No Culpa, No Pesos: A Motorcycle Odyssey Through Mexico’s Wild Heart

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No Culpa, No Pesos: A Motorcycle Odyssey Through Mexico’s Wild Heart

No shit, there I was—3,700 miles deep into a two-week motorcycle odyssey that kicked off in Southern California, roared through Mexico City, and zigzagged to Oaxaca, Puerto Escondido, Veracruz, and beyond, places with names I still trip over.

The A-Team—consisting of Joey, Chris, Todd, Tracy, Brian, and me, with Yoda Roberto drifting between us like a road-worn shaman—had carved tracks across this land of topes, tacos, and unseen spirits.

But now, rolling solo into Tampico, I was on my way to Florida to visit family.

Last night I crashed in a room straight out of a gritty novella, a by-the-hour hotel that was still under construction but, like the only place now available for the night.

Here’s the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey would intone: I’d been threading through Tampico’s snarl of traffic, horns blaring, scooters darting like flies, my iPhone useless as a paperweight for finding a decent bed. Two hotels had waved me off, refusing to secure Gordo off the street—fair game for any thief.

Then, as if the spirits sensed my desperation, I pulled over at a curb just as a construction worker ambled out of a gated entry, his dusty boots kicking up little clouds. “Hotel?” I asked, voice hoarse from the road. He grinned, swung open a metal door—ornate as a jail gate, solid as a vault—and said, “Here. We’re renovating, but it’s open.”

The gal at the desk nodded, quoting an hourly rate. A napping motel? A love shack? I asked for the nightly rate and then gunned Gordo over the curb, parked him safe behind that iron curtain, and settled in. Now, feet propped on a rickety chair watching the construction guys work, laundry churning in a corner machine, I pecked this saga out on my shiny new iPhone with five camera lenses—Viva Mexico, a land where chaos and kindness collide.

A while back the A-Team had my back, a brotherhood forged in the crucible of shared miles and misadventures. Salt-of-the-earth guys—Joey with his quiet grit, Chris with his daredevil leans, Todd wrestling his KTM Alaskan Dragon, Tracy and Brian steady as rocks. And now it’s just me myself and I.

Backstory: As I exited Mexican immigration, my iPhone pulled a stunt straight out of a tech horror flick. Fresh from the paperwork shuffle—stamps, nods, and a grunt from the official—it blasted an emergency SOS to my home team, then locked itself up.

The Pharr crossing slammed shut at noon, stranding me until 1600 hours, and Gordo’s Garmin drew a blank on the next option in Donna, Texas. A kid no older than twelve, tanned and sharp as a whip jabbed a finger toward a Pemex station. “That way,” he said. I pinned it and roared off. Gordo’s engine humming through dust and diesel fumes.

Before I could hit a Verizon store in Mercedes, Texas, to kill the false alarm, the State Department was buzzing, and the A-Team was gearing up for a nighttime rescue to my last pinged coordinates—somewhere south of sanity.

My little woman’s voice crackled over a borrowed line, dry as a desert wind: “Whatever the ransom, I’m not paying.”

She’s one tough negotiator, sharpened by decades at Hughes Aircraft Credit Union, cutting deals that’d make a cartel boss blink.

Suffering binds people, they say, and this glitch only tightened our knot—though in the States, we rarely suffer long. Mexico’s different. Suffering’s a daily stitch in the tapestry—or is it?

At 0700, I’d roared past a four-foot something elder in a cowboy hat, skin like weathered leather, standing in the middle of nowhere, waiting for a ride that might be a mirage. I ached to downshift, skid to a stop, and offer him Gordo’s pillion seat—his story for my spare helmet. I didn’t.

Miles later, a black Chihuahua trotted a lonely road, glancing back as my shadow loomed. Lost? Dumped?

Questing for a canine soulmate named Fifi? I fantasized about coaxing it aboard, bathing it in a gas station sink, dosing it with flea meds, and making it my co-pilot.

The spirits nudged me on, though, and I pressed toward Pharr, a horizon choked with truckers—pinche, puto, pendejo babosos stretching like a curse across the earth.

I weaved Gordo along the right edge of a two-lane cement spillway, standing tall on the pegs, threading past silver-sided titans that could flatten me like a roach under a boot. Progress stalled when a baboso trucker parked mid-lane, boxing me in—trucks ahead and left, a concrete wall right, no escape.

Trapped for minutes that stretched like hours, I inched forward, sweat stinging my eyes, until Gordo squeezed past, and I resumed the dance for maybe three kilometers. At the Mexican border post, the guard blinked, incredulous. “How’d you get here? No bike comes this way.”

I asked for the Banjercito bank to cancel my visa, tip, and reclaim my $400 US bond. He pointed back to the trucker gauntlet I’d escaped. “Over there.”

Breaking every Mexican traffic law was now my gringo birthright—what could they do, deport me? I jumped curbs, dodged cones, and slalomed through chaos, Gordo alive beneath me.

This trip was a masterclass in grit and grace. From Tucson to Ciudad Obregón’s Fiesta Inn, we’d gorged on guacamole, pork cracklings, and Sonora beef—lunch tacos for four at 460 pesos, dinner for seven ravenous gringos at 5,570. Thanks, Joey, for footing that bill.

In Mexico City, we raced autobahn-style, Todd’s KTM Alaskan torching brakes at 145 mph while I nursed Gordo to a respectable 120, the wind a howling hymn.

History whispered through the miles—the USMC’s “Halls of Montezuma” echoing from Chapultepec’s castle, a battle some say should’ve pushed us to Panama. Sanity prevailed, leaving Mexico’s wild soul intact, a siren call for future rides.

Locals embraced us, not as conquistadors but as pesos-sharing wanderers, spilling stories over cervezas.

We marveled at Mexico’s ceaseless fiestas—blessings for animals, whispers of one for bikes, even a Day of the Dead for souls long gone.

In Veracruz, we tackled mole, a chocolate sauce of twenty-eight ingredients—roasted, toasted, pureed, fried—served in a lava-rock molcajete.

Too fussy for our gringo tongues, we swapped it for cold Coronas and swapped tales instead. The road gifted us contrasts: sugarcane fields swaying under a relentless sun, tut-tuts buzzing like Thai rickshaws, and topes that jolted us awake at 45 mph.

Oaxaca’s twisties climbed through pine and jungle, rainforests mimicking the Pacific Northwest, while Puerto Escondido’s surf crashed like a gringo fantasy.

Tampico’s streets now pulsed with life—vendors hawking tamales, kids kicking deflated balls, and me staying nearby in that not yet open for business hourly hotel room still under construction.

The journey reshaped me. My friend back home faces kidney failure—reminders that giving time, to a senior, a child, or a road-weary dog, rivals the sacrifice of a living organ.

Did Mexico change me? Maybe it fanned a flickering flame of hope, a call to chase passion while my clock ticks down.

Robert Frost knew it: “The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected.” This wasn’t a fairy tale of “once upon a time,” but a war story of “no shit, there I was”—a rider, a bike, and a land of raw beauty.

Anthony Bourdain’s words ring true: move far, move often, taste the food, walk the shoes.

Mexico’s spicy soul is my medicine now, its chaos my muse. So, as Paul Harvey would close: Good day, friends. Feels like yesterday, doesn’t it?

And that my friends is the rest of the story as to how I ended up. In San Antonio during covid, froze my butt off, shipped Gordo home and got a new iPhone. And no I never did make it to Florida on that trip.

Trawlercat

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