Along the border in Texas

Gauchito Gil — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 23:17:30 +0000

The bike was picked up and taken back to Houston after the second flat tire. A nail was discovered this time which likely caused both flats. I drove past San Antonio and about 3 hours into the night towards Del Rio, TX, on the border with Mexico.

I had been told “You couldn’t pay me to go to Mexico right now.”, “They will take your stuff and kill you if you give them any problems.”, “They have helicopters, Hummers, and automatic weapons – they are stronger than the Army”, “The US Army should just go down there and blow all their ship up.”, etc. I was told that Monterrey was particularly bad and since this was were I was intending passing through, I thought about it for a while and decided on a more direct route to the border area in Mexico that I was interested in – Chihuahua state’s Copper Canyon (Barranca De Cobre). So I spent the night in Del Rio and continued on around Big Bend park in Southern Texas heading towards the Presidio, TX/Ojinaga, MX crossing. I was stopped by border control outside of Del Rio and passed several other border checkpoints as I approached Presidio.

Del Rio to Presidio TX

30 photos

Slideshow

Desert Road HWY 67 To Presidio	Bike Being Repaired	Lake Outside Del Rio	Desert
Desert Cactus	Canyon	Canyon	Canyon
Bike	Bridge over Riverbed	Riverbed	Riverbed
Riverbed	Riverbed	Desert Road 90	Desert Road 90
Desert Road 90	Desert Road 90	Bike	Desert Road 90
Desert Road 90	Desert Road 90	Desert Road 90	Desert Road 90
Desert Road 90	Desert Road 90	Desert Road 90	Desert Road 90
Desert Road 67	Desert Road HWY 67 To Presidio

After speaking with a border patrolman and the chamber of commerce people in Presidio I feel reasonably confident about traveling to Chihuahua city (and then on to Creel, MX) even on the non-toll route. I’m nervous but all the things I’ve read seem to indicate the problems affect Mexican Americans and Mexicans mostly and violence directed at foreigners not involved in the drug trade seems much less common.

Here are some graphics from the reports:

Mexican Drug Deaths By Numbers

Mexican Drug Gangs Spheres of Influence

US Citizen Murders/Kidnappings Related to Mexico

Sealy, Houston, Del Rio, Presidio

A bad trip through Houston

Gauchito Gil — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 03:34:55 +0000

Unable to handle the India Hostel zoo in New Orleans anymore I drove along the state highways through the bayou’s west of the city. Nothing was too interesting, a lot of sugarcane plantations and one old plantation owner’s house that looked shuttered and in disrepair. Getting bored I got on the Interstate 10 and drove just across the border into Texas and stopped at an Econolodge in Orange, TX.

Texas has been true to form with large SUV trucks everywhere and not very appealing scenery.

Bad Food

I left this morning with the intention of stopping in Houston to get a new front tire and then continuing on all the way to the border town of McAllen in the very south-east corner of Texas. The rain started as I arrived at the CycleGear shop in Houston. Speaking with the Mexican-American clerk about the border crossing and violence along the border I confirmed my approach of driving a few hours south of the border then going across Northern Mexico should be safe enough.

2nd Attempt - Bike Being Repaired

When I got back out to the parking lot I checked my tire pressure to discover my rear tire had 10 PSI, down from 50 a few days ago. My bicycle hand-pump got it up to 30 without to much effort. Stopping a few miles later and checking again showed it deflating rapidly. So onto the next Cycle Gear shop where I got a reference for a mechanic – ‘a little out of the way’. The mechanic has made two 45 minutes trips to some other shop – he takes the entire wheel with him and comes back with an assembled repaired tire.

Houston Repair Shop

So the bike was fixed by 7pm and the rain had stopped a bit so I left Houston hoping to make it a few hours down the interstate. The three people working in the mechanics kept telling me how Monterrey, MX was really dangerous now and I shouldn’t go by it. So I decided to do the crossing at Presidio, TX which means driving across most of Southern Texas. Well I got about half and hour out of Houston with rain and darkness when the bike felt a little funny so I decided to check it out and took the off ramp. Going around the offramp the bike started going sideways in the back end. I slowed down and as I rounded the corner it kept sliding out. I then looked back at a completely flat tire with the stem jamming into the tube and rim as I limped the bike to the stoplight.

Where my bike will hopefully be in the morning

A Shell station was on the corner with 4 Mexicans standing around – one of whom helpfully pointed out I had a flat tire. I then tried to manually inflate it, then used the tire Slime stuff but it wouldn’t even go into the tire – not sure if it can be done when it’s totally flat. So I’ve checked into a hotel and am lucky that there seems to be a Kawasaki dealer in the town so hopefully in the morning I can get them to pickup the bike and repair it – if the bike isn’t stripped or stolen overnight.

Orange TX, to Sealy TX

Trip on a KLR650 Motorcycle From Canada to Mexico, Central and South America. GPX Tracks and POIs » Texas

Along the border in Texas

A bad trip through Houston