other than I'm now on a mission to get to Denver. No more site seeing, no more diversions, just a destination.

By the time I'm ready to leave only puddles are left and within half an hour the road and day and hot. This paranoia is ridicules I've only been riding half an hour it feels like my tyre is flat again, I stop to check, it is. My new rear Pirelli is on the rim. So now in hot sun, no shade, I strip off my cloths and the panniers again to repair it.

The nearby puddle is deep enough to submerse the tube but I can’t find the hole so I just replace the tube with a spare I have, it is also punctured but I know where the hole is and repair it before I fit it.

I have a 5 day window of good weather to get to Denver. My direct road north is taking me through some areas I've been warned about, there is a very strong military presence, patrols of pick-up trucks with guns mounted above the cabs and heavily armoured solders, vigilantly wilding there automatic weapons, I don’t feel unsafe. The thing with war zones and places of conflict whether it be an oppressive regime, infighting drug cartels or invasion is that life carries on, people still need to eat, so trucks deliver, shops are frequented and fruit sellers still sell their wares at the side of the road. I'm sure it’s a very different scene at night. But for now it’s just normality with an ominous presents of the army. No one is expecting me or waiting for me. I don’t dither but I have to stop for food and fuel. And I see no evidence of any trouble at all. I suppose you have to know what to look for and where to look.

In Veracruz I was shown a house that was literally sprayed with bullets. It was in a good neighbourhood, now the windows are bordered up but that doesn’t hide the gunshot damage which is as dense as a heavy hail storm. It was planed and specific; no one is going to waste their bullets on a limping overlander.

After two days I'm on Friendship Bridge, the sat nav springs into detailed action and I sit in a 4 lane queue with air temperature of 110 degrees and slowly push my bike forward to be processed. But it’s not Mexican immigration, when I get to the front I'm at US customs and I've missed my chance to get my temporary vehicle importation fee refunded and it’s quite a significant amount. After a half hearted look in my panniers a little chat about the English music scene and the obligatory scaremongering I’m free to enter Texas.
‘Any trouble’
No none at all, the stories aren’t true you know, everyone was kind, friendly and hospitable’
‘Yeah tell that to the guy who was here yesterday, he was kidnapped’
‘Kidnapped? Well not with too many restraints if he was allowed to cross back home’
Is the scaremongering a compulsory part of the immigration process? I mean I'm coming from the country now, I'm experienced, and informed, you are on the ignorant side of the fence. Stop telling me how dangerous Mexico is. It’s bloody not.
I'm wet with sweat, thanks to all my stupid black safety clothing on. I have one thing I want to do, get a room. Actually two get a room and shower, no three things I want to eat too.
I want to look at a menu, recognise every word and order just what I want. So as pink clouds illuminate scruffy palms I sit in an open air restaurant and eat a ridiculously large meal surrounded by ridiculously large people, with ridiculously loud conversation, none of which have any substance at all.

My room is cheap but still the price of 2 days Mexican budget but it’s sumptuous, clean and the bed is so soft that my bruised and swollen body feels like its floating.
Over a polystyrene cup of coffee and under a cool cloudy morning sky I decide I want my money back, it’s a tough decision. One of my least favourite aspects of overland travel is boarders and my most hated is US immigration, but I did both yesterday and as I ride south again I realized I am going to do both again today, I pay my toll to go over the amigo bridge and I'm back in Mexico, I hadn’t had my passport stamped on leaving so I that is my fist little hurdle, they didn’t seem to have missed me.
‘Where did you spend the night last night?’ I wasn’t asked
‘Oh I went and slept in American, very comfy bed you know’
I should have got myself some breakfast whilst in Mexico but I rode onto the vehicle import place and quickly and efficiently got processed. Right back to America then, the beggars on the bridge recognise me and we exchange a few words. The queue is as long as yesterday but I know which lane moves quickest now because it splits into 2 at the end, it’s cool and comfortable today.

The comfort ends at the immigration booth.
‘When were you last in the US?’
‘About an hour ago’
‘Why wasn’t your passport stamped?’
‘Don’t know’ ask your inept colleague
‘Where is your form you present along with your pre approved electronic visa waiver programme authorization?’
There is no form that’s why it’s called ESTA, it’s electronic.
‘You need a form sir’
No I don’t, you’re as incompetent as the other shift, can’t we talk about Supertramp and Roger Waters like I did yesterday?
No apparently not, I have to be accompanied to the processing building,
‘Walk on my left sir’
Really it’s that strict? Do you really think I'm going to pull your gun from you holster and shot you with it? If you’re so afraid of guns perhaps you shouldn’t carry one, that’s why I don’t carry one, they can so easily end up in the wrong hands.
3 hours to get processed, it’s wrong; I didn’t tell them obviously, I'm in on the wrong visa, idiots. But more than that, I was here yesterday under the radar. I could have stayed indefinably in the US no one knew I was here, and I could just go back to Mexico which I was never stamped out of and come into the US again like I’d not been here, ho hum, I really wanted my $400 back though. When I go back to my bike I have a little crowd of customs men gathered round we exchange a few words a prelude to the compulsory warning, ‘have any trouble?’
‘No none what’s so ever, Mexico is harmless’
‘You must have the luck of the Irish’
And that little sentence says so much. Paranoid, scaremongering, irresponsible, ignorant and afraid, and on top of that they still don’t know my bloody nationality.

Ok 1200 miles to go on smooth roads with sign posts and no speed bumps. I have to keep reminding myself to obey the signs, laws are enforced here. There is a sign I'm sure it’s a contradiction or maybe I'm just being pedantic. ‘Warning signs must be obeyed - Texas state law’ it says, well it’s not a warning then is it? It’s an order.
with my right leg leading, stuck out on the peg and my scabs peeling, I do the highest mileage days of the journey.

In San Antonio I see a sign for ‘The Alamo’ so I divert off, ride a few blocks , stop, take a look, and mentally check that site off my list of world sites I've seen. Then I’m spat back out onto a highway of 5 lanes in rush hour. Its really requires quite a lot of concentration. I'm out of practice with large quantities of fast moving traffic in multiple lanes.

When the metropolis dies down back into farm land, all the land both sides of the highway is fenced, regardless of what inhospitable terrain is beyond it. Fly camping is significantly harder and more dangerous here. Fenced in the name of fear and protection of territory terrified of trespassing. I dare not fly camp, they all have guns, it’s an isolating quality, its self generating, it’s hard to decide if they are fencing in their fear and ignorance or keeping knowledge and enlighten out.
However with no potholes or other unseen obstruction its safe to ride out the last of the light and with a very good comprehension of the language I get a camping spot in an RV /caravan park, it’s the price of a good room in Mexico but I do have wifi in my tent, and I'm even offered a tent heater for the night, free of charge, but she looked like she might snore so I just politely said goodnight.

Bloody hell it was cold in the morning, down by the river the cold air lingers, steam comes off the water, beautiful it may be but it’s not exactly a the cosy entry into a long day on the road.

It’s a gradual night time decline of body warmth, combined with hunger and self imposed dehydration to avoid getting out of the tent into the freezing night.
I all depends on your basis of comparison but I'm beginning to think this is a bit hard core. 8 days ago I came off my bike, since then I have ridden through tropics, through rain, through humidity, fixed punctures at the road side, ridden through drug cartel territory, through the US boarder twice, along crowded impatient city freeway rush hours, camped in frigid conditions and now I'm up and off to continue my 2300 mile return trip.

Texas is massive, I'm really not sure why they made it so big but it can’t be ignored. It’s just about stimulating enough to keep me interested. Distances are big, but there are slow variations, a landscape of contradiction when the oil wells mix with wind farms.

Now distance markers have changed from kilometres to miles everything takes a little longer to get to, but the secret to progress is momentum not speed. And as long as stops are planned, for the most efficient use of time I can ride through my little window in the weather without extremes. I know its January, I know what season it is, I just keep forgetting, when I see the random white rocks on the north side of buildings in the evening light, it dawns on me that I have now ridden to where snow lies on the ground in an air temperature too cool to melt it away.
I should stop in this town but for the last hour I have watched the sky to my left promises a spectral sunset and now I'm going to ride west into it.

It delivers in full and even when the rest of the sky had eventually given in to night the burning western embers of the spectacular display refuse to be extinguished.

I suppose I’ll get a room tonight, in fact I get 2 cus my noisy neighbours won’t shut up or show the slightest bit of consideration. So using my native linguistic skills I request and relocate to a different room. Where I continue not to sleep. May be its excitement of the last leg, or the pain in the first one, maybe its overtiredness, but I wait impatiently for dawn; it’s so late coming in this time zone boarder town. 7.40am and I still can’t read my tyre pressure gauge, 8am and hyper from caffeine I find myself judging the timing of the traffic lights to co ordinate it with the donning of the helmet and my departure, it’s safe to say I chomping a bit.

Not to be out done by yesterday’s end of daylight display, the dawn is equally spectacularly in a difference and incomparable way. A low sun undermines a dark heavy sky that makes the blackness shine and then something happens that I'm not sure I should share, not just because the site might be beyond the limits of my written word, not to mention my camera but also because it was a moment in time that seemed to be just for me and left me in awe.
There was a flock of perhaps 70 white birds flying in an agitated display, a frustrated formation, against the ominous sky. Pinpointed by a searchlight sun, they moved as if they had no more substance than feathers delicately tied together and being blown by a strong wind. A systematic motion but with an uncoordinated grace, they came towards me at 45 degrees slowed enough to distract but too fast to even attempt to photograph. It would be futile anyway. One of Mother Nature’s entrancing moments in time. Witnessed by one and then gone.
That was followed shortly after by the disappearance of the sun and with it the promise of any warmth to the day disappeared too.

I stopped for breakfast. Ignored instinct, into a large 1800’s dining room of a ‘historic hotel’ it’s not heated, other diners are complaining and the solitary waitress has the grace and competence of a hung over teenager, which I'm pretty sure she is, the food is slow, cold, greasy and raw. Annoyed at myself for eating it, accepting it without complaint and paying for it, I stood outside emptying my panniers to find the lead to plug in my heated vest, the vest has been redundant the whole trip and it occurs to me I have never seen the lead. So it becomes a waistcoat, nothing more.

It’s too early to lose my momentum but I do along with my stomach contents at every available rest stop as the raw potatoes slices marinated in cold oil and served with the chill of an inefficient establishment demand a premature exit. Public toilets, cold concrete, multiple layers, chilled, painful, awkward and un cooperating limbs, combined with a cramping tummy. All this with the knowledge that everything I own of value is out of site beyond this unlockable and graffiti covered door. The greasy food no doubt the cause although it had the graced to assist with the evacuation.

And finally the 200 mile homerun interstate to the high snow covered plains of central Colorado.

The winds are strong and gusting, I ride at a 60degree angle. At last, after 2000 miles reducing the width of my highway wide chicken strips, at least on the right side.
The highway warning signs say ‘wind advisory for high profile vehicles’ well I have a blog and a book, do they mean me? I'm not sure the book sails will blow me away, but it’s the book that’s sending me home.
The bike is strong and responsive, it seems to like this cold air and altitude, and I think it will be staying in Colorado, that’s what it’s telling me.
We got on ok, we had a nice little 10,000 mile ride but I think we will be going our separate ways, no hard feelings we just know each other well enough now that we know what’s best for each other. There may be a mutual appriciation but we never really bonded.
My eyes and desires are drawn towards KTM’s, after all isn’t it all about new experiences?