Batopilas is way, way below the high point I started at. You start at an elevation where they have snow in the winter, and end in a place where there are palm trees everywhere. This is in the course of 45 miles of riding.

The road is dirt for the last 45 miles, and it started to rain as soon as I started out. A fitting event for the Great Divide route! There was lots of significant climbing (as I should expect) before the descent began, but it was manageable. But what a beautiful day! It was raining and cloudy and misty with beautiful steep, green mountainsides everywhere, and canyons stretching off everywhere you look. Incredible. And completely different from the ride to Urique - the mountainsides everywhere are steeper and greener. It looked a lot like the Peruvian Andes- you expect to find Macchu Picchu around every bend.

The final major descent was similar in nature to the big drop to Urique - the road just switches back and forth down a cliff for thousands of feet. But it wasn't as hard to ride as the descent to Urique. It wasn't as steep and was nowhere near as loose. So even in the rain it was easier (and probably a bit shorter, since there was a more normal descent leading to it).

But the rain on the dirt road for all those miles was taking its toll. And I still had half the distance to go when the descent was completed. Unfortunately, instead of a nice leisurely ride along a river bank, the road is in a steep canyon where the road must climb up sharply and go down again multiple times to get around all the terrain obstacles. So there was plenty of day to go.

And the bike really took a beating. The mud on the drivetrain made a complete mess so I could barely shift. I started stopping every time I found a house to ask if they had a hose I could clean off with. If I couldn't get the chain clean, I couldn't climb the hills and would have to walk them, because when it's dirty you get "chain-suck", where the whole system just refuses to go and you lose all your momentum.

But I got to Batopilas about 5pm and found a hotel and started to clean up. A day in the rain on a dirt road can require hours of cleanup. And it did.

But what a beautiful ride! I'll never forget it.