Mex40 Durango to Mazatlan

I spent my time wandering about the city, lounging in coffee shops, catching up on just about every TV show I’d ever watched and then some. Somehow there wasn’t a single place that had the correct seals for my water pump in the entire country and after spending a good two days looking with the help of some generous hostel employees I gave up and ordered the parts from the US.

It was nearly a full two weeks after arriving in Durango that I was finally ready to leave. The whole ordeal was fairly cheap considering the time and effort it required I probably spent about $250 on the bike, $60 of which was shipping. It’s amazing how cheap labor is here.

**I have noticed a good amount of police and military presence, not sure if its more than usual but, they don’t seem to be much of a bother**…

I got on Mex 40 to Mazatlan, not so much because I wanted to go to Mazatlan but, because the road looked twisty and mountainous. It was. Not 30 minuets outside Durango and the road was already better than anything I’d seen on this trip.

**After two weeks stuck in one place I was itching to move**

It occurred to me that I should have probably ridden around locally for a day before leaving to make sure everything was in order with the bike but, that thought slipped further and further away.

**It seemed that with every mile I went the road got curvier and the scenery prettier.**

**I was starting to feel breathless, I couldn’t tell if it was the altitude or the stunning beauty.**

**I rolled into a small town hanging to the side of mountain, it seems that horses are a much more common here.**

**A perfectly normal place for a cow to be**

**Occasionally I got a glimpse of the toll road with its massive bridges and tunnels, no wonder tolls here are expensive, it must have cost a fortune to build that highway.**

It was getting late, and while I could have made it out of the mountains to a larger town before dark I was tired and hungry so, I pulled into Copala a little with steep cobblestone streets, I ordered some food at the one restaurant that was open and asked for a hotel, they said there wasn’t one but there was a house I could stay at. By this point I was tired and full which is an even worse combination. Despite only understanding a fraction of what she was talking about it turned out to be a pretty nice place, at least once I was able to convince the old lady that owned it that I didn’t need the dresser dusted, or the floor mopped. All I needed was a bed.

**Pretty sure I passed out for a good 12 hours.**

In the morning I made the final push to Mazatlan.

**There is something about making it to an ocean that feels like you have accomplished something grand.**

I realized I don’t miss being able to understand the conversations going on around me or maybe the Mexican backdrop made the english speaking tourists more crass and arrogant in comparison. After the initial shock however, I did enjoy being able to communicate in sentences myself.