Snowrider to Mexico

[greenmtndave]

[hooligan]

[ditchbanker]

Hooligan-to Mexico, haven't you been paying attention?
I appreciate your posts, Snowrider, 'cuz if it were me, I'd have a hard time taking a break from everything else to post for us. I appreciate your commitment to loosers like me who can't get away.

[pelikan]

Originally Posted by hondav2

BTW how far can you run on reserve before you stop. Toddy

Ive been getting about 200 (miles not those km things) down here but I am going to put back on the normal front sprocket to help out, I am suprised at how fast it is down here. Especially Baja.

Snowrider, maybe we`ll meet up down here. I met this guy from berkely and said I never heard of anybody doing this on a Suzuki, and he was on a xr!

[Snuffy]

[snowrider]

I haven´t gone far. I´m at a nice restaurant halfway between Juarez and Chihuahua. I stayed in Juarez 4 days building a house in the sand of a community called Loma Blanca. I worked sun up to sun down except for a two hour siesta in the hottest part of the day, every day except the last one. I´m fully adjusted to the heat, I´m comfortable, I´m ready to go, and I´m also a little sad to be done with the house. Wonderful people there, and the rest of this may seem too easy now. Or maybe I just don´t know what I´m in for. We´ll see, and that´s the point of this.

[ktmnate]

Originally Posted by snowrider

I haven´t gone far. I´m at a nice restaurant halfway between Juarez and Chihuahua. I stayed in Juarez 4 days building a house in the sand of a community called Loma Blanca. I worked sun up to sun down except for a two hour siesta in the hottest part of the day, every day except the last one. I´m fully adjusted to the heat, I´m comfortable, I´m ready to go, and I´m also a little sad to be done with the house. Wonderful people there, and the rest of this may seem too easy now. Or maybe I just don´t know what I´m in for. We´ll see, and that´s the point of this.

Snowrider, you my friend ROCK!


Nate

[Ramata]

Hey Snow, great that you'll be visiting this beautiful (but dry) part of México. Let me know if there's something I can do for you.
Or if there's a backroad you'd like to ride.

[snowrider]

Riding around El Paso to buy a hat and work boots I saw this guy riding with a Mexican flag
as a cape. When he was going down the street it was flying behind him like a superhero
cape, but I could only get this shot of him at a stoplight.






Somehow I went from missing the downtown border exit in El Paso to this spot in New Mexico,
still looking for a border crossing. I figured I may as well ride some dirt, since I
couldn't figure out how to get across something that was literally right in front of my
face.

[snowrider]

I went back into El Paso and found that downtown border crossing. Then I spent 3 hours or so riding around blazing hot Juarez trying to follow directions and get new directions over a spotty cell phone connection. I had better luck following the the spanish directions I got roadside than I did with the english directions I got over the phone.
One of the main streets I was looking for had a banner covering the name of the street on the signs that marked it. I was told this was part of some ¨promotion¨ the city is doing. If they wanted to promote curb and median hopping skills and illegal-even-in-Mexico U-turns, it worked. I got directions from someone on the street and finally figured it out. In the process I learned that car drivers sitting in traffic with their hazards on don't want pushed out of traffic, and that motorcyclists run red lights. After filtering to the front of red lights, riders that get tired of waiting just go when it's clear. I immediately took up this practice.
Eventually, I found Loma Blanca, and the new and nameless community next to it which looks like a bunch of shacks built on a huge offroad riding park that happens to be all sand. Here I would work for an organization called Casas Por Christos that primarily builds houses for families that can't afford houses, using volunteer American labor. The house I would help build in this case, was actually a building for a school and a local church for this new community.






The foundation had to be completed the first day, so we worked well after dark to put a big flat hard thing in the middle of what I'd call mostly sugar sand. Much of the cement was mixed by hand even after I fixed the cement mixer with the file on my SOG tool.










The next day it was framed. We couldn't make the generator start, so all the boards were cut by hand with very short saws that were not made for this.





After three and a half days the stucco, electricity and sheetrock was done and we had this simple 3 room building.

[ditchbanker]

Wow, man, whole new levels of cool.
We need a smilie in a great big bow. You deserve it.

[Ben99r1]

[TooTall]

[MNwilly]

Another epic report.

[memphisslim]

Originally Posted by pelikan

Ive been getting about 200 (miles not those km things) down here but I am going to put back on the normal front sprocket to help out, I am suprised at how fast it is down here. Especially Baja.

Snowrider, maybe we`ll meet up down here. I met this guy from berkely and said I never heard of anybody doing this on a Suzuki, and he was on a xr!

I think I spent a couple of days at this place Is this in ZAC?