Month: October 2008

Ari, who we met in La Paz and rode with for a couple of days has posted some photos of Marc washing his bike 🙂 You can see the rescue operation.

From Motorcycle NY to SP

So we crossed Mexico!!
The border crossing wasn't that bad after all – a few procedures though:
1. Pay a fee for having stayed longer than 7 days in Mexico
1a – Get cash at an ATM to pay the fee
2. Cancel the Mexican insurance
3. Go through the border
4. Go through the "free zone" between the two countries
5. Get the bikes sprayed
5a. Get money in the free zone bank to pay the bike spray
6. Go through Belize immigration
7. Go through Belize customs
8. Go through the border
9. Get Belize insurance (required)
Uff!!
The language spoken here is English… we got so used to asking things
in Spanish that at first it feels strange to go up to people directly
in English…
We stopped at the first little town and got some gas – the most
expensive gas we've seen so far – $5/gallon! Good things the distances
here are not that great but I think from now on gas price will be
pretty steep. The guy at the gas station told me that the gas prices
are going up on Monday and that he usually crosses the border to
Mexico to fill up his car.
The road down to Belize City was OK… small roads… absolutely no
markings on the road but I enjoyed seeing the countryside and the
different style of buildings. Sugar cane and cattle – that was
basically what we saw on the way.
Then we hit the water – on the road – a LOT of it! I saw some cars
crossing so decided to go for it realizing that it was not that deep.
Unfortunately I pressed the record button on the camera too soon – it
was still booting up – so I didn't record that largest section but got
some of the other flooded areas on tape.
It is the second big flood they have this year. We were told that it
does not happen every year so this time around several houses and
businesses were seriously affected – for the second time. Quite sad.
Getting into Belize City was a little disappointing. I kept thinking
that it would get a little – just a little – nicer when we got to the
"Tourism Village" but it didn't. At least the guide book took to a
quaint hotel called The Great House Inn… the internet here is
flawless!
So it was a short day riding – we stopped around 3:30 – unpacked the
bikes – gave the hotel a HUGE laundry load – ate at the hotel – Cajun
Chicken – quite tasty – local beer and then went back to the room.
The day was gray and we were tired… slept till now.
Figuring out what to do tomorrow… probably go out to the Cayes
(pronounced keyes) to see the good part of Belize.

From Motorcycle NY to SP

"Trajen perico?" (Are you bringing any cocaine?) asked the Military
officer
"Que es perico?" I innocently replied knowing what he meant…
He then proceeded to walk around our bikes with a device that looked
more like a vibrator with a TV antenna attached at right angle to the
tip. The antenna swung towards my headlights and then swung towards
Marc's top case… at that point he gave up and let us go.
Quite unlikely that such a small device with no buttons, no display or
LED lights was a drug sniffer…

We saw the our first Mayan ruins today! Very impressive in terms of
size and how intricate the cities were – several buildings with many
divisions within.
We ran into two other motorcyclists from Texas riding BMW GS 1200
Adventures – nice guys – they were in Cancun for a wedding and were
heading back to the US.
The road was pretty straight and boring – swamps and flatlands all the
way pretty much – but it made for good progress. We did 320 miles
today leaving at 2pm and arriving around 9pm.
No major incidents apart from being stopped twice at Military check
points… they were looking for drugs mostly.
So we finally made it through Mexico! Tomorrow we do the actual border
crossing into Belize!
Photos:

From Motorcycle NY to SP

"The power of the sun!"
Drying up our gear like magic! We left the gear out all night and they
were still wet this morning. Now with half hour of sun they are almost
dry!

As Marc pointed out it is sometimes hard to follow which videos the blog postings are referring to so from now on I will be posting text and then when I get the video up I will add it to the same post… so check back on the post to see if there are new videos 🙂
I posted one for day 27 below…
Also on the top right corner I included a link to all of the videos…

From Motorcycle NY to SP

Wow – what a day!!
The morning ride from Tuxla to San Cristobal de las Casas was
amazingly beautiful – the temperature dropped quite a bit – felt very
very nice. The road was excellent and San Cristobal was very cute. Had
a colonial feel to it with indigenous population. As Marc put it, it
was the first time we got a real feel for Mexican culture.
The ride then got really interesting.
It was only 100 miles to Palenque… we were warned that it would take
about 4 hours and that the roads were very windy… the sky was
gray… but we went ahead…
In the first half hour the rain started. We stopped to put some rain
gear on.
Then suddenly it got dark and it was only 6pm! The rain got really
heavy. After about an hour or two, totally drenched, going about 35
miles and hour, we stopped for a breather. Marc said that our
situation was pretty bleak – raining, dark, and in Mexico. I replied
saying that at least it wasn't cold.
We started riding again and I thought that the being in Mexico part
wasn't that worrisome… I was more worried about the road which I
couldn't see really well. I decided to risk my eyes a little and
lifted the visor up – we were going really slow anyway so the rain
drops weren't hurting that much. I also turned my rear view mirrors
down so that Marc's head lights weren't in my eyes…
Then I see a motorcycle light facing me on the right side of the
road… I turned the high beam off but then noticed that there was
something on the road. When I turned my high beams back on I saw two
men lying across the road and a pick up truck parked at an angle on
the shoulder of the road. One of the guys was moving… I saw no blood
and thought that they were too well aligned on the road to have been
thrown out of the truck, if it had crashed. I simply avoided the men
and kept on going… looked back hoping that Marc would not stop
either – which I was sure he wouldn't. I'm pretty sure it was a
setup… truly bizarre…
At an intersection we stopped briefly to make sure we were going in
the right direction and about 5 dogs came charging towards us… they
were fearless and ran along side us for a good 20 meters almost being
run over.
When we finally got to Palenque we stopped at a gas station – yes – I
was also almost out of gas – Marc started laughing almost
uncontrollably. He asked me if I had seen the "Entrando zona
revoculionaria Zapatista " sign and another sign from the "Federales"
with some warnings – I missed them completely. That obviously made him
even more nervous.
At one point a pick up truck made a U-turn in front of us… I thought
nothing of it because I saw the driver saying goodbye to a family on
the side of the road… we came to a full stop to allow him to make
the turn… I didn't notice that there was another pick up truck
behind us at that point. Marc was sure it was an elaborate kidnapping
scheme going on 🙂
One more – but this time it was reversed – I started to follow a pick
up truck – he would be my eyes ahead on the dark road – after a little
bit he started to slow down for no reason and started signaling us to
pass him – I didn't want to. So he accelerated and I kept up with him.
He repeated the slowing down and signaling and I realized that he was
scared of US! He probably thought it was strange that 2 motorcycles
were following him so closely.
In any case – we got to Palenque and found a nice hotel with
apparently good internet 🙂
Should have some videos up by tomorrow – they usually take about 4 or
5 hours to upload 🙂

"Para hacer un viaje assi hay que tener dos cosas nada mas… Huevos!"

By Omar who we met at the hotel and loves motorcycles. He drives a
Hayabussa – one of the fastest production bikes out there 🙂 Him and
his crew gave us tons of tips on where to go and what to see. They
were filming a tourism video in the Chiapas region for the past 16 days!

From Motorcycle NY to SP