After a 160km day yesterday (even after a late 10am start) on nice roads with little traffic we were hoping for the same again today. No such luck. It seems Nayarit, the state below Sinaloa which houses Mazatlan, doesn’t maintain its roads as well. All the way the roads were cracked and bumpy. Not horrible but not good either. I tend to use the road conditions to gauge the relative wealth of a state or country. So it seems Nayarit is poorer than its neighbor to the north. This makes sense since Sinaloa has some popular tourist spots (i.e. Mazatlan) and Nayarit has squat. So as soon as I saw the road conditions deteriorate I started expecting to see poor towns all lacking large supermarkets. We rely on those supermarkets to power ourselves up for big kilometer days.
We started the day in a town called Acaponeta which is just south of the border between Sinaloa and Nayarit. This town did have a decent sized supermarket so we were able to power ourselves up for the 50km span of little to nothing between Acaponeta and the next town called Rosamorada. It took us almost 3 ½ of extensive sweating to get there. – Whoa! A bug of some kind of bug with two neon green glowing eyes just landed on my foot. Hmmmm… It seems its eyes light up if you aggravate it. It’s just chilling in the sand below me now. Should be okay. By the way I’m writing this on the beach with a storm headed our way. – Anyway, this Rosamorada town isn’t much to speak of. Its roads sucked. The entrance road from the main highway was made of gravel. It had a church off in the distance (the tallest building around, every other building is only one story tall). We made it to the center of town before turning back as there didn’t seem to be any hope of finding a supermarket. We went back to a mini-mart we saw a couple of blocks earlier. We parked ourselves in front of the store beside the mini-mart which sold a bunch of miscellaneous stuff, had a kid crying at the counter and three small dogs that came out to investigate. Beside this shop, opposite the mini-mart, was a little shop that sold cellphones. That’s the thing about towns in developing countries; they always have lots of mechanic shops and lots of cellphone shop. Eventually Kevin comes out with food and we sit down on a stoop under the shade of a tree. The food was okay but the pastries weren’t that great as they were pretty bland. The three dogs seemed to like them as they cleaned up all the crumbs we dropped.
Somewhat powered up again we head onwards in search of a big supermarket. It’s during this leg that I get a flat tire. I just had one the day before so we’re guessing that this flat is due to yesterday’s patch failing. On the side of the road I unload the bicycle, flip it over and take a look. I find that we’ve guessed correctly, the patch from yesterday is leaking. We’ve been using self-sticking patches and every time they fail. It usually takes two patches before the finally stick. We’ve only had 3 flats due to actual tire punctures yet this is the sixth flat (3 punctures + 3 failed patches). When we were in Mazatlan we got ourselves another patch kit which uses glue but I haven’t started using them yet. In the blistering hot sun I apply another of these failing self-sticking patches (got to use them up), pump up the tire and reload the bike. After a big drink of water we’re off again. Shortly we reach a gas station and take a break. I have a 2L bottle of Squirt (I’ve been wanting to try this drink as we had met its inventor back in Baja—I’ll be writing a post about this guy sometime in the future) while Kevin smartly has a 1L carton of milk. Usually I can chug anything. However, ever since that 3L pop I had in La Paz my powers have been fading. I have a lot of trouble downing this Squirt drink. Quite possibly because it isn’t very good (I guess it’s not one of his best inventions). After vowing never to drink Squirt again we head off.
Up until this point we’ve been following highway MEX-15. As I said earlier it has been pretty good though it did take a turn for the worse once we entered the state of Nayarit. We now leave the MEX-15 and make our way towards the MEX-200. We’re taking state roads now. The good part about this is that the traffic eases up noticeably; the bad part is that the roads get a little more cracked and a little bumpier. Nothing we can’t handle though as we’ve been through worse in Baja. That is until we reach the next town when the Mexican road builders start having some fun. In the town of Santiago Ixcuintla all the roads are made of brick which has not been laid evenly at all. We spend a lot of time bouncing around on these roads in search of a market. All the while I’m sure the guys who built the road are having a good laugh at our expense. After having a bite to eat we try to find the town’s exit which is not were the GPS says it should be. It seems the bridge moved so we bounce around some more but this time on road built from rounded stones that are all placed willy-nilly. These stones make for some major bouncing and the bicycle tires keep slipping on the things as those stones are smoothed. So we bounce around until we find the bridge and we return to some proper asphalt. Unfortunately it’s short-lived and we come to a road built by the biggest joker of all. He’s got a real sense of humor as not only does he build the road from those rounded stones, he doesn’t even bother placing them evenly at all. There are dips and bumps everywhere. And to top it all off, as if anyone travelling isn’t already doing so at a snail’s pace, he has the bright idea of sticking a massive speed bump smack in the middle of the road. A speed bump made of those rounded stones. I mean really. Is that really necessary? Who in their right mind is speeding on this road in the first place? Nobody, that’s who. It’s impossible on such a thing unless you like pounding your head on the ceiling of your car. After taking an ass whooping we finally make it back to somewhat flat road. A road though that isn’t without its fair share of speed bumps. Speed bumps of all shapes and sizes, some you don’t even see coming as they blend right in with the road. Are that many speed bumps really that necessary? Granted most are placed before and after towns. But some are out in the middle of nowhere where you’d least expect them. You turn a corner and then bang a speed bump followed by 19 more speed bumps, then a gap, then 20 more speed bumps. At one point someone was trying to be somewhat helpful by putting up a “speed bumps ahead” sign. However, they missed the mark because, as my butt will tell you, I had just gone over 3 nasty speed bumps before reaching this sign. So thanks for letting me know that there are several more to come.
We finally make it over all the speed bumps to the day’s final destination of San Blas. As you’d expect by now it too has nasty roads all made of uneven brick. By this time my rear end is completely pulverized. It’s nice to get off the bikes and setup camp on the beach. But not before Kevin goes on a wild goose chase for a supermarket. Really? A town like this is going to have supermarket. I think not. He asks around and is told that there’s one over yonder. We make it close to over yonder and find farmland but no supermarket. We turn back for more butt pounding. Great. We circle around a little more before finally giving up (the things Kevin does in the hopes of finding a supermarket). We eventually settle on two mini-markets: one for a little pastry snack and the other to get the ingredients for tonight’s tortillas. Now we finally head to the camp site on the beach. It turns out that there are some other foreigners staying there already (they’re travelling around the world by car). After chatting with them for a little bit we setup camp and have our dinner before turning in for the night.
PS: You know I think I’ve figured out the scheme these Mexican road builders have hatched. Step #1: They build these crappy roads and place speed bumps all over the place. Step #2: They all setup all these mechanic shops I see everywhere. Step #3: They all watch the money roll in from all the vehicles they fix that break down due to the rollercoasters they call roads they’ve built. Those sneaky Mexican road builders. Quite a sense of humor they have.
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