(January 16 – written by Dave) Today we entered the tropics, this time under our own power - we crossed the Tropic of Cancer heading south.  We’d actually already crossed this tropic once on this trip – on the ferry from La Paz to Mazatlan.  But we’re not counting that crossing because some of us … Continue reading Getting Tropical- Sain Alto to Fresnillo (70K/9063K)

(January 15 – written by Dave) Today was another good day on the Central Mexican Plateau.  The Central Mexican Plateau, also known as the Mexican Altiplano, is a large arid-to-semiarid plateau that occupies much of northern and central Mexico.  We dropped onto the Plateau when we crossed the Sierra Madre mountains into Durango.  It’s pretty … Continue reading More Central Mexican Plateau- Vicente Guerrero to Sain Alto (85K/8993K)

(January 14 – written by Dave) Today’s ride was just one of those days to ride through.  Not a lot happened and the scenery was fairly ordinary.  That’s not to say we had a bad day.  In fact what Highway 45 out of Durango lacked in terms of scenery, it more than made up for … Continue reading Not much day – Durango to Vicente Guerrero (87K/8908K)

(January 13 – written by Dave) Durango is famous for a number of things – first up, many traditional old western movies were filmed here.  They even have a cowboy/western tour of some of the old movie sets.  We didn’t go on the tour but we did spot a local cowboy busting some moves in … Continue reading Durango observations

(January 11 – written by Dave) After spending 5 days in the mountains, today’s ride into the big city of Durango was always going to be a bit of a letdown in scenery wise.  But it was not at all boring. For starters we knew we had a longer day so we started early.  Early … Continue reading Road hazard day – El Salto to Durango (103K/8821K)

(January 10 – written by Dave) Last night we ended up cooking dinner in the hotel kitchen.  The place called itself a hostel but our poor Spanish prevented us from fully understanding our host.  We were able to use the kitchen again for breakfast so we just don’t know what was formally allowed.  Time to … Continue reading It’s cold up here – La Ciudad to El Salto (47K/8718K)

(January 9 – written by Dave) A bit of a rough night in the old Hotel Samantha last night.  Someone had had a fire in the fireplace in the room recently and the smell of smoke was still quite strong so we both tossed and turned a bit during the night.  Knowing we had a … Continue reading El Espinazo del Diablo –El Palmito to El Ciudad (58K/8671K)

(January 8 – written by Nancy) We actually had a pretty good night in the Hotel Villa Blanco.  We were the only guests and the accommodation was a bit rough (we are into ‘no toilet seat’ territory) but the bed was pretty comfortable and we slept okay.  It may have been that we were both … Continue reading Leaving the tropics –La Capilla del Taxte to El Palmito (37K/8614K)

(January 7 – written by Dave) Good hard day of riding today.  We only did 26 miles but there was over 4,200 feet of climbing and we are not in perfect riding shape yet.  It took us 6 hours to cover the distance, probably a slow record for anyone doing 40k.  Sometime during the day, … Continue reading Into the mountains – Concordia to La Capilla del Taxte (42K/8576K)

(January 6 – written by Dave and Nancy, trying to get back into the swing of things) We are back at it.  Back at riding that is.  Our study and tourist breaks are over.  Given how little we’ve ridden in the past two months, we took it easy today.  We rode only as far as … Continue reading Starting over – Mazatlan to Concordia (52K/8535K)