Day 6 Batopilas to Guachochic

What a day... The last of our eggs and bacon made up breakfast. Out of the scrambled eggs, fried eggs, bacon and refrieds, I managed the two fresh fried eggs and bacon, with a few beans.

Roger, enjoying the morning feast..

And Don pleading for more ..:-)

Fortified, we left for the longest, and most difficult stretch on dirt of the trip. The section of dirt consisted of mainly single lane(some wide, some narrow) roads, from scrub to pine forest. There were some very knarly uphill sections, and the same for the downhills. The main obstacles were rocks of all sizes, ruts, holes(in shaded areas), silt, and trucks. The trucks were all sizes, from logging trucks to small Nissans. Uphill traffic has the right of way and you need to watch for dust ahead to mark the impending arrival of some type of vehicle. It's amazing most of those vehicles can be used to navigate those “roads”. This went on for about 30 miles, and was a tiring, but exhilarating exercise for all.

Starting out in the morning, waiting for all the heavy traffic to pass...



Jim & I photo'ing each other




The bottom is down there somewhere..




There it is.. Gulp!



Wow..



A stop by a roadside monument with metates in the forground..



and the metates..

Take care of the forest..

 We stopped in a village for lunch. Don dismounted and  desperately  barked out "BANYO"(bathroom) for all the staring locals to hear. No one answered. Seems like protocol, which Roger eventually satisfied was to approach the fella who was obviuosly the one in charge(mayor?) and give greetings. Banyo was not on the approved list of salutations.. :-) .. Once that was all straightened out, we retired to the home of a woman who served us a very nice peasant soup with tortillas and beans(I think, memory fades).



Don taking photos of the village dogs after his banyo break..



Kenny carried a 50 pound sack of dogfood, just for the hungry mutts.
What a guy!

After about 30 miles the road became less difficult and mostly "lane and a half" of relatively obstacle free dirt. There were still logging trucks to pass, on their way out of the forest with their haul and rutted areas with water crossings in a few isolated villages, but we made it out to the freshly asphalted highway by about 2PM.

From there it was a straight shot to Guachochic and the Hotel Las Cumbres. Guachochic is a pretty small village and the hotel reflected it. Beds were OK, no bottled water or glasses in the room, the toilet seat was on the floor with the nylon bolts that attach to the base, broken off. It was a challenge to use.



Checking in..




Where's the banyo??



Made it!!

Once we arrived, Ken started working on the truck again. Evidently, the truck wheel would turn 3 turns to the left, but only 1 turn to the right. The still bent steering arm was removed and Roger strapped it to his bike. Off he went to a machine shop he knew and returned an hour later with a straight steering arm. We delayed dinner until 7PM, so Ken could reinstall the adjusted parts and get the alignment close...

Dinner was at a Cafe Cappucino next to the hotel and most had tacos of different types and a Negra Modela beer. We'd had Modelo Negro before, so not sure what the relationship is. We retired and read, or wrote, until about 9PM, then lights out.