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Published: October 16th 2015
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Our farewell dinner.
Leaving Trapper and Hobby as we head south and Raewyn to fly home. South of the Border
It was a hard couple of days ring in the heat after leaving String in Fort Pierce to get the repair sorted on his BMW as it turned out to be a faulty fuel pump, but the guys at Treasure Coast Motorcycles fitted a get you to Texas pump off a Buick car.
I was chased out of Florida by a huge thunderstorm that forced me to put on my wet riding gear for the second time since I left home. It was all over in ten minutes and I had to take it off again.
The run down to Curtis and Janet's was a uneventful apart from dodging all the bloody trucks going or coming from Mexico.
I arrived at Curtis and Janet's to find Trevor and Kim already settled in.
Over the next couple of days all the others regrouped here for some maintenance before heading South of the Border down Mexico way.
Lucky for String,Curtis also has an 1150 GS parked in has garage,so that sorta became a donor bike to get Strings bike sorted.
They removed Curtis's fuel tank to get his fuel pump out to fit into Strings bike,no small task,but with
Mini me!!
String standing tall!! Check out the hub caps, well kneecaps on String!! Curtis's well equipped workshop and Trev's expertise it all went to plan.
Spectro Oils had sent a case of oil there for us and Francois from Duel Spot Touring has sent us all new Continental TKC 70's that we are hoping will last the rest of the adventure.
While changing my tires,I checked the front wheel bearings,as you do only to find the lumpy and gritty? Not what they should feel like at all,so after a trip to to auto spares shop, TT and I struggled to get the old ones out. I have ground to small indents on the inside of the spacer so if I ever have to do this again it will not be a problem,why BMW don't do this small mod is beyond me.
TT worked on all the tires while we changed oil.
On Friday,Gerardo was having his own drama that began when he was pulled over for speeding,he got off with a warning but somehow lost his passport at this time.
He contacted the Chilean Embassy in Houston and they could get him a temporary one on Monday morning,so he rode down to Harlingen on Sunday,while Janet organised a flight for him on Sunday
Trev, our main tire man.
Thanks to Trevor for his huge effort with the tire changing. Brand new Continental TKC 70's. evening and return ticket for Monday evening as we were to head off to Mexico on Tuesday.
That plan all came together on the day.
In the meantime,Dean was struggling to get his bike cleared from customs in Los Angeles due to complications with other stuff in his container,eventually,after four frustrating days he was able to make his way South to meet up with us,Geoff,in the meantime was riding his KLR down from Vancouver,where we had left it with his nephew when we shipped in for the Klondike Adventure.
So by Sunday,everyone was in Harlingen and were being fed and watered (beer) by our great hosts.
With Gerardo returning from Houston with is 'new' passport and the last of the tidy up stuff done Curtis ran Gerardo and I to the border with Mexico to get some Pesos for all of us.
After a great Pizza dinner it was off to bed for the last night in the USA.
After hugs and a sad goodbye we head south at 9.00am towards the Mexican border just on the other side of the Rio Grand.
Three hours later and many fees for us and our motorcycles we left the immigration in Matamoros,
only to miss our direct exit south and finished up doing a bit of a tiki tour around some pretty unsavoury neighbourhoods until we got on the main route outa town.
Our route was to take us directly to Victoria for our first night.
The ride south was uneventful apart from all the armed police driving around in fully armoured pickup trucks. Our next night was at Poza Rica followed by Coatzacoalcos,where we had a hotel by the sea, very pleasant but we are so spoiled in New Zealand.
The ride down to Palenque was another full hot day on the road, but Gerardo had found us a resort type of hotel for two nights set on the edge of the jungle with a nice clean swimming pool.
After dinner, Kim, sorta got lost returning to her cabin and misplaced her phone!! Never to be seen again.....
We departed early the next morning with a couple of taxis to take us to the park of the Mayan Ruins. We took a guide and did a tour of the ruins and a walk through the jungle looking for some monkeys but it was not our lucky day.
We returned to the
hotel around midday before it got really hot, had lunch and a lazy afternoon in the pool.
The next day was a storm forecast and rained really heavy all night but had cleared before we loaded the bikes.
After all that rain,Deans bike just refused to start in the morning,but a bit of love and another spark plug it fired into life.
Today was a hard 463 km days riding as we headed off into the mountains towards Tapatchlla on a two lane road,it was sealed but had no maintenance for many years so we had to be very alert for big pot holes,animals ,children and other vehicles that wanted all the road,our average speed was about 58kmph. As a consequence we never got to our hotel until after 7.00pm
Tomorrow we leave Mexico and cross into Guatemala.........
Cheers. Rosco
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
Mayan Ruins
So many ruins so little time.