After a meal and some rest, I arrived in the next day in Torreon to find decay on a grander scale. My hotel for instance — an impressive structure of nine floors whose interior was lined with hard wood and beautiful stone — had decommissioned all but two of the floors. There was only one other vehicle in the underground parking that night, the one operational elevator stopped working during my stay, and they seemingly employed only one tired and grumpy receptionist who worked all hours of the day.

Fortunately I was not in Torreon for the hotels, and the KTM shop was still open. Unfortunately, after I communicated that I needed an espejo isquierdo, they replied that it would take dos a tres semanas to ship one in, and so I opted to stick with my patched-up mirror — at least it matched the environs. I did get them to put a new pair of tires on the machine though, and as I waited, I made friends with Alex — a mechanical engineer who works in a local mine, speaks great English, and owns a KTM 1190 Adventure. During my conversation with Alex, it gradually dawned upon me what sort of city I’d stumbled into:

“Torreon is nice to visit for maybe a day or two, but no longer. It is not a good place to live.”

“Do not carry more than 500 pesos in your pocket. It is not recommended, not in Torreon.”

“These days, it is much better. Five years ago, we had twenty to fifty murders a week. Now, less.”

“Back then, every family had a brother, a cousin…someone who was involved with the cartels. The narcos, you know? Now, not so much.”

He also gave me his phone number, and invited me to go riding with him and his buddies a couple weeks from now in Mazatlan. Really nice guy. Further investigation revealed that he wasn’t exaggerating about the city — see, for instance, this November 2012 article entitled “The New Heart of Mexico’s Violence: Torreon”.