Mexico

South Texas

After New Orleans, there were no real plans on where to go, what to see. I’ve done the interstates in the lower part of the states before, so I decided to head into Mexico. I aimed for Laredo to cross the border, I found getting off the interstates was better and I took a little extra time to enjoy the surrounding. Somewhere near Laredo at a gas station, I had a breakfast / lunch, it had a deli and I saw the fresh smoked beef coming out and had to have it, well, no disappointment there, yummy and for a price of a burger in a fast food joint. Texas never disappointed me with food, years ago, I still remember having a minced beef taco and that stuck in my mind.

Smoked beef burger at gas station

Getting across the border was somewhat of a shit show, I don’t even think they had and official gate, the Mexican border officer almost walked off with my passport absent mindedly. First gas station I went to had no gas, so here I am wandering around in Nuevo Laredo looking for fuel, I think to myself, why didn’t I fill up in the states? So many silly reasons,but I digress, well, I found one after pulling up to another motorcyclist and asked with my broken spanish donde..(with finger pointing at gas tank)? He lead me to one and all is well, after fill up, they said no credit cards, luckily I had some pesos from my previous trip to take care of the fuel. I guess, they would have accepted USD, but swapping your currency twice is not smart.

Monterrey

Well off to Monterrey for my first stop, normally I would book something in advance for my first day into a new country, but I gave this a roll of the dice. What I had thought of was, small little towns with some local bed and breakfast would be abundant along my route. I was wrong, their toll highways were built for speed unlike the USA interstates. So a big city is where I will find my accommodation.  The traffic from Laredo to Monterrey was busy, no one kept their speed limits, not wanting to mess with the Federales, I kept the limit for about an hour, then after I was passed by so many, I had to adapt. Lets just say, I never kept in the limits the whole time in Mexico. Small little town feel went out the window as I pulled up to Monterrey, a city more than a million and felt even larger as I navigated around the city. Finding hotels were easy and the prices so reasonably inexpensive, depending on what level of comfort you require. Well I got one which I say is “sister-in-law” approved. Aircond, contemporary, clean, gated parking and the bonus, front desk speaks english. Found a good location, ATM about eleven minutes walk, street food about three minutes walk, shopping everywhere (but no interest at all plus no space on bike), fresh Tamales just across the street from the hotel for breakfast.

Started early, and checked out must see spots for Monterrey, roads are difficult to navigate via GPS in Mexico, slight lefts can be full turn or just stay in your lane (which can be any lane), and detours are a bitch. The roads in town were super shiny and the stop lines are grease catchers for leaking vehicles, word of caution here is stop early and don’t gun your throttle, I had a couple times where I felt I was to slip sideways and later found the toll booths had the same conditions. Monterrey is a mountainous town and finding level ground to park a motorcycle prove to be a challenge. After the sight seeing bit, it was time to get out, after dealing with traffic I headed west and onto their HWY 40, well now there are some “Libre” highways still left for the ones that avoids the tolls. Anyhow, being in a rush getting on the toll hwy, I neglected to top off my gas tank, really, I did not want to deal with the city traffic and got going hoping there are gas stations along the way. Here I am again with the last bar on my gauge flashing at me again, you figure I would learn after Blue Ridge Parkway. Spotting a village was a relief, but getting there had it’s challenges as toll highways tend not to have too many exits and entrances.

Parque chipinque – Beautiful peaks around here in Monterrey

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Mexico

Torreón

Now deeper into Mexico, I thought this city will have lesser traffic and perhaps better roads, well, the city roads were the same conditions like the previous, greasy, pot hole ridden, construction, and busy. So this city (population 600,000+), I had pre booked online since the prices were sub $30 CDN, that included pool, private parking, not much more, but what more do you need? Finding this place gave me a wee bit of a challenge, had to trust the GPS on this one, the place took me to a dirt road which was correct, got me to the general area, but there was no visible signs saying that was the villa since it was gated. After asking a local person in that area, it proved the GPS had indeed place me in the correct area.

This was the only indication of the hotel, a number on the corner of the door.

With the sweltering heat and the drive, I quickly put on my shorts a hopped into the pool, ah, so refreshing. Chilled out with the spotty WiFi all by myself, I was alone in the villa and wondered if they had other guests, it was perfect. Later in the evening, I went out for a little stroll for some local food but the area was not the area to find the local street food, ended up with my worst dinner from this whole trip, have to resort to convenience store food from OXXO, blah. I could of taken the motorcycle out for a spin, but that is hindsight. On the other hand, I was treated to a traditional dance that was happening on the path I strolled. Could not figure out what it was for ( my conversational spanish really lack here ).

Here is my couchsurfing experience in Mexico…JK.

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