El Salto, Mexico, 9/1-2007

Route: Mazatlan - El Salto
Since I had gotten a bit late to Mazatlan I decided to spend some time in Mazatlan before I headed toward the mountians. I had a look at the beach that Mazatlan is so famous for and a little peak in town before I left.

To get into town is easy. To get out again is the difficult part. After asking for directions severeal times I finally found a sign leading in my direction. In a light crossing I spotted two motorcylists, riding KTM 950 Adventures. This was the first bikers I had seen, so I decided to stay on their tail to see if they were going in my direction. I raced between cars and managed to catch up with them, and it turned out that they did not mind company.

We went to a gas station to fuel up. There I introduced myself for Shane and Forrest which came from Utah. They were planning to go south along the coast and since I was keen on traveling together with someone I decided to change my plan and go with them, even though I probably would slow them down.

However, when we were going to leave the gas station, Forrest got problems with his bike. For those that have KTM 950´s they know about the starter problem, and that was what Forrest got. I stayed together with them some hours, but then it turned out that they could not fix the bike and they had to stay in Mazatlan. I therefore changed my plan back again to the original and headed toward the mountains. I really hope I meet Shane and Forrest again when they have fixed the bike.

I had had a look at the map and the road that I was going was 175 km to the nearest town, which is El Salto. In the beginning I thought that it had to be an error, since the distance in the map could not be more than 60 km, however, I soon understood why. I have never ridden such a curvey and steep road before. The senery was just magnificent and the road was like made for motorbikes. If I had been riding my CBR900RR, the day would have been perfect. Scotty, however, does not handle curves as good, and the spare tires had a tendency to touch the road in the tightest curves.

I am not sure which altitude the road reaches, but I passes a sign saying 1990 m, and I was going upwards after that. It was just increadeble and the road was just spectacuar. When I thought I had reached the top, the road did some turns, and then it just countinued up.
In the beginning the senery was steep mountains with forrest. Later it got very flat, with pine trees on yellow grass.

However, the progress was slow, and since I had spent half the day together with Shane and Forrest, it started getting dark. One of the rules about traveling in Mexico and Central America is not to drive when dark, but now I just had to continue. When the sun dissapeared it also got colder, and I had to put on some extra clothes.

When I was passing trailer, I suddenly saw some red traffic cones in the road with light in them. It was a military search post and naturally I was pulled over. The military have check posts to look for arms and drugs, but since I had none of those (except from my dirty underwear that could be used as chemical veapon maybe) I was let through.

I then got to El Salto around six. However, this turned out to be Oyvind time, since I had not adjusted my clock since leaving Los Angeles, and the time actually was eight. I stayed in a hotel that was located close to the main road and I had my own gas oven in the room and warm water.