Day 105: Finally on road again
Really struggled to leave Mazatlan. Don’t know where I heard the term “sedated by comfort” but it seems like the perfect phrase. Have been “resting” (read being lazy) for more than 3 weeks now using the excuse of “Christmas”. But no more. Today is the day I get back on the road.
Navigating the outskirts of Mazatlan was an experience. At one point, there was a gauntlet of dogs lining the sides of the back road that I found myself on for a good km. They all seemed peaceful, but it would only take one to chase for them all to join in. I put my head down, tried not to make eye contact with any of them. Felt like I was cycling across a nightingale floor or something, where one wrong move would send the hounds after me. Almost got across without being chased too. The last 3 dogs decided to give chase, but by that point I was basically at the main road so got refuge there.
The Mexican state that I am in now is called Sinaloa. Mazatlan is in Sinaloa too. To all friends and family, don’t google this state, it is super safe. To all bike taourers reading this, there are some cartel problems here. I have felt nothing but safe but good to be aware of the problems and keep tabs on it if passing through.
Speaking of which, compared to Baja, there is much more Military presence here. Read this as many more guys with much bigger guns going around in much bigger trucks. It isn’t unusual to see big 6+ foot mounted machine guns on the back of some Military trucks or to see 5-10 open back trucks with 3 to 5 guys standing in the back of each, each with a big gun. Even saw some Military guy with a sniper rifle in an (small convenience store). Crazy stuff.
I have decided to go towards Tepic rather than go into the mountainious off road trans Mexico route. There are 2 roads that go to Tepic, I learned over beers with some other bike tourers last night. There is the 15D toll road that bikes are not allowed on but is much less trafficked and has a very large hard shoulder. Then there is the other 15 road which bikes are allowed on but much less of a shoulder and much more trafficked. I didn’t do any prior planning but this group of bike tourers were talking to others ahead of us who all used 15D without problem, and they were just waved through the toll. So I decided to go with 15D. Only problem was my RideWithGPS wouldn’t route me onto this road when I was drawing the route so I had to tell it that I am a car. Can we have a “I accept this is wrong but do it anyway” setting for RideWithGPS please?
Cycling itself was fine today. Not very scenic or anything but am glad to be back on the bike. Another noteworthy thing I am realizing is that I won’t see the Pacific Ocean again for quite a while.
Not many camping options here in El Rosario tonight so I got a motel for tonight.
Tepic is a little more than 200k from here. Part of me wants to try to get there tomorrow. But I don’t think there will be enough daylight hours. Smarter move is to do 2 100km days to get to Tepic. Also looked like there will be a 1000 meter climb into Tepic at the very end of the ride. So I will see how I am feeling tomorrow afternoon and will probably stop somewhere after 100km.
