Rivers Run Through It

Monterrey – Allende – Linares, Nuevo León, Mexico

Diana’s parents were originally from China, and lived there until the mid- to late-1940s, before fleeing to Taiwan as the Communists took over the country. I think most of Diana’s mom’s family escaped, but Diana’s dads family suffered a worse fate; he lost most of his family during the revolution and he didn’t see his sister again for over 50 years. 

Around the turn of the century Diana’s parents returned to the town that Dr. Liu grew up in in order to visit his sister. Turns out that – despite not having seen his sister in 50+ years – Diana’s parents only stayed for a few hours. 

After decades of a middle class life in America, the squat toilets were just too much for them. 

Such was our afternoon today. 

Diana and I are pretty adventurous. We’re willing to do some things that others would never think of. But we have lived our whole lives in the middle class luxury of Estados Unidos. 

As of yet, we have not been able to break the code for camping in Mexico. Part of that is th anxiety for what we might find. Part of that is some long days, or, like yesterday (more on yesterday, below), some overpacked days, part of that is the language barrier, and, I suspect, a big part of it is just that people don’t really camp as much here. (We haven’t seen a single RV yet. Which is kind of incredible because I feel in the American South half the people live in, or at least own, an RV)

But Diana and I don’t easily give up. 

Especially Diana. One of my favorite pictures of Diana is from when she was about eight years old. Her mom had brought her and her brother to get their pictures taken by a professional. Diana refused to smile.

The photographer told Diana’s mom not to worry – he could make any kid smile. He proceeded to try every trick. Lollipops. No dice. Teddy bears. Are you kidding? Ice cream. He was getting closer – but no. There would be no smile that day. He finally had to throw in the towel and take the picture with Diana not giving an inch – just staring straight into the camera defiantly with a “you can’t make me do anything I don’t want to do” expression on her face . . .

But I digress . . .

We decided to really try camping today. We left early and kept the day fairly short so that we could fully explore the options when we reached our destination for the day: Linares, Nuevo León. 

There were a few trials and tribulations along the way – which I’ll get to later – but we reached Linares by around 2. Plenty of time to find a campsite – if there was one. 

So we sit down in the town square – after purchasing some conchas in the panadería – in order to review the options. 

According to Google, there is a place just outside of town called La Rivera. Sounds promising. No reviews. But what’s new? 

Better yet, Diana finds a camping store only a few blocks from the square. 

Our plan? Stop at the camping store and ask them for info – and then, depending upon what they say, head out to La Rivera.

So we head to the camping store. Except that it doesn’t seem to exist. Not a trace of it where it was supposed to be. There is a wedding shop – but our marriage was 29 years ago – so really not that useful . . .

We decide to just head out and see what’s there. It’s like three kilometers away – seems easy enough. But as we bike along things are getting rougher and rougher. Nice shops and orderly buildings and homes are giving way to broken stuff, garbage, random animals – a few cows and a bull in one yard, chickens wandering around, and, of course, dogs, always dogs – and a general sense of squalor. 

The streets are getting worse as well. And soon we’re on not so much a street as the idea of a path, complete with rocks, mud pits, and feral dogs – barking viciously. (Most of the dogs in Mexico are actually super mellow and kindly – but not these savage-looking beasts). Eventually the “path” heads under a seedy bridge and there is now in a river bottom area – with dogs barking furiously ahead, and encampments and garbage all around us. 

Diana is done. 

“I’ll wait here. You go ahead.”

Google shows that we’re only a few hundred yards from our destination, so I pick my way through the dystopian scene so that we can definitively say that we’ve checked out all of our camping options.

”Call me if it’s nice,” Diana says as I go.

When I reach our destination I’m surprised to find two big gates and a sign that says La Rivera. The place actually exists. 

There are two or three dogs menacing me from the other side of the fence. (How quaint that scene in Rochester on day two of our journey seems now . . .) There is a building and I yell out “Hola” a few times. Eventually a man wearing one of those muscle shirt type things emerges from the building, and looks at me with some significant suspicion.

”Tienes camping?”

”No. No tengo.” He said some other stuff but my vocabulary is not good enough to follow along. Suffice to say that he made it abundantly clear that there would be no camping at his place. 

So now I’m typing away from our very nice, and very inexpensive, hotel in town. 

We might camp again – but I think we might be done trying to find camping for a while. 

In other news . . .

Yesterday. 

Our plan was to explore Monterrey a little, maybe go for a hike in the nearby mountains, and then head to Allende – where we were hoping to camp at Canon De Las Uvas, which is theoretically a campground right near town. 

We explored Monterrey a little. We biked up – and I mean up – to a nearby hiking area, we hiked a little, and then we decided to start heading to Allende. 

Problem was that it was already about 2 pm – and we’re now in what we call the Mountain time zone back in the US (not sure what they call it here . . .). The upshot being that it gets dark about 6:10. We only had about 55 kilometers – about 35 miles – to go. But 1) I still had to eat my second lunch, and 2) we didn’t factor in how much time it takes to get out of a city – especially when you are trying to avoid the main highway. 

The eating part was actually great. We stopped at a little food truck area called Monch, where our new friend Laura made us a wonderful meal. Carnitas on cheese-crusted tortillas. Exquisite. Turns out Laura went to an “American” school in Monterrey and her English is as good as her cooking. 

The getting out of town part was fun too – in its own slow way. Mexico seems obsessed with traffic calming. If you are not on a major highway there are basically speed bumps every 200 meters. And they aren’t your grandmother’s speed bumps. No, even James Bond in a high-speed chase would have to slow to 4 mph to navigate these bumps. (There’s a reason Moonraker wasn’t filmed here.) On a loaded bike? Forget about it. You might as well just stop and start over every time.

But worse than the speed bumps are the grates. I don’t think Mexico has much in the way of underground storm systems – meaning that they need curb-to-curb grates over the shallow drainage ditches that they do have. Not a big deal, right? Wrong! Whoever designed their grates was clearly not a biker. Or maybe the grates were installed before biking was invented? I don’t know. But here’s the deal: the main grating – about 1.5” wide, or a little larger than a bike tire – runs the same direction as the road. Also the same direction that a bicycle tire goes. They end up being literally death traps for cyclists. Remember when my wheel went into the groove by the tram track in St. Louis? Same idea, only much worse . . .

Now, not every grate is that bad. But you never know. So between the speed bumps and the grates, biking on the side roads is WAY slower than the highways – and, frankly, it really doesn’t feel much safer . . .

Sadly, it gets worse . . . 

So we’re biking along making some okay progress – and seeing lots of things. Always lots of things in Mexico. So many things. 

Well, one thing we saw was a river somehow merging onto the street we were on. No big deal, just go through slowly and you won’t get wet . . . Except that we’re going down a hill and the river just stays with us. We’re now biking – with our feet up in the air, trying to keep them dry – down a river. 

This goes on for like a mile. Now we’re running late, we’re getting tired, and we’re wet . . .

Sadly, it gets even worse yet . . .

When we finally reach the bottom of this hill (descents are supposed to be fun, by the way) we see that the road-river is running directly into a REAL river – and the road goes over the combined road/real river. 

So sad . . .

And so late. By the time we reach Allende there’s about 45 minutes of daylight left. We’re hungry, we’re even more tired, and if we are going to camp we need to buy groceries. 

We end up ditching the camping plan. Just too late. So we still don’t know if Canon De Las Uvas is a real place – or just another mangy spot on the map – like La Rivera. 

Even after abandoning our camping plans things are not easy. By the time we finish dinner night has fallen and it turns out that the only hotel we can find is 5 kilometers away. We take the biking route so as to avoid riding on the main highway after dark. 

This route – like so many – starts out fine, before deteriorating into a sequel of the River Runs Trough It road earlier in the day. Only this time after dark. Our patience – and our sense of humor – has diminished at this point . . .

We finally make it to the “hotel.” 

We pull in and an alarm immediately sounds. We look around and see that the parking lot is dirt and the motel has a super odd configuration: the sleeping quarters are apparently upstairs – above what are apparently parking stalls for each car – complete with curtains – like, real curtains – covering the parking spots. (I think you want the curtains so if you take your mistress to the motel your wife can’t find your car in the parking lot . . . I don’t know, but pretty sure there are no wholesome reasons for the auto privacy.)  I didn’t see it at the time, but apparently you rent your room by the hour, not the day. But even without seeing that sign my spidey senses are all tingling. Basically a precursor to today’s squalid “camping.”

With the alarm two ragged-looking individuals emerge from behind the curtains and ask what we want. (At least that’s my interpretation).

Now, just before we turned into this place and the alarm sounded I saw another billboard that said something about another hotel in one kilometer. It’s like someone gave me a last minute lifeline escape . . .

Diana and I don’t even have to confer. We just leave and head to this other place. 

Dark road. Not pleasant. 

We arrive . . . and find . . . umm . . . nothing . . .

We stand there dumbstruck for a minute. Now what?

And then a few cars pull in. We flag one down. Driver speaks perfect English and tells us that there actually is a hotel. It’s just over hill and dale and then turn right and it’s the second set of lights. Oh – it’s that easy? 

We follow him – and sure enough, in the middle of nowhere there is a hotel-like thing. Turns out it’s some type of lonely spa. But they have rooms and it’s open. We pay about triple the going rate in Mexico. But whatever . . . 

By this time we are both mentally and physically exhausted. Thus, no blog post . . . 

Today’s riding. This is too long already so I’ll keep this really short. We took Google Bike directions for a short while. It took us on a dirt cart path through the woods. That path deteriorated and we ended up confronted by yet another river crossing. Super pretty, but, really? 

Beautiful mountains. Trees. Lots of trees. Water. So many rivers and streams – not just crossing the roads . . . (Who knew that Mexico had so much water? This will likely be a recurring theme – but I thought it was just one big chunk of desert – with some cool beaches). And citrus fruit. And even bananas. 

And, by the way, our new friend Jorge, a curator at the pretty-amazing for-a-town-this-size, museum tells us that the town – Linares – is a Mexico-designated Magical City – which means, I guess that it is a really cool with lots of happy people and festivals and such. Super nice. We’ll be looking for more magical cities going forward.

So many things . . . 

That’s Mexico. Where the people are nice. The scenery is ever changing. And the speed bumps are plentiful.