Canyon Carving and motorcycle bliss

Cuernavaca to Oaxaca (Wah-hawk-ah) Tuesday Oct 29  435km.
Roads in the state/province of Puebla were freshly paved and traffic was light.

The road followed the edge of the valley. Some decent views.

Stopped for lunch and a guy said it was 6 hrs to Oaxaca.  We did it in about 3.  Sometimes it is so much fun not to take the toll roads but you never know when you'll be held up for hours on end or get lost for hours..
Pulled into town in the rain and set out to find a bank that would accept our cards.  We got lucky with the second try.  Found a cheap hotel and then stumbled across a Chinese buffet.  It was nice to have something different.

 Wednesday October 30 Oaxaca to Tapachula 676km
Up early but it still took awhile to get packed and to find our way out of the city.  Once we were on the highway we stopped to oil our chains for the day.  A pair of BMWs 650's passed us and the circled back to make sure we were ok.  The two guys were from Germany doing a similar trip to ours but taking 11 months to do so.   We chatted for a bit then headed off together.  We stopped for gas, hoping to catch back up with them.   Never did see them again.  Hopefully they made it safely!

Well we thought yesterday was a day of unreal riding, today was even better.  A solid 200km of constant twisties.  It took nonstop concentration.

Turn after turn.

After all the twisties we made up some miles on a straight road just off the coast.  There was a extremely windy section, all the trees were growing sideways.  

We were stopped at a military checkpoint but managed to get through without any trouble.  No espanol.

Tomorrow we are going to take a day off before crossing into Guatemala.

Tepoztlan Mexico Hike

Staying at the Santo's means the market is almost another place to call home. We spent a fair amount of time there hanging out and checking out downtown.  The Santo's design, print/embroider and sell t shirts at the Artisan marketplace.
One day we each took an armful of T shirts and tried to sell them to the Mexicans in the square. Two tall white guys selling t shirts is not an easy task!  Kyle managed to sell two but got made fun of by a street comedian.  In his defense he didn't even realize there was a show happening.

We got very comfortable riding around town.  One particular evening we were riding our bikes home from the market.  We were ripping up a deserted one way street and Kyle hears a bunch of hooting and hollering behind him.  You know Trevor is having fun when he starts yelling hahaha.

Sunday October 27 2013.
We headed out to Tepozlan today for hike.  The town is famous for the remains of a temple built on top of the nearby Tepozteco mountain, as well as for the exotic ice cream flavors prepared by the townspeople.

We took the Ruta (Public Bus) from Cuernavaca.  It took about 45 minutes to get there, passing through several small towns.  We then walked to the end up the street where the trail started.

View from the top.  Took us about an 45 min- hour to get up.  Free admission on sundays!

Relaxing after a sweaty hike.

Ashley and Danni!

Tarzan?!

Lunch in the marketplace.

Making homemade pupusas.  This one is for you Matt and the guys from Servus!
Pupusas are traditional Salvadorian dish (as the Santo's are originally from El Salvador) made from handmade corn tortillas and filled a mixture of Oaxaca Cheese, double cream cheese and peppers.  Sometimes they are also filled with pork and re fried beans.
A big storm blew in and we ended up finishing cooking, eating and playing some card games by candlelight.  BURRO!

Thank you very much Santo's!! We has an awesome time with you guys in Cuernavaca!!!!

Big bikes for big boys

Tuesday Oct 22, Morelia to Cuernavaca
Trying out this interactive google map of our rough route. More or less where we went apart from getting lost in a few of the little towns just outside of Toluca. Brutal road signage.

View Larger Map

We left Morelia after a delicious breakfast around 10:30am.  The weather was overcast but no rain yet. Hurricane Raymond was hitting the coast and we might catch some of it today.   It was actually pretty chilly, maybe 15 degrees.   We made good time to Toluca; maybe 3hrs.

That's where the adventure started. We spent the next 2 hrs or so trying to get on the right road out of the city. We did not want to take the main road to Mexico city but rather take the smaller highway 4 (shortcut) to Cuernavaca.  Before you knew it the highway turned into a back ally, then was closed for some market.  We were heading the wrong way up one way streets.... all in rain...  A little frustrating as time/daylight was ticking by. 

Finally we got on the right road and it was awesome.  Twisty two lane with little traffic. Through a mountainous region with pine trees.  It was pretty neat.

We stopped for a quick snack.  Cows in the background.  Reminded me of Canada.

Drove through a cloud/ fog.  At one point the road changed and became very very slippery..  We made it to Cuernavaca around 5:30 luckily running into the Mexican on a horse statue we had been told about.

Kyle accidentally ordered two giant buns filled with cut up hotdogs.  Probably a pack between the both of us.  It was pretty disgusting.. haha. It was a long day of riding. Randomly met a Mexican that actually spoke some English! (doesn't happen very often) called up Ashlee and after a minute or two of rapid Spanish he told us she was on her way! It was a great feeling seeing a familiar face!

Up at 5:45 we headed to the school where Ashlee teaches English.  We sat in on her first class where the students knew way more about grammar in English than either of us.

Ashlee and Isabel presented a grammar class to all of the teachers in the school which we also took part in. Tons of fun and even learnt a little bit!

Bob Marley or Che? looking good though

This ones for Phil.  Some pretty neat bugs out there. Sometimes we would go with Ashlee to school, sometimes we would explore on foot.   Kyle worked out with Dani one evening, it was great couple days.

On Friday Ashlee had  a full day of classes so Trevor and Kyle looked into bike shops to fix Trevors muffler.  In Arizona the discs the muffle the sound fell out.  We have been told they they will have them made by Monday.

 We visited Gerardo Debbink who runs Quest Mexico. /http://www.quest-mexico.org/

Cuernavaca Friday night! Good times

We are tall. Big bikes for big boys.

Recreating Los Pollos

Learning how Mexicans Drive

Day 13 Tepic to Morelia (Approx 500km.)
Started the day off on the toll roads and followed them all the way to Guadalajara.  The road was amazing, it weaved through the hills and mountians with very light traffic. It was very scenic. We had a blast.

Guadalajara is quite a big city.  We gassed up at the outskirts and made our best effort in crossing the city.  Looking at the map it appeared there was a ring road.....   After about 60 km and several wrong turns we made it out of the city.  Traffic and roads were very busy.
While traffic may look crazy, the drivers are actually amazing.  We have seen no accidents and have never felt uncomfortable.  Traffic just flows, that's honestly the best way I can describe it.   Lanes are optional, if you want to go somewhere you just start going and cars just slow down a bit and you slip in.   We had followed a little 125 CC honda weaving through traffic the day before and learnt how Mexican traffic worked.  We started lane splitting and taking full advantage of being on a bike. Tons of fun and adrenaline flying between two lanes of stopped traffic and driving on the wrong side of the road for miles because people would just move over a bit for you.   

After leaving Guadalajara we took a non toll road.  We stopped for another full chicken at a roadside BBQ place.  So good!

The road had a lot of construction.  At one point Trevor ended up passing a semi on the gravel part of the road that was under construction flying over a big ridge to get back on the road again!  The entire ride was a lot of fun but hard to get many miles in. 
            The non toll roads pass through all the towns.  In every town there are a series of speed bumps called Topes.  For some reason Mexicans are very afraid of these and just crawl over them.  We take advantage of this by passing as many cars as we can on the shoulders.

We motored on and ran into a thunderstorm late in the afternoon.  We past through the worst of the storm only to realize that we missed the turn to Morelia.  We talked to a very helpful mexican named Pedro who advised us it was 1 hour to the next town or 1/2hr back to Morelia.  Because it was getting dark we opted for Morelia and additionally Kyle had found a hotel that looked decent online.   It was  pouring rain and very dark as we pulled in to Morelia.  Quickly we came to the conculsion that we were never going to find our hotel and decided to pay a taxi (150 pesos) to show us the way across the city. Streets were flooding, it was quite the ride. 

The next morning.  Hotel California courtyard. Nicest hotel room yet. 

Day 14 Vibrato Mucho.
Woke up a little later the usual and we were packed and on the road around 10am.  We had planned on about a 3hr ride to Cuernavaca to visit Trevor's friend.

The night before Kyle's bike was acting strange, vibrating more and more. Kyle thought it was just the chain on its last legs.  It was the original chain and we had brought new ones.  Trevor changed his in Las Vegas.   Kyle tightened and lubed the chain and we hit the road.  20km outside of Morelia we pulled over as things were still not good.  The bike was shaking madly.

We discovered that 9 of the rear spokes had snapped.  What Kyle thought was the chain skipping because it was loose was actually spokes snapping.  Crap!  Trevor approached three Mexicans across the road asking about a repair shop.  Since today is Sunday everything is closed.  They said a shop in Morelia would be able to fix the wheel.  After a short discussion they hopped in their cars with their grandparents, wives, and kids; we slowly drove the 20km back to Morelia stopping in front of a Yamaha/John Deer Dealership.  We thanked them for their help.

We headed for the town centre and stayed in the ancient Hotel Morelia

Checked out the Cathedral and "pan" (bread) festival that was going on.

We also checked out the International film festival that was taking place but just about every show was already sold out. We explored later on that night with the niece of the hotel owner and friend that was working at the hotel as well. We had a good time practicing Spanish and just chatting.

Day 15 Monday Oct 21, 2013.
We set off with the Hotel owners daughter and the niece from the night before in search of a bike shop capable of fixing the spokes. We decided that the girls should have the helmets so we ended up getting even more attention than usual cruising around the city with hair flowing in the wind. haha

Eight repair shops later we found one that was willing to experiment with not necessarily the right parts. He told us it would not be as strong but he could make it work for now. We are extremely thankful for the girls help as they translated for us and we would have had a very tough time navigating the city. 

They were quite intrigued by the tubliss system.

Cutting and welding the spokes to the right length with no eye protection.

Just chilling and had a great taco lunch!

Very happy Kyle.  Thanks again girls! 

Day 12, 2nd day riding in Mexico.  Hermosillo to Los Mochis 500km.
Woke up early and started off doing some bike maintenance.  We both checked our valves.  Kyle wanted to do this before we left but never had the time and it was bugging him since.  It took us a couple hours as we had never done it before. Intakes were fine, exhausts was a little tight on both bikes. We also lubed our chains.  Kyle's is starting to wear out badly.  Some of the inside rollers are gone. He was planning on this and has a full spare set with him.

Polished off a nice sized pollo for lunch at a roadside bbq place.

Pulled into a nice pink hotel as it was getting dark.. pay by the hour or for the night was the question... haha Definitely for the night.

Trevor went into town and grabbed some pesos/food for the evening and morning. Trevor was a bit nervous about the bike while grocery shopping as he was just wandering around with no idea as to what to get. Ended up with a loaf of bread some peanut butter and a kilo of yogurt. A few apples as well..


Day 13 Los Mochis to Tepic 700km.
7a.m start. Gassed up and hit the road. Took toll roads most of the day which added up to more than we had expected. Roads were perfect though and we made decent time.

We noticed how the climate is changing.  The desert is disappearing and  we passed some good sized farms.   Mostly crops but the occasional large pig and chicken farm.   Saw the influence of big seed companies like Monsanto, Pioneer and Dow.

 Ended up getting pulled over by the policia for speeding?? We both just denied everything including knowing even a word of Spanish. His English was terrible so within a few minutes and him finding out we were Canadian he frustratingly waved us on. Also passed through a military checkpoint where they were searching random vehicles.

Pulled off the main road when we saw the ocean for the first time and found a beauty of a diner on the beach for lunch. 10 amazing taco's and empenada's later and only a few bucks we headed for Mazatlan.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. We took a non toll road which led us through a decent sized town and did some sweet weaving through traffic after we started following a local on his little 125cc honda. Found a little hotel in Tepic which was super hot and humid with no ac. Feeling good though.

Trevor cleaning a pinapple in the super narrow hotel room sink.

Bienvenidos Mexico

Headed to the border early this morning.  There are police everywhere as we got closer to the border.  Its insane.

Crossed into Mexico without really stopping, no one really cared that we were even there.

It was crazy.  You cross through a gate and instantly you are in a third world country.   Trevor and I kept telling each other how weird it felt.  Its all part of the adventure.  We headed in 21Km and reached immigration.   We got our tourist card and our vehicle permits without issue.
We continued on to Hermosillo to spend the night.  It was beautiful weather, finally consistent heat.

We spent the evening walking around looking for authentic Mexican food which is actually harder than you think.  We found a lot of hot dog stands and fancy American restaurants.  Hopefully it will get easier the further south we head.