April 12, Sunday Happy Easter ! We packed up, met for breakfast again, and then said our goodbyes to Rafa, Neder and Carla. They had to hit the tollway to Vera Cruz, about 10 hours and 800+ kilometers of hard riding in front of them. Deb and I had a nice easy days ride to Palanque, only about 210 kilometers away. This time we took it pretty easy, and I was able to see much more of the views than before when I was mainly paying attention to what was coming on the next curve I was carving. Around lunch time [View Full Entry]

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April 10, Friday Good Friday, and height of Holy Week, which is also a national holiday week. This means there were many more crowds at all the tourist spots, more traffic on the roads, and big markets going on everywhere. We got up, packed up, and all rode off together towards San Cristobal. The road to S C is absolutely amazing. Take the “Tail of the Dragon”, and add spectacular mountain views, unannounced topes (speed bumps), sections of road missing, sunken 6 inches or gravel, buses on the wrong side of the yellow line - when there is a yellow line, [View Full Entry]

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April 9, Thursday We awoke early to pack, and met Rafa and Carmen in the hotel garage again. This time we were heading to La Parroquia for breakfast, then on to Villahermosa and San Cristobal, in the state of Chiapas. We picked up another couple on the way named Neder and Carla. Rafa had promised that this would be some of the best riding in all of Mexico. We rode the two lane towards Catemaco ( originally our destination instead of Vera Cruz ), but a few kilometers out of Vera Cruz Neder‘s front tire went flat. We pulled over in [View Full Entry]

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April 8, Wednesday This was a day to split up and have a little "alone" time. I hopped on the bike after a fruit breakfast and rode across town to the BMW dealer. Luis tried to help me find someone that had a decent gps map of Mexico, as the Garmin had informed me that Mexico was not in North America, therefore it wasn't on the North American map that I had purchased. No luck with that, it would take Garmin sending me the smart chip by mail, so I decided to just keep on figuring out the routes as we've [View Full Entry]

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April 6, Monday About 2:30 am the wind came up something fierce out of the northeast. Little showers blew through, and I had to get up to zip up a few things, and tighten up some lines. The wind got stronger, to the point of blowing stakes out of the sand. By about 6:30 I'd been up several times, and finally got the extra line out of my bag and tied the appropriate tent poles to trees. This at least kept the tent from bending into a pretzel, and also from blowing away completely. Big Agnes is pretty sturdy, but this [View Full Entry]

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April 4, Saturday Checked the bike out of Senor Roman's garage, donated the two Wal-mart blankets to him, I think he can use them as he apparently sleeps in the garage on an old car seat. Our plan was to head for Vera Cruz, and see how things went along the coastline, figuring that we'd stop for a hotel somewhere near the tourist area. We had a fairly late start out of Papantla, and as we headed for the coast on Mexico 180, we came to a halt in traffic. 180 is a two lane "major highway" that's one lane in [View Full Entry]

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April 3, Friday This day began with wonderful coffee and pastry in the Cafe Catedral, a little shop right next to the cathedral. Then we walked down to where Bear was parked, hopped aboard and took the wrong road to El Tajin. With no map and no GPS, I had to use a little intuitive sun decoding, and we managed to get to the site. Another coffee at Restaurant Isabel ( the lemonade stand from yesterday) and we strolled into the entrance. 51 pesos per non-mexican person (citizens get in free) and 300 for the English speaking guide. We figured if [View Full Entry]

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April 2, Thursday Check out time is 2:00 in the afternoon for many of the Mexican hotels, so we knew we weren't in a rush this morning. We planned to ride only as far as Paplanta, not a very long ride. We had coffee in a nearby shop that Deb had spotted last night, checked for a cash machine, and walked along the river for a bit. Tuxpan is where Fidel Castro departed for the conquest of Cuba. He was given a boat, and some money from an American, and off he went for Cuba. We mounted up fairly late in [View Full Entry]

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April 1, Wednesday, While getting ready to pack up, I discovered the bike cover to have a coating of that cling-on dust. I couldn't shake it off, so I stuffed it up with the dusty side against itself and figured I'd wash it clean at the next opportunity. I'm just glad I covered the bike or the dust would have been coating the bike instead. The whole hotel was coated with the stuff, I pity the guys that have to clean up from that. One was already wiping down all the exterior walls of the place. After some fruit and coffee [View Full Entry]

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March 30, Monday Today marks a week in Mexico. Quick impressions - Beautiful and varied geography, friendly people that almost always return a greeting with a smile. Great weather ( so far ). Amazing variations in the towns and villages - some are remarkably clean and seem proud of themselves, some are very squalid and dirty, most are some of both. There seems to be many buildings that have been started, then left unfinished. Everywhere - in towns, villages and even just along the roads there are unfinished houses and shops, apartments, and even hotels. I'm not sure why this is [View Full Entry]

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