Day 531
So nice we stayed twice
From Durango we needed to head to the coast. Komoot had suggested the main highway, passing through some big towns. We really wanted to avoid as much traffic as possible, and studying the map I came across another option, route 23. We looked on ioverlander and found very little information. It appeared to be the road less travelled. After chatting to locals, they reassured us we would find plenty of places to buy water and food and the decision was made!
Route 23, or the Camino Huzamota, was only fully opened in 2016. It’s a narrow winding road, raising from sea level up to 9,000 feet and then plunging down again. We would have some of the steepest climbs of the trip so far. An easy option it certainly wasn’t, but oh my it was worth it!
The road gave us awesome views of the Sierra Madre mountain range, at times we were riding on a ridge overlooking mountains on every side or gazing down into a massive canyon and the Mezquital valley. We passed through forests of oak and pine, desert, then tropical jungle. We went up then down, again and again. We rode through an area owned by the indigenous Tepehauna people. We wild-camped where we could, mainly by the river that runs along the valley floor. The first night we found quite a remote spot with a beach of stones to relax by. I was feeling tired so we decided to stay two nights, the first time in the trip we have done that whilst wild-camping. We spent a whole day just doing pretty much nothing at all. We had a swim, I read, Tom built a family of stone towers, and overhead the vultures soared. It was blissful.
