(21) Ciudad Obregon to Durango

Time to get things caught up. In the prior post I got us across from the Baja Peninsula to the mainland and on our way to Copper Canyon. The staging spot for going into the canyon is the town of Creel. We decided that it was too far to get there from Ciudad Obregon in a single day. It seemed fine from a distance standpoint, but the road is extremely windy and both Google and our Garmin GPS’s were telling us it would be a 9 and a half hour ride if we went all the way to Creel in a day. So the decision was to break it up into a two day jaunt. The only place that was big enough to have hotels was a town called Yecora. So we set off for there.

The stretch from Ciudad Obregon to Yecora was a pretty non-descript ride. Oddly enough even in this little town in the middle of Mexico there were two hotels listed on hotels.com. One of them had several pictures of motorcycles in their parking lot, so I chose the King Hotel. It happens to be across from the King Super store and next to the easily the nicest house in town. We saw a couple of King other things in town so the same family must own half the town LOL.

We had to walk across the street to the store to pay for and get the keys to our room but that all went off without a hitch. The room wasn’t fancy, but it was clean, dry and had hot water (even if it came out at barely more than a dribble). Those are really my only hotel requirements. After our time in the Baja and out of at the coast it was nice to be up in the mountains where it’s cool. This was our first hotel room with no A/C, but rather a heater. It wasn’t cool enough to need the heater, but it was cool enough we didn’t miss the A/C either. And it had a nice big porch out in front of the room. We decided that having a porch required some snacks and beers to appreciate properly. So into town we went to pick up beer and chips.

While we were sitting there chatting we noticed very dark clouds starting to come our way. We both said that we didn’t care if it rained now. We were in the hotel and well stocked to wait out the storm. Well, about a half an hour later it did start to rain. And I do mean rain. I will post pics and a video of the downpour. The porch had a corrugated metal roof. During the worst of the storm Neil and I had to practically yell at each other to be heard over the noise the rain was making on the roof. Finally the wind kicked up too and chased us off the porch and into our room to wait out the rest of the storm. We heard a bit of thunder but never saw any lightening.

By the time the storm let up we were starving. So even though there was still water draining down the streets we set off into town to find a place for dinner. We spotted a little taqueria and saw people eating inside so decided it looked as good and anything so in we went. It had a total of four tables with groups of people at two of them. They all seemed to be locals so we figured we chose well. We had good tacos and headed back to the hotel for the night. We knew the next day was going to be a long day.

Yecora to Creel is 270km (or about 167 miles). That doesn’t seem like a long day but given how windy the road is and it’s condition (narrow, pot holes and debris) it took us 6 hours to cover that distance. We arrived in Creel tired but had a great day riding the twisties 😁. Creel is a nice and cool this time of year since it sits at 7,700 feet in elevation. We found our hotel easily but realized it had no off street parking. Neither of us are in to leaving the bikes just sitting out on the street for the night. We saw a different hotel next door to ours with a gated parking lot so we pulled in there. While we were checking in to our hotel we (when I say we I mean Neil) asked the lady of it was OK to park in the lot of the hotel next door. Neil said she called her boss and he could hear the question, “is it OK for the motorcycles to park in your mother’s hotel?”. I guess both places are owned by the same family. In the end all was ok and we settled in for the night before setting off for the bottom of Copper Canyon the next day.

Our destination in Copper Canyon is the little town of Batopilas. I read that the road down to it has now been paved, but we still didn’t know what to expect so we set off fairly early the next morning. The first 70km of the ride was a continuation on the same highway we took into Creel. At that point we turned off of the road down to the bottom of the canyon. Batopilas is at an elevation of 1,800 feet. So we drop about 5,000 feet in 60 miles to the bottom of the canyon. While the reports I read of the road being paved were true I think the better description would have been “was paved at one time”. A storm had come though a few weeks before and the bottom half of the road (the steep section) was severely pot holed, covered with rock slides and in one spot totally washed out. The one washed out section of about 200 yards had been opened up by a bunch of 2-4 inch diameter rocks dumped and somehow spread out. Bad enough to get through that section in a four wheeled vehicle but very dicey for us on two wheels.

There is no margin for error on that section either as there is a sheer drop off on one side. Add to that my rear brake got too hot and chose that moment to go out on me. All’s well that ends well though. Both Neil and I got through without falling and continued down the switchbacks to the bottom of the canyon. From there it’s maybe 10 more miles along the river to the town of Batopilas. While the road isn’t steep in this section, it isn’t in any better repair after the storm. We had one more fun spot ahead. That was a very large “puddle” across the whole road. Puddles can be very deceiving. One never knows how deep they are and what the ground is like under the water. Having no other option though Neil went first and bounced his way through without falling. I could see that he hit a rough patch of ground so I decided to take a line slightly to the left of where he went. My line was much smoother, but also MUCH deeper. I had water up to my knees and splashing over the wind screen onto my helmet visor. I came out soaked and filthy but upright and we were able to continue into town uneventfully from there on.

Batopilas is a cute little town, Google says, of about 1,200 people. There is one eco-lodge in town for an exorbitant amount of money and two little family hotels. We stumbled on Hotel Mary and got our room for the night. Luckily for us it has a restaurant attached, so food was easy too. There are two things Batopilas doesn’t have that we hadn’t planned on. There is no bank, hence no ATMs, and there is no gas there. I have no idea what the locals do for gas since there are cars, trucks and scooters everywhere. The nearest gas station is 70km back up the canyon road. I’m assuming people bring it down in barrels and only make the trip to fill those up occasionally, but we had no way of knowing. At any rate we were glad to have enough gas we weren’t concerned about making it back up the hill and to the next station.

To be honest I didn’t sleep too well the night in Batopilas. I was worrying about getting through the puddle and the washout upright the next day. On the plus side after it cooled down my rear brake started to work again. Although I would hardly need that going up hill. Also on the plus side of the ledger going up through rough terrain is easier than coming down. At any rate, the puddle turned out to be a non-event on the way out. We both spotted a much better line to take through it and while a bit slick with mud we were able to navigate it pretty easily. Seeing the washout section from the vantage point of looking up made me realize exactly how narrow that 200 yards of road really was. Like the way down, there really wasn’t any choice but to pick a line through the rocks and give it some gas! I went first this time and felt I did pretty well in only having to put a foot down once to keep myself upright and made it though. Neil had a similar run. Both of us are glad we got up and down with no damage to either us or the bikes. Copper Canyon was one of my motorcycling bucket list items. It is an absolutely stunningly beautiful area but something I will never try again on two wheels!

Once back out on the rim we continued on to the city of Parral where we spent last night. Today was a fairly long day from Parral into the city of Durango. We’re still fairly high in elevation in the Sierra Madre mountains so it’s nice from a temperature standpoint and the countryside is pretty, but this was really just a “get there” day.

Bob, who we met on the ferry from Baja a few days ago, texted me while we were in Batopilas to say he was going to be in Durango and wondered if we would be there also. As it turns out he is here the same two nights (tonight and tomorrow night) that we are. We’re at different hotels but he is going to ride over to our hotel tomorrow and help us out with a bit of motorcycle maintenance. My front tire is worn out so at a minimum we are going to change it out. Neil’s rear tire is close to worn out so we may do a couple tire changes with his help. Doing it with someone’s help who has done them by hand before will be a good learning experience for Neil and I for when we get a flat somewhere and have to do this on our own. Tomorrow is also laundry day and any other odds and ends we need to do while in a major city.

Today’s ride in did have one fun part. While riding down a fairly isolated part of road today we ran across a trucker who was broke down and trying to flag someone down for help without much success. So even though we really didn’t have much we could offer other than a cell phone we stopped to see what we could do. His cell didn’t have any reception but ours had enough that he was able to call his office, but from the look on his face he was none to pleased with whatever it was they told him. We were unclear as to exactly what his mechanical issue was, but once he got off the phone he asked if we could spare a bit of gas. He said if he had just a little gas he could get his rig started again.

Neil and I were both perplexed and asked if his rig was a diesel engine and he said yes. We certainly didn’t have enough regular gas in our bikes to get him anywhere and didn’t think it would work in his rig even if we gave it to him. He was able to pantomime and talk to Neil enough to communicate that was he wanted was to spray some into the engine while someone was cranking it and that combustion would be enough to get his engine to start. We were dubious but had plenty of gas to spare him a liter for what he wanted.

Next problem was the fact we had no container for gas to give him. So he went and rummaged around in his cab and came out with a half full bottle of Coke and proceeded to pour the remainder out and told us to use that. Next problem was we had no hose with which to siphon the gas out of our tank and into the bottle. So, back to the truck he went and came back with a black coil of tubing. He did the sucking on the tube to start the siphon process thankfully. Neither of us wanted a mouth full of gas. He got about a half a liter into the bottle and said that would do. Then he poked a few small holes in the cap so he could make an approximation of an atomizing spray when he squeezed the bottle. He had Neil get in the cab and crank the engine over while he squeezed the bottle to spray gas into the air intake of the engine. It took a couple tries, but sure enough after a bit the engine turned over and started up. He poured the remainder of the gas back in Neil’s tank, thanked us profusely and headed down the road. Our good deed for the day done, we just continued on into Durango.

And that brings us current. Since we are here for a full day tomorrow, I’m going to call it quits for the night and post the pictures from the last few days tomorrow. Whew!!

P.S.

One story I forgot to mention during the time we were in Batopilas. We went in to the little restaurant attached to the hotel we were staying in for dinner the night we arrived. Not too surprisingly the menu didn’t offer a lot of choices, but we both thought the enchiladas de pollo (chicken enchiladas) sounded good and Neil ordered those for us. Unfortunately, Neil’s accent must have been hard for the lady taking our order to understand. What wound up coming to our table was two orders of pollo ensalada (chicken salad) and a whole basket of saltine crackers. LOL. It was good, but definitely not what we thought we ordered.