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.