As it turns out, the police were just kidding...

On November 8, I said goodbye to Arizona and crossed the Mexican border at Nogales. Not without a little fear and excitement: It's hard not to replay the warnings over and over in your head – the drug gangs are going to kidnap or murder you, the police are corrupt, the roads are terrible, the water is contaminated, and so on.

Separating the good advice from the xenophobic bullshit, that's the trick, no? I strapped on my panniers, cracked open the predawn stillness, and put Tucson in my rear-view mirror.

I made it to Nogales before 8 am. The border-crossing paperwork, because I was importing a motorcycle, took about an hour. Turns out, that was the last thing that slowed me down all the way to Guadalajara.

Highway 15D South was smooth, straight, and virtually empty, a very pleasant surprise. I averaged 75 miles per hour right out of the box.

It took me only two days to get to Mazatlan, and one more day to glide into Puerto Vallarta. All far faster than I had figured. I was expecting potholes, dirt roads, dangerous curves, crazy drivers, dogs chasing my ankles. Instead I found wide, empty, smooth roads for the most part, and very few other drivers. While in the cities and towns there are a lot of fast drivers, for the most part, I've felt a lot more 'exposed' in Phoenix, Arizona, home of the signal-free left turn from the far right lane.

The toll roads were definitely the safest way to go for me and my wonderful bike, but three days' driving set me back about $160 in road fees alone. And the gas is about 75% more expensive than Stateside. So my first lesson: in Mexico people pay closer to the true costs of driving a car. In the States, of course, gas prices are low so that we'll waste as much as possible, so that oil companies can make the most money this quarter. And all taxpayers pay for roads, whether they walk, carshare, use public transportation, ride bicycles, use wheelchairs or drive Hummers. Of course bicycling ten minutes to work is far less wear-and-tear on roads than commuting 100 miles via a GMC Sierra, but this is America, where cheap gas and free roads are more important than continuing as a species.

And companies like Exxon Mobile use wholly owned offshore subsidiaries to legally shelter cash flow, so that, for example, of $15 billion in income taxes last year, Exxon paid none of it to the United States, and has tens of billions in earnings permanently reinvested overseas every year, shielding it from taxation. Mother Jones estimates that this shifts $100 million of the burden for roads and road services to the taxpayer. Why is this legal? I don't know, but according to the Center for Responsive Politics , Exxon Mobil spent $27,430,000 on lobbying in 2009. That might have something to do with it. (sources: Forbes.com, motherjones.com, climateprogress.com, opensecrets.org)

I had mixed emotions – on one hand, I support drivers paying more of the true cost of driving – absolutely necessary if we're ever going to make progress toward sustainability – and on the other hand, I paid the same amount of money as a passenger car, though I was driving a vehicle that gets 60 miles to the gallon and weighs less than 500 pounds, therefore having a far smaller impact on the road and the environment. Well, at least Mexico is going in the right direction.

As for the bike, no problems whatsoever. I could kiss the Suzuki engineers. Now that I've made it to Guadalajara, I will look for a mechanic to clean or replace my air filter, and tighten up the muffler cover, but otherwise, the 3800 miles I put on the bike since September 10th have had no visible or audible impact at all.

When I was off the main highway, and winding my way through small towns, I ran into a few rough passages. Whole towns basically made of speed bumps: cobblestone roads where the cobbles were three- to five-inch round rocks, unevenly spaced, which would vibrate the bike and my shoulders right down my spine. I was reduced to riding through town at minus 2 miles per hour.

Then, there were the police shakedowns. I passed about a dozen police checkpoints in my twelve-hundred miles in Mexico so far, but only two of the checkpointers wanted to stop me. But I didn't stop. That was a thrill, I gotta tell you. First one, when the local policia waved at me, I just waved back, and kept going. I figured that if they pursued me, I would say that I misunderstood. (I can misunderstand with the best of them. Two minutes of me talking in my absolutely crappy pidgin Spanish, and I guarantee they'd think I was an idiota.) But luckily no pursuit.

The second one was a bit riskier. The police dudes – heavily armed but not in uniform – waved at me, indicated a point on the road where I was to stop. It was by a speedbump so I had to slow down anyway. I slowed, they said “Buenos Dias”, began approaching the bike. But it didn't look right, these amateur policemen, so I sped up and just took off. The main dude yelled in his best angry dad voice, “HEY YOU”. Like thunder, his voice. But fuck it, I know it's just a shakedown. They want it that bad, they'll have to abandon their cozy little spot in the shade, get their fat asses in their cars, and chase me down. I just didn't see that happening. With my heart in my throat. I rode as fast as I dared, without speeding, extremely conscious of my rear-view mirrors.

I made it to the next toll booth some 40 miles away, no coppers waiting to arrest me. They got walkie-talkies, if I had been in the stew, it would have been then. But nada. Whew and double whew. I paid my toll and rode to Mazatlan a free man.

Next: Mazatlan, Puerto Vallarta, and Guadalajara!