Around The World

We have now managed to travel 1300 miles without falling out (or off). He has learnt quickly that :

Tiffany tired is not good

Tiffany hungry is not good

and Tiffany tired AND hungry must be avoided at all costs.

We've got to Puerto Vallarta, where he has a shared apartment and I am staying with my old friends Janet and Bruce Cohn for a couple of days. Janet already features on my rogues' gallery and I am working on her to get her to join me for part of the West Coast to East Coast journey next year.

After a great five days in Puerto Vallarta, we left this morning, waved off by Janet (who has agreed to ride again with me next year - she is now 70!), Bruce and the latest Travels with Thelma fans- Lana and Gary.

We have loaded the extra stuff onto Gullu, I was having a bit of a nose at the stuff that Savas had´picked up from his friend's apartment- including a Turkish flute. The bike is more loaded up now and we look quite funny clambering over the various stuff onto the back of it.

We have been travelling across Mexico at quite a pace since leaving PV and all is not well. The bike's name may well be Gullu/Rosie but it's not as rosy as my backside.

Due to a message I received from my shipping agent, we had to suddenly get a move on and dash for the border out of Mexico. This involved two days of hard riding through mountains and across the hot plains, being blown sideways by the katabatic winds and having a chance encounter with Jorge, a Colobian bike traveller on a Suzuki V-Strom., we fitted in time for a social chat over cold drinks in a shady cafe.

Having travelled over 2500 miles with Savas and Gullu it was time to say farewell as I walked back across the border into Mexico with my bike helmet in hand. We had learnt quite a bit from each other, I've introduced him to wild camping and off-roading, and also the concept of the "kitty" (shared money) and what a woman means when she says she is going to "powder her nose". From him I have learnt several words in Turkish, a better appreciation of Mexico and met many of his good friends in Puerto Vallarta who had helped him out so much after his accident earlier this year.

A gruelling 18 hour bus ride had taken me from the Guatemalan border up to the beautiful beaches of the Yucatan. Stumbling out of the bus station (still with bike helmet tucked under my arm), I jumped on a ferry to the Isla Mujeres, a small island off the coast of Cancun.

At the weekend, Ricardo Rocco got in touch, we'd last met on a five day off-road rally in Ecuador a few years ago, he is in town for a week and we met up at the Long Beach International Motorcycle Show in Long Beach. At the Show I was lucky enough to be introduced to (amongst others) Bill "Rocky" Mayer who creates state of the art, hand crafted motorcycle seats. Hearing my Princess and the Pea story about my bony backside and the KLR and noting the fact that Thelma is almost 18 years old (three weeks until her birthday) he has very generously offered to custom-make a new seat for me.

Unbelievably, snow has appeared on the hills around LA and the locals are all in shock at this Siberian-style weather, I feel it may be a sign that it's time for me to leave town.

Unfortunately though, Thelma has still not arrived, I've got all the Customs paperwork in place, and so she'll be stored here once the ship unloads. Chritmas at home is beckoning me, today I'm flying up to Seattle to catch up with friends there and then to England via that well-known hotspot - Iceland (the country not the supermarket).

Having acquired somewhat of a reputation for poor seasonal choice of destinations - Siberia in October and Death Valley in August both spring to mind, I managed to go one better and head to Iceland in December with the promise of an off-road ride as part of my stopover.

I had an unreasonably early morning call to get to the airport, after a late night eating turkish borek. I was flying out via Seattle to catch up with friends there, but as I was delayed 24 hours by order of the US Customs Department, I missed the "Welcome Back Tiffany" party in the George and Dragon pub, arriving in time to witness the bleary eyes and hangover of Mick and friends at Vallantine Motorworks. At least Shaun the dog greeted me warmly and definitely seemed to remember me from seven years ago

I've had a couple of emails from Confused of Camberley asking where on earth I am heading and what has happened to Thelma. One minute I'm bike travelling around Japan, the next I'm on a KLR in Guatemala and then I'm suddenly in Iceland.

I'm finally home (or at least for the moment). I've arrived back to find Arctic style weather conditions and to discover that the airline have lost my bag. This is a bit of a problem as it means I only have the clothes I was wearing when I landed, plus full bike gear. Though I am still luckily in possession of the seven pairs of knickers.

Christmas greetings to all those reading the blog around the world - it is still holidays here and i have to apologise for not sending this out earlier but I have been in an internet black spot (my parents' house) for the past six days.

I seem to have left some unfinished business as I haven't actually managed to get Thelma home from Mongolia.
So at the end of June (in fact shortly after the UK HU meet which was a great success) I flew to Los Angeles and picked up Thelma. I hotfooted it up to the BMW MOA Rally in Oregon - a massive event with over 5000 riders.