Category: Uncategorized (Page 2 of 3)

I have been doing more updating on the Motodawgs Facebook page lately because, for some reason, I have been unable to upload picture to the blog site.  Unfortunately, I have no idea how to fix it but I do have a email out to our technical support person in Puyallup and hoping he can help me.  We spent three days in the northwest area of the Yucatan relaxing at the beautiful Flamingos Inn Bed and Breakfast where I got to  enjoy a beautiful ocean view from our balcony.  Early mornings  consisted of yoga and meditation on the balcony, watching dolphins play,  mid-morning swims, walks along the beach, then sun bathing and lounging by the pool in the afternoon.  Rough life, but it sure felt good after spending some long hot, hot days on the bike.

As the weather has gotten warmer we’ve tried to start our traveling days earlier and end them sooner to beat the heat but we are finding that with Jackie Dawg, we sometime have difficulty finding hotels that will take her.  We had a easier time up north and along the west coast of Mexico.  We have debated on sending her back up to Washington as we do worry about her and the heat.  Fortunately, we have wonderful home and family for her to go spend some time with while we continue with our journey if that is what we decide to do.  We definitely are both having mixed feeling about keeping her here with us but having her here is a comfort to both of us so we are as yet undecided but try to stop sooner and for a little longer now to give her time to rest.

After spending three days on the beach in Chuburna, which is about 30 minutes northwest of Merida, we are now in Akumal, Mexico which is about 30 minutes south of Playa del Carmen.  We have a simple two bedroom apartment/cabin at a place called Camp Akumal which we will call home until Saturday.

Yesterday’s drive getting here was about the more boring drive we’ve had so far.  We decided to take the toll road so we didn’t even get to go through any beautiful small pueblos like we normally do.  Along the ride my speedometer/odometer cable vibrated loose and the inner wire fell out (same thing happened to Milton a while back, so we had been using mine to know when to fuel up) so now we have to go by either looking in the tank or just fill up every 1 1/2 to 2 hours.

There are not many fuel stops on the toll road and we ended up missing one and I was not paying attention to the miles on my tank (speedometer/odometer cable still attached at this time) and next thing I knew, Milton was on reserve.  We always carry two MSR small bottles of fuel with us so we continued on but then we came to a sign that said the next services were about 150 km away we flipped around and headed back 44 km to get fuel, (my cable came off somewhere along the return).  Milton did end up running out and we had to pull over to put fuel in his bike but I never even had to switch to reserve,, guess I get better milage than him.  After refueling and eating a horrible lunch at the little restaurant, we continued on.  The butterflies were thick but besides looking at the butterflies coming towards us as we rode, the trees and bushes along the side of the road prevented us from seeing much of anything else  We were able to see the dark clouds overhead that were accumulating though.  My one sight that I did see that broke up the monotony of the road was a herd of cows lumbering single file along the overpass.

Eventually we headed slightly southwest toward Playa del Carmen after deciding to skip Cancun entirely, and noticed that across the highway were strung rope ladders with the rope ends running out into the trees.  Took us a few minutes but we finally figured out they had to be crossings for monkeys.  We did get to see one large monkey sleeping in a tree but didn’t see a single monkey using the rope ladder to cross the road.

We made a quick stop in Playa del Carmen for some groceries and as we were pulling out the rain drops started but only briefly but as we rode further they clouds opened up again and we were riding in a tropical downpour.  Luckily it was warm but it was hard to see, the roads got slippery, the thunder loud, but the lightening was beautiful.  Had to do a U-turn a few times in the highway before we finally figured out where we needed to go.   Milton ended up going down due to the slick pavement but was unhurt and after that I rode even slower.  Eventually we found our way safely to Camp Akumal and now we are all tucked in, bikes parked in front of the cabin, with Jackie Dawg sleeping comfortable on the couch.

Last Monday,  we got a message from our friend, Rene, in Guadalajara saying my bike parts had arrived.  To get the parts, a friend of Rene’s, who lives in San Diego, CA and works in Tijuana, picked up the parts at a bike wrecking yard in Chula Vista, CA, carried them across the border and shipped them via DHL to Rene’s house.  This whole process took just over one month.

On Tuesday morning,  after taking care of some business back in the states via phone calls and the internet,  we were finally able to pull out of San Miguel just before noon which placed us in Guadalajara late Tuesday afternoon.  When we arrived to Rene’s house, where my bike was being stored, we opened up the box of bike parts and noticed that two of the four plastic parts were black, two were blue, and there was no hardware included.

Now I realize that the actual color of the bike is just a cosmetic issue and has no impact on how my bike operates, I still wanted the bike all one color and that color was black.  Luckily, Rene has a friend for just about anything so of course he had a solution for me.  This solution came in the form of his friend, Eric, who has an auto painting business.  After a quick phone call to confirm, we agreed to have the parts to Eric the next day.  In the meantime, we started where we could and Milton got me disassembling a few things and taking off bolts that needed to be removed so we could get to certain parts of the bike.  While I did this, he reassembled the choke housing mechanism. This took us until probably about 8pm and then when Rene’s nephew came by, we offered to pay him to watch Jackie overnight (as the hotels in Guadalajara tend to frown on dogs) and then we went back to the hotel we stayed during our last visit a month ago.

Wednesday, after having breakfast at the mercado by the hotel, we went back to Rene’s house.  We didn’t get there until almost 11am and for the next few hours Milton worked did what he could on the bike, which included reattaching the rear blinkers and some other miscellaneous things.   While he did that, I did some dishes for Rene’s mom.  She had spent the last few days at this hospital with his dad who had surgery and I figured the least I could do was make sure she had a clean kitchen to come home to.  Other things that Milton did to the bike during that time was to remove the old spring out of the bike, run errands for miscellaneous nuts and bolts, and right before lunch we dropped off the parts to be painted.  When we dropped off the parts to be painted we found out Eric was only going to charge us $400 pesos, which was just over $22 US dollars and they’d be ready that next day for pick up.  Can’t beat that price!!

That afternoon, Rene’s father came home from the hospital after a couple day stay for a toe amputation and being the good wound care nurse that I am, I attempted to get a look at his foot.  We had a language barrier but I finally figured out that it was the 2nd toe that was amputated and not the great toe as I had initially thought.  The dressing was intact and the dressing change was not due to happen until the next day, so I made a mental note to check back the next day.  The last thing we did for the day was take the shock and the upgraded spring to a local bike shop to be which was also supposed to be ready the next day.

On Thursday, we continued working on the bike, putting the pieces back together.  While doing this we discovered that we were missing some of the necessary pieces needed to attach our panniers so we went and found a place to fabricate them for us.  Milton continued to put the puzzle pieces together, reconnecting wires, finding the right size bolts, etc.

In the afternoon, I caught the tail end of Rene’s father changing his own dressing and saw how difficult it was for him to do because of the location of the wound on his foot and how extensive the it was. I knew that this was something that he would not be able to do without help and this was a way that I could pay them back for storing my bike along with a good portion of our belongings for the past month.

With the use of google translator we relayed to the family that I was a wound care nurse in the states and I wanted to help them with the dressing change so it would be easier for them.  They were agreeable to my help but since the dressing was already done for the day we left it alone.  They brought me the discharge instructions to review along with all of the medications that he was sent home with and I went to work translating.  I found out that the actual wound care instructions consisted of one line of about 7 words and he was to follow up with the doctor in 2 weeks.

The wound care instructions consisted of wash with soap and water and use a antimicrobial spray cleanser but nothing about how and when to do the dressing change itself.  I quickly did a search for wound care on the internet and found a basic instruction sheet, made a few changes, then used google translate to convert it to Spanish.  We got his nephew to print it out so they would have it to use as a reference guide.  That evening, before we left, I told Rene I’d go to the Farmacia and bring supplies back the next day.  Just as I was getting ready to walk out the door, his mom showed me a topical gel that she said the doctor wanted her to use but they weren’t sure how to use it or how often it was to be applied.  I took a photo of it so I could research it but before leaving, I double checked the discharge sheet to make sure instructions weren’t buried somewhere in the paperwork.  I couldn’t find any mention of it anywhere.

Earlier that same afternoon, Milton had taken his tennis shoes shoes to be repaired at the local shoe repair shop and while there, two stalls down, was a seamstress so he dropped off some bike straps that needed to be repaired also.  After doing this,  he discovered that none of the parts that we were waiting on would be ready until the next day.  We were rather bummed, Milton especially, but with it being out of our control, we decided to go with Rene to the KLRos meeting that night.

The ride through Guadalajara was crazy with it being like a game of follow the leader.  Where Rene went, we went.  When he cut lanes, we cut lanes.  When he drove in the opposite lane to get to the front of the line, so did we.  Stoplights really didn’t mean anything, if it was clear you just went. I also discovered that actual lanes didn’t exist, if a car or bike could fit, then it was a lane.  Sometimes I just closed my eyes cause I didn’t want to see what we were trying to squeeze between, around, or in front of.  I found it was better if I just didn’t look.

We stayed for only part of their club meeting (the social part of it) but we got to meet some really nice guys and check out their KLR bikes.  Most of the bikes there seemed to be mainly city bikes but there was one club member that we met that had  been on a some long distance trips down to South America and up to Alaska and he had what appeared to be a great mounting system attached to the underside of his front fender for his after market lights.  It looked like it might be the perfect solution for us, so far, the lights we had mounted had vibrated apart so we needed a better system.

When we got back to the hotel later that night, I attempted to research the medication but I had little luck.  Most of what came up was in Spanish so I used google translator a lot but I couldn’t find much out except it was indicated for use with things like anal fissures, uterine cervical cancers, ulcers, and then below it would say for external use only with no information on how to apply.   Boy was I getting confused, so I decided to try to figure it out the next day.

On Friday, I picked up supplies at the Farmacia  which was just down the street from the hotel.  But when I arrived back at Rene’s house, I told them that I didn’t want to change the dressing until we figured out how the gel was to be applied. I asked if they could call the doctor and ask him but it sounded like this was not a possibility, not sure why.  Rene did say he had a doctor friend who worked close and we could go ask him.  I told him I wanted to go with him but he had to drive slow and stay off the sidewalks. He laughed ag me but agreed, so off we went.  Unfortunately, his friend was not in so back to the house we went.  As we pulled up to the house, I remembered that one of the doctors that I worked with in Washington was from Argentina and that he might be able to help me.  I sent a quick text to him and within 10 minutes, he responded telling me it was a mild and should be safe to use in the wound.  While I was waiting for his response, I also confirmed it with a fellow wound care nurse so I felt confident with using it now.

Late that morning, I showed the part of the family how to set up a clean field, how to clean the wound and surrounding foot, apply the medication, pack the wound, and apply the secondary dressing.   We also took a photo of the wound so they would have it to compare to later dressing changes and talked about the importance of keeping pressure off of the area.  Thankfully we had someone there to help translate and I asked him to come back for the evening change when we’d also have the daughter there to watch the change.

After I was finished with the dressing change, I ran down to a small local Farmacia a couple blocks from the house to pick up a few other supplies I forgot to pick up earlier. After, I went to another local shop across the street carried household supplies and purchased a small plastic tub to keep all the wound care supplies in.  This would help to keep everything in one place and make it simple so they could just grab the whole box when it was time to do the dressing change and everything would be right there.  It felt really good to be in my element and use some of my nursing skills.

Meanwhile, during this time, Milton continued to work on the bike.  He picked up the metal pieces that we had fabricated to attach my other pannier.  At some point, Milton took a break to deliver some metal pieces to Eric who agreed to weld them together for us so we could make our own mounting system for our lights.  Our painted parts still weren’t quite ready so Eric said he’d deliver them to us later that day.

When the painted parts arrived, Milton put them on but right before it was completely assembled, he noticed that some wires were caught between the dash faceplate and the headlight housing unit so he had to disassemble all of the pieces he had just put on to remove the wires and then reassemble it all over again.  Luckily it went much quicker the second time around.

Later that afternoon, Milton was finally able to ride my bike around the block for a test run.  While he did that, I started to pull out some of our belongings that had been stored in the corner of their house for the past month.  We loaded up some of our belonging and then we both rode over to the hotel.  Before we left, I changed the dressing one more time with their daughter, Lucy, present to watch.  We used an interpreter again who was a huge help in reinforcing my instructions to them.  Before I left for the night I asked them if they felt ready to take over tomorrow with me there to talk them through it if needed.  They said they felt ready.

It felt so good to finally be able to ride my bike and I had a huge smile on my face.   Initially, I found I was still shifting with my heel, as it had become a habit after breaking my foot, but with conscious effort it didn’t take long to break the habit  My front tire felt like it had a slight wobble to it but I couldn’t tell if it was my imagination or not but I did mention it to Milton.  After we got back to the hotel, we both agreed that we could feel a little movement in the front tire.   When we first got the bike back, the thieves had removed the front tire and it must not have been tightened up enough when the tire was put back on.  We’d take care of it first thing in the morning.

Saturday morning, while Milton went over to pick up the mounting bars that Eric had welded for us, I watched Lucy change the dressing and with only a few reminders from me, she did great and I felt she would have no problem.  We picked up the straps, dropped off some others as both our tank bag straps had been cut off.

By late afternoon, everything was loaded up on our bikes and we were ready to travel.  We debated on waiting and leaving in the morning but both of us were anxious to get moving again.  We both found that we had become attached to this wonderful family so saying goodbye was bittersweet but we felt the urge to ride, at least for a couple of hours and we agreed we could get a hotel further down the road.  This time, as we left Guadalajara, we left on two bikes instead of one and with satisfaction that this bump in the road did not stop us from continuing with our dream.

“I believe in the good things coming” is a line taken from a song from Nahko and Medicine for the People and has been our motto for this trip and the good things are still coming in spite of our recent misfortunes. On Friday, we got good news and were able to recover all three motorcycles. Two of them are in good condition with only minor parts removed but the third, has major damage. This is an incredible stroke of luck and due to the hard work of many people. We want to thank all the local people who have helped us, stopped to talk to us on the street with suggestions and encouragement, the police who recovered the bikes, all the motorcycle riders and groups in Mexico who helped by spreading the word and providing encouragement when we were getting discouraged, all our Facebook friends (old and new) who kept posting and sharing.  So many people played a part in this and made such a huge impact by letting the thieves know they would not be able to use our bikes without being noticed. We also want to thank the US Consulate for making calls on our behalf, to Mike in San Miguel for using his contacts to help us, Luis who helped interpret and get things moving faster at the Ministerio Publico and Juan Pablo and his friend who helped get Kathy’s bike out of impound, since it was not rideable, fed us at his restaurant and wouldn’t take any money for it.  Without ALL of your help we would not have gotten any of our bikes back or been able to stay as positive through the process.

So now its time for us to take a deep breath and regroup.  We have two bikes in good shape and one that is basically destroyed but fixable.  At this point we are thinking of taking the bikes back to Guadalajara where there are Kawasaki dealers and a better likelihood of finding used parts as well.  We did end up getting a lot of our riding gear back and some of the camping gear, but we are still missing a lot of important items and since we only packed what we needed we will have to gear up again as well.

As you can see from the pictures below, Kathy’s bike is in need of major work and the money friends and family have donated will be a huge help in having it rebuilt as well as replacing the necessary camping items and riding gear.  These are some hard lessons learned that we will not repeat. My business coach would ask my to “re-engineer the whole situation” and find out what we could have done differently to prevent the situation and boy have I re-engineered this situation many times. These have been many hard lessons learned for me and the rest of us.

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you.  Our spirits have not been broken and our love and respect for this country and the wonderful people that we’ve met along our journey has not diminished but only grown. Kindness and good people win again.

Much love to all

P.S. Jackie Dawg is a happy, happy camper since her sleeping bag bed was one of the recovered items.

Got most of the plastic parts back but many have been cut through or were just broke off the bike so are they are now unusable.

Front view of the bike, you can see the broken plastic pieces there that are still attached.

All controls on the bars were destroyed, and they removed the grip on the left, no idea why other than to do as much damage as possible.

Other view

Full view of bike, only plastic piece they didn’t remove was the front fender, probably just didn’t have time yet.

Sorry everyone that my updates have slowed down.  We have had very limited WiFi ever since we left San Blas on February 16 but I am finally getting my posts done from some of the other places we visited.

Leaving San Blas

From San Blas we continued on down the coast on Ruta 16 until it connected with Ruta 200, taking it easy and trying to stay on pavement because of my foot.  The drive along the coast was gorgeous but eventually the road took us inland a bit and as we travelled through a couple of small villages we decided to try to find a playa again. In one of the villages, Ixtapa de la Concepcion, Nayarit, we just kept heading west on the roads and lo and behold, before long we were no longer on pavement any longer.  Damn!! Loose gravel roads to begin with but eventually as we got further along the way, we began to hit patches of sand which at this time still caused me to hit my brake instinctively.  Ended up falling twice on this stretch of road and I have to say I am getting damn good at falling.  The learning curve on riding off road is steep for me right now but as Milton keeps reminding me, I will be a really good rider at the end of this journey. We never did reach the playa but on the way back after my last fall, where I had a mini breakdown, Milton made me repeat mantras the entire time.  Things like; I love riding on dirt roads, this is fun, I am a good rider, I look ahead at where I want to go, sand is fun.  Did not fall once on the way back and even had to navigate around some obstacles.  My confidence increased slightly and when we reached Ixtapa de la Concepcion, after buying cold drinks at a little store, we had a wonderful lunch before continuing south.

We stopped at this little store and got drinks right before we ate lunch. This is the store owner and her grandsons.

This is the owner if the little restaurant we ate at. Think he was a little tipsy as he and his friend were trying to get me to stay with them.

The wife at the restaurant. Very nice family.

Us with Louie and Elaine and two of their friends (mother and daughter duo)

Our destination when we started out that morning was Sayulita.  A good friend of mine raves about Sayulita and so I was sure that it would be a place that I’d like also and we’d stay there for a couple days.   In the early afternoon we pulled into Sayulita and I was completely blown away by the number of tourists everywhere.  Many of the signs were in English and the streets were lined with cafes and the types of stores you’d see in upscale tourist areas. Definitely not for us but we did find a nice beach to swim in for a while.  While we were swimming in the ocean, we, of course, asked these two women near us where they were from and one said Berkley so we told her we were from Humboldt in Northern California.  They said that they were here, at the beach, with some friends from Humboldt.  They asked where exactly in Humboldt and we told them Redway and they said their friends were also from Redway.  Turns out it was a couple that has known Milton since he was a young boy.  We had a great visit with them and I know that Milton really enjoyed talking with someone who could share stories with him about Milton Sr, his father, who passed away a few years back.  After we said our goodbyes we quickly left Sayulita without stopping.

Milton and Elaine, turns out she was one of his teachers in elementary school. Small world.

From Sayulita we headed towards Puerta Vallerta and it was getting towards early evening by the time we got close.  About 15 kilometers outside of Puerta Vallerta, we saw a Farmacia so we stopped and were able to get some emergency medicine that we can use if Milton has another severe asthma attack and we aren’t near a hospital.  Also, while there we were able to buy a steroid that I can give him in injection form which will buy us some more time.  Hopefully it will never come to that but it makes me feel a lot better just having it. That night we stayed in Bucerias and had the best meal, wish I could remember what it was called. I’ll have to start writing down the names when I find something I really like.

In the morning we went into Puerta Vallerta where Milton discovered that it has grown tremendously since his last visit so we didn’t stop much.  We did stop at the local Walmart hoping they might have WiFi and to buy a coloring book for my Grandson Niko. While there I bought a couple extra children books and Milton bought some little cars that we can give away but never was able to get the coloring book. Oh well, he’d probably color all over my parents wall with it anyways.   While in the parking lot we, of course, got to talk to a lot of people because most people are curious of where we’re from and going to. It’s always fun to see the excitement in people’s faces and sometimes people even tell us they’ve been wanting to do something similar but most people say in a van or RV and not on motorcycles.

Milton and Dennis talking guns with the police.

Couple of tourists we met, think they were from Canada. Very nice couple, we talked for quite a while.

Another very nice couple we met, think they are also from Canada.

We also stopped so I could FedEx a birthday gift home to my daughter and a book for Niko.  Everything sure takes longer with the language barrier but I have a translator on my phone that helps out some.  In the downtown tourist areas, I did notice that the majority of the buildings were white and not colored with bright colors like in the smaller towns.  Not sure if this is specifically for the tourists but I definitely like more color.  The streets were cobblestone which was fun riding on with all of that traffic and a challenge with the stopping and going because I don’t have much traction on the foot that is wearing the walking boot.  The road south, Ruta 200, out of Puerta Vallerta was again beautiful with expensive houses that were amazing to look at.  Not long, we got far enough away that we began to see little roadside food stands again, which is our favorite place to eat so what did we do, we stopped to eat.

As we drove further south we finally reached an area where many of the palm trees were broken or severely windswept. As we got closer to towns, we noticed piles of bricks and tiles laying on  the ground and houses without walls and roofs. These were the remnants of hurricane Patricia that just hit the area last October.  I talked to a local who said there were no casualties reported that he knew of but the one person did drown after going fishing too early after the storm. I wish I had taken more photos of the area but after a long day’s ride sometimes taking photos is the last thing on my mind.   As we were riding down the long hill we could see the town of Agua Caliente Nueva at the bottom of the hill. We decided to stop there and see exactly where we were on the map, how far we still needed to go to get to Barre de Navidad, and get something cool to drink.  The town was beautiful with colorful buildings exactly how I like it.  We had delicious pina popsicles with huge chunks of pineapple in it.  It tasted so good after a long hot day of riding.  While there we met a couple of local teens who allowed Dennis to take their pictures.

Us with “G”, he played a crucially important part of our journey.

As we were finishing, a young man (mid 30’s), pulled up in  a pickup truck and spoke to us with perfect English and a drawl to his voice.  This surprised us, and we discovered he spent many years living in North Carolina.  He told us he goes by “G ” in the states because his name is rather difficult for us gringo’s to say, me including, so I only remember him as “G”.  He told us that we can’t leave this area until we check out the most beautiful beach which is just down the road and paved all the way.  And he said he was just there a couple days ago and there were some campers on the beach so we could camp there.

After leaving him, we found the road we were supposed to turn off on and we drove through groves on palm trees and as we got closer to the coast the damage from Hurricane Patricia became more evident.  No one was left untouched and all around was evidence of the community working together to rebuild.  Now as if our journey hasn’t already consisted of amazing experiences, on my next post find out how “G” was placed in our path for a reason.

So for those of you who have Facebook (FB), you’ve probably already read Milton’s last FB post. Here is my last couple days experiences.  February 2 was my day to lead, (we have been alternating between the three of us of who leads, how we get to whatever destination we choose, and when we stop to eat).  So on February 2, we all made the decision we wanted to head to the coast for some warmer weather We started in San Juanito and wanted to head towards Los Mochi, which is in northern Sinaloa, Mexico.  When we headed out, we were headed in the direction of Urique.  The ride was amazing through the Copper Canyon area, the cliffs overlooking the canyon allowed us to feel like we were on top of the world and the rock formations were so beautiful.  Very little cars on the road with good pavement for a lot of the way until there wasn’t good pavement anymore.  Eventually, without much warning, the pavement ended (we are finding that this is pretty common here in Mexico).  We continued on unpaved road towards what I thought was Urique but we got turned around somehow. And in my defense, it is easy to do when you come upon a small village that isn’t on the map and it’s hard to know which dirt road to follow once we enter.  At one little village (don’t know the name of it) we stopped for a snack and followed the road out that appeared to be the main one leading out of town.  We usually ask directions before we leave, but with the language barrier it’s often difficult to get answers.  Milton is our best interpreter but even his Spanish is limited and the locals talk to fast that he can often only go by pointing to map and asking aqui ? (here?) and then again pointing to map and saying  there (ahi).  He did ask a few local teenagers and although they enjoyed joking with Milton with his limited Spanish we obviously didn’t get very accurate directions before we left because we ended up in Temoris which was west of our destination.

The road from the little village was again all rocky dirt but it was a relatively easy go for us but slow.  After about an hour of riding up this mountain with lots of switch backs, we came across a construction site where they were installing a pipeline pretty much straight up a mountain side.  This was an amazing site to see so we stopped for a moment to watch and then watched at a slow roll as we went down this hill.  At the bottom on the hill, we had to make a sharp right in an area with some loose dirt. Milton went through, of course, with no problem but as I went through, I think I had my feet out to give me a feeling of control (huge mistake) and I slipped in the dirt and went down with something hard crushing my left foot, (think it was my pannier).

Area where I crashed and hurt my foot.

Construction workers ran to help me get the bike off my foot, helped me up, and I hobbled over to sit down, removed my boot and didn’t note any visible injury but when I palpated my foot, I had pain along the top of my left foot.  Another worker came over, (he appeared to be the foreman) and said something about 5 minutes.  Dennis thought he meant we had to be out of there in 5 minutes so I put my boot back on as Milton came up, he helped me up and we told him we had to leave.  He was not happy with that but I assured him I could move my foot and would be okay to leave.  Come to find out that the foreman was trying to tell us that the ambulance would be there in 5 minutes.

Being checked out by the medics.

After getting checked out, the medic put some type of topical anesthetic on my foot and a light wrap on it so I could still get my boot on and off we rode.  Shifting was hard but luckily I did not need to shift much due to the terrain but I did discover that I could shift with the heel of my boot.  By the time we got to Temoris, it was dusk and we were anxious to find lodging for the night as we didn’t want to camp with my foot being hurt. I had ice, elevation, and ibuprofen on my mind.  We found a small simple hotel with a nice room but they wanted to charge more than Dennis wanted to pay for his portion (he said it was the attitude of the innkeeper) so we left and ended up having to camp that night not far out of town as there were no other hotel in the little town.  We did find a beautiful site and the sunset was amazing but I would have rather iced my foot rather than only elevate for only 11.00 USD more.  We did get to sleep under the stars and besides the pain, it was one of the more restful nights that I have had while sleeping outside.

The next morning, I noted my foot was too swollen to get into my boot so I had a boot on my right foot and a tennis shoe on my left foot.  We continued along what we thought was the right direction and after about 20-30 minutes of riding came upon a little town, which we discovered was Guazapares, where we got to eat a delicious breakfast and saw first hand where the meat that I was eating that morning came from.

Morning Menudo and tacos, I look exhausted.

And hungry!

The first thing I noticed was a young woman sweeping up the dirt courtyard, then I watched this cowboy walk by with an ax and some knives and then the cow was led out from behind the house.

Cow being brought out to be slaughtered.

It all clicked together then.  It was really hard for me to watch the cow be tied up.  First they tied up her front legs, then her rear legs, then pulled her to the ground where the rope around her neck was brought over her back and looped around her tail and then her neck was stretched back and she was tied tight  They spun her around by her tail to get her in the right position and when the pails were brought out, I knew the knife was close to coming out.  I did not see the actual knife being thrust into the cow’s throat but I finally decided that if I was making a conscious decision to eat meat then I needed to be willing to watch the process and stand in honor of this living being who was sacrificed for my food. After the cow was dead they propped her on her back with her legs in the air with pieces of wood placed on either side to keep her in that position.  We left before the butchering was started.

Family of where we had breakfast of menudo and tacos.

During this time, we discovered that we had been heading north and needed to go back past where we had camped for the night.  Milton had always said that he had intended for us to get intentionally lost, don’t know about the intentional part, but we definitely were lost.  We headed back and took the correct turnoff which put us going south.  Today was Milton’s day to lead and again the mountain roads were rocky dirt but he did stop to ask if we wanted to go over the mountain or skirt around it.  My vote was skirt around it as I only had thoughts of resting my foot somewhere as close to a beach as I could get.  Looking at the map, he thought he saw a way to skirt around it.  Not true, there was no way to skirt around it and yesterday’s day of riding was the hardest thing I have ever done.

We finally came to the town of Chinipas, where we were still under the impression we could skirt around the mountain, so we stopped to ask a local who seemed to tell us that we could follow the river to reach our destination.  Hooray, I knew that the river couldn’t go uphill (that gravity thing would prevent that) so I felt relief that there would be no steep hills for me to climb today.  We got lost a few more times, (headed uphill of course), asked for directions again, Milton was chased by a horse (it was beautiful), we rode through deep water crossings and I did not fall thanks to Milton telling me to stay on the throttle (we did get all wet and muddy tho). Before we knew it, we were going up again and after a particular area with deep ruts in the road, we stopped and told Milton we thought we had to be going the wrong way.  He did not agree with us but talked us into going a little further to see what was around the next few bends.  More uphill, that was what was around the next few bends, but by then, we didn’t want to ride down what we had just came up so we continued on, me with great reluctance and a lot of muttering under my breath.

The roads were so steep with switchbacks and they kept saying we were almost at the top but every time we’d get around a bend there would be another steep hill where I could see another switchback.

Up, up, and up!!

Wish I could say that I rode it with no problem but being able to only apply pressure to my right foot made it really challenging for me.  I fell so many times, I lost count.

Another crash! Milton attempting to talk me through what I could have done different.

Luckily each fall was at a low speed as I couldn’t get out of first gear due to the steepness of the hills but none of it was a pretty site.

We finally came across a shrine on the side of the road with water coming out of plastic pipes in the side of the mountain.  As we were resting, a truck pulled up and Milton asked if we were on the right path to Alamos.  One person jumped out to fill up some water jugs while the others tried to help us, drew us a map, and assured us that the roads got better.

At the Shrine..

People we met at the shrine who gave us directions. The guy in red is named Daniel and is a kindergarten teacher. Again we’ve met the nicest people here in Mexico.

Come to find out they didn’t get better for a long, long time.  But, as they left, I felt better with their assurance we were going the right way and road improvement.

Found out that the roads were not improving at all and that we still we not anywhere near the top of the mountain.  At times, after I would wreck on a particularly challenging area, I just would start walking up the hill, exhausted and sure I could go no further.

About three or four times, Milton rode my bike over a few of the more technical areas but as soon as he got the bike past, he would have me get back on the “horse” and talk me through the next part.  All the while, through my communicator, he’d remind me of what I learned in my off-road class; stay on the throttle when going uphill to keep my momentum up, clutch control, look where I want to go, not where I don’t want to go, soft hands, set myself up for the hairpin turn, take the outside line and power up the hill,  let my bike do what it was designed to do and don’t fight it, and at times, most importantly, breathe.  At times, I rode over some really technical stuff and was so amazed at my ability and then I’d crash and get discouraged. But since there was only one way off that fricking mountain, I had to keep going.

He would also be my lookout in the front and let me know when other vehicles were coming on the road.  Sometimes we had enough room to pull over, sometimes we had to keep riding so we’d move as far over as we could. He’d ask me what I see up ahead to get me used to scanning the road to look for signs of dust which would mean another vehicle was either coming towards us or was in front of us.  At one point, as it was getting closer to the time when we’d rather be off the road, we passed a pickup with about three men in the back, one was wearing a mask, and another with an automatic weapon.  They did not look friendly but I waved anyways and was glad when they paid little attention to us and kept going in the opposite direction.

We finally reached the point where we were going down more than we were going up and I was riding well again and after a particularly long stretch of downhill, I noticed that I did not have any rear brakes.  Now I wasn’t using much brake at all, mainly just keeping it in first and rolling through but I did need my brake occasionally so we stopped and noticed that in one of my crashes that my rear brake lever had gotten bent. We straightened it out and continued on our way.

It was beginning to turn dusk, we still were going uphill so I knew we were still far from Alamos so we began looking for a safe area to camp for the night.  As we were on the side of a mountain there weren’t really any options but the one area that was a possibility was the place Milton found the mask so we decided that probably wasn’t a safe place to stop for the night.  We finally came to some fence posts so I knew we were getting closer to homes and villages and we found an area with a couple farms where one family said we could camp for the night.  Only downfall there was there was no ice for my foot and they had a number of large dogs and we all had an image of the dogs spraying out tents all night so we motored on.  The next town looked almost deserted and we saw nothing like a hotel or even a restaurant to eat at, so we kept going.  By now, the down hill was way more frequent than the uphill but the dusk was creating shadows that made all the rocks and ruts look larger than they were. Again Milton stayed on the communicator telling me which line to take, that the shadows made things appear larger than they were and that we picked the bikes we did cause of the nice big front tires and how it would just roll over stuff if I let it.  It was easy going and I felt my confidence return, and then we hit some sand.  In the dark,  in the sand, I had a hard time finding the tire tracks to ride in and a couple of times I got into the deeper areas and wiped out.  Again I was not hurt but frustrated.

One of my final crashes of the night.

We finally found a small town were we were able to get fuel. My odometer said we rode 97 miles that day.  We had been on the road since about 8:30 in the morning and it now was about 9pm and had only covered 97 miles but they were really hard miles.  I was so relieved when the gas station attendant said that Alamos was only another 10 minutes away and about 15 kilometers before Alamos we finally hit pavement.  At the very beginning of this journey, I realized how much I have missed by living my life on the pavement but this time, I have never been so happy to hit pavement in my life.

Hot dogs, Mexican style, for dinner.

Exhausted and filthy but grateful to be done with the day’s ride.

Morning in the courtyard at the Hotel Los Arcos

Day 2 in Mexico: After waking up, we wandered a block away to get Dennis and we all had a wonderful breakfast at the Hotel Los Arcos. Our host Tom and his staff took great care of us and made sure we had everything we needed during our stay there.  This is a place I would definitely want to return to and there are local hot springs that I want to hit when we come back. We got a late start due to some bike maintenance in the backyard area of the hotel and due to our time of departure, Tom recommended, that we head straight to Hermosillo where, at the time, our destination was the coast.  Originally, we had mapped out a less direct route to the coast (Southeast then West) which would take us on secondary and “other” roads as they are referred to on the map but Tom didn’t feel comfortable with us going that direction with our later start time. Unfortunately he doesn’t know my husband and how when he gets a idea in his head it doesn’t change so easily. We headed out East and again the surroundings were beautiful. Milton kept saying over and over how it was January and we were on motorcycles in t-shirts in Mexico. What an amazing life!!

Church at town square where we stopped to get pesos

We found a wonderful little town with a bank so Dennis could get some pesos and we found a little place to eat lunch at, went to a market for some fruit, and then rode until dusk where we found a hotel in Mazatan.  The room cost us about $19.00 US dollars and we probably overpaid since it did not come with hot water but it did come with plenty of spiders so we slept in our sleeping bags on top of the bed and Dennis pitched his tent outside.  It  did have a courtyard behind a wall where the bikes could be parked out of site so that was kind of a plus.  From the front of the building it looked like it was abandoned so we drove by it a couple times thinking it couldn’t be the hotel that the woman told us about, lo and behold, it was exactly where she was talking about. Total miles for the day was less than 100.  We are in no hurry and it’s nice.

Day 3 in Mexico: After a not so restful night, we packed our bikes and stopped down the road to cook muesli on one of the little turnoffs we found. After breakfast we continued east and the sun was so bright I had a hard time seeing which made riding a little challenging, especially when trucks were coming by at a speed much quicker than we were riding.  Fortunately the trucks didn’t come that often.  At about 11am we rode into this little town named Soyopa in Sonora.  Every town we rode through people would wave at us and dogs would chase us, me especially, because I had Jackie on my bike. Most of the towns have a little town center that seems to be centered around a church and I love that so much color is used on the buildings.  None of the blah neutral colors that we often use in the states for our buildings but colors like orange like a sunrise or red like a sunset.  As we drove through the town we passed a group of people that consisted of a couple of police officers and some others who looked important, and as we were getting ready to leave the town we pulled over to ask directions from one of the men and soon after we had the police there and then a man who introduced himself as Juan Pedro asked me where we were headed.  He was carrying a stack of something in his hand and at first I thought he might be trying to sell them, next thing I knew this important looking man came up to me and said Buena Tardes to me, shook my hand, and then went to talk with Juan Pedro and Milton.  Come to find out the important looking man was the town mayor and Juan Pedro worked for him and after a fishing discussion with my husband they offered to show us how to get to the river just outside of town.

We followed them in their car, made one quick stop as the police had gone to get us water, and continued on toward the river.  Along the way, I was directly behind the car with the mayor and they were going at quite a quick pace and before I knew it I came across a cattle guard with the metal grate slats running parallel to my tires with the distance between the slats wider than my tires and somehow I made it across without even my thought.  Milton was behind me and later told me how much it scared him to watch me ride over it at 30+ MPH.  Not sure how I made it, probably pure luck.  The river was beautiful, it had an old school playground.  It also had a large covered area for community events.  Juan Pedro told us that the mayor wanted us to know that we were his guests and that we were invited to stay and camp at the river, he’d have the Chief of Police come by during the night if we wanted to stay but that if we wanted to leave if we had any trouble at all to tell people that we were his guests and even took pictures with us and said we could show the picture as proof of it.  He kept emphasizing that we were safe there, that we would have no problems there or in the surrounding areas.  Found out later that the mayor was also the mayor of six other towns, so we had connections all over the area.  It was amazing how helpful and friendly they all were.  So after only traveling about 50 miles that day we decided that we would stay the night in Soyopa.  Later that day they had a little party under the gazebo area and fed us, there was music and some dancing.  I had the cutest group of girls come us and attempt to talk with me but since my Spanish is so limited, they just laughed at me but they all did want to take pictures with me.  The oldest was Paulina, then there was Sofia, Alex, and Angie.  Paulina was the main spokesperson and she kept hitting herself on the forehead and laughing when she was trying to communicate with me.  The music played until about 9pm and then I heard the police ride by once on a quad and both Milton and Dennis saw them go by later in the night with their lights on, probably just letting us know it was them.

Day 4: In the morning, the Chief of Police and one other officer came by again to check on us, made sure we slept well and offered to escort us to the next town even.  We watched some men haul a truck across the river on a barge that they pulled across with a rubber type rope.  I absolutely fell in love with the town of Soyopa. Such friendly and warm people and they want us to tell people to come visit and that it is safe. Another place that I will definitely return too.

Soyopa morning

When we left we headed towards San Antonia.  This was a rocky dirt road all of the way with lots of turns and more cattle guard crossing.  Got to use a lot of the techniques I learned in my off-roads course so huge thanks to Greg and Brett at Puget Sound Safety Off-Road, cause I didn’t crash once.

The day was hot we had little water so we stopped in San Antonio for water and more pictures then continued in a south easterly direction headed towards some waterfall in one of the national parks.

Water break on a dusty road

The roads were good with lots of twists and we climbed higher and higher.  The foliage changed a few times with the elevation changes and views were spectacular.  We finally came across a tiny village where a family invited us into their home for lunch and fed us deer tacos that he actually hunted himself and Dennis had me running down the street so a local cowboy could pretend to lasso me while he attempted to catch it on video. (Watch out Tacoma, because when Dennis returns he’ll really know how to operate that iPhone and none of you will be safe from his shenanigans either).  For the night we, got a clean little room in a hotel called the El Dorado, and yes it has hot water, but unfortunately the handles are switched so Dennis didn’t know it and had to take a cold shower again.  I was able to figure it out tho and the hot water was wonderful and a long day on the road.  Total miles ridden today was ???