[05/06/2024 – 12/06/2024[

Intro

Idiots will be idiots. As you may have seen on the Instagram reel, letting my tumbling while already standing still, idiot move. However this week, closed with an even bigger misfortune, as we discovered on Tuesday, that you need an EPA letter of excemption to temporarily import a vehicel into the United States. This particular document can take up to 21 days to be processed. Our plan was to cross the border into the U.S, on the 15th of June and we only applied for the letter on the 11th of June. Not much math needs to be done on that one. Such is life.

Anyway after our forced stop due to (for me especially) extreme heat, we set of towards Durango and found this lovely pueblo named Pinos, was a bit off the highway, but we are anyway not overly keen on riding highways, ´coz booring (for the most part). The MEX 70 towards San Louis de Potosi was a nice ride though. In Pinos itself we found some nice local Mezcal, smooth, still some kick and we bought half a liter, wich is now (not completely though) sitting in an ex coke bottle ;-). I hope it was properly distilled.

We are now back at elevation and the temperatures dropped, significantly, from mid forties to mid/high thirties. And we determined that desert heat is if 38 something degrees feel somewhat cool again. The landscape is beautiful. Cacti, Palm trees, other trees and dry grass land, and you have hills all around you. I have said it before, some of the roads we have ridden in Mexico were just perfect, bendy, great landscape, low traffic, just like you want it as a motorcycle rider. However little did we know that THE ROAD is still ahead of us. Durango to Concordia – MEX 40 – not to be mistaken by MEX 40D. Now that is a road, not knowing what to do first watch the passing by landscape, focus on the road or just stand still and take it all in at once.

Just fucking multitask already.

While Mexico compared to the Central American countries is rather wast again, this is some sort of riders Meca, which now begs the question, why have we seen so few foreign riders? Oh by the way the MEX 40 from El Palmito to Concordia is the venue for the mexican version of the Tourist Trophy, where each year in November riders from all over come to participate in a race (or so we have been told).

Wednesday: Agua Buena

Chill day after the excessive heat the day before. Some blog stuff, and bathing in the river out front. not that it gave much of refreshment, but it was nice nevertheless.

Thursday: Agua Buena – Pinos

MEX 70 was a nice ride, and Pinos a very nice village to spend the night. If you stay for a few nights longer, you could go hiking and exploring the surroundings.

Friday: Pinos – Durango

Good uneventful ride, put some kilometers behind us, as at that point we were still following the plan, to cross the US border the coming week on Saturday.

Saturday: Durango – Concordia – THE ROAD – MEX 40

Just watch the video and enjoy the pictures.

Sunday: Concordia – Las Glorias

If I think that initially i thought, let´s ride the Pacific coast all the way, cross over to Baja and go up to the border. What fool I have been. The path we actually took this far through Mexico was so much better, and we have still missed out on some really cool ones i am sure. Anyway the MEX 200 / 15D they are more or less straight lines and straight lines are boring if the landscape is not breathtaking.

By the way we skipped Baja California, as the ferry schedule – what we could research online – was a bit hinky, and as well they wanted to have 500.-€ for each one of us including bikes for a 12 hr ride, and we were not sure if that is worth it.
Las Glorias did not dissapoint, beautiful sunset, beach, what else do you need.

Monday: Las Glorias

Apart from the obvious, we spent one day here, to get our insurance for the US and Canada, which was a bit of a hassle but in the end we got them from SeguroGringo.com and with a bit of a scare after the buying process, which was quickly resolved by their very attentative support personnel we are now set from an insurance perspective for the northern Americas. The rest of the day was filled by running and staring at the sun (song by offspring) and sea.

Tuesday: Las Glorias – Novojoa

Great breakfast, and then somebody used his cellphone and we stumbled accross the EPA letter of excemption. SHIT. Called the EPA, yes that thing is mandatory and can take between 14 – 21 days of processing. FUCK. Again very attentative support personnel, but the process will take whatever time it will take. Sent the request right away and now it is a wating game. We moved forward towards the border anyway. And this ride was not nice at all, it was the 15D and once we crossed into Sonora, wind picked up, well wind is an understatement, it was more like a 46°C hairdryer wind bringing a lot of sand. So much so, that we decided to call it a day in Novojoa. Good decision.

Outro

In anticipation of our border crossing, i already contacted a Yamaha dealership in Phoenix Arizone, to get our bikes serviced at 40´000km and as well to get some of the parts that have been broken. Front fender, back license plate holder and lighting as well as my chain guard. Well the license plate holder, anyway did not have an ETA on delivery (need to think about my license plate light). Regardless, I had to cancel that appointment, which would have been on the 18th of June (we just simply will not make it).

This concludes the week with an actual full on downer. Such is life.
Till next time,
Happy Hacking everyone.