Towards Durango

Jill and I usually have similar views on things and if we don't we try to convince the other, but on the ride to Durango up the Mx 40 our views are very different. To me it is a 10 out of 10 road, to Jill it was like living on a knife edge: beauty at a cost, you had to pay the devil who comes in the form of vehicles travelling on the wrong side of the road to get around the 3000 curves that the road is sometime called, a definate 0 out of 10
The first part down the Mx 15 was uneventful in a Mexican way; just the usual topes, cut ups, check points etc, but once you turn right onto the Mx 40 things start to change quite fast as the road climbs up into the Sierra Madre. What didn't help Jill was as we started to climb we took a left hand bend that led into a right hander where we met a pick up truck on our side of the road overtaking 3 cars. Managed to just squeeze by on the very edge of the black stuff, having shouted through the drivers window at a rather freaked out looking Mexican. Can't remember what ,if anything, was following us as he still had 2 cars to overtake and a sharp right hand bend coming his way. If we had been in a car it would have been very nasty. The road climbs hugging onto the side of the mountains through very beautiful scenery, Passed live stock, some in control, others wandering freely Criss-crossing the path of the new road they are building with 38 bridges and 42 tunnels. It will probably be rather boring road once completed. You can see the line of the road on the far mountain side. At the 'puerto el espinzo del diablo' or devil's spine either side of the road drops off into deep valleys and there is a plaque commemorating the road. A true engineering feat. At El Salto, looking like a true shanty town, the road, having reached the high sierra, flattens out into a more rolling countryside before finally after 200 miles reaching Durango.