Its hot, damn hot, hot hot and hot.

I had some errands that had to be run in the am so I didn.t get to leave til almost 9. Hot. The first part of the trip was small roads up and out of the coastal town to the main freeway. As I was riding small mountain roads the pace was slow if not very entertaining. However, on a bike, slow equals HOT.

I ride with jeans, good solid leather shoes, my cordura riding jacket with body armour, leather gloves and I tried with the full face helmet, I did, really. But a huge heavy black helmet that encases ones entire face was just tooo much so I switched to the open faced helmet.

All that gear even got hot. Hot, hot and hot. I was sweating, so much it was getting in my eyes, at 9am. So I adjusted a few things...all vents in the jacket full open, partially unzipped. Jacket sleeves rolled up abit, gloves rolled up abit too which allowed a breeze up the sleeeves..ohhhh baby.

I even rolled my socks down and my jeans up....more breeze equals more mana.
Full Vents on the bike open and that is how I ran. Once I got the freeway it was alot better.

The bike is running well, 26 years old, 135 000 kms and still runs strong.

Yesterday was a reasonable mileage day, just under 600k and a chunk of that was rural and mountain roads. One very very innefficient portion was around this bloomin town called Culiacan...its like the hotel california...yuo can get in, but you can.t get out,

I wasted literally 50km trying to navigate around that place. My intention was to get to the town, find a place to stay and leave bright and early. Well I got turned around, ended up in the city proper, couldn.t find a hotel ANYWHERE and then got more lost.

Anyway I see a motel at last and dive off the highway at it...I.ll figure out how to get back the main freeway in the morning. So yeah, pull into this motel and there in a kid on a bmx biek telling me to follow him, odd. So I do, and I notice the motel has alll black windows and each room has its own garage, odd and kinda cool. I do appreciate a garage.

The kid directs me into an open garage and after a look in I figure why not and drive in. A sign in front of me says 200 for the night...I confirm pesos right?..yes, so that.s 20 bucks for the night, reasonable motel room AND a my own garage. Now for me thats darn near perfect.

I pay the kid and close MY garage door, sweet. Don.t even have to upack the bike or anything. Thennnn I start looking around. Why is there a connecting door to the garage next door? Why is there no door outside? Why is there mirrors everywhere, no sheets, blacked out windows and an awesome lighting set.up for the huge bed? Why is there 3, count them, 3 channels of porn on the tv and why is there feee condoms and a bed massager? Finnnallly my innocent rurally bred mind gets it, a no.tell motel. Ick.

I dug out my sleeping bag, worked on the bike abit in MY garage, didn.t watch any porn and went to sleep. Slept ok except for cars leaving their own garages late and night.
5am wakeup in porn motel.

The next morning I plotted my escape from the hotel california and got out...many wasted kms later. Turns out my map was wrong AND I fell victim to the Mexican town roullette signage pitfall.

Here.s the thing...when you are looking for highway signs you look for the next major city right..and sure enough there is that sign, nice. Well enjoy that feeling cause you won.t ever see a sign like that again...all the other signs will have other city names..possibly even ones that lie in the general direction you are going. Sooo when navigating, you basically have to memorize ALL the city names in the next 2 or 300 kms.

Imagine leaving Vancouver for Whistler. You look for a sign that says either West Vancouver, horseshoe bay or whistler...and there is one the says whistler, nice.
NOw after driving abit you become concerned, there is a sign for lions bay..is that in the right direction, another for britannia, is that on the way, another for porteau cove, am I still headed to whistler, then, not one for Squamish, but rather, PAradise Valley..hmmm tricky...am I still headed whistler. Ok that.s my rant about that.

I road until about 130 pm yesterday and stopped during the hottest hours and had a siesta by a lovely river. Yeah, I woke up with grass stuck to my face and weird mexico bugs and ants all over me.

Not today......

Something I like to do occasionally when travelling is to visit a nice hotel, even just for beer at the bar. Its a great way to enjoy the local architecture, meet some people and just basically be in a nice clean sophisticated envirnonment. Pretty cheap for the price of a beer.

Now I have added something to that. Today I had an idea. Pay to go to the pool of a hotel, get a swim and siesta in a cozy chair. Wellll as it turns out for the price of a beer I got a beer, a swim, a siesta by the pool, AND a private air conditioned business office to compose my blog. Sweet.

I will close for now with some ancient chinese wisdom, "When travelling by motorcycle in super sunny weather, apply sunblock to ankles of rolled up jeans. Sunburned ankles make for fitful sleep."

Out.. from Navojoa Mexico.