The Road Not Taken (The Scariest Day of My Life - Part 2)

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

I quote from this famous Robert Frost poem because it perfectly describes the choice we had (and ultimately took) to get out of Batopilas.  We could go back up to Creel the way we came to the north (the one more traveled), or as members of the Adventure Riders forum have posted up about an alternative route to the south through a town called Tubares.  However, there are no maps or signs for this route -- looking on a printed map shows just a black hole.  To say I wasn't sure is putting it mildly, we had just run the hardest, most dangerous route I had ever experienced the day before, but at least it was regularly traveled.

[Edit: Another Frost poem came to mind during this ride - "A Servant to Servants" - where the line "He says the best way out is always through" has been abridged/adulterated to "The Only Way Out Is Through."  In any case, once in Batopilas the only way out of there is through one of two routes; no helicopter was going to swoop in and take us away]

The road to Tubares is, at least initially, even more technically challenging -- steeper and quicker switchbacks, but it is hardly ever traveled.  On the other hand, if we went back up to Creel, it would put us at least a day off of our schedule to get to Mazatlan, and ultimately put a real wrench in our plans.  When we awoke at 6:00 the next day and prepared to leave, Batopilas was completely shut down so we walked the town and discussed our options, all the while looking for the local gasoline vendor - who later confirmed the southern route out of town and its up and down nature.  Finally, Curtis prevailed upon me that this was the best route to take and stay on our schedule, and we proceeded out.

Calling this route technically challenging is too mild, at times it was nearly impossible to control the bike.  The grade up and down was at least 30 degrees (for perspective, the grade on I-24 at Monteagle is about 5 degrees and it has runaway truck ramps).

But there were beautiful vistas (if you looked, which I did not)

And rock filled arroyos

With hoses or electrical lines running through them

But at least we had friends

Not only was the route more technically challenging, but it was narrower, less "graded" (if you could call it that), and of differing substances -- sometimes hardpack, sometimes large rocks and ruts, and often just a bright white dust the quality and texture of chalk dust or talcum powder.  This dust was often 3-4 inches deep, and it was so white, and the sun so bright, that no matter whether we had our smoke shields up or down you just couldn't make out the base.  Curtis commented that he seriously expected to look down and see Neil Armstrong's footprint.  Often we'd hit this stuff in a turn or curve and there would be rocks and ruts underneath and the front wheel would just go it own way.  It was particularly hard to manuever navigating a 700+ lbs. motorcycle pushing downhill into a sharp curve!  For me it was a whole other level of concentration working the clutch, throttle, front and rear brake -- all the while saying to myself: "Don't lock the front, don't lock the front, don't lock the front."  Locking the front would just result in dropping the bike or sliding off the edge.

After about 2 hours of this I came down to a wide, level curve where someone had erected a little shrine (these shrines are really all over the place in Mexico), next to which sat this very old man in a cowboy hat, jeans and patterned shirt.  On the shrine lay a machete - not any normal machete, but one with a wide and curved top -- the tool for harvesting the agave plant for tequila and mescal production.  I decided to stop and have a drink from my canteen.  He declined my offer of "agua" and about that time Curtis came rolling down and got off his bike.  We next heard the voices of children and two boys came running up another road that met this plateau.  Since I had some peso coins and a few American quarters, dimes, nickles and pennies, I handed them to these boys, explaining the American coins were from "Estados Unidos."  They were fascinated with the coins, showing them to the old man.  We bet that given this truly remote location they had never seen Americans all geared up with helmets and big bikes stop by and greet them -- we must have looked like aliens to them.  Since we still had no idea how far we had to go it was time to mount up and continue.

When we got down the road became more hardpack and flat so it made for better (read: faster) going.  We proceeded further down and went through a number of arroyos (dried out creek and river beds).  As I came around a looping right hand corner another broad arroyo opened up and there was a white Ford pickup truck and 6-8 men carrying automatic weapons who quickly entered the path and ordered me to stop -- Curtis soon followed.

These men were all dressed in an assortment of clothes, many in street clothes, one in faded fatigues.  Their weapons were well used AK-47s, some with fixed and some with folding stocks.  One immediately removed my canteen from the back of the webbing holding my rucksack and commented "Agua!"  They patted the rucksack, and because of all the dust we had gone through that day and the day before it just coughed up clouds of dust -- they all laughed.  They ordered us to take off our helmets and since Curtis had the better command of Spanish interrogated him as to where we had been, what we were doing, and where we were going.  One of the guys, realizing we were from Nashville said he had lived in Nashville for 5-years and kept saying: "Murfreesboro Road & Thompson Lane, Murfreesboro Road & Thompson Lane, Nolensville Road."  I just nodded, smiling and said, "Yes, me East Nashville."  Another came up to me, patted his AK and pointed to my panniers as if to query whether I had a weapon.  I said "No," and opened the pannier to show him what was inside - they were interested in my computer case, but the guy that had been in Nashville just said "computer."  After about 10 minutes of this, they handed me back my canteen and said we could go on.  As we left and proceeded uphill and to the right I saw two other men dressed in all black (similar to what we observed on some Mexican Army personnel) manning more automatic weapons.

Curtis was convinced they all were Mexican Army.  Whether they were or not we'll never know, but I am sure that if we had run that roadblock/checkpoint (which some online advice says to do), the guys in the arroyo would have shot off a warning shot and the guys on the hill would have cut us down!  Based on that experience I picked up my pace considerably, and as I crested a hill I saw this (what I thought at the time) wonderful sight:

If you look out into the river's bend you can see piers for a bridge and a town - which I thought was Tubares (I was wrong).  But then I looked downhill and saw another set of these endless switchbacks.  Those two minor distractions were enough to break my concentration, slow the bike too much in this chalk/moon dust, and the bike just fell over on its right side.  Luckily Curtis came up soon thereafter and helped me get it upright.

Bike re-righted (though I had gas all over my right leg)

Panoramic of this area

We were looking to cross this river twice, the second time as we entered Tubares.  The opposite side of the first bridge was an immediate hard left up a long steep climb, so I flew across the bridge, hit the turn and just climbed; Curtis got a shot before doing the same:

A shot of some of the ground we had covered

About 10 more miles later we came to the second bridge and entered Tubares which had a little bodega run by a nice lady.  While she didn't have any hotdogs, she did have cold cokes, prepackaged chocolate cookies and gasoline.  I had taken us over 4 hours to go the 37 miles from Batopilas to Tubares, and never did a Coke and chocolate cookie lunch taste so good.

See the gas hose handing down to Curtis' left?

Even in the middle of nowhere Mexico they have satellite access

The 'town' of Tubares

The Tubares Mission

The river on the way out of Tubares

The road out of Tubares was better graded (and traveled), and while we had to do some climbs, it was not nearly as treacherous.  There was this abandoned mission that once overlooked the river:

The remainder of the ride to Choix from Tubares was generally uneventful, except for this low speed noise and vibration I kept getting from my front sprocket area.  I turned up the speed, found the asphalt outside Choix and buzzed on in.  I was never so glad to see asphalt!  From Choix we went about another hour down to road for our evening destination El Fuerte!

But back to Frost and the Road Not Taken.  There is good reason why the road to Tubares is less used - it is much more challenging, less used and remote.  However, I am glad we took it - not just because it kept us on our plan - but to overcome the challenge (including a serious Army checkpoint).  It made all the difference.