Day 3 – Timbuk-dos
Looking down on Talpa. The religious mecca of this area.
Its pre’-dawn Monday morning and I´m sitting in the town square of Llano Grande. I can hear more roosters crowing than I can count and yet no signs yet of people.
Road to La Cuesta
The Church. Talpa
Yesterday we rode through Le Cuesta and quite readily into the middle-of-nowhere-Mexico. In several hours of riding on a mixed bag of rocks, ruts, washboard, and sand (and about 1 mile of pavement…) we saw 3 trucks.
Greg and Nancy
Louise
There is one “hotel” in Llano Grande and after showing us the room in which his wife birthed 16 children he informed us that no American had ever stayed in his hotel before. That was not surprising to me as I´m not certain that anyone not from this area would be able to find it.
A short bit of flat road.
Mexicans are readily helpful in giving directions but if they are tripped up by our hack-Spanish or do not know the answers to our questions they will make something up (this is quite common in many countries).
La Cuesta
We were told NOT to ride the main road to Talpa – it turned out to be paved and no big deal. We were heavily warned against another dirt road south of La Cuesta because on Sat. and Sun. drunk men might find us enticing (I then nicknamed this – The Rape Rd). We were then advised to take another northern rt across to Tomatlan (Rape Rd. Anex) but that it would be best to go on Monday and that it was anywhere from 20-180K to Llano Grande.
The road to Llano Grande
Rape Rd Anex was our choice (which ended up turning into The Rape Rd but we figured it was Monday and so we should be ok…). This road turned into a rutted, bouldered, sandy, washboardy stretch which decended to La Cuesta then on to Llano Grande. I can´t imagine we could find a more remote region of Mexico and we are in adventure heaven. And yet every where we go we meet at least one Mexican who has lived or lives in the US and who speaks very good English. Some of them are here on extended family visits, some were deported and some moved back to be with family. All are open, helpful and very friendly.
Road to Llano Grande
Family ties are stronger than we can remember them being in the States and yet one woman stated how much she admired our freedom as US women toi make choices and live our lives as we wish.
We´re psyched to head soon for more parts uknown (none of our current route is on our maps). Our goal today is Tomatlan and the coastal area…
