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