Day 1- Mexico!

Day 1-Mexico-

You know that feeling you sometimes get when you wake up, and you fell and say to yourself, “man…its going to be a good day today”. Well I didn’t exactly get that, but a lucky day I had indeed.

As I departed El Paso Texas this morning at 6am, freezing my butt of at 32 degrees Fahrenheit, I crossed the Santa Teresa Border, where a batch of obstacles awaited me. First I was asked to show my vehicle importation permit, visa, proof of payment, and then some. After that, we moved on to the next assembly line of a military check point. Lucky moment #1 on my trip, apparently I was given a hard time about having pepper spray and a knife by the military. I have taken these with me for protection obviously from unfriendly people. After a nicely placed statement(lie) of defense against animals in the Taramura mountains where I was supposedly headed, how much they scare me, and my fake animal phobia that caused paralysis(a lie obviously) and a showcase of my entire camping equipment line included sleeping bag, pillow, stove, burner, dehydrated food etc. I somehow convinced the officials of my sincerity and told me the next military officials would not so understanding and to stash away my “animal” defense tools. I thought to myself, “wow, been in Mexico for 15 mins and already I got a story and got away with something”. Welcome to Mexico!

As I continued down the road a few hours later in Cuauhtémoc, near Chihuahua, I was minding my own business driving along down town with plenty of traffic checking out the beautiful Taramaura Indians with their brightly colored clothing and style, when I realized I just completely blew a stop sign. I thought, I’m glad I’m ok, but luck would have it, wouldn’t you know it, a cop was right there! looking at me run the stop sign like a complete idiot. Well sirens and lights went on, and I thought, crap, he’s going to take my license, give me trouble, steal some of my stuff, or might have to give him my first bribe. As I took a second look at him, I realized he was also driving a motorcycle and greeted me with a hand shake. I obviously knew what infraction and violation I had committed, so I kindly explained that there was a lot of traffic and a big truck blocked my view of the stop sign and I was very apologetic about it (all true). After a brief smile he said, “no worries, where are you from, what do you do, where you going, where are you coming from, cool looking bike” etc. Needless to say we sparked a conversation and the entire traffic violation was forgotten and I was sent on my way-Lucky moment #2. Viva Mexico!

Chihuahua picture above

As I continued down the road, we got into the copper canyon area (barrancas de cobre), my best details would be, and it was like mixing Yosemite national park, the rolling hills of Marfa TX, and the grand Canyon all together. Absolutely beautiful, and tomorrow will be some nice off roading down into this amazing canyon that’s deeper and bigger than that of the grand canyon.

Some other funny information-got attacked by a dog, met some nice German people, celebrated Brett’s birthday(my current riding partner through Mexico), spent $15 on toll roads, and spoke Chinese to a Mexican man so he would leave me alone.

Until next time, good bye!