Well, the motorcycle maintenance continues. Following our air filter cleaning in the mean streets of Puebla, we were forced to find a hair dryer to dry them out before we could go find oil for our bikes. We couldn't find a hair dryer for the life of us, so we were walking around downtown Puebla, waving our airfliters about over our heads in the vain hope that the resulting air currents would dry them out. I finally came up with the bright idea of going into a McDonalds bathroom......
The next task for the day was to ride all over Puebla trying to find a special oil for Ed Zachtamundo's bike. He’s riding a KTM, which is a very expensive and nice bike, and the oil that it takes comes from unicorn blood and baby seal tears. Needless to say, all five motorcycle shops that we stopped at were all fresh out of unicorn blood, so looks like Justin will have to figure something else out. Meanwhile, I stopped at the local Honda shop, picked up a few quarts of oil, and convinced them to let me change the oil in their shop! They were all super nice and friendly and gave me lots of compliments on my bike. Everyone is super impressed by the massive gas tank.
The next day we stashed our stuff at the Hotel and made a mad dash back north via the toll roads to Teotihuacan.
As we were leaving town, I rode straight into an open man hole in the road. The traffic was so heavy that I didn't see it until it was too late. There it was, just an open man hole right in the middle of the road. I didn't have time to react or swerve or anything. At the last second I was able to gun the throttle a little in hopes that it would lift the front wheel......but it didn't.
Luckily, the hole was small enough that my wheel didn't get stuck and I was able to roll over it like a big pot hole. And then I had a huge adrenaline crash.
And Ed Zachtamundo was following my line and did the exact same thing! The roads can be so crazy down here, and this is just Mexico. It will be interesting to see what the rest of Central and South America are like.
In any event, we made it safely out of town and backtracked across the altiplano to see some of the most Amazing ruins that I've ever seen! Words do not do it justice. We hired a tour guide who spoke passable english for about 300 pesos, and saw the sights! I'm not a scientist, so I won't bore you with the history and such of the amazing place, but feel free to look it up on Wikipedia. My main regret is that because I'm not Ewan McGregor, I was not able to convince the Mexican Authorities to allow me to do wheelies down the Avenue of the Dead or try my trials skills on the Pyramid of the Sun. But at least I got a good picture!
We zoomed back to Puebla on the toll roads (these things are exhorbitant!) and spent the night again. Then next morning we woke up at the crack of 8, had breakfast and started a leisourly stroll for Oaxaca. I forgot to mention earlier that Puebla has an amazing backdrop: several massive, snow capped volcanoes; one of which is over 18,000 feet tall! The mountaineer in me was sorely vexed to not have brought my crampons and ice axe.....
We avoided the toll roads to save money, but soon found why everyone had told us that Mexico was so dangerous: Donkeys! I'm serious, they're everywhere. You could be rocketing around a blind corner on some remote mountain highway, only to find a semi domesticated ass placidly chewing cud in the middle of your road! We saw about seven or eight untethered donkeys and about five cows all grazing on the side or in the middle of the road at various times throughout the day. It kind of gives you pause when you're thinking about hitting that corner hard and you don't know what's on the other side......
We finally made it into the state of Oaxaca and immediatly saw a huge downward shift in pavement quality and an upward shift in food quality. My brother has been pestering me to get some real off road time, so when I spotted this side road I had to appease him...
And after I had ridden up it just long enough to get a good picture, I turned around and got back on the black top. What do you think this is alvincullumyork, some sort of adventure ride or something?!
No comments:
Post a Comment