Monterrey to the Gulf of Mexico

March 24, 2022

Monterrey

Monterrey is a major city in Mexico. I needed to stay here mostly because it had an international airport. I had a date to go visit my mother near Indianapolis. The plan was to meet my brother in Indiana and visit for the weekend. The other motivation was to allow my saddle sores to heal for a bit. A new leather bike saddle takes hundreds of kilometers before it feels right. It would be good to stay off the saddle for a few days. So I rented an Airbnb for a week and settled in. The one I found was on the 15th floor in the middle of the city.

The Road to the Gulf

There is a few hundred kilometers between Monterrey and the Gulf of Mexico. I crossed two states, Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas. I gather that the region is not known for tourists because I typically surprise people when I tell them of my quest to explore Mexico for the fun of it.

The towns I go through can be quite small, and sometimes without a hotel. The hotels I stay at are not anything like the resorts found elsewhere. This is fine by me. Mostly I need a bed, a shower, and a safe place to stash my bike. The places I find go for $15 -$25 USD per night.

Luxury is not the point. I most value getting into the culture and language around me. I typically eat meals in some ramshackle roadside place with a corrugated tin roof. Getting invovled with the others there is key. I learn so much about the land I am travelling through.

Another thing I love is getting off the main road and exploring the back country on rugged dirt roads. Though sometimes I worry about following a long road and having it become impassible.

It has happened to me more than once that I have had to ford a stream. I once found a fire burning the grass adjacent to the trail I was on. I decided to push on anyway. It was a good decision.

The following videos will illustrate in more detail