Subject: Never underestimate the Sierra Madre

Date: March 12, 2016

The Pemex station attendant laughed. “Now you have a story to tell your grandchildren”, she said in perfect English.

“No one will believe me”, I replied. “’It doesn’t snow in Mexico!’”

“Well, it sure snows here!”

***

Before I set out on my bike, I always make sure to send a nice message to my girlfriend. This way, if I die on the road, my last words won’t be something silly like “this here is some weapons-grade bullshit”. I ride within my means so this is a largely unnecessary precaution, but the beginning of this week has certainly given me times where I questioned if I’d ever be able to type another message again. To the beginning!

After I left Caborca and did my bike paperwork, I had lunch in Hermosillo. During my almuerzo, a respectable, middle-aged man sporting a bushy mustache came up to me and we chatted a bit. He warned me that a cold front was moving in from Arizona and that there would be rain all over the North-West coast the next day. Ouch! All the more reason to be deep in the Sierra Madre Occidental by then! I looked at my map, realized that it would be a challenge to make it to a city with hotels by nightfall, accepted the challenge, and headed out onto highway 16, “Ruta de la Sierra”.