Central and South America

it's friday novmeber 3rd. i'm frantically tying up all the loose ends. today i got the final immunizations: teatnus and hep A. got a certified copy of my bike's title at the DMV. told all the credit card companies and banks i would be leaving the country. and now i'm off to the bmw dealer for last minute parts: gel battery, brake pads, xtra tire plugs, extra glue, extra C02, fork guards, gear oil and engine oil.

the time had come for me to leave. it was a sunday and my riding buddies were cool enough to escort me out of town. we gathered in the alley by kimmie`s garage. that`s mike and reiner in the foreground.

ok..finally i'm at an internet cafe.
getting to the border from reno was a serious challenge.

well "Jake,s Place" was wonderful. steve lotsofsky does a nice job of letting everyone know the legacy of Jake and his house on the hill just south of Mulege, in El Coyote. everyone who comes by gets a tour and a little history of the man known as Jake.

Jake´s Place comes equipped with an old BMW r75\6 with a sidecar. here´s a photo of Lotsofsky next to it. we had been invited to have dinner with a very nice family from Boise (Terry Eve and their son Josh). They served a delicious meal of ceviche that was caught that day in the bay in front of their cabana.

La Paz: I rode the 4 hours from Mulege to La Paz saturday morning. This was a nice ride with some open stretches of highway where I topped the bike out at 125 miles an hour (with 3 full cases of crap and a tankbag - imagine what it would have done without a load)! Don´t worry mom and dad, it was perfectly safe.

So I delayed my ferry ride to Topolobampo because the people at the Taco stand, Super Tacos de Baja California de Sur, convinced me to stay one more night so I could attend their party. Here´s a photo of the nice people at the taco stand, they are like a family there.

ok, i messed up with the photos; i filled my memory card and transferred the photos to an online site. but now i can´t work with them easily to put them on the blog. so i´m going to skip a few days: the neat little town of Barra de Navidad, Aculpoco (which i really liked), the state of colima and michoancan (small secluded pacific beach towns),

I´m glad fate brought Nick and me together because I was planning on spending the night in Tuxla, which seemed to be an urban town with not much happening. San Cristobal is up and over the mountains from Tuxla. It´s setting provides for beautiful views of the cloud-enshrouded, Mayan villages encircling this old Spanish colonial town. The air is clean and brisk and I needed to break out the long sleeve shirt for the first time since Nevada. The quiet cobblestone streets are wonderful for exploring and the daily market in front of the pink-facade Templo de

Nick and I left San Cristobal that day at 4pm thinking it would only take a couple hours to ride 250KM. We were wrong, it took more like 4-5 hours, so we spent the last two in complete darkness and dense fog on the windey, rock strewn road in the not-so-tourist-friendly Chiapas. First we stopped to gas up in San Cristobal just before the old colonial city turned into dense forest. In this photo you can see the forest in the background. I took the photo for my buddy VW bus-loving friend Renier...you can see a California-license plated bus on the left.

This is a typical group of gawkers, checking out the beemer. Notice no attention is on the suzuki...

Nick and I left Mérida yesterday morning for Cancún. Along the way we visited Mayapan and Chichén Itzá. We got into Chichén for free because it was 4 o´clock by the time we arrived and there was only one hour until it closed.

EL SALVADOR BORDER--

HOTEL PARAISO--

BMW--

ESTANCIA AND METROCENTRO--

VIGILANTES--

click here to download an audio file (500mb)

click here to download an audio file (500mb)

Marco Antonio Solis is everywhere, on the radio, in restaurants, in bars, on buses and in markets. He's sings "romantica" and his lyrics make women melt. Here are two of my favorite songs, with translations. Is this guy good or what? I´ve been known to charm a dame or two with these lyrics ;)

Parque Central is definitely the center of town. Men, women and children line the benches and walkways to sit in the shade and people watch.

There is a heavy police presence in Tegucigalpa. This old man is a retired police officer, but he still helps control the traffic for this one intersection.

My grandfather, Charles Burrows, was the United States Ambassador to Honduras from 1960 to 1965. My father spent holidays and summers there during that time and my aunt spent some of those years there full time, attending school with other children of influential families. One of these children was Ricardo Maduro, who was friends with my dad and dated my aunt for a while. He went on to become the President of Honduras from 2002 to 2006.

I left the mountain valley city of Tegucigalpa and rode the twisties all the way back to the Panamerican Highway. Then onto the border crossing of Guasale into Nicaragua. I had spent one week in Honduras, met the President, explored Tegucigalpa and the small colonial towns of Santa Lucia and Valle de Angeles. But I was excited to continue onto Nicaragua. I had heard good things about León and Granada, the lakes and the volcanoes.