Andar En Moto: El Paso to Casas Grandes

To ride a motorcycle is “andar en moto” in Spanish.

Sunday 3/28/2004

 

This day I got my first look at how we were to fix bikes on this trip when we changed my front wheel: manpower.  We had 2 guys lifting the bike up and balancing it on its kickstand and 2 guys changing the wheel.  It went fast but the speedometer/tachometer still didn’t work.

 

Here Alfonso, Rene and Dad are getting ready to ride. (As always, click on the image for a larger version.)

 

Instead of heading straight into Mexico , we took highway 9 about 60 miles West along the border.  It was extremely windy, but still a nice ride just because of the beautiful desert country we rode through.  We cruised pretty fast which was new for me, going that fast on the road on what felt like a dirt bike.  The wind was annoying, blowing me and the bike around a lot, keeping me on my toes.  Turned out this route got us to a much easier border crossing where Alfonso seemed to know everyone.  We were waved right through, no questions or anything.  We did have to stop and get vehicle permits for our motorcycles, which was no problem.   A Mexican guy with a silver engraved tooth tried to sell me a little baggie with 3 pieces of candy in it, but luckily I had no change or any small bills so I had a great excuse.  Unfortunately I pretty much never had any small bills or change until the last couple days of the trip, which was decidedly inconvenient.  Most places I tried to spend a 500 peso bill ($50 USD) they couldn’t break it, including museums etc, and the one bank we saw (in Creel) had a huge line in it so we bailed.

 

After the border we had our first really fast ride.  As Alfonso said, it isn’t really illegal to speed if there no police there!  We took it to heart.  I don’t think we were ever anywhere near the speed limit.  The first stretch we were doing 85 mph in a 36 mph zone!  Alfonso said that went for Stop signs too, so needless to say there wasn’t a lot of stopping going on.

 

Here are the guys at lunch.

 

At one stop I had to use the toilet but on the way in there was a guy standing there asking for money, he mumbled veinte (20) and when I pulled out my wallet he pointed to a 20 peso bill, so I gave it to him and proceeded.  Seemed a little steep so I asked Alfonso “20 pesos to use the toilet? Is that for real?” and turns out it should have been only 2 pesos, and the guy was overcharging gringos (Bob also paid 20).  Alfonso went over there and got the guy to give me the change.  I didn’t understand but evidently the guy said I walked away before he could give me the change!

 

There are military checkpoints in Mexico , and not at the border.  We went though 2 that day.  The first one was easy but the second one we got thoroughly checked out, including motorcycle permits and drivers licenses.

A military checkpoint. (Jay’s picture.)

 

At Casas Grandes we went to the Paquime ruins museum, which was interesting, although I’m not much into museums generally.  Casas Grandes (big houses) is apparently named for the Paquime ruins. 

 

In the parking lot of the museum.

 

Dad and I with some of the ruins in the background.

 

 

A better shot of the ruins.  I think these are actually reconstructed ruins, not quite the originals.

 

 

Here’s the hotel we stayed at in Casas Grandes.  Not too shabby eh?  We thought it was cool of them to let us park our bikes inside the grounds instead of out on the street.

 

Before dinner we met for a few beers in the bar – Carta Blanca turned out to be pretty popular.  Then we piled in Alfonso’s truck (Dad and I in the back) and went to the 2nd oldest house in Casas Grandes for dinner.  The French owner and chef (Phillippe?) dropped by to say hello, evidently Alfonso knows everyone.  It was a great dinner – I had a great steak. 

 

Alfonso taught us a new Spanish slang phrase “buenas nachas”, which means “nice ass”!  Note the similarity to “buenas noches” which means “good night/evening”.  Didn’t turn out to be useful for me on the trip, but it was pretty funny that Dad mixed the two up often, saying “buenas nachas” to two guys as we left the restaurant!  Luckily they were gringos too and evidently didn’t know what he’d said.  Dad provided lots of good comic relief with his mangled Spanish on the trip, and would quite often go through English and French first before mangling the Spanish.  I’m pretty sure on the last day of the trip he was still regularly saying “Thank… Merci… Gracias!”