El Gringo Perdido: Part 1
The Lost Gringo
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BLOG POST #018 - El Gringo Perdido (The Lost Gringo) Part 1
How I learned to ride a motorcycle, speak Spanish and not die. Riding solo in search of adventure from Detroit to Argentina.
Monterrey, was my first landing spot once I crossed the border into Mexico. Lovely as it was, after a few weeks I had to get out of that city for fear I might never leave.
Antonia joked that this was my home now. I had extended my stay three times already. Money was not a problem, since I worked remotely. My social life was great, including lots of new friends. Most nights my "fake girlfriend" Maria and I went out fine-dining all over the city.
First thing in the morning, I often took the ten minute walk to my favorite place for a fresh pastry and cup of coffee. It was a legit artisanal bakery, where workers had flour on their aprons and dense warm smells filled the air from ovens in the back room. Everything was made fresh and the offerings changed daily. The glass display cases glistened with every manner of baked goods that looked as good as they tasted.
The enchanting smell of fresh bread from my favorite bakery in Monterrey, Mexico.
As much as Mexico gets a bad name, it deserves it in many instances, but there are also places like Monterrey. It serves as a fantastic ambassador that I wish more foreigners would visit. This bakery was a great example of how clean, modern, and prosperous parts of the country are. The floor was swept, the bathroom sparkled, and there were always paper towels in the dispenser. The employees were cool, young, and artsy people, dedicated to their craft. They sported funky haircuts, piercings, and a little bit of ink. Most of them spoke perfect English. One guy told me about his vacation to Disney World when he was a kid.
Blink twice and you would think you were in the nicest part of Chicago or Dallas. Much as it felt adventurous to be there, it was also extremely comfortable. I felt safe and happy, surrounded by my socioeconomic peers.
The Greek Poet Homer wrote of ancient Sirens luring travelers to their doom. Suddenly I realized— they were calling out to me. As their song grew louder by the day, I planned my departure with a new sense of urgency.
I decided to target Oaxaca for my next ride. Seeing this name on paper looked impossible to say, but it made sense once Antonia told me the word out loud.
She pronounced it as, "wa-HA-ka."
Due south from my location, at the bottom of Mexico, Oaxaca—is the largest city in the state, which bears the same name. It sits in that part of the map where the land mass curls towards the right, on its way to the Yucatan Peninsula.
The Day of the Dead occurs at the end of October. Although it is celebrated all over Mexico, many people told me that Oaxaca was the epicenter of this holiday. My timing was good. This gave me nine days to to wander before then.
¡Siempre al Sur! (Always South!).
Getting acclimated to all-things-Mexico had been time well spent in Monterrey. I enjoyed the familiarity of being in a modern city with clean streets and shiny skyscrapers. However as I prepared to leave, my thoughts turned to dusty roads, cartel turf wars, police harassment, and all the worst clichés of traveling in terra incognita again.
My mood shifted to a complex mix of nervous excitement, as I started to feel the feels. With only a few vague stopping points in mind, I could wander as I pleased. That part sounded fun. The other parts, not so much. I felt a little lost, even though I hadn't left yet.
Many of the challenges I was worried about were obvious, but something else was going on in my head that I couldn't put my finger on. All of a sudden, a shocking little fun-fact came back to me.
"Oof. I don't know how to ride a motorcycle."
Prior to leaving home a few weeks back, I had never ridden before. The only reason I bought La Barra (my motorbike) was to go on this trip. During my motorcycle license training course, I learned to ride for five or six hours. While staying in Monterrey, I probably added another half hour of practice each day. Beyond that, I had only done five days of actual road-trip ride time in my life.
My leg and arm were still adorned with bright red mushy scabs from prior mishaps. The gentle sting of these wounds rubbing against the inside of my clothes was an apropos reminder that the ride itself was dangerous enough to cause my hasty demise.
After pondering every ugly scenario for a while, I did an abrupt one-eighty spin and snapped out of it. With a surge of confidence, I leaned into it. I have done this before. I'm no stranger to jumping into the deep end, learning new things on the fly, and dodging hazards without getting myself killed. It is what I am good at.
My attitude in life is something that I get to decide. Once I found my nerve, I was determined to make it a period of fantastic, free-flow-wanderlust.
My big plan was to not have a plan.
I would keep true to my motto of always going south, "¡Siempre al Sur!"
My course would cut straight down the middle of Mexico from top to bottom.
Needing a consult to finalize my next move, I had breakfast with Antonia one last time at a homey little cafe. It was a tiny shop with bright yellow painted walls, and a thin layer of shiny grease covering everything. The workers were all family with big smiles, always thankful to have patrons. There were no menus. They only had seating for six or seven people. Being so small, it felt cozy and intimate. Antonia and I huddled together at one of the tables crammed in the corner.
The food was a fantastic mix of Mexican classics with forty ways of making breakfast eggs. My favorite dish was Huevos Divorciados.
As the name implied "divorced eggs" referred to a split down the middle of the plate. Hot red salsa on one side did not mix with mild green salsa on the other. Like contentious exes who still had to share the family home until their court papers were finalized, there was an un-easy truce among my beans and eggs. A line of strategically placed tortilla chips formed a border between them to help keep the peace.
Antonia and I went over my safety plans as we ate. She warned me not to take the coastal road on the Veracruz side, or I had a good chance at being murdered. Other people told me the same thing, but that sounded pretty exaggerated to me. All my friends here are affluent urbanites who have no firsthand knowledge about that area. They live in the safest city in the country.
This sentiment reminded me of how people from the suburbs back home give blanket advice of, "Don't go down to Detroit, or you'll get shot."
Most of the folks who say that only cross Eight Mile road into the city proper, if absolutely necessary. A few times every year, they might beeline to a ballgame with the windows rolled up and doors locked. The only other way hard-core suburbanites see the city is from a raised highway, while driving out of town at seventy miles per hour.
Advice that is based on blood-and-guts news stories, horrific rumors, and all the things people don't know is never the best. I wish I could talk to someone with actual experience about the route I'm about to take. As often happens though, nobody has done what I am about to do - not even my Mexican friends.
Just the same, given no other info, I would be a fool not to listen.
Antonia had some good additions to the wisdom I had gathered so far. Riding after dark is a bad idea. I'll send proof of life texts to Rusty, making sure he knows my course. My parents had an app set up that would track my movements in real-time.
Normally, I try to navigate from safe-haven to safe-haven, visiting places I know or people I trust. Unfortunately, that would not be possible for the next week or two.
In any case, shyttt was going to get real in the gritty no-man's land of central Mexico. This was partly because of the extreme disparity between wealth and poverty of people along the way. It's also because of the organized crime and less rigid guardrails of social structure here.
External forces aside, the biggest danger factor was my own utter ignorance. I'd be traveling in a way where I could not possibly do research ahead of time on each road, rest stop, or town. All I could do was pay attention and ask a lot of questions as I went.
Antonia told me about a famous little pueblo called Real de Catorce. That would be a wimpy choice for my first stop, but I'm game. It's a tourist town, so there would be lots of other outsiders, English speakers, hotels, restaurants and facilities for a wayward lost Gringo like me.
Wimpy is good, as I feel my way through the increasingly gnarly parts of this journey.
After breakfast, the hour had finally come for me to leave Monterrey. Everything was pretty well packed the night before because the schedule was quite unforgiving. I'd need to cover a certain amount of distance before nightfall allowing for detours, breakdowns, and possibly even some enjoyment time. Google maps said it was a five hour ride, but my guess was that it would take seven. My goal was to arrive by three o'clock, so that meant I had to depart by eight in the morning.
When I travel rough, I think of everything as a resource like the "health" points on one of those first-person shooter games. The more times I get hit, the more my health score goes down until I finally die.
Talking to myself in the garage, I say, "Let's avoid that one, shall we?"
In order of importance, the resources I needed to watch were:
Situational safety. Health (injury, hydration, fatigue, anger). Tech (phone charge, cell signal, internet access). Maps and navs. Allies and phone-a-friend availability of help. Standard road-trip needs (fuel, motorbike maintenance, food, and lodging). Last, but by no means least is enjoying the ride!
While on the road, self-sufficiency and prudent management of all those resources was key. My secondary phone was mounted on the handlebars for navigation, but I also studied the route in case of GPS or cell signal failure. A big cheat code is to memorize a few town names along the way, and usually signage would get me where I need to go.
Having a stash of high-energy snacks and drinking water was critical. My tent was in one of the pannier boxes so I could sleep anywhere. If I got into a pinch, I would be safe on my own for a few days.
Even though La Barra has the oversized gas tank option, I still had to fill up every two-hundred miles. With no fuel gauge, it was quite a trick to constantly calculate how much further I could go. To make matters worse, the signs were in kilometers, but the rolling numbers on my odometer showed miles. So I am not using the word "calculate" metaphorically. There was actual mathematics involved. After some time, I got quite good at the conversion off the top of my head.
As I came down to the garage that final time at Antonia's place I was excited for what was next, but also super sad to be leaving my comfy Monterrey home. The removable pannier luggage boxes mounted nicely onto the sides of the bike with a satisfying "snap." My large waterproof backpack was banded down by an intense system of flexible straps, snugged flat across the back of the seat.
Not quite ready to roll outside Antonia’s place.
I jumped into my riding gear; including thick pants, protective jacket, helmet and gloves. A stand-alone dry-bag sling went over my shoulder, so I would have quick access to my "walking around cash" or other essentials.
Antonia hung around awkwardly, as I did the final rain-proofing. She gave me a custom engraved key chain for my motorcycle keys. Ever the dear friend and gracious host, she calibrated her magical healing widget to my forehead so she could send me good vibes via spiritual-electronic-remote-control. I'm not sure if the science of that is solid, but the love and sentiment surely are. In any case, I received it with heartfelt gratitude.
Taking a little piece of Monterrey with me.
Finally, Antonia loaded me up with more meditative prayer cards and said, "I'll be watching from afar."
It was important for her to know that I heard every word of wisdom she had offered. So the last thing I did was to stand before the memorial plaque of her late father. I recited the temezcal prayer she had taught me, with my own small add-on.
Bowing my head, I spoke quietly.
"Con permiso para salir, y todas mis relationes. Ometeotl. (rage)."
Paying my respects to Antonia's Father
All choked up, I had trouble getting the words out. This must be what it's like to be a frightenedadolescent Jewish boy at the podium for the first time, reading the Torah in a foreign tongue with the whole temple looking on. "Mazel tov!" to me, as my pronunciation came out pretty spot on.
Antonia gave me one of her trademark squeezy-hug-embraces, and off I went.
It had been eighteen days since I was last on the road.
Alas, I didn't get far.
Within the first five minutes a small bolt in one of my foot pegs broke.
Being eager to burn some gas on the open road, I decided to ignore it. This was a bad idea. It was a similar exercise to standing on one foot with the other lifted three inches off the ground. That seems like it would be easy, but within a mile or two I realized that this was not possible. My leg grew tired after eight or ten minutes, and I struggled to keep my foot from skidding on the ground.
It struck me as annoying, that the first stop on my “grand-exit-stage-left” from Monterrey, was to the Home Depot on the edge of town. How anticlimactic and humiliating.
When General MacArthur shouted "I shall return!" on his jeep ride out of Manila, did he have to stop a half-mile later and change a f***kin’ flat?
Mildly annoyed, getting creative with a little OSE (On-Site-Engineering)
Half of my belongings were secured safely away in the side boxes. The rest was out in the open with no way to lock it up. Whenever I stopped, I had to un-pack everything and carry it with me.
Once inside Home Depot, it was obvious I was a foreigner and my baggage did not make this better. Feeling self-conscious, I plodded around the aisles with my all my riding gear and two backpacks awkwardly slung over my shoulder.
Just like back home, I thought, "I should have gotten a cart!"
Home Depot, itself was surprisingly normal. The shelves were well stocked, the floors were clean, and the staff were very attentive.
Most of the customers were better dressed than I would have thought. These weren't "workers," getting materials for a contract. They were wealthy homeowners trying to fix a toilet or find a replacement part for the fridge. One guy was wearing very expensive Ray Bans, and his sweatpants had some kind of designer name on the side. He looked like the VP of a bank who needed an excuse to get out of the house, because he wanted a Starbuck’s Grande Mocha Latte. Milling around the plumbing department half-heartedly, he seemed way more interested in his coffee than his home improvement mission.
Once I had a carefully selected pile of hardware to play with, I got to work under the shade of a tree in the parking lot. Lying on my side next to the shopping cart corral, I wrenched away on my bike. All of my luggage, tools, and protective gear took up a whole second parking spot next to where I was splayed out on the ground.
Most of the patrons eyeballed me with curiosity as they walked to their cars. This was not my best attempt at blending in, and the attention made me a little angsty.
With the right combination of nuts, bolts and washers, I was able to assemble an acceptable temporary fix. Glad the whole ordeal only cost me a thirty minute delay, I was mobile again.
Maybe someone in that parking lot will quote me one day like MacArthur. "¡Siempre al Sur!"
Miles passed as I relaxed and settled in to the ride. It is strange how I am more nervous before I leave. Once I am on the road I have more control.
The last pass out of town was a lovely goodbye tour of my new favorite city.
The skyline of Monterrey faded from sight in my side-view mirrors and I was out in the scrublands again. The entire landscape was the color of brown, sun-scorched earth, and endless-barren-farmland lined each side of the road. An occasional dust devil would pop up in the distance, with its column of dirt bobbling and spinning towards the sky.
This is the “real Mexico.”
"The Land of the Unfinished Wall."
The landscape could not have been more typical, with oversized tumbleweed and a donkey tied to a tree every few miles.
La Barra's engine hummed out a long, calming note. The ribbon of asphalt off in the distance swayed back and forth slowly, like hand of an orchestral conductor.
A fever dream washed over me, mingling memories of the past with my imagination tackling was next.
(rage)
NEXT POST COMING SOON: June 18th, 2025
