Sailing

Oct 25, 2010
We are booked on the Stahlratte for an eight day sail from Carti Panama to Cartagena Colombia.
Today we will ride to Carti and load the bikes on the sailboat. Anyone interested in the Stahlratte (Steele Rate) may google it. Once we are in Cartagena we will provide a full report on the voyage and the San Blas Islands.
Until then we will not have means of contact.
A little home work for the school children.
Saturday we crossed the magnificent Bridge of the Americas which spans the pacific entrance to the Panama Canal. This crossing geographically put us in South America. Now your task: Write out – A man, a plan, a canal, Panama. Now write out this same phase backwards. You have just learned a new anagram.
Hasta la Vista Central America

Catching up

Well, the last entry had us suspended in space in Puertoarenas, Costa Rica. We left there on a splendid ride down the pacific coast on a very nice hiway. We encountered only one shower on the way and had a really good ride only clouded by the infernal bureaucratic spewings of the border crossing between Costa Rica and Panama. After the border crossing, we rode in a "whopper of a rainstorm" to David, Panama.

Wandering around in the city, we finally found a hotel just before the
mother of the "whopper of a rainstorm" rolled into town. We were really glad to be settled into the hotel even though water was running down the walls in our room. This was a nice hotel but the water was just too much for the roof to bear. When we were in the dining room for supper (ground floor of eight floors), water was dripping from one of the light fixtures -- just another indication of the amount of water that fell.
We left David on Saturday, the fifteenth day of the trip, for Panama City. We had no problems except for two rainstorms that causing extreme pooling of water on the roadway as well as obscuring our vision -- so we stopped for about thirty minutes for each rain event. I did have an ephiphony here. I had my normal riding gear on and elected to add rain gear over the riding gear. I didn't get wet from the rain but the result was the same as my clothes were wet with perspiration. So, if it's warm, I will not use the rain gear over the riding gear -- the rain gear will only come out when it's cold.
When we reached Panama City, Gary had made arrangements to call an old friend, Eric, from our previous visit and he was supposed to meet us and herd us to his house to spend the night. We stopped at a gas station and Gary started up a conversation with Mack.
Seems he lives only a few blocks from Eric and offered to guide us to Eric's house. He took a taxi and we followed. There are jewels everywhere!

This morning we left Eric's house for the airport to check on flying the bikes to Bogota, Colombia. The flight for tomorrow is full and the next available flight is Wednesday. We are simultaneously working on a reservation on a boat that leaves on Tuesday and would take us to Cartegena, Columbia. In limbo are we!
Just a note for those who might be interested, the previous blog entry was published without pictures -- they have now been added.

Mama said there would be days like this

21 October 21, 2010
The exit from Granada and the ride to Penas Blanca on the Nicaragua / Costa Rica border went fine.
The border crossing procedures were nothing short of controlled robbery. As at most of border crossings you are swarmed by money changers and tramidores. The tramidores want you to hire them to help you through the convoluted procedures. I will not go through all the procedures required to transition these borders, but it is nothing short of painful. We are convinced that it is intentionally designed this way so that the gringos have to hire the tramidors. Bribes are involved to avoid the long lines and the tramidors are constantly lying to you on what the actual transition costs are and pocketing the difference. Sum total it took us two and one half hours to cross the border and cost us about $60.00 each to exit Nicaragua and enter Costa Rica.
While we were waiting in line to process into Costa Rica, an American ex-patriot told us that everything in Costa Rica was very expensive.
We started our ride with a quick lunch of smoked pork chops and headed towards Puerto Arenas where we intended to spend the night. About thirty miles before our destination we ran into a traffic jam because of an accident. The traffic jam occurred simultaneously with a thunder storm. We sat in this rainy traffic jam for about an hour and then followed slow traffic into Puerto Arenas. It was after sunset when we arrived at the first hotel we could find. The cost of the hotel was $86.00 per night – about twice the average price we have been paying.
Maybe tomorrow will better and we hope to get to Panama.

Attencionadetalles - Details we have observed

“You can observe a lot by watching” – Yogi Berra

20 October 20, 2010

We rode from Esteli to Granada Nicaragua a distance of 123 miles today. The ride took us a little over three hours. We are staying at the Alhambra hotel which is the same hotel we stayed in 2002 when we rode to Panama and back. We liked the city then better than any we visited on that trip so we wanted to return.
First impressions, the city has grown and with the growth there seems to be more squalor in the center of town. The center of town has a public square with one side occupied by a magnificent old cathedral and on the opposite side several buildings with large colonnades. Granada was one of the few cities in Nicaragua that was not occupied by the Sandinistas during the1980’s revolution.
We have ridden about 3300 miles so far and calculate that we may be ¼ of the way down on our trip, so we are going to include a mind report on our travel impressions up to this point.
Caveat: All of our impressions are tainted by our first world stateside minds in which we view things through rose colored glasses. In no way do we want disparage the way of life of the citizens of any of the countries we have traveled through. The first thing we have to remember is that the vast majority of the citizens of Latin America are very poor by our USA standards, yet most are hard working people who are trying to survive to the best of their ability. Saying that, we can’t help but laugh at some of the situations we encounter.

Modes of transportation:

We have encountered every conceivable mode of transport from the most basic of walking to ultra modern automobiles.
One sees people walking everywhere. They may be miles away from any town or any semblance of habituation. Yet they continue to walk through the mountains and often are carrying heavy burdens of firewood, corn, or in the case of the women carrying tubs of grain or other items on their heads.
We have observed men pushing wheelbarrows on the mountain roads with the wheelbarrows loaded with wood or produce. One of the wheelbarrows we saw had only a steel wheel. These are hardy people.
In the country most males about the age of about ten are carrying machetes. The machetes are not weapons as our prejudice likes to think, but are tools to be used. Machetes are used to chop wood, to clear the road side or to cut the lawn. Today we saw a roadside work crew of about ten men cutting the roadside of overgrown bush. We would not even think of tackling a job of this magnitude without a mower behind a tractor.
There have been yokes of oxen pulling wooden-wheeled carts, trains of pack mules, rancheros on horseback, three wheeled bicycle taxis, thousands of small motorcycles/scooters- one of which I saw four people on, three-wheeled baja buggy taxis, minibuses slightly larger than our minivans with 15-20 people and a large luggage rack on top loaded to the gills, and autobuses which mostly are old American school buses which have been elaborately painted and large luggage racks added. Pickup trucks are used as taxis and may have up to twenty or more people standing in the rear. Large cargo trucks are filled with cargo then have several men riding on top of the cargo. Remember any of these means of transport beats walking the many miles to the nearest town and often down a dusty or muddy dirt road.

Road conditions
We have encountered every imaginable road condition from dirt paths through landslides to super highways. Most roads are potholed and the asphalt surface where installed is rough. Some of the potholes are deep and wide enough to swallow the wheels on our motorcycles and as everywhere one pothole seems to breed others. Often we find ourselves weaving through the potholes to avoid damage to the motorcycles or to ourselves.
Overall with all its other problems, Nicaragua has the best major throughfare roads. This was also true in 2002. All the countries so far have had topes or tumultos with Nicaragua having the fewest and Mexico having the most. Topes is the word for speed bump in Mexico while tumultos is the word in Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. These speed bumps are located in any area that requires reduced speed. Mostly, they consist on a pile of asphalt about eighteen inches wide and about eight inches high that stretch across the entire roadway. They are very effective. There are signs in some places announcing the upcoming topes, but many are not signed posted. One only has to jar their teeth really good about twice and then one begins to scout for the “sleeping policeman” as they are sometimes called.
Guatemala and Honduras have suffered many landslides as a result of recent flooding from hurricanes. Sometimes large boulders are in the road or sections of the road have simply slid of the mountain side. One begins to pick up local signals to impending dangerous conditions. Sometimes it may be a series of rocks stacked along the side of the road, sometimes it may be painted rocks across the road, or it may be a recently cut tree branch stacked in the road. These same signals are used to alert drivers that a vehicle may be broken down in the road or that there is an accident ahead.
Speaking of signals, we have learned to read the cities listed on the front of the autobuses. This is useful if you are not sure you are going in the right direction.

Traffic
You will be passed. It doesn’t matter the road conditions, the density of traffic, whether you are on a blind up or downhill curve, in a double yellow zone or crawling over a tope. You will be passed.
If a vehicle is moving slowly along the side of the road, it will pull out in front of you. In the towns one can expect a vehicle to stop suddenly in front of you and as you swerve to pass, the driver will open his door in front of you.
In addition to animals of every type grazing along the road sides, many times the animals will be walking unattended down either or both lanes of traffic.
With all of this seemly disorder, we have witnessed only two accidents, both trailer trucks which had run off the road and flipped over; and witnessed one dead horse on the roadside. Somehow it just works.

You will get lost. It seems the sign posting out in the country where there may only be one road is fairly decent. Inside the towns and large cities it is an entirely different matter. Sign posting is scarce or none existent in most towns. We have been lost in every major town we have ridden through. The GPS’s are useless in the towns because they do not have street level detail for this region of the world.
To be quite honest, traffic and road conditions are the greatest threat we face on this trip. It is not the narco-terrorism in Mexico, nor the corrupt policemen in Honduras, nor anti-American/Yankee go home attitude that is a great danger to us. In fact everyone we have encountered has been very nice to us and willing to help with directions when we have asked.

National Characteristics
This entire region is much more relaxed than when we were here before. Most have seemed to put the revolutions and civil wars of the 80’s and 90’s behind them. Reconciliation is evident wherever we travel. Maybe we as a nation could learn something from this as our own country is going through a bitter debate with the upcoming elections.
Observing the different national characteristics, we both agreed the Guatemalans are the most gregarious and the most curious about our trip. This may go hand-in-hand that their country also has the cleanest roadsides. Guatemala is the only country where we have seen wearing of a so-called national dress. This is particularly true of the Mayan women and their colorful skirts and blouses. The Hondurans seem to be the most reserved and certainly have the dirtiest roadsides. There are impromptu garbage dumps everywhere. The Honduran roadsides are rivaled by the trash on the Nicaraguan roads. It is not only the country roadsides which are littered but so is very parking lot. I am beginning think the Latin Americans have never met a garbage can they liked.
In Nicaragua we have encountered beggars for the first time, and many of them. So much for the socialist revolution Daniel Ortega promised them.
Manual labor
Earlier I mentioned the people are hard working. Much of this work is manual labor. We saw a man atop of a boulder half the size of small car with a sledge hammer. He was breaking the boulder into smaller pieces so it could be moved from the road side. Later we saw another man with a sledge hammer and he was working on breaking pieces the size of car tires into smaller pieces. We passed three men who were loading sand into dump truck by shovel. A group of men with picks and shovels were digging a trench to bury water lines along the roadside. Again we would not think of doing such without a power trencher or a backhoe.
Food
The food has been good and thankfully up to this point we have not had to deal with Montezuma’s revenge. In Mexico we mostly ate tacos. The tacos are different than what we are accustomed to in the states. The tacos are soft-shelled corn tortillas which are about half the size of our stateside tortillas. The tacos we had were filled with beef steak and are generally served with black beans and maybe rice. They are good tasting and cheap. From Guatemala on down we have eaten a steady diet of res (beef steak) or pork chops. In Guatemala, the res is served with black beans, goat cheese, and corn tortillas. In Honduras the black beans gave way to rice and the tortillas to regular loaf bread (we prefer the tortillas.) In Nicaragua, the rice has been replaced with papas (French fries.) Salads are served with the meals in most sit down restaurants, but we do not eat the lettuce. We have also avoided drinking anything that did not come from a sealed bottle or can.
Mentioning drinks, we have discovered that the Latin Americans have kept alive many of the old soft drink brands we long ago discarded. We have seen Upper 10’s, Teems, Lifts, Nesbitts, and Nehi’s.

Border crossings
There is not enough spaced in this edition to explain the border crossing in Latin America and especially the one we encountered yesterday crossing from Honduras into Nicaragua. We will make that another entry.
I did see this fine cock wandering between the border at Honduras and Nicaragua. I thought he may be an illegal alien so I documented him. And as I am a graduate of Jacksonville State University I thought he might make a good mascot for the “fightin’ Gamecocks.”
Amidst all of this seemly forgone era there is every indication we are in the 21st century. It seems every teen and most adults are talking on a cell phone and indeed I receive more bars on my cell phone here than I do at home. Most hotels we have stayed in have had Wi-Fi internet, and if they don’t the owner will point you to the nearest internet café. There are no smoking signs in most establishments. As Roger says, “The world is changing before our very eyes.” We count it a blessing that we can experience some of this change while enjoying our sport of adventure motorcycling.

Why did the horse cross the road?

Because the cow was on the other side. At least that’s how it looked to me as I was following Gary down a pothole filled road. The horse casually walked onto the road and crossed causing Gary to spend some brake energy. Lots of free range horses and cattle along the sides of the road today, but hey, this is Honduras.
We left Copan and rode 216 miles on some pretty rough roads. Guatemala is not the only Central American country plagued by landslides as you can see in the photo. The landslide covered the road and we had to divert to the left. One stretch of road was gravel and packed earth – about 15 miles and it took about an hour to pass through. Several towns we passed through had no pavement so the going was a bit rough with the close traffic and pedestrians. We finally ended the day’s ride on a very nice stretch of pavement. Tomorrow we should cross the border into Nicarauga. We look forward to some better roads. Gary wants to report that his MacGyver’ed fix on his GPS continues to work.

Children of the world

October 17, 2010
Today was a good day for us and was mostly uneventful. We rode 173 miles on wonderful mountain roads between Coban Guatemala and Copan Honduras. The roads had plenty of twisties which are motorcyclists’ dreams. Our border crossing into Honduras was so easy that we both thought something was amiss compared to the hassle we went through in 2002 at the same border crossing. We were charged $4.00 each for a tourist visa and $35.00 each for customs on the motorcycles.
Copan Honduras is the site of one of the significant Mayan ruins dating back a thousand years. We are not visiting the ruins this time as our goal is to get to South America.
We have four, different elementary school grades following this blog. I would like to dedicate this entry to the classes of Ms. McCollum and Ms. Harwell at Elkmont elementary and Ms. Coulter at West Limestone in Alabama, and Mr. Wood in Smynra, Georgia. In so doing, I am including photographs of children from Mexico and Guatemala and will try to describe what we have observed of these third world children.
You have to understand that Roger and I ride in full protective gear with full face helmets. At best we look like Power Rangers. In saying that I am sure we intimidate most of the children and their parents, in particularly in the regions off-the-beaten-paths of Guatemala we have traveled.
I have found an almost foolproof way to gain the confidence of the children and their parents. I ask the parents if is okay to give the children the dulce (sweets.) Without fail permission is given and the parents also want a piece of the candy. Then I ask if is okay to photograph the children.
Children of the third world are expected to earn their keep. On this trip we have observed children as young as eight or nine on the road laden with back breaking loads of corn or fire wood. The corn will be ground into meal and used in making tortillas which are a staple of

every meal. The wood will be used to cook the meals or burned to provide heat in their homes. Other children are observed manning vendor stands in which fruit, clothing, canned goods, etc. are sold. Other children are busy acting as shepherds.
Several years ago when I traveled through Southern Africa, I observed similar activities of the children.

All this being said, children around the world are very similar and will respond to kindness with kindness. The key is to remember that no one can chose where they were born, what sex they are, what race they are, what day they were born, nor what they were named. We can all chose the character we develop.
I would like to encourage our American children to learn more about the children of the world. They can do this by turning off their televisions and laying aside their video games and reading or having their parents read to them about other regions of the world.
The world would be a much better place if we all understood one another a little better, and this can be done by traveling or at least reading about other cultures.

As a side light to today, we washed our clothes last night in the shower at the hotel. They did not finish drying so we tied them onto the rear of the motorcycles today and tonight they are hanging around the room drying. This does not seem too bad considering we saw several women washing their clothes in the steams and on the rocks.

Getting out of the canyon

16 October 2010
Today was our scheduled down day to do washing and bike maintenance, but first we had to get out of Lanqui n which is 10 km (6.1 miles) down a steep rough route with gravel, dirt, ruts and sharp turns. On the way down yesterday it took us about 45 minutes to make ride. This morning we were greeted with a rain shower which certainly put a stop to the planned ride on down to Semuc Champey. We had been told the road to Champey was much worse than the one to Lanquin, and this was almost more than we could handle with our heavily laden bikes.
We had to make a decision – attempt the ride out up the now wet and slippery road, or stay for another day and take the chance of the road drying. But of course that chance could also included many more days of rain as we are in the rainy season.
After walking on the road for a bit and confirming it was indeed slippery, we decided to attempt to make our way to Coban and find a suitable hotel for our down day activities which we also hoped would include some NCAA football on ESPN and an internet connection.
Within ½ mile of riding we had to stop where a truck was stuck trying to get up a particularly slippery section of the road. There were about 6 young men pushing the truck from the rear and about four pulling on ropes from the front. They got the truck up the slope and waved for us to travel through. Roger and I discussed the line we should take since there was a large berm in the middle and a deep rut on each side.

I went first and though slipping and sliding I negotiated that section. I stopped to wait on Roger and saw him go down. I rode a little further up the hill to park my bike so I could go help him. By the time I had walked down the hill, the men had tied their ropes to the front of Roger’s bike and they were proceeding to push and drag his bike up the slope in the same manner as they had assisted the truck. We watched these men help five more trucks through this treacherous section of road before we left.
Further up the hill, I stalled my engine while picking a line through a particular rocky section. I caught the bike but the weight was more than I could hold and I had to let it fall over. Twice I tried to pick the bike up but could not lift the bike with all my baggage. I decided to wait until someone came by or for Roger to notice I was no longer behind him and then walk down the mountain to help. I really did not want to unload the bike.

After about 10 minutes with no help, I decided to try and lift the bike again. This time I was successful. As I started to ride off, I met Roger who had walked about ½ mile down the hill. I rode up to where his bike was parked and waited for him to walk back up the hill.
The remainder of the ride was uneventful although slippery in places.
On the way into Coban, we took some photographs of some mountains totally covered with corn fields. We have both lived in Germany and Italy and we were amazed at the steep slopes of the vineyards, but we both agreed that the cornfields were actually steeper. As it is harvest season we m

et many men and women carrying large bags filled with ears of corn. I would estimate each bag was about two bushels and they were carrying them on their backs with a band around their heads. This hard labor was being done for long distances and in mountainous terrain.

In Coban, we washed our clothes in the shower, perform bike maintenance, made Skype calls, but watched no football as soccer dominated all the sports channels. Over the internet, we both celebrated as we learned Auburn beat Arkansas and Mississippi State upset Florida.
From the two of us “War Eagle” and “Go Dawgs”

Zonas y Derrumbes

Oct 14, 2010
We departed Comitan Mexico for an uneventful ride to the border (Zonas) with Guatemala at La Mesilla. The clearance from Mexico was easy. The ride between the border posts of the two countries was at best bizarre. There is a distance of about two miles of no-man’s land or a tax free zone. The road is a basic two lane stretch with vendors selling any and everything but mostly clothing occupying about half of the lane on each side of the road. The middle lane is occupied by hundreds of shoppers, cars and three-wheeled taxi trucks going in one direction and the two of us on our 40” wide motorcycles going the other way. We videoed this section and hope you are able to view this mass confusion.
Once we made our way through this chaotic mass, we processed through Guatemala migration which cost us 10 Mexican Pesos (8 cents) to have the passport stamped. These were Guatemalan officials but they would not take Guatemalan Quetzals (money.) Processing the bikes through customs cost us 40 quetzals ($5.00) each. The crossing was easy but still took about one hour to do all the paperwork.


Roger speaking:
After we left the border, we were soon immersed in a traffic fandango. Seems there was a recent landslide on the road less traveled . After about an hour, we were able to pass the mess.
Gary and I quickly made friends with the folks who were standing around watching the road being cleared. A good looking young man posed for a photo:
We must have passed at least 50 landslides during the day. Some completely filled the road, some washed out the road, some were in the process of cleanup, some were completed. Some portions of pavement had dropped by more than a foot causing difficulty maneuvering from the low to the high portions. You can see here a slide where the entire side of the mountain has covered the road.
Treacherous riding all day with the slides and muddy roads.

But, life goes on for the people living in the landslide prone area. We passed by a farmer who was preparing a field for planting. Bet you thought this method of farming was in a bygone era. Humble people, these peasant farmers. And their homes speak of a less than a lavish lifestyle.
But they are friendly and helpful and grab their gratitude from the land. Finally, here is a picture of a hot water heater. Think of a 6 volt coil for an old tractor wired into a 220 volt circuit with water running through it. It’s ugly but it works. That’s life in the third world.

Land of Topes and Cuota Roads

In an earlier post it was mentioned that I had solved my GPS problem through some creative MacGyvering. Turns out we were not so sharp. When I plugged the unit in yesterday morning, smoke rolled from the wiring. So another day without direction from Ruth (Ruth is the name of my GPS and is the same as my sister who is always telling everyone what to do.) Last night my solution was to stick coated wires directly to the pin outs on the plugs, but first I had to clean out all the Shoe Goo from the original "fix." With the wires stuck directly to the pins the unit tested fine so again I Shoe Gooed everything into place and let it set overnight. To hedge my bets, I contacted my son-in-law and had him cut another connector from another one of my bikes and asked my wife to mail this connector to a friend in Panama.

This morning the GPS worked fine for about 2 hours then quit again. Sure hope the replacement plug arrives in Panama by the time we arrive.

Today was a tough morning with what seemed like another 1000 topes which are causing Roger a lot of problems as his bike bottoms out on many of them.

There we lots of fires along the road sides as the farmers were burning their fields. Sure did not help my sinuses nor the head cold I have.

One of my new friends.

We decided to take the cuota roads (tolls) so we could make some time. We estimate the tolls equal to about 10 cents per mile. But we have decided that we would spend more than that on extra hotel bills with the inherent delays the free roads create. Note: Even the toll roads have many topes and several sections were very rough. Probably from the flooding by two recent tropical storms.

We transitioned from the Caribbean coast line to mountains in the extreme south central Mexico. Very scenic and very cool by the end of the day.

We are spending the night in San Cristobal de la Casa at the Hotel Merposur. One of the nicer places we've stayed and one of the less expensive. Highly recommended. Dinner tonight was beef steak tacos and a soft drink - about $1.65 each.

Hot today, chili tomorrow

And boy was it hot! We rode a little over three hundred miles today on roads filled with potholes, trucks and topes (speed bumps). The potholes, I expect, are the result of excessive rain this summer -- the signs are everywhere -- washed out roads, fence lines full of debris. The trucks are obstensibly, moving the wares of commerce and that is a good thing. The topes are a successful method of slowing down traffic. Each village will have topes as you enter and exit their community. Some are small irritating strips of asphalt, some are 9" tall and the bike will fit on top, some are marked, some are not. Like them or not, they slow down traffic. I scrapped my skidplate seven times today on the topes.

We needed to exchange dollars for pesos today so we found a small town with two banks. At the first, the nice teller told me they did not exchange monies. I asked her if they had an ATM machine and showed her my card. She said they had two ATM's but she didn't expect my card would work -- she was right. So, I went to the other bank. The first teller handed me off to another teller. He wanted to see my passport and after 5 minutes of entering information in the computer, he said he needed a photocopy of my passport. I went out to the bike and retrieved a copy. When I gave it to him, he said he needed another copy -- so, back to the bike. When he was finally finished, he handed me off to another teller who concluded the transaction. Took about an hour, not counting the time to get to and from the town which was not on our route. Just another day in Mexico.

I have been remiss in not mentioning a special happening that is taking place. On 7 October, Stacy, Christian and Ashley (our first China doll) left for China to collect our second China doll, Ava Grace. If your interest is picqued, you may follow their activities at: http://www.peacefulpanda.blogspot.com

Tomorrow we move away from the humid/hot coast to some highlands. Hopefully a reprieve from the heat.

A few of my thoughts. First, riding over a thousand miles in two days is a buttocks nightmare and mine have seen a nuclear cloud. Second, it's hot and I had become accustomed to the cool weather in Tennessee.

So, we left San Franando and headed south to Tampico. After three stops by the federales and three by the local police of the jurisdiction that we were in, we were only hasseled once and that was approaching Tampico. We were riding along with traffic on a four lane road when a police car with flashing lights pulled us over. There initial offer was to pay them $100 each and they would not write us a ticket. After some negotiating, we paid 100 pesos each (about $8) and went on our way. It was a win/win for them and a no-win/no-win for us but it was only $8.

We passed the demarcation for the tropic of cancer today. For those students, the tropic of cancer is located 23.5 degrees north of the equator. The tropic of capricorn (in the southern hemisphere) is located 23.5 degrees south of the equator. The earth is tilted 23.5 degrees from vertical and in its rotation around the earth, the sun has an apparent movement within the limits between the two tropic boundaries. The longest day of summer in the northern hemisphere (and the shortest day in the southern hemisphere) is when the sun is over the tropic of cancer (and vice-versa when the sun is over the tropic of capricorn.

Gary's GPS connection failed and he was directionless and distraught for most of the day. After much thought and a drink of whiskey, a solution was reached on how to repair the connection -- two new wires and a little shoe glue solved the problem.

Pray for Mexico - The DixieOutlawS have arrived

Got away from Corpus at 0805 - had to stand at attention while the National Anthem was played. Too many rules at the Navy Lodge not to mention Roger was hassled coming on base without a reflective vest. Just enough hassle to remind us why we are glad to be out of some of the Mickey Mouse rules.
170 miles to the border. Took one hour to process both of us and we were the only ones being processed. Normal drill - extra copies of everything including the form the immigration guy just gave us. Cost $24 for the tourist tax, but this time payable at the border. This is one of the easier borders to cross. While Roger was finishing his paper work, I went to the bikes to wait. Two cute customs agents came over to the bikes, and I thinking chick magnet. No they were on business and wanted to know what I had in every bag. Fortunately, they believed me and didn't make me unpack anything. I asked them if I could take their picture next to the bikes. They said it was forbidden. Just remember all this conversation was going on with them speaking no English and with me returning the favor and speaking no Spanish.
Since it is Sunday, the border banks were closed. We decided we would ride until we could find a bank futher down the road for currency exchange.
Made it to San Fernando about 100 miles south of the border. Had to find an ATM since it was time for fuel. Found an ATM in a grocery store. We decided it was time to call it a day since we didn't want to be out at night and we had ridden 275 miles in to a stiff head wind all day.

Found a hotel with a gated wall and decided it was a secure place to stay. While checking in ($44 for the night), I asked Roger if he smelled cannibis burning. He said he did and we could also smell it outside. Later we noticed several cars pull in then leave shortly. Looks like we are staying with the town supplier. Oh well, maybe the owner has protection since he seems to be on the cartel's side.
We rode into town looking for a place to eat, but seemed like all were closed for Sunday. We decided to go grocery shopping. I watched the bikes while Roger did the "shopping."

While waiting with the bikes, a police truck pulled in behind me in a rapid manner. Both doors swung open and two policemen we out of their patrol truck quickly and headed towards me. One was in plain clothes but had Commandante printed on his shirt and a pistol on his hip.

I shook hands with him. Again a bilingual conversation ensued. He asked for my identification, wanted to know where we were going, where we had come from and where we were staying. I got across to him that we were on in transito - see I do know Spanish. The other policemen asked me my friends name. They were all business, I didn't think it appropriate to ask them for a photo op. Guess they had gotten word we were staying at Hotel Hashish.

Roger came out with the poorest excuse for dinner saying there wasn't much pickings to be had. We shared one can of tuna, two kaiser rolls, some baby gouda cheese and some potato chips. All this fine shopping by my friend while I am fending off the Policia.






As normal in Latin America, the hotel staff allows you to part your bikes next to your room - more accomodating than the Navy Lodge at CC

Gary

Underway

Roger and I met west of B'ham. A 120 mile ride for me and bit further for Roger. From there we rode to Amite, LA where we spent the night with JC and Alice Blades. JC is one of our riding buddies and who went to Alaska with us in 2004. JC is the cook supreme (he does the cooking for us on our trips together. For the night JC BBQed some spare ribs which measured up to his high standard.

For the day Roger rode 520 miles and I had 427.

Here we are ready to depart JC's for Corpus Christi. It was one long day as we rode through downtown Houston which was onsumed by a traffic jam. We arrived in Corpus as the sun was setting. We rode 563 miles on this leg and I pray this will be the last of the legs of this length. If not I'm gonna need a butt transplant. Sure makes a difference when one has not done the long distance conditioning. At dinner I told Roger that was a long day on a KLR. My longest to this point. Both of us admitted we were beat down a bit.

One more photo of the sun setting on us at the Navy Air Station - Corpus Christi.

Tomorrow we intend to cross in Mexico at Brownsville/Matamoros.

Gary

Day before departure

Been a hectic couple of days. In my third post I mentioned breaking my new Pentax camera. Squaretrade said I needed to own the camera for 60 days before they would cover it. Called Pentax and gratefully they agreed to repair the camera under warranty. Told the repair shop on my inpending departure and to their credit they returned my "repaired" camera last Thursday. I took about 6 photos with the camera on Friday and then on Monday the camera would not turn on. Shipped the camera back to Pentax today, so I am using my old digital camera as backup. Oh well?

Yesterday I unpacked and repacked the bike and made an inventory so I would know here everything is packed. Here is a photo of the packed bike ready to leave.

I taken the sailboat off the lake and done general winterizing around the farm. The rest is up to Angie and whoever she can conjole into helping her if issues arise.

Wonder what we carry on a trip like this? The list is too long to post.
Gary

Down to Four Days and check list complete

We are getting down to launch time and it has been a busy time of prep. Had to get a couple of things out of the way. The most significant was to get the 80,000 mile crash out of my system. I crashed pretty hard 6 years ago this past weekend and it came at about the 75,000 mile point in my riding. On 8 September of this year had another hard crash. It had been about 80,000 miles since the 2004 crash. I went down the asphalt at 45 mph for ab out 80 ft. while the bike went 150 ft. Fortunately, x-rays said nothing was broken, but sure have a sore left thumb and right shoulder. Not road rash or bruises. Thanks to good riding gear which took the brunt of the abuse along with the bike. Now that this is off the check list we are ready to go.

Roger and I met on 21 September to compare loads and to eliminate duplicates of tools where we didn't think we would need two of the same item.

Gary's baggage

We have bought our Mexican liability insurance and started or malaria pill routine.

Here is a map with the general outline of our trip. Where the lines join in Chile we will basically return on the same route we took down. We are still undecided whether to fly from Panama to Colombia or to take a sail boat to by-pass the Darien Gap.

Latest news this past week from areas of expected travel: Floods in Southern Mexico and Guatemala wash out the roads, 20 tourist kidnapped in Acapulco, coup attempt in Ecuador with borders being closed. Middle of rainy season in Panama with travel agencies not recommending travel during October or November.

Is this going to be a fun trip or what?

Gary