Well we've made it to Oaxaca. The rides are a mix of terrible boredom, terrible speed bumps, and general feelings of discomfort.
Rarely do the highways afford the luxury of sightseeing as distances are great and the fear of driving at night in Mexico is real. The quality of the roads themselves are neither good nor consistent. Even the toll roads which are among the best in the country are full of potholes, broken down trucks, rockslides, and other unknowns around every corner.
Our only pleasures come from the days in between rides when we can actually look around and see the magnificent splendor of the country of Mexico, and it is magnificent. We try to find destinations about two days ride apart and then spend as much time there as possible, sometimes 3 or 4 days.
The more time we spend off the bikes the happier we are. We constantly joke about throwing the bikes into the ocean, off cliffs, selling them, flying them home, buying bicycles instead, hitchhiking, anything but getting back on these slow, uncomfortable vibrators.
Along the way we have been discovering the local alcoholic traditions of the different states of Mexico.
In Jalisco, mezcal is made from agave grown in large plantations and mixed with fruit and then smoked much like in Oaxaca. An unlabeled half liter bottle of delicious nectar costs $6 USD.
Deeper into the country you find pajarete, a mixed drink of coffee and cocoa powder, cinnamon and sugar, cane sugar alcohol, and fresh cow milk straight from the udder. A roadside stand of a few cows and red clay mugs draws a crowd of dozens in their Sunday best trying to work off a Saturday night hangover before or after church.
Pomegranate grows well in the damp mountains and a homemade Grenada lightly fermented with seeds still in the bottle was a prize find. The $5 bottle was savored for three days, the longest any liquor lasted with us.
Michoacan was full of goat herders and bad omens. We got lost trying to find a campsite and a random family took pity on us and gave us a place to camp for the night behind their locked gate. Later a friend would describe this own journey through Michoacan when he was almost robbed of his 1985 Yamaha FZR and killed while getting gas late at night.
Sharah dropped her bike a few times on steep drop offs in parking lots and eventually the clutch cable snapped. Luckily we had a spare and were back on the road in no time. Now we need to find more spares!
We skipped Mexico City in favor of the pyramids of Teotihuacan to the northeast. The ancient Olmec and Aztec ruins are scattered across the landscape from the city to the ocean and often Spanish churches are found brightly colored and placed directly on top of the crumbling pyramids, a ritualistic fuck you to the peoples of an advanced and powerful society. The Spanish are not well remembered in much of Mexico.
We met an Italian traveler who shipped his 1992 Africa Twin from Italy to ride from Alaska to Argentina like so many others we've met on the road. It was the first time I've had the chance to see an Africa Twin up close. Marco said that his top speeds were around 90km/h but the ride was smoother than ours. We shared dinner, some wine, and coffee and look forward to catching up with the good man again.
The country pinches down to a few hundred kilometers across as you enter Oaxaca and the mountains grow taller and closer together. The aptly named Candelabra cactus grows in the wild hills of Oaxaca and these days fiestas, fairs, and parties are ramping up as Día de los Muertos is only a few days away. A random stop in a small town brought free chicken tacos and soda while a highschool mariachi band blew their songs through the crowded, narrow streets.
We will be in Oaxaca for a month as we picked up a job on a horse ranch training their new horses to be better trail riders for tourists. Our part time work gives us food, a place to sleep, and access to one of Mexico's most wonderful states.
The future holds visions of margarita beach lounging as my parents will fly down to Belize for a week, followed by new years on the sailboat that almost killed me in the Gulf Coast two years ago.
.........theres some great pics there, esp love the one of the balloon and the dog 