And Then There Were 3

Throughout the years, Mexico has not treated me well. 4 years ago, I was hitch hiking my way through the country with my girlfriend. Just North of Guatemala we caught a ride with two guys in a Jeep and just as we got up to 140kph the back right tire blew out. We skidded across the oncoming lane, hit the ditch and flipped over 2 and a half times, landing upside down, with gas pouring out. Miraculously the two of us were able to walk away with minimal injury. So after finally getting rid of that pesky Cam, the 3 of us who didn't get smoked by a truck decided to get the hell out of bad-luck Mexico as quickly as possible. But Mexico wasn't about to let us get away without a fight. 20 minutes into the second day of driving, my front tire went completely flat. Super weak. It was about a thousand degrees out and we were pretty much in the middle of no where. Luckily we (by we, I mean mostly Laine) are carrying lots of tools and parts for the bikes. So it was a pain in the ass but not the end of the world.

We finally made it to Alcopoco a day or two later. We spent just enough time there to find out how Jesus did his walk-on-water trick and watch some dudes get paid to jump off a cliff all of us would have done for free. Alcopoco isn't the nicest area but we did stay in a cool place that had a roof top terrace which looked out over the city. Wanting to get out of the stinky, dirty city, we left as quickly as we arrived, bound for Puerto Escondido. This is a world famous surf town known for its quite constant, near-perfect waves. When we rolled into town, stoked about trying our luck at surfing again, we were met by 10 to 12 foot high, hurt-Kori size waves. So because luck had obviously not been on our side lately, we decided to skip the ass kicking and stuck with what we do best... drinking. It worked out great. We had lots of fun at night in the many beach bars, and were able to use our hangovers as our excuse for not surfing. Yeah we're totally core.

We partied in P. Escondido for one last night, Halloween, and hopped on the bikes (hungover as usual) heading to Oaxaca for the Day of the Dead festival. It was a really cool drive, over 2 mountain passes. Late that afternoon we arrived in Oaxaca. It's a super cool city with stone streets and lots of cool architecture. The cool temperature was a nice change from the sweltering heat we had been in for the last 6 weeks. We got settled, bought some chicken and ate the crap out of it on our hotel floor like savages. It was Thursday night, November 1st. We read, and were told, that Nov. 2nd was the true celebration for Day of the Dead. So we went out that evening thinking we were going to take it easy and save ourselves for the big Friday Nov. 2nd party. That night there were parades, bands and lots of people dressed up in sweet costumes. We cruised around and saw lots of cool stuff but then headed home early. The next morning we were off to the market to find ourselves some costumes of our own. As we were walking there, we noticed that a lot of the shops in town were closed. We didn't think anything of it though. We just thought it was a holiday and everyone would surely be out going crazy that night. We each bargained our way into a one piece skeleton outfit and bought face paint as well. As it turns out, our shitty luck just continued to rain down. November 2nd is the true holiday, but the big party is on the 1st. The 2nd is more for staying at home with your family and remembering those who have passed. So we went to bed for the night of the real party and got suckered into buying costumes a day too late. We just don't stop sucking.
By this time, we were truly over Mexico and ready to get to Guatemala. We checked out one cool ruin site and then basically B-lined it to the border. On the way we had the windiest day of the trip so far. It honestly felt like the bike was going to be blown out from under us. It was pretty sketchy. Finally we made it to the border. It was crazy. As soon as we were within a kilometer of the border there were dozens of people running after us. Everyone swarmed us in hopes of being our helper/guide through the complex process of bringing a motorcycle into the country. It was a little nerve racking. There were literally 10 pairs of hands on either us or the bikes all the time. Everyone wanted to touch the motorcycles or our helmets or anything they could get their hands on. Sketchy. After about 40 minutes of some very inefficient paperwork, we were able to get on our way. We decided not to travel on the main route and instead chose San Marcos, which was up in the mountains, as our first stop.
We decided to be pimps for the night and stay at the Fairmont. But as you can see, I don't think our room was quite up to the Fairmonts at home standards. We could barely fit into the bathroom. That night it got fricken cold. We pretty much had on all our layers that we brought for the trip. Hoodies, tuks, everything. We froze our asses off and didn't want to get out of bed in the morning. We woke up and hopped on the bikes headed for Quetzletanango. I must have had the 'special' breakfast that morning because when we arrived that evening I was treated to a night of being doubled over in pain. I had food poisoning. It was the 3rd time I've had it in my life. Once in Turkey, once in Morocco and now here. Awesome. Needless to say I spent most of the night puking and crapping my guts out. Sweet.



The next day we drove out to Lake Atitlan. It was super cool. We took a shortcut to San Pedro, a small town right on the lake. We came over a hill and all of a sudden the road dropped away before us. The lake is deep in the valley at the base of several volcanoes. The road had tons of switchbacks and quickly dropped thousands of feet in elevation. It was super cool. We hung out there for 3 nights exploring the many pathways through and around the city. We ate a ton of good food and drank at many of the little bars around town. I djed in one of the bars on the last night we were there.



Next stop: Atigua. This is a really cool little town surrounded by volcanoes as well. We found out that roughly an hour away, there was an active volcano that you could hike. We signed up for the trip the next morning and went out to the bar that night. What's better than hiking up a volcano you ask? Hiking up a volcano completely hungover of course. Laine and I decided there would be no better time to wear the skeleton costumes so we put em on and climbed up a volcano looking like complete tools. It was really cool. We were able to get within 10 or 15 feet of flowing lava or as doctor evil would say, liquid hot magma. We arrived at the lava around dusk and the sun quickly set which meant we had to hike down through razor sharp lava rock in the black of night. And being that we were probably still drunk when we left for the trip, we of course forgot to bring our head lamps. Oh yes, we continue to suck.

We're now in Atigua and we haven't decided where we're going next. I'll keep ya posted.

Bad to Awesome to Really Bad

After our unexpected return to Guadalajara, we awoke the next day to find that Cam's bike had been fixed. On our bikes there is a float in the carborator that regulates how much fuel goes into the engine. The float had broken and that is why it kept over flowing and stalling. Lame. But after all that we were finally on the road again. Cam and I set out for Puerto Vallarta with little time to spare. As it turns out, being forced to come back to Guadalajara wasn't the worst thing in the world. We ended up talking to a dude who also rode motorcycles and told us about a road which we had not planned on taking. Had we gone the way we had origonally planned, it would have been a long, boring, pretty much straight shot to PV. By taking the new route we ended up having the best drive of the whole trip. It was Awesome! We had to cross this crazy winding mountain pass that seemed to never end. Tight turns, steep sections and amazingly gorgeous scenery... and to top it off, the road was in perfect condition. Apparently the road used to be simply terrible. They have just recently finished completely repaving that section but very few people know that it has changed since 'death road' days. After a few more awesome sections, we came around a corner and were presented with an amazing view of the entire valley. Sweet. We had to make our way through the little town below on random cobblestone streets. After the town, the road became fast and cruisy through big open meadows. Cool. Then just when we thought that might be the end of fun, it shot us right back up the next mountain. From that point though, the pavement was far from perfect. We were flying around more super fun curves when all of a sudden our path was barrecaded by cones and a dude waving a big orange flag. We spoke to the guy and he told us that a huge section of the mountain had just let go and the road was buried. We got off the bikes and went to go check it out. Sure enough, you could clearly see where the side of the mountain let go. Now check this out. Instead of carrying the debree away and dumping it somewhere else, their way of fixing the problem was to just bulldoze it over the edge of the cliff that the road travelled along. It looked like they were clearing a decent path when all of a sudden we saw a fracture line start again. The guy with the flag started yelling and everyone jumped back in their cars, us on our bikes, and drove through the path they had cleared as quickly as we could. We didn't stick around long enough to see if it let go again. After that there was another incredible hour of riding through more winding, sketchy, pot-holed roads filled with cows, goats and a 450 foot high bridge that one day I will bungee off of.

We finally arrived, after dark, to a hot and muggy Puerto Vallarta. Cam and I got a hotel and ate some bomb-ass tacos. The next morning we got up and went to go find the mansion that Karen had rented for us. After driving around like idiots for an hour because I suck and didn't read the directions properly, we finally found our castle for the next five days. Karen done good- real good. The place was incredible. 4+ bedrooms, multiple living rooms, several huge patios on many levels, infinity pool looking out over the ocean... the list goes on and on. It was awesome. Karen showed up that afternoon. My friend lindsay showed up that night. Todd and Helen came in the next day and then Jen arrived the following day. We had an incredible place with awesome friends to kick it with for my birthday. Cam even cooked a full turkey dinner on one of the days. Thank you for organizing an awesome birthday Karen!

After 5 days of greatness, it was time to pack up and make a move 45 minutes north to a small little surf town called Sayulita, where Karen had organized yet another fantastic villa. The new place was up on a hill just outside of town and had multiple little separate cement cabins. It had a pool with a waterfall and a huge top floor patio area with an awesome view that looked out over Sayulita Bay. We spent our days kicken it by the pool, relaxing, and surfing. Once again, thank you Karen. It was all sweet until the second to last day. Here's where the 'really bad' comes into play. We had rented a car to get everyone from PV to Sayulita. The 5 of us who had rented surfboards had found a pretty sweet surf spot the day before about 20 minutes out of town. That day all of us decided we wanted to go back and hang out there for the afternoon. So we loaded the boards on top of the car and packed Todd and the girls inside. I brought Karen on my bike and the 4 of us on motorcycles drove out to the spot ahead of the car. The road to get there was a highway and the turn off to the parking area came up quickly. Hartt was leading and turned into the parking area with no problems. Cam was next followed by Laine, and then me with Karen. As we slowed down with our signals on to turn left, a pickup truck came flying up behind us and decided to try to pass. Cam turned out first followed by Laine and Karen and I watched as the truck went speeding towards them in the wrong lane. It slammed on it's breaks and swirved, narrowly missing Laine, but unfortunately clipped the back end of Cam's bike. Cam and the bike went flying into the bushes. It was pretty much the crappiest thing I've ever had to witness. A car pulled over and we sent him after the guy in the truck. After about 15 minutes the first ambulance arrived. They were great and had him packaged up and ready for transport very quickly. I rode in the ambulance with him for the 35 minute drive to PV. All of a sudden, not 5 minutes into the drive, we came around a corner and the ambulance slammed on it's breaks. When I looked up out the windsheild, there was another person lying in the middle of the road. Apparently it was just some guy who fell out of the back of a pickup. The attendants jumped out and got the guy off to the side to wait for another ambulance. The day quickly turned out to be the worst day of surfing I ever had.

In the end Cam spent 4 nights in the hospital. He has 2 broken ribs, a broken and dislocated wrist, a broken toe, and a huge gash on his leg which took nearly 40 stitches to close up. He is in great spirits though despite being in a hospital for his 28th birthday. Hartt, Laine and I spent the last 5 days running around doing insurance and police work. Cam flew to Pheonix where his parents live. He will be having surgery on his wrist and if all goes well, will be meeting back up with us in a month or so.

So now Hartt, Laine and myself are on our way to Guatamala sans one soldier. We'll be keeping our fingers crossed that Captain Disaster will be catching up with us soon. Happy birthday mom.

Cabo to Guadalajara

After an extremely relaxing week in Cabo, the four of us saddled up and drove North, backtracking to La Paz where there is a ferry system linking Baja California with Mainland Mexico. The ferries only run on certain days of the week and because of this we made sure to do our homework so as not to show up on an off day. When we arrived at the ferry terminal, we had chosen the right day, but, because I guess none of us are very thorough with homework, we neglected to realize one key piece of information. Instead of choosing a day with an actual comfortable ferry, we chose the sailing which was on an industrial cargo ship. We had to drive the bikes onto the ship and onto a hydraulic lift that brought us to the top deck where we strapped them down for the 16 hour journey. The passenger area was roughly the size of a one bedroom apartment with a kitchen off to one side, and hosted about twenty or so stinky truckers. There were no beds. Only floor space in hallways and some recliner chairs placed strategically in front of two blaring TV's, which of course were playing Spanish cartoons??? So after piling our bags against a wall and eating our sloppy goulash that was included in the price of the voyage, we did as we normally do and made the best of our less than desirable situation by having a drink or two. It was a long night filled with card games and midnight drunken ship exploring.

After sleeping on three chairs in the kitchen (weak), we woke up and ate another gourmet plate of slop and prepared for our arrival in Mazatlan. Mazatlan is a cool, but somewhat Americanized coastal town on Mainland Mexico. I had visited here about four years ago on a previous trip around Mexico. We did a bit of exploring around the area but basically just relaxed on the beach and ate fresh marlin tacos for a few days.

We left Mazatlan driving East, bound for a city named Tepic. I didn't expect much, thinking this was just a stopping point for our actual destination of Guadalajara. But the inner core of this city truly had a lot of character with quaint parks, statues and monuments. It felt like a quiet, foggy little mountain town. That night it rained harder than anything we had experienced on the trip so far. The streets literally became mini ankle-high rivers. It must happen frequently because the city was designed surprisingly well to accommodate the runoff. Instead of having little sewer grates along the sidewalk as you'd find in most cities, the roadways in Tepic had entire cross sections of the street grated nearly two feet wide for the flood of water to be carried away.

Next stop- Guadalajara, a city of nearly 4 million. First on the list for this city was to find new tires for both Cam and my bikes. We were about 8000km's into the trip and the rear tires were nearly completely bald. After an entire day of searching and a lot of miscommunicating, we managed to find the tires we needed and a shop across town that would install them. We also purchased a bunch of other parts that we were going to install ourselves and with all this cargo, we looked a little rediculous driving through the city with everything piled on top of us. That night our friend Katie flew in for a visit. We introduced her to the game of 'hotel drinking' we'd become so good at. We toured around the city the following day and did some more repairs/upgrades to the bikes. The next day we drove 55km's west of the city to the town of Tequila. Cam had organized a tour of the Jose Cuervo factory. The factory was right in the center of town surrounded by cobblestone streets and old rustic buildings- really cool. We had a private tour complete with tastings of their entire product line.

After a couple more nights in Guadalajara, we sent Katie on her way, did some more maintenance on the bikes and headed toward the coast for our first real surf destination, Sayulita. We were about 100km into the trip and all of a sudden Cam started loosing power to his bike. We were at the top of a mountain pass so we coasted all the way down to the valley in hopes there would be a small town or maybe even a mechanic. No dice. We got to the bottom and all there was was a tiny shop selling beer to three or four drunk Mexican dudes. We pulled the bike apart and after tinkering with the engine, checking fluid levels and changing the spark plug, we realized we were not mechanics and were basically screwed. Roughly 45 minutes passed before a vehicle passed that we were able to flag down. Two guys in a flat bed truck stopped and helped us load the bike on for the slow, two hour drive all the way back to Guadalajara. Lame.




So here I sit. Back in Guadalajara waiting with Cam for his bike to be fixed. We sent Hartt and Laine to the coast to try and get a day or two of surfing in before we head off to Puerto Vallarta where Karen and 4 or 5 other of my friends are coming to meet me for my birthday on the 15th of October. Karen organized a villa in PV for 5 days and then another one in Sayulita for another 5. It's gonna be awesome!!

Day 1 till Cabo

Because I am starting this blog one month into my trip, I will try to be as concise as possible.

After 3 years of planning and anticipation, the day came, mid August 2007, to leave on my 14 month motorcycle trip to visit every country in the America's. I, along with friends, Cam, Hartt, and Laine, decided Kawasaki KLR650's would most suit our needs for the trip and were given an incredible deal from Factory Motorsports in Oregon. In addition, Thor was kind enough to sponsor us with full head to toe moto gear- helmets, outer wear, clothes etc.

So finally, following a few dozen good-bye parties in Whistler, BC, Canada, I set out on what would surely be a trip of a lifetime. For the first stop, Seattle, which was not too far down the road, I was accompanied by my girlfriend Karen, and all around awesome dude, Jeremy. I DJed Saturday night at the W Hotel, downtown Seattle with my good friend Mitch who runs the night.

After tying up a few more loose ends and saying our final good-byes, Cam and I set out on the first few weeks of the trip by ourselves. We drove south to Portland and from there went west to the Pacific Coast. We had incredible rides as we snaked our way down the west coast of the US. From shoreline cliffs in Oregon to the depths of the Redwood Forests in California, each day seemed to get better and better- and this was just the first week.
We arrived in San Francisco on the 25th of August. We stayed with Matt and Erin, friends of Cam's who he had grown up with in Portland. The two ended up being the greatest hosts ever and put up with a couple of stinky motorcycle dorks which we are forever grateful for. Two days later, we rented a car and drove to the middle of no where in Northern Nevada for the week long festival, Burning Man. This year Burning Man had 47,000 people in attendance. And let me tell you, those hippies sure know how to party. People come from around the world and essentially build a small city in the middle of the scorching hot desert. For a whole week, 24 hours a day, the party rages on. There are tons of art exhibits, music stages and just random things you'd never expect to encounter. It was a really fun week. We stayed at the deep end which is the biggest day party at the festival. Cam was able to bartend for a while at the bar where they give out 190 cases of free booze via blender drinks, 5000 or so beers, and two pallets of red bull. Because I 'knew the bartender' I think I drank the majority of it. It gets pretty crazy. You have to survive in the desert for a whole week enduring deathly hot temperatures, intense sand storms where you can't see 5 feet in front of you, and lots of dudes with no pants on. Over all, it's a pretty amazing experience.

After returning to real life, we drove back to San Fran again to meet up with our two other partners in crime, Hartt and Laine. After a drunken reunion, which was also Laine's birthday, we set out the next day for Las Vegas via Yosemite National Park. That night after a long day of driving, we set up our tents and camped for the first time of the trip. The next morning we vowed to never do it again. I'm a big fan of beds.


We had a couple of drunken nights in Vegas, one which included a swim in the Bellagio fountain. We had the bikes tuned up and after a stop in San Diego, hit the road for Mexico. It was a long gruelling drive down the Baja. Had we been on schedule it wouldn't have been so bad. But because we were meeting our friend Dustin in Cabo and had only left ourselves 4 days after crossing into Mexico, we didn't have time for the slow paced scenic way of driving we prefer. So instead we pounded out 14ookm's in 4 days and had the asses to prove it.



We arrived in Cabo and were greeted by a gorgeous 2bdrm condo and a very drunk Dustin. The condo is right on the ocean and has proved to be a perfect spot for a well deserved break from the bikes. Thankfully, the last few days have consisted of beer, swimming pool, beer, awesome food, beer and then just a little tequila. It's been nice to give the ol' chode a break. We leave in 3 days for La Paz where we will board a 16 hour ferry to Mazatlan.