May 24, 2001
Guadalajara to Mazatlan

My itinerary notes that my goal for the day is Mazatlan, but since I expect good roads for most of the way and since it’s only just over 300 miles, I’m confident that I’ll get much farther. I speed through morning rush hour traffic and just three or four miles south of the hotel reach the multi-lane “ring road” that will connect me to Mexico 15D. It will be a freeway for the first 130 miles; as far as Tepic.

With an excellent road surface I’m cruising comfortably around seventy miles per hour when I spot the first of several road signs that are a motorcyclist’s dream – “no maxima velocidad.” That translates easily into English as “no speed limit,” and I smoothly crank the Guzzi up another ten miles per hour. It’s not yet 9am, and although it’s still cool at the 5,000 foot elevation of Mexico’s central plain, I know it will be very hot as I descend to the Pacific Coast at Mazatlan and I want to get in as many miles as possible before the heat begins in earnest.

The freeway, so great for making time, peters out in about eighty miles and I’m unceremoniously dumped out on a two-lane highway, built through coastal swaps at about ten or fifteen feet above the surrounding land. This is the main highway between two of Mexico’s major cities – Guadalajara and Mazatlan – and the traffic is heavy, particularly with large trucks. Shoulders on the road are virtually nonexistent, and the steep drop-off bodes ill for me should my attention wander. It’s not long before I come across two semi trucks that have gone over the side; I silently vow not to join them, and gently ease off the throttle.

In spite of the narrow road and the increasingly hot temperatures I’m enjoying a lunch of succulent shrimp on the Mazatlan waterfront by 1pm, at a great little restaurant with a commanding view of the bay.

Mazatlan has always been one of my favorite Mexican cities although when Jan and I first visited in 1981, it was a small collection of upscale, mostly Western-style hotels built along the turquoise waters of the bay, surrounded by hovels and worse as we made our way into the surrounding residential areas, just a few blocks back from the water. On that trip we took a bus downtown, then got scared as we walked the narrow streets to the central market. In retrospect, I believe that our fear was much more related to our youth and the trip being our first in Mexico, than to any actual danger.

At any rate, Mazatlan seems benign now. Businesses appear much more prosperous, houses more substantial, and new cars and trucks ubiquitous. People on the street seem better dressed. Perhaps this is a result of both NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) and better governmental economic policies, although perhaps it is my perception, since I’m less than two weeks removed from the grinding poverty of Nicaragua and Honduras. Whatever the reason, it is a welcome change.

Upon my return to the street I find a group of twelve to fifteen teenage boys, who by their uniforms are members of a local baseball team, silently admiring the bike with a sense of amazement. I acknowledge their presence as well as the presence of the two adult chaperones and as I prepare to mount the bike, not one of these young men has moved so much as a muscle, held at rapt attention by the sight of the red Guzzi with its state-side license plates.

Although my Spanish is little improved in the past three weeks that I’ve traveled in Central America, I decide that I owe my collective admirers an explanation of what I’m doing, and so in halting Spanish briefly tell my story of shipping the bike to Costa Rica, then riding from San Jose through Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and up the length of Mexico. I go on to explain, as I have to so many others over the last 3,000 miles, that I will continue north through Hermosillo and Nogales (adding Cuidad Obregon and Guaymas for local flavor) and across the western United States via Tucson, Phoenix and Salt Lake City on my way back to Seattle. There is complete silence as the team listens in assembled disbelief. I apologize again for my poor Spanish (Lo siento. Hablo muy poco espanol.) the one phrase that I’ve gotten down cold, and prepare to mount the bike. The male chaperone steps forward to say that they’ve understood every word, and thanks me for explaining my trip. Of course I’m elated at even my limited ability to communicate.

I navigate the streets of Mazatlan to again gain Ruta 15D, the autopista that I’ve ridden since Mexico City and Guadalajara, and that I’ll follow north to the American border.