Guadalajara to Mazatlan

We have a few places that we like to call home including Ocean Springs (our official residence), my home town in FL, and Eric's home town in CA, but there is something about being in Mexico that makes us comfortable enough to feel like we are right at home there too. Maybe it's because we spent three years hopping around Baja while we were living in San Diego. Maybe it's because we got married in Cabo San Lucas. Or maybe it's because we have seemed to have settled into the role of living two lives (our official motorcycle blog name) already. Whatever the reason may be, it felt great getting back into Mexico and back into our semi-developed routine. We arrived around 8:30pm on the 18^th but by the time we left the airport and arrived at our hotel it was almost 10 already. We were hungry from the flight, so we hurried to get some food right away before the stores closed down. Thankfully and unlike many towns in Mexico that we have been thus far, we found a couple places to have a few snacks before closing which was past 11. For this I give Guadalajara two thumbs up since places to eat in other towns are slim to none past 8pm. We were a little tired from our flight and eager to wake up early to get our bike and get out of town at a reasonable hour so we ate dinner, hit the Oxxo station for a nice night cap, and called it a night. We were staying at the same hotel we stayed in last week in Guadalajara since we left some luggage with them in order to make our carry-on weight more manageable. Hotel Portobelo never let us down once in three separate stays. Great hotel. 

 

 The next morning we took the bus over to Carmen Motors BMW where we had left our bike to get serviced while we were gone. We arrived early, so the woman we were working with last week hadn't shown up for work yet. She had been the only one we spoke with about the bike before since she was the only one who could speak a little bit of English, so it was difficult getting someone to help us find our bike. Eric took a walk around the garage to look for it and came back to tell me that it was nowhere to be found. Interesting. Finally a man was sent over to help us who worked in a different department but could speak English. He left us alone for about 5-10 minutes to go on a search for the bike and in that time the woman who was helping us last week finally arrived to work. Thank God! She was able to get the bike out to us in a matter of minutes. I have no idea where the bike was stored since it wasn't in the garage when Eric went to look for it, but it was returned safely to us and I suppose that is all that matters. The bike was fixed so we paid and headed back to our hotel.

We had packed before leaving to go to Carmen Motors so all we had to do was grab our luggage, put it on the bike and check out. We were happy to see that the temperature light didn't come back on after 20 minutes of riding (Phew), and started heading north towards Mazatlan, where we were originally supposed to hit the coast line after leaving Zacatecas. The drive took us 6 ½ -7 hours, and man did it feel like it. It's surprising what 10+ days off the bike can do. I had gotten used to the long rides by about the third day on our 14 day trip so I thought I was “broken in”, but my butt proved me wrong. Along the way, we stopped for some lunch in a small town called Jala. We ordered some tortas at a road side stand which were pretty great. Unlike many other tortas we've had in Mexico and Baja, they were made on French bread instead of grilled hamburger buns or other sorts of bread. Yum! 

 Cute dog hanging around the lunch stand. I thought we was hungry but my left over bread was not good enough for him.

We took the toll road to Mazatlan instead of the libre because the libre was said to take a few hours longer than the toll, which we didnt have. By the time we left Guadalajara it was about 10:30am, and the drive to Mazatlan was supposed to be 6 hours alone. We would have been driving past dark to Mazatlan which we don't like to do if we had taken the libre, so we ended up paying 30 USD in tolls along the way. We did end up getting bored with the drive on the toll since it is nothing but freeway and trees most of the way, so we took the libre for a few miles, but got back on the freeway pretty quickly as we got stuck behind a few sugar cane trucks which are not only dangerous to drive behind in case of falling sugar cane, but rather slow in progress. 

It looks like they just strap down the sugar cane on the trucks as high as they can. Of course some is bound to fall off. We ran over many fallen pieces of sugar cane while driving on the back mountain roads.

 The kids in Mexico are adorable. Quite a few kids thus far have given us the peace sign as we drive by. These kids gave us a peace sign and took our picture. I took this opportunity to take theirs too. They were pretty excited to get the attention.

We arrived in Mazatlan around 5 pm. We had reserved a room at a hostel a few days prior which I paid $3.40 in advance for. It took some time to find the place since it was in a residential area, and upon finally arriving we were not impressed with the outside looks of the place. Not only did it seem dead, but unlike a hostel in any way. We were about to call our losses on the $3.40 deposit when the manager came out to greet us. I figured it would be worth a look and was happy with the tour so we ended up staying. We were also happy to know that we weren't the only guests there and that everyone else was out at the beach. This was our first hostel of the trip and I have to admit we were getting quite used to living in nicer, cleaner places. Really just fancier places. In past trips, Eric and I had been used to staying at the cheapest or next to the cheapest hotels and hostels in town. This trip, for some reason, we set our standards a little bit higher. Mostly because we would like to have a room that includes secure parking. Maybe because after a long day of riding we just want a nice place to relax in. While our hotels thus far have been decently cheap, the Funky Monkey Hostel was definitely the cheapest bed we've had this trip.

We checked in and immediately went for a walk around town before the sun went down. The hostel was actually about 10 minutes away from the beach, and I had no intention of getting back on the bike after just getting off of a 7 hour ride, so we walked down to the beach instead. While the sunset was amazing, the walk ended up being a bad choice on my part as Mazatlan is huge and we had a hard time finding a good place to eat. Along the beach closest to our hotel was covered in resort style hotels and restaurants alike. As senior frogs was the center of it all, this brought our moods down from an already low point. We were both tired and irritated after the long ride and not having yet had a shower, so we chose a commercialized fast food style taco shop on the way back home. 

 

Arriving back at the hotel we ran into a few guys who were staying at the hostel. We showered, made drinks, and took our computers out to the common area to

mingle. It is amazing what a nice shower can do after a motorcycle ride in the summer. We ended up meeting a couple really great guys at the Funky Monkey. The manager is a rather nice, young American who blends in well with the other guests (I thought we was a tourist for a good part of the night), and a few other young guys who had some pretty interesting stories. We ended up exchanging information with a guy who was seemingly a just out of college graduate named Louis who planned to leave Mazatlan on canoe and make his way down to Panama, and maybe further if all went well, and a lawyer named Jose who seemed to have been on vacation in every part of Mexico imaginable. Its possible we may run into Louis down the road on our trip since we are taking our time traveling through Mexico.

This hostel stay was exactly what Eric and I needed to get ourselves back into our old way of things. I forgot how fun hostel style living can be. Though they seem adolescent and for college aged persons only, hostels can attract many people of all different sorts, ages, and stories that are enough to keep you “grounded” to a certain reality. What I love about hostels is that mingling is almost expected even if you have a private room, opposed to any hotel where people will usually walk right by without saying hello. Our conversation with Jose and Louis lasted until about 1:30 am, and finally we decided to call it a night.