There’s a narcissistic pleasure to be savoured from standing in a multitude of lines, for hours on end, trying to communicate in a language that isn’t yours, whilst clinging to every scrap of official documentation you can lay your hands on, not knowing which one will be called on next. All of this whilst you sweat into your already sodden and heavy bike kit and cumbersome MX boots.

Sabinas Hildago long day down to Concepcion del Oro, Stopped in a small roadside motel $400 pesos for the night expensive but no choice.

With an early start we easily picked up the Ruta 54, a winding main route that took us from open plains to low mountains. By mid-day we'd taken the well-marked left turn at La Fabrica and 52-miles later we began our careful ascent up to the town of Real de Catorce, deep in the heart of the Catorce mountain range, in the state of San Luis Potosi.

About 3-minutes in and the tar vanished, replaced with and an ancient cobblestone road, which saw us up on the pegs, doing our best to minimize the impact from the harsh vibrations from the track we were riding.

We'd first heard of the town when it was used as the backdrop in the Hollywood film, the Mexican, with Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts. A small town hidden away, with the most gorgeous view over Mexico, yeah, that sounded pretty good to us as well. Catorce was founded in 1779 after the discovery of rich silver mines, which led a crowd of miners and adventurers to arrive in search of fortune. By 1810 the wealth of it's mines had become legendary.

Before long we'd reached the start of 'The Ogarrio Tunnel' we'd heard so much about. Now OK, we've all driven or ridden through a tunnel before,so what's the big whoop, well this one's a little different; it's 2,750 meters above sea level and 2,300 meters long, one car's width and cut by hand. It's also the only access and exit to Real de Catorce.

This has to have been the longest, skinniest, darkest and creepiest tunnel either of us have been through, there's little point in me explaining the experience, instead check out the video below.

Our eyes have to quickly adjust to the glaring light of the hot day as we emerge, the small dusty area on the town side of the tunnel mostly taken up with stallsl and vendors.

Past these we're back on cobblestone and easing our way down the narrow one way streets of this mountain sanctuary.Small stone shops spill their goods into the street.

We needed to stop as much for a coffee as to find somewhere to stay for the night. It was going to be easier for Lisa to stay put whilst I look for a hotel than for both of us to to and negotiate the tightly crammed, bumpy and steep streets.

The F650 Dakar with all the overland gear and aluminum panniers, parked up around the corner caught my eye, it was carrying USA plates but the stickers and style were definately English. I only knew one of guy that I thought was traveling in South America or at least heading South. I headed back around to find Lisa and no sooner had I taken a seat next to her, we heard the unmistakable twang of a London ascent. "Oh my God, i don't believe it, bloody hell, I've just been on your web site, how ya doin'", Graham was strolling down the same street I'd just ridden, his grin huge.

We'd come across Graham or at least his youtube video by chance when we typed in '2ridetheworld' and noticed he's thrown that word into his tag words on the vid (words that you place with a file that can be searched). We actually felt a little flattered, that someone thought enough of our video efforts as to use our name in order to get a few more hits, but then again, Ewan, Charley and long way around were also in there. Go and check out "Brainrotting" on youtube for God's sake and get this poor, poor man some hits, seriously though Graham puts together some mighty fine video and their well worth a watch, the first of his videos's is here: Brainrotting Episode 1

Naturally the first thing I did over coffee, was make Graham cringe with embarrassment, once I told him we'd found him out. Well, I had too.

On Grahams advice we've headed back to the Hotel San Fransisco A small stone hotel with a great view over the valley and Real Del Catorce. (You can find it at GPS: N23 41.425 W100 53.251). this was also where Graham was staying.

By evening we'd realized that Graham shared the same kind of warped British humor as our own and the three us enjoyed a meal. Graham bended buying beers as his youtube video pennence. The three of ended laughing into the wee hours of the morning.

'The Ogarrio Tunnel' seemed longer leaving Catorce than it had when we'd arrived, it's hard not to fall in love with this little piece of Mexico and so we were a little sad to leave the cobblestone behind us and once again pick up the good tar of the Ruta 57 heading south.

With me riding up front, Lisa behind and Graham picking up the rear we found a good pace and settled into a rhythm, around us farmed plains, mixed with dry scrub land and always on a horizon some distant mountain could be made out.

We stopped for breakfast in the small town of Matehuala and scoffed down a few spicy burritos, Graham had misunderstood and instead of ordering 3 burritos had ordered 3 plates. The young girl serving us from the wooden street cart was laughing as she served this man with the vast appetitive. Graham, bless him, joined in the laughter and struggled to finished off all three plates.

Sat on the steps of the towns central square we sipped on coffee and woke oursleves up, and just watched Mexican life go by. Not a bad way to start a new day.

By late afternoon and with our relaxed pace we'd only covered 120-miles. We'd not seen any town for an hour or so and according to the GPS none were coming up soon. Pulling off to the side of the road we agreed to head down the small gravel track we'd just passed, the scrub should provide us enough cover to disguise our presensce from the road.

A couple ofhundred feet down the grey gravel track we'd ducked off and picked our way through the scratch land and inbetween the cacti, bushes and bemused and staring cattle, finding a spot with a few less rocks.

What a friggin palava! We'd wrongly thought that this little track would have been quiet, but no! There was a bloody pickup or car heading up or down to and from God knows where every 5-minutes, so there we are, the 3 of us, trying to put up our tents amongst the dried cow pats and being interupted as we crouch down suddenly every few minutes so we don't get seen by the passing vehicles. We were doing this mainly because we didint fancy the whole village that may be up the road coming over to join us, nor a group of univited young guys - not tonight. It got to the point that we crouching and hiding as much as we standing. That was it, we all had the giggles. It was like playing hide and seek. Ridicilous but bloody funny.

As dusk set in we'd finally managed to put up the tents and manouver the bikes behind some thicker scrub and against our better judgement had found some dry tinder and had set a fire after finding a more hard packed stone area on which to build it.

Lifes good and there we sat. Our dry and dusty riding gear keeping out the chill of the night, our faces bathed in the warm flickering light of the fire, laughter all around, a plate of food in our laps and over my shoulder a bright moon rises, sillhoutting a tall cacti.

Inside our tent, the sleeping bags feel warm and comforting. See you tomorrow.

A longer day than we’d planned full of back roads, dirty and dusty pueblos, speed bumps and potholes...what a great day.

Our eyes are tired and soar and we feel like we’ve actually done some ridng today. We ended up staying in Zumpango in a sex motel, clean and safe as usual, but funny as hell, after we'd dealt with the usual confuasion at the front gate when expalining that i wanted the room for the night and not just the hour.

The motel can be found at GPS: N19 47.594 W99 04.919

Well, I'm not going to write much as I'm pretty tired, hopefully the web info and photos will give you a better insight into tour last few days than my heavy handed and tired scribblings.

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Arrived in San Martin de Los Pyramidas. After going around the houses for awhile we lucked out and found Posada Sol & Lunas at GPS: N19 41.508 W98 51.731

After a night of dustrupted sleep my eyes were peeling open, a bleary look at my watched confirmed it was 7:00am. It was another 20 minutes until I conviced myself to pul myself form my sleeping bag, grab my gear and pull on my cold and still sweat heavy riding clothes. I was eager to get a specific set of photos of the Volcano and a particular church in front. I’d lucked out and spotted the church yesterday on the way in to the campsite. I’d not had a chance to scope out the area or even begin to plan where I’d take the shots from. Sometimes you just get lucky. I was hoping that this was going to be one fo those moments.

An hour later and I’d conceaded the point. There was no way to get the images I wanted without getting permission to climb one of the bell towers of the local church to get above all the electrical pylons and cables. All this before coffee.

Back at the campsite and Lisa was up and had already packed away most of the camping gear. Richard, Rowanna and Jessica had already begun to cook breakfast and not to join them seemed a shame. Hot tea and the empeneadas we’d been given yesterday at the gas staion made a fair enough breakfast.

With the bikes loaded and details exchanged it was time to say adios to our new friends and hit the road. Outside Puebla and we’d picked up the highway, paid the toll and kicked the bikes through the gears. We were just going to ride as far as could.

Two hours in and we’d found a pace that would get us to where we needed to go and at the same time gave us a chance to react to the driving around us, well that and the kids, dogs, donkey and herds of goats that are herded along the side of the highway.

What a ride, we’d bitched earlier about the expense of the toll 100 pesos each but those words were soon being eaten.. The staggering beauty of the ride was breathtaking. Snow capped volcanos to our left, loomed like an ancient sentinels marking the way. Vast and deep valleys plummeted down either side of us as we jumped on the ride and snaked our way down the mountain side. Dry scrub land had now been replaced with lush green tropical forestation. Emerald vines and thick moss were laying claim to the electrical cables that hung above the road.

The smell of cooking meat wafts across the road as we pass the makeshift and dusty roadside cafes, with their stretched and tired tarpaulins and buckled plastic chairs. The smell is good and enticing but we push on.

With several stops for strong coffee we’ve swapped the highway for the smaller libre (free) roads and the day is getting away from us. We’ve seen no signs for camping and the map is next to useless.

Without other options at last we head North and into the busy and chaotic coastal city of Viracuse. Out timing sucks and by the time we’ve wasted an hour driving around the city it’s dark. The camping we’d heard about on the beach seems to be just a rumour. We’re hot and sweaty and the air is thick and sticky with salt. It’s so temptingting to just say to hell with it and grab a hotel room, but we just can’t do it. Evey Pesos we spend now is money we don’t have for our onward journey into Russia, Siberia, Mongolia etc.

By 9:00;pm we’ve turned out of Viracuse and gambled with a night time ride to Alvarado. The wankers driving literally run us of the road. The wind’s picked up and visibiblty is bad just because of the amount of dust and grit in the air. I lost track of the number of times some idiot in a coach, truck or car would overtake us into oncoming traffic, only to slam on the brakes and pull in fornt of us as the traffic comes to a halt as we enter another small pueblo and the now regular sight of a dozen topes.