Hmmm, 4 months behind now…oh well where was I??
Life is good!  Yes, no matter what problems I am having a beach seems to always fix them.  Ok, to be honest I don’t love it here, we are in Zihuatenejo, which has zero waves….what is the point of going to the beach if you cannot surf?  But the bay is nice, and sitting on a beach eating and drinking is better than not sitting on a beach eating and drinking, especially after the debacle the day before, this time we made it!  Churro ran like a champ now that I was the one working on him again, as expected there were zero problems getting to the beach today, zero!!!

Well ok, maybe a minor hiccup which could have once again easily been avoided, but hell this is supposed to be an adventure!  After sleeping in after the long awful day we had, we set off to retrace our steps from the day before.  I had been warned that there was a lot of nothing in the tierra caliente region we were going through, so planned on getting gas at the Pemex where the idiot mechanics were so as not to push our luck.  Of course I missed the entrance not paying full attention, and decided to hit the next gas station rather than pull a u-turn.  Turns out there isn’t one, so as I continued on longer and longer it quickly became apparent to me that we had passed the final gas station.  I don’t mention this to my friend, and Churro has the largest tank in the world, so hoped for the best.  Several hours later he dies.  No problem, been here before, I laugh it off to my friend, flip Churro up on the kickstand to transfer gas to the left side, and we push on.  20 minutes later the same happens, flip and repeat.  The 3rd time and I am getting worried, I am losing gas much faster than when it is just me due to the extra weight.  I admit to my friend that we may not make it, and that they may need to hitch a ride ahead and bring us back some gas.  My face must have told the real story as my friend was now also worried.  We pull up a map to gauge how much further we have to go but to my relief we are not that far from the ocean….oh no problem we will be fine….I think.  Off again, running real low we get to the toll both and there is a sign telling us it is 45 min to Zihua, and 15 to the next gas station….clearly we are not the 1st to have gas issues since this must be a common question when people pull up.  My friends asks some questions in Spanish and we find out we can stop even sooner and buy some barrel gas from a local nearby, so now I know we are fine.  We stop to buy a liter before carrying on to the main gas station, crisis averted.

Zihua and Ixtapa are two cities that are worlds apart.  I don’t love either one, but Ixtapa is horrendous.  It is one of those Mexican resort projects where they took a beautiful bay, and ruined it with high rise condos and all inclusive hotels.  I later drove the strip and you cannot even see the beach, and there are 2, maybe 3 access points to the beach, otherwise it is all private hotels…..it is the worst.  Zihua is more our scene, a small mexican city with some nice beaches, a centro full of people selling their crap, but a number of gringos and no waves, eww.  But, it is a nice place to spend xmas, so we got to our airbnb and enjoy a few days eating and drinking on the beach.

Unfortunately we paid the price for that, as towards the end of the trip my friend ended up sick from food poising.  I used this to my advantage to go off walking to some of the beached we hadn’t yet gone to since I felt fine.  That is pretty much all that happened, but sometimes it is nice to do a whole lot of nothing.  With my friend feeling better we headed back to Uruapan the next day.  Not even 2 or 3 hours after getting back it hit me, and I puked for hours, running to the bathroom every 10 minutes.  I puked so much the next day my chest was on fire.  I briefly woke up thinking I had covid….no that is just my muscles in pain from all the puking.  I cannot imagine if it had hit me during the ride back, what I would have done or how on earth we could have ridden anywhere, especially out there in the middle of nowhere.  I didn’t bounce back as quickly as my friend had, and had stomach pains for several days afterwards.  Definitely not the best beach vacation I have ever had.

Feeling a bit better, we had to make up for that catastrophe, so I checked off another item on the list that had eluded me, Chorros del Varal.  We jumped on Churro and headed off on another adventure, despite it being cold as shit.  The winter storm that hit up North which everyone was talking about on Facebook had even affected us way down here, and we were getting hit with very cold winds from some thermal current or something.  When passing through Angahuan I realized it was too much for my friend, so I stopped to find my friend some warmer clothes.  I previously mentioned that Angahuan was the main entrance to the lava church, but that I had taken the back way so never saw it.  Well, I loved it.  The people were super friendly, the town had dirt roads and many houses were without windows.  Naturally that is a bit sad, especially when it is cold like this, but it is one of those places were people make the best of what they have.  We asked the guides with horses at the entrance to town where we could buy some clothes, and sure enough they sent us to the plaza in the centro.  When we arrived we found people selling all kinds of stuff, including clothes for 40 pesos (1.92USD) each!  Loaded up with warm clothes, we did what one naturally does to celebrate, and found some delicious burritos!  Yes, I told you I like it here.  After lunch we continued on, as we had to get out to Los Reyes for the falls, and were hoping to return before dark.

We make it to Los Reyes, and follow signs for the falls.  I was hoping the place would be deserted, but when we got to the lot there were a few cars in the lot.  We paid for parking, and walked down a ton of stairs, turns out you only pay for parking there is no entrance fee.  We get to the bridge and are finally greeted with our first sight of the fall, and they are amazing.  Seriously if you are in the area you NEED to go.  Using google I find zero hits for this place on ADVRider, I hope this post changes that in the future, it is a fantastic place.

It is impossible to capture everything in 1 photo with my camera, but I do a pretty good job.  I hate taking selfies though, so ask my friend to take a panarama of me and the falls, and this is what they took.  Yeah, nice rocks, guess I will stick to selfies.  While the lot was full, the falls are fairly empty, so we run all over the place having it pretty much to ourselves.  We eventually head back to Uruapan, but do so at night, so it is much colder than earlier in the day.  My visor was filthy so I was forced to ride back with it up, limiting the speed I could go as the temps were brutal.
Not a panorama expert

Take 2!

I am sure some other stuff happened in Uruapan, but I forget.  We headed back to Morelia where I am sure some other stuff also happened, but I forget that as well.  I do know that after a few weeks I returned to the beach, because well, I had been there and not even surfed, and who does that??