On the evening of Wednesday, Feb. 28th, my girlfriend told me that Thursday would be her last day at work. We had one week before our trip to Canada. I thought a trip to the beach would be a great way to say good-bye to Mexico.

On Saturday morning, we arose at the crack of dawn for a very early departure -- we were taking the long route. We left home at 7:11am, and picked up the bike at a public parking lot, about two blocks away and right behind the cathedral in downtown Morelia. We gassed up, and at 7:35am, at the exit to Mil Cumbres made a short call to let someone know that we were driving through the sierra, and that we would check in later in the day. "You guys are going to arrive tomorrow!!", they told Olivia.

The normal route from Morelia to Zihuatanejo is on the new toll road, which costs $22 - $25 US each way, and goes past Patzcuaro and Uruapan. For this trip, we were going to drive through the sierra, straight down to Zihuatanejo, rather than going all the way over to Uruapan. We left the city from the opposite end from the usual route to the beach. We drove thirty or so kilometres to the east, to the Jose Maria Morelos y Pavon National Park. Passing "KM 23", a popular picnic spot for Morelians, we took a right hand turn at the state road to Huetamo. From this point on, the average cruising speed dropped to about 50-60km/h almost the entire way to Vallecitos, GRO.

It was quite cold leaving Morelia, perhaps 10C. After turning off towards Huetamo, the temperature steadily rose as the altitude immediately starting descending. The vistas on the road to Tzitzio were quite beautiful, and I soon felt disappointed with myself for never having driven on this road before. Passing KM 23, I stopped and put on all three of my t-shirts, underneath my sweatshirt.

The beautiful scenery of the begining stretch, for which there are no pictures, soon gave way to the more boring, arid land of the Tierra Caliente. I had expected to be riding within the majestic forests of this area south-east of Morelia for a bit longer, but we were soon seeing cacti and heating up. By the time we hit El Devanador, we were well on our way into the Tierra Caliente.

El Devanador was a rather depressing, ugly town. But, we had already been on the road for a couple of hours, and were ready for a short break. Continuing on, the road became somewhat straighter, but not by much. On any short stretch where we could open up to 80km or so, there was sure to be a tope to spoil those plans.

Tiquicheo was the first, perhaps only, nice town we arrived at. Not particularly noteworthy, but it had a more pleasant feel to it than the other towns we drove through. The main plaza was nice and felt safe enough.

Leaving Tiquicheo, we connected with the federal highway #51, which runs from Zitacuaro to Cd. Altamirano. This last stretch to Huetamo was at a slightly higher pace, often dodging potholes. Not much problem on the bike, but likely more annoying for a car.

We eventually arrived in the city of Huetamo, the self-proclaimed capital of the Tierra Caliente.

It was an ugly, depressing town. We walked around for an hour, around the Zocalo, to another church and through a street market, and we could not find any restaurant even remotely appealing to eat at. Certainly among the worst cities I've been to in Mexico. There was a helicopter, presumably the federal police, circling the city. We decided we'd wait until Cd. Altamirano for lunch, and Olivia had a Mango on a stick with salt, lime and chile to tide her over. I tried a few bites and it wasn't so bad.

On the next stretch to Cd. Altamirano, we pulled over to put sunscreen on, but by this time it was already too late. I was a little burned on one side of my kneck. Somewhere just before Cd. Altamirano, a bee got into Olivia's jacket and stung her in the arm. We had been on the road for about 6 hours by this point and she hadn't been complaining, but the bee sting seemed to make her a bit cranky from that point on. We drove into the next tiny village, about 1 km off the highway. We sat, rested, and had a drink. There was a wedding going on in the village, with a big stage set up with a band and some people dancing. Much to my surprise, however, the whole town apparently wasn't invited, as many women and children were watching the festivities from outside the event perimiter.

Cd. Altamirano turned out to be about as ugly as Huetamo, but with a bit more movement. I had hoped to see a nice river, but the border between Michoacan and Guerrero was a polluted cesspool.

The traffic going over the bridge was bumper to bumper coming into Michoacan, and quite heavy going into Cd. Altamirano as well. We didn't stick around in Cd. Altamirano, and continued on towards Zihuatanejo. Traffic was slow and urban right through to Coyuca de Catalan, but we eventually made it out past the end of town and were in solitude for hours.

After a turnoff shortly outside this town, the number of cars we saw during the next several hours to Vallecitos was minimal. We were passed by perhaps 5 oncoming cars, and one car passed us in our direction as we were stopped for a rest. South of Cd. Altamirano, the scenery started to become a bit more of what I had expected to see.

I was somewhat enjoying the killer heat, but it was starting to get to Olivia. The interior Tierra Caliente region, or "Hot Lands" of Michoacan and Guerrero are typically much hotter than the more tropical coastal areas of the states. The current forecast for Huetamo, about 1.5 weeks after our trip through the city, is 41C, 41C, 42C, 42C, 40C, 42C and 40C (104-107F) for the next week. That is damn HOT weather to be riding a motorcycle through, and is not some sissy "humidex" rating. Especially when covered head to toe, including with gloves, for safety and to protect against sunburn!

The road was decent for some distance out of Cd. Altamirano, but became progressively worse. The road quality on the "Highway of Death" was much higher than I had expected, but there was a long stretch where only our side of the highway had been repaved, and another where no repaving or paving at all had been done. In these stretches there were piles of rocks and dirt that I was able to skirt around easily on the bike, but they could be dangerous in a car when they force you into the oncoming lane in a blind curve (not that there was any other traffic on these roads). I suspect that the primary concern with this route is the solitude. You can go for very long stretches without seeing anyone or anything, and it was very lonely out there in the stretch between Patambo and Vallecitos.

Even the military had abandoned their checkpoints. We certainly didn't see any other law enforcement officers anywhere between Cd. Altamirano and and Vallecitos. In fact, the only police we saw on the entire 12 hour drive was a checkpoint coming into Huetamo, and a miltary checkpoint that I'm not sure we actually went through when we hit the coastal highway just north of Zihuatanejo.

There was something mildly resembling a store beside this abandoned military checkpoint, and we stopped and got a drink. We sat down beside the piglets and asked the very old man how much longer until Zihuatanejo. He said 2 1/2 hours, for which I reassured Olivia "perhaps walking". Unfortunately, there is an error in the Guia Roji map and the distances between Cd. Altamirano and Vallecitos are not correct. I also misread the map, and not paying enough attention thought that Vallecitos to Zihuatanejo was only 15 km. Cd. Altamirano to Vallecitos is clearly marked with main red pointers as 87 KM, and the small black pointers also add up to 87 KM. However, in actuality, it is more like 140km, and that is a complete extra hour of riding time when the road consists of curve after curve after curve, and your average speed is about 50-55km/h. Olivia was getting quite frusterated by this point, 9 or more hours into the trip. She was carrying the backpack with our clothes and supplies, and her rear end and inner thighs were really starting to hurt.

The last hour or so long stretch into Vallecitos was quite beautiful. The foliage was much denser and greener as we got closer to the coast and out of the killer heat of the Tierra Caliente. The typical 30-32 degree weather of the Zihuatanejo area was a blessing at this point, especially arriving in the early evening. I had hoped to see much more of this scenery while crossing through the sierra, and less of the dry, arid scenery of the Tierra Caliente. There were certainly many curves, valleys and mountains along the entire route, but the nice green scenery was only at the very beginning around the national park and the 1 - 1.5 hour or so long stretch into Vallecitos.

Arriving in Vallecitos, we stopped for gas. While the 6-8 year old girl poured the gas from a plastic jug, I asked her mother if there was a bus into Zihuatanejo. I had expected to be within regular local transporation distance of Zihuatanejo (combis), but much to my dismay we were still another hour or more away. There was service three times a day, and the next service at 8pm. It was shortly after 5 at this point, and Olivia decided she could take the last 65 km on the bike rather than wait for the bus. This was still the sort of town where a loud speaker up on a hill was announcing incoming phone calls to the townspeople: "Attention, Mrs. So-And-So! You have a phone call in 5 minutes!".

We left Vallecitos around 5:30pm for the last stretch into Zihuatanejo. By this point, even my butt was starting to hurt, and we were forced to take several short, regular stops of 5 minutes or so.

At this point I was racing to get into Zihua before dark, as Olivia had never seen the Zihuatanejo bay on her several trips to Ixtapa. The sun was already setting as we approached Ixtapa, and by the time we got to our first stop, the basketball court and main plaza in downtown Zihuatanejo, it was already passing dusk. However, there was still enough light for her to get a good look, and it was her first time ever seeing a large cruise ship in real life.

We arrived at the Playa Principal / basketball court at 7:22pm. I figure with the 1 hour in Huetamo, and the few stops to rest that we made, that we were about 12 hours end-to-end, with about 9.5 hours actual driving drive from Morelia to Zihuatanejo, principal plaza to principal plaza, via Cd. Altamirano.