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My expectations had built up to unsustainable levels while I had made my preparations, and the actual start of my journey was something of an anti-climax. I suppose I had expected that everything would change, and it did, though not at first. It was on the highway speeding through Mexico and listening to the perfectly timed appearance of Jim Morrison’s voice as I saw dark stormy clouds and lightning flashing far away over the surface of the vast desert plain that I felt the profound stirrings of emotion I had been expecting. It was at this time that I got the first hints of the life-altering series of bizarre and unforgettable experiences I would soon have. One of my first destinations in Mexico was Creel. A small town placed high in the Sierra Madre mountains, it is the gateway to the magnificent Copper Canyon; a natural wonder that puts the Grand Canyon to shame. After spending a couple of days seeing the sights, it was time for me to go on. I looked at my map of North/Central America and saw that the Pacific was rather close, but that the mountains blocked my way and the only road to the Pacific lay far to the south near Mazatlan. Disappointed, I pulled out a highly detailed map of northern Mexico. Looking closely I saw a faint dotted line connecting a few small villages nestled in the mountains that lie between Creel and the Pacific. Intrigued, I asked the locals about the possibility of driving over the mountains to Los Mochis, a city on the Pacific. All told me that it wasn’t possible and that I would have to take the highway south and cut across to Mazatlan. I then approached a trucker who was doing some maintenance on his rig and asked him about it. The first thing he asked was whether or not I had a four-wheel drive car. When I told him I did, he replied that the dotted line was a road, but that it was unpaved and in very poor condition, and often impassable. He did say though that it was infrequently used by the Mexican government and by some of the villagers who had heavy-duty pickups. I said thank you, and he smiled and shook his head after he wished me good luck. The next day I left Creel early in the morning to begin the reputedly impossible drive over the Sierra Madre mountains to El Fuerte and Los Mochis. The trip started off well, and in less than an hour I had reached Divisadero and stopped to enjoy some breathtaking views of Copper Canyon. I continued on, finding the road paved all the way to the last medium-sized town, San Rafael. The pavement then abruptly ended, as did the carefree driving of the early morning. The “roads” that followed could best be described as poorly maintained hiking trails barely wide enough for a car by US standards. My pace slowed to a crawl, and for the next eight hours I never left second gear and rarely was able to exceed 25 miles per hour. In many stretches 15 miles per hour felt dangerously fast. That said,
the passage through the Sierra Madre Occidental was so incredibly beautiful
and gave me such a sense of adventure that it ranks among the most interesting
days of my life. After a few hours I came upon the village of Bahuchivo,
where to my great relief I was able to buy fuel and food. The reader would
be mistaken to imagine a brightly lit Exxon station with a Kmart. This
“gas station” consisted of a middle-aged Mexican man siphoning fuel from
a rusty 50-gallon drum at the front gate of his ranch. The people I came
across were amazed to see me, given that few cars pass through the area,
and almost none had ever seen a vacationing gringo. To characterize the
villages as rural is an understatement; I can’t imagine any place
accessible by vehicle could be more isolated. In some parts I “drove”(crawled
over rocks and ruts, avoiding sudden death at every impossibly sharp and
steep turn) for a couple of hours without seeing a single solitary soul.
The mystery of the ferry’s absence was soon solved. The visibly drunk ferry captain, who claimed not to have heard the honking of my horn over the Mexican folk music blasting on his radio, was hitting on two teenage girls waiting to cross the reservoir on the ferry. After exchanging some less than civil words with him, I convinced the captain to bring the ferry over to the other side and carry my car across. For his help I gave the man on the bicycle a ride to his house, which was on the outskirts of El Fuerte. As we neared El Fuerte, the road improved gradually until – and what a moment it was – it turned into pavement! After nearly 11 hours, I had driven 130 miles through the mountains and was within reach of the Pacific. I dropped off the man at his house and sped on. Euphoria filled me; I honked on the horn, sang along with my music, and tore down the road at over 80 mph. I went past El Fuerte and got it in my head that despite the late hour I would reach the Pacific that same day and jump into the water, at last cleansing myself of the incredible amount of dust that had completely covered me and my car in the hot and drought-stricken mountains. I cruised on,
racing over the hills in the remote desert area between El Fuerte and Los
Mochis, when I noticed my car began to slip out of gear as I downshifted
from fifth to fourth while going up hills. This grew worse and worse until
it got to the point where depressing the accelerator did no more than rev
up the engine. I pulled over on the side of the road and vainly attempted
to fix the problem myself, glancing uneasily at the sun’s low position
on the horizon. I decided to seek help and waited for a car to pass. Over
the next hour several cars went by, although none of them stopped, apparently
with good reason. I later found out that the area was notorious for highway
robbery, and that a favorite tactic of the criminals is to fake a breakdown
and prey upon good Samaritans who stop to offer assistance.
As we neared the second house an old lady, a middle-aged woman, a teenage daughter, and a young boy came out to greet me. Needless to say, at this point I realized how Alice felt when she followed the White Rabbit. I was also overcome with gratitude for these people who had so little yet welcomed me into their home, fed me and gave me a place to sleep. I slept in
a covered patio area on a folding cot, with a view of millions of stars
in the crisp and clear desert night, with only the sounds of the animals
and the wind to keep me company. I woke up early and was able to convince
some people living nearby to give me a ride to Los Mochis so I could search
for a mechanic. Once there I was able to find a mechanic who was not only
skilled in fixing transmissions, but also willing to load all his tools
into his car and drive the 40 miles to where I was stranded (the extortionate
fees charged by Mexican tow-truck companies made towing such a distance
impractical).
Apparently God did will it, because they returned at 10 o’clock the next morning, jubilantly displaying the correct clutch plate for my Toyota. Three and one-half hours later, the job was finished, the plate was perfectly adjusted and my car shifted like a dream. I wasted no time in speeding down the road to the Pacific, quickly reaching a small town near Los Mochis called Topo. There I immediately jumped in the water and swam in the ocean, enjoying the sea and sun before I sat down to a delicious meal of pescado zarandeado at a beachside restaurant. I took time to sip a cold beer and reflect on what had happened and what lay ahead as I looked out at the smooth, pure blue waters stretching to the horizon. To contact
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