We woke at sunrise, refreshed from 10 hours of sleep. We packed the bikes and then headed over to one of the two local restaurants for a bit of breakfast before the day’s ride. The day was brisk and cloudy but no rain was in the forecast. It was time to ride.
This is the dirt road joining Boquillas to the rest of Mexico. The road is mostly two-track, as you can see, and is poorly maintained at best. We are headed south in this photo, over one of the more interesting sections of road.
About 25 miles south of Boquillas, the road turns into pavement. A few miles later, you reach this intersection. If you continue south you will end up in the town of Muzquiz – a town where a group of riders and I enjoyed a most interesting adventure many years ago. Today we were heading west toward San Miguel.
As a reminder, here is our two day route. Riding from east to west, the T intersection on the track is where the turn to San Miguel is located.
The road to San Miguel is pavement. Beyond that it turns back into dirt and stays dirt until the town Manuel Benavides, a bit more than 100 miles west of here.
San Miguel turned out to be a fairly decent sized town – at least as big as Boquillas – that appears to have everything the motorcycling adventure rider needs.
A church for your adventurous soul
Gasoline for your Mad Max machine. If you want, you can enjoy a Coca-Cola and some Fritos while you wait for your gas to be topped off.
A well established restaurant (hey, it’s even got a sign on the highway pointing the way)
The ladies at the restaurant told us they had rooms to rent. We didn’t look at the rooms but we did make a note for future reference.
With all the services available in San Miguel, I’m thinking it’s not necessary to ride all the way to Boquillas, unless you just really want to ride to Boquillas. If you ever decide to ride this route, you could likely get all your essentials (food, gas, room) in San Miguel, at typical Mexico prices, versus riding the extra distance to Boquillas and paying the much higher tourist prices. There isn’t anything in Boquillas that I can think of to recommend it over San Miguel. The road to Boquillas isn’t a spectacular “don’t miss” road and Boquillas itself isn’t particularly compelling. Heck, even the two restaurants in Boquillas are closed on Monday and Tuesday since the border crossing is closed on those two days and there aren’t any tourists to serve. So, give that some thought when you come this way.
After leaving San Miguel, things got really fun - the dirt road from San Miguel to Manuel Benavides is quite entertaining. This was my first time to ride this road (I missed it during the first Expedition in Nov 2017) so I was really glad to be riding it today. While I truly enjoy the dirt road from Acuna, I liked this road more. The terrain, scenery, and road surface are more varied. There is more dirt and sand on this road than on the road from Acuna. In any case, I think this road is definitely worth riding.
This sign is about the terrain, animals, and plants in area. As far as I know, this area is not a protected or ecological area.
Mark crossing a dry creek bed outside a small village
This lake in the desert was the most surprising thing I saw on this trip. I was riding along, in the desert, minding my own business, rounded a corner, a Bam!, there she was, a big ‘ol lake in the desert.
After taking a picture of the lake, I turned around and took a picture of my bike so you could see the terrain I was riding through when I spotted the lake. It is representative of the type of terrain we had been riding through most of the day.
A short time later we arrived in Manuel Benavides. There is not a Pemex gas station in Manuel Benavides but you can buy gas from a local selling it from a 55 gallon drum. However, the guy who has sold us gasoline in the past said he didn’t have any gas because the Mexican authorities are cracking down on non-Pemex gas sales. This, if I understood him correctly, meant that he had to pay the local authorities a fee to continue selling gas out of a 55 gallon drum and he didn’t want to pay the fee. He did send us to another place in town that was selling gas out of drums (presumably they are willing to pay the fee for gas sales) and we were able to top off your tanks.
From Manuel Benavides it is an easy pavement ride to Ojinaga. The border crossing took too long (a personal complaint I have with the USA’s border crossing process) but after successfully re-entering Texas we enjoyed a pleasant ride to Terlingua and the end of this adventure.