Day 18 - Real de Catorce to Parras

Breakfast was planned at 8:15 our time down in the Restaurant el Real, so 7:15 alarm was set and observed. There were bells all night long at 15 minute intervals, but Jim & I both slept well.

Up at the alarm, I was down making a few repairs, then packing, getting the duffel in the truck and off to breakfast. Same walk down and up, but easier after rested muscles. Jim & I had light fruit, juice, toast & coffee breakfasts.

After the Himalayan trek back to the hotel, we got our bikes loaded and turned around(no easy tasks with the narrow cobbled streets) to head for the easiest path down and out of the cobbles. Luckily it no rain had appeared and the cobbles were dry this morning. We made our way down to the trail we would take out of town, with only a couple of delays. It's amazing how generally patient people are when it comes to a street blockage caused by someone unloading people or goods..

We descended to the trail, which we thought was going to be a piece of cake, although it was described by Roger the night before as a goat trail. We took that to mean a fairly steep two track(meaning a trail for a 4 wheeled vehicle) trail and it was. The kicker was it was very steep at the top and very rocky, much like the town cobbles but laid out by Mother Nature, not masons. Up near the top, off to the left, down in a ravine was the ruins of a silver smelter with a huge(200' tall – estimated by Ken) masonry chimney. Most impressive.

After a white knuckle 3 Km of natural, steep, cobbles and small boulders, it eased up a bit.



Jim at the end of the knarly downhill.. !!



And Kenny in the RAM at the same descent.
He had quite a view over the edge of the narrow "road"

 The rocky stretches then eased into a dirt track through several small villages and finally out onto a secondary asphalt road. Got the blood boiling alright, as Roger described it, along with the sweat and adrenaline glands,

After that morning fun, the rest of the day was a piece of cake, spent mostly on freeways with nice road surfaces. We had lunch at another Pemex gas stop, but this was at a proper restaurant. Several had cheeseburgers, which included a great piece of ground beef, nice cheese, a slice of ham, avocado and the usual other partners(lettuce, mayo, tomato, etc.). It came with sauteed quartered small potatoes, instead of fries Very good after a small breakfast anticipating cobblestones and then enduring the unexpected goat precipice.

After lunch , we noticed some huge industrial complexes. Signs indicated the first set was a large Chrysler complex. A second complex a bit further on was a Diamler factory that had a large inventory of new large diesel truck cabs parked outside. As we continued up the road, a couple of dozen very new Mercedes/Chrysler large buses rolled by us toward the Diamler Chrysler complexes. It was about 2PM our time, and I'd expect they were bringing second shift workers to the plants. Interesting place.

This brings me to a sidebar about the vehicles we've encountered during the trip. We've seen lot's of neat smaller autos we don't see in the states. There are El Camino (front half auto with a small pickup bed in back) vehicles from Chevy(appear to be a Cobalt front end) and VW(with a Golf/Jetta front end). There are Siats(Spanish Fiat) and Peugots and smaller Vws(Polos) that we don't get in the states. There are many “city” cars by Hyundai, Fiat(Panda) and others. Kinda fun. Like you're a kid again seeing what cars you can ID. Motor scooters and small 100cc Honda(and clones) motorcycles are ubiquitous the further South you go. They're almost as plentiful as Prius’s in Hollywood.

Another nice break from Cali is I haven't seen one Prius, since entering Mexico.

We rolled into Parras and the Hotel el Farol about 4:30 and relaxed for a bit before dinner.



A rather unassuming entryway



With yeat another wonderful courtyard!!



 For dinner, Jim & I both had chile rellenos, two per serving, one with cheeses and one with a ground meat mixture. OK, but not great. After dinner, some of the group did a quick walk of the shops and made a purchase or two, I think Tom got a cowboy hat.

We did have a heater in the room, which we put on low for the night, and after the teenage dating/mating game going on outside abruptly died at about 8PM(kinda neat, the kids must actually respect and observe a curfew), we slept well.