Today was the beginning of our route. The famous Arizona Backcountry Discovery Route (BDR)!
After a nice dirt road going North, we ran into our nemesis ... deep sand. The road followed a dried river bed at times with deep sand everywhere. Very hard and very spooky to navigate through that with an 800lbs motorcycle.
After the sand, we followed a road called "Total Wreck" which, in retrospect, we should have guessed what would lie ahead. Unmaintained, narrow, nasty rocks, climbs, twists, back to the river bed, up and down. Hard work but lots of fun : )
We rode for a while as night was falling and we were unable to find a place to camp. I decided to just go into one of the farms and ask. Best decision ever. We met Pedro! and his wife Ruby.
Pedro is from Guanajuato, Mexico. He owned the farm and its 200+ acres. He raises cattle, goats, chickens, etc. and invited us to stay in his land for the night. He suggested the spot by the river and the cliffs. Great spot. It was so nice to find the great Mexican hospitality north of the border also : )
However, Pedro asked us if we had a gun because there was a black bear that likes to roam the river up and down. After we said no, he went into his house and gave us a pistol just in case. Now we questioned the wisdom of camping by the river but we were so tired and it was already getting dark that we didn't think too much about it.
After setting camp in the dark, cooking dinner, we all crashed. Andy definitely brought all the good stuff – cot, table, beach chair - hist tent looked like a Four Seasons suite : )
We had a nice breakfast at the hotel, packed the motorcycles, and headed south on pavement to the beginning of the route near the Mexican border ... we started our off-road adventure with a nice climb from 2,000 ft all the way to almost 6,575ft to the Montezuma Pass. Great view. You could see the border fence down in the valley below. Weird to see such a straight line in the middle of nowhere. Interesting how humans create these arbitrary concepts in the name of who knows what.
As we climbed down the mountain back to the valley on the other side, we manage to make it to actual border fence. The fence was made of sections of railroad rails all soldered together. It reminded me of the demilitarized zone in communist Berlin or the beaches of Normandy in WWII. Except that both the Mexican side and the American side had beautiful and peaceful pastures and nature on both sides. Strange.
We made it out of the dirt and went into Sonoita for lunch at the Copper Brothel Brewery, a brand new brewery with a great restaurant. A great little town.
After some more dirt roads, we made back to Benson, loaded water, gas and headed North into the next section of the trail to get a head start and to find a place to camp.
The stars were amazing!
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