The Locus of Karmic Perfection

The Locus of Karmic Perfection

LEANINGS

Peter Egan

“I'LL MEET YOU IN MARFA, TEXAS,” I told my friend Mike Mosiman, “if I can ever get out of Wisconsin.”

It wouldn’t be easy. We’d had two blizzards in three days, and my driveway was sculpted in drifts and hollows like some frozen treat from Dairy Queen. Nevertheless, I fired up my Suzuki DR650 and slithered through the deep snow into the van. Success. I was on my way to Texas.

And after that, Mexico. We’d cross the border at Presidio, then down to Copper Canyon, for seven days of mostly offroading through old mining towns in the rugged deep valleys.

But first I had to get to the border.

So on that wintry Thursday afternoon I drove south to Pekin, Illinois, where I transferred my bike onto a trailer belonging to Mike’s brother. Bob, and tied it down alongside his big new BMW R1200GS. We then climbed into Bob’s new Toyota Highlander hybrid (which had lots of power but got an unremarkable 12 mpg) and towed both bikes all the way to Texas in two long days of fast driving and fast food.

At Marfa-famous as the place where the 1956 movie Giant was filmed-we hooked up with Mike and his buddy Dave Scott, who drove down from Fort Collins, Colorado. Mike brought his KTM 640 Adventure and Dave had a BMW R100GS Paris-Dakar model, the one with the huge 9.3-gallon tank. We would soon be calling this the “Mother Ship.” And many other things, as well.

After the usual border hassles-tourist permits, vehicle permits, Mexican insurance, etc.-we rode into sunny Mexico at last. Warm weather and clear skies. Blooming Jacaranda everywhere. Nice people, great food, surprisingly good paved roads and a different sense of time. I love old Mexico. Don’t expect both faucets to be hooked up in the men’s room sink, though.

We rode through the big city of Chihuahua and on to Cuauhtemoc, where we found a good motel along the highway just before dark. The motel was owned by Mennonites, part of a large colony that moved to Mexico from Germany. Mennonite farms are responsible for most of the great Mexican cheeses we sprinkle on our tacos. We ate at a Mennonite restaurant, which, sadly, served no beer or margaritas. Or tacos. Still a nice place, though. I told Mike the Mennonites are so helpful and friendly, they’re in danger of giving organized religion a good name.

We had lunch in Creel the next day, then finally turned off the pavement and headed down into the canyons for four long days of off-roading.

And two things immediately became apparent: 1 ) The roads were steeper, rougher and rockier than we’d been led to believe; and 2) unless you’re some kind of Paris-Dakar superhero rider, BMW GS Twins are way too big and heavy for serious off-roading in Copper Canyon.

We had one bad day in the wilderness. Picked too long and difficult a route-with one pretty deep and wide river crossingand found ourselves after dark having to cross a mountain ridge with miles of rocky switchbacks.

Dave ran flat out of energy on his P-D, so we traded bikes and then I ran out of energy an hour later as we crested the ridge. One of those new, street-legal KTM 525 EXCs was looking pretty good at this point. Dave crashed my DR650 twice getting to the top. Bob hammered his way to the crest with his massive R1200GS, then parked the bike and said, “I quit. I’m walking the rest of the way down to Batopilas.”

We had been riding for 13 hours and were very, very tired. Not to say a little brain-dead.

This energy crisis was resolved when a Mexican pickup truck pulled up and offered us a ride down the mountain. We found a hotel and then hired another

pickup the next day to take us back up the mountain. Our motorcycles were still there-despite silent prayers that certain large, well-insured bikes might be stolen-and it was a much easier ride down in daylight, after some sleep and a good breakfast with plenty of chorizo.

The rest of the trip was great-and even the hardships added their charm, retrospectively. They don’t call this “adventure” touring for nothing.

And there was one strange moment on this trip that was so right, it probably qualified as one of those personal epiphanies you hear so much about.

We were winding down a cliffhanging road above the town of Urique, motoring through a canyon of huge rock spires, falling streams and green foliage, when the road opened up on a spectacular view of the chasm below and the distant mountains. On a spur of land in the foreground was a small farm with burros roaming and apple blossoms blooming. The beauty of the spot was surreal. We shut off our bikes and just sat for a while.

Then I had one of those odd shifts of focus and looked down at my bike, and my dusty, worn gloves on the handlebars. We were in the greatest place in the world, but what had it taken to get here?

Quite a bit.

Learning to ride, getting a driver’s license in high school. Acquiring tools, learning to change flat tires and clutch cables. Gaining dirt experience and going to dealerships to shop for the right bike. Installing knobbies and handguards and a skidplate. After years of youthful indigence, moving through a series of jobs that finally allowed you to afford a truck or a bike trailer. Learning to read maps and cross rivers in deep water. Finding helmets and enduro jackets and motocross boots that fit. Getting a passport, paying your bike registration, learning a smattering of useful Spanish...

And living long enough to have friends who were crazy enough to do all these things, as well. People you could count on who'd gone through the same lifetime of motorcycle connections that had brought us to this perfect spot in time.

As I put my helmet back on, it occurred to me that you are never more completely the sum of everything you’ve ever been than when you take a slightly difficult motorcycle trip into a strange land. And make it back out again. □