One of the many trails in town.  Unfortunately, they all go up.

Nice view.

Suspension bridge.

They do a little bungee jumping off of this bridge.

Yet another church.

I left Baños headed to Cuenca.  It was a long day of riding through high elevations, sporadic rain showers and dirt roads.  I pulled into Cuenca cold, and exhausted, so stopped at the first hostel I found, which turned out to be a dump.  All the rooms surround the bar, which has the house music thumping loud until midnight, even though there was no one in the bar.  They said that they had hot water, but the shower was ice cold.  Oh well, no shower for me either.  I was too tired to move all my crap to another place.   I slept a total of 5 hours that night, then got up the next morning and promptly rode out of town.  I didn’t feel like hanging around in Cuenca as I was a bit burned out on big cities, and the experience in the El Cafecito hostel just sealed the deal for the me the get the heck out of town.  Sometimes I just get bummed out on a place and have to leave.

So I headed further south to the small hamlet of Vilcabamba, Ecuador.

Scenic riding as always in Ecuador.

I stayed at a very nice German run hostel just south of town.  In my experience, the German owned hostels tend to be well run, and very nice.  It was a very tranquilo place to chill for a few days and do nothing but walk around town.

The town church, of course.

I did meet some cool people at the hostel.  The guy on the left is my hero.  Neil is the real deal.  He has been all over the world on a motorcycle.  He goes home to the states and works for a while, then flies to some spot on the globe, buys a small thumper and rides his brains out.  He is also an avid photographer and showed me some really amazing images from South America.  He is currently riding a Falcon 400 and is headed north.  Neil is a super cool and interesting guy and I enjoyed hanging out and swapping stories with him.

The folks on the right, and in the below photo are Lars and Janni from Denmark.  They have been traveling in South America for a full year now in their VW camper and are headed north to Alaska.  Very cool people.  So us four overland travelers hung out well into the night and swapped stories of our experiences of life on the road.  Very cool stuff to bond with fellow overlanders in the middle of Ecuador.  I really enjoyed my time in Vilcabamba just chilling the days away and doing nothing but hiking and being geeky and exchanging  GPS maps and route suggestions with Lars and Janni.

I left Vilcabamba headed straight south on 100 miles of dirt road to the tiny border crossing at La Balsa, Peru.  This is a highly recommended route and crossing with a caveat………. Make sure you have some time. Iron Butt riders will not like this route.

OK, the crossing.   Its all dirt, but easy dirt road.  You don’t really even need knobby tires, well, you might during the wet season.

I ran into plenty road construction as they are grading from Vilcabamba south in anticipation of paving.  However, there are so many landslides along this route that I cant see that happening anytime soon. The construction areas will slow you down.   Twice I got stuck for over a hour waiting at a construction area.  Secondly, I had 3 front pinch flats that I had to deal with. Totally my fault for jumping whoops and flying over sharp rocks at 50 mph on a overloaded bike.   The throttle on the 990 is like a bad crack habit.

So, with the construction, plan on about 4 hours to get to the border (100 miles of dirt) if everything goes smoothly and you don’t wait too long at construction stops.

This is Fernando, road construction worker.  Cool guy.  He helped me change the tube from my first flat, number 1 of 3 that day.

At the border, Ecuadorian Migracion and Aduana were very efficient. I was checked out of Ecuador in less than 2 minutes, seriously.

Peru. Well that’s a whole nother Oprah. Seems that the Migacion girl likes to take “lunch” from 11 am to about 4 pm. So, if you show up at noon like I did, you’re pretty much not going anywhere, so kick back, have some lunch, and take nap.  Besides that, the girl has an attitude like its a big problem for her to stamp your passport.   She was allagitated that I couldn’t understand her rapid fire campesino accented Spanish and asked her to repeat herself.  Apparently, from talking to the customs guy, “she is like this all the time.”  Great.

However, after she saw I was on a bike, her attitude completely changed. “ah, me encanta tu moto, que linda….” and she smiled at me over and over again and asked me all kinds of question about my trip in nice, slow, clear Spanish of course.  I told her that she was pretty when she smiled.

Amazing what an attitude changer the bike can be for people.

The customs guy is very nice and friendly.  However, he seemed to have some difficulty doing the paperwork, so I had to politely tell him what I needed, and helped him with the numbers. Make sure that he gets all the numbers correct on your paperwork. That will take another hour or so. But, he is a very nice and mellow guy, very easy to deal with.

By the time I finished up, 5 hours after showing up at the border, it was getting dark. So, the customs dude tells me that I don’t want to go anywhere at night since there have been a lot of car jackings in the area recently. Well I figured that they wouldn’t be quick enough to catch me on the 990, so I took my chances riding to San Ignacio.  Besides that, there was really no place to spend the night at the border.

San Ignacio is about one hour away by bike, if you ride fast in the dirt, two hours if you’re slow.  It is your best bet for a hotel after your crossing. Its a friendly and tranquilo small town with about a dozen decent hostels.

If you decide to press on in the dark after San Ignacio (like I foolishly did) you will ride 60 miles of really crappy, wide graded dirt road with super deep potholes everywhere.   I had to ride at least 50 mph to float the front wheel over the holes, otherwise it was a brutal beating. Besides that, at night, I couldn’t see many of the holes, so I just pinned it and prayed.

Next large town after the pot hole route is Jaén.  Once I got a look at Jaén in the dark, I wished that I had stayed in San Ignacio.  I wound up paying 25 bucks for a hotel that turned out to be very nice with great parking, but the rest of the town is nothing special.   San Ignacio is a nicer place to stay for sure, so I would plan on a night there after your crossing.   That way, you don’t have to worry how long the Peru Migracion girl will take for lunch, so you can just chill out, wait, and enjoy the remote little hamlet of La Balsa.

After you leave Jaén, get ready for a spectacular ride through canyons to get to Chachapoyos.

Saludos, Vicente

©2010 South on Two Wheels. All Rights Reserved.

After hearing so many people rave about the Galapagos Islands, I decided that I had to go see them for myself, since I was in the neighborhood.  For some strange reason which I still cant figure out, they would not let me ride my moto all over the islands.  Its too bad because the Galapagos looked like some great off-road riding. Ha ha!!  Yes, lots of rules here in in Ecuador.  So, at the last minute I booked a trip on a boat called the Samba.  Here is what our route looks like.

The boat is an 80 foot motorized yacht called the Samba and there were a total of 12 passengers and a crew of 6 on the boat.  Over the course of 8 days I must have taken over 3000 photos of birds, lizards, seals, turtles, beaches and other such stuff.  I wont bore you to death with all of the details of each island or all the pictures.  Just a few select pics and a little commentary.

The terrain, climate and general topography reminds me a bit of the Cortez side of Baja California.  The general idea is that you island hop on the boat, then take a zodiac onto land and to snorkeling spots a couple of times each day.  There are literally animals everywhere.

The animals for the most part do not fear anything, since there are very few predators that were introduced to the islands and those that were introduced years ago are slowly being eradicated.  So the result is that you can get very close to the animals and they are totally unfazed by your presence.

Bear in mind that none of my photos were taken with a telephoto lens.  I only have 17mm to 55mm zoom, so its a very widefield lens.

Albatros.

Babysitting. Maybe this is where the term comes from. :-)

We also witnessed a type of mating ritual between the birds.

A big hit with most tourists are birds called the  blue-footed Boobie.  Funny name for a funny looking bird.

I saw one doing a funny little dance where it would lift its feet up and down and sway back and forth.  I forgot the significance of this little dance, but it was funny to watch.

Bad day for the Boobie, good day for the crab.

I don’t know why I was compelled to take hundreds of pictures of these little guys, but they are colorful little buggers.

There were some beautiful beaches along the way.

Sea turtle tracks going to the nests.

And of course lots of sea turtles.

And curious little Mockingbirds.

That would get all tweaked when they discovered that you were an intruder in their territory.

The paparazzi were always in action.

They were relentless.  If those cameras were guns, all the wildlife on the Galapagos would have been decimated in only a few short days. Ha!

The big tortoises were really cool.

Dude, do you mind getting out of my face with that stupid wide angle lens on your camera?

Like the rest of the pacific ring of fire, these islands are volcanic, so there were some huge lava flows.

And some cool sink holes from some collapsed lava.

This little guy is called a lava heron, for obvious reasons.

Another cool bird.  Some kind of gull I believe.

I knew you guys wanted more Boobies.

Random beach shot.

There were some beautiful tidal pools.

Blow holes.

This one was pretty impressive with just a little swell in the water.

Of course plenty of sea lions.

We even saw them fishing.

Hey buddy give me a little break here, you’re scaring the fish away.

Sorry man, no milk for you.

Hey I think I just saw that sea lion poop.

Jeez, I cant even poop and nap in peace.

And of course, there were many, many land iguanas.

They kind of grow on you after a while.

Watch your step, thats a big-un.

And marine iguanas as well.  These guys were literally everywhere and you really had to pay attention not to step on them.

A face only a mother could love.

The good ship Samba………..

…..showed us yet more spectacular coastline.

Sei whale.

Galapagos hawk.

Heron.

The Heron got a little tweaked when that hawk landed so close to him.  He was not happy.

Flamingos.

Goat man.

Penguins!!!

more beautiful scenes……………

I was a little ambivalent about going to the islands but it turned out to be a great experience.  We also had some absolutely fantastic snorkeling with seals, sharks, turtles, and all kinds of interesting fish, but I didn’t have an underwater camera to capture any of those scenes.

Yes its touristy, yes there are many boats and many tourists, yes its expensive, but I found it to be a great experience, one of those “once in a lifetime” things.  What made it much better was that I booked a small tourist class boat rather than a large first class boat.  Being with a small group of people made for a very mellow experience.

So, two thumbs up for the Galapagos Islands.

Saludos.

©2010 South on Two Wheels. All Rights Reserved.

View Equator in a larger map

As I headed down to Quito I would be crossing the equator, so naturally, a stop was in order.  In fact at a town called Cayambe, there is an equator monument.  Very cool!  I love this kind of stuff.

I had a funny feeling that if I put half of my bike in each hemisphere, it might suddenly turn into a KLR or something.

Nothing like that happened, although I did have a sudden urge to go watch a toilet flush.

Yup, the GPS says that we are on the equator.  Imagine that.

I suggested to one of the guys working at the monument that to make the monument really cool, they should install a toilet on each side of the line. For some reason, he failed to see the humor in that and didn’t even crack a smile, but mumbled something about motorcyclists. Sometimes I crack myself up.

Actually, the two guys working there were very nice. When I pulled up there was a bus load of tourists there. One of the guys told me to wait around until the bus people left, then I could ride my bike into the monument and take a photo. The guys are actually pretty stoked when you pull up on a bike. They get a lot of moto travelers here and will accommodate you with taking pictures when you pull up.

The one guy looked at my bike and said, “I like seeing those KTM adventures on long trips, I think its a good long distance bike, and besides that, I get tired of seeing BMW’s and KLR’s around here.”   Seriously, when the guy said that I had to chuckle.

Actually this monument is a solar calendar of sorts.  during the equinox, the sun rises right over that line.  Where you see the two big rocks on the opposite end mark where the sun rises during the solstices.  At the bottom of that big orange cylinder, there is a mirror.  On the equinox, at exactly mid day, the sun shines right down that tube, hits the mirror and lights up the inside of the tube with brilliant light.   Like I said, I love this stuff.

After a couple of more days in Quito I wanted to go check out one of the nearby volcanoes.  Volcan Cotopaxi, 19,400 ft,  sits 30 miles SE of Quito.  I figured it would be a nice ride up to the end of the road at 16,000 ft at the base of the volcano.  So I threw my flat repair kit in my pack, found my way out of the city,  and took off down a stone road in search of the volcano.

It was a nice ride to the park.

Ah, here we are, park entrance.

OK, so I get ready to pay my 10 dollar entry fee like a good tourist, and the guy manning the guard shack just looks at me and says, “no motos allowed in the park.”  “Really?  So if I am driving a car, a noisy truck, or bus belching out clouds of thick black diesel smoke, I can go in the park?”  “Yes,” he replied, but no motos.  Well that’s just great.  “Why?” asked him.  “Those are the rules,” he quickly replied.  I told him I thought that the rules sucked, and he agreed with me, but still would not let me in.

So, shamelessly, I tried to bribe him to let me in the park.  After all, that’s the way things usually work in most of Latin America.  I started with 5 bucks and eventually got up to 40 bucks.  That was everything I had on me, and it didn’t work.  Apparently this guy was not going to break the rules for what I had in my wallet.

However he did point me in the direction of a very nice dirt road ride back to Quito and told me that I would enjoy it very much.

So, I turned around, defeated, and headed back to Quito.  It was too cloudy to see the stupid Volcano anyway.

I only got up to 12,108 feet.

But, it was a nice ride back.

I was enjoying riding the bike in some dirt without the bags.

Cotopaxi is behind those clouds, but I never got to see anymore than this.

My quest to see a big volcano tuned into a very nice dirt road ride around the countryside.  It was a good day on the bike.

So I went back to Quito figuring that I will visit one of the other volcanoes before I leave Ecuador.

This coming week, I have a very special side trip planned that involves airplanes and boats, stay tuned.

Saludos, Vicente

©2010 South on Two Wheels. All Rights Reserved.

View Colombia in a larger map

It was a fast and uneventful ride from Pereira to Cali.  It only took me two hours of breaking every traffic law in existence to get to Cali.  I stayed a few days in at the Casa Blanca Hostel owned by fellow motorcyclist  Mike from Holland.  Mike’s hostel is a great place to stay in a nice neighborhood of Cali.

Being a rider himself, Mike caters to motorcycle travelers. The secure, covered bike parking and mechanic shop two doors down is a huge bonus as well.  I put on a new chain and front sprocket, and had the mechanic Santiago mount up some LED aux lights for me.  I’m running dual 50W HID’s in the headlight mask but I wanted a little more light near the front wheel to more easily see obstacles in the road like rocks, animals, abandoned trucks, and big potholes.  I don’t choose to ride in the dark down here, but I have found myself occasionally forced into doing it, so I want all the light I can get in those situations.

I also met another rider headed north on a KLR.  Jason started his trip in Argentina and is headed home to L.A.  We exchanged some info and tips on places we had been, and spent time hanging out and trading stories.

There were also two other bikers there as well . One guy, Robert, also from L.A. was riding an 2008 Harley Road King. He is a total crack up. My hat is off to him for taking the big Harley on a trip like this, and its pretty cool to see some American Iron headed to Tierra del Fuego. There are Harley riders, and there are Harley riders. Robert is the latter. Harley riders hate looking at their 900 pound bikes from this angle.

So now begins my exit from Colombia.  The ride south out of Cali is another wonderful ride in stunning scenery.

The road to the town of Pasto winds through the mountains and takes you to around 9000 feet, where the cool climate is a nice reprieve from the heat of Cali.  Pasto sits at around 8600 feet and although the surrounding scenery is beautiful, it is a bit of an unremarkable town, but a good staging place for crossing the border into Ecuador on the following day.

It definitely has that mountain town feel to it, year round jacket weather.

I guess they dont see many travelers here because when I walked down the street, people would stop me, ask me where I was from, welcome me to their country, and ask why in the world I wanted to come to Pasto.  I continue to be impressed by the hospitality and friendliness of the Colombian people.

More churches.

I didnt really look around the city very much.  It was a travel day for me.  However the riding was spectacular, and for this day and the next, I simply soaked upevery twist and turn of the road and the outstanding scenery.

From Pasto to the border at Ipiales is yet another incredible ride.  Just as you leave Pasto you climb to almost 11,000 feet and the terrain begins to get a little more arid to where you actually start seeing cacti, and the mountains get bigger.

You can tell that you are starting to get into the Andes proper.  I really enjoyed the two days of riding from Cali to Ipiales, it was fantastic.  Caught up in the moment, I neglected my picture taking and travelogue duties, but it was the best 2 days of pavement riding I have ever done.

Adios Colombia.  I will be back on a motorcycle for sure.  What an incredible place.  I have to say that Colombia is easily my favorite country in Latin America so far.

The procedures for exiting Colombia takes all of 15 minutes.  The officials are courteous and efficient.

Entering Ecuador is simple as well, but more time consuming.  There was a line of 50 people at migracion, and only one official working.  So it took a good hour and change to get my tourist stamp.  Then over at aduana, the customs guy copped a big attitude when he saw my US passport, so he jerked me around for a good two hours before I got my import permit for the bike.

The procedure is simple and straight forward though.  I just happened to run into an ass.  After I got my permit and I was leaving customs, the other guy in the office followed me outside and apologized for his co-worker being such a jerk.  I just smiled at him and told him it was OK, and I was sorry that he had to work with him everyday.  He laughed, shook my hand, welcomed me to his country, and wished me safe travels.

I am in Ecuador.

Saludos, Vicente

©2010 South on Two Wheels. All Rights Reserved.

Although the scenery is stunningly beautiful, I took absolutely zero pictures on this ride because there were few places to pull over, and trying to ride one handed while taking a picture would be a roll of the dice on this road.  There were a few places to pull over, but the last thing I wanted to do was let all the trucks pass me by since I just risked life and limb getting ahead of them in the first place.

In Medellín I would meet up with fellow rider Al, whom I know only from an internet motorcycle forum.  Al used to have a bar in Quito, Ecuador, then moved to Medellín about a year ago.   I was the first motorcyclist, and actually the very first guest to stay at Al’s new place.

Al has  just opened a hostel, complete with an Argentinian steak house downstairs.  The rooms are all very nice and have a motorcycle theme.

There is of course secure bike parking.  If you are nice to him, he even might let BMW’s park inside.

The restaurant was under construction the first half of my stay.

The grand opening was a couple of weeks later.  I ate more meat than any one human should be allowed.  The steak is incredible.

Al, sampling the goods.

Andres, a real life authentic Argentinian from Mendoza, manning the grill.

So if you find yourself in Medellín, I highly recommend a stay at Al’s place near Parque Lleras in Poblado, Medellín.

In addition there are many big bike shops within walking distance like the KTM dealer called Moto Shop.

It was a great place to do an oil change, get some new rubber, brakes, etc, and freshen everything up on the bike.  If you need anything for your bike, Colombia is the place to do it as parts are readily available for all makes and models of motos.  Get everything you need here, because further south, its not nearly as easy.

Colombia truly is motorcycle heaven.

They even washed my bike before they serviced it.

This bike is particularly useless in Colombia.  You just cant let a sport bike run here, too many tight twisties, gravel road sections, etc.

Now this bike, the 990 SM along with the 690 SM are the perfect bikes for the roads and terrain here.  If I lived here, I would probably just have a  supermoto like this, without the pizza delivery box on the back, and a dirt bike for when I wanted to go play in the dirt.

Be prepared for steeker shock though.  Because of import duties, motos in Colombia are generally twice as expensive as in the states.  A KTM 990 Adventure:  $25,000.  Although I did see a nice used 2004 950 for 20 grand!  I didn’t even want to go the BMW dealer and see how much they wanted for a new 1200 GS.  Probably close to 35 grand, maybe more.

I didn’t do a whole lot in Medellín except for relax.  Al and I took a couple of rides around the country side.  He is an ex-London dispatch rider, which means he rides like a maniac and pulls off stuff in traffic that scares the hell out of me.  I quickly figured out that I was not insane enough to follow him through some of those maneuvers.  Al would split lanes like Moses and we would blow by guys on FZ-1′s and V-Stroms like they were standing still.  All they saw was two orange blurs threading the needle through the traffic.

We took a ride up to San Somethingorother.  I forget the names of these scenic little towns, they all seem to run together.

Horse parking.

Beautiful horse.  Not sure what make and model he is though.

The church.

On one other particularly beautiful day we headed out of town about an hour to place with a big rock.  I forgot the name of the place, so I will just call it, “big ass rock.”

Yup, its big alright.  I didn’t feel like climbing all of those stairs wearing MX boots.  So I just sat in the restaurant and enjoyed the view.

The big ass rock overlooks a beautiful scene with a lake.

Then of course, like every afternoon, it starts to rain.  Every afternoon, its like a cow peeing on a flat rock.

I also took a ride around the countryside with some Colombians.  They were all on KTM’s, mostly Supermotos, and were absolutely crazy.  Being on the Adventure, there was no way I could keep up with those guys on the SM’s so I didn’t even try.  Albert did a brilliant job of holding his own with those guys, but he later admitted that he scared himself  a few times.  I think those guys were impressed that a crazy Scotsman driving an  Adventure with DS tires was right on their asses in the twisties.

During one of the breaks we took, one guy asked me why I drove so slow.  I told him that I have about 30,000 miles to go on my trip and had enough crashes already without purposely riding like my helmet was on fire.

Which brings me to another thing.  I LOVE riding in Colombia.

Basically, if you are on a big bike, there are pretty much no rules that apply to you.  Pass a line of cars and trucks over a double yellow anytime you feel lucky, pass on the right through a sidewalk, shoulder, or parking area, do wheelies through the middle of town, go as fast as you have the guts to go, split lanes between same direction and opposite direction traffic like there is a middle lane, (not recommended with panniers) blow by cops riding V- Stroms and DR 650′s like they are going in reverse, and generally ride like a hooligan.    If you did this stuff in the states you be locked up within 15 minutes and they would probably throw away the key, but this is normal riding in Colombia.  After Mexico and Central America, I thought I had seen some crazy stuff on motos, but these Colombians take it to a whole new level.  Like I said, motorcycle heaven.

The KTM mafia meets for a Sunday ride at the local gas and gulp.

We drew a little crowd everywhere we went.

Another pretty town, San Something or other.

Another road side soda stop.  You wont catch these guys riding to a Juan Valdez Cafe or barhopping on a bike.  When they go for a Sunday ride, they ride hard, all day.

We started off with about 9 bikes then we got down to 5 or so.  They were nice enough to wait for me when a turn was coming up.

Crazy Phil, a crazy gringo that left Costa Rica and came to Colombia.

The afternoon storms start to build up.

So after 220 miles of general hooliganism, we headed back to the shop, had a beer, and called it a day.  I was tired out from riding with these guys and after one beer, was ready to pack it in.

So ends my stay in Medellín.  Al and I headed to Pereira where there was going to be a big moto rally.

The ride out was great.

However it poured down rain for the next two days so without attending the rally, Al headed back to Medellín, and I continued my journey south to Cali where I have been for a few days.  Next up, Ecuador.

Al, thanks for the hospitality and showing me around the country amigo, it was greatly appreciated!

Saludos, Vicente

©2010 South on Two Wheels. All Rights Reserved.

View Colombia I in a larger map

After an uneventful flight to Bogota,  I started the process to get my motorcycle through Colombian customs, AKA “DIAN”.   However, you have to do a little walking around.  The international cargo terminal is about a 15 minute walk from the passenger terminal.  However, DIAN, or customs, is at the domestic air cargo terminal (naturally) which is another 10 minute walk from the international cargo terminal.  Go figure.

Anyway, go take care of all the paperwork and get your vehicle permit over at DIAN, then walk back over to Girag (international air cargo terminal) then get the bike out.  Plan on at least 3 to 4 hours to take care of all of this as there could be delays over at DIAN and delays at Girag as well.  For example, when I was at DIAN, no one there at the time knew what to do with my paperwork, so I had to wait for them to call in someone who knew the procedures, and that alone took a couple of hours.  Once all your paperwork is done, you will wait around Girag as well since it is a constant stream of trucks getting uploaded at the docks where you need to ride your bike down the ramp and out of the building.  This will take time.

All said and done, I started the process at 11 am, and was on the road at 5 pm.  So the whole thing took six hours from the time I walked into the Girag office.  Absolutely no one in the Girag office so much as lifted a finger to help me out.  They acted like they didn’t know anything.  Who knows, maybe they didn’t actually know shit about anything.  I’ve been around air cargo joints for the better part of 2 decades, so this doesn’t really surprise me.  I had to find out what to do from one of the guys loading trucks at the docks.  One would figure that after spending almost a grand to ship the bike that the service would be a little better.  Nope, what was I thinking?  I should know better.

Just before dark I managed to free my moto from captivity, and headed toward the old historic centro of Bogota in shockingly horrible traffic to find a hotel.  It took about an hour and half to go 10 miles since I could not split lanes with the boxes on the bike.  Welcome to Bogota.

Bogota is home to some 8 million people, so its a big, crowded city.  The climate here is cool all year long.  At 8500 feet elevation, the days are in the low 70′s and the nights require a jacket.  Very nice climate.  At the west end of town at the base of some mountains is the financial district and historic centro, which is a nice place to walk around and reminds me of upscale old neighborhoods in the States.

Complete with a nice park.

Lots of motos in Bogota.  The cops ride Wee Stroms.

Even the local hotties ride.

Only a couple blocks from the upscale historic centro, things start to change a little bit.   First you notice the graffiti.  I had no idea the skinheads were down this far.

“This shit is not democracy.”   And “Yankees get out of Colombia.”  Uh Oh, the only Yankee I see around here is me!

Then the scenery starts to change a bit in another block.

A girl showing her wares at one of the numerous houses of ill repute on this street.

Hey man, I see you have plenty of BMW parts in there, but have you got a KTM front sprocket as well?

“Hey buddy, you know where I can find a…………….ah never mind.”

Anyway, I met a girl named Agueda in Bogota the first day I arrived.  I was parking the bike at the hotel and she started chatting with me.   She offered to show me around town.  She also said that she liked motorcycles and wondered if I would be able to give her a ride sometime.  Ah, now the truth comes out, I knew that it wasn’t my charm she was attracted to.  However a local tour guide sounded great to me and as a bonus, my Spanish would get quite a workout as well.

So on Friday night, she took me to the cockfights.  But first, we had a few roosters to pick up at her house.

Well come to find out,  Agueda, has a few brothers that raise fighting roosters, and they come into Bogota every weekend to try and make some money at the cockfights.

Its a much more upscale place than the ones I have been to in the little towns in Mexico.  You mean I cant bring in my guns?  Can you say, “no fun allowed here?”

Weighing in the birds on a specialized rooster scale.  I learn something everyday.  I never knew that there was actually was a scale made for the sole purpose of weighing in fighting roosters.  Life’s little surprises…….

Getting the birds stored for the fights.

The business ends of these roosters are made out of polycarbonate and taped up to the bird’s legs.  They can inflict some serious damage.

I’m not saying whether this is right or wrong, it just is what it is, and I was there.

“And in this cage, weighing in at a whopping 4.7  pounds, the undisputed heavyweight champion of the……………..”

Lets take some bets……….

This poor guy wound up getting cooked in the lobby food stand, right outside the ring.  Bad day for him.

The boys didn’t win much here.  However, they went to an after hours cockfight place where they won almost $1000 bucks.  That’s a mighty big payoff for these campesino boys.

Interesting times at the old cockfights.  This was actually one of the most tame cockfight places I have been to.  Everyone was relatively sober and a bit reserved actually.  Although it was a late night, the next day I had to rally because I was supposed to take Agueda on the bike and go up to the finca where her brother and his family live.

I picked up Agueda in the morning. As we made our way through Bogota traffic, we found that the highway was closed a bit outside of town.  There was a big bicycle race coming though so they closed off the course.  It would be a couple of hours before they opened it back up.

So we decide to walk up to the corner restaurant and have a little snack.  Man, this was some great BBQ.

The road opened up and we went on our way toward the pueblo of San Francisco, about 70 miles northwest of Bogotá.  It turns out that in San Francisco there was a big fiesta going on.  Everyone was riding their horses through town in a big parade, and drinking beer and aguardiente, which is kind of like a black licorice type of liqueur.  Very sweet, and very strong.

Everyone seemed to be having a great time.  This is what I call a “self propelled campesino boom box.”  Jeff Foxworthy would have a field day with this one.  “You might be a redneck if………….”

And of course there was some great BBQ as well.  This stuff was incredible.

How about a nice plate of………..MEAT!

The church in the town square.

Horse parking.

After enjoying the town festivities, we headed out of town behind the parade.

And out into the country side.

Down some dirt roads………

There were dangerous critters in the road.

We continued up into the hills.

………as the road winds further into the country side.

Agueda seems to be pretty happy riding on the back of the KTM.  And pretty brave as well, dirt road, no helmet, with me driving.

Finally we arrive at the finca.  The boys are pretty impressed with the size of the bike, and even more impressed that I didn’t crash numerous times getting to the finca with their sister on the back.

This is Jose.  Tough kid.  He has a really thick campesino accent.  I cant understand a word he says to me.  When he talks to me, he gets right in my face and yells at the top of his voice.  Its funnier than hell.  He figures if he yells really loudly, I will understand.  He couldn’t figure out why I  understood his sister perfectly, and I couldn’t understand him.

A few years back when he was in the Army, during a firefight with the FARC, he took 2 rounds from an AK through the hips and into the guts.  Both rounds entered and exited, but in the process did a mighty fine job of shattering his hip and churning up his intestines.  7 months and 14 operations later he would live to tell about it and make a pretty good recovery, although he still has trouble getting around.

Spending time in the cities, its easy to forget that the war is still going on.  However, when you talk to these folks, you get an idea of the hardships, pain, sacrifice, and loss that many Colombians have endured over the years, and continue to endure even now.

Here is the view from the finca.  Apparently, that is a dormant volcano in the background.  The boys said that occasionally there have been emeralds found in the quebrada (a creek drainage) next to the finca.

Here is where they make the feed for the few head of cattle they have.

It was getting about dinner time so Jose hands me a chicken and tells me to kill it.  I grab its neck and give it a good snap.

Then the boys go to work plucking and dressing the bird before they hand it off to the girls in the kitchen.

The dinner was great and we even had some left over for breakfast the next morning.

“Hey Gringo, you got any chicken for us?”

We then saddled up and headed back toward Bogotá.  A view of the pueblo of San Francisco.

Leaving the finca.

I had a fantastic weekend hanging with Agueda and her brothers and it was great experience.  In my travels, it seems that when I have a random meeting with a person, it usually turns into a special experience.  I will always remember this part of my time in Colombia.  Wonderful people.

Saludos, Vicente

©2010 South on Two Wheels. All Rights Reserved.

Next you proceed to the Costa Rica side for processing. There are bus loads of people (literally off the buses) standing in lines for immigration stamps. So I stand in line for about a hour and half and finally get my tourist stamp. Then I go to an office in the same building to make copies of everything and purchase the mandatory insurance for the bike. Now I take all of that crap and go across the street to Aduana. I get to the front of the line and customs guy proceeds to make a 20 minute phone call to his girlfriend while he casually flips through a magazine. He never looks up at me. So after he takes his time on the phone and gets bored with the magazine, he looks up at me and says, “what do you want?” Nice. I just hand him my stack of paperwork. He has me fill out several forms, asks to see all of my original documents etc. Then he wants to see the VIN on the bike. Fine. On my bike under the seat is a factory sticker with the VIN number because the VIN number stamped on the frame is almost impossible to see without removing the fairings and fuel tanks.

He looks at the sticker and says, “no good, I need to see the number stamped on the frame.” I explain that its under the fairings and tanks and hand him my tool roll and tell him to have at it. Then just looks disgusted, grunts, hands me my paperwork and tells me to take it over to the warehouse. OK, great where is the warehouse? “Over there” he says as he makes a sweeping gesture with his hand. What a guy. This guy is a complete jackass. So I get on the bike and find the warehouse and proceed to stand in line with a bunch of truck drivers who all look equally unhappy about standing in line all day. When I get the to front of the line after about 30 minutes, the customs guy behind the window tells me that he does not have time to do my paperwork right now and I should come back later. Great. So I just stand next to the window and glare at him as he helps other people and truckers. After about 30 minutes of this, a very nice Nica truck driver asks me why I am still standing there. I tell him. He then starts a discussion with the customs guy and finally the guy agrees to do my paperwork to finish the process of importing the bike into Costa Rica. I thank the truck driver many times. He just smiles and says to me, “dont worry amigo, some Ticos don’t care too much for gringos but they really dont like us Nicas. That customs guy was just messing with you because he is such an asshole.” Then with a smile and a little laugh he says, “welcome to Costa Rica amigo.” So almost 4 hours after pulling up at the border, I am officially into Costa Rica. What a pain in the ass.

View CR Panama in a larger map

I high tailed it to Avellanas to Casa Kristi and got a very nice room for the night.

The next day I made tracks down the Nicoya peninsula to Mal Pais. My friend Wendy lives and works there so I spent a few days visiting her. The nearby town of Santa Teresa is kind of a sad sight. Its very touristy, expensive, and full of dirt bags, both local and foreign. There are lots of idiots selling drugs, and with that comes out of control theft and robbery. Nice place.

However Wendy’s place is out of town on a nice little beach that borders the Cabo Blanco Reserve, the first national park in Costa Rica.

There is a pretty decent left out there as well.

It was good to see my friend Wendy. However after a couple of days I was less than thrilled with Costa Rica and was ready to move south. So, I hopped the ferry over to Puntarenas.

I blew through Jaco. Wow, what happened to Jaco? Jaco used to be a really cool beach town. Now it is just a complete mess. I stopped for all of a minute to look around, then headed further south. Maybe Dominical would still be nice? Nope, wrong. Dominical is another mess of agro surfers and 20 year old idiots, both foreign and local, selling drugs by day and robbing homes and people by night. Nice. What happened to Costa Rica?

So I headed further south. I got a tip on a cool place to stay from fellow motorcyclist. About 2 miles north of Uvita, you will see a small sign on the left that says “Rancho Diandrew 4 km.” So at the sign, I make a left up the dirt road and head into the hills.

There are a few houses off the dirt road. Nice foreigner homes and there are no idiots to be seen. OK, now this is a little more like it.

Well, as it turns out, Rancho Diandrew is a great place to stay. You can rent a big tent with an air mattress for 10 bucks a night and there is a nice kitchen tent right next to it.

Or if you want a nice place, there are ”tent cabins” as well that are a little more plush. They are very much like the yurts in San Ignacio, Baja California. I stayed in a nice cabin for a night, then moved into the 10 dollar tents for the rest of the week.

Nice views of the ocean out the front porch too. There are plenty of animals around and you will seen numerous exotic birds and monkeys, maybe an anteater or two, and if you’re lucky you will get to see some big snakes as well.

This place was excellent. I stopped in for a night, and stayed a week. I would lounge around all day, hike in the jungle then go for a swim in on of the numerous swimming holes within a 30 minute walk of the house. This is a very refreshing way to spend a hot afternoon. I think all I did while I was here was lounge around in the morning and swim in the afternoon. It was really too hot to do much of anything else.

So there are in fact still some neat little off the beaten path places near the coast in Costa Rica, but you have to hunt for them. If you are coming through Costa Rica I highly recommend a stay at Rancho Diandrew.

After all my lounging around, South America was calling me, so I wanted to get moving further south, toward the very small Rio Sereno border crossing into Panama.

I climbed up into the mountains to a little town near the border called Sabalito, stopped at the gas station and asked how to get to Panama. The gas station attendant gives me very detailed directions and I find myself here. A Central American border crossing down a dirt road? I think this is gonna be good.

So I pull up to the Costa Rica office a little further down the road. There is only one official there for both Migracion and Aduana, and I am the only person using the crossing. Bingo. He checks me out of Costa Rica in about 30 seconds. Then I go about 100 meters up the road to the actual border with the Panama offices on the other side of the fence. Check this out. This is a border crossing? Excellent. I couldn’t believe my luck.

Migracion on the left, Aduana on the right. However when I walk into the first office, the guy informs me that it is lunch time and he will take care of me in about a hour or so. No problem, I just kicked back in the shade and started to relax. However, about 2 minutes later, he comes out and asks me for my paperwork. I give it to him and he comes back a couple minutes later, hands it back to me and says “welcome to Panama.” He did this on his lunch break. How cool is that? So I go over to customs to inform them that I will be back after lunch to take care of the bike import. One guy tells me not to worry, just give him the paperwork and he will take care of it now. Very cool. So I hand him all of my stuff, walk across the street and buy some cokes for everyone in the office. When I come back in five minutes, everything is finished and the folks were actually really surprised and happy that I brought them some ice cold cokes to drink. I couldn’t believe it. I was done with this border crossing during a lunch break, and in the time it took me to go buy some refreshments. Needless to say I was extremely happy about this border crossing.

I headed to Santa Catalina on the coast for some world class point surf.

Instead of world class point surf, I was sick with the flu the whole time. That pretty much sucked. So, I only took a few pictures while in Santa Catalina.

The evening thunderstorms.

The point surf.

The beach.

After a week in Santa Catalina, I headed to Panama City in search of transport to Colombia. Of course a visit to the famous Miraflores locks on the Panama Canal was in order. Some people have been less than impressed with a visit to the locks, but I found it to be a great thing to do.

I met these guys. Steve and Bruce riding KTM 950′s from Lima to L.A. They even bought me lunch at the locks.

Some pics of ships passing through. They are headed to the Pacific. In the Miraflores locks they will drop 9 meters.

Tanker and container ship.

Tugs that pull the ships through the locks.

Tug boat.

Its a good place to kill a few hours out of your day. Besides that, you stay in the air con in the restauant and drink beer while you watch the ships come though. Given that fact, I don’t see how anyone can not have a good time at the Miraflores locks.

Well, now back to finding transport to Colombia. To get from Panama to Colombia you must cross the infamous Darien Gap. The Panamerican highway ends in Panama at the town of Yaviza. There are no roads through the Darien into Colombia. The gap is a well known haunt for FARC, narco traffickers, and generally bad people. Not to mention that the jungle here is brutally unforgiving. A few people have taken motorcycles through the Darien, but they didnt ride them. They carried them over the course of weeks. I think I will pass on that one. There are three ways into Colombia. You can carry your bike thorugh the Darien. You can take boat through the San Blas islands over several days and go the Port city of Cartegena in Colombia. Or, you can fly yourself and bike from Panama City to Bogota. From research, I deduced that there were basically two boats that I would trust with my bike. The Steel Rat, and the Seeadler. I had emailed these boats almost two months before my anticipated trip to Colombia and they were full. I poked around Panama City looking for other viable boats to take but found nothing that I was keen on taking. So, I decided to pack up, ride to the airport and have the bike shipped to Bogota.

Met a guy named Chris who was coming north from Colombia. His bike just got to Panama and he was starting the ride home to the States.

Of course, as fate would have it, when I returned to my hotel in Panama City after shipping the bike off to Colombia and buying a ticket for myself on Copa Airlines, I checked my email and Ludwig from the Steel Rat had sent me an email which informed me that a spot had opened up for me on the boat. Doh!!!! It would have been a great experience, but it was just not to be I guess.

Not the way I wanted to get to Colombia………..

Just bad timing. I was pretty bummed out about it.

Saludos, Vicente

©2010 South on Two Wheels. All Rights Reserved.

Clickable interactive google map.

View Puerto Cabezas in a larger map

It is pretty interesting to pull into a gas station and have the attendant say, “Greetings mon, welcome to Bilwi, where you from mon?

Anyway, the next day we had to go do some searching around for parts. The evening before, Mario had broken his subframe bolts and we also needed a replacement spare tire for the truck. So we went shopping.

Not the same size tire as the other, but it will do the trick.

The night guy at the hotel that hooked us with beer and for the night before took us around town so we could quickly chase down tire and parts.  We didn’t know his name but since he kind of looked like Mike Tyson, we just started calling him Tyson.  Well,  funny thing was that when we pulled up to the tire shop, the tire store guy says, “Hola, Tyson!  Como estás? Too funny.  Tyson pretty much seemed to know everyone in town and seemed to be a guy that could get you whatever you needed, legal or otherwise.

After we chased down what we needed, we headed to the beach for a while.   Here, each little tent had its own 5 million watt sound system, all playing different music.  Imagine listening to 5 different songs at the same time, all cranked up to 11, not so fun.

I’m still not sure what happened here.  I turned around and she jumped in my lap.  Mario, always ready with the camera, probably had something to do with it. When she jumped in my lap, he told me (in English of course) that she probably wanted me to help her get back in that dress that she was falling out of.

Being the middle of Semana Santa, I thought this beach was a bit deserted, as it was the most popular beach in town.

It was a hot day and water looked refreshing, although after seeing this, none of us really felt like swimming.

After that, we went to another more tranquilo spot for food and beer.

The next morning the girls would leave at 4:30 am as it is supposed to take about 16 hours for a car to get to Managua.  Mario, JC and I slept in and left about 8 am.  Well, Mario and I arrived at the ferry about 20 minutes after leaving the hotel, but JC was nowhere in sight.

Local river transport

You can buy breakfast right on the little river ferry, which we did while waiting for JC, because we found out from a local motorcyclist that he was headed down the wrong road to the Honduras border.

Finally, after a 3 hour solo northeastern Nicaragua tour, JC arrives and we can get moving toward Managua.

We made it to Managua after riding a couple of hours into the night dodging suicidal cheeken boose drivers and animals in the road.  100 watts of HID light is essential for night riding in Central America.  Miraculously, we pulled into the hotel 2 minutes behind the girls in the truck.  It took them 16 hours and change. It took us 10 hours on the bikes, and that was dealing with flats and taking plenty of breaks. Dirt road trips are always significantly quicker on bikes.  We have no pics of the rest of this day except from Marios phone camera.  I did have a pretty spectacular crash going through some whoops. I almost pulled it off but I got the bike crossed up on the last whoop and went down. The next day I was having a hard time walking since I banged up my ankle, knee, and hyper extended my thumb. Fernanda, wearing a frown of disapproval, just shook her head at me and said, “well Vicente, I guess no chicas for you for a while.”  Funny woman.

We went to Granada the next day and the place was packed with tourists and locals for Semana Santa.   Granada is the tourist city in Nicaragua. It has some old colonial charm, lots of neat old buildings and plenty of swanky shops and restaurants designed to relieve you from your cash.  Nevertheless, its a great place to stop and kill a day or two.

On the way we stopped at the active volcano Masaya.  You can drive right up to the cauldera and into the sulfur cloud.  Pretty cool actually.

Supposedly, the cross was put there to keep the evil spirits living in hell from coming out of the volcano and terrorizing the earth.

And finally we pull into Granada.

This is a Semana Santa procession with mock caskets of Jesus.  You see these things coming down the street by the dozen, and it goes on all week long.

Of course there are horses in the streets, after all, this is Nicaragua!

“¡Hey!  Granada is not a trash can.  It is our city.”  It was good to see this sign.  The rest of Nicaragua, or the rest of Central America for that matter, could take some lessons from this.

Hey, dont forget to honor your ancestors too!

Fernandita met a street artist that painted and sold tiles.  This guy was from near Bluefields on the Caribe coast, and was walking around working the people sitting in the outdoor restaurants. He always had a big smile on his face. He tried numerous times to paint a tile for us, and we refused every time. Then he just sat down next to us and says, “I’ll tell you what mon, I paint a tile, and if you like it you buy it from me mon.” OK, fair enough, paint away amigo.

Fer was stoked.  I crack up every time I look at this picture. Of course his sales tactic was successful.

We ate and drank and then returned to Managua for the night.  The next day my Salvadoreño family left for San Salvador.  It was a very sad day for me.  The hospitality that they showed me was incredible, and I made some life long friends.  Mario, Fernanda and the girls are fantastic people and I already miss them very much.  Muchissimo gracias!!!!!

When I left Managua I decided to make tracks toward Costa Rica.  I stopped by the volcanic island of Ometepe in the middle of Lago Nicaragua a took a “here I am shot” and went on my way.

I spent a night a little further south at the very touristy beach town of San Juan del Sur.  Although touristy, it is quite a nice tranquil beach town and worth a couple of days.  If you’re a surfer, there are many world class breaks a short drive away, although the bay has no surf. Since I was still gimping around a little bit from my crash, I couldn’t do any surfing anyway.

View SJDS in a larger map

My last Nicaraguan sunset.  The next day would involve yet another border crossing into Costa Rica.

Saludos, Vicente

©2010 South on Two Wheels. All Rights Reserved.

Clickable interactive map.

View matagalpa in a larger map

On to a  dirt road toward Matagalpa

I have no idea what these guys are hauling.   They are doing a good job of sweeping the road with it though.

The ever present Central American road construction.

Good time for a mug shot………..

Then we pulled into our place for the night near Matagalpa.  Its about 4000 feet so its a nice cool climate.

It was a really cool joint with cabins and a restaurant around a pretty little lake.

The next morning we were up early to start the 300 mile journey to a place out on the Caribbean coast known as Puerto Cabezas, Bilwi.

Clickable interactive map.

View Bilwi in a larger map

We got an early start because we had a long day ahead of us.

As usual we ran into plenty of road construction.  Instead of waiting, JC decides to shoot the gap and try not to get scooped up by the backhoe.

In the morning its pretty fun riding on fast dirt roads.  We have many miles of dirt road to tic off.  Some of this road is nice, smooth, and fast.  However, much of the road is covered in sharp rocks, whoops and washouts and can be hell on tires and tubes.  Its about as tire friendly as the road from Puertecitos to Gonzaga Bay in Baja, but it goes on for 250 miles.

This road is hell for truck and bus drivers.  You will see so many trucks and buses on the side of road with various types of problems all related to rough sections and sharp rocks.  I think this guy as been driving this road for a while.  He knows what essential equipment is when you have a breakdown.

Of course we don’t always agree on the direction to take.

I’m pretty happy about the whole experience.

At least in this town its pretty obvious which way we need to go.

I’m having a good time and riding way faster and harder than I should.

This is the only route from the interior of Nicaragua directly to Puerto Cabezas, so it sees plenty of vehicle traffic and goes through many small villages.

Lots of animals on the road the whole way.

Moooooooo!

After getting plenty of air time earlier in the day on some whooped out section of road, I noticed a noise coming from the swing arm.  The metal bracket of the rear aux fuel tank had gotten badly bent on one of the jumps, had pulled the brass inserts out of the tank and was now gouging into the aluminum swing arm and rubbing on the chain.  So we had to do a little surgery on the side of the road.

Since it also pulled the threaded brass inserts out of the plastic aux tank the mounting bracket was completely useless to me.  My aux tank is now held on by bungee cords that JC had in his pack.  Pretty easy temporary field repair since JC had the bungees.

Anytime you stop near one of the villages, these big bikes always draw a crowd.  Folks just dont see many bike of this size come through so they are very interested to talk to you.  “How many cc’s?  How fast?  How heavy?  How much does it cost?  Where is it made?  You actually rode that bike all the way from the U.S.?”  Its always the same routine.  I must have answered these questions 14,327 times since I left home.

Official village bathing and clothes washing area.

Actually as hot as it was, these rivers looked pretty inviting.

We crossed lots of little bridges like this.

Cheeken Boose!!!

This guy had a rough morning.  Actually, seeing people passed out drunk is a pretty common sight in Central America.  We stopped at this little tienda for some cold sodas and the music must have been cranked up to 11.  It was so loud that you couldn’t hear yourself think.  It didn’t phase this guy though.

Here is the village school. The local school board must not have much political pull for funding.

The girls blew out a sidewall on one of the truck tires and were now without a spare.  So, we would follow them the rest of the way to Bilwi.  It was very slow going following the truck.  The last 50 miles would take us about 4 hours.  We would stop and take a break for a while to let the truck get ahead, then catch up to them and repeat until after dark.

KTM posers……..

Some of these little whoop sections were fun.

Some of the bridge crossing would prove to be interesting.  Mario barely pulled this one off.  He couldn’t see the missing planks until it was too late, so he had to pin it and pray.  He warned JC and I so we wouldn’t wind up wadded up in a ball.

This really could have turned out badly.  You can never let your guard down and get complacent when riding down here.

It was getting late and would soon get dark.  There is one river crossing that requires a ferry.  We had found out that the ferry stops running at 9 pm so we really needed to get the truck moving along so we wouldn’t miss the boat, so to speak.

We made it to the ferry with time to spare.

This turned out to be about a 14 hour day for us, so we were pretty worked by the time we hit the ferry.  This kid behind me was looking for any opportunity to grab anything off the bike.  The people here are very quick.  After the ferry it was only another 20 miles in Puerto Cabezas.   Most areas of the town are actually pretty sketchy at night.  After dark, you dont see many people out of their homes.  When we pulled in around 9 pm, the streets were deserted.  There’s probably a good reason for that.

JC is pretty worked as well.

I was damned happy to be off of that bike and into a hotel.  Once we got settled in the hotel, we were going to venture out and find something to eat and drink.  The night guard told us that under no circumstances should we be walking around outside after dark.  So he wound up calling a friend of his to round up some food and beer and bring it to the hotel for us.

©2010 South on Two Wheels. All Rights Reserved.

You always see some interesting things on the road.  This truck  was probably carrying multi-colored alien dinosaur eggs or some such nonsense.

Interactive Google Map (you can zoom and pan) – Honduras Route.

View Honduras in a larger map

We got to the Honduras border at El Amatillo and I started the process of importing myself and bike into Honduras.  As I mentioned, the Honduras borders are infamous.  The customs people tend make up problems why they cannot import your vehicle and then will tell you that for 400 or 500 dollars the “problem” will go away.  Well needless to say, I had no intention of paying anything other the standard $35 import fee.  I don’t like to get fleeced, so out of principle and stubbornness, I will wait around all day if necessary to do battle with the customs people until they stop messing with me.

Mario, JC and Fernanda did not have to deal with Honduras customs because of the CA-4 agreement.  They are free to travel from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua without dealing with immigration or customs vehicle procedures.  I was hoping that I would not hold them up too long while going through the process.

So here I am with all of my paperwork getting ready to go do battle with the “Deputy Assistant to the Minister of Corrupt Border Officials,” AKA, the customs lady.

Fernanda, Julie, and Fernandita were patiently waiting for me in the shade while I went through the process.

We changed a few bucks at the border with the money changers………..

Despite all my preparations and mindset to go in ready for battle, I had absolutely no problem checking myself and my bike into Honduras.  Everything went very smoothly and a process that has taken others hundreds of dollars and a full day, took me the standard 35 bucks and all of an hour and half.  I think that because of the recent change of government in Honduras, the low level bureaucrats like these customs people could be scared for their jobs, and as a result they are on their best behavior.  That’s just a guess, but whatever the reason, the infamous El Amatillo crossing was a breeze.

We headed on down the road without any problems.  There were numerous cop stops along the way, but I just hung back behind Mario and JC and let them do all the talking.  I just kept quiet so the cops thought I was Salvadoreño, and they didn’t give me any grief at all.   In total we encountered six corrupt cop checkpoints on the way, but with the Guanaco boys running point and doing all the talking, we were waved right through after only a few seconds of discussion at each stop.

I really wanted to test my finely honed skills against these infamous corrupt cops as its has become kind of a hobby of mine.  I was trained by the best Mexico has to offer.  Since the Honduran cops have a reputation for corruption,  I was really looking forward to playing the game with those guys.   I’ll get the chance to do it on the way back north.

After the brief 80 mile section on CA-1 through Honduras, I checked out of the country easily enough at this place, very tranquilo, no problems.  The customs guy just looked disgusted and stamped my paperwork with scowl and a grunt.  Adios Honduras.

Checking into Nicaragua we changed some money once again.

And only 3 hours after leaving El Salvador I am through Honduras and into Nicaragua.  I was shocked at how smoothly it went.  People routinely spend all day long just getting through this infamous 80 mile gauntlet of corruption, but we were done before lunch.  Being with Mario and JC really helped with the cops, so I’m sure that saved a lot of time.  I was prepared for the worst and the whole thing was a non-event.  I didn’t even get any good story material out of the experience.

Welcome to Nicaragua.

Saludos, Vicente

©2010 South on Two Wheels. All Rights Reserved.

Here are some pics of the race.

Lots of orange showed up.

There were the BMW 450 guys there from Guatemala.

Go Julie!!!!  Gotta love a girl that races dirt bikes.  I think she was the only girl in the race.

After all the riders left the closed portion of the course, we headed out to see the final stretch through the river bed.  Uh Oh.  We got stuck.

This stuff was like quicksand.  I remember when the bottom just dropped out of the truck and Fernanda yelled “Mario! Puuuuta!!”

We did finally manage to get the truck out with the help of a camion (big truck) and a chain.  All the digging and sticks didn’t work.

Here comes some guys up the river really flying.  Nasty stuff that gumbo river mud.

This guy took a horrible line over a half mile of river.  Not that there much better lines to choose from.

This guy was moving so fast when he hit the river that he was literally skiing the bike on top of the water.

But then he lost a little energy a few feet later and virtually sank the bike.

There were some other shenanigans as well.  This dude got his feet ripped right off the pegs from the water pressure, but he still managed to hang on.

These guys are screwed.  You cant mess around and be indecisive in river beds like this.  You have to go for it.

U-boat commanders.

U-boat commander and soon to be U-boat commander.

No! He made it!!!  Just barely though.  I thought he was screwed for sure.

All said, it was a fun day watching the race even though it was hotter than hell.  After watching these guys and having a good look at some of the course, I decided that I will take desert racing any time over this jungle river insanity.

Would you take your beautiful new Porsche to the races?  What was this guy thinking?

It was a really fun day at the races.

Saludos, Vicente

©2010 South on Two Wheels. All Rights Reserved.

I thought about riding right into the church, but I don’t think that would have gone over so well.  I have to remember, I’m not in Guatemala anymore,  ” in El Salvador we have traffic laws,” blah, blah, blah.

We left Santa Ana and rode up to coffee country.

Stopped and had some coffee, and what the Salvadoreños call a quesadilla.  Its like a thin pastry, really tasty.

The mountains around coffee country.  Its nice and cool, well, cooler than San Salvador as we are about 4500 feet elevation here.

Hummm.  What is this interesting contraption sitting on the side of the road?  Looks like a bunch of boards with some wheels thrown on.  Wierd huh?  What could they possibly use these things for?

As I was contemplating the purpose of this contraption, a big pile of sticks came flying down the road at a good 50+ mph.  Whoa.  So what are these contraptions for?  Stupid gringo question.  These things are for transporting firewood of course. Duh….  It took us a while to catch this guy, he was freaking crazy, really moving.

I caught him in the curve.

Just take one more look at these wheels!  Now could you imagine, going over 50 mph on one of these things with a load of firewood behind you?

They can even ride two up with a huge stack of firewood, but these guys have some different wheels.  They appear a little safer anyway.  That is one serious Fred Flintstone machine right there.

Then the two aliens on big orange bikes continued to the town of Ataca.  Ataca is kind of like a mini Antigua.  Great artsy shops, outstanding restaurants, good coffee, and lots of tourists on the weekends.  But it’s way smaller than Antigua.  You can walk the entire town in only 30 minutes.  Nevertheless its a great place to kill a couple of days and a respite from the heat of the lowlands.

I of course had to ride right into the town square for a photo.  Damn hooligan bikers, what does this clown think he is doing?

Its a really cool little town, and if you are ever in El Salvador, you should go check it out for a day or so.

Kind of a neat little church in town as well.

Anyway, after leaving Ataco, we headed back to Santa Ana and had some lunch with a buddy of Mario’s.  I cant remember his name, but he rides a BMW R1200 GS and is taking a trip to Alaska this year.  He is going to leave from San Salvador and return in 40 days.  He is going to be busy with that limited schedule.  We had some great ceviche at this joint.  Mine came in a huge hollowed out Pineapple and was fantastic.

I think it was a good day at work for Mario.  Come to think of it, we didn’t work much, we just rode around the country, drank coffee and beer, and ate all kinds of food.  Rough job, but someone has to do it I guess.  Hey, Mario, do you need an employee?  I seem to have a lot of time on my hands right now and the paycheck is a little thin, so I could help you out with doing what we did today.

Well the next day was my 43rd birthday.  I don’t know how I let it slip.  I guess when Fernanda asked me how old I was, I told her that I was going to be 43 next week.  She didn’t forget that comment.  Anyway, low and behold, Fernanda decides to throw me a birthday party.  For those of you that don’t know me, I’m not real keen on having people go out of their way and do nice things for me.  At times I feel a little embarrassed by it.  I pleaded with Fernanda, “no, please, it’s too much, it’s only my birthday, it happens every year.”  Well she would have none of it.  She said that in El Salvador a birthday is a big deal, so we are having a birthday party, and its going to be fun, end of story.   All I could do was kick back and enjoy the hospitality.  It was really amazing.  I had just met Mario and Fernanda a week before, and now they are throwing a party for me.  Incredible people.

They invited some friends over.

Of course we hung out a bit in the garage with the other Mario  (KLR Mario, a hilarious guy to be around) and Juan Carlos (JC)

Fernanda whipped up a huge plate of Paella.  Me gusta!!!!!  Wow!!!!!

Then the cake came out, complete with a candle that kept re-lighting when I blew it out.  10 year old Fernandita got a kick out of that.  She was always laughing at me.  When I would look at her, she would laugh.  When I would say something, she would laugh.  Whenever I would do anything, she would laugh.  What would really crack her up is when she was trying teach me some Spanish and I would screw it all up.  Then she would laugh so hard she would be in tears.  Funny girl that Fernandita is.

After my big Four Oh, it was the best birthday I have ever had.  Mario and Fernanda, you guys rock!  Thank you  so much for making me feel welcome and throwing me an awesome birthday party!  Mi familia Salvadoreño es la mejor!!!  Muchissimo gracias.

Well needless to say, I didn’t feel too good the morning after my birthday.  I was drinking the same drink all night long, but it never seemed to get empty.   But I had to rally because the next evening we had to go do this………..

It was the Luis Enrique concert at the fair.  He is a very famous Salsa guy.  I still felt terrible.  At43 years old,  when I party it up, it hurts the next day, terribly.  I guess I can handle it once a year though.

Mario brought his binoculars to the concert so we could see better.

That night I met Fernanda’s friend Patricia.  Fernanda is on the left, Patricia is the right.  A smelly scuzzy biker like me doesn’t get to sit between two beautiful women very often, so I was all smiles.  Patti and I hit it off immediately.

There were a lot of pretty girls there, so of course I had to get pictures.  Mario insisted on it.

She is really cute.

I like green too.

The other cowgirls were very nice as well.

I like green.  Did I already say that?

Anyway, we all had a great time singing and dancing, and I didn’t even know any of the songs, but I had a great time.  I think we got home around 3 AM and had to get up 7 am to go to an enduro  (off road motorcycle race).  Fernanda’s older daughter was racing in the enduro that day so we had to go.  That was a little painful as well.

Saludos, Vicente.

©2010 South on Two Wheels. All Rights Reserved.

It was pretty darned warm again, but can you tell I’m happy to be riding without all that damned luggage?

Hey Vinny, where the heck are you going?

We stopped off at a little mirador (viewpoint) and had some cold drinks and enjoyed the view of the city below.  It was a little hazy, but still great views.

Then we took off and headed up the hill a little more.

Did I mention that it feels good to have the bags off of the bike?

Then we rode up to Mario’s weekend getaway.  Its a little 10 acre coffee finca about 30 minutes from the center of town, but its like a whole different world.  Its got some elevation so its a bit cooler, and its so quiet that you can actually hear yourself think.  That’s a strange feeling after experiencing  all the noise of Latin America.

I’m pretty happy to be here.

We ate some fruit off the trees………

Then headed down the hill.  And yes, its a helluva a lot steeper than it looks.  I had both brakes pretty much locked up on the way down this section.

Then we headed back into town for dinner.  A perfect day of riding right around San Salvador.  I must say, I had a heck of a good time.

Saludos, Vicente

©2010 South on Two Wheels. All Rights Reserved.

The basic process is that when you come to a border, or ‘frontera’ in Spanish, you must check yourself and your vehicle out of one country, then drive a few kilometers to the next checkpoint, and check yourself and your vehicle into the next country.  Sounds simple right?  Its anything but simple.

Central American overland border crossings are notorious for corrupt officials trying to fleece money out of you while you undergo a draconian process of navigating red tape and jumping through bureaucratic hoops.  Numerous copies of passports, visas, drivers license,  and vehicle registrations must be made.   After the copies are made, some of them must get a certain stamp, then copied yet again with the stamp to be turned in at yet another window so you can receive yet another piece of paper to copy and stamp.  Not to mention the whole time you are waiting in long lines in stifling heat and humidity.  Its a horribly frustrating process, even when everything goes smoothly.

If the officials in Migracion and Aduana (Immigration and Customs) are honest, it generally takes a couple of hours to check out of one country and another couple of hours to check into the next country.  Bribes are part of the game to expedite things and can be anywhere from an easy 5 bucks to a whopping $100+ depending on what you are trying to do or how bad your paperwork got screwed up at the last crossing.

In addition, at every border crossing are numerous ‘tramitadores’ or helpers.  These guys are part of that corrupt system.  They follow you around like beggars,  and insist that you will need their help to navigate the process.  For the most part 5 or 10 bucks to helper would be fine if they were honest and actually helped to speed up the process.  However, many of them can make the process excruciatingly painful, time consuming, and expensive.  Use a helper with caution, because you never know what your going to get.

As far as the notorious Central American border crossings go, the one between Guatemala and El Salvador is actually a very straightforward crossing.  However when I arrived they had a problem on the Guatemala side, no electricity.  Uh oh, this could be painful.

A couple of helpers were following me around giving advice.  These guys are persistent.  I kept telling them that I really didn’t need any help but they still hung around.  The problem came when I tried to get the bike’s customs exit stamp from Guatemala.  There was a huge line, and stack of papers a mile high.  The aduana (customs) guy explained that he couldn’t do anything until his computers came back on, and for that, they needed electricity.

OK,  no problem, I can wait.  Then one of the helpers tells me that for 40 bucks, he can get me checked out of the country  ‘in five minutes.’  Naw, thats OK, I have all day long to do this, and its still early.  I can wait.  Then about a hour later he comes back and says, “hey, I can get your stamp and get you out of here for 10 bucks.”  Well that tipped the scales.  I countered with 5 bucks, but he laughed at that.  He said no way in hell would the customs guy do it for 5 bucks.  OK, 10 bucks it is then.  Basically the 10 bucks was a bribe to the Customs guy to give me my vehicle exit stamp before the electricity and computers came back up.  What the hell, I’ll give it shot.  It told the helper that if he got my stamp, I would give him 10 bucks.  Sure enough, 5 minutes later he came back with my aduana vehicle exit stamp, no computer or electricity necessary.  See, these helpers aren’t all bad guys. :-)

Normally, they feed on your worry about how long the process will take.  I had all day, so I didn’t really care.  But with the electricity out, this was a new ball game.  I figured that 10 bucks not to sit in the heat for God knows how many more hours was worth it.  It turned out to be the best 10 bucks I have spent on the trip as you will soon see.

While at the border I ran into these folks from Canada:  Brian and Marie.  Really cool people.  Brian and Marie have ridden around the world on a BMW 1100 GS and are returning north to Canada after almost 3 years on the road.  They have been everywhere on that bike.  I wish I could have sat down with them over beers and listened to stories about their adventures, but unfortunately we were headed in opposite directions.

They warned me that in El Salvador there are traffic laws that are actually enforced.  Very strange.   Don’t screw around, don’t ride on sidewalks, don’t pass on a solid yellow line etc, etc.  Cool.  Good to know because doing all that stuff  and riding like a complete hooligan is normal in Mexico and Guatemala, and actually essential for survival.   However, after 7 months of riding like that its going to be a challenge to change my driving habits in El Salvador.  In Mexico and Guatemala you could ride 80 miles an hour doing a wheelie down a sidewalk while holding a beer in your hand and the cops would’nt even give you a second look.

Of course, not 15 minutes after I crossed the border I had a brain fart and found myself passing a truck on a solid yellow line while I was doing a little wheelie , right in front of a cop.  Shit.  I got pulled over but the cops were actually pretty cool.  They said that in El Salvador, there are traffic laws.  OK, sorry about that.  After some smiles and apologies they let me go and told me to be careful.  Of course it probably helped that when they saw me open my wallet I had all of 2 Quetzales (about 20 cents) inside, and not one single dollar bill. :-)

OK, back to the border.   With my 10 dollar bribe I got out of Guatemala quickly.  Very quickly in light of the fact that there was no electricity.  I had emailed Brian and Marie a couple of days later and found out that they waited at the border for 7 hours before they finally got through.  They were entering Guatemala which is a much more complex process than leaving, so the bribes would have been substantially more.  I guess my 10 bucks was well spent huh?

Although the process is ridiculous with numerous stamps and copies needed, the El Salvador side is straightforward as it gets, and costs almost nothing.  No fees, no banks to go to and pay, nada.  The only thing is that you have to make some copies of stuff which will cost you about a buck at the most.  There are signs everywhere in Migracion and Aduana saying that you do NOT need to hire helpers, and don’t pay attention to anyone that is trying to charge you money for anything.  In addition, there are signs reminding you that entry into El Salvador is FREE.  The border officials were honest and very helpful even though the process still sucked.  But I like this country already. :-)

All said and done including the little electricity problem on the Guatemala side it took me about 2 hours to exit Guatemala and enter El Salvador.  Hey, these Central American borders aren’t so bad right?  Apparently that’s what everyone says until they experience Honduras. :-)

And finally, I’m in El Salvador.

I’m pretty happy to be here.

Once you hit the coast, there are some great views.  Try to keep your eyes on the road.

An hour or so after the border, I pulled into the little beach town of El Tunco, got a room and kicked back with an ice cold frosty.

Not a bad view from the room either.

It feels good to be on the move once again, but I could see getting stuck here for a while as the surf is good, the people are friendly, and the women are beautiful.  I can’t really ask for much more than that.

The next day I hit San Salvador for a badly needed oil change and some other routine maintenance.  A guy on one of the internet motorcycle sites that I frequent had offered his help to me a couple of weeks prior.  Mario graciously offered the use of his garage and he actually went two the KTM dealer, bought filters and oil and had them waiting for me when I arrived.  How cool is that?  The hospitality of fellow motorcyclists around the world never ceases to amaze me.  So Mario and I kicked around most of Saturday drinking beer and spilling oil on his garage floor.  Actually I think we spilled oil first, then drank beer, despite what you are thinking.  We also met his buddy Juan Carlos and drank more beer on Sunday.  Sorry, but after all that beer ,I forgot how to operate a camera so I don’t have any pictures of that.  :-)

View from Mario’s above San Salvador

Monday we went for a little ride out near the northeastern border, and this time we both brought cameras.  We stopped at a huge bridge that was blown up by the guerrilla during the civil war.  If you go over that edge, its a long way down.  That one dude standing in the background by himself looked a bit sketchy as he was eyeballing us.

You know how you can feel when someone is sizing you up.   I figured that between the two of us we c0uld have schooled him if it came to that, but we didn’t want any trouble,  so we took off down the road.

A bridge was washed out here  few months back and this was the detour.  Here comes some clown that looks like a spaceman on a big orange bike riding right through the village laundry and bathing area.  Oh wait, that clown would be me.  :-)

And down the road we went.

We made our way north near the Honduras border and came upon this river.  I’m pretty happy to be here.

Mario is pretty happy to be here too.  He took a half day off work to show me around.  This is what he thinks about going back to work.

A little further down the river the road just ended.  This is a typical sight on dirt roads in Central America, the road simply ends into a river.

Mario told me that the guys that run this ferry will soon be out of business as the road is going to be paved, and a bridge will be built in the near future.  Progress is not good for El Salvador ferry operators or adventure bikers.

But nevertheless, we are still pretty happy to be here.

The shadows are starting to get long and the sticky heat is subsiding a bit.

It was an enjoyable afternoon of dirt roads and water crossings near the border of Honduras.  I would have never found this place on my own and  got here only because of Mario’s local knowledge.

As it started to get dark, we found the pavement, headed back toward San Salvador, and Mario had some words of wisdom for me.  He said that if we get separated going back home, do not get off the highway until you’re completely out of the city.  He said on the east side of town if you get off the highway, you will be really screwed.  I did’nt have to ask why, but its probably like getting off the freeway in south central L.A., at night, and wandering around lost with $100 bills falling out of your pocket, only worse. :-)

I was a fantastic afternoon of riding in El Salvador.  Muchas gracias Mario!!!

Saludos, Vicente

©2010 South on Two Wheels. All Rights Reserved.

I convinced them to ride with me south into the scenic highlands for a few more days then cross into Mexico at La Mesilla.  So we left Peten and headed south to Coban.  The pavement out of Peten is straight and fast so you can really make some good time to Coban.

Except this one place where the road ends right into a river.   Of course there is a small ferry to take across.  Pretty cool actually.

Here is the motor.  There is a motor on each corner of the boat, or platform.

We arrive in Coban and stay at a dorm room in the Casa Acuña.

Which by the way has an incredible restaurant, probably the best in town.  If you dont stay, at least get a meal at the Casa Acuña, good groceries are to be had there.

There was some evening entertainment right outside the hotel.  I think it was a Suzuki or a Geo something or other, yikes.

The Bomberos were there right away.

Then next day I led the boys out of Coban toward Lago Atitlan.  It was very quick because since I had done this route a couple of times already, I was familiar with it, no wrong turns, in and out of towns quickly.  It sure make things a lot easier in Guatemala when you know where you are going.

Of course we had to cross the big slide area again.  This is a view looking downhill from the new road, and I assume where that small village was wiped out.  As you can see, that slide went a long way.  I dont know why I am so fascinated by this big slide and keep showing pictures and talking about it.  Maybe just because its so darned big.  I have seen some big slides before when traveling in Nepal and India, and for some reason all that earth just falling off a hill is amazing to me.

and down the road we go…….

3 up on a bicycle, tricky! But his rear tire could use some air.

We arrive at Lago Atitlan, continue down the hill to San Pedro de la Laguna and the suicide Chicken Bus corners.  Meeting a Chicken Bus on this road is exciting.  It happened to me a couple of times when I was riding with Arno, but this time there wasn’t much traffic.

I forget the name of this town on the hill, but you come right through it when you’re headed to the lake from the Pan American.

Volcan San Pedro, around 10,000 ft.

And into the town of San Pedro, dodging chickens instead of chicken buses.

Miguel is happy to be here.

Phil says, “Yo tambien!”

Raking up and drying the coffee beans.

Shoveling the beans.

Drying the beans on tarps.  Here’s something funny.  So you walk through town and see all these beans drying thinking wow, I bet that’s the good stuff that gets exported, and along comes a dog and he pees all over the drying beans.

Roasting the beans.  This stuff is safe, because its the good stuff with the dog piss that gets exported.  I can just picture the scene in a swanky Euro restaurant full of stuffy people drinking dog pee flavored coffee and commenting on how good it is.

Zoola.  Good groceries,  great place.

Killer food as well as an ideal place to lounge the days away.  I’m not sure what happened here.

One of those dangerous local San Pedro kids.  Be careful, that grin is an act, she will rob you blind in a millisecond.

The docks.  These boats here go to the town of Santiago.  The ones that go to Panajachel are a little further down the road.

Fishing boats.

You gringos better hand over everything you got on you, pronto, cause we got itchy trigger fingers amigos.  :-)

This gal sells bread and pastries and is quite persistent.  She does sell some good stuff though.

The street food in San Pedro is excellent as well.  These sausages were incredible.

But be careful, these street food stands attract some unsavory characters.  :-)

Another great visit to San Pedro, a very nice place to sit back, stare at the lake, and do nothing all day long.  We went back out to the Pan American and parted ways, where I would head back to Xela and the boys would continue to the La Mesilla crossing and back into Mexico.  According to their bosses, they have to be home by Valentine’s Day or there will be a heavy price to pay.

It was great riding with Miguel and Phil again.  They are great guys, excellent riding buddies and more fun than a barrel of monkeys.  Its good to see friends when your on the road for so long.  Gracias amigos, buen viaje.

hasta luego, Vicente

©2010 South on Two Wheels. All Rights Reserved.

There had been a huge landslide during some heavy rains several weeks before that killed dozens of people in the villages below.  A new road bed had already been cut so passing through was not a problem.

Impressive landslide…..

Another view with some sunlight on it, different day.

I made my way up through Coban for an overnight, then the next day continued north to the village of El Remate on the shores of Lake Peten Itza.  I pulled into the Casa Don David where I met up with Mike and Phil from Arizona.  I have ridden quite a bit with them in the past couple of years though Arizona, Baja, and Mainland Mexico.  It was cool to see some some familiar faces.

Mike, being his usual self.  What a clown.

Casa Don David in El Remate is a great place to stay if you are going to visit Tikal.  Its on the lake, very tranquilo, and they have  pretty decent restaurant there as well.

They do in fact, have both kinds of beer there.  The Gallo is OK, but the Moza is fantastic.  If you like Negra Modelo, you’ll love Moza.

In my best Texas accent complete with finger pointing, “I’ll tell ya’ll one damn thing, all ya’ll are really gonna like that beer.”

This guy was a fixture around the place too.  he would do this when you would walk within 10 feet of him.

Riding with these guys is a little different for me since I have riding solo for almost the last 5 months.  I am constantly asking myself,  “Where did those guys go again?  What in the heck are they doing now?”

Get used to these sights about every 15 minutes when you ride with Mike and Phil.

Yo quiero Taco Bell.  :-)

The next day we saddled up and headed to Tikal.  Here is the entrance to the park where they “check you in.”  So the guy standing next to me (Barney Fife) says, in rapid fire Spanish of course, “This is a National Park.  There is a speed limit of 45 kilometers per hour.  The parking lot is 17 kilometers from here and if you go the speed limit, it will take you 20 minutes to get there.”  OK, I get it.  So on that piece of paper he hands me is the time I entered.  So we go really slowly through the park and at the other end a guy takes that paper and writes down the time.  Well it took us 18 minutes, not 20, but the guy doesnt say a word about it, no big deal right?

So when we leave the parking lot after our visit, they write down the time again and at the gate at other end I give my paper to the guy and he goes ballistic because it took us 17 minutes, not 20.  He gets a bit miffed and starts to lecture me about how this is a national park and he is going to report us to the cops, blah, blah, blah.  He then looks at Mike and says “where is your paper?”  Mike says, “I lost it.”  then rides away.  Ha!  Well Barney Fife did call the cops and the cops just waved to us as we were leaving so I guess it all worked out in the end. Pretty funny actually, but man that guy got all wrapped around the axle about it.

I guess they have a few critters in the park.

Another pee break?  How many times can you possible go in 15 miles?  At least he’s got it down to where he doenst have to get off the bike.

There’s also other critters in the park.  I couldnt get a view of this one though.  He just didnt want to cooperate.  I told Mike to wade in the water a little bit to see if he could see the croc, but he didnt like that idea.

Colorful bird….

The Ocellated Turkey, cool.

I got ants in my pants and it makes me wanna dance.

Unfortunately I didnt see any Toucans, probably because I wanted to see one so badly.  We decided to hire a guide as you always get more out of a place like this with a guide.  He knew a lot of stuff, most of which I have already forgotten.  Or I guess more correctly, he has forgotten more stuff about this place and the jungle that I have ever heard of.

The overview of the excavated areas of Tikal.  This city was built upon elevated limestone paths, foundations and causeways, which were basically  road network throughout the city.  The guide pointed that out as we were walking one to the main temple area.

The Ceiba tree.  This thing is huge and they can grow to 250 feet tall.  Cortes hung Aztec Emperor Cuauhtemoc from a Ceiba tree in the 1500′s.  Nice guy that Cortes was.   I think he killed or enslaved everyone he came in contact with, Aztecs, Mayans, you name it.

Here is a little better perspective with Phil in the shot.

Countless structures have not even been excavated.  Anytime you see a little bump or slope in the terrain, there is something lying underneath.

A climb up one of the main temples is rewarded with a spectacular view above the jungle canopy.

Cool.

Tikal was a difficult place to take pictures since the bright sunlight and the huge amount of shade from the canopy makes it difficult to get a decent exposure, but the big temples did not fail to impress.

For a little perspective, these structures are big!

Tikal is an incredible place to visit.  Climbing up all of the temples is hard work, but you are rewarded with some fantastic views of the surrounding area.  Even if its crowded, its very spread out and never once did I feel like part of a big crowd of gawking tourists.  If you go to Guatemala you have to make Tikal one of your stops for sure.  It does get its share of freaky dread lock wearing gringos rubbing crystals together that say they can see Mayan ghosts and see huge auras emanating from the temples, and saying that the end is near, (the whole 2012 thing) but that just adds to the fun.

©2010 South on Two Wheels. All Rights Reserved.

Here are some views from my hotel roof sitting area.  Probably the best rooftop views in the city.

And of course the obligitory secure bike parking in the hotel.  At first this hotel said that I could not park my bike inside.  As I was walking out the door, all of a sudden a plarking place opened up!  Imagine that.

I didnt walk around town with camera in hand.  Just getting lazy I guess.  Playing picture taking tourist gets old after a while, so I kind of blew it walking around town with no camera.  I decided to go directly to the Volcan Pacaya the day after arriving in town.

Hiking the active volcano was on my list of things to do, but, instead of doing it the hard way, I simply paid 10 bucks to hotel front desk, then that afternoon a van picked me up, took me to the park, had a guide set up, and off I went.  Wow, that was so easy I could hardly stand it.

Be warned, this is a super touristy thing to do, but still its very cool to see, so its worth putting up with all the people at the volcano.  You would never be allowed to do this in most other places in the world.  Hell, in the states they probably would let you get within 5 miles of red hot magma, so this is kind of a special experience in my opinion.

About an hour south of town, you get to the park entrance, buy a walking stick from a kid for 5 Quetzales (you will want that stick, trust me) then hit the trail behind the guide.  You dont need a guide, you can simply ride your moto or take public transport and walk up the trail yourself.  But I was lazy so I did it the easy way.

You get picked up right at your hotel about 2:30 in the afternoon, go to the park, hike in, look around, enjoy the sunset from above the clouds then hike back down in the dark, get home around 9:30 pm.  The whole thing takes about 7 hours, hotel door to hotel door.

You start off on a nice easy trail and walk up into the clouds.

As you get above the clouds you are rewarded with some pretty cool views of the area.  The volcano itself:

And some stunning views of the surrounding volcanos near Antigua.

Heading further up the trail it turns into loose volcanic scree and lots of fine ash.

Then after about an hour and half of walking, you get to scrambling on the volcanic rock.  There is lava flowing underneath you in places and you can feel the heat singe the hair on your legs, burn your feet, and start to melt the soles of your shoes.  Cool.

A little higher up the heat gets alot worse and you start to feel like your walking in hell.  Humm, what the hell is going on down there?

Now it gets even hotter……

Your leg hair is singed, your shoes are melting, the bottoms of your feet are burning, and you have to be very careful where you step or you could break through the crust, and that would not be good for your health.  Whatever you do, dont slip and put a hand on those rocks.  That would be bad as well.

This would be called  “liquid hot magma.”

OK, my feet are on fire, its getting dark and I’m ready to go, but not before I take in one more beautiful view.

On the way down in the dark I managed to get get a semi decent shot of where we had been, just to give you some perspective.

This is a must do trip if you are in Antigua.  Be warned though, its serious business walking around up there and you could easily hurt yourself.  One girl twisted her ankle and another girl burned her leg pretty badly and had to be carried out and taken to the hospital, so be careful.  Its a freaking active volcano after all!

©2010 South on Two Wheels. All Rights Reserved.

You will see Mexican Emigracion and Aduana (customs) on your left as you enter the border zone.  The procedure to check out of Mexico was easy and took all of 15 minutes.  The you have to drive through the border area for several miles before you get to the Guatemala offices.  The problem is that you first have to navigate your way through a muddy market area complete with people clogging the streets to get to the Guatemala offices.  Once you get through most of that, you will see a guy on your right waving you over for the bike to get fumigated.  That costs 12 Quetzales, or about a buck and half.  Conveniently, there are money changers right there that will exchange your Pesos for Quetzales.  You will get a crappy rate, but its best to change your money here with the changers because I have not yet found a bank in Guatemala that will exchange Pesos.

My advice, leave San Cristobal with a minimum of Pesos.  The following pic is just as you get through most of the market area in no mans land, and the Guatemala offices are just to the right of the Alto sign.  Fumigation, immigration, and customs and the bank to pay your fees are all right next to each other.  You wont get more than 10 steps away from your bike the whole time and besides that, there are armed guards right where you park your bike.  Nobody is going to mess with it.

OK, so the quick and dirty:  pull up to the Guatemala offices, change money without even getting off the bike, get fumigated for 12 Quetzales, get your tourist visa, get your vehicle permit, pay 40 Quetzales then you are on your way.  for a total of $6.50 and at most a hour of your time, you are officially in Guatemala.  No helpers are needed or even available.  This is a very chill crossing and highly recommended, but as always YMMV.

Looking back into no mans land toward Mexico.

While I was checking the bike in country I ran into Bernadette.  She is originally from Ghana but now lives in Holland.  I met her several months ago while surfing in Rio Nexpa, Michoacan.  She  speaks five languages and is a genuine pleasure to be around.  Small world when you’re traveling.

The first thing I noticed about Guatemala was the amount of trash lying around.  Quite a bit more trash everywhere than in Mexico.  However it is a beautiful country and the highlands remind me of places in the Rockies.  Another thing that struck when climbing away from the border was just how high and how chilly it is.  I rode across several  10,000 ft passes, and oftentimes I was above 9000 feet.  So, if you go to Guatemala, make sure you bring a coat because you will be cold in the mountainous areas for sure.  I never thought I would be freezing my butt off in Guatemala.

After the border crossing I rode a couple of hours to the city of Quetzaltenanago, or Xela (pronounced Shay-la) for short.  Xela is a fairly large city of 300,000 people and sits at 8000 feet near the dormant volcano of Santa Maria, and the always active Santiaguito, which vents gas and ash about every hour or so.

The first few days I was in Xela I wondered why everything would get so dirty in a single day.  Ash would fall from the sky, everyday.  There is ash on the street………

And ash would be all over the bike after only a few hours sometimes……….

Another thing about Xela, its cold.  60′s during the day, low 30′s at night.  Reminds me of spring and fall in the Colorado front range.  I rented a decent apartment for the month and enrolled in some more Spanish lessons.  We would have class on the roof of the school since its a bit warmer on the roof than it is inside the building.  None of the buildings or apartments have heat.  They sure need it though.  If you plan to spend some time in Xela, bring your warm sleeping bag because the covers on the bed dont cut it when you can see your breath inside your room.

My teacher is Jose, 24 years old, working on a masters degree in Criminal Psychology.  Smart kid, he remembers everything.  The Spanish school has been frustrating for me this time.  I dont feel like I’m making much progress and I seem to be forgetting my vocabulary in Spanish and in English.  Sometimes, strange as it sounds, I cant remember the English word for something.  So lets see.  My Spanish is getting worse, and I am starting to forget English words.  Pretty soon I wont be able to speak!

I took a couple of excursions around Xela.  There is a very large cemetery in town that is quite interesting.

I also took a little excursion to the small indigenous town of San Andreas, just outside Xela.  Here you ride a “pick-up taxi” into town.  Just hop in the bed of the truck and ride.

Looks like they had some issues trying to get the road to go straight.

Its a sleepy, slightly depressing little town and not very remarkable, but its a small glimpse into the everyday lives of the people.

Here some folks are burning offerings in front of a cross.  The Catholic faith gets mixed with figures and rituals from the old Mayan religion, so I dont really know exactly what is going on in this photo.  Although one thing I have noticed about Guatemalans is that they like to burn things, sometimes for no apparent reason.  There is usually the constant smell of smoke and the resulting blue/grey haze near any town.

The long weekends over Christmas and New Year’s Eve I spent at Lago Atitlan roughly a 2 hour ride from Xela.  Its a much more pleasant climate than Xela as its 3000 feet lower.  Lago Atitlan has the perfect climate in my opinion.  80′s during the day, high 50′s at night, and very little humidity.  It reminds me of Lake Tahoe in the summer, only prettier, and surrounded by volcanoes.

Here are some views from the town of Panajachel on the north side of the lake.  Pana, as its called for short, is the largest town on the lake and quite the tourist trap, but it lies in a stunning setting, so its easy to understand why it has become so popular.

Its a jaw dropping ride coming off of the high ridges to lake level…….

Pana is also where I will introduce you to the infamous Central American death heaters.  I’ve seen them in warmer places in Mexico as well.  They work pretty well at heating water, but dont touch anything while youre in the shower or you’ll get a nice jolt of juice.  However a nice little electric shock during the morning shower generally negates the need to drink any coffee.

I finished up school, left Xela and headed to San Pedro, which sits on the western shore of the Lago Atitlan.  In my opinion, San Pedro is a much better place than Panajachel to spend some time as its much smaller and way more mellow.  There is quite a population of tourists and ex-pats from all over the world, but it still retains a small town feel and is in a beautiful location.  So if you go to Lago Atitlan, my advice is to skip Panajachel and go directly to San Pedro or San Marcos, which is even smaller yet.  That way you can enjoy the lake and avoid the tourist trap that is Panajachel.

However dont take the road that goes from Santiago around the south of the volcano into San Pedro, because it is a well known haunt for gun toting thieves.  What happens is that when you ride through the filthy little town of Santiago, lookouts will spot you, then call ahead to their dirt bag buddies miles down the road, and get them in position to jump out of the bush and steal all your stuff.  Several other motorcyclists have inquird to whether or not the thieves were still in action.  I can tell you that they are still there and there is a good chance that you will get robbed on that road so take it at your own risk.  Come to San Pedro using either the boats that leave from Pana, or via the bandido-free road that comes down from the Pan-American Highway.

The entrance to San Pedro from the lakeside docks…..

I guess this is one way to keep people from trying to climb over your wall…….

A couple views from the lake shore in town…….

The town is of course right next to Volcan San Pedro, 9900 ft. elevation.

I am on the move once again and will be heading out of San Pedro in a couple of days to do some more exploring around Guatemala.  Once again, sorry for the long hiatus while I was in school, thanks for sticking with me!

Saludos, Vince

©2010 South on Two Wheels. All Rights Reserved.

As we head on down the road it was a beautiful day for a ride on nice Chiapan mountian roads.

Ah yes, it just dont get no better than this I tell ya……

Humm, what is this random dude doing running down the road with a torch?  Is he going to set something on fire?

Yup, more random people running down the road with torches, interesting…..

Then we come flying around a corner to see this stopped in the middle of the road….  Yes, these trucks were everywhere, every half mile almost.  What the heck are all these people doing?

Some runners would jump in the truck, others would get out.  It got to be a chore passing all of these vehicles and the folks running, but they would help us out a bit with the passing.

As we got into San Cristobal the runners and vehicles were everywhere in town, headed to the west end of town to the Church of the Virgin of Guadalupe.  Ah, OK, I get it now.  I had forgotten what a huge deal the virgin was in Mexico.  People come from miles around to celebrate the Virgin of Guadalupe.  They run and walk the whole way carrying a torch.  I’m not sure of the significance of the torch, but it was pretty cool to see all these folks.  Some of them dont wear shoes.  Probably something about suffering for your sins or some such thing.

Naturally that night in San Cristobal was a big fiesta.

The thing to do was take a walk up to the church with everyone else.  That’s not fog in the picture, its smoke from all the cooking going on.

And of course we had to stop along the way and get a little something warm to drink to take the chill off of the night.  I forgot what these things were called, but it was similar to warm pineapple juice with a kick, and they put something in the drink resembling pieces of pound cake that you spoon out and eat.  It was really tasty and a perfect drink for a chilly night in the mountains.

And then of course we need to eat some street tacos.  You cant join a proper Mexican Fiesta unless you have some street tacos.

Good tacos!

And so ends my stay in San Cristobal, and in Mexico.  Then next day I took Wendy to the airport in Tuxtla Gutierrez as she was headed back to Costa Rica.  It had been great traveling with her and I was very sad to see her off.

Then with a little bit of a heavy heart, I headed out of Mexico and pointed the orange beast toward the Guatemala border in search of new experiences and hopefully a little adventure as well…………

Adios Mexico, its been a fun ride.  I look forward to returning.  Hasta luego……..

©2010 South on Two Wheels. All Rights Reserved.

While Tonina was impressive with regard to the sheers the size of the main structure and the labyrinth below, Palenque is unreal in the architecture and sheer number of stuctures, most of which have not been excavated.

Here is a little overview of the main area which has been excavated.

Wendy wanted to get a guide.  So we did.  It cost us about 30 bucks for 3 hours, but it was well worth it I think.  This dude’s name is Gilberto.  Everyone we passed called him “professor.”  He knew a lot of stuff.  Whether it was true or not, I have no idea, but he was a wealth of information, and he spoke pretty good English.

The very first thing you notice walking into the park is the Temple of Inscriptions.  Its impressive.  In the labyrinth below is where the tomb of King Pacal was found in 1952 by Mexican archeologist Alberto Ruz.

Pacal ruled Palenque for 68 years and died at the ripe old age of 80.  I had no idea that people lived that long over a thousand years ago….

Some other views of the Temple of Inscriptions………

The sarcophogus of Pacal. Seeing it up close its surprising how massive it is.  The pics dont quite convey this though.

Across from the Temple of Inscriptions is the Palace.

Of course the Palace is huge.  But what I found so fascinating were a couple of things.  Now bear in mind that this was built around 650 to 700 AD.  Take a look at this tower.  Now I’m not a student of Mayan architecture, but to me this looks like it might have a little Chinese influence….

I’m sure the experts would be quick to tell me how wrong I am, but then not far away I saw this…..

I kind of thought that dragons were pretty unique to Chinese culture, but of course I’m probably wrong.  This looks quite like a dragon to me though.  It is interesting to ponder.  After all, the Chinese were known to be a sea faring people with the capability to travel some long distances by boat.  If you ascribe to the theory that the Americas were populated by Asians who walked across the frozen Bearing Straights, Chinese influence in Mayan structures and art would’nt be all that much of a stretch right?

A typical Mayan bed in one of the structures.  I’m sure it had some padding at one time though.  Notice how stalagtites have formed along the wall from all the moisture.  While this was inhabited the stone walls were coated with a plaster to keep things dry inside but of course the plaster had eroded centuries ago.

They even had toilets with running water, once again, Chinese style.  Any of you folks ever see a modern Chinese toilet?  You dont sit on it, you squat over it and go in the hole.  In this toilet, there is a trough underneath that water is constantly flowing through to take the waste away.  Very interesting in my opinion.

Here is the modern Chinese version………

There were also steam rooms in the palace as well.  Here is one of the seats where you could steam yourself.  I’m not sure why the hell they needed steam rooms though.  Just sitting outside in a chair is steamy enough in this jungle.

Another temple in the main area.  I beleive that this is called the Temple of the Sun.  I really wanted to see a Mayan observatory, but the observatory at Palenque has not yet been found.  Some of the experts think that it is on the very high hill not far behind the Temple of Inscriptions as that place would have very nice views of the horzion in all directions.

Now this wouldnt be a complete Mayan ruins post without a ball court…………

This was a pretty cool carving on the top of one of the temples.  Supposedly it signifies the circle of life and death.

I’ll shut my trap now and leave you with some pics of some artifacts found on the site.

Palenque is a fantastic site.  I would recommend staying at a hotel that is close to the park entrance or actually inside the park, getting up early and going in right when the site opens in the morning so you can avoid the crowds and have a more tranquilo experience.

Hasta luego amigos.

©2010 South on Two Wheels. All Rights Reserved.

We opted to stay 10 miles out of town next to the park entrance.  At a little roadside chicken and beer stand, Wendy decided that a Michelada was just what she needed after shivering on the back of the bike all day!  A Michelada is basically beer with some spices, chili and lime added for flavor.  Its a woman’s drink.    However when she got her drink, it was a huge cup containing over 3 beers!  Woman’s drink?  Yeah right!  We then dubbed the place “Micheladas as big as your head.”

The road to the park entrance has some great long distance views of the ruins.

Toniná was an aggressive Mayan state, sporadically at war with Palenque for many years.  You can see that it sits on a easily defensible position.  Toniná was founded in the early classic Mayan period, but really came into power in the late classic period from about 600 to 900 AD.  Much more detailed information about Toniná can be found here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonin%C3%A1

There were some rustic cabins that we stayed at right outside the park entrance.  The boards making up the outer walls had half inch gaps in them.  The beds were thin foam pads over wooden slats.  In addition, the place was slam full of some very interesting looking BIG spiders, and much to Wendy’s chagrin there was neither hot water, nor a toilet seat.  Nevertheless, she loved the place.  She is used to snakes, spiders and scorpions in her open air place in Costa Rica, so the spiders didn’t really phase her, just the lack of a toilet seat.  It was a very peaceful place to stay after being in Tuxtla and San Cristobal for a while.  Just the type of place I needed after being suffocated in cities for the last couple of weeks.  I thought it was perfect.

The Toniná ruins have very few visitors compared to a place like Palenque.  Although not nearly as impressive as Palenque, the fact that there are minimal visitors is what makes Toniná special in my opinion.

You can get up when the park opens, walk in, and have the place to yourself for at least a couple of hours.  You can climb around the temples, walk in the dark labyrinths of the main structure (bring some good lights), sit on the highest stone and survey the surroundings, imagining what it would have been like to live in this city over a thousand  years ago.  With the lack of visitors early in the morning, you can sit alone, in silence, and actually feel the presence of the ghosts of the old civilization.  Very, very cool if you ask me.  This is exactly what I like about visiting old ruins.

The main ball court sits just below and in the shadows of the great temples.  The losing team would wind up beheaded.  Hummm.  I dont think I want to play………

Next as you head to the main structure is the Temple of the Underworld, an important aspect of the Mayan after life.

I’ll shut up now and leave you with the pictures of this fantastic site.  If you go to Chiapas you will want to go to Palenque, but do yourself a favor and make plans to visit Toniná.  Its a great little place to stay and they are wonderful ruins to explore without the crowds, rules and regulations of Palenque.  Highly recommended.

The forest reclaims things quickly.  After only 100 years, the old stones would be completely covered with dirt and vegetation, including trees.  This side is only partially excavated and a good example of what the archeologists and anthropologists had to deal with.

The skies were so nice and dark here that I couldnt resist getting a couple hours of star trails from the cabin.  Its cool to see how low on the horizon the north star is now.  We are getting close to the southern hemisphere and constellations are appearing on the southern horizon that I am not familiar with.  Very cool!!!!!

Hasta luego.  Saludos, Vicente

©2010 South on Two Wheels. All Rights Reserved.

I pulled into Tuxtla Gutierrez, capital of Chiapas, to find a hot and humid big city of half a million people, as well as Wal Mart, Applebees, HoJo’s, Autozone, Office Max, and every US chain franchise joint you can imagine. Excellent. Just what I need to get some stuff done on the bike and resupply my kit.

With so many amenities, I was set up in no time to do an oil change on the big KTM. Oil pan- 2 bucks, Rags- 2 bucks, foil – 2 bucks, 3 liters of Maxima 20W-50 – 20 bucks, 6 pack of Tecate – 3 bucks.  Everything I need for a hotel parking lot oil change.

I do a little trick with the tin foil so I dont have to take the left fairing and gas tank off the bike. It makes an oil change on the 990 a 1 beer job where usually its about a 4 beer job. There is one screen in the oil tank that you cant get to using this method, but I never find anything in that screen anyway, and there is another screen that’s easy to get to and will give you an idea if you should check the screen in the oil tank.

All done, and it only took one beer.  I’m getting pretty quick at the 990 oil changes now, 45 minutes, complete with clean up.

In addition, I also found something, or rather someone else in Tuxtla. My amiga Wendy! Hi Wendy! She lives in Costa Rica and came to Mexico to travel around a bit on the bike with me.  She was here in 1994 when the Zapatista uprising occurred and was denied entry into the state, so she has always wanted to return. It was the perfect opportunity for her as I was here and she could travel with me on the bike.  However now this bike is loaded up like a Gold Wing.  This is definitely a time when I am very happy that I have the big bike.

It feels great to have a good friend with me after being on the road for so long. Its like being with family because she is pretty much is my adopted sister whether she likes it or not.

There’s not a whole lot right in Tuxtla of interest to  tourists, but right out of town is the Canyon del Sumidero, an impressive fissure about 3000 feet deep. You can take a boat up the river, or you can drive up to the viewpoints.  The entrance to the canyon is on this river at the town of Chiapa de Corzo.  When we drove through Chiapa de Corzo hawkers were literally jumping out in front of the bike yelling “lancha, lancha” trying to sell a ticket on one of the boat trips.   Apparently the boat trip is well worth it. Maybe next time.

As you pay your park entrance fee of 20 pesos (about $1.75) you can drive up to 5 different “miradores” or viewpoints.  And the views are really impressive.  Sadly the pics dont do it justice, but if you are ever in this area, you need to go check out the canyon, its well worth it.

Riding up to the miradores above Tuxtla………..

Its a fun little twisty road that takes you up to around 4500 feet at the rim of the canyon.

The views are well worth it………

Another view………..

We met this really pleasant and talkative guy named Alejandro while we were at one of the viewpoints. He told us that when the Spaniards came to conquer the area, the indigenous people were not too keen on being conquered. The locals figured that there was no way they could defend themselves against the Spanish military might, so thousands of them lined up at the top of the canyon walls and jumped 3000 feet to their deaths. Men, women, children, elderly, everyone.  Whoa…..

Yup, it is a long way down there.  I dont know how many BASE jumpers live around here, but if you want to risk landing in the river it would be surely be a great spot for BASE jumping.

After leaving Tuxtla, we headed to the old colonial town of San Cristobal de las Casas.  Its a beautiful town of about 80,000 people that sits in the mountains at 7000 feet.  It has nice warm days and cool, crisp mornings and evenings, a very nice climate.  Here you tend to forget that you actually are in the tropics because of the alpine climate and topography.

San Cristobal is fairly upscale, but done very tastefully.  There are many tourists here from all over the world:  Europeans, North Americans from Canada the US and Mexico, South Americans, Japanese, etc.  In a simple stroll through town you will see just about every nationality in the world represented and its not surprising because this is a very cool place to hang out for a few days, take it easy, eat good food and get out of the tropical heat.

There are plenty of hotels to choose from, budget to swanky, and many choices for a wide variety of good food.  Tourism is the business in this town.

We met up with some other riders here as well.

Jeff from Spokane…..

Arno from Portland, OR………….

and Kevin from Toronto………

They were all riding solo, but had the same destination as me, Ushuaia, Argentina.  However thier timetable is a bit more hectic than mine to say the least.  Jeff has 3 more months before his wife threatens divorce, Arno donesnt really know how much time he has, and Kevin has about 3 months of money left.  It was just a fluke that we all met up in  San Cristobal. It was fun hanging out with these guys for a few days.  They left for Guatemala while we planned our trips to the Mayan ruins of Tonina and Palenque in northern Chiapas…….

Saludos, Vince

©2010 South on Two Wheels. All Rights Reserved.

Oaxaca sits at a very comfortable 5000 ft elevation, which in the tropics makes for a nearly perfect climate of warm, dry days and cool, but not cold nights and mornings.  I immediately like the place.  The city sits in a valley surrounded by mountains in an arid climate.  The climate, topography and scenery remind me of Reno, NV.  I know that sounds funny but if you were to visit both cities the similarity in the surrounding terrain and environment would be quite noticeable.

Its yet another interesting colonial city, famous for its Mezcal and Moles.  Unfortunately I didnt do anything touristy here except wander around and take a few photos.  Being a tourist is hard work, and after doing it for a couple of months straight I got tired of it.  I was happy to sit in my hotel courtyard and relax.

I was on a mission to find a fresh front tire for the bike, and it didnt take long as a shop was just a few blocks from the hotel.  So I went in and ordered a tire, which I was informed would take a few days to arrive from Guadalajara.

So there was nothing to do except relax, catch up on some internet stuff and take a few photos.  This was some kind of flag ceremony in the main square, but I never did figure out exactly what was going on.

And of course, more churches………..

I saw this interesting Yamaha while walking around town.  I’m not sure exactly what it is, but I have not seen one in the States, and it looks like it would make a really nice adventure touring bike.

Then of course there are the usual Mexican roof dogs around town……………

Mission accomplished:  80 dollars and 4 days later, fresh rubber for the front.  I’m a happy camper.

Time to say goodbye to the folks at the hotel and make some tracks toward Chiapas.

I didnt visit any of the tourist sites around Oaxaca.  Yeah I know, pretty lame huh?  I was just not in tourist mode and was content to walk around town and not really do much of anything.  It was some nice down time in a pleasant hotel.

Once my tire arrived I decided to head out of town and make tracks toward the state of Chiapas.  When I stopped at a Pemex to fuel up, a  group of Harleys came riding by and one of them peeled off from the group and rode up next to me while the rest of them parked nearby in the parking lot.  The guy tells me that their “leader” wanted to talk to me and then pointed me in his direction.  I met the leader, and he asked me where I was going and where I had come from.  He then introduced everyone as the Legionarios motorcycle club and told me that they were headed the same direction as I was, and they would like it very much if I rode with them.  Cool.

I was given a place in the formation and off we went.  Being good Harley riders, they of course had to stop for food and beer about 30 minutes after we started.

Over food and beer, I learn that these guys are from Oaxaca and they are headed to Cozumel for a big annual club party where there will be hundreds of riders in attendance.  None of them spoke any English, but they were very patient with my horrible Spanish, and asked me numerous questions about my travels.  Although my brain began to hurt after conjuring up answers in Spanish to the multiple questions, we did have a lot of laughs about my Spanish.  However they assured me that I was doing well and they could understand me quite easily.  One guy that had a constant grin on his face started laughing about my pronunciation of something.  (I’m sure what I said was probably hilarious to a native speaker) But another guy chimed in and replied, dont laugh too hard because his Spanish is a hell of a lot better than your English.  These guys were obviously a total crack up and really fun to hang with.

Then the leader, Jose, said that they would be honored if I would come with them to their club fiesta in Cozumel.  Wow, that sounds cool.  I thought about it and really wanted to go with them, but I was feeling the need to get to Chiapas, get an oil change done and take off for the cooler temps of the higher mountain elevations.  In retrospect, I should have gone with them as it would have been great for my Spanish and I’m sure I would have had an awesome time.

As we parted ways quite a few miles later at a road junction as we stopped for a pic, exchanged phone numbers and emails, they wished me safe travels.  In addition they told me that if I had any problems the rest of the way through Mexico and Guatemala I should contact them and they would help me with whatever I needed.  Very cool.  Gracias amigos.

Adios Legionarios, it was great riding with you.

As they headed north towards Villahermosa, I headed east to Tuxtla Gutierrez.  Next stop is Tuxtla, then San Cristobal de las Casas where I would meet a bunch of adventure rider and wind up with a passenger for a few days.

©2010 South on Two Wheels. All Rights Reserved.

OK, so where were we? Ah yes, a flip flop blow out of the worst kind. Fixed easily enough though…….

Feeling the need to press further south, I left Nexpa after one last good surf session. I spent the night at Zihuatanejo, a small tourist town but nothing special, so I didnt take any pics. I was only there for a beer, dinner and a good night sleep.  The plan was to get an early start for a 400 mile day to Puerto Escondido.

Low and behold, as I was leaving Nexpa, I came up on a one lane bridge and ran into a dude on a GS.  He looked at me and said, “dude, I know you!”  Hey Jim.  Gotta love the internet.  One minute I’m crossing a one lane bridge in the middle of Michoacan and guy pulls up and says he knows me.  funny stuff.

I didnt know him, but he knew me from my blog being a motorcycle guy.  And since I dont have many shots of myself, of course I had him take one.  We shot the bull for a while cooking in the sun then Jim headed north toward Mazatlan to his winter home, and I headed further south.

Anyway, as I said, uneventful ride to Zihua, uneventful stay.  I got on the road at 7 am and decided to try and eat up the 400 plus miles to Puerto Escondido.  After 11 hours of wheelying over topes, passing and dodging traffic for a solid 11 hours, I pull into Escondido to find this.

Ugggg.  Another tourist trap beach town complete with people trying to sell you stuff every step down the beach.  Great.  Fortunately its not too crowded yet, but its on the high end of my budget so I only stayed long a enough to eat, sleep, and get some shots of the surf.

Puerto Escondido is known as the “Mexican Pipeline.”  Its every bit as hairy as the Hawaiian Pipeline except its a beach break rather than a reef break.

In these pics the locals say, its flat.   In other words, there are no waves.  In the summer, this place cranks out consistently intimidating double to triple overhead+ waves with board snapping, and neck snapping juice.  When it gets some size on it, this place is every bit as serious as anything on the North Shore.  Fun to watch, but not so fun to be out there and getting worked.

Looks pretty fun on this day though.  Remember that for this place, there are no waves.  Well it sure looks fun riding what ever those things are in the water.

A boogie boarder getting set up for the beating…….

There are no waves, but here is a guy setting up for a very nice barrel, riding one of those “whatever you call em’s” because there are no waves here.

Anyway, time to get out of here to about 45 miles further down the coast to the towns of Mazunte, San Augustillo, and Zipolite.  About 15 years ago these places were off the radar of most folks and pretty much only had some basic rooms and places to hang your hammock.  I opted to stay in Zipolite.

It quite a bit different now with numerous places to stay, restaurants to choose from and people trying to sell you stuff on the beach.   However, Zipolite has two things going for it.  Number one, its on a very pretty beach, and number two:  Its cheap.  Perfect place to chill out while spending about 15 bucks a day for everything you need.  Also, as I found out, its a clothing optional beach.   However you will see  a few people that should probably keep their clothes on.

You can tell its popular from the bus traffic……

Here’s the view out my private, 100 pesos per night room.  Not bad for about 8 bucks.

Of course there are more expensive places to choose from complete with catchy names.

Hasta luego amigos, saludos…………

©2010 South on Two Wheels. All Rights Reserved.

I’m kind of burned out on big cities and was wanting a little time by the ocean and some surf, but in a small town.  I figured that I would head south from Morelia to the Michoacan coast to a very little town called Rio Nexpa.  Population, less than a hundred really nice people, a few old mangy dogs, a couple of jerks, and a world class left point break.

It was an uneventful ride down to the coast and to the little cobble turn off to the town of Nexpa.  There are plenty of places to stay here to fit all budgets as its a fairly popular surf destination, yet small enough to be off the radar of most people.  A perfect place to relax and catch some waves.

Not a bad little town huh?  Wow, and look at that point break!  Heaven.

Warm water, perfect head high point surf, offshore breeze, like I said, heaven.

There’s not much in the way of amenities, but there’s a little store, a couple of restaurants and some good scenery.  I dont really need anything else.

Nice accommodations with secure parking of course.  If anyone can steal my 500 pound pig right in front of my door,  out of deep sand, they probably deserve it. :-)

There are some great sunsets of course……..

As well as some pretty night skies…………

Its a dogs life, but someone has to do it.

Actually, it was a really dangerous place.   Just look at what happened here. :-)

Very dangerous, but nothing a little Baja ingenuity and a zip tie wont be able to fix…………..

Saludos.

©2010 South on Two Wheels. All Rights Reserved.

Well I’m not really sure how I did it, but I busted the sidewall on the rear MT-90 Scorpion.  I discovered this about 5 minutes before I was going to leave S. M. de Allende.  I must have run over one of those numerous metal things, which resemble a piece railroad track  embedded in the cobble street, but sticking straight up a good four inches above everything else.  Really strange.

Anyway, I had the tire guy down the street put a patch on the sidewall but I had my doubts it was going to work (I’m running a tubeless rear and didnt want to put in a tube just yet).  It worked well enough to get me to Morelia via the pavement as it only lost about 7 pounds of air over 4 hours.  So, time for a new rear tire.

I pull into Moto Altavista – Morelia, a Suzuki and KTM dealer, and low and behold they have a rear Scorpion that fits.  Bingo.  I’m lucky, its the last one they have.  How much?  M$1680 pesos, installed.  Its OK, I can spoon the new tire on myself, I planned on doing that anyway.   If I want to do the install myself, how much would it cost?  M$1680 pesos.  Hummm, thats a dilemma.

These folks literally dropped everything they were doing at the time and started on my bike.  How cool is that?

The boys in the shop looked pretty competent as I was watching them work on all types of bikes, mostly EXC’s and XC-W’s but a few 640 adventures, RMZ’s and Honda CRF’s.  What the heck, have at it boys.  They had the new Scorpion mounted up in no time.  Cool, this is going to take all of 20 minutes out of my day.

Then, they started cleaning my chain and sprockets.    After that they brought out the Simple Green and the power sprayer.  I told them that they didnt have to clean anything, but the quite stern reply came back in Spanish of course, “dude, relax.  This is what we do for you long riding gringos coming through.”

Wow, cool!  One guy scrubbed on my bike for almost a hour!  Wait, how much is this going to cost?

Well, I have a new rear tire mounted, my bike was all shiny clean, my oil checked, my chain adjusted, cleaned, and lubed.  Besides that, the owner of the store sat down with me on the computer and worked  out a route to the Michoacan coast.  Still only cost me $1680 pesos.  Just that tire costs about $145 bucks in the states.  In retrospect I should have had them change the oil as well!  Wow, you guys rock!!!  Moto Altavista, Morelia  – Highly Recommended.

I wasnt quite sure about this place when I got here the other day.  It seems that I couldnt find any of the budget hostels listed in the Lonely Planet book.  So, figuring that I was just an idiot, I stopped and asked directions.  However it was really strange.  Every time I would say “buenas tardes” people would shake their head and shake their finger at me.  Whats up with that?  I know I dont smell that bad.  I said the right words with a smile even.   Interesting, this place is about a friendly as the anger management convention.

Oh well.  I did eventually meet some nice folks that would talk to me, but its a way different vibe than Zacatecas and Guanajuato.  More of a big city vibe, but this really isn’t that big of a city.  I guess I just got used to the friendly people in Zac and Gto.

OK, well now is when I walk around the city and take more boring pictures of…………………….you guessed it, churches.  I know you’re all bored with this, but indulge me one more time.  The main cathedral in the city centro.

more old buildings……..

some people………

some people and birds……..

A door.  I love these old ornate doors.  Too bad I cant take a decent pic of them.

An old aqueduct…….

Some Communist dude that I think is pretty famous down here……

And finally, dinner!  That was the coldest Negra Modelo that I have ever had, and man, was it ever good.

And some ugly looking dude eating the dinner.  Jeez, I need a shave and haircut, badly……..

It was a short stay in Morelia.  Its really a pretty cool city and worthy of at least 3 or 4 days minimum.  However, I came here to get a tire.  I’m kind of burned out on big cities, old beautiful churches and constantly ringing bells right now. so I felt the need to move on.  If you take the time to look around this place a little more than I did, I’m sure you will find that its a fantastic place, and most likely one of the coolest larger cities in Mexico.  So if you come here, plan to spend a little time.  I think it will grow on you.  Sadly, I didnt even scratch the surface of the place.  Maybe next time.

Saludos.

©2010 South on Two Wheels. All Rights Reserved.

It was a bit of a sad day leaving Zacatecas because I really enjoyed my time there, learned to speak a little  Espanol, met lots of people, and made some friends.  However, it was time to leave.  I decided to make tracks to Guanajuato, roughly 200 miles away.  I planned out a 50/50 pavement-dirt route.  I got a little dirty, it was good for the soul after being in a city for a month..

Its refreshing to be back on the dirt, and out in the sticks.  However there were a couple left over mud pits from the rain last week, and of course, my route took me right through them.  They didn’t want me to park the bike in the lobby of the hotel looking like this.  But I convinced them anyway.

Had a really nice dirt ride for about the last 100 miles into Guanajuato…………

Approaching Guanajuato after the dirt portion of my ride.

So I get into Guanajuato and the place was a complete zoo.  Because of the insane amount traffic, it took me 2 hours just to get through the city!  I wanted to stay, but every time I stopped at a place, they said, “Sorry, we are full.”  I did find one place near the city centro that had a room.  It was a dorm room that I would have to share with 5 other people.  How much?  450 pesos (40 bucks) a night, no parking – No thanks.   It was the end of the Festival Cervantino and the whole town was a mad house.  Stop and go traffic through the entire city, even in the underground roads, masses of people everywhere on the streets. I decided to save it for another time.

Its too bad, because it really looks like a very beautiful city in which to spend some time, but it was a complete zoo and I wanted none of it.  I got out of the city as fast as I could, which wasn’t very fast because of all the traffic.

So I decide to head for San Miguel de Allende about 45 miles to the east of Guanajuato, and I ran across these dudes.  Actually, I didnt run across them, they ran across me when they passed me on the highway doing at least triple digit speeds.

Sergio and Rafael.  Good guys.  They had actually just come back from a motorcycle trip to Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego about 6 months ago.  We sat on the side of the road and talked bikes and trips for a good couple of hours.  It was a nice break and my Spanish came in handy although Sergio spoke some English.  Between my terrible Spanish, and his passable English we were able to have a decent conversation.

Anyway, these guys live in Queretaro, close to San Miguel, and they told me that I have to come in town and look them up.  They said they will hook me up with tires, a place to change oil, whatever I need.  Very cool, I might have to take them up on it.

Well, back to San Miguel de Allende.  Not what I expected.   Its a very popular tourist town, and the prices are about the same as in the states, but I can immediately appreciate why this place is so popular with tourists.

There are art galleries and swanky little cafe’s and hotels on every street corner, lots of wintering gringos too.  I’m not a big fan of touristy places but this is a cute town and has enough to keep you occupied for a day or so.

The main cathedral:

I walked around and took some shots of the streets:

You can get some nice views down the steep streets from the hillsides.

Be careful pooch!

Resistance is futile, you just cant get away from it.  And no, I didnt go in.

All in all, its pretty nice little town if you don’t mind all the touristy stuff.  One downside was the price of the hotels.  Every place I stopped at was 1200 to 2000 pesos a night, roughly $100 to $180 bucks.  I shopped around for a good 2 hours, but I still had to spend 500 pesos, or about 40 bucks for my room.  However, I did get some pretty nice digs.  I was told the normal price was 1200 pesos but as I was walking out the door, it came down to 500.  Actually the guy that owned the place was very cool.  He is an old ex-hippy artist type and he asked me what I could afford.  I told him that I could spend 40 bucks a night for two nights.  He said, “deal, pull your bike right in the door.”  Pretty cool guy because he had other guests and really didnt need the cash.  He was helping me out.  He said that when long riders come through, he does his best to give them a good price, because in addition to an ex-hippy, he is an ex-biker as well.  That bed was fantastic, super comfy, so I suppose it was worth it.  Gotta splurge once in a while I guess.  Thanks for styling me out Keith, I appreciate it amigo.

It was a good place to visit with very swanky accommodations and I enjoyed myself, but its time to get back on the budget.

Next stop?  Who knows, maybe Queretaro or possibly Morelia as I work my way toward the pacific coast.  Sorry the updates have been a little slow, but the Spanish school kind of slowed me down.  I’ll be moving fairly regularly over the next month or so before I park my butt for some more school.

Thanks for tuning in everyone……

Hasta luego………

©2010 South on Two Wheels. All Rights Reserved.

Zacatecas is an old Spanish colonial city founded in 1546 upon a rich silver mining region and now has a population of roughly 124,000 people.  Its sits in a semi desert region at about 8000 feet in elevation, which makes for a pleasant climate with warm days and chilly evenings.  Its a little gem of the north central highlands of Mexico and a must see destination if you are ever in the area. Although the city is a popular destination with Mexicans, surprisingly I have seen very few tourists from other countries.   The people are friendly and the city is a beautiful, safe and relaxed place to spend some time.

It was a pretty uneventful and unremarkable pavement ride from Durango, but once I got into the city itself it was a bit crazy with one way streets branching off in every imaginable direction, complete with loco drivers who would just as soon run over a motorcycle as look at one.  Unlike in California where drivers ahead will make room for a moto to pass, in some Mexican cities It seems as though drivers will intentionally try to block your way when you want to split lanes to get through stopped traffic.  This is curious because out on the highways Mexican drivers are very courteous drivers.

It took me almost a hour of driving around the city Centro (downtown) to find the hostel.  I knew where the hostel was located, but I just could’nt get to it because of all the crazy one way streets.  After about the 10th loop around downtown I finally hit the correct street, going the correct direction that put me at the front steps of the hostel.  Wow, that was a little difficult.  I dont want to have to do that again!

This is a view of the downtown area and the arrow points to my hotel.  Almost all of the streets are one way, a navigation nightmare.   I guess the Spanish didnt have much in the way of planning and zoning back in the 1500′s. :-)

Finally, I find the place……..

The Villa Colonial is quite a nice place for a hostel, and has the standard budget dorm type rooms, but also has private rooms and a couple of studio apartments for rent.  Since I will be staying a while and I have a bunch of gear, I opted for the studio complete with kitchenette and balcony.  How much?  About 16 bucks a night.

Pretty nice set up.

The view of the main cathedral from my balcony.

Looks like I will have to stay a while in light of the digs.  No problem finding a Spanish school as well.  The Fenix Lauguage Institute.

This is Carla, my ex-teacher.  They have since given me a new teacher.  I guess Carla figured that I was a lost cause. :-)  The Spanish school is relatively inexpensive at 100 bucks a week for 5 days of one on one instruction.  After everyday my head hurts and by the end of the week it feels like its going to explode, but I am learning (poco a poco) little by little.

A walk around the city Centro is quite interesting as many of the churches and other structures are hundreds of years old.  The old stone streets are narrow enough that they have room for only one car,  hence all the one way streets.

The main cathedral was built in the early 1700′s.

In addition there are many interesting looking smaller churches as well.  I think this one is only about 200 years old.

An old convent that started construction in the early 1600′s.

Then low and behold, a Canadian rides into town and parks right next to me. :-)  Hey Randall!

Two 2007 KTM 990′s parked next to each other in Mexico?  Looks like trouble to me.  Randall is riding from Prince George B.C.   His family is on vacation in Puerto Vallarta and he is going to meet them there.  I think the story he told his wife was that they couldnt afford airline tickets for everyone this year, so he would “take one for the team”  and save money by riding his motorcycle to Mexico.   Pretty slick story dude. :-)

I think he is happy to be here.  Not sure what’s up with the stink eye.  Maybe he is thinking about having to leave the real Mexico and go to Vallarta to spend the rest of the week with his family in one of those all inclusive tourist trap hotels full of lobster red gringos drinking bad margaritas, and getting sick from eating the all inclusive buffet that sits out in the sun for days on end before it gets changed out.  :-)  I’ll take street tacos and tamales any day over that resort stuff………..  Funny how the only time I’ve ever gotten sick in Mexico was from eating at one of the resorts.

Since I’m a big fan of NASA’s Apollo program and somewhat of a space junkie, I had to take a picture of this little store.  The old guy that owns the joint is a huge fan of the Apollo missions.

Here’s a view down my street……..

But at night it can turn into a roaming street party being led by a band.  These little parties are quite popular on the weekends and they are called Callejoneadas.  Its illegal to drink in public, so groups of people get together and get a permit from the city, hire a band, and sometimes get a mule to carry the Mezcal, and have a little roaming street party that lasts for a couple of hours.  Most times, folks are happy to have you walk along with their party, its pretty fun actually.

There are quite a few motos of all types in Zacatecas as well.  Here are some random local bikers out for a Saturday ride.

Also in town is an old bullfighting arena that has been transformed into a swanky hotel and restaurant.  The Quinta Real.  About $400 US per night, a little rich for my blood, but nonetheless a pretty cool joint………..

On a high ridge line above the city sits the rock formation of La Bufa.  To get there, you can drive, take the tram, or walk.  Its actually quite a nice walk, although a bit steep, from the city Centro.

It would probably have been more fun to take the tram, but I needed the exercise  since I have been sitting in a classroom for the last few weeks.

At the top is a monument to Pancho Villa and the Battle of Zacatecas during the 1913 Mexican Revolution.

There are some great views of the city Centro from La Bufa.

Thats all for now folks.  I have one more week of Spanish school then I am going to head further south to take in some more colonial cities before it gets too cold up here in the high elevations.

Hasta luego…………..

©2010 South on Two Wheels. All Rights Reserved.

I got an early start out of Mazatlan with the intention of beating the heat, and hopefully the rain as the sky was full of building cumulus even in the early morning. The Bicimaps GPS map did a great job of routing me out of the city and onto Mex 40 libre (free road.)

Before I picked up Mex 40 I saw a couple, 2 up on a  BMW GS with BC Canada plates and figured that when they stopped I would say hello. However, they took the turnoff to the Mex 40 cuota (toll road) while I took the libre (free road). The quota will not be finished for a couple of years though, correct? Along the way you could see that the bridge and tunnel building was in full swing though.

Mex 40 is a very narrow and twisty road that starts at sea level near Mazatlan and winds its way up into the mountains to elevations of over 8000 feet.  Its a very dangerous road that has curves so narrow that big trucks will take up both lanes when coming around a corner.  You have to go very slow on the road, about 25 mph max, because you never know what dangers are lurking around the next corner.  However, I was looking forward to getting into some cool weather for a change and heck, curvy roads are a lot of fun on a motorcycle.  Those of us that ride motos in Mexico like to joke that “curvas peligrosas” actually means “really fun road” :-)

Anyway, I saw some bikes pulled off on the side of the road so I stopped. It turned out it was a group from Mazatlan out for a Sunday ride, waiting for another of their group to catch up.  We chatted a bit and Alberto said, “Vicente, vamos. We are going to get some breakfast. So I took off following them for about 20 miles or so. They were passing cars and trucks in the twisties like it was no big deal.  Needless to say, I didn’t have the guts, or maybe the stupidity to follow them in some of the passes that they made.

We had breakfast and some good conversation about riding, Baja racing, and they took off back to Mazatlan. Very nice folks.

Adios amigos……..

As I climbed further up Mex 40, it got really fun and twisty, but as you will see in some of the pics, became very crowded with trucks.

Hummm……… this could get interesting………..

Ya think?

Glad I didnt see this as I was coming around the rock, but there was an emergency dirt pull out right where my bike was parked.

As I mentioned, there were a couple of trucks on the road today. I dont know how many accidents are on this road everyday, but if I were a bettin man, I would say they are not uncommon.

At one point I came around a curve to find the ass end of the truck in my lane backing up to make room for another oncoming truck that was occupying both lanes to get his rig through the tight curve. Sorry no pic, I was on the binders hard. Good thing I was only going about 25 mph when I saw it because if I was going any faster I would have hit him.  Like I said, curvas peligrosas.

Then of course the clouds socked in everything and it started to rain. At one point the fog was so thick I pulled over since between the fog in the sky and the fogging of my helmet face shield I couldn’t see 20 feet in front of me. I figured that I would wait for a truck to come by, then follow him so he would essentially be running point for me.  I do this if I ride Mexican highways at night.  You wait for a truck to come by, then you tuck up right behind him and use him as a “cow catcher” :-)  But this time I was using the truck so I wouldn’t get hit by an oncoming truck taking up both lanes around a tight curve.   Turned out to be a good idea. I felt much safer following that big truck in pea soup like fog.

As I crossed to the other side of the mountains the twisties let up and the skies started to clear. I stopped at a tienda (little store) to take a breather and these folks pulled up and started buying beers. They called themselves the Aguilas Negras MC club, or the Black Eagles.

They were pretty rowdy and about half in the bag, but we shot the bull for a good hour or so before they took off.  They offered me a beer which I declined, but they would not let me go without drinking a beer with them.

I figured that I might be able to make Zacatecas just a little after dark, but they told me that I should stay in Durango because there were bad people on the road after dark as there is a lot of narco trafficking in the area after dark.   They said, “if you go, dont stop for anything but the military and the federales, and even then be very careful. That’s basic common sense when riding at night in Mexico but I appreciated the advice anyway.  Actually, they tried to talk me out of riding at night in this area and the guy and his wife on the far left of the pic offered me a room in their house for the night.  I declined the offer, but I did heed the warnings not to ride at night in the area and decided to stay in Durango.

I wound up parking my butt in Durango right around dark.  Next update will be from  Zacatecas, an old Spanish colonial city at 8000 feet in the high desert, where I will park for a while and take some much needed Spanish lessons.

Saludos.

©2010 South on Two Wheels. All Rights Reserved.

Along the way to the the ferry teminal I spied 3 motos parked at some palapas on the beach. I figured that I would stop by and say hello, since it was still about 2 hours to departure.

It was some guys from Colorado who had just come down Baja over the last week and were headed over to Mazatlan, then north back to the States.

Anyway, its a good thing I stopped by, because these boys were still on pacific time and would have missed the boat, so to speak. I got a good chuckle out of that, we all did actually. Uh yeah guys, in southern Baja we are on Mountain Time.

So after that little revelation, we get to the ferry.

We load up and tie down the bikes……..

Then hit the cabinas……………………..VERY NICE!

The girls at Reception were also very nice. :-)

Then of course we hit the bar complete with loud  music, Mexican style, where I talked some more, but the boys were probably thankful that they could’nt hear me over the music.

Anyway, the boys from Colorado, AKA the Tres Locos, are planning a trans-Asia trip for next May and wanted to do a Mexico trip together to make sure that they would’nt kill each other on a long journey. Good dudes, all of them. I was talking up a storm since I had not been able to speak English for a while, so it was fun to actually have a real conversation with someone, instead of a point a grunt session punctuated by a few Spanish words. I’m sure they think, man, that Vinny dude sure talks a lot.

Upon arrival they immediately took off for Durango. Great meeting you guys, buen viaje mis amigos nuevos………

At first I wasnt thrilled about staying in Mazatlan since I felt I wanted to be out of the tourist areas. But low and behold, I ride no more than a mile from the ferry terminal and stumble upon this joint in Old Mazatlan. Sorry the pic is a bit foggy, as I just stepped out of the AC with my camera.

What do think this room would cost in San Diego? $300, maybe $400 a night?

Well in Old Mazatlan it costs 35 bucks!!  Sign me up baby.    I’ll stay the whole weekend, maybe more.

Complete with dee-luxe bike parking………….

Nice sunset right from the balcony of the room………..

Thats all for now.  I’ll be leaving in a couple of days as its so hot here all you want to do is stay in the air conditioning.  Up next will be much cooler temps in the higher elevations of the central mountains of Mainland Mexico.

©2010 South on Two Wheels. All Rights Reserved.

I was bummed. So I figured the hell with it. I will just do a mellow 200 miles of pavement and get to the ferry terminal in time for the 4 o’clock to Mazatlan. Wrong. I saw these folks on the side of the road headed north to Loreto. Paco and Margarita.

They had a rear flat and the patches they had wouldnt stick. So I broke out my patches and glue. Well you know how that goes. After 5 patch attempts and 3 hours later, we got it to hold air. I hope they made it to Loreto and I hope I get some good Karma out of it, because the rest of my day was messed up.

Lets see, It was hotter than hell. The bike started running like crap, stalling, backfiring, and would hardly get up to 60 mph.  Hopefully its just some bad gasoline. I missed the ferry to Mazatlan, but I went to the terminal and bought a ticket. For myself and bike, no room, 279 bucks!  To top it all off, I go back into town to find a cheap hotel with parking for the bike. Wrong again. I’m now at a place that dinged me 80 bucks for a room.  Killer parking though.   However at this rate, I’ll be broke by next month.

I’m not a fan of pavement, I’m not a fan of big tourist cities. La Paz kinda sucks in that respect. Its been a long time since I have been here and the place has grown into a tourist trap. I’m ready to get the heck out of here to some place less touristy, but more importantly, cooler, and where I can take some much needed Spanish lessons.

I head for Mazatlan on the ferry tomorrow night and will leave there in search of cooler temps after I find a place to drain the gas in the tanks, and check the pump and fuel filters.

I took only one picture for the day. It was one of those days.  I probably should have stayed in Loreto another night.

Enough whining from me. Just one of those days where I burned through way more money than I expected, and things just didnt work out. Not a big deal though. I’m still in Mexico, on a moto, and that doesnt suck, at all.

I´ll update again from Mazatlan.

©2010 South on Two Wheels. All Rights Reserved.

OK, so lets try this again shall we…………….

I also opted to change my luggage system as the soft bags were a pain to deal with every day, and they were not holding up so well.  The soft bags are great for a little 2 week Baja trip, but it because quite apparent that they were not going to hold up for the long haul.

These are Hardigg storm cases, much better…..

Today was a day to make some miles south. I got up at O’dark Thirty and rode out around 6 am. Left home in the midst of at thick marine fog layer and headed over to Tecate, took the compadre trail to Ojos, then picked up the dirt from Valle de Trinidad to Mex 1 south of San Vicente. After that, I slabbed it the rest of the day.

Lunch stop at Mama Espinosa’s in El Rosario.

Mama Espinosas is a Baja landmark popular with off road riders and racers, and celebrated for the incredible lobster burritos, good stuff

I made it all the way to Guererro Negro about half way down Baja, and set up camp at the Malarrimo Hotel.

Of course I had to have the specialty of the house, scallops with garlic, tasty.

Today´s totals: about 500 miles.  100 dirt and 400 pavement.

Well, I got a crack ‘o 10 am start this morning. Typical for me really. Thats why Miguel and I are good riding partners, neither one of us can get ready to leave before 10 am, and we dont really care where we end up. Unfortunately, Miguel is back at home in Arizona.  Too bad Mikey, youre missing out on some fun.

I headed off down Mex 1 and stopped in at San Ignacio to check on Gary and Terry and their Canadien Yurts on the river. They got hit pretty bad in 2006 when I was there, but this hurricane Jimena a few weeks ago was way worse.

All of the yurts had water in them, and some of them were just plain destroyed, including the very nice yurt that they used to live in.

They had a crew of workers in from Canada (must be that cheap Canadien labor ) and are rebuilding the place. They do have a few yurts that are finished up already, so if you’re in the hood, stop by and stay with them. Its called San Ignacio Springs B&B. Its a bit after you turn off Mex 1 headed to the town square. Its one of my favorite places to stay in all of Baja.

I wanted to stay, but it was still mid morning when I passed through so I figured that I better make a little more distance south.

I wanted to head to San Juanico via El Datil and the Laguna San Ignacio mud flats, but after talking to Gary and Terry, they said that there was no way my loaded down bike was going to get though the mud. So I asked about the rocky and nasty inland route and they told me that it was worse than before the hurricane. I didnt like the prospect of taking the overloaded 990 through there solo in light of things so I whimped out. I was bummed about it though because I absolutely love that dirt and deep sand ride from Ignacio to Juanico.

So plan B was to stay on the slab and head for Loreto. Santa Rosalia and Mulege were mostly cleaned up. I wanted to stop and take some pics but the road was busy and there was no place to pull over and shoot. Not a big deal though because now you would hardly notice that just a few short weeks ago the place was under water. Hotels are open and fuel and food is readily availible. All the washouts along Mex 1 have been repaired. The Mexican government seems to really have their stuff together in cleaning up the aftermath of the storm. I guess they have had a little practice over the years.

So I headed down Mex 1. The Tres Virgines Volcano just south of San Ignacio.

So I headed further down Mex 1 along Conception Bay. Yeah, its pavement, but wow what a scenic slab ride. I’m impressed with the views each time I do this pavement stretch.

I then pulled into Loreto at about 4 pm and parked my butt at a little place on the Malecon. 34 bucks, but secure parking and AC!  AC! I’m stoked about it, can you tell?

more later……………….

©2010 South on Two Wheels. All Rights Reserved.

Nevertheless it was a beautiful morning riding out to Mex 3 were I picked up some old SCORE course to Diablo dry lake, then Zoo Road into San Felipe.  As you may or may not know, the new paved road from Puertecitos to Gonzaga is progressing rapidly.  The pavement ends about 12 miles past Cow Patty cantina, but the road bulding is well underway for another 15 miles past that and everything is a complete mess with diversion roads all over the place, big trucks, big graders, lots of dust and deep churned up earth.  If you dont ride this road sometime this winter, chances are that when you do, it will be mostly pavement.  Make no mistake, the government is serious about getting this road done, pronto.  The number of construction crews and heavy equipment I passed along the way was staggering and now rivals any highway construction project in the US.  Once the road is completed it will be the major trucking route from Mexicali to Mex 1 near Chapala dry lake, forever changing the flavor of Puertecitos and Gonzaga Bay.  Its progress I guess, but that doesnt mean I have to like it.  Like Mama Espinosa says, “Bad roads bring good people, and good roads bring all kinds of people.”

The road grading and bridge building ends about right here for now: Bird Shit Rock.

By this time its about 3 in the afternoon and the heat is downright oppressive.

I just love this place.  Too bad its soon going to be changed forever.

It was hot.  Did I mention that?  Early September is the hottest time of year on this part of the Cortez coast.  Well into the 100′s, no breeze and as humid as a steam bath.

Even at 10 pm it was so hot in my room that I couldnt sleep, so I brought the camera outside and got a couple shots of the Sagittarius and Scorpio reagion of the Milky Way in stunningly dark skies.  It was very slightly out of focus, but the 30 second exposures turned out well enough to display at web resolution.

I finally dozed off into some fitful sleep around 2 am. It was still hotter than hell (mid 90′s or so), but to make things worse the west breeze had started to pick up and felt as if you were standing in front of a 1 million watt hair dryer.  Brutal.

Around 3 am I’m still lying in bed, half asleep, half awake, and miserably drenched in my own sweat, I see a silouette of a person poking their head through the window next to my bed, What the hell ? I hear, “pssssst, Vicente?”  It was Pedro, the dude the guards the gate.  I jump out of bed, open the door and Pedro is standing there with my buddy Mike.

I say, “Jeez Mike, are you doing here?  I thought you would get a room in San Felipe and spend the night in some air conditioning before coming here?”  Well, he got to San Felipe around 6 pm and decided what the hell, its only another couple of hours to Gonzaga and its cooling off a bit so why not press on.   However with all the new construction there are so many diviersion roads around the new road bed that in the dark he go totally confused about where he was.  I could understand that because even in the daylight I had take the wrong diversion road several times and it took me a while to get back on track.

In the darkness, at one time he found himself on the new road bed cruising along when the road disappeared from his headlight beam as it illuminated nothing but blackness.  Oh shit!  He did a panic stop only to discover that 3 feet in front of him was a 60 ft drop off where they were going to build a bridge.  Damn, that was close.  To top it all off, upon tryig to start the bike again he discovered that his battery was dead.  It was well dark by that time.  After some time had passed and a huge amount of effort, he managed to get that HP2 bump started.  Later, while lost on one of the diversion roads again, he killed the bike.  Shit.  After hours of messing with the bike trying to get it started he figured he was going to spend the night lying in the rocks and wait until morning when a vehicle may come by and he could get a jump start.

As he was sitting in the dark he saw a vehicle driving around in the distance, stopping at one house, then another, then another.  Seems like some folks were out doing a little late night shopping in the vacant houses.. The truck finally comes up to him and its a husband and wife team.  The wife drives, while the husband goes in each house to do a little shopping.  The back of their truck is filled with crap, food, furniture, houshold appliances, anything you could imagine.  They gave him a jump start and got him on his way.  They may have been thieves, but at least they were nice enough to help him out.

He killed the bike once again in the deep sand next to the new gate at the side of the runway where the road goes by the Gonzaga houses.  Thats when Pedro found him and walked him down to Alphonsinas.

Miguel, at 3 am, just happy to be out of the desert and off the bike…………

Sorry this is so text heavy, but due to the heat and my state of exhaustion during the following events, I took absolutely no pictures.  I wish I had, but I didnt even think about it at the time.  It was just another task that I didnt have the strength to do.

Mike had rough night.  He was supposed to ride to La Paz with me, then hop the ferry to Mazatlan, and take off for his casa in Arizona.  However, when he was bumping down the Gonzaga road at 3 am, about half the shit fell out of a side bag that he forgot to zip up.  He lost his perscription meds, his SPOT, a huge wad of Pesos, his Mexican Passport, his vehicle registration, and a bunch of other crap.  Since he lost the bike registration, he would be unable to get a temporary vehicle import permit (required for mainland Mexico) at La Paz, so his only option was to turn around from Gonzaga and ride back home.  He actually seemed kind of relieved about not having to go with me all the way to Mazatlan.

I asked him, “where do you think you lost your stuff?”  The answer was not encouraging as his crap was somewhere between Alphonsinas and 25 miles north towards Puertecitios.  I figured what the heck, I’ll suit up and go look for his stuff as I’ve got nothing else to do except hang out in the shade and go for a swim in the bay.  The temp was already easily over 100, and even warmer in the inland desert canyons.  So depsite all that, I suited up, put a gallon of water in my pack and took off to go look for his stuff.

I was riding very slow scanning the road and road side looking for anything.   My bike was on the verge of overheating the whole time, with the cooling fan running constantly..  After about 10 miles I found his SPOT tracker laying right in the middle of the road.  Then I started to see things on the side of road, so every little thing I saw I would stop, get off the bike, walk around scanning the ground on the side of the road, get back on the bike, then ride another small bit until I saw more things, get off the bike again, walk, repeat, over and over again just to find pieces of trash.

About 15 to 20 miles up the road I found some more of his stuff, a book, a baseball hat, some hand scribbled notes, etc.  Then I found his meds.  I knew he would be very happy about that since his bad back was killing him.

It was around this time that I ran out of water. With all the getting off and on the bike, walking around in heavy boots, and heavy riding ger in the scortching desert heat, I had downed almost a gallon of water.  By this time I had pretty much given up looking for the rest of his stuff.  My only concern now was to get water, and fast.  The temp had to be well into the hundred and teens by this time.  I knew the construction crews would be closer than going back to Alphonsinas, and I could get some water from them, so I continued north, now only in search of water.

At about 24 miles north of Gonzaga, a Hummer sporting a 50 cal on the roof, launched out of the desert bush and blocked the road immdiately in front of me.  I had to lock up the rear brake to avoid hitting the vehicle, as it came onto the road so quickly, and right in front of me.  Three guys brandishing M16 A2′s jumped onto the road and took up positions next to the Hummer while the guy on the 50 cal had me in his sights.  Whoa.  I have never encountered such an agressive military checkpoint before so it kind of freaked me out.  Naturally they wanted to check my bags, which I had stripped down to only water, tools and essential parts.  I was getting dizzy from the heat and as I dismounted the bike I stumbled back and fell on the ground.  As the soldiers were standing over me, all I could muster was one phrase, agua, por favor.  They sat me down in the shade of the vehicle and started handing me jugs of water.  After I got my strength back, they filled up my camelbak and told me to go to Puertecitos and find some more water, ice, and shade.  But I was now feeling good enough to go back south to Gonzaga, so south I went, not looking for any of Miguels lost stuff.  I just wanted to get back to shade, ice cold water and a cererza.  However after a few miles a glint of light caught my eye about 50 feet off the road.  Well, shit, I’ll just go check it out one last time.. It turned out that they were ziplock bags with Mike’s Mexican passport, bike registration, and another bag with a wad of 200 peso notes.  Bingo.  We are back in business.  I got back to Alphonsina’s totally spent and just sat there on the porch in the shade while Antonio brought me out an ice cold water, and an even colder cerveza.

We left Gonzaga and headed to Coco’s Corner.  Coco is a an interesting dude that part of Baja off road racing legend.  His place is nothing special.  Its a little patch of dirt in the middle of the desert, but its a welcome site for weary off road travelers.  I have met Coco a number of times.  Years ago after an accident he had a leg amputated and recently, I think partially due to diabetes, he had his other leg amputated.  Coco seems to be getting along well and putting the place back together after it had been ransacked while he was recovering in the hospital.  After his last amputation, he doesnt use a prosthesis, but simply puts on knee pads and walks around on his knees.

Miguel is happy to be here………………….

Coco is happy we are here, and the obligatory book signing………

The dee-lux accommodations are still here………..

The deluxe banos……….

But I think Coco might need a new TV

After some discussion we found out that the Calamajue wash
(pronounced Cala-ma-way) was full of water from the recent hurricane and was probably only passable by a lifted Jeep with a snorkel.  So we opted to hit Mex 1 at chapala dry lake.

On the way south down the highway to Guererro Negro my bike started acting up.  Weird electrical problems started to pop up and the bike was running like crap.  Uh oh.  Not good.  We got a hotel and started to trouble shoot the bike.  It became apparant that I would need some KTM parts.  The nearest Mexican KTM dealer was at least a week away in Guadalajara, but the other option was to hit the pavement back to San Diego and get things fixed at home, as its only a long days ride to the border via the pavement.

So, we opted to head back north to San Diego.  After a week and half at home I got the bike all fixed up.  In addition, my soft luggage wasnt holding up very well, so I also replaced the soft bags with some hard cases.

I got back on the road and crossed the border again on Sunday, Sept 27th.

©2010 South on Two Wheels. All Rights Reserved.

Here is the obligatory shot of the ODO before departure.

I stopped at Tecate, and got the tourist visa, which I never get when I ride Baja, but this trip is going a bit further. The Migracion officer asked where I was going. I told him I was going to Tierra del Fuego. With raised eyebrows he looked at me and said, “Tierra del Fuego, as in South America, Argentina? On that moto?” “Si” I replied. He mumbled something like, “good luck with that” and went back to filling out the visa. Maybe he knows something I dont.

Headed down the Compadre Trail toward Ojos Negros…………

Then onto Mike’s Sky Rancho.

Its been a while since I have ridden the 990 loaded up. Although the bike performs well with a load, it really is a different machine in “burro” mode. It took a little getting used to all the weight as it almost got away from me when I was going through some small whoops bottoming the rear suspension. In the coming weeks I’m going to try and figure out what I can get rid of to lighten the load. I’m thinking that I should have gone with hard bags and ditched the duffle on the tail. All my stuff would have fit in the 2 Gobis hard bags i have, but  I hate those bags. Well, I’m committed with soft bags for now so we will have to see how they hold up.

Mike’s Sky Rancho is a Baja off road institution.  Every weekend many folks on dirt bikes come though and fill the place up as its a nice day ride in the dirt from the border.  I pulled up in the late afternoon to find the place deserted except for the staff.  I’ve been to Mike’s at least a dozen times yet it feels strange to be here with no one else around but the folks that run the place. No wonder, it was over 100 degrees in the valley as I climbed up into the mountains. Its also weird to see my 990 parked here as I usually come through here on my 450. As a matter of fact, I think this is the first time I’ve brought the 990 to Mikes.

I did about 215 miles of dirt this day over 8 hours with stops for the visa and a lunch break at Valle de Trinidad.  I intend to be up early to avoid the heat as much as possible and make my way toward Gonzaga Bay where I will eventually meet up with Mike from Tucson.

©2010 South on Two Wheels. All Rights Reserved.

So I will leave when preparations are finished and I’m ready to go.

Long distance travel on a motorcycle obviously involves some preparation, from taking care of business at home to getting the bike in tip top shape.  Bike prep is especially important because when you have technical problems south of the border, (and I will) parts are neither readily available, nor easy to find.  I will have some access to KTM dealerships but they will be found only in the largest cities, and typically there will be only one dealer in a city.

Given that, the bike is going through extensive preventative maintenance and modifications to prepare it for such a journey.  Although it’s relatively new, I am going through each system, making sure that it’s fully checked out and has the latest upgrades and parts.  I will need to refresh certain items along the way like oil, tires, tubes, brakes, wheel bearings, swing arm and steering stem bearings, chains, sprockets, various filters, etc.  In addition I will have to do valve clearance checks and adjustments, water pump replacements and other labor intensive items.  Some of these parts I can have shipped from home, some I will need to find wherever I’m at.  I will need to perform most of the maintenance myself, so I must carry an extensive tool kit as well.  You must be prepared for almost anything on a trip such as this.

My tools and parts kit that I will carry with me:

The biggest challenge in preparing for this adventure is not prepping the bike, nor deciding what gear to take.  The trick is deciding what gear to leave at home.  On this trip, I will need to go as light as I possibly can, as its no fun trying to wrestle with an overladen motorcycle in a nasty rock garden, mud pit, or remote sand wash.  Most of the kit will consist of tools and spare parts, therefore a minimum of creature comforts will be packed.  However the proper riding gear is essential as I need to be well protected when I crash, and well protected from the elements.  On this journey I will encounter sweltering temperatures in the low tropics, and bitter cold in the 16,000 ft. elevations of the Andes and South American Altiplano.  I must have clothing for every environment.  But, keeping the bike as light as possible is essential for riding in off road conditions.  The lighter the bike, the easier it will be to handle, so  I must carefully choose what I strap on the bike.  I want to be comfortable, but not overburdened with crap.  There is a happy medium somewhere in there.

Since I’m pretty much ready to go, I will be crossing the border at Tecate in a day or so, stay tuned for updates from Baja.

©2010 South on Two Wheels. All Rights Reserved.

Over the last few years I have become quite involved with riding motorcycles, mainly in Baja California, Mexico, and riding mostly off road.  So I was thinking, how cool would it be to get on a motorcycle, cross the border near my home in San Diego, and ride all the way to the tip of South America and back?  I decided that it would be pretty cool, and one heck of an adventure.  An adventure like this has been in the back of my mind for a couple of years now.  Sadly, I realized that I would probably never have the opportunity to actually do it.  My career would not allow me enough time off at present, and in the future I may have obligations that would preclude me from doing any long riding travel.  However, little did I realize that I was going to get my chance to embark on such a journey, and quite soon at that.

As my luck would have it, due to the current economic climate of corporate downsizing, I recently found myself in a unique position to take a little time away from work in the form of a leave of absence.  My employer was offering leaves for up to two years, so having a little bit of cash saved up, I jumped at the chance and signed up for a two year deal.  The deal is, I don’t show up to work for two years, and they don’t pay me for two years.  I’m going to have to live on the cheap, and that’s just fine by me since I have had plenty of practice doing that earlier in my career.

Up until last week, this was my day job, and more often than not, my night job as well.  I love the Boeing 767, finest piece of machinery that I have ever flown.  As they say in the pilot circles, “if it’s not Boeing, I’m not going.”  I think that I have the best job in the world.  I get to strap on a 400,000 lb. airplane and fly it around the planet, drinking beer with my buddies in exotic locations, and get paid for it.

It does become work though.  It can be a seemingly never ending blur of airports, grumpy customs officials and stark, generic hotel rooms complete with the overpriced $20 breakfast buffet.   Taipei, Singapore, Sydney, Shanghai, Tsing Dao,  Anchorage, Hong Kong, Cologne,  Paris, Dubai, Bombay, Philly, etc.    Crossing multiple time zones, and not ever knowing what day it is can wear on your body and get to be a grind.  Its not particularly glamorous, despite what you may think.

Nevertheless, I love my chosen career, but I am ready for a little break from the routine.  You can burn out doing anything, no matter how much you love it.  I’m not burned out on it, but its time for a little break to get my head straight and expand my horizons…..

I have been a professional pilot for over 20 years, and much of that stint has been flying big jets on both domestic and long haul international routes.  I’m sure that eventually I’m going to miss flying jets around the planet, but for now I am welcoming the change of pace doing some world travel with a much smaller and slower means of transport:

Coco’s Corner, Baja Califonia Norte, Mexico

A remote desert dry lake bed in southern Nevada.

The bike is a KTM 990 Adventure, made in Austria.  It was originally designed as a Dakar Rally race platform, but has found its way into production and marketed as an “adventure” bike.  Its a 1 liter, liquid cooled, fuel injected V-twin, weighing in at about 450 lbs.  I have about 9,000 miles on this bike, having taken it many places in the desert southwest of the U.S., down the length of the Baja peninsula and into the Copper Canyon area of Mainland Mexico.  Adventure bikes are generally large displacement, off road capable bikes.  Not as off road capable as a small dirt bike, but capable nonetheless. The trade off in capability is exceeded by the level of comfort and long service intervals that are so important for long distance travel in other countries.  I would sometimes prefer to take a small, proper dirt bike, but I’m confident on the big bike in some fairly burly off road conditions so I’m taking it.  Just to the tip of South America will be at least 15,000 miles.  I don’t yet know how I will return, possibly through Africa and Europe, or simply back north.

Reactions to my plan have been mixed.  My family and friends enthusiastically support me in this endeavor, which I fully expected.  However it’s curious when telling many people of my upcoming trip, the response more often than not is, “why the hell do you want to do that?”  or, “man, you’re totally crazy!”  Or my favorite, “Its so dangerous down there, you’ll be kidnapped or killed for sure!”  Well of course things like that can happen.  They can happen anywhere on the planet, even right here at home.

The vistas of the lonely deserts of southern California…….

The stunningly beautiful barren wastes of Death Valley……….

The scenic, remote two-tracks of Mojave…………..

The jaw dropping star studded dark skies of the middle of nowhere Mexico……..

And the wilds of south of the border dirt roads leading to nowhere in particular, but always an adventure…….

Despite the naysayers and doomsday peddlers, I’m going on this trip, and I’m going to have one hell of an adventure!

The plan for this journey is quite simple.  Get on my motorcycle and ride in roughly southerly direction staying off pavement whenever possible until I either get tired of it, or cant possibly go any further south, however long that takes.  At that point, I’ll make some more rough plans.  This ride is not about keeping a schedule or having any set destination, its about travel on a motorcycle.  I will ride pavement or dirt when I see fit, stop when I feel like it, and if I happen to like a place I may stick around a while and enjoy it.  Since I have the luxury of time, the best plan is to have no plan.  Its always more fun that way because you never know where you’ll wind up.

As things stand right now, my departure date will be on or about the first week of September.  There is plenty of preparation left to do, so in the next couple of weeks I will update with my progress.

I invite you to come along on my little journey.  So let’s head south through the narco wars, the bandidos, guerillas, corrupt cops, the swine flu, coups and revolutions, to the bottom of the Earth.   If we are not too careful, we will have some interesting adventures along the way!  Vamos!

©2010 South on Two Wheels. All Rights Reserved.