Oregon to Ushuaia on an XR650L

[jnyrav]

Bitchin'....

IN...thanks for the RR!

[alvincullumyork]

Originally Posted by Ulyses

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?!

It's about time!

[johnnyvol]

A semi domesticated ass!? Man, I see those everyday.

Noob loving the RR.

[Ulyses]

Originally Posted by johnnyvol

A semi domesticated ass!? Man, I see those everyday.

Noob loving the RR.

They're quite terrifying actually. Haha!

[Ulyses]

Originally Posted by alvincullumyork

It's about time!

Man, everytime I take this thing off road, or even over a bumpy road, I feel like the rack and the boxes are going to fall apart! Especially when the locks start bouncing against the boxes.....man, it's a little un-nerving.

[Ulyses]

I'm going to kind of backtrack here for a minute......

When we were leaving Puebla to go to Teotihuacan, 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.

[Byron1]

Dude! Hope you and the bike are ok?

No chance of the roads getting any better / the drivers less crazy.

We're now stuck in Nicaragua after smashing into a pothole.. http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=838470

Sent you a PM. Keep the ride reports coming!

Byron

[Ulyses]

Originally Posted by Byron1

Dude! Hope you and the bike are ok?

No chance of the roads getting any better / the drivers less crazy.

We're now stuck in Nicaragua after smashing into a pothole.. http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=838470

Sent you a PM. Keep the ride reports coming!

Byron

Hey man! Good to hear from you. I'm doing okay. No damage. I'll be in Guatemala in two days. Maybe I'll catch up to you all in Panama!

[NotAllWhoWanderRLost]

Originally Posted by Byron1

Dude! Hope you and the bike are ok?

No chance of the roads getting any better / the drivers less crazy.

We're now stuck in Nicaragua after smashing into a pothole.. http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=838470

Sent you a PM. Keep the ride reports coming!

Byron

Holy $hit!

Wow, I'm glad to hear you both made it across the open manhole without damage to person or your bikes. After looking at Byron's wheel and rear shock it sounds like you were pretty lucky.

Keep up the good reporting and photos.

[danceswithcages]

Enjoying your report!

It's making my Montana winter a little bit warmer

[Ulyses]

Rolled into Oaxaca and stopped at an Autozone on the outskirts to pick up some gear oil for the chains and a little degreaser to clean up the bikes. As I was degreasing my engine (all over the Autozone parking lot, take that hippies!) I noticed that my oil cooler was loose. An closer inspection, I realized that the lugs were cracked and loose! Snap! The red shows where the cracks are:





We made a b-line for "el centro" and after looking at several Hostels and Hotels, settled on one that gave us beautiful rooms (albeit with a common bathroom) for only 250 pesos! And it was only a block from the Cathedral. There was no secure parking, but they opened the doors wide for us and let us bring our bikes into the courtyard.





As soon as we had been installed in our rooms, I took off my oil cooler and got down to business!

Step one: clean off all of the grease and oil and dirt with gasoline, soap, and water. Step two: mix up some JB weld and apply a liberal dose all around the lugs. Step three: check the JB weld every five minutes for the next four hours to make sure it's staying where it's supposed to. What a pain in the ass.....





In any event, I finally got it all set up to dry and left it overnight.


In the morning it looked pretty good, but I figured I would give it most of the rest of the day to dry. Ed Zachtamundo still needed to find that Unicorn Blood for his bike, and we really liked the hotel we were staying in, so we decided to stay an extra day. Ed eventually found some Motor-X 20W-60 and decided that that was as close to Unicorn Blood as he was going to get.


Meanwhile, I explored downtown Oaxaca. Saw the Cathedral:





And an older building (I believe it was some sort of convent) that had been turned into a museum:





And after the JB weld had set up,I took a quick spin up to the ruins of Monte Alban, another ancient stone city only six kilometers outside of Oaxaca.





The next day, we woke up with slight hangovers and took our time getting out of town. We finally got on the road at about noon and started dropping down into the desert as we neared the ocean. It started getting hot! We were way too used to being up on the Altiplano above 6,000 feet.





Spent the night in a decent hotel for 150 pesos. There was no hot water and the fan sounded like it was going to fall apart and come crashing down on your face, but it was clean and there was internet and we were able to park the bikes in the courtyard again. It's always fun to ride your motorcycle right through a hotel office......





Today we woke up relatively early and made a big push for the border town of Tapachula. We were down at 250 feet above sea level for pretty much the entire day and I shed my riding gear for more comfortable attire: t-shirt and jeans with my big US cavalry belt buckle....which I kept hidden under my shirt. Why do Canadians get to go flashing their patriotic paraphernalia everywhere?


In any event, we saw how they mow the grass near the highway in Mexico:





We were stopped by soldiers at a checkpoint and I got asked for the third time to open my panniers.....I guess that's what I get for using 40mm grenade ammo cans for panniers....the soldiers can always spot them a mile off. I guess they think I'm smuggling about 40 pounds of high explosives around on my dirt bike.





And we saw a nice Mexican family out for a Sunday ride.




It always makes me feel better about my heavily overladen bike when I see things like this.


Final stop tonight was at the "Banjercito" where we received our $400 deposit back since we hadn't sold our bikes in Mexico. Found a cheap hotel Tapachula with aire condicionado and crashed. Tomorrow we say "Adiós Mexico!".

[Brown Falcon]

It's always funny seeing how many people you can fit on a bike...

I love how they are riding with the helmet hanging on the mirror and no one is wearing one!

[Ulyses]

Originally Posted by Brown Falcon

It's always funny seeing how many people you can fit on a bike...

I love how they are riding with the helmet hanging on the mirror and no one is wearing one!

And you've got to love the dad's riding boots! Classic.

Ed saw a motorcycle with the same basic loadout except that the mother was carrying a naked baby.....

But I have to say, I saw much crazier overladden bikes in Afghanistan and Thailand.....talk about a motorcycle culture....those kinds of countries take it to the next level.

[Kawidad]

[mathews42]

Sweet pics and report keep em coming! Those ruins were gorgeous!