While riding through the city of Escuintla on my way to the border with El Salvador, a taxi driver had the bright idea to turn left in front of me. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to stop before hitting him, as I had already tested my emergency braking earlier in the morning on the wet roads. Instead, I tried to make an emergency avoidance maneuver in front of him, as there was traffic coming up behind him including a huge chicken bus. There was no way I’d be able to make it past him unless he stopped his taxi, which he never did. I impacted the front of his car and was thrown off the front of the bike, did 2 somersaults in the air, hit the ground and slide about 10 feet into a drainage ditch full of water. When I was flying through the air and sliding on the ground, the only thoughts in my head were “This is me dying, this is me dying…”. I was blown away when I stopped sliding and realized that I could move my arms and my legs without too much pain, and was able to stand up without any problems.

I crawled out of the drainage ditch and went to assess the situation. My luggage had exploded and I had gear all over the road. Traffic had stopped, and I ran into the road to start collecting things. I also had my eyes open to the group of people who had started to gather to see what had happened, to make sure they didn’t start nicking things. After collecting everything from the road and pushing the bike out of the way of traffic, I went to talk with the other guy in the accident. He was a taxi driver and didn’t own the car, so we called the cars owner and he came by after 10 minutes. After that, I only talked with him and not the taxi driver. By that time, the Police had come as well. My Spanish has gotten a lot better (even if I never think it does) because I was able to talk to all of them about the accident. It basically came down to this: the taxi driver and owner had no money to pay me (so they say), and the police said that if we can’t come to an agreement on who owes who money right there that they would take the other driver and myself to jail and impound our vehicles until we figure it out. I was on the phone with a friend who was talking to a Guatemalan lawyer, and he confirmed that this was the case in Guatemala. So after learning that, I made the decision to call everything “even” and not have the guy pay me anything, even though the accident was his fault. We were able to convince the police to let us go without paying them any bribes, so everything worked out fine on that front. I realized that the most money I would get out of the other guy would be at maximum $500US, and there was no way that a day or multiple days in a Guatemalan jail would be worth it. Plus, I had the fact that I was a gringo going against me, especially if the driver and I went to a court to have things settled.

The taxi and Oscar post accident... you can see the crazy amount of damage to the front of his taxi.

You can see the point of impact with his vehicle and the drainage ditch I slid into after being thrown from the bike

The taxi was not usable after the accident. You can see my bike surrounded by kids checking out the damage in the background.

After dealing with the police and the other driver, I had to find a truck to take me and the bike somehwere. While making phone calls and talking with all of the local people standing around, a local guy drove by in his truck and offered to give me a ride to wherever I needed to go for free. I couldn’t believe the offer and was skeptical at first, but he had some of his workers come pick me up and take me to his house where I hung out with his wife and daughter, having lunch with them and after a few hours, loading up the truck and leaving. He took me to Panajachel, which is where I was living before I left. I wasn’t sure where I should go (either back to Antigua, or to Guatemala City), but I knew that I had good friends in Pana and could see a doctor about any injuries that I had.

After arriving back in Panajachel, I went to the local clinic and got checked out by a doctor. He said I was incredibly lucky to be young, strong, and in the shape I’m in as most other people would have broken bones or done worse in the kind of accident I was in. I only had some strained muscles and tendons in my shoulder and knee, so he prescribed some anti-inflammatory, pain pills, and some sleeping pills as I was having trouble sleeping.

It took me about a week to decide what to do with my trip: see if I can fix the bike and keep traveling, sell the bike for parts and start traveling on buses or hitchhiking, or call the trip finished and head back to the US to start a normal life. Through a friend of a friend, I found a great mechanic in Guatemala City who could actually straighten my bent frame, so I decided to head back to the Capital, drop the bike off with him and fly back to the states to buy parts and see my family for a couple of months.

My time at home was great. I spent a lot of time with my sister in Chicago and then my brother and the rest of my family in Michigan. After almost a year of being away, it was good to see everyone and recover both physically and mentally back at home. I found all of the parts I needed to fix up Oscar, and paid about $300 total for everything. It would have been about $1500US to buy all of the parts in Guatemala! So the trip home was definitely worth it in a monetary sense, and also allowed me to get my head back on straight and get motivated to do some proper traveling again. My brother was a big inspiration to me before returning to Guatemala, encouraging me to make the most of my trip and the incredible opportunities I’ve been blessed with while traveling. I came back to Guatemala inspired and excited to keep traveling again.

To get Oscar back into running shape, I needed to purchase an entire new front end, including the suspension, tire, headlight and bracket, handlebars, steering column, and radiator. The frame was slightly bent, but only the front portion where the steering column is housed. My mechanic, Fritz Klimowitz, is known to be the best mechanic throughout Central America. He’s a former motocross champion and well known mechanic in Guatemala City. I went to him based on the recommendation of a friend, so was hesitant to leave my bike with him at first. But after getting to Fritz’ shop and seeing proper motocross race bikes and adventure bikes (KLRs, huge BMW adventure bikes, Africa Twins, etc.) in his shop getting serviced and repaired, I was confident that he and his mechanics could handle the work.

Need a mechanic in Guatemala? Swing by FKR in Guatemala City - 10a. Calle 4-38, Zona 9

Oscar's front suspension, sheared in half by the accident

Fritz showing me how bent the steering column was, and what it is supposed to look like.

Bent, smashed, and twisted radiator. I'm glad the same thing didn't happen to me.

New (used) parts waiting to be installed! Getting these through US and Guatemalan customs was a breeze and I had no problems at the airport.

Oscar spent about a week with at Fritz’ shop getting fixed, and I spent my time with an incredible family that lives in the capital. I befriended them when I was staying in Antigua, and they opened their doors for me and allowed me to stay with them in Guatemala City free of charge, drove me around the city to handle the problems with my bike, and basically were a home away from home while I was taking care of everything. They even dropped me off and picked me up from the airport, and tried to help me with my expired documentation for my motorcycle.

The family and I spent time in Antigua and around the Capital, and I went to church with them a few times over the month I stayed with them.

My Guatemalan family in Antigua

My brother Arturo translating my Spanglish to proper Spanish with Fritz. Arturo was a huge help with Fritz and with SAT.

After being back in the states, the documentation for my motorcycle had expired and I had no luck getting an extension from SAT, who is the Guatemalan equivalent of the DMV in the states. Instead, I forged my documentation for my motorcycle and changed the expiration dates so that I could use the documentation when I get pulled over by the police. I could run into problems if they decide to call in my information to their headquarters and actually look up the information, but that has yet to happen in the 50+ times that I’ve been stopped by the police so far throughout Mexico and Guatemala. The only problem this presents is the fact that I won’t be able to cross the borders with Nicaragua or El Salvador, stopping my progress South. This was at first a tough decision for me, but after thinking about it, I’m excited to be going back to Mexico and have some big plans for my life when I get back there.

The first day of getting my bike back, I kept singing my own little diddy around my family… “Estoy feliz, estoy feliz… estoy super felizzzzz!” I gave them all rides on the back of Oscar through their neighborhood and helped run errands around the city.

The first ride on a fixed-up Oscar. New front end including a black fender to complete the Frankenstein look on the bike.

I ended up spending an extra week in Guatemala City getting some kinks worked out on Oscar. The new wheel I purchased wasn’t true and was causing some problems at speed with the steering and braking, but Fritz came through and fixed the problems and I was finally ready to hit the road and head back to Panajachel.

He let me know that if I ship the package to his shipper in Miami, I could get the shock delivered via one of his crates within a week, for a cost of only $15US. I jumped at the opportunity of a cheap and secure method of shipping the shock to Guatemala, and started to make plans for what I would do with my time in Panajachel.

I made quick friends with a few of the locals and some other travelers who were either working or spending time in Pana. Steve, a young guy from New Hampshire, convinced me to hop on a boat and head across the lake to San Marcos, a small town on the lake with some cliff jumping.

Cliff jumping in San Marcos, Lago de Atitlan, Guatemala

After spending a few hours swimming, jumping, and soaking up the sun, Steve and I went back to the docks to wait for a boat back to Panajachel. While sitting there, some of the young locals tried selling us their jewelry, clothes, and food. Instead of buying anything, I started singing songs and learning new songs from a few of the girls.

Singing with some Guatemalan kids in San Marcos

After a week of hanging out with Steve, traveling around the lake, chatting with girls, and cooking food on my roof-top campsite, my shock has finally arrived back in Guatemala City. I unload my luggage as much as possible, bringing only my essential survival gear and tools to fix my bike, and tighten my suspension down as much as it will go in hopes to eliminate the bouncy-bouncy-bouncy when I hit any kind of bump. I roll out of Panajachel and make my way to Guatemala City, a 2 hour ride that has been the most brutal I’ve ever had on my body. Every bump, dip, and pothole in the road goes straight up into my body, not having any suspension to dampen it. I can’t wait to get my shock swapped out and get out of the city.

I pick up the shock from my friends store and start poking around at some local motorcycle shops to see if I can use some space to swap the shock out. One of the mechanics at the local Honda shop says I can come early the next morning to do it before his bosses got there, and could use his tools if I needed any help.

The old and the new. Huge thanks goes out to Cogent Dynamics for helping out and sending the new shock to me free of charge!

The blown seal at the bottom of the shock

I always prefer working at a shop with proper air tools and cleaning supplies instead of on the side of the road.

Getting back to Panajachel on a fully functional bike was a pleasure. My friends there had convinced me to stay for Semana Santa, which is a hugely important week-long holiday in Latin America. All of the hostels bumped their prices up by 2 or 3 times the usual rate, so I ended up camping on the roof of a hostel for 2 weeks. I actually prefered the peace and tranquility of camping, going to sleep when it gets dark out and waking up with the sun and chickens in the morning. The week in Panajachel was wild, the streets packed with tourists and Guatemalans, beer trucks and dancing girls, and drinking on the streets from dawn to 3 or 4 in the morning. I was glad to not be actually traveling around Latin America during the week, as traffic was terrible and hostels and hotels were full up and increased in price.

I spent my days exploring around the lake on Oscar. The lake has some nice roads surrounding it, but I much preferred to take the secondary roads and small trails that wind through the mountains between small Mayan villages.

One of my favorite trails around Lago de Atitlan, between San Antonio Palopo and San Lucas Toliman. Follow the signs for the "Secondary road" to Panajachel

Oscar and I took a break on a washed out section of cement near San Antonio Palopo

After spending a few weeks in Panajachel, I decided to pack up my things and hit the road to El Salvador. But, as luck would have it, my plans would be permanently changed when I got close to the border, and the continuation of my trip would be up on the chopping block.

Parked in front of the Mexican Aduana near La Mesilla, Guatemala

First things first — check myself into Guatemala. I have my passport checked and stamped within 5 minutes, but end up staying in the office for another 15 minutes arguing with the workers about a 20 peso “fee” I was charged. All of the other people coming through were paying a fee ranging from 20-60 pesos, but I knew from reading online that the border crossing into Guatemala was free. So, I kept asking the workers for a receipt for my 20 pesos, which they kept giving excuses for not having.

“I’m waiting for a receipt for the 20 pesos I paid you.”
“You need to go to the bank to get the receipt.”
“Ok, which bank? Where is it? Do I need something from you to get the receipt?”
“It’s the bank down the street.” (points indiscriminately down the road)
“Which bank? What’s the name? I need a receipt for paying the 20 pesos”
“We don’t give receipts for that. It’s too small of a fee.”
“Look… I got a receipt for paying the 8 peso fumigation fee. Here it is. That’s even smaller!”

After going around in circles a few times, the boss in the office eventually caved in and gave me the 20 pesos back. I was glad that I had already had my Passport stamped and stayed in the office to get my fee returned, as it was just going into the pockets of the border workers. I’m also glad that my Spanish has improved enough to have an argument with someone and be successful. Previously, I have to express my disappointment with non-verbal cues, and can’t get across the point I’m trying to make. It’s now much easier for me to argue with someone, and understand what they’re saying to me in a difficult situation.

The next step was to checkin my motorcycle. In the next building, an officer fills out your paperwork, checks the VIN on your bike, and issues the necessary permits for entry. I then went to a bank next door to pay the import fee. After putting a sticker on my windshield, I hopped back on the bike, looked at my maps and GPS, and made my way towards Lago de Atitlan.

A few hours into Guatemala, and I’m stuck in traffic. There are lane closings on the road, and it’s full of construction trucks, chicken buses spewing diesel exhaust fumes in my face, cars, and motorcycles. I finally make it past traffic and get back on my way, but while trying to avoid a particularly large vibrador (speed bump), my rear wheel slips off the road and down 6″ onto the dirt side of the road. My bike slides sideways trying to gain traction, and the rear wheel comes over the curb and back up on the road. But at this point, the rear wheel is pointing at an angle and has instant traction, which causes me to lose control the bike and get thrown into a low-speed high side crash, where I get launched off the front of the bike and hit the ground.

My first concern after crashing is the traffic behind me. I hop up off the pavement and get out of the way while checking my body for serious injuries. Not feeling anything too serious, I lift up the bike and push it off the road to check for damage. It looks like the rack for my panniers has bent, but it’s still usable after using a ratchet strap to secure the pannier. I take a break for 15 minutes, waiting for the adrenaline to leave my body and assure that I’m not too injured. My hand is sore, and I have a couple of scraps along my shin from my impact with the road. Luckily, my gear did its job again and I have no serious injuries at all. I’m continually grateful that I purchased the gear I’m using as it’s protected me from lots of minor drops and falls and a couple more serious accidents.

I continue on my way to Lago de Atitlan, riding through the small mountain villages around the lake. It’s foggy and chilly in the mountains, and I’m anxiously waiting for my first glimpse of one of the most beautiful lakes in the world. Aldous Huxley said “Lake Como [a lake in Italy], it seems to me, touches on the limit of permissibly picturesque, but Atitlán is Como with additional embellishments of several immense volcanoes. It really is too much of a good thing.”

Before I glimpse the lake, I stumble upon a broken down adventure rider on the side of the road. I pull over and meet Jeremy, a Canadian guy riding through Central America on his 1979 Honda CX500. His blog is located at www.jgblog.ca.

Jeremy on his '79 CX500, broken down in the mountains near Lago de Atitlan

Jeremy has broken his clutch lever and is trying to repair it, but doesn’t have a bolt he can use. I dig through my spare parts and find a bolt to fix his clutch lever and reattach another broken part on his bike. Jeremy has been in Guatemala for a few weeks and is on his way to Antigua after spending some time in Lago de Atitlan. I decide to join him and we make our way to Antigua.

Riding secondary roads around the lake, Jeremy and I get a little turned around and I hear him honk behind me to pull over. I move to the side of the road and slow down, but my rear tire locks up and slides along some gravel, sending me down into a a low-side crash. Once again, I stand up and check myself for injuries. Sore from my previous accident in the day, this one just compounded the soreness and adds more to the other side of my body. Oscar, my bike, is even more beat up than before. My luggage rack has cracked in a couple of places and my pannier hangs down perilously close to the ground. I’ve also shattered my second tool-holder.

My second broken tool-holder at the front of the bike.

The bent and broken luggage rack after 2 crashes

Broken and cracked welds on the luggage rack

Twisted and bent headlight bracket and broken speedometer housing, but still usable

Jeremy and I spend an hour getting my luggage reattached and picking up tools from the ground. We’re still hoping to make it to Antigua, but it’s starting to get late and the light is fading. The last thing I want to do is ride at night in Guatemala, especially after having 2 crashes in my first day here. We are making good time on our way, but the sun dips behind the horizon and we’re riding in the dark. My headlight bracket has been tweaked and doesn’t allow my lighting to work very well, so I follow Jeremy closely. We get lost, turned around, and end up riding around Antigua for an hour before we finally make it into town and to a hostel that he knows about.

I’m sore, hungry, tired, and stressed after riding for the last 14 hours, 2 hours of that in the dark. It’s been a crazy first day in Guatemala: 2 crashes, a busted bike, sore body, and riding at night. How exciting! We settle down at the hostel and relax. I’m thankful that I’m ok and the damage to Oscar is minimal and can be easily repaired.

The next couple of days were spent relaxing and recuperating at the hostel and hanging out in Antigua, which I’ve had described to me as “Traveler’s Disneyland”. The town has been built up over the last 15 years around tourism. There are more travel companies, shops, restaurants, and coffee shops than I’ve seen in a long time. Not necessarily my preference when traveling, but there’s a great nightlife with loads of Spring Breakers on short trips, so the restaurants and bars are packed in the evenings.

Packed house on a Friday night in Antigua

Always nice to practice Spanish with a cute Guatemalan

Jeremy and I score some wonderful and safe free camping in the city, and jump all over the opportunity to camp out, work on our bikes, and stay somewhere for free. A couple of other Adventure motorcyclists are camping at the site, so we all tell stories and work on fixing our bikes. Nick, a British lad who has driven through Africa, Europe, and now the Americas, has his engine in pieces after bending a rod, and is doing a complete rebuild.

We setup shop at the campsite in an abandoned building, and spend spare time reading, exploring the markets and land around Antigua, and trying out some of the culinary options in Guatemala.

Camping in Antigua

Shop setup in an abandoned building in Antigua

The morning ritual, coffee and scrambled eggs

The people who ran the campsite kept asking us to move our tents to different areas of the property. I didn't mind too much, since I was staying there for free

Antigua from above

Oscar didn't mind posing for a few snapshots

After a couple of weeks in Antigua, Jeremy and I agree to make our way to Panajachel, a town on Lago de Atitlan. It’s only a 2 hour ride to Atitlan, but Jeremy and I ran into some trouble with a couple police officers. They waved us over to the side of the highway, asked for our documentation and started asking for “recuerdos”, or souvenirs. I play my usual non-Spanish speaking dumb gringo routine, and feign ignorance at what they’re asking for. Jeremy tries to do the same, but decides it will be easiest to give them some gas and a couple of cigarettes so we don’t have any more hassles.

Trying to figure out what to do with the corrupt police in Guatemala

Jeremy's got a good idea -- give them some gas from his spare tank

I make niceties with the other officer while smoking a cig

About 20 minutes after our run-in with the police, I feel a weird sensation on my bike while on a rough road. The bike seems to be bouncing up and down like a spring every time I hit a bump. I know I need to see what’s going on, but there’s no where on the road to pull off, so I have to wait a half mile until a dirt section opens up. I jump off the bike and see oil dripping from my new aftermarket rear suspension.

Checking out my blown out rear suspension

Aiiieee Guatemala... you've been rough to me so far

The main seal at the bottom of the shock has blown out, and all of the oil for dampening the suspension has dripped out onto my rear tire. I clean up the most I can, and decide that I can limp the bike the next 20km to Panajachel. Jeremy and I ride frustratingly slowly, but make our way to a cheap hotel in Panajachel.

Secure bike parking at the small hotel in Panajachel

Beautiful Lago de Atitlan from the roof of the hotel

Watching the sunset over the lake

The view of Volcán Atitlán from Panajachel

Enjoying the view

Panajachel is beautiful, and I’m glad to be stuck there waiting to see how I can fix my rear suspension. It’s been easy for me to settle down someplace for a couple of weeks or a month, and I decide to do the same in Panajachel, as it meets the requirements I have for someplace to stay: cheap, beautiful, comfortable, with friendly people and places to explore.

Hierve el Agua is about 70km east of Oaxaca City. Typically, you have to get a ride to Mitla then hop on a truck to take you through the mountains to Hierve el Agua. I decide to unload the bike a bit and take the long route through the mountains. Stopping in a couple of small villages at the base of the mountains, I ask around to find the trail and get pointed in the right direction. However, the locals warn me that the trail is 1-lane, dangerous, and remote. Perfect! I make my way on the trail, happy to be off-roading again with Oscar and taking in the incredible views.

Taking the back way to Hierve el Agua in Oaxaca, Mexico

The trail is rough and impassable at this point. Trying to turn around was a difficult process in the 90F heat. I sweat, curse, push, and drop Oscar a couple of times, but after digging out rocks for 15 minutes, eventually get the bike turned around and back to another fork in the trail.

The trail isn’t always as difficult, and eventually turns into a beautiful switchback dirt road that I keep turning around on to ride again and again.

After 3 hours of riding in the mountains, I arrive at Hierve el Agua just as a school field trip is leaving. The students are curious as to what the heck I’m doing out here, and a group of young girls comes up to talk to me and see if they can take pictures. I reply “Claro que si” or “Yes, of course” and the entire class comes running up to the bike, asking me the usual questions — where are you from, how old are you, how big is the bike, how fast does it go, you came all the way from Chicago?? Their teacher encourages them to speak with me in English, so I give her a hand and ask them all some easy questions while we’re snapping photos.

Taking my route through the mountains, I bypassed some of the “tolls” that a tourist usually has to pay to enter the site. The land that Hierve el Agua sits on is in dispute — two towns claim administration and therefore you have to pay twice to enter, once coming through the town and once at the site entrance. But, regardless of how you enter the site, it’s worth it.

One of the man-made swimming pools. The water is spring-fed and full of calcium carbonate and other minerals. After sweating my ass off riding through the mountains, I strip off my riding gear, take a swim, and lay in the sun.

Swimming at Hierve el Agua

The deposits of calcium carbonate.

Posing in front of cascada grande, or the big waterfall formed over thousands of years of deposits of calcium carbonate.

After leaving Hierve el Agua, I take the same trails back through the mountains to the main road that runs back to Oaxaca. There are numerous towns off of the highway that are full of artisans. I pick one, Santa Ana del Valle, which was recommended by some friends in the city.

I love going to small towns and villages in Mexico, and Santa Ana is exactly this. There were exactly 0 other tourists in the village for the 2 hours I was there, so I was able to meet some of the locals, play basketball with high-schoolers, and purchase my first souvenir of the trip.

Beautiful, hand-made rugs, runners, and bags were available in the town square. After admiring the pieces of art, I asked the ladies working the cost of some of the items and was blown away at how inexpensive they were. $30US for a large, 10'x20' rug, $10US for table runners, and less than $5 for handbags. I purchased a small pouch for my video camera, which they customized with a strap.

The ladies customizing my pouch with a new strap.

My first souvenir of the trip, a pouch for my camera.

After a couple of hours in Santa Ana del Valle, I swung by Tule to see the famous Arbol del Tule, which is the largest tree in the world.

The trunk of the tree has a circumference of almost 39', which is 10' bigger than the next largest tree, the Giant Sequoia

It's hard to get a good picture of the tree since it's so huge.

The beautiful manicured gardens around the church.

After 2 days in Oaxaca, I have to make my way South to exit the country asap. However, before I leave, I sign the wall at Hostel los Amigos.

Bike parking in the restaurant in Hostel los Amigos.

My signature in the upper left corner of the picture.

Previously, I took a van from Puerto Angel to Oaxaca City on Hwy-175. The van ride was miserable, since 175 is one of the curviest roads I’ve ever been on. But I vowed to myself that I would ride the road with Oscar and decide to head out and make my way back to the beach.

The view is incredible, but tough to see while riding Hwy-175 since you spend 8 hours going switchback-to-switchback.

I pulled off in one of the small towns along Hwy-175 to see a festival in full swing. I’m not in the mood to traipse around, so I go through the town to some small dirt roads and trails in the mountains. I’m looking for a campsite, as it’s getting later in the day and it’s still another 2 hours to the beach. After asking around and having no luck, I hop back on the bike and decide that I can make it to Puerto Angel just after dark.

Taking a break

The view for my break.

I only spend 2 days in Puerto Angel, relaxing, swimming, surfing, and hanging out with my old friends. Afterwards, I decide to make my way back to San Cristobal de las Casas, where I stayed for a month over Christmas and New Years. It’s relatively close to the border with Guatemala, and I want to see my friends there again before I exit the country.

I need to get to Guatemala before my visa and TVIP expire in Mexico. It’s been 6 months since I entered the country, and I’ve absolutely fallen in love. Originally, I was planning on spending 2 months in Mexico, but after arriving, my pace slowed way down, I made some fantastic friends, ate the best food of my life, and realized that I really do love this country and want to spend more time here. The scenery and culture are incredible — you can go from sweating your ass off at the beach in the morning to freezing your ass off 4 hours later in the mountains.

I passed through brutal deserts in Baja, had the scariest (and most epic) ride of my life on the Espinazo del Diablo, partied it up during Cervantino in Guanajuato, lived with Mexicans in Guadalajara, had my first serious accident of this trip while going to Mexico City, toured the country via bus and hitchhiking, lived on the beach in Oaxaca for a month, and explored so little of such a huge country that I can’t wait to go back.

If you want to take an adventure motorcycle trip, I would recommend Mexico any time. It’s close to the US, has easy entry/exit requirements, and has some of the best on-road and off-road riding I’ve ever done. The people, culture, and food are second to none, and you can spend years in Mexico without seeing everything. Yes, there are drug and violence problems in Mexico right now, but you need to take news reports with a grain of salt, and do your own research before you make a decision.

With only a month left on my tourist Visa for Mexico, and still without the parts I need for my motorcycle, I had to make some decisions on how to get the parts in time to exit the country. My sister and her husband are taking a vacation to Cancun, so I decide to hop a flight from Mexico City and join them for a few days at the beach. I order the parts and have them shipped to my sister, who can bring them along and give them to me when we meet. Score!

My time in Cancun was mixed. It was great seeing my sister and brother-in-law, but I was sick (for the first time on my trip) with traveler’s diarrhea. Also, Cancun was a huge shock to me after being in Mexico for the past 5 months. The beach is absolutely gorgeous, but lined with gigantic hotels and resorts as far as the eye can see. I was staying in the town of Cancun, as the prices of a hotel on the beach are ridiculous after paying <$5 a night throughout Mexico. Going out to the bars is also completely unlike the rest of Mexico — most places wanted a $40 cover charge to enter which also bought you drinks for the night. But $40! The most I’ve spent drinking in a night since getting to Mexico has been $15, tops. And it was depressing to see the typical American spring-breaker in Cancun, drunk, sunburned, yelling at people in English, and being obnoxious. I only spent 4 days in Cancun, but I know that’s more than enough for me. I came to the conclusion that:

Cancun is the Las Vegas of Mexico.

The good news is that I got a tan, spent time with some family, and got the parts I need for my motorcycle. Yipee!! Flying back to DF, the first thing I did was go and pick up my bike. Riding for the first time in 2 months was fantastic, even if it was through stop-and-go rush hour traffic.

With 2 weeks left before my Visa and Motorcycle Import are expired, I decided to head back to Guadalajara to see my friends and spend a few days before riding across Mexico to get to Guatemala. The ride to Guadalajara was long — 12 hours in the saddle in 1 day. While I could do that easily before, my stamina has disappeared and it was a long, hard 12 hour ride, but I had a big smile on my face the entire time.

I didn’t do much in Guadalajara besides relax with friends and eat my favorite foods.

After 2 months, Oscar is back on the road!

Delicious, delicious Tortas Ahogadas in Guadalajara

Chilling with Wendy and Danny

After spending a few days in Guadalajara, I made my way back to Guanajuato to see some friends, including Eric and Sabrina who have returned from Panama and settled down in Guanajuato for a few months.

Mid-ride coffee break between Guadalajara and Guanajuato

Mike and Sam grilling up dinner -- burgers, chorizo, and homemade guacamole (drool)

Eric and Sabrina settling in nicely to life in Guanajuato

Guanajuato at night, still one of the most beautiful places I've been in Mexico

After 2 days in Guanajuato, I made the long trek back to Oaxaca City.

Taking a break on the ride between Guanajuato and Oaxaca

Oscar taking a break along side the road

The beautiful view in Oaxaca

Another picture of the same thing, because it's awesome

Making it back to Oaxaca, I revisit Hostel Los Amigos, but this time with my bike in tow. I’m determined to check out the things I couldn’t see the last time I was here, and do some epic riding down to the beaches of Oaxaca.

After a quick shuttle ride from the beach, I arrived in Oaxaca City and wandered around until I found an inexpensive hostel named “Hostel los Amigos” with a motorcycle parked inside. One of the owners, Buba, is a fellow rider and member of a local riding club, “Curvas Peligrosas” or Dangerous Curves. The hostel is fairly new, and empty, so I score a cheap bed in the empty dorm room and start exploring the city known for its cuisine and political strife. 2 years ago, protestors took over the zocalo (main center) of town for 5 months until the military had to come in and force them out. The protests were started by the teachers of the local school union, hoping to improve their pay and benefits. More protests happened while I was in town, which I’ll get to in a bit.

A friend, Marion, and I went to the east part of Oaxaca to check out Mitla, one of the most important archeaological sites for the Zapotec culture. The site is about 40km east of the city, so we hopped a bus (man I miss my motorcycle) and road to the site, checking out the market along the way and eating some grub.

The ruins of Mitla in Oaxaca

The intricate mosaics on the ruins. No mortar was used to secure them! They all support each other

The church at Mitla. The red color was used all throughout the ruins (but has since faded from most parts)

My French friend Marion posing in Mitla

Peekaboo! The columns supported a huge roof (36 x 6.4m) over this part of the ruins

Marion and I tried to get a ride to Hierve el Agua, but the trucks wanted at least 5 people to go and the site was closing soon, so we decided against it and I vowed that I would come back to check it out on the motorcycle. Instead, we decided to check out the some of the famous local cuisine – tlayudas and chapulines.

Marion didn’t enjoy the chapulines (grasshoppers)

Chapulines!

Tlayudas - the original mexican pizza

I spent a couple of weeks in Oaxaca, relaxing, reading, exploring, and making friends, but the most exciting part of my time there was the political protests. I took a walk through town in the morning and noticed a huge military presence – an entire batallion (about 500) troops all geared up on trucks and buses, ready with their 50-caliber guns and riot gear. Little did I know that Felipe Calderon (the president of Mexico) was in town to meet with the local government and the teachers union, Section 22. However, Calderons security team decided that he shouldn’t meet with the teachers union because of security, and the teachers union started protesting. That’s when things turned for the worse, and a huge protest broke out. At first, I made my way back to the hostel and took cover on the roof, watching the progression of the protests. Tear gas was being launched at groups of protesters, who were smashing the windows on banks and government buildings, and throwing rocks at the riot police. One of my friends convinced me to head outside and see the action up close, so we both hit the street.

Sadly, my camera was broken so I didn’t get any shots of the action, but here’s some photos and video from press coverage.

Riot police all geared up

Huge groups of riot police swarmed the zocalo to try and handle the protestors

Some of the action between protestors and police
Protestors set ablaze to a full-sized semi truck that was carrying barriers and riot gear in the main zocalo of the city. Then the protestors held back the fire department from arriving at the scene, which took them almost 30 minutes.

The next day after the protests, people kept coming up to me and saying “I saw you on TV this morning! You’re the gringo that was on TV!” Worried at first that there was some footage of me protesting (and that I would be deported), I held a low profile until I found out the video was of me, watching the burning trailer, on the news. For the next week in town, people kept coming up to me and telling me that I was the guy on TV.
It was fun to be the famous gringo in town for a bit, but I had to take care of the missing parts for my motorcycle and leave town to head to Mexico City.

The beach in Puerto Angel, across the street from Hotel Almendro.

Chuma’s new pitbull puppy, Kilo. He’s only 6 weeks old at this point. We gave him a bath, and immediately afterwards, he went rolling in the dirt and sand to get the stink of the soap off of himself.

A completed deserted beach at Playa Ventanilla

Sunset at Zipolite. The surf break was just off the island in the middle, and broke both left and right depending on the swell.

A small swell breaking right one evening in Zipolite. The local surfos run the show in Zipolite but were more than happy to let a gringo catch some of the crappy waves on the side.

My 2 best friends in Puerto Angel, Susan from NYC and Mr. Bean (the locals call him Frijole) from the Oregon coast. They both spend 5-6 months a year in Puerto Angel, escaping winter in the north.

Yes, there are sharks in the water here… big sharks. This one was caught by some of the fisherman/surfos in Puerto Angel.

I convinced Wendy from Guadalajara to come to Puerto Angel for a week to celebrate her birthday. We hired a boat for the day and went exploring in the ocean.

Swimming with sea turtles in open water. This turtle had some plastic netting caught on his flipper, so we removed it and let him continue on his way.

Wendy and our skipper

We spent an hour on this private beach which is only accessible by boat.

We also took a boat tour of the mangroves in Playa Ventanilla. Beautiful toucan birds and huge crocodiles were everywhere. A group of families have created an animal reservation in Playa Ventanilla, helping to improve the population numbers of the crocodiles and protect the sea turtles and their eggs during nesting season. It’s a beautiful area to explore, and very inexpensive at 80 pesos/person for a tour of a few hours.

There were fences around most of the biggest crocodiles, but this one was just chilling near a walking path we were on. Our guide warned us that crocodiles can run faster than humans on land, but only after I had gotten within 10 feet to take this picture.

The other thing I spent most of my time doing in Puerto Angel was reading on my new Christmas gift, the Amazon Kindle. This device is seriously the most kick-ass thing ever to come along for motorcycle travellers. I’ve loaded up PDF versions of travel guides for all of the countries I’ll be visiting, along with PDF topographic and street maps. All of the text in the PDFs is indexed, which means you can do a quick search on the Kindle and have all relevant information come up within a few seconds.

The battery life is close to a month… a real actual month and not a marketing-speak month. It’s lightweight at 8.5oz, or with the lighted cover, about 15oz, and packs much easier than carrying along a selection of paperback books and travel guides. At this point, I’ve given away my paperback travel guides and other books I was carrying. The lighted cover is great for reading at night or in your tent, and can also double for an emergency flashlight. My version of the Kindle includes Wifi, and has been very useful for discreetly finding open Wifi hotspots that I can then use with my netbook.

After purchasing some ebooks and downloading a ton of ebooks from the public domain, I’ve got close to 100 novels and stories with me at all times. So, whenever I’ve got down time, I whip out my Kindle and read. I’ve also been using a piece of software called Calibre, which I setup to automatically download digital content from some of my favorite websites and put it on my Kindle about twice a week. With Calibre, I’m able to read the NYTimes, Chicago Tribune, The Economist, CNN, ArsTechnica, Slashdot, and all of my other favorite websites at any time, without needing to have internet access.

After spending a month in Puerto Angel, I was ready to move on. I decided to head to the city of Oaxaca while I wait for my motorcycle parts to arrive to Mexico City.

Head on over to his site to read the interview and order the DVD.

This one contains a couple parts for my motorcycle, a pair of winter motorcycle gloves, a couple of books, and a Christmas gift, an Amazon Kindle!

With some of the spare time I had in San Cristobal, I decided to take photos of some of the great street art and graffiti. It’s very popular in San Cristobal, and it’s more original than most other places that I’ve seen.

Stop torture!

A Zapotista cat. Translation: Liberate! God is shit!

One of my favorites – corporate workers following the grim reaper to their death

Get informed, get organized, get control. The revolution has already begun.

Frida Kahlo saying “Fuck shit up!”

My beautiful hippy friend friend Melissa imitating The Virgen de Guadalupe with Nemi Zapata above

I’m still waiting on another package in Mexico City with a new front brake rotor, but the package is still in limbo with Mexican customs, so I have some more time to burn until it arrives. I decided to head to the beaches of Oaxaca after hearing great things about them from everyone in San Cristobal. I don’t want to take a bus – it’s expensive, long, and uncomfortable, so I decide to hitchhike there. A couple of guys I’ve met in San Cristobal decide to join me, but the morning we are supposed to leave, they both back out, so I’m hitching solo.

Early morning in San Cristobal – cold and foggy.

I’ve never hitched before, but get some good advice from the folks at Hostel Ruca Che in San Cristobal – stay near the Cuota (toll) roads, make sure you have space in front of and behind you so people driving can see you and have enough time to stop, and a great place to grab a ride is at a toll booth. I take all of these things into consideration and head out of town to the cuota road that heads west towards the state of Oaxaca.

My first ride is with a middle aged man from Veracruz. He’s heading home to family after spending a week in Chiapas for work, and we swap stories of traveling and he tells me about his family. He also offers to drive me to his place in Veracruz, but I decline because I want to get to the beaches in Oaxaca. After a 3 hour ride, he drops me off at the intersection of some cuota roads. My next 3 rides are short – less than 15 minutes each, but every one is interesting. A car full of girls drives by, screams, slams on their brakes, and reverses back to where I’m standing. A husband and wife pick me up with their 6 year old daughter in the back seat, who is sitting there with her birthday cake on the way to their family party. The next ride is from an old Mexican couple in a huge pickup truck.

The view from a back of a pickup truck in southern Mexico

Hitching a ride!

After getting dropped off by the old couple, I walk through a small Mexican town so that I can be at the edge of town heading towards Oaxaca. I’m not having any luck getting a ride, and the sun is blazing down on me as it’s the middle of the afternoon. A few taxi drivers are relaxing and hanging out in the shade near a restaurant and call me over. I chat with them for a while, smoke cigarettes, tell stories, and one of the guys offers to drive me for free to the next major town where it will be easier for me to catch a ride. Great!

The next ride I get is from a 80s American-music loving trucker, on a long distance haul from southern Mexico to northern Mexico. He’s playing songs that I haven’t heard since the easy-listening station at the orthodontist office. But, we get along well and chat as much as we can. We drive through miles and miles of wind farms, and he drops me off in the middle of them at an intersection. The sun is setting, the wind is blowing hard, and it’s starting to get cold. There’s nothing around except windmills and 1 Pemex gas station. I realize there’s no way I’m going to get a ride after dark, and I’ve got a splitting headache from sitting & standing in the sun all day long. I decide to sleep at the Pemex, next to the building and protected from the brutal wind.

The windmills

My bed for the night, a Pemex gas station

It’s a long night, but I manage to sleep decently well after the security guard at the gas station tucked me in on the cement ground with his blanket. In the morning, he also offers to show me the right bus to take into the closest town of Salina Cruz. Salina Cruz is a major industrial port in Mexico, and it has bus routes to the beaches in Oaxaca. I get there early in the morning and check out my options – no busses are available until 5pm, and it’s 8am. I’m not opposed to taking a bus at this point, as I’m still tired and feeling sick from the previous day of hitching. But, not wanting to wait all day in Salina Cruz to arrive at the beaches past dark, I say “screw it” and start walking towards the edge of town to look for a ride.

A truck stops after 5 minutes and offers me a ride. There’s 3 guys in the cab, and one of them speaks English after living in LA for 3 years, so I hop into the back and settle down for a long ride. They’re heading to the beach as well and can take me most of the way. Score! But, my gut is telling me something… there’s something I don’t trust about these guys. This is confirmed at our first stop for something to drink, when they ask me to open my bag and show them what’s inside. I ask them why, and tell them I’m not carrying anything illegal like firearms or drugs. They nod their head but insist on seeing inside my bag. I open it up to show them the surface, and close it shortly thereafter. We get back into the truck and continue on the way, but now my gut is SCREAMING to me that something is not right. These guys may be small, but there’s 3 of them, and they could have a weapon, or they could call ahead to their friends and jump me whenever they want. So I take the matter into my own hands and hop out of the back of the truck at the next set of topes (speedbumps). They don’t notice, as they continued on driving without me. But I’m glad I listened to my gut, because if something did happen, I would have beaten myself up over it. On this trip, I’ve learned to listen to my stomach and follow my instincts, and I have had a  pretty uneventful travel for the last 6 months (which is a good thing).

It’s not long until I’m able to hitch another ride. 3 hours in the back of another truck, and I see a sign for “Puerto Angel”, which I recall being a beach that Eric  and Sabrina highly recommended to me after they spent time there. I jump out of the truck and into a shared-fare taxi with 5 other people. Rolling into Puerto Angel around noon, I find a nice hotel, negotiate the price down to something I’m comfortable with, unpack my bag, and go jump into the water. It’s the best feeling in the world after being without a place to lay my head the last 2 days, and I decide to spend a good amount of time in Puerto Angel relaxing, recuperating, and hanging out with Mexican and American expats. Puerto Angel is a small fishing village with minimal tourist infrastructure, but I’ve got a beach, a cheap place to stay, internet, and some new friends with a car

I’ve finally realized something after traveling for the last 6 months – my focus has moved from an “adventure motorcycle trip” into learning to live my life on the road, with the motorcycle now being my biggest hobby/love while I truly live abroad. I’ve been without motorcycle for the last 2 months, and the 5 weeks before that, I was living full-time in Guadalajara. So almost 3 months not making any progress on my way South, completing one of my original trip goals. And that doesn’t bother me, at all. Of course I miss my bike, Oscar. I dream of it regularly, and take every chance I can to talk about motorcycles with locals and other travelers. But at this point, the motorcycle is just my preferred method of transportation. I’ve ridden buses, hitchhiked, taken taxis, shared vans and boats, most everything. And while nothing compares to the freedom, spontaneity, and excitement of being on a motorcycle, my trip is now much less about the riding and more about the people I meet.

You can reach any restaurant in a city, see any site hundreds of miles from the city, visit anything that sparks your interest IN THE WORLD, all without the barrier of finding transportation and paying for it. And what’s more fun than making a new friend and taking them along with you? I’ve had a great time sightseeing around cities with a local sitting behind me, giving directions, pointing out the interesting things, and making the experience that much richer. You also get that experience hitchiking, albeit differently. Not so much on a long-distance bus, in my experience, which is one of the reasons I don’t like buses (in addition to not fitting on them, physically).

Walking into the park, I got the chills… even though it was 80 degrees out. The ruins are incredible – white rock structures jutting up into the sky, propped up against the backdrop of the rainforest. The 3 of us explore all over the park, walking up and down the stairs to most all of the major ruins, inside tunnels, down the mountains to see less excavated ruins, and even find a path into the dense forest to do some exploring of our own. I felt like a real explorer in the thick of the jungle, until my cell phone rang

I’ll let the pictures Eric and I took do the talking. If you are traveling through Mexico, you must visit Palenque. It’s been one of my favorite things from the trip so far.

Eric inside one of the tunnels in the ruins.

The next morning, I was woken up at 6:30am by a terrifying noise. It sounded like jaguars or another giant cat were in a fight and ready to rip your face off. I rolled out of bed and stumbled outside to see 4 howler monkeys climbing through the trees.

The next day, to help escape the heat, we booked a tour to see Misol Ha and Agua Azul, two water attractions between Palenque and San Cristobal. The giant waterfall at Misol Ha was featured in the movie Predator, so Eric and I were pretty excited to check it out and see if we could take any predator-esque photos ourselves.

Eric trying his best predator impression

After 30 minutes at Misol Ha, we continued onto Agua Azul, an absolutely beautiful river winding through the rain forest, with huge white waterfalls tumbling into crystal clear, turquoise water. We spent 4 hours here, swimming in the water, eating empanadas from tiendas, and relaxing in the sunlight. However, be careful as the current is very strong and surprised me a couple of times… and I’m a strong swimmer.

Diving into the turquoise water

I am still waiting for a package in San Cristobal, so I decide to hop another late-night bus back there to wait in my cheap hostel. Eric and Sabrina are continuing on to Guatemala tomorrow, so we’re finally parting ways. However, I’m sure we’ll meet up again on the road. We seem to travel about the same speed and I really enjoying traveling and spending time with them.

After I receive my package in San Cristobal, I’m going to go back to DF to finish fixing my moto, then return to Guadalajara for some more time. I’ve got some small projects I want to work on, and I miss Wendy and the other friends that I’ve made there. I’ll get south, eventually, but I don’t see any reason to be in a hurry to get there.

San Cristobal is a colonial town is set in a beautiful highland valley surrounded by pine forests. It’s in the heart of the indigenous population of Mexico, with the surrounding towns being Tzotzil and Tzeltal villages known for their artisan crafts. It’s also one of the centers of the Zapatista movement. In 1994, the Zapatista rebels took over the government offices before being driven off by the Mexican army after 4 days. There’s a lot of political commentary in the town, spray-painted on the sides of buildings and integrated into the artwork and decorations of places. Some businesses advertise their support of the Zapatistas, with profits being shared to help support the movement.

A couple of panoramic shots from the school, near the Catedral de Guadalupe

The house dog, Fiona

A Zapatista painting of Virgin of Guadalupe. Notice the bandoliers strung across her chest and the red bandana over her face, which are typical Zapatista symbols.

Eric, Sabrina and I cook up a “Mexican Christmas”dinner, with chicken, mashed potatoes, veggies, and beer.

An old man takes a nap standing up near his cart of cigarettes, candy, and sweets.

The zocalo in San Cristobal. Artisans from the area line the streets, selling home made scarves, bracelets, hats, and ponchos made from wool grown locally.

A parade through town for Barrio de Mexicanos

A parade in San Cristobal for New Years Eve. A line of trucks tours through the town, with different kinds of trees and men playing music in the bed of the trucks.

Kay and Dachary, from www.corporaterunaways, are also traveling down to Argentina on their motorcycles. I invite them to join us for a day or two, so they swing by before heading to Palenque and Guatemala.

Kay and Dachary on their F650’s

The 5 of us take a cambi ride (van’s that service rides to local areas for 10 pesos) to San Juan Chamula, an independent indigenous town about 10km away from San Cristobal. The main attraction here is the unique religious practices at the church in town. It’s a mixture of traditional Mayan religion and Christianity. Photography is absolutely prohibited inside the church, but I’ll never forget what it’s like inside. Hundreds of candles are setup along the pine-needle covered floors, in front of statues of saints. A thick cloud of incense hangs in the air, and people pray and chant in Tzotzil to the saints. The religious leaders, men covered in white tunics of thick wool, walk around and chant over people and perform healing rituals with chickens and CocaCola, which is thought to help allow evil spirits to be removed from a person through burping.

The church in San Juan Chamula

The ruins of the old church in San Juan Chamula are surrounded by a packed graveyard – some gravestones are piled on top of each other 4 deep.

I met Dana, from New Jersey, while watching the parade through town. She invited me to join her on a tour of a local artisan shop with the owner, Manuel, who grew up as a Tzotzil in the nearby area. He gave us a tour of his shop, which has rugs and other handmade artisans from the different small communities in Chiapas. He also showed us all of the different types of traditional dress that the people in the towns wear, which differs greatly from town-to-town.

After our tour of Manuel’s shop, he offered to take us to another local Tzotzil town, San Lorena Zinacantan. Manuel speaks Tzotzil, and was able to let us enter some of the artisans homes where they were making rugs by hand.

This woman gave us a local beverage, pox (pronounced posh), which is an inexpensive grain alcohol made from sugarcane. I purchased 2 bottles of the beverage, flavored with local fruits like melon. It’s strong and delicious, and only 10 pesos per bottle.

The church in Zinacantan.

I joined Eric & Sabrina for a party at their school for New Years Eve. A few more students joined the owner, Luis, and one of his teachers for an evening of Spanish-only speaking. I’m definitely the worst Spanish speaker in the group, with only 1 week of formal Spanish training under my belt. It’s still a great time, sharing stories, drinking wine & pox, and eating local foods. Afterwards, Eric, Sabrina and I wander around the town, grabbing drinks and enjoying the energy of the night. Sabrina runs into a friend that works at a local chocolate shop, and he invites us to a rooftop party. Everyone at the party is dancing, singing, passing around bottles of Mezcal and Pox, and enjoying a bonfire. We ring in the New Year by yelling “Feliz ano nuevo!”, hugging and kissing everyone around and watching fireworks explode all over the town.

San Cristobal is a great, interesting town that you can spend a week in without seeing and experiencing everything. There’s a large travelers crowd here, with inexpensive housing (I’m paying 40 pesos per day for my hostel), great cafes and restaurants, and lots of options for nightlife. Live music, DJs, comedy performances… this town has a lot to see and experience.

I’m still waiting for Mexican post to deliver a package to me here in San Cristobal, so I’m going to make the most of my time and head over to Palenque to see the ruins and rain forest. Eric and Sabrina are already there, so I’ll again join them after a long bus ride through the twisty mountain roads in Chiapas.

Lake Chapala, the biggest lake in Mexico

My view during lunch

Oscar and a huge gaggle of geese in the background

It’s starting to get dark on my way to DF, so I found a good place to stealth camp behind some trees on a newly harvested corn field. Originally, I was nervous about camping in Mexico, but if you’re smart about where you setup your camp, get there when it’s starting to get dark, and leave when the sun rises, you should be ok. Ben, over at Motorcycle Mexico, has a good interview about camping in Mexico with Federico from Zacatecas.

The next day, I hopped on the bike early in the morning and made my way to DF by going through Morelia. I get impatient stuck in construction traffic, so I start splitting lanes and taking residential streets to bypass. I haven’t eaten anything in 2 days, am impatient, and a little sick – a bad combination while riding. While splitting lanes on the right-hand side of traffic, my view is blocked by 2 large construction trucks, and I don’t see an intersection that I’m approaching. Once I see the intersection and a van going across it, it’s too late – I slam on my brakes as quickly as I can, but still end up t-boning the van at about 10mph.

It happened so fast that for a few minutes, I didn’t even know what happened. I pull my bike up and push it to the side of the road, and sit there checking over myself while the man from the van comes to check on me. I feel ok, but know that it could just be the adrenaline pumping through my body, so I relax and speak with the man. He’s dressed up in a suit and tie and on his way to a convention for Mormons. We get down to business settling up for the damage to his van. I pull out my wallet and give him all of it’s contents – 300 pesos. He insists that he needs more to fix the van, but I tell him that I have no more money and none in the ATM either. I lie, saying I’m going to DF to work and make more money, and after giving him my 300 pesos, won’t even have enough for gas to get there. He believes my lie and takes off while I look for a mechanic. Whew… I was lucky there. I could have been forced to pay thousands of pesos for the accident, or had the police called and had even more trouble, but I’m lucky and make it out only 300 pesos poorer.

Sorry, I didn’t take any pictures of the accident site or the guys car. I didn’t want to pull my camera out in front of him and start snapping pics.

My bent rim post-accident.

Post-accident, where my bike sits for the day while I wait for a new rim

I find an open business and some friendly folks who help me with my problems. I definitely need to get my wheel fixed, as it’s tweaked and bent and is rubbing against the forks every rotation. It’s exhausting pushing the bike 4 blocks to their business, but I make it and start the search for a mechanic to fix my wheel.

We stop by 2 repair shops to see if the rim can be salvaged, and they just laugh when they see it. Ok, I need a new wheel. A new one costs about 5000 pesos, way over what I can afford. I continue searching around the city and find a used KLR front rim for 800 pesos. Score! I thank my new friends that helped me on my search, and decide to get the hell out of Morelia after spending all day stuck there. I’m frustrated, hot, and sore, and just want to be alone in the mountains.

Oscar is not too happy. My steering is completely out of whack, and the entire bike shakes like I’m going to have a tank-slapper at any moment. I slow down and make my way out of the city and into the mountains. I really just want to get to DF to meet up with Wendy, get my bike to a mechanic, and relax. But, it’s too late and it starts to get dark in the mountains.

I search for some side roads or trails in the mountains but am having no luck. I’m about to resign myself to getting a hotel room, but I see some folks standing outside. I pull up along side them, asking “Donde puedo acampar circa de aqui?”, or “Where can I camp around here?” They insist on letting me camp in their yard for free, give me access to their bathrooms, and hand me an icy cold beer. The only positive thing that’s happened today are the friendly and helpful people I’ve met along the way.

Jose and his son, who let me camp in their yard.

The campsite is beautiful, tucked up into the mountains. I sleep well, wake up early, and hit the road to DF.

Earlier in the week, I reached out to the riding community in DF via Horizons Unlimited to see if there was someplace secure I could park my bike. I don’t want to ride very much in the city, and public transportation is great and incredibly cheap at 3 pesos per ticket. The response was incredible – multiple people offered up a place to park, a place to stay, and recommendations for a mechanic. I take Eduardo, also known as Dudu, up on his offer of a place to park. He lives in Tlalpan, a neighborhood of DF, that is close to where I’m planning to stay with Wendy and her best friend.

Eric is also in DF for the day, waiting on a flight back to the US. Wendy, Eduardo, Eric and I meet up and tour around the town, checking out the Zocalo, or main square, which is packed with Mexican tourists and has been transformed into a winter wonderland.

Standing next to the ice skating rink in 75 degree weather

Kids go sledding down a snowhill in front of the main Cathedral

They can also take mini snowmobiles around a small track…

or build a snowman!

Wendy and I spent a week together in DF, waiting for my motorcycle to get fixed. In addition to fixing the tweaked front end, I get some much needed maintenance done – oil change, valve check, chain work, and a general tune-up from Roberto Rojas. He’s a backyard mechanic that comes highly recommended by Eduardo and his group of riding pals.

The service, while slow, is excellent and inexpensive. Roberto’s information is:
Address: C. Ofelia #33, Tizapan San Angel, 01090
Telephone: 5668 5393

Wendy and I make the most of our time in DF, visiting the sites and relaxing with her friends.

Eric, Eduardo, and myself having lunch

***put information about flyers here***

I’m currently waiting on my stock front brake rotor to be shipped to DF before I can continue on Oscar, as a replacement is incredibly expensive in Mexico (around $400USD). Instead of sitting around waiting for Mexican post to deliver the replacement, I hopped on a bus to San Cristobal de las Casas, in the southern state of Chiapas, to meet up with Eric and Sabrina for Christmas and New Years.

A safe way to transport newspapers. I offered to help with Oscar, but he refused.

My Garmin Zumo GPS has been broken since I arrived in mainland Mexico almost a month ago, and I haven’t had an address for more than a couple of days so that Garmin could ship me a replacement unit under warranty. Instead, I’ve resorted to writing directions on a small sheet of paper and storing them on the sleeve of my Olympia X-Moto jacket. It has a nifty see-through waterproof pocket on the left sleeve, which I hadn’t really used before, but has now come in handy for storing paper notes. However, I’ve started to enjoy not having a GPS while traveling by myself for the past week. Instead of depending on another person (or device) for help, I have to do some research (reading ADV and HU, LonelyPlanet, etc.), consult maps, talk to my friends, and do some more thinking about my route than before. I’ve also found it much easier to navigate in a busy city or town by paying more attention to the road and none at all to the GPS. I also really enough getting a little lost and stopping to ask for directions. My Spanish needs some work, but I can ask some questions and understand basic directions from people. I usually ask a few different people along the way to make sure I’m on the right track, because I’ve noticed that people in Mexico will typically say that you’re on the right path and that you’re only 2 hours away. I guess they don’t like to disappoint us gringo travelers

I arrived in Guadalajara and spent a couple of days in Hostel Guadalajara Centro, a nice, inexpensive, centrally-located hostel. However, they didn’t have secure parking for the bike, and the vibe at the hostel was a bit unfriendly compared to the places I’ve been staying recently. But, I’m having a lot of fun with my friends here that I met in Zacatecas and am enjoying the energy of being back in a big city. My friends are studying in Guadalajara, and have a connection to a cheap apartment that I decide to take for a month. The plan will be to study Spanish via Rosetta Stone on my computer and live with Spanish-speaking room mates. At the same time, Guadalajara is located in an area of Mexico that I can take long weekend trips to explore. And… I can have an address for Garmin to ship me a new Zumo! Score. I get hooked up with a friend-of-a-friend, look at an apartment, and decide to take it. Located in the Centro near El Santuario, the apartment is huge, the room mates are friendly, and the cost is only 2000 pesos per month ($160US!).

Parking space inside my house

Some of the best tacos in Guadalajara are at Halcon’s. 6 pesos each, and absolutely delicious.

The Santuario

Guadalajara Centro

Beautiful sidewalk art

Most of the month is spent hanging out, exploring the city, eating tons of food, studying, sleeping, and taking weekend trips. I make good friends with one of the girls in a house near me, named Wendy. She joins me 2up on my weekend trips to Tequila, Sayulita, Puerto Vallarta, and Tepatitlan de Morelos.

Wendy getting ready to take her first long ride on a motorcycle

Tequila is only about an hour away from Guadalajara, and I want to take a distillery tour and learn more about the favorite beverage in Mexico.

The Cholula Factory in Tequila! My old room mates and I in Chicago would purchase the gigantic gallon size jug of Cholula and put it on everything we ate – breakfast, lunch, dinner, and desert.

Before our factory tour at the Jose Cuervo distillery

Out of sheer luck, the English speaking tour is very small (only 4 other people), and our guide happened to be a fellow Michigander and had lived in Chicago for some time. We become quick friends, and he hooked us up by letting us join the other 4 people in our group who purchased the expensive VIP tour tickets.

The barrels of Tequila aging

Samples were plentiful throughout the tour, all the way from Blanco to Anejo.

Part of the VIP tour is a special tequila tasting and a tour of the grounds and garden, which are spectacular. I also learned a great tip about drinking tequila – when you put the liquid in your mouth, breath IN through your nose. After you swallow, breath OUT through your mouth. It minimizes the burning sensation from tequila and helps improve the flavors your in your mouth and nose.

Having a good time on the tour.

I would highly recommend a tour at the Jose Cuervo factory. It cost about 150 pesos per person for a long guided tour, samples, and margaritas. However, plan on staying the night there as well (or taking some other form of transit back and forth). I was only able to sample a few of the Tequilas as I had to drive back to Guadalajara that evening.

Some of my room mates and other friends spent a weekend in Tepatitlan de Morelos, about 2 hours Northeast of Guadalajara, at a friends country house.

The ride there is spectacular, and Oscar is handling the 2-up riding surprisingly well.

My friends country house is fantastic. Way out in the countryside, surrounded by fields of agave, corn, and fruit trees. I take the opportunity to go exploring on an unloaded Oscar for a few hours.

Cruising through blue agave fields.

The crew – Mexican, German, Irish, and American

While I was walking around in Guadalajara, I saw a sign for casting of a Hollywood movie being shot in Guadalajara. The name? Mariachi Gringo. I’m the biggest (literally) gringo around, so I’ve gotta check it out and see if I can make my premiere on the big screen. The casting goes well, but unfortunately there was some miscommunication between myself and the casting agent, as I missed a meeting with the casting director who wanted me to have a speaking role in the movie. DOH! Instead, I’ll play the role of an extra, “Backpacker Gringo #1”. The pay is 700 pesos per day (score) and the work is a lot of fun. My fellow extras and I have a good time on set while filming our mundane parts – walking in and out of a bus 5 times, walking through a bus terminal multiple times, and other scenes in the Guadalajara bus terminal. It doesn’t hurt that the other extras are cute and like to help my practice my Spanish

Photos were not allowed on set, but I snuck a few anyways. Yeah, I’m a naughty extra.

Fellow extras. I make friends with them and am invited to stay for free in the Yucatan once I make it there.

My partner in crime, “Gringo Backpacker #2”.

One of the stars of the movie, Shawn Ashmore, who also stared as Iceman in Xmen, is playing the Mariachi Gringo. He’s a nice guy, but quiet and nervous during the first day of filming.

While talking with Wendy one evening about how I try to handle security on the road by looking as poor as possible, never washing my bike or riding gear and not having very many nice things, Wendy mentions that I do have 2 nice cameras and a nice cell phone. Time to solve the problem!

Point and shoot digital camera after scratching it up, taping, painting and breaking non-functional parts.

Flip Mino HD before

And after

I spend Thanksgiving by crashing a potluck party with some of my friends, but it turns out to be a great time. We’re warmly welcomed to the party, possibly because of the amount of alcohol we bring along.

Saying grace and giving Thanks

You may remember Cara from Zacatecas, who rode along with Saburro to Guanajuato and became a new member of the Adventure Biker gang.

Clean plate club! Especially on Thanksgiving

Travelers tip – if you’re going to crash a party, bring lots of liquor and wine. The host will go from “Who are you guys?” to “Ahhh come in come in! Welcome to my home!”

The next weekend trip was to the beach at Sayulita. It’s a longer ride to the coast, about 6 hours, but Wendy and I have a great time. We meet up with another biker along the way who is headed to Puerto Vallarta for a motorcycle rally. He’s not the best rider, as is evidenced by his almost hitting a bus head-on while going around a curve. Wendy screamed and I was sure he was going to go right under the bus, but at the last second he leaned the bike over a little more and just squeaked past. Not being too comfortable riding with him any more, I sped up and lose him once the road becomes curve after curve after curve.

My riding partner for a few hours

The road to the beach

We find a beautiful and inexpensive (70 pesos/tent) place to camp on the beach, named Palmar de Camaron.

I spend the next morning exploring all of Sayulita on an unloaded Oscar, taking every dirt road and trail I can find as well as exploring the beautiful neighborhoods and houses in the area. It’s the most touristy place I’ve been so far, and I don’t stick out as a Gringo here. However, all of the Americans and expats thing I’m loco for riding a moto through Mexico. As much as I do like the beach in Sayulita, I don’t like being in an American tourist town very much. I ask questions in Spanish and get replies in English, am given English menus, and pay the Gringo tax on everything.

Funny story – the rules of driving in Mexico are very chill, especially on a moto. You can pass on double yellow, on the right, on sidewalks, etc. Basically you can drive how you want and no one really cares. The only times I’ve ever been yelled at were in Sayulita and Puerto Vallarta, where old, gray-haired expat grandmothers scream to “SLOW DOWN” and “FOLLOW THE RULES”. I laugh at them, wave, and pull a wheelie instead

The riding is fantastic through the forests and dirt roads in Sayulita

Nap time!

I haven’t had any problems getting Oscar up after a nap during this trip. However, I dropped him on a steep incline, in dirt and sand, and had to drag the dropped bike a few feet to where I could get some traction on the ground. After exerting every ounce of strength that I have, I get the bike up and continue riding around the town. I’m sore for days after this incident… eek!

Walking on the beach and having a mini-photoshoot.

We make friends with a couple camping at the beach. Ryan, from San Diego, and his wife, Liliana, from Mexico, are artists that sell their wares around the country while traveling. They have just moved to Puerto Vallarta and invite us to join them for a couple of days. We didn’t plan on going to Puerto Vallarta, but with a free place to stay with friends, we decide to head south on the coast and check the town out.

Puerto Vallarta and the towns surrounding it are a sharp contrast to the rest of the places I’ve been to in Mexico. We spend 30 minutes trying to find public access to the beach north of PV, and I’m blown away by the number of mega resorts that line the beach for miles and miles. I’m glad we have a free place to stay with friendly people, as PV is very expensive and feels like I’m back in the US.

North of PV

Beautiful sunsets in PV

Our new friends and hosts for the night, Lily and Ryan

After spending a fantastic 5 weeks in Guadalajara, I decide to take off and make my way to Mexico City (DF) and then onto southern Mexico for the Holidays. Has my Spanish improved? I’m unsure, until I meet up with a Spanish-only speaking friend that I met my first few days in the city. She’s blown away by my improvement and my new ability to converse with her, whereas before we did a lot of sign language and Spanglish. So, I guess using Rosetta Stone and immersing yourself around Spanish speakers does help, even if it doesn’t feel like it at the time.

After missing our original meeting time at the bus station in Morelia, I eventually figure out how to use the pay phones in Mexico and meet with Mayra near the Centro of town (remind me that I need a cell phone). She’s with her friend, Chuy, who is going to spend the weekend with us as well. Our first stop is to the Museo de Dulces, a museum where they recreate the old-fashioned way of making candy that’s famous in Morelia. The tour is in Spanish, and I understand about 10% of it, but I do know that the candy tastes delicious fresh off the pot. It’s a fruity sugary candy, and reminds me of thick, sweet apple butter, but instead made with honey and a local fruit.

After the candy museum, we tour around the city, checking out other museums and the Dia de los Muertos artwork that’s on the street.

The artwork is done all with flowers, either petals or crushed flowers..

Hand painted giant skulls line some of the sidewalks in Morelia.

The next day in Patzcuaro, Mayra asks Chuy and I to help her to clean and decorate her grandparents grave in the cemetery in town. We went to the main street market to purchase yellow and white flowers, then went to the cemetery. There, we collected a few buckets of water and made our way to her grandparents grave. After removing any trash and debris, we cleaned and decorated the graves with flowers, and Mayra said a prayer to her family members.

The whole process was very special. Had I not been invited, I never would have gone to the cemetery as I would have felt like I was invading something very personal. And after visiting other larger cemeteries later in the day when they were filled with tourists, it was unique to be at a small cemetery with only other family members around.

My family for Dia de los Muertos

Mayra and Chuy gathering water down the street from the cemetery. The young boys were opportunistic and sat at the entrance to the cemetery with buckets full of water for 5 pesos each.

The cemetery was bustling at 9am, with many of the graves already cleaned and decorated.

Mayra praying at her Grandfather’s grave.

The next place on our list to visit was Janitzio, a small island in the middle of Lago (lake) de Patzcuaro. It’s main attraction is a giant hallow statue at the top of the island, which you can climb up and have a great view around the lake. There’s also a huge party on the island tonight, but we decide to skip that in favor of a more chill option.

The boat ride to Janitzio is fun, with a mariachi band playing on board and vendors selling ice cream and potato chips (the Mexican way, with spicy salsa, lime, and salt… mmm delicious).

On our way to Janitzio.

Just off the island, fisherman use butterfly nets to catch tiny 2” long white fish. The pescado blanco are deep fried and eaten whole on the island.

Our boat stops for a photo-op and one of the fisherman stops by for propinas (tips).

The butterfly fisherman and the island of Janitzio are also featured on the back of the 50 pesos bill.

A 130 foot statue of Jose Maria Morelos is on the top of the island, and has a staircase inside that winds to the top. It’s cramped and crowded, and took forever to get to the top for the view.

While climbing up the inside of the statue, I see a friend I had made back in La Paz, Baja, Mexico. Tina and her friend, Claudia, both from Germany, are doing an exchange program for students and travel around Mexico every weekend. We make plans to meet up later on.

That night, we make our way to Tzintzuntzan, another small town on Lago de Patzcuaro. Tzintzuntzan is known for its 2 huge cemeteries that are decorated to the hilt, food, music, and a general party atmosphere. We visit the graveyards and make our way up the hill to the ancient ruins. We happened to be getting to the ruins just in time for a match of Pelota purépecha, an ancient Mexican game like field-hockey but played with a giant flaming ball. The best part? The field boundary was created by the mob of people watching the event, and the ball would get flung into the center of the crowd. It was fun seeing everyone rush for cover.

We also visit Lago Zirahuen to relax, a smaller but more beautiful lake near Patzcuaro. It’s a perfect evening, with clouds rolling around but the sun still peaking through at times. We snap photos, drink Coke, and talk about traveling.

After a perfect weekend in Patzcuaro, I’m ready to hit the road and make my way to Guadalajara, the first big city I’ll see in Mexico. I’m looking forward to getting back into a big city, and already have a couple of friends staying there to show me the ropes.

And as a tip for travelers – step out of your comfort zone and meet new people. Meeting Sam and Mike in Guanjuato has allowed me to see so many things that I wouldn’t have been able to see otherwise, and stay in a couple of places for free. Plus, I met some amazing people whom I will be friends with forever. One of the things I’m trying to do on this trip is to not turn down any offers for a place to stay or a friend of a friend to go visit. So far, it’s gone very well for me, and I hope I can continue traveling this way throughout Central and South America.

I’ve realized how much more I will enjoy my trip by knowing Spanish, and I don’t want to wait until I get to Guatemala to study.

Yes this will probably make for a boring blog for the next month, but I’ll be making trips to the surrounding area to visit the sites. Current ideas include volcanoes near Colima, banana bread in San Blas and beaches in Manzanillo. Any other suggestions?

We picked up a few more bikes from Japan (Saburro on a BMW 1200GS and Sato on a Suzuki DR650), and a spare passenger, Cara, on our way to Guanajuato.

We kitted Cara up as much as we could – spare gloves, glasses, jackets and hats, as it’s cold in the morning on a bike. She loved the ride, except for the raccoon-face she had afterwards from the sun and the wind. Luckily, the ride was smooth and fast, with the only holdup being the most thorough police checkpoint I’ve had in Mexico so far. They pulled us all over and wanted to see our registration documents. Then, they radioed our VIN numbers to check on the bikes. After hearing something that settled their nerves, they let us leave with no other questions. I was nervous about this stop, since we were traveling with 4 bikes and 5 people, and while I know how I like to handle police interaction (act like a dumb American and speak only English), I was hoping that the rest of the group would be cool. Luckily, Brian, Saburro, and Sato don’t speak Spanish, and Cara was smart enough to stay quiet

When I saw Brian ask for this photo, I was just hoping the police officer wouldn’t freak out. She didn’t, and I was jealous I didn’t get a photo with her and her gun.

Arriving in Guanjuato, we promptly got lost, supposedly .01mi away from the location of our hostel. 3 GPS units and a Spanish speaker (Cara), and we still couldn’t figure out where we were going. Even worse, we got separated. At least we all had the name of the hostel. The streets wind through the city with no apparent system, going through old canals converted to underground tunnels, and most of the roads are one way. Basically, it’s hell on a motorcycle when you don’t know the town.

After 4 loops of the city, Brian and I ended up hiring a taki to drive us to the hostel, and one of the hostel employees volunteered to lead us to secure parking on the other side of town.

Arturo could wind through traffic easily on his 75cc scooter, but Brian and Sato couldn’t split the traffic at all while fully loaded.

Guanajuato was in the middle of a month-long festival, Cervantino, which is one of the biggest and most popular festivals in Mexico. It’s an art festival, with live performances from bands and other performance groups from around the world.

One of the evening performances was a music/Circ-de-Soleil type group. They played music while spinning in the air, and gymnasts performed stunts a hundred feet in the air. Here’s some great pictures from Eric and his beautiful DSLR. He has lots more over on his post about Guanajuato.

Saburro appreciating the view from Pipila, a statue at the top of the city.

Pipila himself. The story is that he was able to set fire to the wooden doors of the Spanish fort in Guanjuato by putting a huge rock on his back, which blocked the shots from the enemy. This allowed the Mexicans to storm the fort and defeat the Spanish.

Classic Mexican cinema was shown regularly outside the University on the steps.

I had heard of one museum in Guanajuato that sounded very interesting, Museo de Momias, or the Mummy Museum. The bodies come from a graveyard in Guanjuato, where the soil preserved the bodies instead of breaking them down.

Mirror mirror on the wall

The newest adventure rider, Cara, was thoroughly creeped out by this baby. Ok, I was too.

Brian, Saburro, and Sato decided to take off for Mexico City, while I wanted to stay longer in Guanjuato. However, I needed to find cheaper housing, as the hostel we had was doubling the prices over the weekend for Cervantino. Eric and Sabrina had come into town and were staying in another hostel, Estacion Esperanza. It was a definite “hippy hostel”, and much cheaper. There were people sleeping on the floors until noon, and they let me camp on their roof for 100 pesos a night.

Camping on the roof of the hostel.

Eric and I met a couple of Americans living in Guanjuato, Robert and Mike. After spending the evening at my new favorite cantina, Famous Bar Incendio, Mike suggested that I check out the new property that he and his wife, Sam, had just purchased.

Cantina Incendio. Homemade fruit infused Mezcal was the drink of choice. Mike, Robert, and Eric in the background.

Mike offered to let me camp on his property for free, which I graciously accepted after seeing the view.

My campsite for the rest of the week.

Mike and Sam’s neighbor, who I camped 20 feet from, raised fighting cocks. I learned to sleep through their 5:30am awakenings.

My view every evening.

Paco and Celda. Celda worked at the Hostel and was letting people camp in her yard. She had lots of barbeques and parties and invited us all to join.

Ruthanne, from Tennessee, and I talking and drinking caguama’s (40oz beers) during a BBQ.

One night, Celda’s dog ate a special cookie and was going insane. So, of course, people start to mess with the dog. He started attacking the wall after this wonderful impression of a dog.

Speaking of dogs, here is a typical site in Guanajuato – roof dogs. Since people don’t really have yards, and they don’t like to keep a dog inside, they head to the roof. At night, the dogs will communicate with each other and try to protect it’s property from up there.

Full moon rising over the hills.

The easiest way to get cement up the winding narrow alleyways in Guanjuato. Mike and Sam have been doing heavy construction on their property, building giant walls for terracing. I couldn’t believe the amount of labor that goes into building the walls. The workers would manually carry 3 bricks at a time up the narrow alleyway to their house, as nothing else would fit. It’s a completely different world than construction in the US, where efficiency is key.

After spending a week in Guanajuato, I’m headed to the most traditional location in Mexico for Dia de los Muertos, Patzcuaro. Sam introduced me to her friend, Mayra, who was born and lives in Patzcuaro, and she offered to show me the sites and live with her family for the next 2 days. Stay tuned.

Brian has a great description about our arrival to Zacatecas.

After parking up & literally walking to where we needed to be we then returned to the bikes & as we only knew the route we had walked, we rode across pedestrian zones, through city squares & bounced down kerbs. It reminded me of a scene from the original Italian Job. Good fun, urban off road could be the start of a new craze.

After an hour, they return with good news – they found a nice, inexpensive hostel downtown. It doesn’t have secure parking, but the city is safe, quiet, there is a doorman working 24/7, and there is already a BMW F650GS Dakar parked out front. The bike belongs to Eric and Sabrina from Colorado. Their ADV Ride Report, A Year of Summer (2up to South America), is great, so check it out. We are staying at the Hostel Villa Colonial, which I HIGHLY RECOMMEND. It’s an old rowhouse converted into a hostel with incredible views of the main cathedral from the rooms as well as the rooftop terrace. We grab a private room with 2 beds, a bathroom, and TV for 340 pesos a night ($9US each). Quiet evenings, hot showers, daily room cleaning and bed making, 2 kitchens, 10 peso beers, 25 pesos all-you-can-drink margaritas Thursday nights (uh oh), friendly staff, free wi-fi, interesting and eclectic clientele – basically anything and everything you’d want in a hostel.

Highly recommended – Hostel Villa Colonial in Zacatecas.

After unpacking the bikes and settling into our new digs, the 3 of us take a walk around the city. I see a beautiful girl on the street, and decide to go say hello to her. Most conversations I have with someone in Mexico last about 2 minutes until I’m out of my Spanish material, but luckily, my new friend, Rocio, is an English teacher for elementary school as well as a psychology professor at the University of Zacatecas. Smart, and speaks fluent English. Score. She invites the 3 of us to join her and her friends later that evening. We grab a bite to eat and go track Rocio back down. Finding her in the same place I met her, Rocio and her friends, Edith and Caro, take us on a tour of the city. Edith has a passion for stories, and takes us to locations where some of the legends of the city are from.

Ben has a good recap of one of the stories on his blog, www.motorcyclemexico.com.

200 years ago, a woman in this building had many dogs. She treated them very badly and didn’t feed them. One day she came home and the dogs were so angry and hungry that they ate her. The neighbors feared the dogs and the entire building was boarded up – all the windows and all the doors were sealed. No one has entered since…

The boarded up entrance to the dog woman’s house.

Edith giving us a history lesson.

After a great introduction to Zacatecas, we call it a night, but not before Armando has one last bite to eat.

Fried pork skin, filled with pork pieces, lettuce, tomatoes, chilis, corn, and spices. 15 pesos, or about $1US. I still can’t get over the prices of things here in Mexico.

Brian and I decide to sign up for Spanish language school at Fenix Language Institute. It’s $110 a week for 25 hours of lessons, and because the school is not very busy, we have 1-on-1 or 2-on-1 lessons. Brian and I are in the same class together, as our Spanish is pretty bad. I do have a couple of years of Spanish from high school, and have an easier time with class since it is entirely in Spanish. Plus, I’ve got some extra help as Rocio offered to tutor me in the evenings.

The next week consists of Spanish class, tours of the city, and spending time with Rocio and her friends. Here’s the week in pictures and captions:

After dinner at Wendy’s with Edith, Rocio, Caro, and Frederico, who owns a hostel and is a fellow dual-sport rider and traveler. His hostel, El Hotel Ruiz, is a great place to get stay downtown and get any work done on your bike while in Zacatecas. Frederico knows everyone in town and can source any parts you need.

A free concert every Thursday evening in one of the main plazas. See Eric and Sabrina’s Ride Report for some incredible photography of the concert and the rest of the city (yes I did snag some photos from him for my post!)

A great local bar, Las Quince Letras (The 15 Leters… count em up). Being the only gringos around, we attract a lot of attention (some unwanted), but we have a great time enjoying the mariachi band, drinking mezcal and cervezas. I learn the proper way to drink Mezcal – “Pa’rriba, pa’bajo, al centro y pa dentro” (up, down, center and in) before taking the first shot.

The Museo Rafael Coronel Zacatecas is a museum located in a restored ruin. The roof of the main hall is open to the sky, and the grounds are well maintained with flowers and bushes growing around broken walls and arches. The museum contains over 3000 masks.

At the Quinta Real Zacatecas, a beautiful hotel built into an old bullring. It’s expensive and classy, so we just grab drinks at the hotel bar along the floor of the bullring.

My Spanish tutor and guide to Zacatecas, Rocio.

Our Spanish teacher at Fenix, Lolita, with her daughter.

The Fesitval Cultural began while we were in Zacatecas, so there was live music, dancing, and performances available every night for free.

After spending a week in Zacatecas, I start to get the itch to move. A couple of other motorcyclists have made it into town and are heading to Guanajuato, so I join them with Brian. Zacatecas has been a wonderful city, and I look forward to going back.

Brian, Ben and I try a new drink called a Michelada. It consists of beer, worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, tabasco sauce, and lime. The rim of the glass is coated with salt. It’s an interesting drink, but not one of my favorites. The Michelada doesn’t sit well with Ben, as he heads home to recover from some stomach issues. It’s too bad, as we had a great night out with our new friends.

Ben, Jen, myself (say hello to Armando), Vicki, and our couchsurfing host, Jake

Next up – drinks at a local pub.

Then, more drinks and a live U2 cover band. The singer didn’t know English, but the band still killed it.

While watching the show, Brian and I notice a mean looking guy in a Harley Davidson jacket. We start to chat him up in our broken Spanish, basically saying “tu moto? si! mi moto tambien!” and trying to explain that we’re riding our motorcycles around the world. He seems to understand after looking at some pictures on our cameras and showing us some of his pictures.

The man is a bit intimidating at first, but he loves bikes just as much as we do.

His girl. We sneak pictures with her while he takes a bathroom break Jake’s friends think we’re crazy and are worried that we’re going to get jumped, but we know it’s all in good fun (and holy jeez she’s hot).

A quick photo outside the bar on our new friends bike.

Brian and I are still going strong, and decide to head to a late-night dance club. We make some new friends and are continually handed free drinks, so we stay until closing at 4am.

I was invited to hang out with my new friends the next day, and decide to meet up with them. I have no idea what we’re doing, but I figure there’s no better way to see a city than with the locals who were born and raised here. While I’m waiting for my friends to show up, guess who I see ride by?

Appropriate riding gear be damned.

Luis and his boyfriend, Marco, pick me up from downtown and give me a quick tour of the city. We head up to their favorite spot, then to Maria’s house.

Overlooking Durango.

After picking up Maria, we head to an area away from the city called Little Country. From the little Spanish I could understand from Luis, Marco, and Maria, the Little Country used to be populated by a poor group of people until Durango decided to damn up the river running through it and create a reservoir. The entire Little Country was flooded, and the inhabitants were forced to move to new locations. We do some light hiking around Little country and take a boat ride on the reservoir.

Maria, Marco, and our boat captain, who’s been doing tours on the reservoir for 25 years.

It’s beautiful here, and has been the site of lots of Hollywood “Wild West” movies.

Dinner consists of fresh-caught fish from the reservoir. Delicious!

Beautiful sky as the sun starts to go down.

I meet back up with my Gringolandia friends and we head to the Plaza de Armas (the central plaza in town). There’s a rock band playing a free show to kick off a month-long festival in Durango. We all enjoy the music while people watching and grabbing some street food.

Armando is pleased with my selection – beef, 2 cheeses, ham, bacon, lettuce, tomato, ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, jalapenos, a little chili, and a toasted bun. 25 pesos… or about $2!

After the concert, we head back out to the bars and clubs, finishing the night at a posh place where we play pool with some locals. Everyone is so friendly and inviting, asking us to join them and swapping contact information and photos at the end of the night.

Ok – now this is a ride report, so I guess I should talk about riding at some point (instead of food, drinks, and girls). Ben, Brian and I pack up and leave Durango, heading to Zacatecas. The ride is about 300km, and on some of the nicest roads I’ve seen in Mexico. I’m reminded of being back in the US riding on freeways. They are smooth, straight, and pretty boring, but it feels nice to be back in the saddle and getting some miles under my belt. I’ve realized that this trip is less about the bike and riding, and more about the people you meet and the places you get to experience.

Here’s a video of the most interesting part of the ride. We hit traffic in a small town and start passing trucks and cars until we see the source of the traffic – the locals are having a parade with their horses!

Riding Through A Small Mexican Town from Benny on Vimeo.

We arrive in Zacatecas, excited to spend some time in a beautiful colonial town.

The road is nicely groomed, twisty, and we’ve got a riding itch. Dangerous combination.

El Espinazo Del Diablo from Benny on Vimeo.

The scenery makes it even more difficult to ride this road.

We’ve crossed the Tropic of Cancer a few times already, but this is the first time we’ve seen a sign.

Ben and I are in riding bliss, hitting the turns hard, from one switchback to another. Suddenly, I hit the apex of a turn and see an 18-wheeler completely in my lane. I grab the brakes, sit the bike up as quickly as possible, get to the right side of my lane, and narrowly slide past the truck. WOW. My heart is racing, adrenaline pumping through my body, and I slow way down. I wait for Ben to catch up and tell him what happened – the truck did the same thing to him. We tell each other to slow down, and as we continue, I keep visualizing myself hitting the semi head-on. I start to spook myself and lose concentration, and my confidence drops further when I almost have a low-side fall around a corner that has some gravel and water at the apex. I feel my front tire come off the tarmac and skip 3 times. I hold on tight and give the bike some gas to try and settle the suspension, which luckily works. Whew… spooked again. We slow down further, and I ask Ben go ahead of me as I am starting to freak out and need to have him in front of me to try and settle myself down.

Not long after, the road starts to get a little patchy with construction, and as we go into a turn, there’s gravel all over the apex. Ben stands the bike up to avoid low-siding, and runs off the road onto a small shoulder that happened to be there. Thank god for the shoulder, as most of the road just drops off a thousand feet. I’m able to slow up enough after seeing Ben’s issues to stay on the road, but my tires lose traction again and I’m continuing to freak out. I keep hoping that the twisty road will end soon and we’ll be in Durango, but looking at my mileage, I know we’ve got another 150 miles to go. All I want to do is pull off the road, curl up in the fetal position, and sleep. I start to question if I’m experienced enough for this trip, and getting myself into a serious funk. However, I realize this, slow my breathing, say a prayer, and concentrate on the road in front of me. Being mentally distracted can only make the ride worse.

The scariest ride of my life (so far

Having enough of the near-death experiences, Ben and I slow WAY down and concentrate on not dying. One way to force ourselves to slow down is to look for good photo opportunities. We stop at a few possible places, and finally settle on one that Ben can climb up into the mountain side and get some great pictures of me riding through the mountains.

But first, Oscar decides to take a nap.

Motorcycle riding at its best. It’s nice having a Team Photographer as well.

My drag my sidecases as I head around this turn.

Can you spot me?

Ben turns on his GoPro camera and attaches it to his topcase, facing rearward, to get some interesting shots.

This heard of cows jumped in front of us and ran across the road. Gotta be prepared for anything here in Mexico!

Double yellow lines are a suggestion in Mexico. Just make sure your bike has enough power to get by!

Ben and I get out of the mountains and make it to Durango. Whew! What a ride. We head into town, where I feel more comfortable in the traffic, and lane split our way into the Centro.

Finally in Durango. Now to find Brian, and a place to sleep.

Boarding The Baja Ferry from Benny on Vimeo.

Brian, Ben and I strapped our bikes down inside the ferry next to tour buses, jeeps, semi trucks, and passenger cars.

It’s over a hundred degrees inside the ferry cargo hold, and I assume that the rest of the ship will look the same way as the hold. We walk into the lobby and are surprised – the ship is nice, and the staff working the front desk are beautiful. We flirt with the desk workers, get checked into our room, invite Brian to join us and explore the ship.

Eating cookies and cakes in the room with Brian

The most unimpressive meal I’ve had since being in Mexico. But hey, it comes with the ticket.

Brian’s original seat with the woman he would have been sitting next to. Brian was pretty happy that we invited him to stay with us.

We have a few beers at the ship bar, but the Mexican banda music and videos are too much for us to handle, so we call it an early night and head back to our cabin. As we’re getting ready to get to sleep, I give Ben some of my floss to use. I guess my floss sucks, and it gets stuck in his teeth.

Ben trying to remove the floss. No success.

Dr. Sper tries to help out with some needle-nose pliers. Still no luck. Good thing Ben plans on heading to a dentist in Mazatlan.

I was a little concerned about the ride on the ferry, since I do get sea sick. However, the ride was smooth, and I slept well. We make it to Mazatlan without incident, and ride around to find a hotel.

Exiting the ferry into the tourist beach city of Mazatlan.

Riding along the coast in Mazatlan looking for a hotel.

We are all baking in our motorcycle gear in 100 degree heat, riding around an unfamiliar town looking for a hotel that meets our requirements – secure parking for the motorcycles, and a cheap price. Good thing we’re not picky – we find one quickly along the beach, negotiate a fair price, strip off our riding gear and jump in the pool.

I have a few dents in my front rim from somewhere along the way the last 2 months. The KLR vibrates so much while riding that I don’t typically care, but it’s gotten to the point where I can watch the front wheel bounce as I go along a smooth stretch of road. I need a new tire anyways, so I figure it’s a good time to get the wheel fixed. Brian and I walk around Mazatlan looking for a garage and food.

Brian’s got a sweet tooth. His diet consists of street food, chocolate milk and cakes.

How do you find a garage in a foreign city where you know no one? There’s a few things I’ll typically do. First, I research online. I’ll check ADVRider and Horizons Unlimited to see if any fellow travelers have a recommendation for a garage. Next, I’ll ask any locals that I know. If I see another motorcyclist on the road with a nice bike, or one in great condition, I’ll ask for a recommendation. Otherwise, I’ll look for a busy shop with lots of motorcycles parked around.

Today we got lucky. While walking around looking for food, I see a handful of motorcycles parked outside a garage. I step inside and start speaking with the owner of a Kawasaki dealership. I go over what I want done to my bike, and he says he’ll take care of it. Again, I would typically stay at the garage while the mechanics work on my bike, but I decide to leave the bike with them and come back the next day to pick it up. The garage services all of the motorcycle police officers in the city (80 bikes total), and they are always swinging by to chit-chat and get service done. That’s a vote of confidence if I’ve ever seen one.

In addition to getting my front wheel trued, I purchase a new tire (a cheap Chinese tire for 800 pesos), and get my sidecases sorted out. The supports are bent and twisted, causing the cases to vibrate and shake while I ride. It’s been getting worse and worse, and is one of the reasons that my case fell off the bike while riding on the freeway in LA. I might as well get it fixed now.

Total cost for the new tire, a trued wheel, and fixing my side cases? 1000 pesos, 800 of which was for the tire itself. Perfecto. Labor in Mexico is incredibly cheap. I almost feel bad for paying so little for all of the work the mechanics did. They were running around town picking up parts, sweating in heat, and banging their knuckles all over Oscar.

Ben gets a new blinker installed for a couple dollars.

My bike is going to stay overnight at the shop, so Ben offers me a ride back to the hotel. El Burro isn’t too happy with the extra 225lb load of my fat-ass on the back, and we laugh the entire way as the bike scrapes on any and every bump in the road.

My first time ever riding “bitch”

Ben asks why I didn’t ride side saddle like this woman. Maybe next time buddy.

After dying in the heat for a day, Brian takes off to Durango in the highlands to cool off and stay with an American school teacher he met on Couchsurfing. Ben and I stick around Mazatlan for another day, waiting for my bike to get fixed and for Ben to get some dentist work done. In the hot parts of Mexico, the city transforms in the evening. People go running and exercise outside, and the entire city comes alive. It’s just too hot to be active during the day, but everyone takes advantage of the 20 degree drop in temperature of the evenings.

Ben and I decide to take some pictures along the boardwalk near the beach. Ben has an external wireless flash that we try to use, but it isn’t working, so we improvise by waiting for it to get a little darker outside, increasing the time the shutter is open, and having me manually force the flash to fire. We get some interesting shots.

The sunset over the ocean, just across from our Hotel.

Bikers, joggers, and rollerbladers are out in force once the sun goes down.

Futzing around with the external flash. The locals think we’re crazy.

After not riding much for the last week, and suffering in the sweltering heat, Ben and I decide to do the same thing as Brian and head up into the mountains to Durango.

I’ve met some locals who are going to be giving me private tutoring (basically talking in Spanish instead of English). One of them, Rocio, is actually an English teacher for elementary school, so she’s going to use some of her teaching techniques with me! In addition, we’ve already made plans to visit museums, eat at their favorite restaurants, and make some day trips on the weekends.

Class begins in 30 minutes. Gotta run!

After getting my bike onto the road, we go back to Ben’s bike. The woman who’s restaurant we camped outside of comes outside and suggests that we grab a piece of corrugated metal to push the bikes on instead. Great idea! Here’s a video of Ben and I getting his bike out of the sand.

Stuck in the sand in Mulege, Mexico from Benny on Vimeo.

Already hot, sweaty, and exhausted from pushing 2 500lb motorcycles through the sand, Ben and I pick up water in town and start heading south. Our destination is La Paz, a larger city on the ocean where we plan on spending a few days in a hostel with internet, catching up on life and relaxing after exhausting ourselves in the desert heat.

The road from Mulege to La Paz is flat, boring, and (guess…) hot. The most interesting thing along the road are the horses, donkeys, and cows grazing along the shoulder. I have a little fun by honking my horn after we pass, watching the animals scatter. Cruel? Maybe, but entertaining. At one point, Ben pulls off the road and starts stripping off his riding gear. I pull off along side him and he tells me he’s been stung by a bee. I’m allergic to bee stings, and my aunt has given me an interesting suggestion to try and get the stinger out – taping a penny to the skin where the sting happened. I bust out the few pennies that I’m carrying with me and some Gorilla Tape and perform roadside surgery on Ben.

The scenery we ride through all day long.

After riding all day, we arrive in La Paz. We stop at a hotel suggested to us in the Lonely Planet guide book for Mexico, but they don’t have any secure parking for our bikes. They suggest another hostel, Hotel California. The rooms are cheap at $250 pesos per night total (or about $10US each) with secure parking in the lobby. We drive through the entrance and park near the front desk. Isn’t Mexico great?

My feet are in incredible pain after the long days ride. I am wearing Sidi Adventure Rain Boots, which I love and have been great for my trip so far. One of the main reasons I purchased these boots was because they are waterproof. If you’ve ever ridden a bike in the rain, you know the uncomfortable (and often dangerous in the cold) feeling of having wet feet all day long. I figured with waterproof boots this wouldn’t be a problem. The only problem is if you get water INSIDE the boots – it can’t escape. Well, I got water in my boots earlier in the morning as I hopped in the shower after pushing our bikes through the sand. My feet sat inside my boots in the water all day long, getting raw from the vibrations of my KLR. I take my boots off and sit in my bed, waiting for the pain to go away.

The bottom of my feet after being vibrated raw by my bike.

I do some laundry in the sink and try to find a place for it to hang dry. I have a clothesline, but nowhere to hang it up. The only place in the room is the rafters of the ceiling. I carefully climb up the cement furniture and make it work, while Ben cracks jokes about the only injury I get on the trip being from falling in a hotel room.

Ben and Armando are hungry. Who’s Armando? He’s my stomach. I named him while I was in LA, as I love to eat, and most of the time during this trip, my stomach has controlled where I end up going.

Anyways, Ben, Armando and I head to the beach, as we’ve heard there’s some music and some sort of festival going on. We get to the festivities and see that it’s a race entry party for Baja trucks.

These trucks are huge, loud, and incredibly expensive – between $300,000 and up to a cool $1,000,000. We hang out with the crowds and grab some food – hot dogs, wrapped in bacon, topped with anything and everything.

Armando thanks me after this delicious meal

Over the next couple days, Ben and I run errands. We both need to get some maintenance done on our bikes, catch up on writing and communicating with friends and family, and some other random chores that we couldn’t do while elsewhere in Baja. Plus, we’re ready to relax in relative comfort.

The best fish tacos in Baja, just 10’ outside our hostels door. $1US a piece

We make friends with a couple other people staying in the hostel. Sarah and Carl met up while hitchhiking through Baja, and are going to continue to travel together for a bit. We cook up a wonderful stir fry together, listen to music, swap stories, and drink way too much wine.

Posing with Carl and the national pharmacy mascot. It dances around everywhere in Mexico

Sarah, Carl, myself and Ben

We are all craving veggies, so we cook up a tomato and cucumber salad and some veggie stirfry.

Too much wine for 4 people? Nah… we polished them off.

Most important order of business – the bikes. We head to a shop suggested to us by a friend at AdvRider, Motos Baja (Southwest of downtown on Malecon, 2 blocks past the Honda dealership). Lagi greets us in English and we get down to business. Ben has a small oil leak, his front wheel bearing is loose, and his bike sputters occasionally. I have a bigger oil leak from the top of my engine that has been going on for a month since Arizona. We both need new front tires and an oil change.

Lagi let’s us know that we’re out of luck on the tires, but he can take care of everything else. Typically, I would watch and help the mechanic work on my bike. However, Lagi comes highly recommended and we don’t have any concerns for the bike, so we leave them at the shop and pick them up the next day. The price for all the work? Ben – 900 pesos ($70) and 1000 pesos ($80) for me. That’s only an hour of shop time in the states! To fix my oil leak, they had to disassemble half of the bike and remove my starter. We thank Lagi and his mechanics, snap a picture with him and our freshly washed bikes (talk about service – Oscar hasn’t been clean in 4 months) and head to the ferry terminal to get our tickets and legally import our bikes to Mexico.

Outside Motos Baja with Lagi – highly recommended if you need work done in Baja

The Temporary Vehicle Import Permit, or TVIP, isn’t necessary to for Baja, but we need it before we head over to mainland Mexico. The process is simple – go to the Banjercito’s office at the ferry terminal, bring your passport, vehicle title, and money. Ben has a great breakdown of the different ways you can get your TVIP in his Ride Report.

After getting our TVIPs, we purchase ferry tickets to Mazatlan for that night. Again, breakdown of the cost in Ben’s Ride Report. We hurry back to town, packup, and get back to the ferry. Along the ride back to the ferry, we see another overland motorcyclist riding along. Brian, from the UK, is also getting catching the ferry and heading South… eventually.

Ben and I opt to get a cabin on the ferry, since the thought of sleeping on airplane-style seats for the 14 hour ferry ride isn’t too appealing. We check out of cabin for the night – it’s nice, and there’s more than enough room for Brian to join us. He happily accepts the invitation and we make a new friend.

Up next – the ferry ride and Mazatlan

Baja Sand from Benny on Vimeo.

Since I made the decision to take this trip, I knew deep down that I would probably end up going to South America. I was hesitant to commit to trying to do it, and possibly failing along the way, but I really do think I can make it happen after a few days traveling outside the US. I’m enjoying my time immensely, and want to experience as much of the Americas as I can, including South America. I watched a documentary about traveling, climbing, and surfing while I was in San Diego called 180° South. The cinematography in the movie is mind-blowing, and I have to take advantage of the opportunity that I have traveling right now to make it to the bottom of the world.

I didn’t think I would have enough money to make it to South America after traveling in the States, but after a few days in Mexico, I can see how far my money can get me as long as I stay conscious of my budget. If worst comes to worst, I can pick up some work along the way or settle down somewhere and do some freelance work online to make some extra cash.

Motorcycling near the US-Tecate,Mexico Border. from Benny on Vimeo.

We’re looking for a place to get breakfast, as we didn’t have much food at Coco’s.

Delicious huevos rancheros at a restaurant along the road. We demolish these and think about getting another order

The restaurant

We ride for hours through the hot, dry, and straight roads in the deserts of Baja. All of a sudden, we come over top of a hill and see an oasis — San Ignacio. We grab lunch here and meet a couple of long-distance cyclists. They started their ride in Alaska 3 months ago and are headed south — one to Panama and the other to Terra del Fuego in Argentina, the southern most city in the world. Now people think I’m crazy for doing a ride on a motorcycle like this, and I think these guys are absolutely nuts. A year on a bike, riding 40-150 miles per day, camping most everywhere. So freaking hardcore! I have a feeling I’ll meet up with them again along the way.

An oasis (literally) in the middle of the desert

After lunch in San Ignacio, we make our way to Mulegé to spend the night. We’re both exhausted after another long day of riding, and head to the beach to see if we can camp somewhere. We end up outside a restaurant right along the beach for $5, but not before Ben’s bike (El Burro) decides to take a nap in the deep sand.

Our campsite for the night. El Burro is too tired and takes a quick nap

Taking a dip in the water after a long day riding

We need to get back into the main part of town about 2 miles away to grab some dinner, and don’t want to deal with getting the bikes through the deep sand, so we hitch a ride from some locals.

My first time hitching a ride

Ben’s an expert after his trip to Terra del Fuego last year

We grab some pizza, relax, and hitch another ride back to the beach where we setup camp for the night.

Ben sets up his tent, and I decide to sleep out in the open.

I’m up before the sun rises, and have to take some snapshots of it coming over the Sea of Cortez

An ex-pat headed out to fish in the morning.

The view and the newly paved roads between San Felipe and Puertecitos

Shortly after Puertecitos, there’s a giant pile of dirt and rocks across the road, with a dirt path heading off toward the coast. I guess this is as far as they’ve paved the road so far. We follow some of the different dirt paths and enjoy the spectacular view.

The dirt paths aren’t so bad at this point, and the view makes up for the road condition

Getting artsy with a self portrait

Ben takes the opportunity to shoot some photos and video of me riding the dirt roads

Yep, Baja is dusty

One more… I love all of these pictures…

Ben and I get a little turned around on the dirt paths and end up stuck in some deep sand. Deep soft sand is every motorcycle’s worst enemy (unless you’re a masochist), and while I’m able to work my way out of the sand with my new 50/50 dual sport rear tire, Ben gets stuck with his balding road tire.

Ben stuck down to his axle in the sand. I end up deadlifting the bike up while Ben gives it some gas and gets out of the sand. I got sand into every crevice of my body

We have another 2-3 hour ride down the dirt road that connects Puertecitos and Coco’s Corner, our destination for the night. The road is rough – huge rocks, patches of deep sand, and so many bumps that our bikes start to rattle apart. After stopping to wait for Ben to catch up (remember the difference in our tires?), my bike won’t start back up. Luckily, it’s a quick fix under the blazing afternoon sun — my battery terminal had rattled loose and I just had to tighten everything back up.

We’re hot, dirty, tired, and ready for some relaxation at Coco’s Corner. Coco is a well known character in the adventure riding community. He lives by himself in the middle of the desert, literally in the middle of nowhere. He’s setup an oasis for people to stop by, drink cold beer and soda, and if they’re up for it, stay for a night in his eclectic collection of trailers and trucks. He doesn’t charge anything to stay, just for drinks.

The man himself. Coco recently had to have his second leg removed, so his mobility is pretty limited. However, he gets around pretty well on his little 4 wheeler and still works on all of his little projects around the property, like his impressive collection of cans and artwork

The cans line his property, and can supposedly can be seen from airplanes at 15k feet.

Some of Coco’s artwork

We all have some icy cold beers and chat with Coco, who is a great story teller and a bad-ass man. He’s survived and thrived in a desolate place, with no direct access to water or electricity. He now has some solar panels that keep his cooler running for cold drinks and some lights, but still lives completely off the grid.

A little ingenuity goes a long way

Coco gets our beds ready for the night, and Ben hitches a ride

We have some fun with night photography. Coco thinks we’re crazy, and calls these “marijuana pictures”.

Shout out to ADV!

It’s a beautiful night, so we sleep under the stars.

Ben’s bed for the night

Drinking coffee and signing Coco’s guest book in the morning

Ben taking his turn signing the book

Scorpions for breakfast. Yummmmmm

Thanks for a great time Coco

If you ride through Baja, you have to stop at Coco’s. You’ll never forget it, and Coco won’t be around forever. He’s 73 years old!

GPS Coordinates: N29 31.032 W114 17.464

I received an email from Ben Slavin, a fellow adventure rider who I met at an ADV motorcycle rally in Minnesota a few months back. I had posted on his blog to see how he was doing, and he had gotten back to me that he was going to be crossing the Mexico border the next day. Well… that works out. Why not cross together and spend some time traveling? We made plans to meet early the next morning to hit the border at Tecate, Mexico.

Ben has traveled through Latin America and South America via motorcycle before, and this time he’s doing it with a new purpose – to create a motorcycle documentary on how to travel to Mexico. He’s been interviewing people who have traveled through Mexico, and is now getting footage for his film as he does the trip. One of the important parts of his film is how to go through a border crossing, and Ben asked me to narrate the process as we go. Sure!

After trying to find a store that I could print my mandatory Mexico motorcycle insurance at (nothing is open at 7am), we finally made it close to the border at Tecate. We wanted to check out the wall that separates the US from Mexico, and decided to take some dirt roads and trails to see it on the US side.

The trail we take to see the border wall.

About 30 seconds after getting to the wall, a border patrol SUV pulls up in front of us with its lights on, and an officer steps out to see what we were doing. We just explain that we wanted to ride some dirt trails and see the wall, and he tells us that we shouldn’t be there and it’s dangerous. Another officer stealthily pulls up behind us and starts asking us more questions, but he’s more interested in our motorcycles after realizing that we’re harmless. He’s an ex-Marine and notices that our bikes look like the ones they use in the Middle East. We chit-chat for a while and they send us on our way to the border.

Crossing the border is a pretty painless process at Tecate. It’s a very small crossing, with friendly people around to help out and point you in the direction you need to go. Many people could speak English as well, and Ben is much better as Spanish than I am. We go from the Immigration office to the bank 2 blocks away to pay our fee, then back to Immigration to get our Tourist Visa’s for the next 6 months. Someone who works for immigration says he will watch our bikes during the process, and we take him up on the offer as we’re parked 15 feet away from all of the border guards with their assault rifles, directly in front of one of the immigration offices. After this, we decide to head to Ensenada for lunch along Mexico Highway 3.

Ben grabbing his paperwork as we head into the Immigration office

After 6 weeks on the road, I’m finally in Mexico!

There’s construction for the first 20 miles on Highway 3, and road construction in Mexico is much different than in the States. The main portion of the road is being worked on, and there are dirt and gravel paths winding along the side and crossing through the main road. These are being used by little cars, trucks, and fully loaded semi’s, so we take advantage of our choice in transportation and pass by most everyone when we get a chance. It’s an adventure riding in Mexico already! After the construction, Highway 3 is a nice, smooth road with some great riding through the mountains.

Once reaching Ensenada, we grab a taco lunch along the side of the road, fill up our tanks with gas at a Pemex (say “Llavo Magna, por favor”, “Fill up with the cheap fuel, please”), and make our way through Ensenada. The traffic is bad, the city is busy, and the local dogs don’t seem to like 2 loud motorcycles coming through their town, but luckily we make it through without incident and end up on some more beautiful  winding roads through the mountains.

Taking a break along the road. There’s hardly any traffic along Highway 3

Miles and miles of riding through the desert

There are a couple of military checkpoints between Ensenada and San Felipe, where we plan to stay for the night. We are asked what are plans are, but don’t have any trouble. However, I am a little nervous to be around kids that are holding assault rifles and don’t look to happy to be under the scorching sun.

We arrived in San Felipe, exhausted and ready for a room to relax in and some food in our bellies. We check out a few different hotels, trying to see what kind of price we can get. The town is dead, as most of their tourism happens on the weekends, so we’re able to score a nice room next to the beach with a pool and free breakfast for $500 pesos (about $40 total). It’s a little more than we were hoping to spend, but with the included breakfast it seems to work out.

We jump into the Sea of Cortez, which is so warm it feels like bath water, then shower and head out to walk to town in search of cheap dinner. We end up at a small family run taco shop, where we get enough tacos to fill us up and cervezas for 80 pesos total, or about $8! Score.

Swimming in the Sea of Cortez. It’s as warm as a bathtub, but feels great after a long day of riding

Goofing around with Ben’s underwater camera in the hotel pool

More underwater shots

It’s fun riding with someone else. We are able to take pictures of each other and split costs, but besides that, Ben is a nice guy and we seem to travel a very similar way. I’m not sure how long we’ll travel together, but so far so good! Plus, it’s pretty cool to have video footage of everything going on during the trip from Ben’s helmet cam, which also works underwater.

Tomorrow, we’ll be heading down the coast of the Sea of Cortez to Puertecitos, then to the famous CoCo’s Corner in the desert. The road from Puertecitos south is supposed to be pretty bad, so we’ll see how far we can get in the day.

Doesn't my ass look good in these?

Oh... and they're shorts too? Nifty

What do you think?

While doing some Mexico research today, I found an article that addresses the biggest questions I get from everyone who hears about my trip: isn’t Mexico dangerous? Well, look at that — an unbiased article from the Economist titled Mexico: safer than Canada was published only a few weeks ago. The article explains that if you stay away from the 4 most violent Northern states, the country is “downright safe”. While I am concerned about my safety during my trip, the violence that is all over the news reports is almost always related to drug cartels and the police, which I’m not a part of and therefore very low on my threat scale. I’ll be dodging slow, beat up trucks, crazy bus drivers, roads with every form of debris and potholes on them, stray dogs and farm animals meandering across the roads every day of my trip. I won’t be riding at night because of all of these reasons, but I will be riding day after day for the next few months, and I can’t wait to get started.

Lost in Santa Cruz on 9/10/10. Black and gray Olympia motorcycle pants.

I need to keep better track of my pants.

The view from Lorin’s house in Jackson

The next day, Jason (Lorin’s boyfriend) and I chat about rides that I can take on the way to Flaming Gorge where I plan on camping out for the night. I take down a few sets of directions and shoot the shit with Jason for a while. He heads off to work.

Lorin and I start to talk and work on a 1000 piece puzzle, something which I used to love to do as a kid but haven’t done in years. We end up doing it for almost an hour, both of us saying how we need to go but neither of us leaving until we get a corner piece completed.

Lorin with her best “Vanna pose”

Both of us engrossed with the puzzle

I’m headed to Flaming Gorge, UT today, on recommendation from Lorin’s boyfriend, Jason. He gave me a few route options to get there, so I pack up and head South (not for the last time this trip).

Wyoming is absolutely beautiful along the Snake River. I dream of owning a ranch out here and having my own adventure business. Hey… maybe in a few years.

Miles and miles of this

I see a 10 mile curvy looking road further ahead on my GPS named Water Canyon, and decide to check it out. It starts off as a normal dirt road through the mountains, so I continue on loving the scenery, trying to see if I can have my first glimpse of a bear. It’s definitely bear country, as I see fresh paw prints in the trail. After a mile or 2, the road starts to turn a little worse, with ruts, washouts, and rocks. After another mile, it turns into a legitimate 2-track.

The trail and scenery. This was some fun riding for a while

Another couple of miles away, the trail turns into a single track covered in jagged rocks, following a small creek through a valley. I get to a point where I can’t continue on. There’s a 3 foot drop off a rock onto more jagged rocks, with about 3 feet worth of trail before it drops down to the creek. I take some time to walk up the trail to see if it got any worse, and decide that I’m going to ride through. The thought of turning around and going back 10 miles on this trail, just to get to the same place that’s 200 yards from me right now makes me really look for a way to solve this problem. I start digging some of the rocks up, throwing dirt into crevasses, , bushwacking the side of the trail to give myself some breathing room, and removing all of my luggage to give myself a little extra space and ease of handling a lighter bike.

The single track with rocks… it gets worse after this

On the sheep path. That’s the main road just ahead of me, but I’m stuck on a seemingly unpassable section just ahead of here

I took a good amount of video footage today when I went off road, so I will try to edit that and get it uploaded soon.

I do eventually make it to the road, after getting past the 2 sheep dog who were growling and hiding in the bushes and a few hundred skittish sheep. I was exhausted, sore, and had a headache from the altitude, so I stopped at the next place I saw to lay down and relax for a bit.

I was happy to be back on the road, after conquering Water Canyon

Lots of fun roads to ride around Wyoming, Utah, and Idaho

Stateline Cove is a dispersed campground in the Flaming Gorge. Dispersed campgrounds are basically areas where anyone can camp for a small fee, but very few if any facilities are provided. It’s very cheap at $5-$10 a night, typically private as you can choose your own camping spot, and the locations are often times the most beautiful.

My camp for the night

Yeah… it’s dead on a Monday night

The moon is full and out just before sunset

I chat on the phone with my sister and try to get a fire going, even though there’s no need for the extra light tonight

It gets very cold at night, as I’m in the high desert. I sleep comfortably and am up at sunrise, which comes right over the mountains across the lake.

It’s bright in the morning…

so I’m up making coffee and freezing my ass off

Next stop: Moab, UT

Incredible views already, and I’m just getting into the park

Hiking around Phelps Lake

Views from around the lake. The pine trees change color as you go, getting more and more purple

About 6 miles into the 8 mile hike, I come up to some people standing on a huge rock that goes into the lake. A young girl is at the edge of the rock and has been standing there for a while now, trying to gain the courage to jump. She doesn’t seem like she’s going to go, so I try to set a good example and jump right in.

It’s about a 20 foot drop into the icy water

After the adrenaline rush and coolness of the water, I make way back to my bike, suit up, and make my way to Lorin’s house in Jackson, WY.

After spending a few relaxing days in Bozeman, MT, I make it to Yellowstone National Park. I ride through the park and find a place to setup camp early in the day, so I can go explore the park with a lighter load.

I took a hike from my campsite and walked around this lake for a while. The sky was gorgeous

Camp setup for the night. The neighbors were all nice and offered me beer at night and chai tea in the morning. Bob – post that Chai recipe here!

At the lower falls in Yellowstone

And you have to see Old Faithful if you're at Yellowstone

More bison. At least these ones aren’t bothered by me in the slightest

My first elk sighting! A big bull male with a gigantic rack. He was about 200 feet from my campsite and 20 feet from me

After not having any bear issues at the camp (dang it – I’m still hoping to see my first bear), I leave in the morning to hike at the Grand Tetons and spend the night in Jackson, WY.

I stealth camp just inside Glacier NP on the 17th so I can get an early start through the park. I’m hoping to spend the day in the park and make it to Bozeman by the evening, a long day of sightseeing and riding.

It’s foggy this early in the morning, and cold. I suit up and take my time through the park waiting for the fog to burn off

It starts to clear up as I wait in construction traffic for 30 minutes

I can’t believe how beautiful it is here once the day clears up. I could spend days riding and hiking around Glacier

More Glacier beauty

Wildlife is everywhere. I saw deer all throughout the park, and at one abandoned hiking trailhead, a deer thought it was worth the danger of being close to me so he could eat some horse poo.

The deer is about 10 feet away from me while I try to cook lunch

Looks tasty

Since I’ve been stealth camping and riding a lot of miles the last few days, I haven’t had time to stay in touch with my family or friends, so I head out of Glacier in search of cell service. I pick up some about 30 minutes outside the park, and find a small road to go down to find a place to sit down and catch up with everyone. As I’m calling my brother, I see a movement in the woods… a deer? No… it’s like a giant cat… OHMY it’s a mountain lion. I hang up the phone and slowly pull my camera out of my tankbag and snap this picture.

Can you see the mountain lion? Neither can I…

Well, I can’t see the lion any more, and I start to get a bit nervous. With the glimpse I did have of the cat, it looked like it was stalking me, so I hop on the bike quickly and ride a few miles back down the road. I wanted to get a better picture, but didn’t want to end up getting attacked by a cat or 2.

I want to make it to Bozeman, MT tonight so I can stay with my friend from college, Dan. I’ve already stayed with Dan once this trip, and I want to be around some friends on my birthday. I ride a couple hours in the dark, which I always try to avoid doing. The experience is not fun, as the headlight on Oscar is very weak. I follow a car down the country roads the entire time. I take the opportunity to order a few new electronic connections to improve Oscar’s headlight, since I have access to a shipping address next week. While I don’t plan on riding at night at all as I make my way towards Panama, I need decent lighting for emergency night time riding or going through tunnels/caves.

The next few days in Bozeman are great. I relax, get all of my travel chores done, go out to some events on the town with Dan and his friends.

Out for the final Music on Main in Bozeman. They close the street and life the open container law for the night. It feels just like a Chicago festival

I don’t know how often you’ll see this outfit in Chicago though

The guys I'm staying with in Bozeman

The cops know how to close the street down at the end of the fest

We spend a lot of time using a new toy Dan got called a Slackline. It’s a 3” wide strip of elastic that you tie between 2 points and jump on like a trampoline.

Dan’s friend getting up and spinning on the Slackline

Dan’s room mate has a dog, Bella, that lives to play with a ball. I’ve never seen a dog as happy as she was while we played with her for hours at the park

I leave Dan’s early on the 21st and make my way towards Yellowstone. While I was trying to avoid going on the weekend, I’ll just have to deal with the traffic and crowds.

All of my clothes and riding gear drying after washing in the bathtub

I passed my bike off to Yamaha Motorsports in Hutchinson, MN to have the chain and front and rear sprockets replaced, and was finally ready to roll after hanging out in Minnesota another day.

Yamaha Motorsports mechanic finishing up the work

I had to stop at this gas station just to get a picture

A gigantic field of sunflowers in SD

Yours truly. Thank God for tripods and camera timers

I headed West, and decided to camp out for the first time on the trip. I love camping, and I spent a lot of time shopping for the perfect camping gear, so I definitely want to be using it on this trip.

Camping somewhere in eastern South Dakota

After a fine night of camping, I continued West and stayed just outside of the Badlands near an Indian Reservation. I stealth camped after following some dirt trails back into the plains, and saw some beautiful wildlife.

My first stealth camp site in the Buffalo Gap National Grassland

Pheasants and deer just outside my campsite. I also saw wild horses

At the Badass Badlands

How many different faces can you make? I need some new ones for the trip

The next morning I got to the Badlands, which I have never seen but have heard that they are a treat. Let me tell you, they really are. Ragged and beautiful. After passing through the Badlands, I made for the Black Hills and Mount Rushmore.

Driving through the Black Hills

I got tired of riding the roads in the Black Hills and wanted to do some exploring, so I took some of the dirt trails that I found. There were no fences on these trails, so the wildlife was free to roam. I was in search of a bison (or buffalo) as I have never seen one. Well, I got what I was looking for. Here he is.

Finally... a bison!

I guess the bison didn’t like to get his picture taken, as just after I shot this, he started to act annoyed and walk towards me. I got a little nervous after hearing that Bison can run 35mph, so I threw the camera into my pocket and got ready to ride just in time… he started to chase me! The bike roared and I sent the biggest dirt cloud into the air as I took off.

Glad I didn't turn into this guy

I fit right in with these guys

I wanted to swing by Mount Rushmore since I was right next to it, but everyone I’ve talked to said it was cheesy and the only thing to do is to see it, so I rode by and did just that.

Now onto Bozeman, MT!

More details coming soon. I’ve been pretty disconnected the past few days. I’ll be trying to check in every few days, and have installed and iPhone app to help me check in easily. This should be fine until I get my SPOT device integrated into the blog when I have a free day to do some much needed technical updates to the thing.

I take off my gear, get the toolkit from the bottom of my pannier, and tighten the chain. I throw some lube on the chain, and notice that it’s being stressed near the master link and is not seating correctly in the rear sprocket. Not good.

Here’s why. 3 rollers were sheered off the chain and it was causing the chain to bind and stress. I sigh, go inside the restaurant who’s parking lot I was in to get some water, and came out to figure out what to do. I have a chain tool but have only used it once. I wind up having to get another chain from a motorcycle dealership a few miles away, but haven’t been able to get it installed yet. I’ll work on that tomorrow.

While I was in the parking lot, a couple named Dwight and Kim said hello to me and after they ate, came to chat. I told them a little about myself and my trip, and the problems I was having with the bike. I asked them if they knew any where in the immediate area where I could pitch a tent and camp for the night. Kim made a couple of phone calls to no avail. However, Dwight offered to pay for a motel room down the street which I happily accepted, after being stuck in the sun and heat all day long working on the bike.

Come to find out, it’s their first date tonight.

I pushed the bike to the motel, showered, grabbed some microwave food from the gas station and got to work writing emails and trip reports. It’s now 4am and I’m still writing!

I head northwest from Chicago and try to stay south of a huge storm that rolls through Madison and central Wisconsin. I was caught camping in a tornado outside Madison a few weeks ago and would like to avoid that experience again if possible! While I miss most of the storm, I do run into rain for a few hours.

It’s really wet, and now my helmet is leaking water into the visor. Need to fix that!

Zoidberg’s waterproof claw hands say “Even when it’s wet, ya gotta stay hydrated. Woowoowooowoo”. Sorry… I thought of that caption in my helmet and it made me laugh when I tried to make the noise.

I have to admit something — I get easily bored riding on highways and freeways for more than an hour or 2. I’ll start to see dirt roads of all kinds winding through corn fields, tracks left by farmers, or ATV and snomobile trails. Well, I guess that now I have all the time in the world to travel, I’ll take some of these interesting trails to stem the boredom!

This is more like it!

I continue down dirt roads, trails, and the roads on the Stagecoach trail for a couple of hours, and then am stopped by this:

Yeah. It’s about 1/8 mile long, has 2 different 90 degree turns, some of the road further along has washed away, it’s *deep* on the sides and it’s flowing decently fast.

Oscar awaits his fate

I walk through the water to the end of the crossing, turn back and debate — do I cross this or not? No, I shouldn’t. I’m here by myself, there’s no one here to help if I fall. What if I fall? All of my stuff will get wet. It’s my *first day*. I can’t fall and get everything wet on my first day! And I don’t want to hike both side cases and my duffel bag across the water before or after riding the bike across.

I get back on Oscar, turn him around, and ride away from the water crossing. I’m debating the entire time… I’m proud of my decision at first. It’s the smart thing to do. Then, about 1/4 mile away, I start to second guess myself — is this what I’ll do in 5 months when I’m in Costa Rica driving through the rain forests? What if turning around then means driving back 100 miles? It wasn’t that deep… I could walk the whole thing. These bikes are made to cross rivers. I even installed a t-mod on my carburetor so it doesn’t get clogged in river crossings, a common problem Oscar’s. Besides, I’ve done deeper water in MUD and I was fine. This one is just long. And has 2 curves. And is flowing fast.

I turn back around. I’ve gotta do it! But not before setting up my video camera.

A tunnel overflowing with flood water. I decide to turn around on this one.

I make it to Dubuque, which is a very beautiful town right on the Mississippi river.

I ride the streets of the city to find a cafe for lunch. I check out a few places and end grabbing a chicken salad sandwich and eat on the main street in Dubuque, people watching.

Great chicken salad and homemade bread and salsa. Can’t remember the name of the place though.

I follow the Mississippi as far as I can towards the Twin Cities. The ride is beautiful as I ride between Minnesota and Wisconsin. I arrive at Greg and Elizabeth’s house at dusk and am greeted by friends and shown a great guest room, all this on 10 hours notice!

I sleep very well here.

Carhart, the best dog in the world and also half cat

Ready to take off

Or not…

Ok — maybe it’s out of gas. Or the carb is funked up (I’ve been playing with the tuning). Or the repairs I made earlier this week were wrong. I check a few things and nothing jumps out, but I’m able to get it started and get to the gas station down the block.

Come to find out, I had kinked the vacuum hose of the gas tank and it was causing the carbs to not receive fuel correctly. It was caused by my tank bag pressing down on the tank. Problem solved, now officially on the road.

I only spend an hour on the first leg of my trip. I head from downtown Chicago to see my friend from college, Greg, in Aurora, IL.

Greg’s not too happy having to wait for food at Culvers

While I want to see my good friend before I take off, I also want to get out of my familiar environment and make sure that I don’t get lazy and stay home for a few more days. It’s been really easy to do, and I’m sure I could stick around living in Chicago on couches for a few more weeks (ask my sister — as long as I would promise to manny for her cat).

I spend the night with Greg and his friends, having a great time and celebrating the start of my trip. They all think I should introduce myself to everyone as Sper for the entirety of my trip, which I think is a fantastic idea.

Hello. I’m Sper.

Adios!

The birds wake me up before my alarm. As much as I hate waking up this early, a smile comes over my face as I realize that I’ll be able to do this every day on my trip. Nature (or my body) will wake me up when I should be up, instead of having multiple alarms blast away while I’m sleeping in my bed, cursing work (just kidding, kinda .

I pack up and hit the road by 4:30am. Edward had suggested I ride Highway 35 through Ohio to the original Bob Evans farm for breakfast, as this is a ride he and his friends do often. I heed his advice and set off for some breakfast and coffee.

I read through my maps and decide to continue on Highway 35 through Ohio, then hop onto I-70 until Indianapolis. From here, I can take the freeways up to Chicago. I don my rain gear as new patrons to Bob Evans stop to ask me if I’m ready for the rain, where I’m from, where I’m going, and where I’ve been. I have a feeling this is going to be happening a lot in the next year. I don’t mind it at all.

The ride is smooth and uneventful, and the miles just seem to tick away. On every other bike I’ve owned, I’ll always be reading the odometer to see when I’m going to be able to take another break. On the KLR, I’m comfy cruising until I have to go to the bathroom or get some gas, which is a long time with the aftermarket 7.1 gallon IMS tank good for 300-350 miles per tank!
I hit some rain, but it clears up quickly and then cools down dramatically. I start to get chilly, but just as I’m about to add another layer to my outfit outside of Indianapolis, it warms up and becomes a beautiful day.

I check my oil level at lunch and notice that I’ve burned some oil after cruising 70+mph on the freeway. This is something I’ve read about on the KLR forums and have brought along some extra oil just for this. The engine tends to burn some oil at freeway, speeds, so you have to keep an eye on it during gas fillups if you’re taking the super-slabs.

Nearing Chicago, the cloud formations look wild. I stop under an overpass, take a quick pee break, and throw my rain gear on. Immediately after getting back on the bike, the heavens open and it starts *pouring*. Every other bike on the freeway pulls off under an overpass and waits out the storm, while I continue to head to the city in traffic. A little hail even starts to come down, but I make it home and unpack, exhausted after a long day of traveling.

Hopping on the El headed towards Midway airport, I meet a group of ladies who are participating in the Avon breast cancer walk. They’re more interested in asking about all of the camping supplies I have with me, so I tell them about the trip and give them my website URL to check in on me later. Hope your 40 mile walk goes well ladies! Thanks for taking this picture of me.

At the airport, I tried scanning my ticket confirmation so I could check in. It doesn’t work. An employee tries to give me a hand, and it still won’t work, so I go to chat with a gate agent. Danny tries to check me in, but he realizes that I’ve booked my ticket for NEXT Saturday. Shit! I start to worry that I’ll have to wait until next weekend to head down to Richmond, but Danny works his magic and books me on the next flight today, for no extra charge! He even waived my $25 baggage check fee. Thanks Danny, you rock!

I sit at my gate, relax, sip some coffee, and pray I don’t get stuck sitting next one of the 2 400+ lb women sitting across from me. I do hope I sit next to the cute brunette, however

The flight was uneventful. Clyde, the guy I’m purchasing the KLR650 from, meets me outside the gates and welcomes to me Virginia. He’s a friendly guy, and we chat the entire way back to his place about motorcycles, trips, and other random topics. We look at the bike, have lunch with this wife and take the bike for a spin (he on his new BMW F800 GS). The bike rides wonderfully, so we go over paperwork, review his maintenance records, and pack up the bike for the journey home. Dang, this thing has a ton of storage space.

Clyde and I head off through Virginia, him leading the way through the hills and mountains. After 150 miles or so, we part ways and I head off to Charleston, WV. The ride on the interstate through the mountains is beautiful, and I finally truly feel like I’m on my first adventure.

I make it to Charleston around 10pm to crash at a fellow AdvRiders house. Edward (tdrrally) was kind enough to let me pitch a tent in his yard, which is downtown very close to the interstate. He greets me, we chat a bit, I make some calls, type up my ride report, and crash, ready to wake up at 5am the next morning to get moving before the rain and storms hit.

Tomorrow should be an interesting day.