So my return trips to Morelia and Uruapan are a bit out of out of order, I don’t recall exactly what I did, and dumped the photos into the same folders rather than creating a bunch of multiple Morelia/Uruapan folders, so deal with it. 

I returned to the prostitute hotel and enjoyed Morelia again as it was now decorated with Xmas decorations throughout the centro.  I even scored a room with a balcony 1 night, but they put me back in the crappy room the following nights.  There were more restaurants/stores open this time, and a lot more people, so the city was even more fun than last time I was here.  Unfortunately the covid BS caught up with this city as well, so they did the rational thing and closed off 5 blocks of the centro to drivers….in a city of about 1 million people…..yes 5 blocks….closed to drivers only.  You could still walk around the centro, shops were open, and many people are still wearing their masks improperly if they even have one on, but at least we are safe now with the traffic shut down.  Ok ok, I admit, I LOVE IT, they should keep it this way all the time, the centro is much better without the traffic.  Funnily enough humans are creatures of habit, and rather than walk in the empty streets taking advantage of the distance they could have from each other, 90% of them were all walking shoulder to shoulder on the sidewalks, what are you going to do?

More tiny beers WTF

There is a band playing on top of that bus! They must have heard I was back in town.

The newest update is that the state govt. has threatened to close down non-essential businesses on Thur-Sun evenings from 7pm, because like the hard working American, covid slaves away everyday during the week, and then gets crazy and goes out on the town for the weekend.  The governor of Michoacan then tried to take it a step further and said all business would close on Sundays in major cities throughout the state.  Luckily this was an empty threat, as the mayor of Morelia put his foot down and said not on my watch!  Well, it turns out the mayor is weak and he caved, so they did shut everything down Sundays, but luckily it only really happened in the centro, elsewhere things were as expected, if someone wanted to shut down they did, if not they didn’t.

The Aqueduct

I could get used to this

The view out on the main drag…only for 1 day 

So after a bit of Morelia it was back to Uruapan, which had filled up for the xmas season so I had to find a new hotel as the one with my moto friend was full.  I hit the National Park again, and ate some great food.  My friends took me to a slightly fancier restaurant this time, where they knew the owner.  Eventually he came to say hello and when introduced he tells me I am in the heart of Purapecha country, and am welcome here.  It sounded much more bad ass the way he said it, so now I am acting like I own the place, probably not good.

Disgusting sludge

From there a friend and I took off for the coast, figuring xmas should be spent on a beach.  The Jalisco cartel has recently declared war with the Michocan cartel, and even though I am now untouchable in Purapecha country, we took the toll road down to play it safe as the area in between.

Now, this was a big restaurant, and every table the other direction was empty……yet these two jackasses chose to sit right next to me….come on guys, let’s at least pretend to social distance ok? 

Uruapan and the coast is tierra caliente, a bit unsafe of an area, and there is a whole lot of nothing on the route.  Since it is a quick 4 hour ride and we are taking the toll route, and since I have driven months around Mexico with getting a flat, I leave the tools behind to lighten the load.  Naturally you know what happens next.

Not even 45 minutes outside Uruapan Churro starts to feel a bit strange, like something is loose with the steering, it is not awful but doesn’t feel right.  It had been bothering me for 10 or 15 minutes, but I had originally assumed it was the extra weight of a passenger with that bad shock.  But the more I thought about it everything had felt fine the 1st 30 minutes of the trip, so I decided to pull over and take a look.  I focused on the front tire as the steering had felt loose, my friend took a look at the rear and said everything was good, so we hopped back on Churro but decided to turn back and head for the gas station we passed to get a better look.  Well, this time it was obvious something is wrong, as soon as I hit the gas I am all over the place and have no control…..crap rear tire has gone flat, what the F was my friend looking at???  It was a slow leak originally, but now the tire was done for.  My friend hops off and I pull a u-turn to cross the highway to a safer spot to park, and just crossing the highway is incredibly difficult as his ass is swinging all over the place.  My friend walks to the SOS kiosk nearby, but of course someone had stolen the phone so that was of no help.  We use our phones and call the number on the toll receipt, in Mexico you can get help for free on the toll roads if you have an issue which is pretty sweet.  They tell us a flat bed is coming to get us which is good, since I don’t have a spare tube or the tools to replace it since I had been trying to lighten the load for this easy trip.  I check the tire while we waited and sure enough we picked up a nail in Churros tire.

The tow truck shows up and he tells me he doesn’t have any straps, but that I can stand on the back of the flat bed and hold Churro up while he drives down the highway….um, do you know how heavy this bitch is?  Well, we don’t have any options so away we go.  Stupidly I had my helmet and other gear in the truck not really thinking about his plan, so while he kind of went slow, he kind of didn’t, and I would have felt much better with the gear on.  Not gonna lie though, with my hair flowing in the breeze I had images of teen wolf surfing on the roof of the van in my head the entire time.  We make it back to the toll plaza without falling off the back, and he calls someone to come and help us, while he takes off.  This is the end of the free service, but at least we are not stuck on the side of the road.  45 min or so later a guy shows up on a motorcycle, with no tools aside from 2 wrenches…..again, I could have taken care of this problem myself had I not been so lazy before so I cannot even get mad.  Dude eventually takes off my tire and takes off, I figure we will never see him again and figure tonight he will come back and throw Churro in the back of a truck after we have given up and left Churro and his 1 wheel behind.  Luckily my friend and I are awesome, and make the best of it with good jokes and some crappy food from the toll plaza vendors.  At some point we even made friends with a stray dog…because, well it is Mexico.

Several hours later the guy comes back and my heart sinks, he doesn’t have the tire, only the tube which he shows me is shredded.  What he is showing me is that he cannot patch it which I understand, but wish he had just replaced the tube and brought the tire back, but he needs the money 1st….ok, here is some cash.  He takes off and again we wait, having no idea when he will be back.  Night falls, it is 7:30 now and has probably been 8 hours total thus far when he finally returns, but this time he has my tire…yay!  There are people around now and then but I don’t know how safe the toll plazas are after dark, so I was glad to see him.  He starts banging on shit to get the wheel back on to where I finally have to tell him to stop and help him, but eventually Churro is back to normal.  We had already decided we couldn’t continue onto the beach this late, so head back to Uruapan for the night ready to try again tomorrow, but spirits are high as we are just happy to be leaving the toll plaza, and we know it’s a quick trip back to Uruapan.      

It’s dark now and the toll road is full of cars and semi-trucks hauling ass, everyone is passing everyone and on the toll road there is no divider, so you have oncoming cars and trucks making passes as well, which brings them into your lane.  The trucks have no problem riding your ass, so it is best to keep moving quickly as well.  After 30 or so minutes again I feel it…..son of a bitch not again.  This time it is rapid, but luckily there is not a truck behind us, and there is a national guard car with his lights on pulled over up ahead.  I start slowing down and almost crash, as the back end is kicking all over the place, I don’t know how we didn’t lose it to be honest.  We don’t quite make it to the cop car but it is close enough were I can push Churro over to it, while my friend goes ahead and tells him we almost died.  He sees my friends face and realizes we need help right away so has me push Churro in front of his car as well as the other car he had stopped to help, and tells us we can get towed back to the toll plaza with the car.

The flatbed shows up, and who else but the same driver, hola amigo!  Still doesn’t have any straps, so this time I am going to stand on the flatbed holding up Churro, while he tows the car behind us as well….great if I drop Churro this time not only is the bike done, I am gonna F up their car in the process.  Having learned that this guy doesn’t really know what slow means, I leave ALL my gear on this time.  He wants to take us back to the plaza away from Uruapan, to the SAME plaza we had waited at the past 8 hours, oh please god no!  Luckily, the Nation Guard guy is amazing, and is having a heated discussion with the flatbed driver to take us elsewhere who is blatantly objecting to this.  National Guard hombre finally calls in to the flatbed drivers boss and orders him to take us to the mechanic.  Turns out the National Guard hombre is pretty high up, so the flatbed driver has zero say and loses the fight.  After dropping the car off at the plaza, we continue on, further from Uruapan, and pull into a mechanic shop on the toll road at the Pemex.  Well, they only work on cars but they tell the driver there is a moto mechanic at the pemex literally on the other side of the highway, so we pull a u-turn and cross the highway, where we see the original mechanic who took hours to help earlier….boooo.

I suspect the guy pinched the tube when originally putting the new tube in as there is no nail this time, but he objects to that.  Luckily he has a boss, and you can tell the boss doesn’t trust him either so the boss tells us they will take a look while poking jabs at the guy about his shoddy work.  They get the tube out, find a small hole by the tire stem, and try and tell me they were sold a bad tube….I don’t buy it but what can I do.  More money to the guy so they can go get another tube, I am just happy they tell me the shop is open despite it being 9 or 10 pm at this point.  The boss tells me he will be back so we go back into waiting mode and grab some junk food.  Eventually he returns with a tube, and they get Churro back together again.  I pay the guys again despite knowing they are probably at fault, just happy to once again be on the road finally headed to Uruapan.
Another 20 minutes later, slowing down to pay the last toll, I hear metal squeaking.  I ask my friend about it, and my friend tells me it is the nearby trucks….no I have learned my friend has no idea what they are talking about, so I pull over to take a look.  Sure enough, it is Churro.  He is only making noise at low speeds, so I take a look at the tire knowing those idiots did something wrong.  I touch the rotor and it is hot, as is the rim and even the swing arm.  Further investigation and I see my rear brake pad hanging out of whack yet still in the caliper, the idiots never put it back in properly.  God damnit, if you are going to do something right you need to do it yourself.  It is 12:30 at night, there is no way I am getting a lift back to those jackasses, so send my friend off to ask random truckers in the plaza to borrow some tools.  Eventually we get what we need so I take the tire off and start to reset everything myself, as the wheel alignment markers were also off.  We give some of the tools back to truckers who needed to leave, and I continue working with what I have.  I eventually get everything fixed but need a wrench to tighten the axel so send my friend off again.  This time my friend comes back telling me I owe them big time.  They had asked a trucker for a wrench, and as the trucker replied he turned around exposing himself as he had been mid piss.  Hahaha, better you than me friend.  I button Churro up and for the 3rd time we set off, hoping to be problem free.  It is now late, freezing cold, and we are exhausted.  We FINALLY make it back to Uruapan at 1:30 am, having gone 45 KM in 14 hours only to return to exactly where we started.  Oh well, I guess the beach will have to wait until tomorrow.  Always an adventure.