-No Return Ticket – Two People, Two Years, One Motorcycle

To say Acapulco is like Mazatlan on steroids would be an understatement. There was what seemed like billions of people everywhere, on the streets, bobbing in the water and on the roads. This is not our kind of scene. We look at a map and see a stretch of highway south of Acapulco running along the coast. We think that there will be more low key hotels there. We ride through town and are just glad to make it out of there alive and in one piece.


Acapulco is beautiful though. We were disappointed to miss out seeing the cliff divers but safety is more important to us then seeing some tourist attraction. We are out of here……




Well, the stretch of highway where we were hoping to find a hotel had nothing. We continue south hoping to find something in a city further on. This is rural Mexico here, pigs, chickens, farm fields and coconut fields. It’s getting late and we are both starting to get a little concerned. It’s dark by 6:30 PM now and We Will Not drive in the dark. I am fully prepared to ask a farmer along the road if they can put us up for the night. I’m practicing Spanish phrases in my head to ask for help. I did this my first motorcycle trip into Mexico back in 02’ and it was a wonderful experience. I have full confidence we will be helped out if we need it.

Finally around 5:30 PM, 30 minutes before I start begging for help, we pull into a small town, San Marcos. This is a cross road town for two highways and it had several hotels. Yes, we are set. We ride back and forth through town and pick a hotel that looked the friendliest for motorcycle parking. We pull in and see a couple of adventure motorcycles. Heidi says “These are the same bikes we saw at that hotel in Tecoman” We both recognized the weird looking plates.

Unreal, out pop Matthias and Manuela from East Germany ( www.outdoorbiker.com ). Just like us, they both quit there jobs to do this ride. What a nice couple. We enjoy a long conversation about our ride, our life philosophy and what it is like to live where we are from. It is just unbelievable how two couples that live half way around the globe from each other can be so alike in the way they think and live, AND we just happen to bump into them in a small, rural town in Mexico, both on our rides of a life time. This experience feels like some kind of cosmic event. All of a sudden fireworks start exploding in the sky from across the street. We can see them from where we are sitting. I brace myself for what may happen next (uhh aww, uhh aww) :)

Hi Tom & Heidi,

Great photos! Mexico seems to get more scenic the further south you guys get.

Ride Safe,
Tom

A friend at work told me about this thread and I thought, riding to South America on a Sportster? Geez, that sounds like a not so thrilling adventure.

What a great ride report! I just read it from beginning to page 15 and can barely focus on the keyboard to type this. Man, two years is an "Epic Ride" (my co-worker's dream is to go on an "Epic Ride"). As I'm sitting in my cozy den, I can't imagine being away from home that long, but like a lot of us, I'll sure as heck live/ride it vicariously through you guys.

Thanks for sharing your story and have a safe trip.

Hi Cave Persons!

Man, this thread is good. I have a short attention span and usually start to read a thread, get bored and move on, but this one has me gripped.

I'm trying to get the wife to read it now. She doesn't like bikes...doesn't trust them, (or my riding ability as a noob ) but she loves to travel. Once she reads this I'm sure she will be inspired!

You are dispelling a myth I have cultivated from various other sources (can't even remember where now...) that Mexico is a dangerous place full of bandits or conmen out to make a quick buck from hapless tourists. Looking at these photo's it looks like paradise to me now, both the scenery and the people you have met along the way. How many other ADV riders is it possible to accidently meet in a few weeks?!! .


I'm so inspired that I smiled at work today!. It doesn't happen very often, so rarely in fact that someone took a photo...:huh



Keep these reports coming...you have me and no doubt many more hanging on your every word.

Stay loose and live free...

This RR just keeps getting better.
I can't wait for the next installment.

Awesome RR Mr. and Mrs. Cavebiker. I will always lust after another ride into Mexico but until then I'll read on from my desk.

Zehueteneo was wonderful and I will return there. I was there the year I met you at HU in the Copper Canyon.

Acapulco was like you said, noisey and jammed with traffic.
The VW taxis must have had toggle switches instead of normal horn buttons since they would just keep blairing in harmony and not let up. :huh

Keep us posted,
Dan ny

Hey Hey ........glad to hear that you guys are back on the road!!! Great report!!!

Conchita and I just rolled across the border into Ecuador.....We think Dan is close to Lima. We split up in Bogota because he wanted to bee line it south, and we wanted to see a little bit of Colombia.

Now we are about four days behind him and two days behind the other Canadians that we have met. Oh well.....we are loving it anyways.

We will have to make some serious miles soon though if we want to be in Terra Del Fuego by the 5th of Dec.

Later guys ...take care.....

Brian and Conchita

This is great stuff, Cavebikers!

Yes for sure thats one of the more difficult parts of doing a long ride like this, being away from from your cozy home. Perparing for this ride I got a lot of feelings of just hunkering down and nesting. The hardest part of the ride I sometimes think is sticking into gear the first time and doiung the first mile. We love our little cabin in the north and look forward to spending the rest of our life there but we just had to keep telling ourselves that the cabin will be there when we return and we will never regret taking off for such a long time. I[m sure we will enjoy hunkering down even more after this is done knowing we did stick it into gear and blasted off into the unknown to explored the joys of adventure travel. Also replys like this help a lot while we are on the road, making us feel more connected.

Thanks man! If we can help inspired and dispell a few myths we will keep posting away, that has been one of our goals. People in developing countries have been so kind to us its just unreal. Hey, and bringing a smile to your face is a double bonus. Thanks a lot for the reply and thanks to all the others also for the replys, they all bring huge smiles to cavegirl and I also.

Hey! You guys suck! In a good way I mean We hope to be out of Mexico and into Guatamala before you make it to Terra Del Fuego, I hope anyway. Thanks for all your reports, it has been getting cavegirl and I super fired up to to push on. Hey! dosen{t it feel great dumping that 35 pounds of camping gear. While 2 up any weight reductions really seemns to make the riding more enjoyable. It did for us anyway.
Keep it between the ditches you two and keep posting Gavegirl and I are loving it!

Today we are pointing for Puerto Escondido. I know nothing about this place but I think it’s a big surfer destination.

Along the way we see a nice looking church as we roll through a small town.


Here we stop for some nuts and juice. It’s so easy to just keep riding through all these small towns and villages but we recognize the need to stay nourished and hydrated for staying alert and safe. We have fun practicing speaking Spanish with the people here.


Getting close to Puerto Escondido. Nice…….


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We check out a few hotels in Puerto Escondido before finding one in our price range that had good parking. When we pull into the chosen hotel we see a BMW road bike fully loaded for cruising. Here we meet Dan and Bonnie from Canada. Of course, they are on their way to Panama and are spending the entire winter cruising through Central America. (I can’t believe this!) This is Dan’s 3 rd ride to Panama and he is bubbling over the top with information, anything and everything about biking and destinations. They are both retired and have attended several HorizionsUnlimited travelers meetings and really enjoy being on the road.

Bonnie and Dan. I gave Dan crap the first day while he was polishing his bike saying he is as bad as some Harley riders who spend so much time washing their bike. Dan pretended like he didn’t hear me but Bonnie got a good chuckle from it. We all enjoyed several long talks together and look forward to hopefully seeing each other again on the road in Central America.


A few pics of Puerto Escondido:


8:00 AM, a fishing boat arrives with its catch.


One happy customer.




This just seems like a place where beer commercials should be filmed or something.




Puerto Escondido is divided into two beaches and what seems like two separate towns. One beach (photo) is more protected and is where all the fishing boats are and is where more Mexican families go. The other beach is exposed to the open Pacific Ocean and is where all the surfers hang out. It’s so distinct, the only thing that separates the two is this small outcropping of rocks in the middle.


Our last day in Puerto Escondido Heidi and I went to the surfer side for breakfast. The Pacific swell was big that day. The waves were building up to over ten feet high and all the surfers were a buzz about the event. People were practically racing to the beach with long lens cameras and surf boards.

After breakfast Heidi and I walked down to the beach where all the activity was. Surf boards, big dog cameras, ocean jet-skis, babes in itsy bitsy bikinis, people standing around with there thumb and pinky sticking up in the air. It was so cool. The swell was not coming in at a very good angle so the waves would build and break fast, almost all at once. This made it very difficult to catch and ride a wave without getting hammered almost immediately. That’s what the jet-skis were for. This is serious business. The jet skis would tow a surfer at high speeds into the lip of the chosen wave. The surfer would let go at just the right moment and ride down a huge wave, duck down low while the wave curled into a tube and a second later get smashed when the wave collapsed onto them. Heidi and I were standing on the beach right in front of all the action with our mouths hanging open. It was like watching Wide World of Sports but a hundred times more dramatic. After the surfer would get smashed by the huge wave, out of nowhere the jet-ski would appear running at high speeds straight at the downed surfer. The surfer would grab onto the handholds of a flat raft being towed by the jet-ski. The jet-ski would then gun it’s engine and peel off, towing the surfer away from the next breaking wave that would have crashed right on top of him. This was almost as dramatic as the surfing itself. We couldn’t believe the skill and timing of the jet-ski driver. It was all done with split second timing and if the driver was off by a second or two both the jet-ski and the surfer would have gotten smashed. I have never seen this before but the surfer wore a life vest and didn’t have a tether line attached to his ankle and the surf board. The surfboard would eventually just wash its way up on shore. Way Cool……. I wish we had our camera along.
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Local dwellings less then a block from the tourist area.


Puerto Escondido was great but Heidi and I are anxious to push on. We are so close to getting out of Mexico we can almost taste it. All these great bikers we have met in Mexico have gotten us so fired up it’s hard to describe.

Next we are shooting for the city of Oaxaca, a culture rich and beautiful Mexican city. Sounds like a good way to say goodbye to Mexico.

Hey guys, great report, keep them coming. How about that fishing pole you keep toting around, you had a chance to use it yet? Some of the places you've been seems to cry out for a little fishing.

Yes, only a few weak attempts at fishing so far. Haven’t caught anything yet but like I always say, it all about the hunt. This is good for Heidi though, she always enjoys teasing me about my lack of fishing success. Hayward Wisconsin is clamed to be the Musky capital of the world so I’m supposed to be a master fisherman and of course I always claim I am to Heidi. I better catch something soon….

Today we are shooting for Oaxaca, about 165 miles north of Puerto Escondido on highway 131. I read something about a village about half way that is in the mountains and has some great hiking trails nearby. We take off early just incase we need to make it all the way to Oaxaca (Yes, 165 miles can be a full days ride in Mexico)



To say the road out of Puerto Escondido is steep, twisty and windy and riddled with pot holes does not come close to describing it. Once and awhile we could average 30 miles per hour, I calculated in my head that we could make it all the way, including stops, in around seven hours. Then the road would get real steep and real twisty and our average speed would drop even further. This is a dream road for biking if you are into this kind of stuff and I am. I had to keep the speed under control because some of the turns were so sharp that long semi-trucks couldn’t make it around the turns without taking up the whole road. It was nice that road signs alerted you of such curves, saying, there is a single lane road ahead.



We were riding along and an oncoming car flashed its headlights at us. Through experience I have learned that this could be a greeting or a warning of something in the road ahead. This time it was the latter. When I first pulled over to take this photo there were three steers in the road. Not something you would want to come across at high speeds around a blind turn. Along this highway there were dozens of mules in the road also. It’s funny, the steers would want to move off of the road but the mules looked like they were frozen in place, like they were petrified.


We stop for gas at a small village.


There were close to a dozen young girls and a few old ladies that would mob over to any vehicle pulling in for gas. They were trying to sell nuts, roasted seeds or fruit. Only one old lady approached us, she looked at least a hundred and was selling some type of seeds. I wasn’t sure what they were but I bought a couple of bags, cinco pesos (45 cents) they were great. I walked up to the group of girls in the photo below and bought this bag of fresh cut papaya, about 90 cents. Good stuff….


About noon we pull into another small village. I think this is the village we were hoping to spend the night and do some hiking. I see a sign at this restaurant saying “Café Ole”. Coffee sounds good right about now so we walk in for a bite. This village was a buzz with activity. It turned out the place where I parked is a mini-van bus stop. I had to move the bike twice.


Heidi ordered carnie asada (grilled beef) and I ordered huevos asada (fried eggs) and coffee. The tortillas were huge and good. Heidi says the beef was a little chewy but good.


Heidi was a little concerned when she saw her raw beef hanging on a stick next to the grill (upper right). She said this will be a good test of her stomach. No problems though…


There was only one hotel in town and it had street parking only. Bummer, we push on.

We hit one other bigger village before Oaxaca that had a hotel with parking but it was still early and we were only about fifteen miles away from Oaxaca. We decided to just drive on.

We got a good tip from Bonnie and Dan in Puerto Escondido about a nice little hotel in Oaxaca that is right in the heart of the centro zone and had a courtyard for parking. Sounds good.

Coming into town there were numerous signs pointing us to the centro zone. We find it without a problem but had a hard time finding the hotel. In heavy traffic I see a tourist info building and tell Heidi to jump off the bike and ask for a street address of the hotel. She thought I was nuts because of the crazy traffic and all the streets were one way. She says “How will I find you again?” I say “I’ll find you, don’t worry”. Luckily I found her without too much trouble. We have a street and approximate location now. Yes, this should be easy. We circle around and around and around. We ask two different people where the street is. They both seemed like they knew where it was but it was not where they said. WTF. I finally pull over at the central park (parque centro) Heidi gets off the bike and walks over and looks at a couple of street signs. I ask for directions from a manager of the restaurant I’m parked next to. This guy is super friendly and tells me I go one block the other way, turn right and that is our street. Then I go 2 and a half blocks and that’s our hotel. Great! He says we must return later for the best margaritas in town. Deal!

Heidi returns and I tell her the news. Great, but she says I can’t go down the street that way. I say “Get on the bike and watch me!” We were both a little tense after our nine hour ride through the mountains and the crazy Oaxacan rush hour traffic. I drive down the street, it was blocked off from car traffic but the bike could fit through the barricades, no problem. I turn right after one block. Heidi yells out “This is not the street!” I say “I don’t care, we are taking it!” Good thing because two blocks later the street magically turns into the street we want and we pull right into our hotel. Sweeeeeet!

Later we find out that ALL the streets change names right around parque centro.


The next morning I get up early and take a walk around the neighborhood.


Along the street our hotel is on, people set up stalls right on the road selling just about everything.


About two blocks away is a huge central market building that takes up an entire city block. This truck is bringing in the catch of the day.


I go back to get Heidi, we take off to the central park for breakfast. Sometimes I like to try something new. I ordered Huevos Oaxpequeno (Eggs Oaxacan style) It looked pretty strange when it came out but it was really good.


View from our breakfast table. This guy would play the trombone for a minute or two then sing out loud for a couple of minutes. He was really good and we were glad to throw a few pesos in his hat.


After breakfast we take a walk around the centro zone. Enjoy…..










Here we buy some more roasted pumpkin seeds.




I had one more emergency item to buy before we head south of Mexico, a siphon hose in case we run out of gas. I see a small hardware store so Heidi and I walk in. The place was super small and dark and it didn’t look like they had anything. Just as we were walking out the door I look down and see a pile of coiled hoses, all different sizes and shapes. I measure out nine feet, 90 cents. We are set!

Next we head into the huge central market right next to our hotel. We start a methodical zigzag pattern through the building so we don’t miss anything. Below are some photos that turned out.


















Now we head outside and circle the building.






Just before getting back to the hotel I see this trike. The owner was very proud.


While we were out walking we see Colossus gym. We made note of the cross streets where it was but of course had a heck of a time finding it again. Oh, ALL the streets change names.

We did finally find it and signed up for a week membership, $6.80. Taking off on a two year motorcycle ride shouldn’t mean all we do is ride, eat and sleep. To us, taking time for ourselves is important and is part of what a two year adventure should be all about. Pumping iron, sucking air, exploring new places on foot and celebrating life is all part of what makes a ride like this great.


OK, let’s end the day with a few of those great margaritas at that central park restaurant, the one where the guy helped us out the first day. Nice place and we are treated like VIP’s.


A big stage was set up next to us with a drive over ramp. Soon a bunch of Rally cars, girls and race car drivers started showing up.


Before we knew it the place exploded with people and cars. The drivers were signing autographs and mingling with the crowd. The margaritas were flowing……..




All the photos of me with my arms around girls didn’t turn out but I assure you I was getting just as stupid as Heidi was. Good time.








The margaritas were just as good as we were told, too good. After we had enough of the scene and were walking back to the hotel, Heidi suggests we go have a beer somewhere. Of course, I say “I know of a nice bar on the way”

O my! The place was jumping. The couple next to us were drinking shots of tequila. My brain wasn’t working too well so I say “Dos vasos de tequila por favor!” (Two shots of tequila please) Big Mistake…….


But boy, we sure had a good time……


At the corner just before our hotel is a great little taco stand. “cuatro tacos para llevar por favor” (four tacos to go please). What a great way to end the night. (that’s a pig head between those two guys)


A little tour of OAXACA CENTRO :)

10-star. Keep it coming!

There is always something fun going on in Mexico. You guys are the best at finding it.
Keep up the great RR.
I love it.
dan ny