As I crossed the border into Nayarit on March 16, 2002, I passed through another sanitary inspection and another border crossing station. This time, though, they took a closer look at what I was carrying. Soon after, I rode into the bustling little town of Acaponeta and found a bank, an internet cafe, laundry facilities, restaurants and even a movie theatre. After using the internet, I found the usual crowd had gathered around my bike. One of the onlookers spoke some English so I asked him if he would like to be in my movie and then took the opportunity to interview him. He agreed to take me on a tour of the town the next day. I then checked into a cheap motel by the village square and had a cold shower as there was no hot water. After supper, I headed to the town square and there I met a group of guys and we talked about my trip. They then invited me to a basketball game. We went to a large gymnasium to watch what was obviously an amateur game complete with referees and score keepers. The players did not have uniforms but they obviously had played together a lot and were quite good. After the game, I said goodbye to the group and headed back to the motel.

         The next day after breakfast, I headed to the town square to meet Cuitlahuac for the town tour. I shot some video along the way as we visited the church and the river with the same name, then on to the market and back to the town square. We sat in the square and talked for awhile as he seemed quite anxious to practice his English and he helped me with my Spanish. I headed back to the motel for lunch and a rest as the pain in my groin continued and I was in agony. In the late afternoon, I decided to go the theatre and see "Spy Games" with Brad Pitt and Robert Redford. The theatre looked like it dated from the 1930s with hard, wooden chairs, one projector and a terrible screen. The sound was muffled and I spent the next two hours trying to figure out what was being said.

         On Monday morning, I awoke to the sound of a marching band. I hurried out to the square to see some sort of ceremonial activity taking place around the gazebo in the square. There was a military marching band and many school children in uniform standing around. What looked like politicians were giving speeches and then the band struck up and everyone started singing and doing a salute with their right hand and then laying their arm across their chest. The teachers had to show some of the students how to do this.

         Later in the day as I was wandering around town, I came upon a parade which, I was told was a celebration of the beginning of spring. Each of the twelve floats carried a number of young girls and boys, the girls dressed in gowns and the boys in cowboy outfits. The floats each had a massive sound system with different music blaring from each of them. The children all had a bewildered stare on their face like they really did not have a clue what was going on. The parade was led by four cars, two had young boys sitting on the hood and two had young girls with their gowns spread across the hood.

         On March 19 I packed and left this pleasant little town to brave the road again. The pain in my groin continued and the heat was relentless. I stopped for lunch under a bridge to get out of the sun and disturbed a colony of sleeping bats. That night I stopped at another Pemex Truck Stop and tried the local restaurant for supper. The owner took me back into the kitchen and showed me the choices - either beef stew or chicken stew!

         The next day out on the road again, I arrived at a bridge under construction which had been reduced to one lane. After they let the traffic through on the other side I led the pack over the bridge. Of course there was a long line of traffic on both sides and no one was able to pass me. To make matters worse, there was a hill on the other side of the bridge making my progress even slower. After I finally rode clear of the traffic on the other side, about 50 cars raced past me. Further down the road, the traffic increased and on an extremely narrow section of the road, I fell into a ditch again. I was able to pull the bike out of the ditch myself this time and I slowly made my way to another Pemex Station. I was feeling very discouraged at this point and ready to quite. After a rest, I got up the courage to get out on the road again knowing it was only 15 km. to a four-lane highway with wide shoulders.

         The 15 km to the four lane Highway seemed endless but I finally made it there alive!. I stopped to take in a spectacular view of the mountains. My GPS indicated that I was at 650 metres and my next destination, Tepic, was 915 metres. I was exhausted so I found a dirt road leading to someone's farm and camped there for the night.

         In the morning, I started the long climb into Tepic in the glaring heat. The landscape had been replaced by deciduous and palm trees. I arrived at another toll station but they just waved me through. After continuing the climb, I arrived at an off-ramp and I went into a Pemex station to rest. The usual crowd gathered around the bike and they all offered me advise on where I could find a motel. I continued into town and on the way, stopped at a bike shop. The owner agreed to do some work on my bike the next day and he the gave me the name of a cheap hotel near the bus station.

         My room at the hotel was on the third floor so I unpacked everything and locked the bike up in a back room of the hotel. From my hotel room, I could see and smell a sugar factory that was sending large clouds of smoke into the air. It was also the source of an incredibly loud horn that, I assumed, signaled a change of shift.

         The next day, I headed back to the bike shop and had both wheels tuned and the front tire changed. The room at the hotel where I was storing the bike had a hammer so I spent some time fixing the bent strut on the fairing. After lunch, I strolled around town and on the way back, I stopped to watch the activity at the sugar factory. There was an endless stream of trucks arriving with raw sugar cane. They backed up to a platform and were tilted straight up allowing the sugar cane to be dumped into a large pit. The cane was then moved by a conveyer belt into the factory. This process went on twenty four hours a day seven days a week. This was the first time that I had seen hustle and bustle in Mexico!

         On March 23, I drove around the city to all the video stores hoping to find the particular tape I needed for my camera but with no luck. I picked up some groceries and headed back to the hotel. The pain in my groin became worse and nothing would relieve it. I decided that I would have to rest at least another day.

         On March 25, I packed up and left Tepic and headed back to the Autopista. As I climbed up and looked back, I saw the whole city covered in a thick layer of brown smog. I then passed acres of sugar cane fields in different stages of development, some was just been cut by hand and loaded into trucks and some was just starting to grow. At the first toll booth of the day, I stopped for lunch and then tried to pass through the toll station. This time they did not wave me through but, after much discussion, they called on the big boss. He explained that I must take the off ramp to Highway 15, the two lane road from hell. As I went down the ramp, I came to a smaller toll booth and they said something in Spanish and I caught the word "camera". It occurred to me that they did not want me to pass through the main toll booth because they took pictures of everyone going through and the number of cars would have to match the amount of toll fees paid. If I went through and did not pay, someone would be in trouble. So they explained that I should walk my bike around the booth to the on-ramp to get around the system. I then headed down the on-ramp and back on the Autopista to save another 50 pesos!

         I continued the seemingly endless climb up the mountain and during one of my rest stops, I was introduced to the "Green Angels". They are an organization that provides free road side assistance to tourists travelling in Mexico. They stopped and asked if I was alright. After I explained that I was just resting, we talked about my trip and they told me it was still another five kilometres to reach the top of the mountain. Towards the end of the day, I started to look for a place to camp and found that I was at the foot of an old volcano and there was nothing but volcanic rock I eventually found a dirt road leading to a farm plot and set up camp there for the night.

         The next day the climb up the mountain continued and the heat was excruciating. I arrived in Ixtian del Rio and bought some food and water. While I was eating lunch, the usual crowd gathered around my bike. Back on the Autopista, it was like an oven with the trucks and buses contributing to the heat. Everything on the bike was too hot to touch. This area was very rugged and even the Autopista had some incredible loops down the mountain. On one of the downhill runs, I averaged about 60 kilometres an hour without even peddling. Someone passed me in a car and tried to take a picture of the crazy man flying down the mountain on a strange space machine! My destination for the day had been the border of the next state, Jalisco where I came to another toll station. This time we were back to the smiles and waves as I passed through. I asked the maintenance man if I could camp there for the night and he suggested a place behind a wall which would cut down on the noise and give me some privacy. No one in Mexico seemed to mind paying the toll on the Autopista as the road was unbelievably busy with buses, trucks and tourists.

Mexico - Jalisco State