Paradise Lost....

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  Culiacan, Mexico
Wednesday, July 2, 2008

After exiting the ferry we did not know exactly how far we would be able to go before nightfall. The ferry was about an hour and a half delayed so we pulled out at about 3:30pm and were aiming for Mazatlan over 300 miles away. It soon became clear that we won't make it to Mazatlan before nightfall, even with Jess driving too fast (in my opinion)... we had to find a hotel in a town called Culiacan, which is the state capital of Sinaloa. Again we were hot, hungry and the butts were hurting!

This turned out to be a nightmare, we followed the main road into the city center where all of a sudden we were met by signs for McDonalds, Office Depot, KFC, and Subways!! Not exactly what we wanted or were looking for. The city center was mayhem with cars and motos going everywhere. Jess got frustrated and weary of all the traffic so we quickly turned around and tried to find a "Motel-No-Tell" which are so common here in Mexico...they are gated compounds where you drive into an open garage, close the door behind you, and enter the attached motel room through a door in the garage... you then put the necessary amount of pesos into a drop-box to pay for the number of hours you're going to stay - no human intervention necessary and totally anonymous (and pretty weird, but safe)... however all we could find was a Microtel Inn and Suites which is an exact copy of the Comfort Inn we stayed at in El Cento, CA - completely geared towards businessmen, expensive, and completely lacking in Mexican charm.

Actually for a while I forgot we were in Mexico, the only food offered was room service which turned out to be...Sushi! Hmmm not exactly what you want in inland Mexico.

Only pic of the day...not too exciting.

My phone call with the food place was interesting - the conversation was mixed Spanish/English but when the guy said he would put chicken in our sushi rolls I started to wonder if all my years of studying Spanish had let me down...we ended up with a mix of Mexican sushi rolls and a rice dish. The rice was amazing...the sushi rolls however, a little less so. We could literally not wait to get out of this place in the morning.

Jess here...as a given, some days must simply suck. They have to, if for nothing else to provide you with a basis for contrasting to your awesome days. You have to respect the natural ebb and flow of events, the ying and the yang of things, the Kobe/Shaq metaphor to life on the road...and let me tell you...TODAAAAY SUCKED!!!

I was a little miffed at not being awarded Junior Captain while sailing on the Chihuahua Star Ferry, so I kind of had a chip on my shoulder when we got off the boat...then, we made it half way to Mazatlan before we began to run out of daylight...so we then thought we'd find the center of town in Culiacan and find a nice hotel off the town square.

Wrong! It's rush hour and this is a bustling city of nearly a million people! The "El Centro" area was jam- packed with cars, buses, people, kids, dogs...you name it...it was time to bail this scene! I downshifted the Turbo Taco Wagon (the bike) and Malin I made haste back the way we came!

We settled on a cookie-cutter business hotel surrounded by car and tractor dealerships. The staff wore matching little vests with name tags and promptly told us that they do not have a restaurant on the premises, nor are there any restaurants within walking distance...but not to worry, they did have room service available. Ok...fine. I was starving (all I had was prison slop on the Ferry 8 hours earlier) and was pouring sweat -- we had already ridden from La Paz to the Pichilengue, crossed the Cortez, re-packed, and ridden another 155 miles to this Wallyworld Motel. It was time for this day to end!

Flash forward 60 minutes.....Room service my ass! It's Mexican sushi! That's oxymoronic! These aren't Japanese dudes that moved to Mexico and opened a sushi restaurant, this was the Japanese equivalent of the mall food-court favorite: Hot-Dog-On-A-Stick!..... with Mexicans in lame uniforms making pollo-maki rolls! I'm glad Malin spoke to them on the phone...I was close to laughing and crying at the same time...I just had them add 4 Tecates to the order...that should fix things.

So anyway, Malin and I laughed our way through the meal while sipping our Tecates...they were cold and that was good. We learned many valuable lessons today...first and foremost...an army marches on it's stomach...so from now on, we were getting lunch on the road before entering town, so we'd have a chance to cool down, eat a nice meal, and not be so hot, hungry, and exasperated while searching for a place to stay for the evening.

Secondly - no more industrial towns...the smaller the town, the better.

Third, no more sushi in Mexico, no matter how much fun we have ordering it over the phone...it's over rated, or actually make that un-rated, and simply not worth it.

So now you ask the obvious question....What in the hell were we thinking?...we left paradise itself, the beautiful Baja Peninsula, for this? Seriously??....hmmm....yeah, we did...that's right, yes we did! The show must go on...no stopping until we roll on two wheels back to Ventura, Cali-for-ni-yay!

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