The roads from Mazatlan were pretty good and from a driving perspective not too interesting. The only thing to note of the first 400 odd miles was we finally found a place to get some fire extinguishers for the bikes (So that shows you how interesting it was!!!)
Well there was a good sun rise....or two
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We had discussed and agreed to rest up for a weekend and catch up on the Web updates and plan out Central & South America. Our original way of planning was a bit more laid back and only plan a few days ahead. Although this is good for spontaneity it is not good to keeping to schedules and keeping the mileage down (Hence us being way behind schedule and driving way to much in the US). For this sort of planning we decided we would better at a costal resort so we arrived at a very small resort called San Francisco (Remember we are in Mexico and not the US). We checked into the hotel and headed straight for the beach.
The beach was from a post card. Dark turquoise seas, whitish sands, palm trees and a bar on the beach. As the sun was setting there was only one thing to do. A beer was ordered and we sat back to watch the sun set over the Pacific Ocean.
We were up early the next day and hit the beach before we started on the Web updates…well, for a couple of hours anyway !
The waves coming into the beach were very impressive they came in big and fast. I didn’t feel like swimming so Mike had a good pummelling by the waves and I roasted on the beach. We stuck with our plan to work and returned to the hotel/internet café to carry on with our web updates. After a couple of hours we returned to the thorny issue of looking at the planning for Central & South America and for the rest of the trip. We soon realised that the time we’d spent in the States had badly eaten into our time. The only immediate solutions that we could agree on were a swift trip through Central America, including a one week diving holiday in Honduras. After that we agreed that the probability of getting to Tierra del Fuego had been significantly reduced, if not extinguished, but we still hope somehow we will be able to make it.
The stop in San Francisco was all too short and we were on the road again. The road further south was twisty and had plenty of slow traffic. We were soon in Puerto Vallarta which was a large resort town and the traffic slowed down even more. Our good intentions of completing 300 miles was looking even tougher as we were down to an average of 25 mph. Once out of town the roads were still windy and great fun but our pace picked up although it was looking to be a long day with riding in the dark which neither of us enjoy. The progress was consistent all after noon with only delays through road works and it was a novel sight looking at entire hillsides covered in palm trees and roads cutting through banana plantations. We finally stopped at @19:30 and completed 275 of our three hundred. An early start tomorrow to make up time lost today.
Up early as planned and on the road to 7:30. This included the hour time difference which has seemed to have happened even though we have only travelled south.
The previous nights room was very basic and our first encounter with a cold water shower only! Having this at 6:30 in the morning was bit of a shock, but not as bad as we thought it would be!!!
The roads today were just turn after turn and even riding hard we couldn’t get above a 40 mph average and the first 100 miles took the best part of 2.5 hrs at which point we stopped for breakfast at a roadside restaurant and were the amusement of the three girls running the place. Especially when trying to order food in our very poor Spanish!!!
After the restaurant the roads straightened out a bit but today seemed to be animal on the road day.
We had the usual donkeys, chickens, goats piglets, horses and a close encounter with a dog but today I noticed what looked like a speed bump ahead which seemed in a really weird place. It was mainly on my side of the road but there was part of the hump on the other. When I got closer it started to move. It was a 6ft plus snake!!! Fortunately it decided to move away from our side of the road and I missed the tail by about a foot!!! It took a while for the heart to stop pounding.
As the day continued and we journeyed along the coast road we had much great views of miles and miles of empty sandy beaches. The beaches were so remote and vast many did not have footprints even though the tide had bee out for hours. In the end we made 320 miles on the day and caught up on some of yesterdays shortfall.
The following day we headed into Acapulco. This, we had been told, was our last stop to buy tyres before South America , unless we wanted to pay a fortune for them further south.
On the way we noticed that the whole area for miles and miles was covered in smoke from little rubbish fires beside the road. We assumed that there is a local burn your rubbish day in the area. Something we didn’t confirm as our Spanish has still a way to go for that conversation!!
When we arrived at Acapulco we were lucky to spot a Honda dealer on the way in but they weren’t able to help but they sorted through the Yellow pages for the Yamaha dealers. We spent a while in town looking and couldn’t find the road with the Yamaha dealers so after asking in several places Mike finally asked a policeman (Remember the thing about our visa’s etc..) who directed us to a Kawasaki dealership further up the road.
The temperate in Acapulco was hot. Even standing still in the shade out of the bike gear you were sweating. So done up like dogs dinners in the bike suit’s, it was a river on the inside!!
Our preference of tyres would be the continental TKC80’s which we have found to be phenomenal on and off road. Both of us have taken the bikes fully loaded to within a couple of millimetres of the edge of the tread and they have stuck like glue. Even on broken road surfaces they do not miss a beat. Anyway these weren’t an option unless we wanted to wait for weeks and would cost a fortune.
The Kawasaki dealer was unbelievably helpful and was able to supply one set of Pirelli MT21 and reserved us some more tyres (Korean…but they were the right size) at the Kawasaki dealership in Oaxoca , which was on our way.
Leaving there and heading for a map shop we found the elusive Yamaha dealer and although they didn’t have the Pirelli tyres there, their Oaxoca shop did, so they reserved us a set as we felt happier with a known brand.
As for Acapulco we had been warned not to expect much as it had become a big resort and the comments lived up to expectation. The beaches were sandy and looked clean and the marina impressive with the yachts moored but the town was a mass of traffic and fumes. And as in all large towns the Taxi’s (which were the old shape VW Beetles) were all over the place along with the buses. Leaving the town via the costal road was impressive as we were so close to the sea but so high! We managed another 50 odd miles before stopping for the night.
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Acapulco...
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Just to prove we were there...
Yet another early start and on the road before 07:30. Another long mileage day planned. Even at 08:00 it was warm and getting hotter but the landscape was flat plains, with coconut and Banana trees but the colours of the grasses and plants was very lush.
Today we were final going to turn off the 200 a road we had been on for days. The plan was to turn off at Puerto Escondido but we picked up a road sign for Oaxoca much earlier than expected so after consulting the GPS we decided to go this route. The road looked much windier than the other road but we started the trip up to Oaxoca some 30 miles earlier than planned so time wise it should be quicker. The road was bendy and the road surface very rough. The bike and tyres were fine on this surface but our backsides weren’t!!! The good side was this was back country Mexico with windy road snaking up the hillside and great views of the valleys below through misty clouds. We carried on the road until dusk and was fortunate to find a Hotel before it came dark as the roads had sheer drops with no markings and there seemed to be donkeys and cattle at every corner.
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View of the hills...
John
Well there was a good sun rise....or two
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<IMG SRC="http://pic4.picturetrail.com/VOL784/4062504/8448420/129434690.jpg" border="0" alt="Image Hosting by PictureTrail.com">
We had discussed and agreed to rest up for a weekend and catch up on the Web updates and plan out Central & South America. Our original way of planning was a bit more laid back and only plan a few days ahead. Although this is good for spontaneity it is not good to keeping to schedules and keeping the mileage down (Hence us being way behind schedule and driving way to much in the US). For this sort of planning we decided we would better at a costal resort so we arrived at a very small resort called San Francisco (Remember we are in Mexico and not the US). We checked into the hotel and headed straight for the beach.
The beach was from a post card. Dark turquoise seas, whitish sands, palm trees and a bar on the beach. As the sun was setting there was only one thing to do. A beer was ordered and we sat back to watch the sun set over the Pacific Ocean.
We were up early the next day and hit the beach before we started on the Web updates…well, for a couple of hours anyway !
The waves coming into the beach were very impressive they came in big and fast. I didn’t feel like swimming so Mike had a good pummelling by the waves and I roasted on the beach. We stuck with our plan to work and returned to the hotel/internet café to carry on with our web updates. After a couple of hours we returned to the thorny issue of looking at the planning for Central & South America and for the rest of the trip. We soon realised that the time we’d spent in the States had badly eaten into our time. The only immediate solutions that we could agree on were a swift trip through Central America, including a one week diving holiday in Honduras. After that we agreed that the probability of getting to Tierra del Fuego had been significantly reduced, if not extinguished, but we still hope somehow we will be able to make it.
The stop in San Francisco was all too short and we were on the road again. The road further south was twisty and had plenty of slow traffic. We were soon in Puerto Vallarta which was a large resort town and the traffic slowed down even more. Our good intentions of completing 300 miles was looking even tougher as we were down to an average of 25 mph. Once out of town the roads were still windy and great fun but our pace picked up although it was looking to be a long day with riding in the dark which neither of us enjoy. The progress was consistent all after noon with only delays through road works and it was a novel sight looking at entire hillsides covered in palm trees and roads cutting through banana plantations. We finally stopped at @19:30 and completed 275 of our three hundred. An early start tomorrow to make up time lost today.
Up early as planned and on the road to 7:30. This included the hour time difference which has seemed to have happened even though we have only travelled south.
The previous nights room was very basic and our first encounter with a cold water shower only! Having this at 6:30 in the morning was bit of a shock, but not as bad as we thought it would be!!!
The roads today were just turn after turn and even riding hard we couldn’t get above a 40 mph average and the first 100 miles took the best part of 2.5 hrs at which point we stopped for breakfast at a roadside restaurant and were the amusement of the three girls running the place. Especially when trying to order food in our very poor Spanish!!!
After the restaurant the roads straightened out a bit but today seemed to be animal on the road day.
We had the usual donkeys, chickens, goats piglets, horses and a close encounter with a dog but today I noticed what looked like a speed bump ahead which seemed in a really weird place. It was mainly on my side of the road but there was part of the hump on the other. When I got closer it started to move. It was a 6ft plus snake!!! Fortunately it decided to move away from our side of the road and I missed the tail by about a foot!!! It took a while for the heart to stop pounding.
As the day continued and we journeyed along the coast road we had much great views of miles and miles of empty sandy beaches. The beaches were so remote and vast many did not have footprints even though the tide had bee out for hours. In the end we made 320 miles on the day and caught up on some of yesterdays shortfall.
The following day we headed into Acapulco. This, we had been told, was our last stop to buy tyres before South America , unless we wanted to pay a fortune for them further south.
On the way we noticed that the whole area for miles and miles was covered in smoke from little rubbish fires beside the road. We assumed that there is a local burn your rubbish day in the area. Something we didn’t confirm as our Spanish has still a way to go for that conversation!!
When we arrived at Acapulco we were lucky to spot a Honda dealer on the way in but they weren’t able to help but they sorted through the Yellow pages for the Yamaha dealers. We spent a while in town looking and couldn’t find the road with the Yamaha dealers so after asking in several places Mike finally asked a policeman (Remember the thing about our visa’s etc..) who directed us to a Kawasaki dealership further up the road.
The temperate in Acapulco was hot. Even standing still in the shade out of the bike gear you were sweating. So done up like dogs dinners in the bike suit’s, it was a river on the inside!!
Our preference of tyres would be the continental TKC80’s which we have found to be phenomenal on and off road. Both of us have taken the bikes fully loaded to within a couple of millimetres of the edge of the tread and they have stuck like glue. Even on broken road surfaces they do not miss a beat. Anyway these weren’t an option unless we wanted to wait for weeks and would cost a fortune.
The Kawasaki dealer was unbelievably helpful and was able to supply one set of Pirelli MT21 and reserved us some more tyres (Korean…but they were the right size) at the Kawasaki dealership in Oaxoca , which was on our way.
Leaving there and heading for a map shop we found the elusive Yamaha dealer and although they didn’t have the Pirelli tyres there, their Oaxoca shop did, so they reserved us a set as we felt happier with a known brand.
As for Acapulco we had been warned not to expect much as it had become a big resort and the comments lived up to expectation. The beaches were sandy and looked clean and the marina impressive with the yachts moored but the town was a mass of traffic and fumes. And as in all large towns the Taxi’s (which were the old shape VW Beetles) were all over the place along with the buses. Leaving the town via the costal road was impressive as we were so close to the sea but so high! We managed another 50 odd miles before stopping for the night.
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Acapulco...
<IMG SRC="http://pic4.picturetrail.com/VOL784/4062504/8448420/129434572.jpg" border="0" alt="Image Hosting by PictureTrail.com">
Just to prove we were there...
Yet another early start and on the road before 07:30. Another long mileage day planned. Even at 08:00 it was warm and getting hotter but the landscape was flat plains, with coconut and Banana trees but the colours of the grasses and plants was very lush.
Today we were final going to turn off the 200 a road we had been on for days. The plan was to turn off at Puerto Escondido but we picked up a road sign for Oaxoca much earlier than expected so after consulting the GPS we decided to go this route. The road looked much windier than the other road but we started the trip up to Oaxoca some 30 miles earlier than planned so time wise it should be quicker. The road was bendy and the road surface very rough. The bike and tyres were fine on this surface but our backsides weren’t!!! The good side was this was back country Mexico with windy road snaking up the hillside and great views of the valleys below through misty clouds. We carried on the road until dusk and was fortunate to find a Hotel before it came dark as the roads had sheer drops with no markings and there seemed to be donkeys and cattle at every corner.
<IMG SRC="http://pic4.picturetrail.com/VOL784/4062504/8448420/129434621.jpg" border="0" alt="Image Hosting by PictureTrail.com">
View of the hills...
John
