RIP Morty, he was a true adventurer who loved the road, and even more than that he loved the speed. The faster Churro went the happier Morty was, nodding his head in approval as we jammed along. You will be missed Morty, but I am getting ahead of myself.
1st, I needed to get Churro out of the stable, you know how temperamental he gets, and he hates missing out on adventure. So with a little magic, and a bit too much money, I replaced that crappy shock that had held us back for so long. I reluctantly decided to go with a cogent shock, known to be one of the best suspension upgrades for a KLR, but a bit over 800 USD which was painful considering Churro had been purchased for just over 3 grand. But with hindsight I have learned Churro was undervalued, as he has proven his weight in gold time and time again. The new shock was a worthwhile investment, though so good it leaves the front suspension feeling a bit inadequate now…we just can’t win. Well maybe we can, I also swapped out the stupid lowering links with a stock set while I was at it so Churro now sits tall and proud, as he should.
Time for a new shock
So Churro is finally free, yay! Naturally we celebrated with various delicious foods around Morelia, and then decided it was the perfect time to test out the new addition to the setup. I tried to talk him out of it, but Churro is no bitch, so he figured our 1st trial run should be a big one….so we strapped on the new surfboard and headed for mil cumbres. This way if something went wrong, we could blame the awesome road rather than the setup, and if it went right here, it would work anywhere!
Another Sunday where Morelia was completely “Shutdown” for covid….cuidate en casa my ass!
The other reason for testing the surfboard setup while headed in the opposite direction from the ocean was there were several spots within the state of Guerrero I had not yet made it to, and Churro and I were getting sick of the toll road that heads out to the coast, so it was time for another long detour. Churro and I slowly made our way to Taxco, a well known city famous for silver mining back in the day. I told Karen to avoid highways and tolls once again and set off from Morelia. I believe I have mentioned her before, but I try not to bring her up too often due to the love hate relationship Churro and I have with her. Sometimes Karen is fantastic, telling us to go down awesome roads, often unpaved….allowing us to do little work aside from following her directions. But sometimes….she is a straight up bitch. On roads like mil cumbres, which does not have many turn offs but does have many sharp turns, Karen cannot resist to tells us to turn left or right at every bend despite there being no other roads around. Due to this, Churro sometimes ignores her, assuming the small road we passed is not the road she intended us to take….and eventually she starts freaking out telling us to make a million non-existent turns until she demands we make a u-turn, which is the indication to me that we missed something. Anyway, Karen did well on this trip, even picking out a bit of dirt….so I will cut her some slack…this time.
Success!
We took some cool roads through towns I don’t remember, looking at google maps I took the squiggly roads roughly running from Morelia over through Valle de Bravo, over to Coatepec Harinas. This wasn’t done in 1 day, and I do recall skipping Valle de Bravo since while nice, was a zoo due to construction and the many tourists coming in from Mexico City. Unfortunately that is all I recall at this time. Since Churro and I were coming in the back way to Taxco this allowed us to descend down the mountain into the town. It was getting late, so we had debated stopping in Tetipac as it had a cool little centro, and probably only 1 hotel. We had somehow gotten slightly lost here despite it having less than 10 or so streets, so after passing through the centro 2, maybe 3 times we decided to push on since everyone wondered what the idiot gringo was up to. I later googled this town and unfortunately it is a bit famous for a police ambush which occurred between itself and Taxco 4 months prior….so maybe it is good we skipped it.
Taxco was a cool little city, with winding roads and pretty buildings, but not much going on….again most likely due to covid. I spent a day or two wandering the streets, but I don’t recall doing anything at all aside from ordering a pizza.
Taxco
So with a full belly, Churro and I headed off for Altamirano, once again taking the long way. I saw something about some natural pools of some sort on google maps, so let that decide the route, but even those were closed due to covid, with no plan of reopening anytime soon according to the sign left behind. Luckily the route to and from here was excellent, as there is great ridding in Guerrero, so it didn’t even matter. We took the route which led us through ixcateopan, I only recall this since the name is in the photo…I am getting further behind every day. I noticed the pyramid and spun Churro around at the last minute to grab the shot without really paying attention….only to drop him right on the surfboard….ahh, probably broken before it ever saw the water. Two guys jump out of a truck going by and help me lift him up, and I decide I don’t even want to know what happened so we carried on towards Altamirano, going through awesome little towns and great mountain roads.
Altamirano is hot, which comes as no surprise since everyone says this….yet I was still unprepared mentally for how hot it was and this was probably back in January, maybe February! There are couple of hotels, and some foods options, the typical local junk being sold so it is a common stop over for the few who make it out this way. We stayed in the cheap hotel with a lot of reviews, it was empty, but I later found a trip report elsewhere where others had stayed in the same hotel years before, so it has probably seen its share of ADVRiders. I also mustered up the courage to check that surfboard and surprisingly there was no damage. Now, that is partially because rather than a typical board I bought an NSP surfboard which while lacking in performance, is built like a tank….perfect for this type of adventure.
From here the mountain road will take us down to Zihuatanejo, unless we go around to Acapulco which neither Churro or I want to do again. The problem here is that the mountain road (Rt. 134) has a terrible reputation, and most people do everything they can to avoid it. You won’t see many cars so you are on your own if something goes bad, I think I saw 6 in the 4-5 drive between Altamirano and Zihua. You need to know this going in, make smart decisions, blah blah blah. I don’t recommend anyone take this route on their own, but I never follow my own advice so away Churro and I went. Well, it is definitely isolated, but it is also beautiful, and more important a winding road which Churro loves. There are a ton of small landslides that no one seems to maintain, as some had small trees growing out of the rock piles. At times large boulders were found in the road, as well as cows and donkeys, nothing out of the ordinary for Mexico. The ride was uneventful for Churro and I, which is a good thing on this road.
And now back to Morty. I try to be optimistic, so while Mortys time with Churro and I was short lived, I like to think as much as he loved life on the road, he found himself a home like so many of us do while on the road, and decided to stay behind and live out the rest of his life in peace. Or perhaps he wanted to check out the pyramid and jumped off when Churro took his nap in the road….only to be picked up by some adventurous little girl who took care of him from that point on. The reality is Mexico is a tough place, and he probably lost his grip through the turns on Rt. 134, eventually getting run over by a big rig…I never said I was good at this optimism thing. No matter what his fate was, Morty will be missed.
RIP Morty.
