Sunday, April 8, 2007
10:01
10:01
I'm not a superstitious person. My background in physics and philosophy together with a Catholic upbringing sometimes leads me to get on self-contradictory arguments in my head between multiple points of view about the nature of God and the Universe and the Big Bang. Especially on long stretches of straight highways without variation of terrain. I am yet to resolve anything.
But I do have one quirky connection to what I hope is the heaven's above, or at least to remembering a good person from my past, the way I believe many would like to be remembered. That connection is channeled to me thanks to the breakthough of LCD's in the mid part of last century. Liquid Crystal Displays which allow us to know the exact time, as opposed to a shadow from a stick perpendicular to the ground compared to a line drawn in the sand. In my case, it is the time 10:01. Whenever I see that displayed on a timepiece I feel strength and energy, the power to stick to my guns, do the right thing, to try and be the best I can be, to question everything and try and make the world a better place. All thanks to my old fraternity brother Mark Schneider.
Mark was a year older than me, we met in 1984 at Wabash College where we became pledge and fraternity brothers at Phi Kappa Psi our freshman year. We became friends, as many of us Wally's did through our shared classes, activities and hijinks. Mark was a very thoughtful person, with a quick, strong, biting wit, who read with a passion, played hackysack and whiffleball, and was a defuser of situations, definitely the "why can't we all get along type". He was about 6 feet tall, with thin medium length brown hair, average build, and occasional scraggle of a beard. He had a love and knowledge of music of all types, and we would trade albums, tapes, thoughts and information constantly. We also would talk politics, communism, capitalism, socialism, with both of us sharing a strong sense of social justice.
When he was in high school at North Central in Indianapolis Mark started a student newspaper that questioned different school policies, priorities, and poked fun at various high school related things. He crossed the wrong people with the power of his pen and was expelled for exercising his first amendment rights. The ACLU took up his case and he was restored to the proper place in his public high school, with all the rights and priviledges due to every teenager, and citizen, in the United States.
Mark's family was medium large, working class, with five or six siblings looked after by his mother as I recall. One of his brothers worked as a band manager for local rock and roll acts. One of the acts that he managed was a band named 10:01, and Mark had one of their "concert" T-shirts a fairly non-descript black shirt, with some white squiggly lines and "10:01" printed across the chest. Nothing special about it, the band I had never heard of, nor have I to this day, nothing cool about the design, only significant because it was a shirt Mark wore.
Near the end of our freshman year, I invited Mark to come to Boston with me for the summer, a place he hadn't been. Neither of us had jobs, but my mom was willing to let a friend stay with us and see what came of it. I will never forget the 16 or so hour overnight drive from Indy to Massachusetts, where we stayed awake by a long game of Alphabet Rock N Roll. The game was simple: go through the alphabet one letter at a time, for each letter the two of us would alternate naming a band that started with that letter of the alphabet. The person who couldn't name a band during their turn would lose that letter of the alphabet. The timer was the radio; if someone couldn't name a band in the amount of time that a whole song played on the radio, they would lose that letter. So, for A we would go Aerosmith, ABBA, Aldo Nova, Allman Brothers, Asia, A Flock of Seagulls....with discussion about the merits of any group named, favorite songs, or anecdotes superceding the game at any and many points. I'm not sure who won, or even if we got all the way to ZZ Top, or even X, but we certainly stayed awake all night and arrived safely on the East Coast.
We, especially me, went through a few jobs that summer. One job we tried was selling pots and pans, Mark opted out the first day, I took a few days longer to give up the ghost. Mark, true to his nature, ended up working for MASSPIRG which is a non-profit organization that raises money to advocate for environmental causes. It was a tough door to door job with a lot of rejection and not much money, but offered Mark a chance to meet and talk with many people and advocate for something he believed in. I eventually did some painting and carpentry to help pay for school, not much of note. One weekend a friend of my mother's in Concord, MA organized a house painting party which Mark and I got roped into helping out with for the day. Mark happened to be wearing his 10:01 shirt that day, and someone snapped a picture of us in the yard sitting in the aluminum and nylon lawn chairs of the day. Both so youthful, long hair, ill fitting and looking clothes (me especially!), yet both full of potential. I still have that picture, on the top of a clothes drawer in my bedroom.
We returned to Crawfordsville, IN, home of Wabash, in the fall and enjoyed a great year. The Little Giant Football team was strong, Mark was studying English, I was filled up with Physics and Math courses, we had a great group of guys at the frat house which ended up winning Intramurals, and enjoyed many other fun events and hijinks filling our time as we all prepared for bright futures.
The following summer I returned to Boston and worked for hi-tech company Bolt Beranek and Newman working with the advanced programming group on something that has never really reached its potential called the internet. Mark ended up going to the Caribbean to visit his aunt and cousins. One day when they were driving into town, their car was hit by a truck. Among the many casualties was Mark Schneider.
Since then whenever I see 10:01 I think of Mark up there looking down on me, asking questions as he always did: "is what you are doing significant?",
"are you doing the right thing?", "are you caring for the planet and those less fortunate than you?". I also seem to see 10:01 at odd times, or times of conflict, or self-doubt and it is a reassuring message I receive. The message seems to say "you may not have won, but you did the right thing", or "have strength you are not alone, and you are on the right path". Sometimes I see 10:01 when things are going well, and it is a pat on the back, and a reminder that I get: "congratulations, you worked hard for what you achieved, but you can do even more!" Finally, at times it is just a reminder of how fleeting life can be, to live it to the fullest and the best, with no regrets for what I've done because I did so consciously and knowlingly of my own free will, as Mark appreciated more than most.
A few years ago I went back to Wabash for a big football game and for a fundraiser to renovate our fraternity house. There was a communal breakfast in one of the school buildings and about a hundred Phi Psi alumni were on hand. The previous year in the Monon Bell game against our arch rival, on the final play of the game a Hail Mary pass was thrown from the quarterback, and tipped from one reciever into another reciever's hands to win the game on the final play. It was probably the most exciting play in over a hundred years of football at Wabash and they had ordered a limited number of replica footballs from that day and had them signed by the three players involved. That morning they were raffling one of the balls off among all the alumni in attendance. As the wife of a prominent Wabash person stuck her hand into the hat and handed the slip to our fraternity brother, a smile crossed his lips as he said "this is probably very appropriate that it should go to Kevin!" as he threw a spiral across the room to me in my Red and White striped Wabash Overalls. There was good applause and we had great fun throwing the ball around, then later as we beat our rivals again. Later, as I was on my connecting flight to Boston out of Chicago I finally had a chance to relax and enjoy the great weekend I had seeing old friends and fraternity brothers, some not seen since I left school. As I was reminiscing, I looked at the football closely for the first time. Unbelieveably, on the back of the football, in large numbers was stamped 10:01, apparently the model number of this officially sanctioned NCAA football. Mark had been there, with me, with us.
Why write about this now? I've told a few friends about this over the years, usually people that also knew Mark. As I traveled over the bridge from Mexico to the United States, when this adventure truly began I happened to look down at the console on my bike where 10:01 was displayed on the digital clock. Sure enough, on the biggest trip of my life Mark was right there with me, indicating that it was the right thing to do, to see the world, to meet it's people because without seeing the problem you can't always fix the problem. Oddly enough, in Belize where Clara and I were having a rough time I saw 10:01 three days in a row reminding me then of being the person I hope to be, to affect change, to show compassion. Finally, this morning as we woke up in this beautiful house on April 4, 2007 with nothing but a day of relaxation in front of us, 10:01 showed on the blackberry telling me the day had finally come to memorialize what a great, idealistic person Mark was, how much he meant to me and still means to me, and maybe to get others to take a moment and appreciate some of the good people in their lives, how lucky most of us are to be where we are, and to think about how to make the world around us better.
Peace!
I'm not a superstitious person. My background in physics and philosophy together with a Catholic upbringing sometimes leads me to get on self-contradictory arguments in my head between multiple points of view about the nature of God and the Universe and the Big Bang. Especially on long stretches of straight highways without variation of terrain. I am yet to resolve anything.
But I do have one quirky connection to what I hope is the heaven's above, or at least to remembering a good person from my past, the way I believe many would like to be remembered. That connection is channeled to me thanks to the breakthough of LCD's in the mid part of last century. Liquid Crystal Displays which allow us to know the exact time, as opposed to a shadow from a stick perpendicular to the ground compared to a line drawn in the sand. In my case, it is the time 10:01. Whenever I see that displayed on a timepiece I feel strength and energy, the power to stick to my guns, do the right thing, to try and be the best I can be, to question everything and try and make the world a better place. All thanks to my old fraternity brother Mark Schneider.
Mark was a year older than me, we met in 1984 at Wabash College where we became pledge and fraternity brothers at Phi Kappa Psi our freshman year. We became friends, as many of us Wally's did through our shared classes, activities and hijinks. Mark was a very thoughtful person, with a quick, strong, biting wit, who read with a passion, played hackysack and whiffleball, and was a defuser of situations, definitely the "why can't we all get along type". He was about 6 feet tall, with thin medium length brown hair, average build, and occasional scraggle of a beard. He had a love and knowledge of music of all types, and we would trade albums, tapes, thoughts and information constantly. We also would talk politics, communism, capitalism, socialism, with both of us sharing a strong sense of social justice.
When he was in high school at North Central in Indianapolis Mark started a student newspaper that questioned different school policies, priorities, and poked fun at various high school related things. He crossed the wrong people with the power of his pen and was expelled for exercising his first amendment rights. The ACLU took up his case and he was restored to the proper place in his public high school, with all the rights and priviledges due to every teenager, and citizen, in the United States.
Mark's family was medium large, working class, with five or six siblings looked after by his mother as I recall. One of his brothers worked as a band manager for local rock and roll acts. One of the acts that he managed was a band named 10:01, and Mark had one of their "concert" T-shirts a fairly non-descript black shirt, with some white squiggly lines and "10:01" printed across the chest. Nothing special about it, the band I had never heard of, nor have I to this day, nothing cool about the design, only significant because it was a shirt Mark wore.
Near the end of our freshman year, I invited Mark to come to Boston with me for the summer, a place he hadn't been. Neither of us had jobs, but my mom was willing to let a friend stay with us and see what came of it. I will never forget the 16 or so hour overnight drive from Indy to Massachusetts, where we stayed awake by a long game of Alphabet Rock N Roll. The game was simple: go through the alphabet one letter at a time, for each letter the two of us would alternate naming a band that started with that letter of the alphabet. The person who couldn't name a band during their turn would lose that letter of the alphabet. The timer was the radio; if someone couldn't name a band in the amount of time that a whole song played on the radio, they would lose that letter. So, for A we would go Aerosmith, ABBA, Aldo Nova, Allman Brothers, Asia, A Flock of Seagulls....with discussion about the merits of any group named, favorite songs, or anecdotes superceding the game at any and many points. I'm not sure who won, or even if we got all the way to ZZ Top, or even X, but we certainly stayed awake all night and arrived safely on the East Coast.
We, especially me, went through a few jobs that summer. One job we tried was selling pots and pans, Mark opted out the first day, I took a few days longer to give up the ghost. Mark, true to his nature, ended up working for MASSPIRG which is a non-profit organization that raises money to advocate for environmental causes. It was a tough door to door job with a lot of rejection and not much money, but offered Mark a chance to meet and talk with many people and advocate for something he believed in. I eventually did some painting and carpentry to help pay for school, not much of note. One weekend a friend of my mother's in Concord, MA organized a house painting party which Mark and I got roped into helping out with for the day. Mark happened to be wearing his 10:01 shirt that day, and someone snapped a picture of us in the yard sitting in the aluminum and nylon lawn chairs of the day. Both so youthful, long hair, ill fitting and looking clothes (me especially!), yet both full of potential. I still have that picture, on the top of a clothes drawer in my bedroom.
We returned to Crawfordsville, IN, home of Wabash, in the fall and enjoyed a great year. The Little Giant Football team was strong, Mark was studying English, I was filled up with Physics and Math courses, we had a great group of guys at the frat house which ended up winning Intramurals, and enjoyed many other fun events and hijinks filling our time as we all prepared for bright futures.
The following summer I returned to Boston and worked for hi-tech company Bolt Beranek and Newman working with the advanced programming group on something that has never really reached its potential called the internet. Mark ended up going to the Caribbean to visit his aunt and cousins. One day when they were driving into town, their car was hit by a truck. Among the many casualties was Mark Schneider.
Since then whenever I see 10:01 I think of Mark up there looking down on me, asking questions as he always did: "is what you are doing significant?",
"are you doing the right thing?", "are you caring for the planet and those less fortunate than you?". I also seem to see 10:01 at odd times, or times of conflict, or self-doubt and it is a reassuring message I receive. The message seems to say "you may not have won, but you did the right thing", or "have strength you are not alone, and you are on the right path". Sometimes I see 10:01 when things are going well, and it is a pat on the back, and a reminder that I get: "congratulations, you worked hard for what you achieved, but you can do even more!" Finally, at times it is just a reminder of how fleeting life can be, to live it to the fullest and the best, with no regrets for what I've done because I did so consciously and knowlingly of my own free will, as Mark appreciated more than most.
A few years ago I went back to Wabash for a big football game and for a fundraiser to renovate our fraternity house. There was a communal breakfast in one of the school buildings and about a hundred Phi Psi alumni were on hand. The previous year in the Monon Bell game against our arch rival, on the final play of the game a Hail Mary pass was thrown from the quarterback, and tipped from one reciever into another reciever's hands to win the game on the final play. It was probably the most exciting play in over a hundred years of football at Wabash and they had ordered a limited number of replica footballs from that day and had them signed by the three players involved. That morning they were raffling one of the balls off among all the alumni in attendance. As the wife of a prominent Wabash person stuck her hand into the hat and handed the slip to our fraternity brother, a smile crossed his lips as he said "this is probably very appropriate that it should go to Kevin!" as he threw a spiral across the room to me in my Red and White striped Wabash Overalls. There was good applause and we had great fun throwing the ball around, then later as we beat our rivals again. Later, as I was on my connecting flight to Boston out of Chicago I finally had a chance to relax and enjoy the great weekend I had seeing old friends and fraternity brothers, some not seen since I left school. As I was reminiscing, I looked at the football closely for the first time. Unbelieveably, on the back of the football, in large numbers was stamped 10:01, apparently the model number of this officially sanctioned NCAA football. Mark had been there, with me, with us.
Why write about this now? I've told a few friends about this over the years, usually people that also knew Mark. As I traveled over the bridge from Mexico to the United States, when this adventure truly began I happened to look down at the console on my bike where 10:01 was displayed on the digital clock. Sure enough, on the biggest trip of my life Mark was right there with me, indicating that it was the right thing to do, to see the world, to meet it's people because without seeing the problem you can't always fix the problem. Oddly enough, in Belize where Clara and I were having a rough time I saw 10:01 three days in a row reminding me then of being the person I hope to be, to affect change, to show compassion. Finally, this morning as we woke up in this beautiful house on April 4, 2007 with nothing but a day of relaxation in front of us, 10:01 showed on the blackberry telling me the day had finally come to memorialize what a great, idealistic person Mark was, how much he meant to me and still means to me, and maybe to get others to take a moment and appreciate some of the good people in their lives, how lucky most of us are to be where we are, and to think about how to make the world around us better.
Peace!
Friday, April 6, 2007
Death and Cooking
I just took a shower as Clara went to start cooking. Sure enough the first bee of the evening has appeared.
I will quickly sumarize the past two days. 11 kills the first night, 4 or 5 on night two, with no known source of entry. We went to town this morning to garner more information and found out a gringo was killed 6 days ago twenty miles south of here by killer bees.
I checked the web and confirmed what I knew and discovered more. They do attack the head in swarms, and when they sting the stinger comes out, killing the male bees and giving off a pheromone that smells like banana's that enrages and attracts the other bees to join the battle. They can stay antagonized for 24 hours and attack up to a quarter mile from home base. They are attracted to aromas such as fresh flowers and cut grass which explains why they come for our dinner.
We have discovered that they could care less about motorcycles parked in the driveway. However, if you want to wash that motorcycle they will join you in examining every nook and cranny, although they seem willing to share. As long as they get first dibs. So, you can clean the front wheel while they inspect the seat. But if they see you having too much fun, then they want to play with the front wheel and make you go to the back seat. And let me tell you when you are within plain view of over a 100 of his buddy bees just forty or fifty feet away, on a beeline, to use a figure of speech, there is no discussion or backtalk with them about who gets to play with which bits.
To sum up, they like light, they like the smell of food, they don't like gringo songs from the past 25 years, they drown themselves in pasta sauce, and they can appear out of nowhere.
As I just wrote that last paragraph, one just crawled up from the sink...could they be coming from the vent pipes??? This is getting scary, I've already introduced 3 of them tonight to the pleasures of Cristina magazine, but what could happen in our sleep....meanwhile, we still hear the pinging on the windows....and another just arrived....
We are all alone on the hillside, no lights, no sound, no food, no outside ventilation, we stay downstairs to be further from the multiple hives in the eaves....Clara thinks we maybe in a reality TV show, I hope we survive, "Killer Bee Killed!"
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Living (so far!) With killer bees
Tonight will be our third and final night with the killer bees, one way or another!
Using the scientific method we have been discovering more and more about the most aggressive insect in the world.
In my youth I saw a special on them and had some vague recollections of their habits. As we cooked pasta the first evening I was doing everything I could to jog my memory because they kept appearing in the kitchen seemingly out of thin air.
I seemed to remember that they swarm in huge numbers when attacked, and they had some sort of scent that when one dies others pick up the distress. I knew they could be deadly although it wasn't common.
I had points 1 and 3 in mind as we readied our meal. We had the lights on in the kitchen and the huge living room with the 25 foot wall of glass. The occasional African bee would ping off the glass. When the first bee showed up in La Cochina (kitchen) to check out the sauce I started wondering about point 2. We didn't do anything for awhile, and no others showed up. Clara was a bit disconcerted with the buzz around her head, so when he landed on the fridge he got swatted.
Shortly thereafter another one showed up. They seemed to be attracted to the lights, similar to a moth and would land on white surfaces such as the refridgerator and the tile backsplash. After these observations, I decided to turn the living room lights off which led to a great reduction in the pinging sounds.
I then swatted the remaining buzz bomb. Who was shortly replaced by another, who suffered a similar fate. Then another. Then another. We were starting to get worried about these Hydra-like winged warriors. We couldn't tell where they were coming from, especially with all the lights off, but they definitely were coming.
Thinking that vibration may annoy them (as we had been warned that they don't like motorcycles) I turned off the cd player with the eclectic collection of two cd's: the greatest hits of, respectively, Randy Newman and the Waitresses. I guess I could understand that music ad infinitum getting anyone or anything riled up!
That slowed them down, but they still kept coming, one by one, each meeting the same fate. We turned off the recessed lights in the kitchen as dinner was ready to be eaten, and I discovered the microwave light worked. There was soft lighting but the ambience was not romance but rather a multiple bee arrival away from hysterics.
Finally Clara saw a couple crawling in under the window which I swatted before they took flight, then I quickly stuffed full of paper towels which kept them at bay for the rest of dinner. I remember during dinner that they attack the head and face but I decided not to share that thought as it was inappropriate dinner conversation.
I'd like to stress at this point that I had killed all of them on the first swat with the rolled up Cristina magazine, the latin version of Oprah a Cuban woman with talk shows, mags, etc. But I digress. I didn't want to anger any of them before they met their Holy Week fate.
As we went to bed we made our defense plan in case of massive overwhelming force attack. We would barricade ourselves in the interior bathroom, putting a towel under the door as we filled up the tub with water. When the tub was at capacity we would jump in together and breath through straws until they lost interest with us. A great plan I thought although clara was a bit dubious. As we fell asleep I wondered if we had any straws....
(More later about our discovery with bees, but a hint is that they like Prego spaghetti sauce)
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Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Personal thoughts and a BIG Thank you!
As the sun is setting on the first leg of our trip (Central America) and we are getting ready to move on South America, I want to take a moment to thank Kevin for having invited me to share this trip of a lifetime with him and for having confidence in my riding abilities. He continues to amaze me with his patience, his strength, and his generosity and I am having a blast as his partner and sidekick!
Gracias Big!!!
Besitos.
Official drink of the BIG Trip.
Kevin thought he was dreaming when he saw his first BIG Cola in Mexico (Kevin's motto: "Think BIG, Be BIG") and by the time we got to Costa Rica he could no longer contain his desire to be photographed with a BIG Cola billboard and to drink as much of the stuff as he could.
Arts and crafts on the road and no pot of gold yet...
I made Kevin a palm grasshopper (the white-water-rafting guide taught me), and we saw a full rainbow one day in Costa Rica.
Volcano Arenal in Costa Rica
Wow, what a sight this volcano and it's surrounding lake are. Getting to this place has been one of my favorite rides so far. We stayed at a cute cabin with a view of the volcano and even got to see this live volvano spewing lava our last night there, is was pretty cool and amazing.
Motley Crew from around the world.
This is picture of Kevin and myself along with our new "soulmate" Tim James Morgan and our new "kiwi" friends Josh Forde and Jonathan Bogacki. We ran into all these guys (and two Canadians going the other way) at the border between Costa Rica and Panama. We all rode into Panama together and had a fun lunch talking motorcycles, relationships and hos much one of the kiwis (can't remember which one, oops) looks like Nicolas Cage in Raising Arizona! I want to mention that as we were ridding into Panama, we were in great biker formation and I happenned to be in the middle with one guy on a BMW and one guy on a KLR both in front of me and behind me, so I kinda felt like the princess with her escort of handsome men...not to shabby!
Ahhhh, what a difference a nice bed makes!
So, Kevin and I were able to contain the killer bees and survived our first night at our gorgeous borrowed home in Boquete, Panama. We woke up this morning fully rested and restored from a fantastic night's sleep on a supremely soft mattress with deliciously soft pillows. We spent about an hour and a half giving our motorcycles much needed baths, especially after the manny rivers we crossed on the way to and from Bahia Drake in Costa Rica; we also washed all our ridding gear and all our clothes. Then we lazied around the house looking out at the rainstorm from the floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room. Wow, this is the way to live!
I'm very happy to say that the aforementioned ride to and from Bahia Drake did wonders for my ridding confidence in terms of getting rid of the demons I had been carrying since my one bad fall and subsequent numerous falls trying to get up the mountains on the way to Miraflores in Nicaragua. It seems very appropriate that my demons should disappear right around the same time that the bruise on my thigh is hardly visible any more.
We've been on the road 35 days now and it is really amazing for me to sit down and really take stock in all the adventures we have already had, fantastic places we've been, and all the great people we have already met. At this pace, it seems to me that by the end of this trip, we will have lived a kind of "second life" all it's own.
So, once again, in the interest of sharing more than stories and helping everyone really appreciate what we've been up to, I will share some more pictures from our travels. First, this is the little slice of heaven where we are staying.
Also, I want to give a shout-out to my "mamita" and my brothers, I love you guys and I miss you, and once again warmly thank Pepe and Maria Eugenia for letting us crash at their place.
Knock, knock
Who's there?
Costa rica.
Costa Rica Who?
EXACTLY!
We are in Boquette, Panama at our friends Pepe and Ma eugenia house. It is a gorgeous house bought from a developer that was going under.
However the house has one minor problem, it is infested with killer bees.
Yes, those same killer bees we were terrified of when we were younger, along with Sasquatch, UFO's, and (he Loch Ness Monster.
Pepe warned us not to sleep upstairs as the bees are in the eaves. He also warned that motorcycle engines get them riled up. Talk about not looking a gift horse in the mouth!
There are dead birds strewn on the deck, apparently the handiwork of the new unwelcome guests according to our new friend Lucchini, the local looking after the property.
The house has a 30 foot wall of glass looking over the valley, but when we came home tonight and turned on the lights I felt a bit like being in the movie The Birds. Some bees starting plinking against the glass, trying to get in, and a couple did get in and were ominously buzzing about. I think Clara and I will make emergency evacuation plans tonight before we goto bed, where we may discuss birds and bees further!!!
We had a great day today, waking up 30 feet from the surf of Bahia Drake (drake bay) in our tent. At 7 am it was about 90 percent humidity as we headed 40 miles up dirt roads, through six rivers (clara took 6 of them!) to get back to the highway to Panama.
And who was there? None other than our motorcycle soulmate Tim Morgan who had reconnected with his 2 kiwis he met in Mexico, and two Canadiens on GS1200,s coming back from south america after a six month tour. They gave some very helpful information, before heading back to the great white north. Tim, the two kiwi's josh and john on KLR 650's, clara and I spent a couple hours going through customs and then made a rarely seen convoy of ragged bikers through Panama.
Ah, the sights and smells of motorcyclists on the road in third world countries. Good thing George Bush hasn't seen us or he might invade Panama like his dad did to "keep americans safe"!
But, so far so well, and Clara is doing great now that we lowered the tire pressure in the bikes in the dirt!
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Saturday, March 31, 2007
Costa Rica WooHoo
We are in a country with hot water showers! What a luxury!
We went white water rafting on the Rio Torro yesterday, about a class 3 rapids,
a lot of fun going down the sulpher river from the Volcano Arenal. Then in the evening we rode up to the edge of the Volcano and got to see the lava erupting from fissures in the side, spewing molten rock and sparks down the side of the mountain, pretty impressive!
Although this place is full of tourists, it is very nice, relaxed, beautiful and well preserved and maintained. We are going to head to the coast today, and see how far we get.
It could get pretty crazy in the next few days as Semana Santa, or easter week begins where all of central america is on vacation and ready to party. hopefully, we can find a place to stay and relax.
Clara was actually a bit happy to see me fall in a ditch on my bike at the border crossing, after all of her tip overs, we were taking a dirt road to get around the traffic and when i looked back to see if she was ok, the road gave way beneath me! No problems, just a bit awkward.
By the way, and i will have more on this later, the hotly advertised product from mexico to here is BIG COLA. We got some photos i hope to post later of some pictures of my favorite central american product. yum yum
We went white water rafting on the Rio Torro yesterday, about a class 3 rapids,
a lot of fun going down the sulpher river from the Volcano Arenal. Then in the evening we rode up to the edge of the Volcano and got to see the lava erupting from fissures in the side, spewing molten rock and sparks down the side of the mountain, pretty impressive!
Although this place is full of tourists, it is very nice, relaxed, beautiful and well preserved and maintained. We are going to head to the coast today, and see how far we get.
It could get pretty crazy in the next few days as Semana Santa, or easter week begins where all of central america is on vacation and ready to party. hopefully, we can find a place to stay and relax.
Clara was actually a bit happy to see me fall in a ditch on my bike at the border crossing, after all of her tip overs, we were taking a dirt road to get around the traffic and when i looked back to see if she was ok, the road gave way beneath me! No problems, just a bit awkward.
By the way, and i will have more on this later, the hotly advertised product from mexico to here is BIG COLA. We got some photos i hope to post later of some pictures of my favorite central american product. yum yum
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Knock, knock
Who is there?
Nicaragua
Nicaragua who?
Exactly!
We are sitting at an outdoor cafe in Arenal, Costa Rica hoping to catch glimpses of Volcano Arenal spewing some lava. (I said spewing, he, he). So far the appetizer is great, looking forward to the $9 steaks, and sleeping in our $35 room that has hot water and I get the feeling the power won't go out every day like Nica. Tomorrow some class 4 white water rafting!
We haven't been here 12 hours and we can already see this is the jewel of central america, clean and beautiful.
Amazing what you can do when you disband your army, educate your citizens, and take care of your environment!!!
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Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Odds and ends: pictures of life on the road.
We have encountered many things on the road so far during our travels, including our fair share of animals crossing the road (why is it that the bull/cow/pig/horse always wants to cross the road right when we are about to drive by?), interesting scenery (volcanoes, vendors), and nice people.
Q and A...
Some of our friends and family have asked some questions that may be of interest to other people, so in the interest of disseminating information for all, here are some answers:
Q1) Do we stink at this point? A1) Not at all, in fact I am happy to report that Kevin and I have been able to take showers EVERY day since we left! (Although the hot water has become more and more scarce the furhter south we go, but when its 90 degrees out, who needs a hot shower?)
Q2) How has the food/drink been? A2) So far Kevin's favorite food has been the 50-cent tacos in Mexico because of price, flavor, variety, and general folklore. I particularly enjoyed the food in Placencia, Belize; and, actually today we had lunch at an out-of-the-way establishment in the middle of nowhere and it was absolutely delectable: fresh fish carpaccio, grilled fish fillet with fresh steamed vegetables, rice, potatoes and salad. Yum! In addition, I have developed a slight addiction to Fanta (orange flavor, of course.) I can't pass it up whenever I see it, I've just gotta have it.
Q3) Have drank a lot of cerveza...Corona? A3) Not! As many of you know, Kevin and I are lightweights when it comes to alcohol, so altogether, we've probably had about four beers between the two of us the whole time. And, yes, Mexicans actually do drink Corona!
So, I hope this helps clear some things up...keep the questions coming.
Q1) Do we stink at this point? A1) Not at all, in fact I am happy to report that Kevin and I have been able to take showers EVERY day since we left! (Although the hot water has become more and more scarce the furhter south we go, but when its 90 degrees out, who needs a hot shower?)
Q2) How has the food/drink been? A2) So far Kevin's favorite food has been the 50-cent tacos in Mexico because of price, flavor, variety, and general folklore. I particularly enjoyed the food in Placencia, Belize; and, actually today we had lunch at an out-of-the-way establishment in the middle of nowhere and it was absolutely delectable: fresh fish carpaccio, grilled fish fillet with fresh steamed vegetables, rice, potatoes and salad. Yum! In addition, I have developed a slight addiction to Fanta (orange flavor, of course.) I can't pass it up whenever I see it, I've just gotta have it.
Q3) Have drank a lot of cerveza...Corona? A3) Not! As many of you know, Kevin and I are lightweights when it comes to alcohol, so altogether, we've probably had about four beers between the two of us the whole time. And, yes, Mexicans actually do drink Corona!
So, I hope this helps clear some things up...keep the questions coming.
Nicaragua, the next Costa Rica?
Here are some pictures of the breath taking views here in Nicaragua...
Kevin and I spent the day looking at waterfront properties around the town of San Juan Del Sur in Nicaragua. The beaches here are gorgeous and completely devoid of the throngs of people that pollute many beaches around the world. It is amazing, we spent all day looking at pristine beachfront land and must have seen no more than five or six other people on any one beach the whole time.
Enjoying the beach
Clara and I are sitting on the porch of the 30 dollar landmark hotel in san juan del sur, nicaragua. The waves are gently rolling in across the street on sandy bay shore.
No fun at all.
As we were riding here yesterday we were joined on the road by tim james morgan (timjamesmorgan.com) a brit who we met 4 countries ago in
Guate. He was on the road to peru to meet with his girlfriend. He saw us driving through Rivas as he was putting a new rear tire on his BMW 1150 and zoomed along to catch us. Tiny world! We had dinner with a local american friend he was staying with, sean, who moved here from FLA.
Pretty nice meal on the beach, although we ordered 3 grilled fish, and got 2 fried ones, "welcome to nicaragua" says Sean. As with everywhere we go, drugs are apparently a problem with cocaine at 3 bucks a gram or an ounce or however you buy that stuff.
A bunch of canadiens here, can't believe they'd trade Winitoba for this in March. All you can do here is surf, fish, sail, dive and lay on the beach. No hockey rinks, although you can buy parakeets, monkeys, and large dead lizards on the side of the road!
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Friday, March 23, 2007
Knock,knock
Who is there?
Honduras
Honduras who?
Exactly!
Clara had a few problems on the road to Miraflor today, but nothing that couldn't be fixed by Pedro the local welder. So, up at 6 am to catch a bus to support the Sandinista Commune!
Viva la Revolucion!!!
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Day 23 - Three weeks and counting!
So, yesterday marked our third week on the road and we find ourselves in Esteli, Nicaragua.
On March 15th we left Tikal Guatemala headed for Placencia Belize. This was a harrowing day of off-road driving on some really bad roads both in Guatemala and in Belize. Basically, I was eating Kevin´s dust the whole time and trying desperately to stay upright on my bike ridding through craters on the Guatemalan roads and some kind of funky red quicksand in Belize. I felt very proud of myslef for having been able to maintain my motorcycle composure throughout the day and Kevin agreed that I had performed like a pro! The directions we had to our frined Ron´s house were ¨just drive until the end of the road and then ask for Lydia´s place and she will tell you where the house is and give you the keys.¨ Amazingly, as we were crossing the border into Belize (still about 150 miles from our final destination) the official asked us where we would be staying and when we told her that we would be staying somewhere near Miss Lydia´s place, she actually knew who we were talking about! Unfortunately, when we finally got to the end of the road and found Miss Lydia, she had no idea that we were coming and to her credit was nice enough to take the word of two very tired-looking dust monsters that we were friends of Ron and she gave us the keys to his place. The ride was well worth it as the three days spent in Placencia Belize were nice and relaxing. However, Kevin and I played the part of the Northern tourists quite well and true to form got terrible sunburns the first day out on the beach. Non the less, we went scuba diving the next day with some friendly Canadians who were staying in the house behind Ron´s.
We left Placencia well fed, rested, tanned (OK, burnt to a crisp) and eager to get back on the road, just not eager to get back on the same exact roads we had to endure on the way in. Unfortunately, that was the only way to go. But, the roads didn´t seem quite as bad the second time around (the fact that it had rained some also helped with the dust problem) and we made good time back to Isla Flores on Lake Peten Itza in Guatemala. The next morning, Kevin discovered that two important screws had allen off my bike and so we set off to find replacements on the island, and Kevin did a masterful job at working some McGyver magic to repair the damage. Once the repairs were completed and the glue had set on one of the screws we found our way to the Panamerican Highway and headed south in the direction of the border with El Salvador.
We rode hard and made it as far as the town of Chiquimula still in Guate.
On the 21st we made it to the border with El Salvador where it took us one hour to process out of Guatemala and another hour to process into El Salvador. This entailed a lot of waiting under the midday sun for Kevin and a lot of running around in the midday sun for më: making copies of documents and getting this official and that official to fill out forms and sign them and bringing them back to the first official to look at them and taking them back to the second official to re-inspenct them and so on and so on. Two things really seem to get all the border officials really twisted into a knot, one is that both motorcycles are in Kevin´s name yet I ride one of them: ¨Como asi, what do you mean, both motorcyles in his name...hmm, and you ride one of them...hmmm, como es posible esto?¨ The other thing that seems to confuse the officials is that I am the one doing all the paperwork, not Kevin - the man. It has been decided that I will take care of the paperwork at the borders as long as we are in Spanish speaking countries...yey for me! NOT!
So, after our turtle-speed border crossing we had lunch at the nicest looking fast food place either of us have ever been in, no kidding! It was called the ¨Biggest¨ and it was patrolled by an armed guard. With full bellies, we rode through El Salvador (quite a dirty and miserable-feeling country) to a miserable-looking town called San Vicente. The drive included a required drive through the capital, San Salvador, which can only be described as a place not to be visited unless absolutely necessary. It is hot, dirty, polluted, congested, dirty, congested, polluted and hot. One peculiar thing about drivers in El Salvador is that they do not observe the ¨leave the left lane for fast traffic¨ rule and so you will be picking up speed in the left lane when all of a sudden, you will have to come to a screeching halt because there is a hunk of junk jalope vehicle doing about 10m/ph!!! No kidding, 10m/ph in the fast lane. So, I think that this is what that person might be thinking about the definition of maving fast: ¨Fast, oh yes my car goes fast, I mean, it goes faster than my grandmother walks, even faster than she runs and she can really go sometimes, especially when she is trying to catch me to give me a paliza upside my head for being such a doofus!¨
The town of San Vicente is a place that has been hit very hard by wars of the pà st and by a devastating earthquaque in 2001. Their crown jewel was an Eifel tower looking structure at the center of their town square, but since earthquaque the tower is nothing more that a dangerously unstable, crumbling eye sore. We did meet a very nice lady who showed us around town and took us to see the oldest cathedral in El Salvador which also happens to be here. Kevin took some time off from ¨sightseeing¨ to play some basketball with the local youth before we retired to our hotel ¨room¨. About the hotel room, well let´s just say that I am using the word room very, very liberally here. Really, this place gave even Kevin the heebie jeebies. Needless to say, we decided to wake up really really early the next day and try to get the heck out of El Salvador as quickly as possible.
We made it to the Honduran border by 10am and once again it took us two hours to process all our paperwork. In addition, we had to hand over $80(US) in fees on the Honduran side, and this killed Kevin given that we were going to be in that country less than 3 hours.
We drove through Honduras on the Pan American highway and in about two and a half hours we made it to the Nicaraguan border. About 45 minutes later we left the border and headed to the first big city on the map for the night. So here we are, in Esteli Nicaragua. We were woken up this morning by two guards outside our hotel room discussing how much they liked our bikes at 5am, the re-woken up by the 6am alarm that sounds every morning in the city to wake up the sleepy heads that still have not gotten up! Already, Kevin and I both agree that Nicaragua is much nicer than Honduras and much, much nicer than El Salvador. There is a lot less garbage on the roads, which is not to say that they are clean, and the towns and cities seem to be more lively and the people look more ¨alive¨. In addition, we seem to be getting a better value for our money here, although all three countries are very inexpensive. For example, yesterday Kevin got his ridding boots shined in San Vicente for only four dollars and today I got my boots shined in Esteli for only 60 cents!! (Kevin felt he got robbed, or as we say in the Lora-Ospina family, he got the big salami!!)
Tonight we are going to stay in an eco-coop hut hotel in the mountains and supposedly Kevin will be able to get up at 5am and help our farmer host milk his cows. I will be sure to get lots of pictures!
PS: A peculiar thing is that I don´t like riding on mountain roads that don´t have the lines painted on them, it makes me feel that if the lines aren´t there then I am likely to fall off the edge which may not happen if the lines are there...weird, I know!
On March 15th we left Tikal Guatemala headed for Placencia Belize. This was a harrowing day of off-road driving on some really bad roads both in Guatemala and in Belize. Basically, I was eating Kevin´s dust the whole time and trying desperately to stay upright on my bike ridding through craters on the Guatemalan roads and some kind of funky red quicksand in Belize. I felt very proud of myslef for having been able to maintain my motorcycle composure throughout the day and Kevin agreed that I had performed like a pro! The directions we had to our frined Ron´s house were ¨just drive until the end of the road and then ask for Lydia´s place and she will tell you where the house is and give you the keys.¨ Amazingly, as we were crossing the border into Belize (still about 150 miles from our final destination) the official asked us where we would be staying and when we told her that we would be staying somewhere near Miss Lydia´s place, she actually knew who we were talking about! Unfortunately, when we finally got to the end of the road and found Miss Lydia, she had no idea that we were coming and to her credit was nice enough to take the word of two very tired-looking dust monsters that we were friends of Ron and she gave us the keys to his place. The ride was well worth it as the three days spent in Placencia Belize were nice and relaxing. However, Kevin and I played the part of the Northern tourists quite well and true to form got terrible sunburns the first day out on the beach. Non the less, we went scuba diving the next day with some friendly Canadians who were staying in the house behind Ron´s.
We left Placencia well fed, rested, tanned (OK, burnt to a crisp) and eager to get back on the road, just not eager to get back on the same exact roads we had to endure on the way in. Unfortunately, that was the only way to go. But, the roads didn´t seem quite as bad the second time around (the fact that it had rained some also helped with the dust problem) and we made good time back to Isla Flores on Lake Peten Itza in Guatemala. The next morning, Kevin discovered that two important screws had allen off my bike and so we set off to find replacements on the island, and Kevin did a masterful job at working some McGyver magic to repair the damage. Once the repairs were completed and the glue had set on one of the screws we found our way to the Panamerican Highway and headed south in the direction of the border with El Salvador.
We rode hard and made it as far as the town of Chiquimula still in Guate.
On the 21st we made it to the border with El Salvador where it took us one hour to process out of Guatemala and another hour to process into El Salvador. This entailed a lot of waiting under the midday sun for Kevin and a lot of running around in the midday sun for më: making copies of documents and getting this official and that official to fill out forms and sign them and bringing them back to the first official to look at them and taking them back to the second official to re-inspenct them and so on and so on. Two things really seem to get all the border officials really twisted into a knot, one is that both motorcycles are in Kevin´s name yet I ride one of them: ¨Como asi, what do you mean, both motorcyles in his name...hmm, and you ride one of them...hmmm, como es posible esto?¨ The other thing that seems to confuse the officials is that I am the one doing all the paperwork, not Kevin - the man. It has been decided that I will take care of the paperwork at the borders as long as we are in Spanish speaking countries...yey for me! NOT!
So, after our turtle-speed border crossing we had lunch at the nicest looking fast food place either of us have ever been in, no kidding! It was called the ¨Biggest¨ and it was patrolled by an armed guard. With full bellies, we rode through El Salvador (quite a dirty and miserable-feeling country) to a miserable-looking town called San Vicente. The drive included a required drive through the capital, San Salvador, which can only be described as a place not to be visited unless absolutely necessary. It is hot, dirty, polluted, congested, dirty, congested, polluted and hot. One peculiar thing about drivers in El Salvador is that they do not observe the ¨leave the left lane for fast traffic¨ rule and so you will be picking up speed in the left lane when all of a sudden, you will have to come to a screeching halt because there is a hunk of junk jalope vehicle doing about 10m/ph!!! No kidding, 10m/ph in the fast lane. So, I think that this is what that person might be thinking about the definition of maving fast: ¨Fast, oh yes my car goes fast, I mean, it goes faster than my grandmother walks, even faster than she runs and she can really go sometimes, especially when she is trying to catch me to give me a paliza upside my head for being such a doofus!¨
The town of San Vicente is a place that has been hit very hard by wars of the pà st and by a devastating earthquaque in 2001. Their crown jewel was an Eifel tower looking structure at the center of their town square, but since earthquaque the tower is nothing more that a dangerously unstable, crumbling eye sore. We did meet a very nice lady who showed us around town and took us to see the oldest cathedral in El Salvador which also happens to be here. Kevin took some time off from ¨sightseeing¨ to play some basketball with the local youth before we retired to our hotel ¨room¨. About the hotel room, well let´s just say that I am using the word room very, very liberally here. Really, this place gave even Kevin the heebie jeebies. Needless to say, we decided to wake up really really early the next day and try to get the heck out of El Salvador as quickly as possible.
We made it to the Honduran border by 10am and once again it took us two hours to process all our paperwork. In addition, we had to hand over $80(US) in fees on the Honduran side, and this killed Kevin given that we were going to be in that country less than 3 hours.
We drove through Honduras on the Pan American highway and in about two and a half hours we made it to the Nicaraguan border. About 45 minutes later we left the border and headed to the first big city on the map for the night. So here we are, in Esteli Nicaragua. We were woken up this morning by two guards outside our hotel room discussing how much they liked our bikes at 5am, the re-woken up by the 6am alarm that sounds every morning in the city to wake up the sleepy heads that still have not gotten up! Already, Kevin and I both agree that Nicaragua is much nicer than Honduras and much, much nicer than El Salvador. There is a lot less garbage on the roads, which is not to say that they are clean, and the towns and cities seem to be more lively and the people look more ¨alive¨. In addition, we seem to be getting a better value for our money here, although all three countries are very inexpensive. For example, yesterday Kevin got his ridding boots shined in San Vicente for only four dollars and today I got my boots shined in Esteli for only 60 cents!! (Kevin felt he got robbed, or as we say in the Lora-Ospina family, he got the big salami!!)
Tonight we are going to stay in an eco-coop hut hotel in the mountains and supposedly Kevin will be able to get up at 5am and help our farmer host milk his cows. I will be sure to get lots of pictures!
PS: A peculiar thing is that I don´t like riding on mountain roads that don´t have the lines painted on them, it makes me feel that if the lines aren´t there then I am likely to fall off the edge which may not happen if the lines are there...weird, I know!
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Knock,knock
Who's there?
El salvador
El salvador who,
?
Exactly
Currently waiting for the pleasure of paying 80 bucks for the pleasure of riding through honduras for 2 hours.
El salvador was grim, dirty, and depressing. But the best roads since usa. Go figure
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Sunday, March 18, 2007
Pictures!!!!
Now that we have some access to "high-speed" internet, I'm going to try to post some pictures of pyramids in Mexico, Guatemala and other stuff...
Kevin's Running Diary-New Orleans to Mexico City
We left New Orleans under threat of a tornado watch, with high hopes, high winds, and a certain sense of bravado to face the unknown. We weren’t half an hour down the road when we started getting large wind gusts which were blowing me all around as we passed the swamps and wetlands around Lake Pontchatrain. The rain soon followed. In strong spurts of downpours, followed by drizzle, then nothing. Then the process would start over again. I was filled with the excitement of starting the journey, so I wasn’t concerned and I was hoping Clara felt the same. She was being a trooper as far as I could see in my rear view mirror, taking the curves and wind on the wet highway with no problems at all.
As the miles racked up we left the fertile land and pine trees of Louisiana and entered Texas. The change was almost immediate with vast expanses of open land, occasionally herds of cattle, and more rarely rows of land ready for the spring plant. The wind was still whipping from the Gulf, a constant companion giving us no real barometer of whether every day was going to be like this on these bikes or if today was an anomaly. My GS1200 is much taller than Clara’s specially lowered GS650. She is about half the size of me, and my bike as loaded up with a large backpack and tent strapped to the back, with panniers and tank bag attached constantly, whereas she just has the tankbag and panniers much lower to the ground. My cross section it seemed to me was about as sail-like to the wind as any Round the World bike would dare be. Clara later confirmed that she could see me fighting the draft vigorously while only affecting her slightly.
As dusk fell we entered the vast expanse of the Houston area. I wanted to get through the city in the evening so that we wouldn’t fight rush hour, alleged to be among the worst in America, in the morning. As dusk turned to night we were in the center of town and after 330 miles and a couple of wrong turns Clara was clearly tired, plus she doesn’t like to ride at night as her eyesight is not well without enough light. Finally, at one turnoff, the bike fell over on her and we decided to find the nearest hotel, where we passed out for the night.
The next morning at breakfast I got punked by the Indian American manager at IHOP. When he brought the bill he told me my card (which should have an unlimited spending amount) was rejected. I quietly freaked out, not noticing the wink he gave to Clara. I was not prepared for this first thing in the A.M. with Clara’s brake light not working, her falling over and now my main source of funds being declined! After calling Citibank and finding out nothing was amiss, I was still in a foul mood as the manager apologized as we went out the door. Looking back, it was kind of funny and he did get me good, we should have taken a picture with him.
The next day it was off to Brownsville, another 300 or so miles of hot, windy Texas conditions. Arid land passed again with the ranches, low vegetation, and cows. Cars on the highway were intermittent, and I pointed out to Clara the many, many central Americans driving pickups filled with laundry machines, refrigerators, and other household goods, often with another pickup truck being towed behind. Clearly a living could be made by taking a 10 or so year old American used vehicle down to their home country and selling it for a profit. We would later see these same guys all the way down through Mexico and beyond. We passed the birthplace of Nolan Ryan and stopped to increase the tire pressure of my bike from 30/30 to 37/39 pounds respectively. I was still getting used to my bike, playing with different suspension settings. I put Clara’s preload on her rear higher but at this point in her motorcycling career, she can’t tell the difference, which is tough with every road being new, every scene fresh, and her getting used to the bike as well.
We spent our last night in Brownsville cleaning the bikes, fixing Clara’s brake light problem by hacksawing off her brake lever knob so that the lever would close properly,(against her vehement protestations, although it did fix the problem) jumping in the pool, ordering a pizza and resting up for the real adventure beginning the next morning in Mexico!
One mile down the road in the morning, my BMW had a problem! A yellow warning light and the image of light bulb appeared on my instrument panel. I paid closer attention to the bike but figured it was probably due to me playing around with the taillight the night before when I was diagnosing the problem with Clara’s bike.
5 miles down the road, we hit the border. The Americans waved everyone through and we stopped at Mexican immigration where Clara’s excellent foresight came into play. It turns out the Mexican authorities had a problem with the ownership of both motorcycles being in my name. Clara had brought a copy of our Marriage License!!! which saved the day. They took copies of that, our registrations, our titles, etc., etc. about $60 dollars of our money and two immigration slips for $23 bucks apiece that we had to pay at a bank somewhere in our travels. While Clara was patiently dealing with this for about an hour and a half, I talked to this nice family from Virginia who was dealing with the same document issues. They had sold their family farm of mostly cows, pigs and other farm animals to move to the Yucatan permanently. The wife was a sort of missionary, and they were going to buy another farm in Mexico. They were bringing their three grade school kids, four dogs and just an eight foot U-Haul trailer of their stuff. They were tired of the regulation and strangulation of the US, and wanted a freer, more friendly atmosphere to raise their homeschooled children. The wife and children had been living in the Yucatan for almost a year and she said that the children already had “better, more real friends” in Mexico than they did in the U.S. Very nice folks, well traveled, and we spoke of maybe meeting up if our travels took us to their new part of the world.
We left the border post and entered another world: Matamoros, Mexico. Quintessential Border Town. We weren’t 5 minutes into the country when Clara said to me at a stoplight “welcome to the jungle!”. It was hot, dirtly, dusty, smelly, run down, chaotic, polluted with no clear signage. If Mexico was all going to be like this, it was going to be a long, long, difficult ride. We took a couple of incorrect turns by following the signs, then circled around back to within 2 blocks of where we started before finally getting on the road to Ciudad Victoria. We were already many hours into our day and just 6 miles from where we slept, but in two different worlds. At this point I had no idea what to expect, and I was looking at the map on my tank bag to see if there were any towns 20 or 40 miles in that we might be able to stay in. We stopped to take a picture at the sign leaving from the town, gave an “air kiss” and headed down the road.
It soon opened up into a delightful country highway with farms on either side of the road, the ground tilled, without plants as they were waiting for the spring growing time. It was prettier than southern Texas with the farms coming almost one after another, rolling past on the decent 2 lane road. We came to the nice town of San Fernando(?) where we exchanged some money, had a delightful lunch of 50 cent tacos, and started to learn how the Mexicans have no idea about highway numbers. Every direction is just given by whatever the next town is. So you don’t ask “where is highway 101?” you ask “where is the road to Ciudad Victoria?”. Another interesting thing they do is take a plastic bag, fill it with water and nail it to the wall. This allegedly keeps the mosquitoes away. “que Padre!” as they say in Mexico, “very cool”
We were making good time around 4 pm as we came to a major fork in the road. The friendly gas station attendant said we could make it to the next major city, Tampico, in a couple hours. So, we decided to wick it up, and take the road less traveled. We took the left turn and experienced motorcycle Nirvana for the next 90 miles. The late afternoon sun illuminated the rolling hills, with the mountains in the distant background. There was lush vegetation, highlighted by the occasional twenty foot tall palm like trees capped off with beautiful white flowers like strings of large white puffy grapes, where both the fruit and the stems were all homogenous. We didn’t find out what they were but children and vendors were selling them at roadside stands, and the ever present speed bumps of which each town had at least 2, one coming, one going with larger villas having many each of them with a vendor at the side or often with a 6 or 8 year old kid in the middle of the road selling fruit, or drinks, or whatever the native specialty was.
Clara was OK with us putting the hammer down and we went almost 80 mph over the excellent roadway, with long straightaways, banked curves and only the occasional car. I was thinking of what a wonderful road this was and imagining on the proper sportbike one could easily average the “tonne” as the British would say, and easily see the fun side of a buck-fifty. This was one of the longest, most fun roads I’ve ever traveled, highly recommended to anyone of the two wheeled persuasion.
We reached Tampico at dark and it was chaos. Clara was exhausted, I was tired and the City was big, imposing and not well marked. We stopped at a Holiday Inn and they quoted an expensive room in dollars, so we moved on. I turned the wrong way down a one way street, got honked at, turned around, took a road towards the beach and was immediately in a rundown area of town. We agreed to stop at the first hotel we found which turned out to be a “No tell, Motel” in this case called “Microhotel”. These are places where you come to do the deed and not be seen. Here is the home of adultery, premarital sex, and the occasional adventure motorcyclist. You pull in, are assigned a room number and drive into the assigned parking space, a door closes behind you so no one can see your license plate or who is in your car, and a stair leads up to your room. You pay in 4 hour shifts, and the laundry machines are rumbling constantly. Our room had a mirror on the ceiling, a mirror in place of the headboard, and a mirror on the opposite wall. Above that mirror was a TV which was tuned into a rotating porn channel, albeit in English. But the price was right, about $25 for 3 4 hour sessions: we promised to be out by 8 a.m.
The next day we had a heck of a time leaving the city, which was overcast and threatening. Kevin ignored the advice of the gas station attendant before bringing us into a big circle, then taking a left turn at a red light, over some railroad tracks and into the waiting arms of the local constabulary.
(insert story here)
The day after the day from hell, we headed off, well rested and well fed on hotcakes. We decided not to try our BMW’s out at the motocross track signposted on the telephone pole, although it certainly piqued my interest. Around 10 miles down the road, everything changed. We reached the top of the climb which led to the central plateau that much of the main part of Mexico is located on, and the land opened up into wide expanses of open land and fields with some faraway peaks. Gone was the tropical dense forest, undergrowth, and mist. After the tumult on the roads the day before, we opted for the tollway which began (or ended, depending on which way you are going!) here. Since we only had about 70 miles to go, it proved not to be worth it as we had to pay about 7 dollars to go seven miles before the highway became free to all. Needless to say, we were virtually the only vehicle on the toll road. We were heading to Teotihuacon, the spiritual home of Mexico, ancient city, and site of the Pyramid of the Sun and the Pyramid of the moon. Teotihuacon is a about an hour northwest of Mexico City, and before we arrived we could already see the thick layer of smog hanging over the capital off in the distance.
We stayed in Hotel De Luna, in San Juan de Teotihuacon which turned out to be a delightful, friendly town. We visited the thriving marketplace just off the central square that all colonial towns (read: all towns) have. These are made up of a central plaza, usually with the Catholic church overlooking them. The plaza is usually a park, with some greenery, some statues or monuments and maybe a bandstand or other ceremonial platform. There well may also be some government buildings, and then lots of stores and restaurants on the outside of the road surrounding the plaza. The outer roads usually surround this plaza in a sort of grid pattern, before meandering off in different directions towards their various locales.
We had lunch at one of the outdoor vendors, found internet for about a dollar an hour, and a seamstress to fix a rip in my riding pants for $1.50. We lazily walked through town, checking out the shops, got the bikes cleaned, took care of some business and had dinner to prepare for the next day at the pyramids.
Mexicans identify their home as the country of the Sun and the Moon, and you will see these symbols everywhere you go. The symbols are on pottery, stationary, ceramics, decorations, throughout the country. This stems from the ancient city of Teotihuacon, which was a huge city, the most powerful in Mexico in older Pre-Colonial times. It was abandoned, probably due to environmental destruction and the citizenry imploding, well before Cortes got to Mexico. However, the remains of the City were never lost, especially due to the two huge pyramids which remained a holy site and a spiritual center for people to visit right up to conquest. The Pyramid of the Sun has about the same footprint as the Great Pyramid in Egypt but is only a third as tall, about 210 feet. The Pyramid of the Moon is maybe 2/3 the size of the Moon. The City was well planned out with a large thoroughfare at least 60 feet wide and miles long (they still haven’t found the end) with the Moon pyramid at one end, and the Sun Pyramid in the middle. There is also the Temple of the God Quetzalqatl, inside a huge square compound, with many of the original stella still intact on the face of the layers of the temple. These are in the design of animals, the rings of life present in much of the ancient architecture, and of the winged serpent, the representation of Quetzalqatl.
Now a funny story about Quetzalqatl. A couple of months before we were leaving on our trip Clara and I were joking around about how we would fare on the trip and I remarked how because of my pale skin and the fact that I am clearly an alien that the natives would regard me as the “third coming of Quetzalqatl!” She didn’t believe me, and thought I was making the word “Quetzalqatl” up. It had been a long time since I studied my Mexican history, and I had picked the name out of my head in an instant, so because of her ignorance of the name of the Great God I had a bit of self doubt that maybe I had remembered the wrong name. Of course, I was correct, and Quetzalqatl is everywhere in Mexico as one of the two most significant Gods of the ancients. I have been eager to point out the inscriptions and monuments to him at many of the ruins and the Museums that we have visited along the way, much to Clara’s chagrin. Alas, the Mexicans did not bow down before me and offer to give me their treasures as tribute.
We climbed all the pyramids, took pictures, visited the excellent museum and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. It is not to be missed, and we thought it was great that we were sharing the ancient city with busloads of schoolchildren who were getting a firsthand look at their history.
The embarrassing thing about the two Pyramids, which is quietly noted then swept under the table at the ruins is that archeological evidence has shown that they were not dedicated to the Sun and the Moon! It has been found that they were temples to the Rain God and Fertility God respectively. Sometime after the collapse of the city, with the Spaniards coming in and eradicating the old religions in favor of Catholicism, this history was lost not to be rediscovered until the 20th Century. Clearly, the Mexicans have decided to quietly acknowledge these facts in the textbooks and to keep forever the symbols of their country as the land of the Sun and the Moon. It would be like discovering a scroll that Alexander the Great was a complete idiot, who happened to have a very hardcore, manipulative, Vice-President named Dick who had the backing of all the big time Macedonian businessmen who had a farfetched dream of taking over the Middle East for their own profit….well, you get the picture. Would the Greeks rewrite history after associating with Alexander for thousands of years in favor of a Dick? No, the scholarly manuals would note the truth while the schoolchildren, and especially the tourists would hear all about the Great history.
When we left the pyramids, we discovered that one of the bars that holds Clara’s Touratech panniers on had fallen off, or had been taken off, as it is fairly unlikely for it to have fallen off in the two mile ride from the hotel to the site. Either way, it needed to be fixed. We asked at the local tire repair shop, and the helpful gentleman there told us about a machine shop in the next town. We grabbed the next taxi, which had a driver clearly constantly ready for the call up to an open driving slot in NASCAR. As we lurched over the omnipresent speedbumps in every town in Central America, Clara told him that we’d like to arrive alive, and he replied to just imagine that you on an airplane! So, I quietly fastened my seatbelt without waiting for the instructional video and stewardess.
We arrived safely to the machine shop, which are the same the world over: black soot and metal shavings covering the walls, the ceilings, the floors, the uniforms and the faces. Sparks flying and loud machines, cutting, drilling, polishing, welding whatever needs to be done. In this case, a tanker truck parked out front with two guys and a welding unit and 70/30 tips crawling around underneath the rear suspension, axle and tailgate. The men inside are at most gruff, and almost always ultimately friendly especially for a comrade of the mechanical arts who has an intriguing story and gadget to fix. It is usually good form to show up a bit dirty maybe with your own wrench or visegrip and to show some mechanical aptitude by taking off the part needed to be fixed or explaining what you’ve done so far to try and remedy the problem, or the best is to display how you’ve used wire, a screwdriver and piece of discarded flotsam from the side of the road to make it 69 miles to them, your imminent savior! At the very least, try and know the difference between metric and standard threads, or show the proper respect for a person who can take a hunk of metal and craft it into just the thing you need, which seems to be a dying art in the “modern” world these days where we just throw things away and overnight express a new one to our mailbox by 10 a.m.
This place did not vary from the norm, with the exception that Miguel, the owner’s son, and all the rest of the men were initially very friendly and helpful. We discussed what needed to be done, I brought a sample of what needed to be made from another pannier to leave with him, he dialed in his calipers for a precise measurement, he asked if he could make it in a slightly altered way from the original which I acknowledged was fine and he told us to come back in two hours.
We walked around this tiny town, again to the central plaza with the Church, saw the field with basketball court, two wooden backboards and missing rims which was a common site in Mexico, and tried to find a replacement handlebar protection bracket bolt for Clara’s bike. She apparently had a contract to field test the stock one for how many tips it could take before snapping, and I wanted to have a spare for the day we found out. We didn’t have much luck at the local “turnillos” which is the name of the street front hardware stores but we did find another 50 cent taco dealer. (Is that how the rapper got his name? Did he used to be a taco vendor?) Not that it is hard to find them, they are everywhere on the streets, usually with a big vat of grease being fueled by a propane burner, some Tupperware bins filled with vegetables they are cutting up and salsa sauces, and one to a few types of meats or fillings, usually chicken as beef is more expensive here. In Mexico we ended up trying beef, pork, mushroom, cow stomach, some other stuff difficult to describe in a non hieroglyphic language, and of course chicken. Many people will warn you away from these street vendors but I felt that the fact that you could see them chopping up fresh vegetables, you saw them cooking the meal in front of you, ‘how bad could it be!’. Luckily, probably, Monctezuma was not to have his revenge on us. We also found a nice hairdressing place where I got the best $3 haircut of my life, while watching old Batman TV shows in Spanish out of the corner of my eye, hearing Adam West’s voice over save Robin from the “crocadilo’s” in the vat that Pharaoh had placed him in. It was a productive day, capped off by Miguel having the part done for us for the grand price of $15, plus his shop had the bolt we needed. We thanked him profusely, told him we’d be back to take his picture, and found a cab home.
Back at the hotel we discovered that the part was about a tenth of a millimeter too wide, so we grabbed the camera and the part and rode back on my bike, where he was happy to grind it down a bit and repaint it. Alas, we had forgotten the camera to the battery!!, but we found out his hours the next day and promised to come by before setting off to Mexico City. At this point, they probably thought us a bit silly, but they were very accommodating the next morning when we stopped by with all our gear loaded up, to take a picture. The world is filled with Good People!
Through the Horizons Unlimited website, we had hooked up with Garry Dymond an ex-Brit English teacher who had lived and raised a family in Mexico for 30 years. He agreed to meet up with us, put us up and show us a bit around the city. We followed him on his Honda CBR1000 Hurricane into the haze, maze, and amaze of Mexico City, land of the quick honk, the omnipresent green and white Volkswagon Bug Taxi, snarled traffic, lane changing and of course barely present signage. We passed through the business district with some very neat modern architecture, tall A frames, and buildings evoking glass sails, before stopping (on the sidewalk) at the famous roundabout with the protecting winged goddess on the high, high pedestal overlooking the City, and the tombs of some of Mexico’s most famous pioneers buried at the base (open to the public if you ask nice!). Garry lived and worked on the south side of the 25 million person strong city, and we were able to get a glimpse of the central exhibit and tourist areas as we rode through. There are multiple museums, a large concert hall, zoo, biological garden, and park surrounding the whole area, capped with a huge flag of Mexico.
Over the next few days we visited as many of these sites as we could, which were so interesting that we decided to stay an extra day. Highlights included the Museum of Archeology with is filled with tremendous exhibits of all stages and areas of Mexico’s history. The Museum of Modern Art, which was not as big as I expected, still was fascinating. It held famous paintings such as the “Two Fridas”, and many other works which were graphic, interesting and questioning of Mexico’s culture, values and women’s position in society. Plus the usual supply of metal and wood forms twisted into weird shapes that a common person like me could never begin to understand the significance of. We saw the traditional upside down swinging from the 70 pole of four traditionally dressed dancers, each time circling the pole 13 times, while one man sits on the top of the pole playing the traditional drum and flute music.
Around the huge main central square of the City, known as the Zocalo, there is the Palacio National, the Grand Cathedral and the Templo Mayor, amongst other Colonial era buildings. The central square is huge and open, a square block, with stone pavers and a huge flagpole in the middle that waves the national flag at least 60 feet x 30 feet, put up and down by military procession every day.
The Templo Mayor is an ancient site of great pyramids built one right over the other that the Spaniards destroyed when they built on top of it. Only recently rediscovered, it has been excavated with a fine museum to the side. This is the site where the Aztec Calender was discovered, the huge stone dial which at first they thought was a type of compass of the sun, moon and stars but has recently been interpreted to be inscriptive monument, perhaps were sacrifices were held. It turns out that the whole of central Mexico City was built upon the old remains of the great Aztec city where Cortes outsmarted Monctezuma and took control of the region. Many, many of the downtown buildings are built on top of the ruins of the previous buildings, all of which are slowly sinking into the mud base of what used to be a lake.
On the Thursday that we were there, there was a huge rally of many different groups in the Zocalo. In particular it was the International Day of the Woman, and there were busloads of women from the Queretaro region, who were wanting their husbands to be released saying that they were just political prisoners. There were other groups requesting equal pay for equal work for women, a longer school day for the children so that women could hold jobs, childcare, safety at work, and other quality of life issues. They were joined by many, many unions and different groups from around the country, all marching in 3 different phalanxes from different parts of the city to converge on the main square. I estimated about 30,000 people in all, “companeros” in the fight for dignity, against privatization of the public utilities and other industries, safe work conditions and against the president of the republic, whose disputed victory in the last election is still questioned by many, many people in Mexico. The Palacio National has been the official home of the President of the Republic for ages, but newly elected Calderon has decided to live and work in another area of town, and it is easy to see why. Whenever he has any official business at the Palacio National there is some sort of protest held, shutting down the streets and causing a huge commotion in the square. The Mayor of Mexico City is from the opposing political party, so he gives them permits to shut down all the streets for the marches, thus making the already terrible traffic even worse. Our hosts told us that the main Boulevard in the City was filled with tents and protesters for MONTHS after the election, with no cars allowed to pass. Not exactly a great way to run a world class city.
The rally started at 4 p.m., and we knew that the taking down of the flag occurred each evening at 6 p.m. Kevin desperately wanted to see and participate in the “Revolucion!”, as we could see and hear the marchers during the day walking the streets with their calls and responses of the megaphones and the crowds. We wound up our sightseeing and took the subway back to the Zocalo. A growing throng of people awaited us, randomly arranged around a big stage, with signs from the different represented groups held alight, and large picture banners of Karl Marx, V. Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and Joseph Stalin(!) strung up on a rope bordering the street on one side of the stage. There were people dressed up in costume, and many with shirts showing their particular allegiance. The speakers implored the crowd to work together for women’s rights, for the worker’s rights, for the rights of the indigenous people, and for a stronger Mexico.
We drifted towards the flagpole as it neared 6 pm, as Kevin figured if anything was going to happen that was the most likely place of action. The square was crammed full of people, and the government had to take the flag down at 6 o’clock. As the time approached and the Marine trucks drove into the square, the speaker asked the crowd to show their peaceful nature, and that the people had the respect of the nation and the traditions of Mexico. Some of the organizers with armbands came and started to make a circle around the flagpole, slowly prodding the crowd to make a 30 meter wide circle so that the huge flag could be dismounted. We were strategically placed in the front row, jealously guarding our position. After some time, the military decided they had enough room and the procedure began. First the military band came in, precisely marching and playing, then the honor guard armed with M-16’s and bayonets, and finally that days lucky (or not!) selected unit and upper brass to handle the flag removing. Most hats were removed and the crowd went silent as the band played, and the flag started to come down. And the band kept playing, and playing, as the flag slowly came down, the wind whipping and making things more difficult than they already were since the troops had less room than they needed because of the pressing crowd. It took 14 men to handle the flag, wrapping it us as they could as it came down, careful to not let it touch the ground. But not careful enough as the stress of the situation evident in their faces led to the flag drooping and touching very seriously at least once and just skirting it a couple other times, and a couple soldiers losing their hats, not good form for the National Flag. Also taking from the dignity of the situation was one of the ever present in Mexico stray dogs taking advantage of the one bit of open space in the square and hanging out, and seeming to stand at attention during some of the music, inside the circle that was opened up for the soldiers. All in all, not perfectly dignified but they closed well, as they took the flag on their soldiers and marched into the huge oak doors of the Palacio National on the edge of the square, followed by the armed guard and the band playing the Mexican National Anthem being sung by the military and civilians alike.
As they marched towards the flag’s nighttime home, we followed in behind with Clara taping the scene, and the stage announcers thanked the crowd for showing the proper respect for Mexico and starting a call and response “Viva the rights of the Mexican workers”. The crowd would throw their fists into the air “VIVA!”, of course Kevin fell right in wanting to be supportive of the compeaneros! At the gates of the Palacio some of the people tried to follow inside but they slammed the huge ancient oak doors shut after the last of the troops. Two women in togas and breast plates kept yelling something about political freedom at the door as the TV cameras rolled. All in all, it would seem as if the people have at least a modicum amount of political freedom if they are allowed to shut down the streets of the capital, take over the main square of the country, and say whatever they want in public while displaying a large picture of Josef Stalin. I don’t think Stalin would have allowed that!
It was a fascinating day, topped off with an evening with our hosts Yvonne and Gary. They took us to the “square of the Mariachi’s”, a place in Mexico City where all the Mariachi bands hang out and look to pick up some work. It is sort of a red light district for groups or 4 or 5 guys in sombreros, matching outfits with silvers studs, and trumpets and guitars. As you drive slowly along the street guys come out at you from in between the parked cars: “hey, you need a mariachi band?” as if you are buying some black market entertainment. The main square is filled with different bands hanging together, most of them traditional, a few with electric guitars or other modern accoutrements. It is a lively atmosphere where lovers on park benches will be serenaded with traditional songs that everyone knows, and a ring of restaurants and stores surrounds the square which houses statues of the most famous Mariachi singers in Mexican history, with a couple statue bases yet to be filled.
We had dinner at a fun tourist trap, where you had to pay a cover charge in addition to your food which covered the entertainment which included male and female singers, a traditional mariachi band in the background, a cowboy who does rope tricks, Mexican dancers, and later a band made up of about 9 boys who looked to be from the same family playing more modern yet traditional Mexican music, all overseen by an MC with shiny gun in his holster. There seems to be some sort of unwritten rule of the Mariachi code that the shortest, fattest, ugliest, toughest looking guy has to play the biggest guitar, and the tallest, gangliest and the second toughest looking guy has to play the tiniest guitar. The other clear thing is that all the Mexicans (and many other Central and South Americans) know all the Mariachi songs, as the people would sing along with whatever number is played.
As we left the restaurant to peruse the square we were treated to a young couple on the bandstand, he proposing marriage to her on his knee, while their well dressed friends surrounded them and three mariachi bands broke out into celebratory playing when she accepted! It was fun, joyous, and an experience surely no one will forget.
The two other major reasons for a mariachi band is to play your party, usually to close it down at 2 or 3 am, and also to show your undying affection for the one you love. The standard procedure is to hire the band (they go for around a $100) and show them the way to your sweet petunia’s while they follow you in their ‘mariachi mobiles’, vans and station wagons that surround the streets around the square. When you arrive at her house, they set up under her window and serenade her while you speak of your love for her, or do shots of good tequila and chime in, or perhaps the best of all is to share shots of great tequila you bring with the father of the one you hope to make yours. Of course this should happen at midnight, so you wake the world and there can be no misunderstanding about who and what the ruckus is all about. “QUE PADRE!!!”
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