Liquid Hot Magma!!! Climbing Volcano Pecaya and Entering Honduras

Today´s entry will have to be cut somewhat short because the internet cafe we´re at closes in about 30 minutes. However, the last three days have been just short of amazing and also pretty action packed.

We booked an excursion out of Antigua, Guatemala for a guided hike of the very active Pecaya Volcano. This was well worth the time and money as we got to get very up close and personal with the mountain, including coming within 50 meters of the molten lava coming out of the mountain. The hike was pretty cool and we climbed up above the cloud layer and got to see an amazing sunset, then climbed down the volcano in the dark with headlamps. Another cool thing about the hike was getting to charge full speed down a big hill of previously hardened lavarock. See the photo below. By the way I believe if you click on the attached photos it should bring up the pic in full size on your screen.

We sadly had to leave Guatemala the next day but the trip must go on of course. There was no way of avoiding Guatemala City on our way out of the country which is somewhat similar to Mexico City in that it is a huge, smoggy, sprawling city that was very confusing to navigate and left us wondering where we were several times. But we finally made it out and it was well worth it because we crossed the border into Honduras outside the town of Copas Ruinas. This border crossing was a stark contrast the that of the Mexico/Guatemalan mess we mentioned earlier. We were practically the only ones at the border because it´s not on a major highway and is somewhat out of the way. This worked out well in our favor because it was quick and easy with no headaches whatsoever.

Copas Ruinas, Honduras is a very cool little town which we started exploring after booking a room at one of the hotels recommended by the Lonely Planet book. We ended up spending a good portion of last night playing some Texas Hold´em at a bar called the Red Frog which is owned by a guy our age from Chico, California. He bought the place a few years ago for $4,000 US Dollars and seems to be doing pretty well.

Anyways, gotta run but wanted to mention today was awesome. We visited the nearby archaeological sight of the Mayan Copas Ruinas which Kyle will have to eventually upload some pictures from. Then we took an hour long Tuk-Tuk ride to some nearby natural hotsprings and went for a dip.
Sorry so short and boring but I´m getting booted from the cafe. More insight into the last few days to come. Tomorrow we´ll put in a pretty big riding day and start heading towards Nicaragua. I´ll leave you with a quick shot from Antigua, a beautiful town.


Clay

Hippie update

So this morning we had an amazing breakfast on Lago de Atitlan cooked by our Hostel staff. Some hotcakes with Honey and fresh pineapple and some kind of imitation orange juice. This breakfast must have put me and a really great mood because as we rode back into town towards the main road for Antigua we encountered a chain across the road. The students were in recess at their school and this part of the road was their playground for the next 45 minutes. San Marcos at Lake Atitlan is a 1 road town so we pretty much had to wait it out, we didn´t want to upset the security guard. As we were sitting there a hippish German chick approached me and asked if I could give her a ride on the back of my bike to the top of the hill and then out to the highway, which is about 20km. The breakfast must have been kicking into full swing because I heard myself say SURE NO PROBLEM. Then I kind of paused and thought to myself what I had just gotten myself into. She saw the situation unfolding with the guard and how we would not be able to pass thru the road, now because her ride depended on us getting thru she went to the guard and negotiated with him using her superior spanish skills. He conceded and the chain was dropped to let us pass. As she re-approached us after speaking with the guard I noticed some hair around her ankles and also noticed she was a particularly well feed hippie chick, I began to have immediate concerns for my factory stock equipment and rear suspension... I quickly changed my story and told Clay that it would be better if he gave her the lift because of his upgraded progressive rear shock and that I had had already told her that he would be happy to give her a lift to the top of the hill beacuse I didn´t have any space because I had the camping gear. It worked like a charm. Clay´s uprgaded rear shock was able to successfully carry that hippie right out of the lake basin all the way to the highway. No hippies were harmed during todays ride out of Lago de Atitlan.

We meet this guy from Boston this morning, he was staying at the house next to our hostel. Boston and I had some similar views on hippies. He taught Clay and me a new term; Trustifarian. I thought this was a perfect fit for the San Marcos crowd, must of whom were decked in the latest Patagonia threads.....

Today we are in Antigua which is absolutely beautiful. It´s really shocking what a contrast Guatemala is to Mexico, the mountain views and the climate here are really, well, wonderful... it almost feels European like we are in some little Italian village or something. And the Mayan people are truely amazing. I think what sets much of Guatemala apart from Mexico is that most of the Mayans have not really accepted Western culture like Mexico has. The Mayans still farm the same, dress the same and live the same as they always have, or so it seems. I´m no expert but it makes the country feel much cleaner, because they are not throwing plastic bottles and wrappers all over the road. Anyways we need to go enjoy the local culture. Keep it real all you Trustifarians out there.

We´re In The Jungle Baby!!! Adios Mexico y Bienvenidos Guatemala

Well we were in the jungle....for about 20 minutes, then we started climbing. Within a matter of 2 hours after crossing the border outside Tapachula, Mexico, we had climbed roughly 7,o00 feet and saw a drop of 40 degrees in temperature which was a godsend since it was about 105F at the border. The past week of riding has given us steady temperatures in the upper 90´s and low 100´s, and we have literally been sweating our asses off. Now we´re in the Guatemalan highlands and it is absolutely beautiful. We spent last night in Guatemala´s second most populous city of Quetzaltenango, or commonly know as Xela (shel-lah). The city is set high in the mountains and is perfectly tucked in between several volcanoes in the heart of the Sierra Madre mountains. Just as Lonely Planet describes Xela, it may well be the perfect Guatemalan town and supports a wide range of both tourists and locals. There are a bunch of gothic type buildings set throughout the city that were a result of the Germans moving into the area once the Spanish moved out.

The past 2 days spent in Guatemala has almost been amazing enough to make me forget about what a pain in the ass the border crossing was. The border is literally set up to cause mad confusion and chaos among people who are not familar with it. As soon as Kyle and I pulled into the vicinity of the border we were swarmed by about 20 Mexican and Guatemala guys offering their ¨services¨to us which included everything from exchanging our Pesos to Quetzales (their exchange rate is crap) or helping us with getting our vehicle import permits from the border agency. The crazy thing is that everybody, and I mean everybody is in on the scam, from the border officials to the Passport stampers to the stray dogs running around everywhere, no one is clean. So we figured out that it does help to hire one of these ¨helpers¨ to walk you through the process, especially if you are not fluent in Spanish. I tried to get my passport stamped on the Mexican side since we didn´t do this on the way in the country, which I was refused. However magically after I gave one of these guys 200 pesos and he took my passport in the backdoor, it was magically stamped, no questions asked. Anyways to make a long story short, after a couple hours of going back and forth from office to office and basically sitting through loads of BS, we were through.

Today we arrived at the small town of San Marcos La Laguna on Lago de Atitlan. Lago de Atitlan is one of the most incredible lakes I´ve ever seen. It´s surrounded by mountains and 3 volcanoes, and is the deepest lake in Central America. San Marcos is probably the nicest of the villages sitting on the lake. There´s a very strange following of people that have gathered in San Marcos. There´s a large international community of hippies here, most sporting full on dreadlocks and teva sandals. This was never more evident by the fact that when we ordered tacos tonight we were asked for the first time ever if we wanted chicken OR vegetarian tacos. I could see the angst in Kyle´s eyes but he did a good job of hiding it. Let´s just say that Kyle is not the world´s biggest hippie lover. Anyhew...the place is amazing and I have some really cool pictures but it doesn´t look like this computer is going to let me upload them. Of course I will however when I next get the chance.

We got to play some soccer with some of the local kids this evening which was pretty cool. We also went kayaking in the lake and are staying at an amazing Hostel right down on the water. Tomorrow we head to Antigua. Till next time...

Clay

Juchitan is cool

I need to apologize for my last post. I just reread it and it is peppered with mistakes and typos. I can barely understand what I was typing.

Anyways yesterday we had another big day and went 150 miles past our planned stop of Acapulco to Pinotepa Nacional. Acapulco was a mess and we just wanted to get out of that place. It was so hot and the stop and go traffic was extremely stressful. I cannot imagine what Mexico City must be like. These towns were just never layed out for the number of people that currently inhabit them.

Today we got to Juchitan, a very cool little city. read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juchitán_de_Zaragoza

Clay and I ventured out to the sat night market and festivities. pretty fun. Bought some bread and bananas from the local vendors for breakfast tomorrow. I don´t need to tell you that it was dirt cheap. A lot of the time i feel guilty paying these prices... but I do it anyway :)

tomorrow we have a relatively easy ride to the boarder, the mileage is about 250 but the map shows a straight and divided highway, so we should make good time. A funny thing about that, when you ask somebody how far away something is, they never reply with distance they always reply with time in a car, this is because the distance is really irrevalvant, unlike the US in Mexico with the poor infastructure (ie stop lights, signage, road design, towns, slow moving traffic and topes) 20 miles could take you as along as 1 hour to cover.
The plan for tomorrow is to stay at a border town and cross into Guatamela first thing on Monday morning. Thats all for now, just a quick update tonight.

dia 16y17 Maleque a Zihuantanejo, basura, topes and other wild Mexica stuff

Yesterday was probably one of the most challenging days Ive had on a motorcycle ever. We covered 322 miles of Mex 200 between Maleque (actually a Canadian retirement community, kidding... but more Canadians in that town that Mexicans) and Zihuantanejo (were we are staying for 2 days and my favorite place so far). Again I don´t want to beat a dead horse but mex 200 is an absolutely amazing road. It is more twisty than would be legal in the US and gains and drops elevation like a chairlift. After riding that last section i think it is better than HWY 1 between Carmel and San Simeon in every category except for pavement quality, but the pavement isnt bad, and in some places its brand new. We had so much fun riding it that we pretty much didnt stop the whole day, only for gas 3 times, once in the morning at the Pemex and then for peace of mind i bought 5 litres from a local on the side of the road, I think it was a good move because it wasnt for another 90 miles that we hit the next Pemex.

Its really mind bloggling what a big country Mexico is, I mean its a real wilderness riding along the coast for several hundred miles there is really nothing except for little towns, most of which have no running water and few have easy access to gasoline. As a result there is a nice little black market gasoline business driven by travelers like Clay and me. The vastness of this place and the dispercement of its people really add to the wild feeling of the country.

Finally after 7 hours in the saddle we pulled into Zihuantanejo, there are hostels everywhere in this town and after getting a quick lay of the land we posted up at Hostel Mauran. Its owned by a local veteranarian I guess he really wanted us to stay because he dropped his price from 460 pesos to 350 pesos and he let us push our bikes into the court yard for safe keeping, pretty much a no brainer. so good in fact this is our second day in town. we wanted to take a rest and take care of an oil change and some other preventative bike maintanence as well as some laundry.

Anyways Zihuantanejo is a really cool town, it has a nice mix of Mexicans and Foreigners while still maintaining an authenic feeling. I really like it here, it feels safe to walk around at night but it doesnt feel like you are in an american resort town like Cabo San Lucas or Cancun or something. Anyways pretty cool, definitely a little bit of an older crowd here but still cool.

So today we got our oil changed which i feel pretty happy about because after logging all those highway miles seems like it would be putting a lot of stress on my 650 single. The local shop was pretty funny. Bunch of Mexican mechanics hanging around yelling and being loud in Mexican, we did not understand a word they were staying and anytime Clay or I tired to say something in Spanish everyone just laughed, but they were good guys. We intially went there with the intention of just using their shop to do the change ourselves, but they offered to do the labor for 40 pesos, which is less than 4 US dollars at that price I just sat back and watched. The guy did a great job and we were out of there in 20 minutes. The owner was pretty funny, he was walking out his shop in bare feet and was just generally a very dirty individual. He spilled oil a few times and just left in on the ground and throw the empty old bottles behind him once he was done with them, but aside from being messy and dirty he was a good mechanic.

So tonight we are just taking it easy no visit to the cantina or anything we need to get to Alcapulco tomorrow to check out the divers.

so I wanted to make a few observations. First is basura. it is everywhere and i know i mentioned it early on during san felipe but ive had more time to think about it and really Mexicans dont really have anything else to do with their garbage except throw it on the side of the road or burn it. There are no garbage services in these little towns and even if there were, how would you convice anyone to pay for it when all they have been doing their whole life is bringing their trash to the end of town and adding it to the other smoldering trash. You usually can tell you are getting close to some people when in the distance you can see some smoke or smog in the air. the air can get fairly bad down here as well our visors get dirty quickly and we have to clean them a couple times per day, not of bugs but of film from the air. Dont let me leave you with the wrong impression this is the most beautiful country.

So clay mentioned topes a last time and I would add that topes are all over the place. sometimes where they dont even make sense like on the way out of town or before a bridge. but mind you when you are accelerating up to speed leaving town of if your goinga along at 60 mph over a bridge one of these topes which are sometimes marked and sometimes not can be a real surprise. Once way we have figured out how to be extra alert for topes is the presence of road side vendors. These guys set up shop right next to the topes because they know people are going to slow down.

Other wild stuff in Mexico road signs have little relevance and many times they will show conflicting information. for example as you approach a town the kilometer distance will sometimes increase which of course is rediculous. or the arrow on the sign will say Playa Azul straight ahead but you can only turn left or right. you pretty much just need to use your intuition and your mapa to figure out how to get anywhere and it always works out. Also cattle it just roams around freely. we see horses or donkeys tied to a tree in the middle of now where and you will see cows and bulls grazing by the side of the road, mind you they are not behind fences they just wander by the side of the highway. Oh and dogs, well dogs in Mexico breed like rabbits and dont usually have homes. they are typically starving or injured or on the side of the road as road kill. This is because the healthy ones chase after cars and motorcycles which are passing by barking their heads off. Also driving rules, apparently some stop signs are for stopping and others are for running. and passing omg you will see truckers pass in the wrong side of a bling turn at will they are definetly crazing drivers but most of them are good drivers. I mean they are paying attention we have yet to have anyone pull out infront of us which happens all the time at home. also kids drive at a young age, like 12.

also im tired and this blog session is over.

Dia 15: Puerto Vallarta to Melaque

Today had its ups and downs but ended on a really good note. After waking up this morning with a slight case of the old Montezuma´s revenge (if you dont know dont ask), we completely disgraced ourselves by going to the Walmart Superstore in Puerto Vallarta. Say what you will about Walmart, but I had been needing to grab a couple things since we left and was unsuccessful until Walmart reared it´s ugly head. Ugly but oh so beautiful...

We headed south out of town around noon on Mex 200 after a trek through old town PV to find some adequate 4-stroke motorcycle oil. It was at this point that Kyle´s blood pressure began rising at a very unhealthy rate. The road out of PV is an absolutely beatiful route, winding through dense jungle over-looking the Pacific Ocean. The problem is that its only one lane in each direction and there is a very healthy amount of traffic going each way, including tour buses, taxis and loco Mexican drivers. We had couple iffy moments on this ride but nothing we couldnt handle.

After finally making it out of town we started making a steady pace but soon learned to respct the Topes (speed bumps). These things literally come out of NOWHERE down here. Back in the US you can usually see speed bumps from a ways away due to there being painted in very bright colors but it seems that someone here is playing a nasty trick on foreigners by camoflauging them into the adjacent pavement. Another problem is that they are placed in very inconvenient and weird places where there really should not be a speed bump such as leaving a town or in the middle of the highway. This is evidenced by the fact that Kyle hit a very such Tope today literally at 50mph sending him flying 2 feet into the air. The landing was quite nice but I´m a little concerned about his stock back shock blowing up with some of the tough riding we´ve been doing. Don´t worry parents...it was sweet!

Around 3pm we decided we were tired of riding and would find the next turnoff we could to camp on the beach for the night. This was the good part of the day. We randomly pulled into the town of Melaque thinking we could find somewhere to set up camp. Driving through town we quickly noticed it was a really cool place but also that it was crawling with North Americans. Once again it was mind blowing to find another little Mexican town overrun with gringos who either live here full time or for part of the year. Melaque has a nice stretch of beach and we found a camping spot for only 40 pesos, or a little under $3 US.

Other notable things which I´ll attach pictures of were Kyles sand burnout tyring to get down to the camp spot, a huge old abandoned hotel right on the main stretch of beach, and fisherman with nets wading out into the water to catch dinner. Anyways, enough typing for now, talk to you all soon.

dia 14 y la cuenta por favor

ok we´ve been having a lot of fun for the last couple of days hanging out at chris´ place in cabo. it´s time to get back on track knock out some serious miles and do some blog updates. I know you´ve all been craving them... so basically cabo was unbelivable, i think clay is going to cover most of it so i´m not going to go into detail but all i have to say is that the mango deck kicks some serious ass. if you ever vacation in cabo make sure you spend an afternoon at the mango deck.

day 14, we awoke on the Chihuahua Star which is a real jem let me tell you... (sarcasm alert) Clay took a shower in our cabina which i refused to do based on what i thought the probable water source was, then we packed up our stuff and and rode off the back of the boat into the port of Mazatlan at 630 in the am. Let me tell you, I´m glad we did not take the boat to Topolobombo because that thing gets into port at like 3am and even at 630 in the morning the port town of mazatlan looked pretty rough. after spending about 30 minutes navigating our way around speed bumps and stray barking dogs we finally made it to the main toll road mex 15 which took us south east and then dropped us off to mex 74 which leads directly into to San Blas. San Blas and the sournding southern towns are completely amazing little agricultural wonders .

Clay really liked San Blas as did i there is a beautiful old church in town as well as an amazing town square puntuated by a blue painted community center. the beach at San Blas is not great because the town is actually sheltered by a cove, but as you continue south towards Puerto Vallarta along mex 12 you escape the cove and the water front opens up to the full pacific ocean.

Mex 12 is an incredible road that i would put on par with the PCH HWY from Carmel to San Simeon, it is incredibly twisty and has some amazing ocean and tropical views. After completing 281 miles we rolled through the resort section of Puerto Vallarta and on into old town PV were we found a resonable rate of 500 pesos for the night at the Marlin Hotel. We took a stroll down the Malecon (boardwalk) and found an amazing local taco place to eat. Only 170 pesos for 4 beers and 2 plates of tacos at 14 to 1 exchange rate. you do the math pretty much unbeatable. the amazing thing is that in the non resort towns unlike PV the prices are even cheaper.

a comment about La Cuenta por favor, which mean the bill please in spanish. Clay and I have become very accostomed to saying this phrase during our trip. This is because in latin or mexican culture it´s considered very rude or impolite for the server to drop the bill before it is asked for. Receipt of the bill is kind of like saying ok it´s time to leave now. It does not matter how long you have been done with your food, it does not matter how many times you stare the server down or how done you are, until your say la cuenta por favor you are not getting that bill. I kind of like it that way to tell you the truth, I don´t feel rushed, I can stay there and mellow as much as I want and wait for clay to to finish his cafë. it´s kind of nice, i know i need to ask for the bill so its no problem. I think the USA should adopt the la cuenta por favor rule and everyone would have a much more enjoyable dinning experience.

Day 13: Cabo to La Paz

Cabo to La Paz is a relatively short day mileage wise compared to some of the other days we´ve put in. The coolest thing about this ride is cutting through the town of Todos Santos. Todos Santos is probably best known for its miles of epic surf breaks that are known all over. This is apparent by the countless number of gringo surfer bras wondering the streets of Todos Santos and calling the place home.

Another cool thing about Todos Santos is the urban legend that it´s Hotel California is where the Eagles´ Don Henley originally wrote that infamous song. This has been both disputed and supported by critics, but seeing it in person it seems the perfect place for the origination of the classic. Todos Santos is probably my favorite town in the Baja so far, even though I didnt get to spend much time there. Definitely a place to return.

We arrived at the ferry building in La Paz later that morning, got our vehicle import permits, bought our ferry tickets and waited for the ferry to depart at 3pm. While waiting for the ferry we got lunch and cervezas at a little joint down the beach. An absolutely beautiful place...check out the pictures.

The Chihuahua Star was quite a boat and actually seemed like a hand-me-down american cruise ship from the 80´s. Anyways, kinda tired of writing blog posts right now, plus I´m drinking beer out of a large styrofoam cup. They give you the cup at the store when you buy the beer and expect you to put it in the cup and leave the bottles. They return the bottles to the plant for money which are then cleaned and re-filled, no melting down like in the US. Until next time...anyways it looks like theres a cool billiards hall across the street...

Day 11 & 12: Holed up in Cabo

No, I´m not gonna lie, we basically just took a vacation from our vacation. I´m not really sure how we ended up in Cabo really, it was never part of the plan. Kyle has been navigating and I think that the lure of seeing a female that doesn´t make us look like Powder when standing in close proximity was too much for him to resist.

I kid! I kid! The real reason we ended up in Cabo was because our new amigo Chris, who we´ve been riding with for the past week down the Baja, owns a RIDICULOUS timeshare at Club Cascades Resort and invited us to joing him and Shane there for a few days. It worked out well actually because after finishing all the necessary tourist visa paperwork in La Paz, the earliest ferry we could catch from La Paz to the mainland was Sunday afternoon. Why Not???? The place is right on the beach on the main strip of hotels in Cabo and has it´s own private swimming pool, hot tub, 4 separate hotel rooms, and best yet...a palapa.. Palapas are sweet.

We got to meet some pretty cool people in Cabo and had a great time, but we were ready to get out of there and continue on with the real adventure by the time Sunday rolled around. However sold out Cabo may be, we learned some really important things from our time spent there: 1. Kyle will do just about anything for a free bucket of beers, including running into the ocean sporting a full moon in front of a restaraunt full of people. It was blinding... 2. I cannot chug beers like I used to. I participated in a beer chugging contest at the Mango Deck (same place kyle exposed himself) and lost by a slim margin. However I still contend the contest was totally rigged. We took it easy Satruday night and headed back to La Paz early Sunday morning. Damn I wish I had of picure of Kyle at the Mango Deck. 3. No matter where you go in Mexico and how touristy the place may be, you can always find an awesome taco stand where you can eat til you explode and pay less than 50 pesos. We ate there two nights in a row and are still not tired of tacos, especially cheap ones.

Day 8 Loreto to Ciudad Constitucion

So there really isn´t a whole lot to report today. Our plan as of yesterday was to make it to La Paz today where we will eventually catch the ferry over to the mainland. HOWEVER...we spent a little too much time patronizing the local Cantina in Loreto last night, causing us to wake up a lot later than planned this morning. Not wanting to push it and risk arriving in La Paz after dark, we decided to shack up in Ciudad Constitution this evening. Ciudad Constitucion is a larger industrial-agricultural city that doesnt see much tourism.

Not the prettiest town on the Baja, however Constitucion has it´s hidden gems including awesome taco stands and cheap hotels. That reminds me that I wanted to mention that the food has been mindblowing and super cheap everwhere weve been so far.

On a side note, I am really impressed with Kyle´s Spanish translation skills. His pronunciation is bad enough to make Cesar Chavez roll over in his grave, BUT he does have a hidden talent understanding natives as they speak to him. His translation skills have really come in handy. So he´s got that going for him...

Also, I added some more pictures in the posts below. Above is a piture of Kyle talking to the infamous Coco of Coco´s Corner. This picture is totally out of sequence, but just a really cool shot. Coco is a Baja legend and has a little compound set up in the middle of nowhere on the dirt road shortly after Gonzaga Bay where you must stop and drink a cerveza and listen to Cocos stories if youre passing through. Almost anyone who has ridden a motorcycle down the Baja know about Coco. Learn more about Coco here, http://www.bajaexpo.com/coco.htm

Enjoy, and Buenos Noches.....

Day 7: Santa Rosalia to Loreto, MX

Hi everyone, thanks for following along with us on our adventure. We'll try our best to keep updating this thing when we get the chance.

So today was another great day riding the Baja. We covered roughly 130 miles from the small mining/fishing town of Santa Rosalia to Loreto. Today's ride was probably the most picturesque yet, which is truly saying a lot by how cool the Baja has been so far. We rode along the Eastern coastline and saw numerous little white sand beaches along the way while also cutting through several small sets of mountain ranges. As recommend by a long time Baja traveler, we stopped in an awesome little town called Mulege. Both Mulege and Loreto are seeing an increasing presence of Americans and Canadians who've discovered the majestic nature of the Peninsula. It's actually pretty amazing to me to see how many Americans have come down here to set up full time residence in one of the sleepy little Baja towns, a seemingly way to escape the hustle of American life.

We are staying in an incredible little place called the La Damiana Inn in Loreto. It's a old house converted into an Inn owned by an American woman who moved down here a few years ago. Loreto is becoming more of a destination town proven by the large 4 star hotels recently built down on the waterfront.

Tommorow we head to La Paz, a large port city where we will eventually pick up the ferry to Mazatlan on the mainland. Kyle did an exquisite job of describing the last few days events, however a couple things need to be cleared up for concerned readers: 1. Yes we did both go down on the dirt roads between San Felipe and Gonzaga Bay, but they were relatively low speed dumps and both us and the bikes remain un-harmed. Our egos are another story however! 2. Yes we did skirt the check point for our tourist visas, but we will be picking these up tomorrow in La Paz and we don't plan on making it a habit of avoiding the Federales. We received highly reliable information on how to do this and were assured that it would be no problem picking them up in La Paz. 3. Yes the young lads (federales) are wielding large machine guns at the checkpoints but they've been super friendly to us at every stop. Not once have we felt threatened or in danger. Hopefully this continues...

I'll definitely post more pictures as soon as I find a computer with enough bandwith to support it, maybe in La Paz. Stay tuned everyone...

day 5 /6

tonight we are in santa rosalia, in baja california sur. please excuse all punctuation this key board is horrific. the last couple of days have been epic to say the least. The last update was from san felipe. since then we rode 50 miles of tarmac to Puertecitos at which point the road turned to dirt and or rock and gravel. From Puertecitos on to Baja Gonzaga was approx 50 miles of poor to bad dirt road, it took clay and i 3 hours to complete, but we each only fell over one time which i thought was pretty good. the scenery was undiscribable, you could see the dirt road streching on for miles in the horizon with the sea of cortez to our east. the colors down here are quite amazing especially as the sun is setting. in baja gonzaga we stayed at the famous alfansia´s hotel which is right on the beach. there we met up with several other adventure motorcycle riders. i would quite call it a town, more like a stretch of trailers and some houses all on the beach 100 miles from anything, there is a pemex about 2 kilometers down the road tho. from baja gonzaga we traveled another 35 miles this morning before meeting up with mex 1. it was raining on and off in the morning and the mud for the last several miles before mex 1 was tricky to say the least. from the mex 1 intersection we head south towards Guerreo Negro passing through several military check points along the way. In fact every day we have been in mexico we have hit a couple. they´re young guys with machine guns looking for drug trafficers. some times they wave us along, other times they want to know about our bikes or clays ipod and sometimes they want to look thru our stuff. but no problems so far. everyone has been really friendly. I always make my best effort to talk in spanish with them even if they can understand english, i like the practice and i think the mexicans like it when we try to speak their language. Based on a tip from a fellow traveller at alfansia´s before we arrived in guerreo negro we took a detour on a wide salt road towards the pacific ocean to avoid a police check point these are the once you need to look out for not the military one´s the cops are the guys that try to shake you down for money, the detour worked great and after a quick fuel stop we booked it to santa rosalia and arrived just as the sun was setting. this town is really cool we booked a room at a small hotel and took a hot shower and ventured out to find the best taco stand, which we did. we will probably walk round town tonight and see what is going on but things are pretty slow as almost everyone in town was at the sunday night church service. tomorrow we plan to make it to Lorreto which should be an easy day about 110 miles down the coast.
until the next time i find a connection.
-kyle

Mexico is a pretty crazy place. As we headed south from the town of Mexicali I could not believe the trash that was on the side of the road. People around here pretty much have no regard for their surrondings. They just throw shit everywhere. Even when we were on our little fishing boat the guide threw a bag of potato chips in the water... it's kind of sad, I felt like saying something to him but decided against it since we were on his boat. The fish we caught were really tasty, we grilled them up on the bbq and hand them with some tortillas. um um good. We've already met a few american parties who are travelling south on motorbikes as we are. Most stop at Cabo San Lucas and turn around, although we met some other kids our age who are planning to make it to Panama on dirt bikes. We were surprised because their provisions were minimal but either way they seemed like good riders and I think they'll make it just fine. Tomorrow we plan to continue south on some dirt roads and eventually make it to Cabo or La Paz not really sure yet. Pretty much whatever we feel like doing, we are going to do.

One thing that really chaffes me is how everyone said how much trouble we were going to run into. I don't want to jinx myself, but so far everyone we have run into have been extremely friendly. People down here just live there lives like we do back home, albiet on a smaller scale. Looking forward to hearing from ya' all.

cheers,
Kyle

Day 3 (and 4): Oceanside to San Felipe, MX

Day 3 was an absolutely epic ride covering roughly 310 miles from Oceanside, CA to San Felipe, MX. After a short guided tour from Mark through the beach and downtown Oceanside, we headed up towards the mountains on Highway 78 East. This highway was the quintessential street bikers dreamride on twisty roads up to the town of Julian, rough elevation of 4500 feet. From there we headed down into the deserts of Eastern San Diego county. We caught up with Highway S2, which then linked us up with Interstate 8, dropping us right into the Calexico/Mexicali Border.

The border crossing was more than easy, there was literally no human interaction necessary heading into Mexico. However, the line heading into the US was backed up for miles. From there we headed South down 5 to the town of San Felipe, MX. There was a stop on the way into San Felipe where the Federales checked out gear looking for drugs, but it was quick and they were more than friendly.

From my take, San Felipe is an cool old fisherman's hangout meets upcoming resort/tourist town. My Aunt Sandy recently built a beautiful oceanfront home on the outskirts or town where we are staying for 2 nights. The house is absolutely beatiful and is done to the max with no expenses spared. Today we went fishing on a small boat chartered by a crazy local who started screaming everytime we hooked up a fish no matter how small it was. We cooked up some fish tacos afterwards and are now at the local internet cafe. I'm trying to upload some pics from the last couple days but it doesn't seem to be working too well. Tomorrow we'll head South through the town of Puertecitos and beyong. From what we hear it's graded dirt road after Puertecitos that can be a bit iffy in terms of passability certain times of the year. Our plan is to make it to La Paz to catch the ferry to mainland Mexico by Monday.

Hopefully Kyle will grace us with his presence to add some more details.

Day 2: SLO to Oceanside

Nothing too crazy or interesting to talk about so far, other than the fact that Kyle can still party like he's in college and get up at 8am to ride motorcycles all day. He went out in SLOtown last night and tore it up with our old college buddies. I on the other hand would have been a huge liability on a motorcycle today if I had done the same. I think one time I asked him, "Kyle, how do you do it? When are you gonna slow down?", to which he replied, "c'mon Clay...nobody likes a quitter." Nuff said...

Today was a relatively substantial day..we did 295 miles which included riding through LA which is a task in itself. The best part of the day was getting to have lunch Dan "the Man" Manalo at Johnny Pastrami's in the majestic and alluring town of Culver City, CA. Two things worthy of noting today: 1. It was super hot outside...way too hot for a early February day, it felt like summertime. 2. Being able to ride in the carpool lanes on the 405 is a must as long as your buddy realizes that the double yellow lines separating the carpool lanes can't be crossed at will.

Tonight we are being spoiled by my Aunt Kathleen and Uncle Mark in Oceanside. Tomorrow is the big day, the point of no return if you will. MEXICO!!!

Day 1

Clay, I think that is a pretty nice intro that you wrote. Very composed and well thought out, my posts are probably going to be all over the place.

So day 1 was nothing all that special, stuff we've done before. The highlight was definitely cutting over to the PCH and charging it from Carmel down to San Simeon. That has got to be my favorite road ever, whenever I ride that road I think to myself I should probably move somewhere close to this place so I can ride it on a regular basis. Kinda like when I have a incredibly fun time skiing in Tahoe on a powder day I tell myself I should move there to be a ski bum (already off topic). Anyways the PCH has all the elements of a great road; twisty, undulating, great scenery, fast, slow, blind and open turns. It really has everything. When I ride a great road like that and everything is clicking, like I'm shifting in the right places, turning in at the right time getting on the gas early and braking late I'm happy and riding a motorcycle just feels like it is the right thing to do. Not sure if a lot of people feel that way about something in their life, but it's great to have motorcycles and skiing in my life. I think people who play music probably get the same satisfaction when they're rocking out as i do when I'm riding or skiing.

Had a great time in San Luis Obispo visiting my brothers and some buds from college days. That town has changed a lot in 3 years. Apparently Marty's is now a cowboy bar and Frog & Peach is a hippy bar... who knew.