[12/06/2024 – 19/06/2024[

Intro

New day, new week, and the waiting game is young. So the plan is, to continue with the routing we had up to Novojoa. So let´s have some dirt roads first and then get to the Carreterra National 16. The routing went up towards Rosalia, and then we need to reconsider. Anyway first real dirt road in Mexico, and I was both excited as well as a bit anxious. Turns out it was fun. While we anyway are waiting for the paperwork to come through, we might as well get our bike serviced. The price we got from the U.S. was at about 900.-€. So let´s see what it ll be in Mexico. But before then, we got the CN 16, and while last week I was writing about the CN 40 to be “THE ROAD”, it seems that Mexico has many more of “THE ROAD” to offer. And it goes on for hundreds of kilometers of bends up and down hills, through pine forests. Still in desert, but nice temperatures, especially during the night.
At lunch in Rosalia we decided to go east towards Chihuahua, which hopefully offers a Yamaha dealer that will service our bikes.
That plan led us towards Yecora and after a night spent there, further on towards La Junta, where the CN16 becomes more of a highway up to Chihuahua. From Yecora to Chihuahua it is about a 400km ride, and even though we started the ride early in the morning, due to a timezone change we missed the opening hours of the dealership – by mere minutes.
Luckily Friday morning first thing we went to the dealership and they were happy to service the bikes, Monday we will get them back. So that leaves us with a quiet weekend in Chihuahua. Stefan found a club for Saturday and besides that – NOTHING. Netflix and Chill, the chilling part just not in the sense it got introduced through Tinder.

Today is the 19th of June, which means summer solstice is just around the corner, which is interesting as up until this point the sun and us were moving in the same direction. When we started in December going south, the sun was still going down. She turned around end of December and we followed from January onwards. Now our routes divert, as the Sun is moving south, while we will move further up north.
On this note, a few weeks ago, for the first time I have found the North Star for the first time in my life, hope that I will keep finding it without the help of an App (using Stellarium).

While we are waiting on the paperwork to be finished, so we can enter the United States with our bikes. We make the most of the time we got by not requesting the paperwork on time. So Chihuahua up north, and then turn towards the West again. This will lead us right towards the desert and we will see some more dirt roads, really looking forward to it. Up side is, that we are up on elevation again, which means temperatures in the mid thirties during the day and below twenty during the night. On the other hand though infrastructure (in terms of hotels and gas stations) is a bit scarce.

Ah one more thing, we needed to renew our Mexican civil liability insurance, as we only had it till 15th of June. We decided to go with another 10 days, starting on Tuesday (18th), lets see if the paperwork will be finished before.

Wednesday: Novojoa – Yecora

Bit of dirt, and really nice roads, enjoy the video and the pictures.

Thursday: Yecora – Chihuahua

The same like the day before, beautiful roads, beautiful landscape, and then arriving in Chihuahua.

Friday: Chihuahua

Were able to handover our bikes to the Yamaha dealer, they seemed to be really happy to work on our bikes. If we would have showed up in a shop back at home, without a prior appointment, we would have been loughed out of dealership. The rest of the day was spent doing nothing and watching some TV.

Saturday: Chihuahua

Same drill like the day before, with an evening out in the town. The club was quite cool, it was an atrium dancefloor with a really big palm tree. And the music (techno) startet out slow and the later the evening it turned into more of a rave. There was even a remix of “Massive Töne – Mach ma lauter”. Everytime we hear German music abroad it is a very strange feeling.

Sunday: Chihuahua

Again, nothing done.

Monday: Chihuahua

Another easy day, especially since we got our bikes back, and we did not pay a fortune for it. As far as we can tell after 280 km of riding, they are spotless. And after our experience in Colombia this was definitely a way way better experience.

Tuesday: Chihuahua – Ciudad Madera

Lovely ride out of Chihuahua, up to an elevation of 2000 m going through agriculture country. Once we reached Ciudad Madera, I went for a short run up to Cruz Verde. This was at a bit of an elevation from the town overseeing the plateau.

This concludes week #29, and while we still wait for the bureaucracy to finish turning and send the needed document our way, we just make the most of all the wonderful roads around in Mexico.
Till next time,
Happy Hacking everyone