title = 'Mexico Adventure 2008';
intro = 'Hello all. Sometime late last year, myself and my two friends Jim Marshall and John Daviss decided to take a dual sport trip down the Baja, across from La Paz to Topolobampo and up through Copper Canyon. We set out in April 2008 and it turned out to be a trip of a lifetime. We met many amazing people, got to see spectacular scenery and put about 7000 kms on the bikes in just under three weeks of riding on just about every type of surface possible. Mexico is an amazing country but sadly it is having issues with drug wars. CNN reported recently that there have been 1000 drug related killings in northern areas of the Baja and Mainland this year alone. It was not unusual to go through military road checks and the reality of this war was not lost on us. Fortunately we were not affected but I will say that you don\'t want to be riding at night if you can avoid it. We also survived numerous encounters with beer and tequila and the odd bout of Montezuma\'s revenge. All in all it was a fantastic and exciting trip. Thanks for having a look at these photos.
Jim Fields';
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majorCaption = new Array( 'Well it\'s off to Mexico! It was tight but we jammed our three 2008 Kawasaki KLR bikes plus gear into the truck.', 'Here we are in California with our nice shiny bikes. Not for long.', 'An absolute must stop in San Fransisco is the House of Nan King for the best Chinese food anywhere.', 'Finally we arrive in Ensenada, Mexico. Bring on the food and beer!', 'This horrific scene would repeat itself every night as we unpack and repack our gear. Looks like a bomb went off.', 'Heading out on Highway 3 across the Baja to San Felipe. It was starting to get hot and the scenery was amazing.', 'Heading down towards the Sea of Cortes. Amazing valley views and dune buggies everywhere.', 'Jim Marshall had many people giving us a second look with his good luck toothbrush taped to the front of his bike.', 'After a long, fun ride, we arrived at the infamous Mike\'s Sky Ranch. Can you say beer!!!', 'Most of the dune buggies were professionaly built with Corvette engines and huge suspension travel. It would have been fun to borrow them for a while.', 'We decided not to swim in the pool for some reason. Better have another beer to cool off.', 'Stocking up on provisions for the long ride to Puerto Citos and then 90 miles of dirt and sand roads to Coco\'s Corner.', 'The scenery was awesome and the roads were testy. The road surface ranged from dirt with ruts to what they call Baja Moon Dust where you could be lying on the ground in a heartbeat. Yahoo! ', 'If you have any phobias about isolation, this is not the place for you! Seemed like the road to nowhere.', 'Taking a minute to take in the view. This would be the last time I would see my license plate as it rattled off shortly after.', 'We stopped for a refreshment at this abandoned brick house in the middle of nowhere. ', 'The legendary Coco\'s Corner. It was dark when we got there so these photos are from the next morning. We passed a very nice looking motel so that we could stay here. Hmmm.', 'No one was around when we got there but Coco showed up shortly after and opened up the cantina for some cold ones. These are the luxurious accommodations we stayed in. ', 'The man himself. Coco has had some health issues and had one leg removed. He is waiting to get the other one done. He is a very friendly and generous man and we wish him well.', 'To say Coco is ecclectic would be an understatement. This is the cantina with a collection of old equipment and hats. Check him out on the web.', 'And this would be his panty collection. Women from all over the world have willingly donated their gear. ', 'Ahh, the wonderful facilities. My nose is still recovering. Decorated nicely though!', 'There are a lot of valleys where all you can see are palm trees. Very unusual.', 'From wilderness to luxury. This is the resort at Loreto and it made up for the rustic accomodations at Coco\'s. Sadly, they closed the nude pool.', 'Nice wooden bridge at the golf course. ', 'One of the most beautiful Baja towns, we arrived in La Paz.', 'We treated the bikes to a detail by a hard working crew of Mexican boys.', 'Downtown La Paz and the coffee shop that became our base of operations.', 'Here is the hotel in La Paz that we stayed at. Definitely a nice place.', 'The lower rooms at the hotel are painted up to look like different areas of the world. ', 'Leaving La Paz and heading for Cabo San Lucas. The roads were fun until we got up on top of the plateau where they would go in a straight line forever.', 'We were looking for a bike shop in Cabo and ended up riding right onto the marina promenade where there just happened to be a bar. More beer!', 'Looking out at the Cabo marina from the bar. Beautiful place with a generous amount of appropriate scenery for three guys on the road. ', 'After many days of inhumane temperatures my riding pants were taking on a life of their own. I McGyvered them to the AC unit. Fresh as a daisy when we got back that night.', 'East of Cabo is San Jose del Cabo. Nice beaches and lots of rich people.', 'One of the best meals on the trip came at this little shack on the beach in the middle of nowhere. Quite the lifestyle.', 'The donkeys didn\'t seem to care about us bikers too much. I avoided the obvious caption of two asses on the road.', 'Amazing homes along the coast. Not easy to get to so some have their own airports.', 'Gorgeous little town on the eastern route back to La Paz.', 'Here is our ferry from La Paz to the mainland. Seemed like a gong show when they were loading it but is was very nice inside with great staterooms. Make sure you have the correct documents or you won\'t be getting on.', 'On our way in towards Copper Canyon. The heat was taking its toll so we took cover for a bit and tried to hydrate.', 'And then we were there. No words can really describe Copper Canyon. It is supposed to be four times as big as the Grand Canyon.', 'We were amazed at the amount of roads that were carved in the side of the mountains and cliffs.', 'Stunning.', 'Jim Marshall brought a handful of pens to give to the local kids.', 'This local cowboy was herding some cattle and found out the kids got pens so he came over and asked for some for himself.', 'Okay, time to admit it. We got lost trying to find the town of Batopilas and ran into some questionable Mexican guys who seemed overly interested in us. There are many drug related deaths in this area so we chose to ride on in the dark. We eventually came to a dead end where the road was guarded by a nice guy with a machine gun. After much broken english we found out it was a mine and talked them into letting us stay in this temporary housing unit.', 'Inside the temporary housing. Not the nicest place to stay but we couldn\'t of been happier. We had to leave at seven in the morning though.', 'This is a shot of the mine. The guard in the morning was very nice and told us of a shortcut road to Batopilas. We liked the sound of that!', 'Turned out this was the shortcut road. We ended up doing about six river crossings of various depths.', 'This would be the deepest one. We made it through with wet feet and the bikes kept running.', 'Finally! Off in the distance and way down there is our destination...Batopilas.', 'The roads are literally cut into the side of a steep mountain so there are switchbacks like crazy. Some corners it isn\'t hard to imagine just how long it would take to hit the bottom in a free fall. That\'s me on the left side just for perspective.', 'It took a while to make our way down but finally we arrived in the town.', 'Downtown Batopilas. Very nice place and great people but it turns out that two weeks earlier there was a 700 round gunfight between the drug people and the military. How quaint!', 'We found a great little hotel that let us park our bikes inside the courtyard.', 'Nice suspension bridge in the centre of town that crosses the river.', 'Another view of the bridge. Not the safest as there are many planks rotting or missing completely. ', 'Making our way out of the canyon and up to Creel. Incredible scenery that changes every corner.', 'Amazing geology. Nice place for a little village.', 'Someone didn\'t make a corner. There were many tributes in the canyon to the less than fortunate.', 'A family of Huichol Indians sitting on the side of the road. The family was so close to the cliff that one wrong move from the kids would have been tragic. ', 'A really nice high quality Mexican bridge. Missing planks were commonplace.', 'Our final climb out of the canyon. Truly a dual sport dream.', 'Back on asphalt! The road from the top down into Creel was nothing short of mind blowing. It was mile after mile of perfect asphalt, corners and stunning scenery. We were dragging pegs on the corners.', 'This huge rock outside of Creel had a family living under it. ', 'After countless miles of brutal, rocky dirt road riding, John managed to get a flat as soon as we were on paved roads for the rest of the trip. A quick roadside repair and we were off and running.', 'After an interesting ride in the dark along a road that the military told us had bandidos, we finally checked into a hotel that had every Mexican bug known. This moth was around the size of a stealth fighter.', 'A well deserved rest stop in Las Vegas was a ton of fun. From here it was back to the truck and homeward bound.' );
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