May 5, Morelia to Zacatecas - 290 Miles

All of a sudden in this area of Mexico, the roads straightened out, the traffic lightened, road surfaces were better, there were fewer villages to slow us down, so we made better time in our riding.  We had set a target of riding 300 miles, to make our schedule of arriving home - so Alex and Jim can go back to work on time.

300 miles in a day doesn't seem like much in the western part of the U.S., but it is a long way in Mexico, particularly in the central to southern part.  The "Libre" (free) highways are usually two lane, go through many, many villages or small cities, and carry most of the truck traffic as well as most of the car traffic, because the "Quotas" (toll roads) are so expensive.  For example, today we decided to take the Quota for more of a percentage of our riding, to be able to make our 300 mile target, and the cost of one 50 mile stretch was about $14.  If you extend that to the full 300 miles, the cost for a day of driving the Quota would be about $84.  That's expensive!!

Part of our better riding speed was also due to the fact that we are adopting more of the Mexican ways of driving.  One thing this means is that we pass cars or trucks when they get over to the right as far as they can go on the shoulder, and passes can be made between them and the yellow line.  The oncoming car knows what is happening, and goes toward its shoulder.  This may not sound good on a U.S. based traffic system, but it works quite well for the Mexican people, and is widely accepted here.  When the passed car, the passing car, and the oncoming car all know what is happening, it is quite practical, and makes the road more efficient for the high traffic use.

Also in city driving, the Mexican drivers dart in and out, cross two or more lanes to get where they are going, make U-turns anywhere, and pass slower cars (or bikes) when they slow down at the Topes.  Alex, being an Albuquerque city police officer, alternately tells me to adopt more "Mexican practices" as I lead our little group of three, and then says "Deane, if you did that in Albuquerque, I would give you a ticket".  So, I ask myself - Which Alex should I listen to?

We have now ridden about 4,700 miles from home, in 21 Days.  By the time we get home, it will be a 6,000 mile trip.

My digital camera died yesterday, so I will have to try to paint pictures with words for the next few days.

The area we have ridden through today was largely broad valleys between surrounding mountains.  Again it was pretty dry, but did have some large fields which were green, and had irrigation sprinklers. So some of the areas were quite pretty.  All in all, in our Mexican travels we have not seen very many areas which can accommodate large productive fields.  This has led me to believe that Mexico as a country cannot feed itself, and must import food.  What it exports to pay for the food is a big question.  I am going to have to look up some statistics on that when I return home.

The city we stayed in last night, Morelia, was quite a nice city.  It was clean, had several plazas, and had more character to the buildings than most Mexican cities.  We stayed at a hotel that had been a mansion in the late 1800's, and it was really beautiful and impressive inside.  It faced a large stone aqueduct that apparently brought water from a large spring to a  part of the town at that time.  The design of the supporting structure for the aqueduct is very much like the Roman ones, with the graceful arches along the entire length of it.  Up to this time, I would have chosen San Cristobal de las Casas, in the state of Chiapas, to be my favorite city on this trip, but now I think I would choose Morelia, in the state of Morelos

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