Day 3: Gulf of Tehuantepec Tehuano Winds
Good morning to ya on Day Three at Ruta Para San Juan del Rio, Tlaxiaco., )axaca. Kissing the clouds at breakfast in the Oaxaca mountains.
Once leaving the restaurant at one of the first passes in the Oaxacan mountains, we rode a brand new cuoto (tollway, Autopista, you call it what you want). It's not an engineering masterpiece but an epic and expensive road-building project with maybe the most beautifully engineered exits ever. It's hard to explain without a photo. We rode in the clouds along a ridge and down graceful sweeping curves carved out of the majestic mountains. Ecstacy.
And then down, down, down into a sweltering 36-degree oven. Turning east near Salina Cruz, I warned the guys about this stretch of road being extremely windy when I rode it last March. I convinced us into a false sense of confidence.
Earlier in the day, I read the weather forecast: South Pacific: Cool to cold weather with fog banks in mountainous areas of Oaxaca and Chiapas. Cloudy skies with torrential rains in Chiapas, intense rains in Oaxaca, and heavy rains in Guerrero, all accompanied by electrical discharges, which could cause an increase in river and stream levels,
There are a couple of cold fronts coming through. It's no big concern. We fueled up, and the employees warned us about the high winds. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The first encounter was when a pickup truck overturned and ended in the ditch. Wow, action was beginning to pick up.
The further we rode, the higher the gusts. Our bikes were noticeably leaned into the wind, and gusts would move us 3-4 feet across the lane. Ahead were police cars with lights on. A semi-truck in the opposite lane had been blown across our lane and had landed in the far ditch. That was quite a scene.
We rode on because that's what we do; we ride. The chatter on our intercom system was laced with "oh shit," "fuck", "damn," and other suitable exhortations while experiencing life-threatening conditions.
But the final act was yet to come. Another semi-truck had flipped over and blocked almost all of the two lanes. A large bus was in front of us, inching along as we approached the crashed vehicle. I yelled, "Move, move, move, go, go, go" as the driver inched his way forward. With no forward momentum, each wind gust buffeted our several hundred-pound bikes. The policemen spread their legs wide, forcefully leaning into the wind to remain upright while guiding traffic. Just as I started to pass the crashed truck, a huge gust pushed me right into the truck's fender. The impact was my rear luggage case and his protruding fender. I managed to keep the bike on two wheels.
"Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality
Open your eyes, look up to the skies, and see
I'm just a poor boy; I need no sympathy
Because I'm easy come, easy go
Little high, little low
Any way the wind blows doesn't really matter to me.
Very, Very Frightening!"
This was spectated by a group of 15+ Harley riders standing on the roadside, trying to hold their bikes, likely to console hysterical fellow riders and their wives. I don't know how it ended for them, but they were left to wait it out.
Another Weather Report: "Norte" event of 40 to 60 km/h with gusts of 80 to 100 km/h in the isthmus and Gulf of Tehuantepec and waves of 3 to 5 meters high in the Gulf of Tehuantepec.
And today's route was meant to be a slog day, just racking up miles to get to Guatemala.
I researched what we encountered: The Tehuano wind is a meteorological phenomenon characterized by intense, northerly winds originating in the Gulf of Mexico and funneling through the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in southern Mexico. These winds are particularly fierce over the Gulf of Tehuantepec and occur predominantly in the winter months, often following the passage of cold fronts in North America.
When these systems descend southward, they create a pressure gradient that forces cold, dense air through the Chivela Pass, a gap in the Sierra Madre mountain range. As the air is funneled through this narrow passage, it accelerates, resulting in strong, gusty winds over the Isthmus and the adjacent Gulf of Tehuantepec. Tehuano winds can reach 74 to 111 km/h (46 to 69 mph).
But oh, that mountain ride. Good night to day three. You delivered an epic performance. We all sagged our emotionally and physically spent carcasses into the Playa del Sol sunset. https://maps.app.goo.gl/2BWuhsUo7u2L7g9z7
Harrowing shit, it called for some sturdy rum.
