TravellingStrom

Day 299– 3rd October 09
Saturday – Batopilas, Mexico

Rain rain rain and more rain!!!

Yep, that is what I woke to this morning, it was dim outside though the frosted windows, but the noise I heard sounded like they were hosing the courtyard, they were always keeping it clean. It was not until I ventured outside that I realised what was going on.

The rain did seem to peter out after a while, but regardless of that fact, although I had committed myself to riding out tomorrow, there was no way I would do it with wet muddy roads on a steep mountain and this rain looked to have dumped a lot of water overnight. After V dragged himself out of bed we went back to Carolina’s for brekky and during this time it seemed to stop for a while.

V was still thinking about riding up with a day of sun to dry the road out, but as Prudhoe Bay was the first dirt he had ridden, I was unsure if he realised the extent of damage water can do to dirt roads on steep slopes, including washouts, ruts and of course landslides. Holland is full of paved roads and very flat, so he had no background on any dirt until he got here, or the fact there is different types of dirt, one way to learn I guess 🙂 As we headed back to the room it started to rain again and harder than before, the rock boys had finished yesterday but today the truck was back with a load of sand for some younger chaps to cart up the stairs.

A bit more book reading etc for an hour or so, but the rain just got harder and seemed to be settling in 😦 There were a lot of people supposed to be coming into town from everywhere for the festival and some had already arrived but looked a bit wet with not much shelter around. At least the streets were paved and not mud, unlike the roads in!

We discussed about how to contact The 3 Amigos at some stage, we had phone numbers in Creel so it should not be a major problem. Now, how about this for coincidence, one of the other guests at the motel went past and said hi, he said he runs a business around here, we then found out he was Ivan and he was one of The 3 Amigo’s, the instigator in fact, so how lucky was that 🙂 He spoke excellent English and has been a bike rider for years and travelled extensively, so he was an excellent source of info. He said he would talk to the motel owner, Martin, and sort out a truck that can take two bikes, but because of the Fiesta, we may not have an early start as there will be drinking all night long!!!

We told him we were not in a hurry, and would rather wait an extra day than ride in a truck with a hung over or drunk driver up the mountain 🙂 The afternoon passed quietly, we actually skipped lunch because we had had a big breakfast and so later in the day, beer called 🙂 We headed down to the pub with the old stone building in the back and had a couple for beers here, but we got a bit hassled by a very drunk and stoned dude, he light up a joint and all this we could have handled but he was totally messed!

The point that made us leave was when he cut the top off a can of beer and used it to piss in, because he was too lazy to walk out in the rain to the dunny, plus we were not sure if he would throw it at us either!! We walked back up the road to the nice lady’s food place where once again without a menu, we managed to score a great meal, I have no idea what this is called, but it was beef with rice and a spicy vegetable mix as I had finally managed to say ‘no refried beans please’. 🙂 There is a bowl of tortillas and I made a lot of burritos out of this mix, a big dinner 🙂

We bought some beer at the pub and put them in our motel fridge and went back and forth to the square, there was not a lot happening, but there was supposed to be free beer and food, none to be seen!! It had sort of stopped raining by now, still a light drizzle every now and then and there were more and more people sitting around doing nothing but drink. There were a lot of drunks already, a lot of them native tribe’s people, but a lot more of those were just sitting patiently with a stoic look on their faces, plus they were wet and cold and most likely hungry. Photo opportunities abounded, but the only one I took was of the main square, I did not want to cause any dramas as the flash going off attracted attention.

We met Alexander again, he was a tad pissed and it seemed everyone was waiting on El Presidento who was not around. It seemed a strange way to run a fiesta, there were numerous soldiers around and police but we had not seen any of the ‘other’ gunmen at this stage. We went back to the motel for another beer and sat down for a while in the courtyard, it seemed a bit boring and not even any music, very strange and it was gone 10.30pm !

Then we asked the motel lady about it, well I said ‘no fiesta?’ and shrugged my shoulders, she said yes, yes, blah blah blah and from this we gathered there is a big talk fest going on and the fiesta starts afterwards, well within an hour it had done so, and the music started so we went back out and just generally stayed in the background, but not hiding, we had been told that tourists are not a problem and would not be touched, so that was fine by us 🙂 Of course, we ran out of beer, so when we bumped into Alexander again, he showed us where to buy more as the other shop was closed. We went over a small bridge where I stopped on the way back to take a few night scenes of the river which had swollen dramatically during the day, it was in full flow, you can see the swinging bridge in the middle!!

So we spent quite a few hours just watching the scenery, all the girls were out in force so there was plenty to look out, what a shame you weren’t there cos I took no photos, for safety’s sake 😉 We spoke to Alexander again, he was having a good time 🙂

We also met some other chaps during the evening on and off who spoke a bit of English as they had worked in the states. They were stoned off their tits though and seemed to be in the market so to speak, but the market had shrunk due to the government but it was best to avoid that subject. We did find out later from Ivan, when we headed back for the last time around 1.30am, that due to the rain there had been some changes to the agenda. The usual practice was for the current El Presidento(the mayor in actual fact) to outline his policy for the next election, he would normally do this in the square in front of everyone, but due to the rain, the meeting between the landholders and tribes people had to be held indoors! That was the reason for the delay, but once it was finished, the fiesta started. This would go on all night, including the band, so they were in for a long night I guess. I crashed finally around 2am.

Day – 0 miles and 0 km
Trip – 38,612 miles and 62,140 km

Cheers
TravellingStrom

USACanadaMexico

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