Guachochi to Parral

Guachochi is a nice medium sized, typical Mexican town with the usual road works, one-way traffic, personal and vehicle hazards and a buzz of people and vehicles. Although I had come down in elevation from the mountains it was still cool and the usual haze of wood smoke was in the air. Firewood and timber in general is huge business here partly due to the demand for household firewood. It is a highly utilized resource with most houses having a good woodpile and often the men are out in their trucks gathering wood from different places along the road.

 I did a lap of the town and had the usual stares of wonderment. I often use a bit of intuition to find hotel rooms when I have nothing booked or planned, which is most of the time. I found a nice little hotel just out of the main centre that had a gated parking area and the bike was right outside my door. It was cheap and had Internet, ticking all the boxes.

It was actually bigger than that.

I walked around the town to get a bit of a feel of it and ended up in this large recreational lake area with the biggest bird sculptures I had ever seen.

And a little girl who loved the camera

I kept walking and found a waterfall at the northern end of town

Bit of a winding walk back

I ended up eating in this small but new, bright and very clean place. It was more like a sort of café than a restaurant, run by young people who were friendly and happy and gave great service. 

The food was a bit basic, a bit fastfood-ish but we chatted about what I was doing and they lined up for photos.

 Back at the hotel the Internet signal didn’t reach my room, so after a frustrating half hour, I conceded that there would be no Internet tonight and just went to sleep. I find that I am not watching television at all, partly because there is nothing interesting on and also because I can’t understand much. I’m not a big watcher of the news. So it was an early, quiet night and my negative mood was improving a lot. I had made the right decision to travel this direction and it was nice to walk around this lovely little town.

 The next town was Parral and it was not a long ride but once again had some lovely twisting roads through the mountains and I took it slowly, enjoying the riding very much. My head was clearing and feeling a lot more positive. Along the way I stopped for a break and saw one of the huge logging trucks I share these roads with.

I came across a group of dirt bike riders stopped at the side of the road so I stopped to talk with them. They were all on 400 and 450cc bikes, which are large when it comes to dirt bikes, and they are very powerful and not for the feint-hearted. I knew these guys were serious riders. They were all dusty and sweaty so I knew they had been riding hard.

After the usual greetings and questions about what I’m doing, one of them said he had a GS Adventure and he owned a restaurant and asked me to the restaurant in Parral. Their recommendations for a hotel room were a bit off, they really had no idea, and pointed me to one that charged 600 pesos, twice my budget, so I managed to find one up the road for 250. Maybe I should have taken the better one! That story to come.

 At the restaurant it was very upmarket and a real family affair. The owner ran it with his wife and sons and there were at least six other people working in the kitchen. He had his 2009 GSA parked just outside the back door and it was immaculate with low kilometres. 

He was very fastidious about cleaning it regularly. He used it for longer trips and used his dirt bike for trail riding. The fed me a delicious meal of fish fillets and salad and although they did charge me it was quite reduced and cheap for what I had.

 I bantered with the adult sons around the bike for a half an hour, testing out the swear words I had learnt in Chihuahua. It brought lots of laughs!