Time to leave Zacetecas... again, and say goodbye to Frank and Brenda... again.

We headed off towards Durango and decided to call it a day in a small town 7kms off the main road called San Juan del Rio.

We followed the signs into town advertising a hotel, and hoped it would not be too expensive.

We were pleasently surprised to find this hotel for $USS17/night. It was very clean, very comfortable and the night watchman, Jose Gudalupe, was very very very helpful.

We were concerned about bike parking, Jose was determined not to loose the custom and said we could park it up in the lobby.... how to get it up there was another matter!

So we were asking if it was a safe street and Grant was feeling uncomfortable about just leaving the bike on the street. We looked around for a pole to chaining the bike to, but with the very narrow one way streets there was no where near by to do this.

Jose assured us the town was very safe and the police station was just down the road. After some misunderstanding by Jules we worked out that we could leave the bike at the police station! This was a new one for us!

After unpacking Miss Piggy we took her down to the police station and left her for the night on the verandah.

We walked around town, did a little shopping, used the internet cafe and eventually had some dinner at a hamburger stand.... they made great burgers - even if she did not put any beetroot or pineapple on it!

At about 11:00pm we woke to banging on our hotel room door. Stunned we opened up and were asked to go down to the police station and move the bike.... to where we wondered.

We went down to the police station and were told that they wanted the bike moved inside the jail! About 14 Police Officers were very pleased that Grant parked the bike away from TV! They were working all night and changed shift at around 8:00am.

We chatted to them in Spanglish about where we had been, and where we were going and that we were going to take some Spanish lessons. A few of the guys had worked in the US for varying times.

Some of the inmates wanted to sell us some horse whips that they had made. We asked what we would do with them and one of the Officers thought we could use it to make the bike go faster! This was met with a lot of laughter.

Back to bed we toddled and were woken again, but this time at 5:00am by fireworks being exploded at the church! We got up and decided to go to a bakery to get some sweet bread (pan dulce) for the Police Officers to say thankyou for looking after the bike. However bakeries open at 9:00 not earlier like in Aus.

Jose came to our rescue again! He took us to the bakery and banged on the door until they opened up. We had the pick of freshly baked rolls and took them down to th police station and took Miss Piggy out of jail!

Back at the hotel Jose was very curious as to why we were up at this time of the day, especially as it was still dark outside. He asked if it was the explosions from the church! Very perceptive. He made us coffee and spent about an hour explaining our trip and he told us about his life.

On to Parral and then back into Creel

We arrived in Creel, with the intention of staying a few nights at Marguaritas but noticed some guys already at the camp ground so we moved in there.

We settled into the Camp ground. Russ, Andy and Federico were there and bought to our attention that our rear tyre was showing steel. We had only checked it at San Juan del Rio, 2 days ago and it was fine.

With the help of Federico we organised a tyre to be shipped from Gudalajara to Chihuahua where we could pick it up.

Our first night in Creel started our lovely, we had made a nice fire on the grill, Federico was making quesidillas with cheese Andy and Julie walked 10kms for and Jules made some lovely rissoles (hamburgers to those from outside Australia). Then the storm hit, we got soaked quickly, we slavaged what we could and headed for the cover of the Verandah of the main building.

Whilst we sat about chatting and drinking red wine the stray dogs in the campground ate the whole block of cheese, guacamole, chips, anything that may have been left out was gone! The dogs must have had a belly ache all night because there was an awful lot of howling for the rest of the night.

We disapeared to Chihuahua overnight to get the tyre with no hassles and Grant changed the tyre using the tools we carry and a lot of grunt.

The HU meeting got underway.

We were very glad we came.

We got to meet lots of people who are interested in motorcycle travel and a few other RTW'ers. We attended some of the sessions about travel, photography etc. Grant attended the 'How to change a tyre' and learnt a few tricks of the trade whilst Jules went to the Womens session.

Andy, Jules & Federico

We had lots of lunches and dinners with people, as well as a few rides. Including a ride to a waterfall we could not find!

We made lots of new friends and met lots of new people: Andy (USA), Federico (Mexico), Russ (USA), Deb & Dave (USA & Canada), Garry & Ivonne (Mexico), Richard (USA), AT (USA), Arturo (Mexico), Michael (Sth Africa), Chris (Canada).

After leaving the meeting we headed off back to Zacetecas with Federico and Andy. We said good by to Andy in Chihuahua.

We stayed in Delicias and Torreon where we met Federico´s friend Lordes who took us to a really neat Kareoke bar where we stayed until the wee small hours.... did not sing though!

We had breakfast in Torreon in what Federico described as 'the ugliest restaurant he had ever been to'. However, they made very good food.