In Search of Greener Guacamole

You just can’t do it all, well you can’t can you? 3 months on the road, I could be in South America by now. Others have done it in that time. What did they see? Anything that wasn’t from the saddle?

Mexico was not only massively misrepresented but also underestimated. Sure I could have skimmed on through and then what would I know about it? It’s embarrassing to mention you have visited a country only to add that you never actually saw any significant sites. Thing is, Mexico seems to have a lot of significant sites. Its diversity, charm, and hospitality are intoxicating and addictive, two things I'm partial to. So here I am, still, only now with some big decisions to make. The thing that doesn’t make sense is that on the last trip, 60 days after leaving Essex I was in Mongolia and was rich from the experiences, I've been on the road 3 months and I've only crossed one boarder. I suppose I didn’t stop to sight see on the last trip until I got to Ukraine and this time I just haven’t stopped sightseeing, the average speed is now about 28kmh. Stopping is something that seems to be the common theme of this journey.

Mexicans seem to have mastered the art of sitting around and I always try my best to look and imitate, in an attempt to blend in with the locals. There has been no urgency, no time limits, there was of course a destination but unthinkable distances are best not thought about. Research is best done on route, big fat guide books can be daunting and I’d rather open the relevant chapter when I'm in the vicinity. So 6000 miles and then there’s this beach,

first night we stood looking at the waves crash and the sun setting, drinking Corona and wondering how we are going to get out of this predicament.

The room is £5 a day, the fish is fresh, the sun is browning my flesh, filling in the gaps in my motorcycle clothing tan and once again the wheels are not turning. Apart, that is to go on the daily trip to the supermarket for essential supplies, wearing only shorts and shades it's such naughty trip.

It’s the only time I'm reminded that it’s Christmas is when I hear the Spanish version of jingle bells over the supermarket PA. I’d never go to a supermarket everyday through choice at home epically this time of year. Here it’s still a pleasure and even if there is a queue at the checkout, beyond the trolleys through the picture windows the bay stretches out, a half circle of white sand, palms, blue sea and the constant white surf. It’s one of my favourite queuing experiences.

Then I leave the air conditioned building of all things yummy, into the underground car park and stuff my fresh bread and ripe avocados and camembert into my top box and I'm back out into the humidity and warmth riding slowly with a cheesy grin that’s about to get cheesier. When I reach my luxurious accommodation; I left my £5 room, I decided I was worth more than that, 3 times more in fact for a private villa with a sea view balcony wet room wifi and general loveliness.

If I keep heading south I’ll find myself in a southern hemisphere winter. And if I rush then what would be the point at all. Better to do a few things properly than pass by the best a country has to offer, unaware or unable to stop. Tough decisions have to be made. If you don’t make tough decisions in life you’re not in control of it. I'm juggling 2 things that are important to me. My book and my journey. I thought once it was written the work was over, how wrong I was, it’s only just begun. It’s demanding all my time and attention and it’s demanding more every day. I can’t delegate, no one cares about it like I do. I've given it a year of my life, apparently it wants another year, and how could I possible refuse?

There is a sailing boat booked to take us and the bikes from Panama to Columbia it sets sail on January 31st I'm not going to make it, I want to keep this pace through Guatemala and then if I were to rush to the Panama port where would that get me, apart from a sailing boat to Colombia? I need more time but I’ll opt for less distance. After Guatemala I'm doing a Ueee this will have the advantage of having my bike back where I started to try again next time. It also means I can be home to give my full efforts to promotion on the release of my book at the beginning of March. It all makes perfect sense. And it’s not bad at all. It’s not failure, I think failure would be covering the distance in just 6 months and not seeing all there is on offer.

To pass through a country and see only the road that takes you through it is to transit through an international airport and say you’ve been to that city. I don’t list Braine or Qatar as places I've seen because I looked at them through a triple glazed window as I landed and took off. Equally if a country is only witnessed through a scratched visor it isn’t really fulfilling its potential. The helmet has to come off sometimes. So once again the panniers are in the room and I haven’t put fuel in the tank for over 2 weeks, in fact I haven’t put fuel in the tank for over 2 months, every state owned petrol station has an attendant to pump the fuel for you and take your money I don’t even have to dismount if I don’t want to.

So a U turn is in order. Of all the choices this is the most feasible. South America aint going anywhere and neither will my book if I don’t correct, promote and market it. Thankfully my travel companion is continuing on. I would feel guilty if he gave up on it, I would feel resentment if I guilted into joining him. Now I feel a loss and sandiness, just like I did in Ukraine when we parted ways, our paths will meet again. Our plans were never written in stone, but in sand and the tide keeps coming in.

One thing I won’t miss, and this has been going on for an annoyingly disproportionate amount of time. Every time we order food, his meal is always more appealing than mine. His choice more appetizing, his fish was filleted and it was a bone of contention I found hard to swallow, his guacamole was always greener.

A bike trip with a buddy is a holiday, solo it becomes an adventure. I'm in the same room, nothing appears to have changed, but without my mate, my encouragement and my excuse my tummy is now full of butterflies not beer. One more night, may be two, ah yes, welcome back to the indecision of the individual intrepid traveller, double think it and do nothing, but soon, I too will be re attaching my panniers and moving alone into the unknown. Compact, independent, and no one to blame for anything but myself, oh and monklet of course oh and my publisher,

actually I will always find people to blame. Mission aborted. Target not met. But my mind has not been on the road it’s been on the book. And that is where the story ends. I've got 2500 promotional stickers to pick up in Guatemala City and then I'm gonna stick those little fuckers on every available surface between there and Denver. It’s been agonizing coming to this decision. Its best for all involved and I'm comforted by knowing its right. I have a book to sell about the last trip. If I give it my all may be it will give me the opportunity to make the next trip a sequel.

Looking at an overland website today for border crossing info, its feels like a beginning. Back to the lonely road, where my banter, thoughts and inspiration are only spoken only to my voice recorder, un-distracted, unattached, solo once again and still in search of greener grass.

Orange alert

Orange, there is a theme running through this journey, I'm quite the most colour coordinated continental traveller. Its coincidence I'm sure. Ironic really when the most hated part of my working day was a trip to B&Q (Home Depot, for you Americans) with its heavy focus on orange.

Of all the preparation, aesthetically pleasing and harmoniously matching was not one of the essential criteria. However I can’t help but notice that it’s all come together, mainly when I'm looking at my sleeping bag airing on a convenient tree or post

or when my pants are drying, hanging off of a sun drenched indicator. Even the schedule is playing its part. With over 11 hours of near equatorial darkness I usually, especially when camping get my essential 10 hours of sleep a night, my body just knows when the night is going to get light, although usually there is a cock crow to confirm this. The first thing I see through my fly net apart from some frustrated mozzies, when I raise my head off of my sheepskin detachable seat cover (it supports my arse all day and my head all night) is an orange sky, the first traces of light.

I always try and position my tent so I will get the optimum morning view even if it means my head is slightly downhill from my body.

This predawn positioning can sometimes educe night time indigestion, (heart burn=fire=orange) that however is usually solved with a midnight snack. Don the headlight (which indecently has a switch and strap of the orange colour) and indulge in some silent pannier rummaging. It’s my equivalent of a night-time fridge raid; past the pot noodle, under the protein bars, before the boil in the bag dehydrated emergency meal, lurks some soft and tasty perishables that would simply be wasteful not to eat before dawn. A cup of chai and a peanut butter (orangeish) sandwich, then I sit cross legged in my tent eating, drinking and watching the stars and the fire flies, or shooting my laser torch at distance objects is a fun little insomniac pastime. If I'm feeling particularly studious I can get out my Spanish book which coincidently is also orange.

So it started with the tent, used not abused, a consignment shop bargain. In my nocturnal hours I sometimes try to improve on the design in my head but I can’t, its brilliant especially after my last few trips in my portable Gore-Tex coffin. There are so many more activities I can do in this ‘two man’ tent. It has orange highlights and when I was given my Kelty sleeping bag in the name of sponsorship it too has a strong orange theme; so my bedding and interior tent decor is perfectly matched. I have an inner sleeping sack, its red, but was given to me by an ex girlfriend who is now married and her last name became Garfield, like the cat, who is of course, orange.
But it didn’t stop there. My M&S underwear 4-pack has different colour waistbands (they are perfect for travelling cus I can use a different colour each week and not get clean and unclean muddled up, it also avoids the double check with a close nasal encounter). So I have a distinct orange waistband on my second favourite pair.

If that’s not enough it continues with a Spanish dictionary, my bikes sponsorship stickers, ratchet straps, my disc lock stretchy reminder lanyard, the stripes on my Merrell trainers, and the rusty scratches on my tank. Even bungee cords, which fasten behind orange indicators.

OK I'm scraping the orange barrel now but with the orange trees (the fruit, not autumnal), the dawn skies

and the low charge indicators on my electronics, I'm now subconsciously on orange alert. This is a shorter than usual post, I was thinking of making it a poem but I chose a subject matter that didn’t really lend its self to rhyming. Just thinking about it I could become deranged...ooo wait I think I've got one.

Let’s hope the theme stops before the jaundice kicks in. Hummm KTM

Troubles with the Spanish tongue

A year, a whole year I wasted with my Rosetta Stone Spanish language course. Learning how to say ‘my name is Yuri, I come from Moscow’ or ‘the granny has grey hair’, and a bunch of other classic irrelevant phrase book bollocks. Consequently as soon as I crossed the border to Mexico I had all the communications skills of a deaf mute. When the levels of frustration reached the same insufferable levels as the stench in my sleeping bag it was time to do something about both.

Finding an English teacher in this town of San Miguel de Allante is not hard, but finding a good one is. Jumping up and down, thi

A room with a picture postcard view

and local teacher procured it was time to stomp the ming out of my bag. Almost as worrying as putting my card in a foreign ATM machine was soaking the bag, will I ever get it back - to its pre soaking fluffy puffy form.

I dragged it like a sack of dead ducks to the roof top. It was too heavy for the washing line, so it bleed and drained its reluctant saturation from the railings. Three days of shaking and de-clumping, airing and relocating as the sun moved round the planet. But now it has the form of hot air balloon just before it’s ready for takeoff. I have not however managed to inflate my Spanish vocabulary quite so easy.

There are schools, proper schools for the students who have the ability to soak up knowledge like a down filled sleeping bag does water. Organized family stays to immerse yourself in the language and culture. I though, having all the saturation qualities of a ducks back, opted for a slower, up-close and personal approach. No one can accuse this teacher of going too fast. He clearly has some problems, possible stroke victim or vallium addict. He moves with the agility of gravity challenged sodden sleeping bag, he struggles with the continuity of the alphabet and drawing a clock face on the board was painful. In real time the hands he drew ware running late before completion. When he goes to look up a word in the dictionary he starts at 'a' for a word beginning with ‘t’ - ‘tocino', meaning bacon, that was after he tried to draw it in blue pen on the board to show us what it looked like.
I wouldn’t want him on my team at Pictionary; incidentally the wall supporting the whiteboard resembles a dart board wall, with blue spots around the outside of it from stray stabs with the marker pen. We spent a good 15 minutes deciding that ‘col’ was cauliflower and not cabbage. He reminds me of cross between Gordon Brown, with his slow but deliberate buffoon type manner, a prolonged certainty that inevitably ends in forgotten actions; and John Merck the Elephant Man, intelligence trapped inside a dysfunctional body. Despite these insulting similarities, this man is a really lovely honest man, with enthusiasm and a massive heart, all be it of questionable performance. I thought he was going to cry at the end of our last lesson when Andy gave him a pair of £1 Tesco reading glasses, ‘For me? How sweet’. Arrhh, bless.

At first it was annoying, he was going to be fired after the first excruciating lesson, but we gave him one more chance, a morning lesson, when the body still has some resilience against the numbing medication, when the coherence is at comprehensible levels. Thankfully his grasp of exchange rates is equally inaccurate, so what we lack in translation we make up for in transaction. He even had a new haircut the next day, surely a treat from his unexpected boost in income, I would have remarked but didn’t pay attention when we did the word for haircut, well why would I?

Anyway we reasoned we aren’t that quick either, we need slowness to take this stuff in. So we actually complement each other quite well.

I still feel like I'm on the edge, at any moment all this knowledge will fall into place and I will become a cunning linguist of the Spanish tongue. I can see myself talking Spanish in my sleep or suddenly bursting forth with a mouth full of sentence at an appropriate opportunity when all things a line with my retained vocabulary and an audible, comprehensible, grammatically correct stream of words will be spouted with assertion and confidence. A perfect dialect and emphasis on the accented letters of the words. Relayed so faultlessly and more importantly understood but the intended receiver, that will result in a hushed reverence at my linguistic skills, as all around, behind hidden mouths onlookers will whisper, that surely I must be some kind of albino Mexican to have such a perfect grasp of the language. Actually that will only happen in my sleep, my dreams, not in reality, although I did order red sauce with my lunch the other day, sauce being ‘molé’ pronounced ‘moe-lay’ as in guacamole, but when the word was looked up in the wrong side of my Spanish/English dictionary was described as ‘as small black fury mammal with sharp pointy teeth. An untrustworthy sauce of underground information. But there are lots of similarities; ‘in an organization a mole is the sauce of the information’.
Dirty is ‘sue-c-o’, so now we know Phil Collins was singing about a dirty Spaniard.

Anyway word association combined with my ‘Michel Thomas’ audio lessons means it is all coming together, I have no time to ride, no time to write, go out or speak to the locals, but like a garage band rehearsing in private, I have bedroom Spanish. Pretty soon I will go out on tour and see if I can spread the word, whether it will be understood, and if the reply is comprehensible remains to be seen.
We have a room with the most amazing dome brick ceiling,

another ancient town of Spanish construction, with a bright blue high altitude sky pieced with the spires and bell towers of numerous churches and cathedrals,

that all ring out of sync, without punctuality or meaning, but with an acceptable noise pollution that compliments the tweeting sparrows morning chorus from the hanging flowering plants that cascade down from the sleeping bag airing balcony. Lying in bed with morning soft focus on impossible angles and construction, not arched enough to hold its self up, the agony of analyzing how it possible came to shape with symmetrical herring bone precision occupies one sense whilst unfathomable audibly time announcements play havoc with another sense, all this as I’m trying to recall and make sense the simplest of Spanish sentence is actually a wonderful way to start the days awearness.

Speaking of awareness, we found ourselves entering in a very dodgy Mexican bar where the urinal is unhidden and right next to the least preferred table, breeze blocks walls are painted red (to hide the blood?) it’s not exactly a calming colour. The bar entrance has swing saloon doors and would be cliché in any other place, but here it is authentic and not for foreigners to see, frequent or god forbid actually come through and drink in.

However after a nice safe clean, expensive roof top sunset, guide book recommended beer,

it was time for something darker and seedier, man did we come up trumps. I had just the right amount of beer in me to deal with such a place. Stone cold soba and I would have turned right around, drunk, and I like to think I would have decided I’d had enough, but at this particular stage of acquiring a Friday night celebration feeling after a week of alcohol abstinent and audible absorption; I had the perfect combined ingredients and drive to continue to walk to the bar, as conversation is hushed and all eyes are upon us. The choice is beer, ‘ya want it or not?’ No umbrellas in voluminous glasses shading multicoloured liquids. No voluminous women in multicoloured dresses. This is a place to come to to escape the hard world and indulge in some hard drinking and dirty lovin’, ‘Cheers’ it is not – everyone may know your name but no one gives a shit. The women are whores and huge beyond any beer goggles. Not the kind of women for picking up, unless you have a forklift.

One lucky punter got 2 minutes in the stinking toilet for his hard earn Pesos,

a drunken decision that was perhaps a little rash, and that, will be his only recollection of the encounter. Two old men with cowboy hats and droopy moustaches serenade the matchless couple during their post transaction dance, with guitar and accordion.

No one bats an eye. We too have blended in (as well as a gringo can against red walls, even a chameleon would be challenged), but when opportunism and intrigue are combined with alcohol courage and nicotine addiction, I'm approached; I understand she wants money for cigarettes, having her full attention, her full figure in my face a number so large, I haven’t learnt to count that high yet; I use my slurred Spanish to confirm her request and ask what I will get from the deal. Not having learnt the word for blow job yet, although I made a mental note to put it on the list of things to find out, along with wet and dry, (for riding conditions of course, nothing sanded or sordid about those words.) I was able to ask for a kiss and my 5 Pecos was not entirely wasted nor was a week long course I have the Spanish tongue.
After 2 beers and no blood spilled we decided it was time to leave and count our blessings on washed and scrubbed hands because I don’t want to be putting any other filthy things in my mouth.

I was quite proud of my newly acquired linguistic skills, but then paying for breakfast the following day, instead of telling us the total bill she said half the amount from both of us, and utter confusion ensued. Why couldn’t you just say 60? I feel once again I am back at day one. Like guitar playing and surfing, speaking a foreign language is just something I will only ever watch other people do.

Today we were supposed to move on but the pulled back curtains revealed a grey and wet November morning the first rain I've seen in over 2 months and best viewed from the window of a comfortable room than from a wiped and smeared visor.

When I eventually press my starter button again, I think sign posts will have meaning and like a movie with subtitles I will get the gist, I just have too. I have so much to say, it’s a crime to be lost in translation.

An independent revolution solution

‘The coolest place you’ve never been’ said the guide book, ‘well ifs that’s not the kiss of death’ I thought... a place of high expectations and no doubt prices to match. But intrigue over ruled cynicism, a rare behaviour trait but none the less it has to be acted on. The first thing I discover about what’s going on is what’s going on with me. Until I got here I had not heard the phrase although I'm not sure which came first, disease or diagnosis, ‘traveller burn out’.
As soon as I heard the words, much like ‘commitment-phobe’, I knew I was a sufferer.
Every day, finding your way, finding food and a place to stay, trying to understand the language, what people say and all the other challenges of the day, that don’t occur if you don’t go away. I need to stop going. The symptoms are exhaustion, sleep for 11 hours yet next morning the yawning begins after 2 hours riding, and the opening of the guide book is a daunting proposition. I don’t want to miss anything but equally the research is a chore that can’t be faced.

I need a holiday, 9 months of homelessness. When you romanticise about a Saturday morning bacon and egg sandwich in your November cold kitchen, in the company of ya favourite radio programme, it’s not so much homesickness as longing for a place where you are independent and self contained. Wait a minute, 2 wheels of liberty and 2 panniers of processions, if that’s not independence and self containment then what is? Ok, its familiarity I lack then, a routine and a structure. Like packing up the tent, rolling up my Kelty sleeping bag and fitting them skilfully in their travel positions. Routine and structure; its right there. So what am I whinging about? I'm tired, I'm knackered, I’m exhausted. I want to sit in a little private space, to know where to buy my fruit and bread, have my wifi and communication requirements, a soft pillow instead of a rolled up fleece and a door I can close, not zip up behind me.

We are zigzagging across Mexico like an Estonian at a car boot sale. The thing I've discovered is its many varied climates, ‘you know that I love you boy, hot like Mexico enjoy’, sang Lady GaGa but her fame is not for her weather reports. Mexico is like a chilli that’s been taken out of the freezer and put in the oven for a minute, it’s hot on the outside but cold in the middle. High elevation makes for frosty saddle mornings, then drop down to the coast and up comes the temperature and humidity.

So here I am at 6000feet. Chilling with the citrus trees. In a city I can’t leave. Morelia won’t stop happening, and even after, happy hours in street cafes, surrounded by physical and architectural beauty of 16th century colonial Span, cathedrals of stone and extravagance, that are lit at night by dramatic lighting extinguished only for cascading fireworks, accompanied by powerful music blasted from the street.

Live free open air concerts in the historical squares of arched and sculptured backdrops, where the local musicians wait for a vacant spot to serenade the public with an acoustic guitar and the joy of performing and only separated by the pounding bass of passing enticement. Followed by inadvertent tequila invitations that lead to salsa dancing in a tiny local bar,

And if all that stimulation of audio and visual art is not enough they even have a Woolworths selling artificial trees and flashing lights to remind me it’s going to be Christmas for certain types of people.
However there are other more significant and immediate celebrations, November 20th, every town has a street called 20th November Street, the date of the Mexican revolution, 101 years to the day.

There is something different about my room today; there was no hangover in it and no really pressing things to do. But at 7am the explosions started, not the hand grenades of ‘la familiar drug cartel’ that caused the 2008 fatalities but the inpatient celebrators of fireworks to come all be it under the sun.

I've been paying extra for a room with a TV I don’t have time to watch, after 4 nights of city life or was it 5, I have already forgotten what phase of the moon we are in and I haven’t seen a dawn from the right side since I dried the dew off my tent last week and then soaked my liver. It’s time to go, I'm feeling ok, before I forget which way I came from. Packed up, clean undies, and the others drying on the panniers, tank bag located, goodbyes said, gratitude expressed and a few more email addresses to carry on with. The bike is carefully ridden out of the hotel courtyard, revving to high on choke, slipping the clutch so as not to slip on the polished floor. And out into the empty Sunday morning Street. Significantly empty it is. A left and a right two blocks to the Av Madero Paniente where it all happens all the time, this morning is no exception, the street is lined with people, not shopping or strolling, but waiting, almost like they are there to wave us off, but our impact on their city has not been as great as their cities impact on us. Waiting they are, for the parade of celebration of independence. All traffic has been stopped or diverted and we stick out like a cauliflower in a burrito. 2 gringos on overloaded, overland bikes, going the wrong way down a closed street that, 10 minutes ahead of us and heading directly our way is a 2 hour procession of all things Mexiconic and patriotic.

We divert quickly before our prominent positioning produces police interest. What are we going to do now? I hate to think I’m missing something.

We have a brief overlander meeting. Una mass noche? (One more night?) What are our choices? Fight our way out of a gridlock city on a street that is named after today’s date to stay a night by a mozzie infested swamp or back to our peaceful courtyard, park our bikes and go celebrate the day with the masses.

Its s an easy decision, but not an easy direction, we can’t get back, every road is blocked, by overzealous part time positioners of barricades who are not about to let us pass. One way systems of gridlock, jams and frustration lots of direction and proportion but no sense, by a little judgement and a whisper of luck, I pop out on a familiar street. And back to the hotel.
‘What did you forget?’ is the look I'm greeted with.
‘There’s a party going on out there ya know?’
So I'm back, 3 miles riding in right angled spiralling circles and I end up 2 doors down from my last room. ‘The coolest place I've never been?’ This cities invitation, an obligation, a commitment, an independence, one of the cooler things I couldn’t get out of. I feel a long stay coming my way.

Batopilas to Urique, Copper Canyon, no GS's on that road

There’s getting off the beaten track then there is being beaten by the track. Dirt roads, 5 days of dirt roads ‘wouldn’t it be a good idea to go to Copper Canyon via the back roads marked on the map’ the map of questionable accuracy. If they had started off in the same condition they were to become a u-turn back to black smooth road would have been an easy and instant decision.
The way it works is this, the road is paved then there are road works, not a ‘traffic light and contra flow’ type of road works just a bunch of machinery and a completely ploughed up road, go for it if you like, it’s your decision. If you want to try your luck through the ploughed ruts and the recently soaked slick mud, the blinkered graders and swerving rollers then just go right ahead. Alternatively you can wait ‘till they have finished, 2017 I think that will be. After the road works section you are left with dirt road, long established and well used by big old American pick-up trucks.

In fact I recently realized the American roads are no longer filled with those big gas guzzling yank-tanks that you see on all the 80’s movies and cop shows. They have become a thing of the past, it’s all modernized now, where did all those 2 ton cars go? Mexico is the answer, they live and breathe a battered and prolonged existence where tyres are worn to the wire and windscreens are held in with duct tape. Lights not only don’t work but are not there at all. It’s almost nostalgic in a death trap kind of way. Health and safety here means looking out for yourself not waiting for warning signs. Sharp corners and blind bends don’t have signs they have shrines, in memory of the people who lost concentration, lost control and consequently lost their lives. There are a lot of corners; there are a lot of shrines.

So to the first little village on the road of dirt and the first of many un-signed forks, choices I’d rather not have. If you live here you know, if you don’t, then why are you here? Whilst Andy doubles back to look for lost luggage and a bungee cord that didn’t perform, I'm approached by an old man with a cowboy hat and a very impressive moustache; in fact this country inhabitants supports a lot of impressive moustaches, mostly worn by the men but not exclusively.
This man actually, weather by coincidence or pure luck seemed to ask questions using words I learnt on my Spanish course. No other situation before or since has had any level of comprehension from the speaker or indeed the listener. So after a bit of monosyllabic banter about his interests, women, marijuana growing and alcohol he waved down a pick-up truck which was driven by the local English teacher. He was good at his chosen profession and was equally shocked and impressed that 2 Englishmen would come to his village, it was an honour he said and warned of the treacherous road ahead. My off road skills like my Spanish are intermittent. I hope they when return when most needed.

The road was in yellow on the map, that made it better than a white one so how bad could it be? 3-4 hours he indicated it would take us to get to our destination, lots of forks lots of wrong turns ahead he warned. Military and drug barons, he said. Although it turned out the real dangers were the people who had no clue where they lived in relationship to anywhere else, had never been anywhere, never seen a map but still felt obliged to point positively in a direction that had no relevance to anything except saving face on behalf of the pointer.

On we went. Lots of little villages of little significance, that certainly didn’t seem to justify, in the opinion of the map makers, an entry on the page of said map, that, indecently, didn’t get turned in a week. At one dusty junction there were a few dwellings one of which had the front cut out of it and sold beer over what aspired to be a counter, to the men who rode there on horseback. One very distinguished rider trotted his horse over to mine to shake my hand we both stretched as far as we could to make contact, it was a brief moment of unity, so much and so little in common, he confirmed out direction was correct.
‘Is it ok to start my bike now?’ I indicated, ‘no problem’ his reply almost definitely was, and with a press of my starter button the horse took off. Sorry amigo.
The first 40 or so miles from the ferry flew past, judging by the scale the distances should not be so great. But as the darkness arrived no destination was in site or, for that matter, any sign that the destination was closer to where we are now compared to where we were. So we wild camped and tried again the next day. But that is not what this post is about.

When the first 2 vehicles you see in the morning are military Hummers with a large automatic gun on the roof manned by a fully bullet proofed soldier who is backed up by 6 other bullet proof soldiers all supporting guns you have to question whether this is making your journey safer, how much they actually need their bullet proofing and weather perhaps you may be a little under dressed.
Most of the soldiers waved and all passed us by without concern. Until one particularly bored group decided to flag us down to stop. The soldiers in the back of the Hummer were on alert but not alert enough to see why their vehicle had actually stopped; so upon slowing down they instinctively jumped out, rifles poised ready to shoot down the potential danger. Unsure of what to do in such a predicament the proceeded to engage in an interrogation of me and a search of Andy. They soon lightened up when the higher ranking one left the comfort of his passenger seat. Maps were looked at, directions given and photos taken, they were just bored and good humoured. I asked one if I could take a photo of him with his gun by my bike, it was all going well until Monklet said to the soldier he had seen his sister in ‘opium whore magazine’ and it very nearly turned quite nasty.

He’s so bad.

A spin the bottle, point the direction kind of girl who worked, live and entirely existed in a wooden shack that doubled as a sweet shop at a fork in the road sent us in the wrong direction for 7 or so miles. Which on such roads is an hour’s bone grinding riding.
I was keen to point out her mistake on the return but found a road that we may or may not want before we passed her hovel. It was tough, big rocks deep furrows and steep gradients, all the more worrying that we weren’t even sure it was the right direction, to turn back along this track would be no fun at all assuming we could find a turning spot. I flag down a pick-up truck that was hurtling towards us, on dirt I always stop for oncoming vehicles as my bike doesn’t always go in the direction I was hoping for. The cab contained 3 unshaven and nervous looking men. The bed of the truck was full of opium and marijuana, almost definitely, the cab was full of guns, I'm pretty sure, they were skittish and edgy, and in two sentences they confirm we are heading the right direction, immediately followed by a warning of military with guns at the next village. And why would that worry us? You amigo, are a far greater concern to my safety than the soldiers. They spun their wheels and left us in dust and doubt.

We find a village, it has supplies

it even has a fuel pump. It appears we missed our other points of reference and are actually ahead of ourselves, well jolly good, not sure how it happened but on we go. Then the village we were supposed to have passed appears. Well at least we know where we are now, unlike the residents of fuel-pump-ville.

Why is this place even marked on the map when there is nothing here. A friendly old guy came to our assistance, ‘we need water’ no problem he ran to his house and grabbed a bottle of frozen water in a coke bottle. Hummm that’s out of your tap isn’t it? I can’t say ‘I have a fussy western tummy and can’t drink your contaminated water I afraid’ so I took it graciously. I must just say, without exception everyone has been friendly and helpfully, generous with their time and advice. Lovely people, I just wish I could communicate better.
Anyway it was the end of another day and we camped at the only flat spot we could find, a preferred hangout for the local cattle I think, there were cow pats everywhere.

But that’s not what this post is about.

3-4 hours eh? Day 3 and surprisingly we made the next town in no time at all; there are some very inconsistent distances on this map. It took 3 days to do a distance that looked like it should take 3 hours and now we are whipping through towns quicker than a politician on the campaign trail.

So, the last bit, to Batopilas at the very south of the Copper Canyon National Park (the bit I wanted to write about). The road climbed steeply, hair pins and staggering views of the villages below.

But the most dramatic of the scenery was being left behind for rolling hills of farming. My instincts niggled, when we did make it to the next point of civilization a man with 2 guns (an automatic metal rifle type thing hanging at his waist and a hand gun in a holster) told us we were not where we wanted to be, not only that but an alternative short cut was also not an option, not sure why, but he had more guns that me so why argue.

Well bollocks. We head out and after well over 250 miles of dirt road 1st and 2nd gear only; there in the distance is that magical site, a ribbon of black tarmac winding round the mountain which led to a real town. The dust blew away as 3rd, 4th and 5th gear were selected, the road was so smooth and 50mph seemed so fast.

3 days of dirt road, bumping and abuse, lost sub frame bolts and pounded suspension, and where did it get us? We were 140kms (2 smooth fast hours) away from where we had left the good road in the name of a short cut. I suppose we did want to get away from it all too.
But that’s not what this post is about.

It’s not over ,its only just begun. Next day we entered the National Park of Copper Canyon. It’s not like a reserve, no entrance gates, no fees, nothing but a few villages spread out over an area 4 times greater than the Grand Canyon and deeper too. A working canyon of mining, fishing and farming, but mainly marijuana and opium growing. We were back on the dirt heading to Batopilas, this time from the north.

There were sheer drops, well over 1000ft. I took off my helmet, if I'm going to be going off the edge of this single track dirt road I’m dead for sure and I don’t want to prolong it, feeling the impact on my broken and crippled body, I want my head to hit first and be unaware of all that follows.

It’s not brave to go lidless in such terrain it’s cowardly, it’s about not feeling pain. It can also be justified by saying, it’s about immersing yourself in your surroundings of canyon walls where trees grow like they were slapped to the rock, winding roads, steep switch backs, the dust, the warm breeze from the canyon floor, the condors flying over head, and the continuing plod of a single cylinder bike still running in either first or second gear.

Well it took a while but we are here now, camped in the bottom of a canyon, by a river, the setting sun illuminating the top of a sheer rock face 5000ft above out heads in a bright red glow. Warm breeze, wash in the river, fetch firewood, pitch tent on a sandy river bed, it’s one of those idyllic camping places, free and wild, no rules, no people, no signs of life. No life that is, until, whilst watching the lentils cook in the pan something caught my eye, a big hairy spider, Tarantula size, scuttles right by us, 8x8 drive it really moves fast but despite its speed and agility decided to just park its self 8 feet away(that’s distance, not what was on the end of its 8 legs) its golden eyes reflecting the beam from the head light that was regularly shone to check its whereabouts. Its body was the size of... well it was bloody big, you couldn’t suck it up ya average vacuum cleaner, screaming like a little girl would not have been unjustified. Not that I did, I just swore my shock to alert the cook what was coming his way. Its black hairy legs rippled with spider mussels, I'm pretty sure that he didn’t make webs, he would just sidle up to a bird, head butt it and then ate it. He was a well hard spider.

(I goggled tarantula to get the spelling right, it would appear our unshaven company was not like a tarantula but was in fact a tarantula it also the site I chose, said harmless but can cause irritation, yeah a bite of neuro-toxic venom, attacking the nervous system, causing intense pain, perfuse sweating difficulty in breathing, violent convolutions, and finally death, is undoubtedly somewhat of an irritation. I did up my fly sheet that night.

But that’s not the point of this post.

So we’re ready, the point of the trip, from the canyon and the remote town of Batopilas to Unique another town in another canyon. A simple task to the uninformed. Up and out of the canyon and then back down into another one.

After we left the river and started out ascent I decide to do a little bike repair, I’ll timed now there was no water to wash my hands clean afterwards. I managed to drop my bike before I even started to work on it. In doing so I knocked out my dash electrics, which include a sat nav that doesn’t even recognize Mexico but is useful for direction, a voltage gauge and most important of all my fan switch (which makes the voltage gauge drop) cus when your revving in 1st and 2nd with no real speed the engine gets hot and having a switch to turn the fan on all the time is very useful, but not anymore, none of it is working. Electrical faults can take ages to find, I’ll fix it later.

This is a steep road, 4000ft in 8 miles and its tough, really tough, the hairpin corners have deep channels carved in them from the draining rains. I go round blindly on the wrong side, slowly but fast enough to keep balance, the front wheel sinks into the deep rock filled rut, I have to turn the throttle against instinct to get out and the back wheel follows, it smashes the suspension on the bike and also my bent knees that are holding my aching arse off the seat. There is a rhythm to it, but its brutal to bike and body, but not as brutal as dropping my wallowing loaded steed. I can kind of decide where I want to go but that doesn’t always mean I will go there, I get precariously close to the cliff edge at times, hit the rock I was specifically trying to avoid. Fall in the rut that took off me what little control was left.

There was one bit that was like a dry river bed,( not a grassy picnic inviting river bed, but a violent white water, salmon beating, beaver bashing, raging, rock moving, tree felling river bed) it wasn’t a road, it was precipitous, covered in big jagged rocks, a sheer drop on one side and dynamited mountain edge the other. I tried but failed. It was tortuous, I couldn’t get it to go up; the bike is so heavily laden the trail so sheer. The surface so uneven, I dropped it and struggled, I wheel spun forward, slipped back sideways, I stalled and slipped the clutch, I revved and panted, I balanced and fought and with no grace, control or style I got up to the flat of the 180 degree bend. Fuck, that just shortened the life expectancy of all involved. Even the rocks I scraped and gouged with the plate beneath my engine are a few days closer to being sand.

It just keeps going, it’s horrendous. Challenging, treacherous, exhilarating, arduous, the same words keep coming back. Adrenalin keeps you going but exhilaration just wears you out. Standing on the pegs, physically manoeuvring the bike around sump piercing, wheel bending obstacles. I'm beginning to wonder just how many canyons I need to see. Everything aches, I’m shattered, I'm sure it’s the most challenging dangerous road I have ever ridden, how can Bolivia’s road of death be any worse?

The bike was doing so well, there was not another vehicle in either direction. Then fruit trees turn to pines and the plateau gives us some reprieve from the vertical challenge and the heat, but before I can even regain my gasping breath; there across the track is a barbwire fence. Purposefully stretched across, but why? If it was to stop vehicles then rocks would do.
I know this is drug baron territory, I know it’s fraught with robberies and shootings, cartel and dodgy dealings. It’s a very significant fence, not is structure but in location. To turn back is unthinkable. But if going on results in something nasty no one would ever understand why we didn’t simply go back down the hill, because they never saw, witnessed, endured and conquered the hill. It was a one way trip regardless of why. Fuck it, I'm not going back, this could be the stupidest decision I ever made, it could quite simply be fatal. I undid the barbwire and opened a gap to get the bikes through. Trespassing into an illegal cash crop? Dead men tell no tales, we have been warned, not by the paranoid but by the informed, that if you see such a crop get out as quick as you can, the grower does not want a pre harvest visit, he wants privacy and he wants it at any cost.

Almost immediately I see two calves, see, that puts my mind at rest, it was to keep in the cowlets. And after some uneventful flattish pine shaded riding another ‘gate’ and I feel safer, except then there is a 3rd. I need a lunch break. I sit and eat my half an avocado and protean bar. As we pack up a man on horseback with 2 way radio rides up to us. I'm glad we are looking like we are leaving. I think we were being watched the whole time. He doesn’t dismount and it amounts to nothing, a brief exchange of non understood words and some appropriate unthreading body language. Then several more gates are encountered, opened passed through and closed behind us.

This ride is so demanding I can think of nothing more than the road. I can’t be distracted by other thoughts; I have not had phone reception for a week. After the initial frustration it’s actually quite liberating. The only world I am in contact with is the one I pass through. It’s the way it used to be and I am not controlled or distracted by things going on in a time and place I can’t get to. I'm not even sure I can get to the other canyon.
When the track is flat enough my mind wanders but not to anything flowery and lovely, but how I will deal with a loaded gun pointing at me and demands I don’t understand or want to comply with.

The decent comes into view, it clings to the cliff edge, it winds out of pines and out of site.

1st gear, dry mouth, heavy breathing, intense concentration, exhausted, 5000ft, 4000ft, standing on the pegs leaning over the front mudguard due to the sheer gradient of the road. The rear wheel turns the engine, I dab the break and it locks, the bike skids sideways and I'm still gaining speed. I’m facing the abyss, gently squeeze the front break, I mustn’t lock the front wheel, I daren’t , I can’t drop it, not again. Got to keep upright, got to face down, got to keep control, got to find the best route even if it means wrong side on a blind bend, better instant impact from an oncoming vehicle that from a 1000ft fall. With the decent comes the heat. One more discomfort to contend with.

Oh yeah canyon, scenery, unless you stop you don’t even see it. Can’t take ya eyes off the road for a moment, I can see the river now. The roof tops of the village, I optimistically look for a camping area from this vantage point. The hardest road I've ever ridden. The dangers from drug cartel were nothing compared to the dangers of a momentary lapse of concentration, or loss of control. No one else drove it. 62 miles 10 hours of arduous riding. That 6.8 mph as an average speed. Hot engine, hot air blown on to a hot body. (This will play havoc with my split ends)
But now we are down. Just one more thing - the town is the other side of the river. The river has no bridge; the river is 200ft wide, flowing well and the low sun is shining right on it just to make it a little more tricky.

It’s not the relief it should be to take off boots and wade into it. The rocks although quite even are slippery, the depth varies. I walk it back and forth twice, try to plot a route. Turning back is unthinkable. At any other time a 200ft river crossing would be too, exhausted, fatigued but it simply can’t stop us. Do I want to go first or second? I've done both, go first and fall the other learns from your mistake, go second, the pressure is on not to fail, the first bike made it. I go first. Not glamour, feet down several times, but the bike stays up. I break on through to the other side.

What else, surely nothing else. The town shop had pot noodle to offer, 2 cold cokes and the inevitable audience as bike boots are put back on as trousers drip the saturation of river water and body drips the exertion of the day. One man says Batopilas and indicates that we are strong to have ridden such a road.
Out of town, its dusk, need a camping spot quick, find a mozzy infested swamp pool at the side of the river on a spit of land.

It’s close to the road too, a man shouts from the window of a passing truck ‘marijuana’. I've been hearing it all my life, wantta buy it, got any to sell, why then is this encounter so frightening? Cus he’s not an opportunist dealer, he’s a grower, wholesaler, he’s hunted and he’s prepared for it. This aint ya average neighbourhood stoner with a baggy to sell, it’s a wild place.

I open the guide book; it says there is a camp site with showers a mile out of town. We must have done a mile. I’ll go check though. I have my bike boots on, shorts, shades, mussel shirt and a half loaded bike. I ride a mile, then one more. I find a town, a real town, the town that the other one wasn’t. Eureka I've found Urique. It has beer sellers and hotels, beer cans and restaurants, people drinking beer and a one way system, drunks with guns and street lights. It’s alive, vibrant and pissed. And I've left my wallet in my jacket at camp. Its dark, no time to find a camp site, no money to buy good things. Back to our mozzy spit for a protein bar and an early night.

And that, that was the point of the post was.
The next day we meet some Utah bikers on 350 dirt bikes, they bought them here in a van, and they did the same road, un-laden, torquey and light. Apparently there are 2 ways to get from Batopilas to Urique and when they discovered we did the hard road on our fully loaded bikes they were in awe and respect. And we felt a genuine sense of achievement. Hard earned and well deserved. Perhaps just a little guilty for giving the bike so much abuse so early in the trip. But all the more appreciative at its ability to endure and when the tarmac returned it banked round the corners and metamorphosized back to the street bike qualities it had been deprived of. I have so much respect for my KLR and its seems to accept me and my intermittent ability to ride it to its limits.

And as for monklet, well... When he has a gun pointing at his head he smiles, when he’s the only one wearing a helmet he smiles, when the dust blinds his sight he smiles and with cable tied captivity on the handlebars and a tarantula on the loose monklet still smiles.

Mexicans wave

‘They kill babies and stuff them full of drugs to get them across the border’ (the drugs - not the babies) That was the climax of the horror stories I've been told with utter sincerity over for the past 4 months whenever I mentioned the trip. Recited by the inhabitants of the land of the brave about the dangers that lay beyond their southern border. Take guns, travel in a posse ‘I knew of 60 camper vans who travelled together to avoid trouble’ warned one of the many people who was ‘informed’ but like every informer, had never actually been there, seen it or done it. Well I'm afraid now; I really hope I don’t get stuck behind 60 camper vans all with their sewage tanks close to overflowing from the fear of the Mexican bandito.
Strangely the closer we got to the boarder the more feasible the warnings became. ‘Be careful’ the Californians said. And I am I've put Monklet on night guard duty and the bike has been just fine.
3 weeks it’s been 3 weeks since I left the UK and it’s been nonstop. Ten days in Denver, being host, guest, mechanic, cook, and of course notching up a few more points on my dwindling score for the father of the year award. Mainly scored with the good old Crunchie bar bonus gift.
Four days before departure it snowed,

we have a mountain range to cross, but you have to live by the rules of the weather, so we drink whiskey around the log burner, make Sheppard’s pie and appreciate the winter experience all the more, knowing that is all we will get.
It was manic and ended in a massive rush of hyper chaos packing, washing, dressing and last minute book promotional antics. I just want to catch my breath; I just want to slow the pace. I just want to stop before I start and appreciate the first step; not run into an overlap of events. After the goodbye photos which happily produced the best one ever of me and Madalynn.

The others went to get fuel and I got a moment to try and muster up some tranquillity. I stood by my bike; I slowly breathed out and stretched out my arms in front of me. Looked at the sky line of Denver 30 miles away and into the foothills of the Rocky Mountains we were about to wallow through, it was something like manic meditation. I looked at the bike laden with last minute maybes and cold and wet weather clothing bungeed on without organization or aesthetics, like another box of bulbuls had just been discovered when the Christmas tree had already been decorated.

If there is anything more sexy than a used bike with a new tyre chain and sprocket then it’s probably female, but in the absents of such feminine beauty I will appreciate this oiled up and accessible beast in fresh new tight fitting rubber.

I looked at Monklet in position behind the bark bashers. My left-hand-man. ‘Come on then let’s go see what out luck is like.’ And with that I threw my leg over (the bike, not Monklet) wedged myself between the tank bag and rear luggage, heaved the bike upright, kicked up the side stand, pressed the starter and began the next trip. I met Jonathan coming the other way.
‘Where’s Andy? He asks
‘He went to get fuel with you’
‘Oh I did see another bike but I thought they had a passenger’
‘No, that was Andy and his luggage’
We were 2 miles from the start point and we had already managed to lose each other. And I though solo travel was difficult. This formation of 3 was going to require some communication skills and some patients, neither of which I would list as strong points in my character.
We are all riding KLR 650’s, Jon feeling a little left out because as he said, he didn’t get the memo that said he should have got a green one. So me and Andy have matching bikes, we were given handmade bracelets for luck and safety; we have got matching yellow travel towels. And our fingerless gloves that to the untrained eye would look identical. We are not trying to be the his and his uniform biker who are the butt of so many jokes but unintentionally we seem have more than our destination in common.

So spending the first night in a nudist hot springs was not the place to be mincing around with matching towels and jewellery, luckily Jagermister and darkness take away any form of self-consciousness and indulge we did. (In the hot springs that is, not the butt jokes). Can I feel myself relaxing? Almost, enough to realise I left the Sheppard’s pie in the fridge. Dam it; send text ‘Can you freeze it for me? I’ll be back next year.
‘I worked at a ski resort’ says a girl that I always meet here, not specifically her, she’s from Boulder and has no real grasp on reality, or is that just people from Boulder? ‘I know what Sheppard’s pie is, we used to cook it on Australia day, we got a lot of people from Australia and New Zealand.’
‘Really? Cool, actually I'm from the other end of the planet’
‘.....’
‘The northern end?’
‘Oh’
‘You don’t know what I’m talking about do you?’
‘Not really...I like your accent’

I'm not complacent, I'm just lucky and fully appreciative that I have seen this scenery so many times, the snow capped beauty of the Rocky Mountains, the golden colours of the autumn aspen, the vast and timeless formations of Utah’s terrain. I don’t see it as revisited just re-experienced and the only thing that the experience tells me is that it can’t be captured on camera, I know what it’s like, I know it’s beyond description and I know that it blows me away every time . I also know that any time I have tried to capture it and it slideshows across a screen saver, it will not stop me in my tracks, in respect, in awe and disbelief. Only being here will do that and it does constantly. Stopping in my tracks, stopping on the tracks, because this time we are travelling with large capacity luggage not large capacity engines and the best way to utilize the freedom of our dual sport bikes is to get off the road and onto the dirt trails that take us right out of the loop.

All this vibration of the washboard roads takes its toll and my extended windshield has fractured.
‘Where’s the crack?’ says Andy as he looks over the bike, ‘stuffed inside a dead baby’ is something I would never say...
Hang on a minute, don’t dead babies need passports? What a truly preposterous threat, where did these gullible idiots hear this scare mongering and why did they believe it? 3 months on the road they said they were, not a bug splat on their pristine Goldwing and even if they were telling the truth about the length of journey they were none the wiser for it. Mind expansion was clearly not a by-product of the trip they were on. Not having a huge experience in international drug smuggling I can’t help but think crossing any boarder with drugs is infinity easier than crossing same said boarder with dead infants. But then maybe the jails are full of drug smugglers who thought the same.
Our multi cylinder calculations constantly came up wrong and our days never ended in our estimated destination. They did however end in beautiful solitude where camp fires can be lit,

stars are too numerous to be counted and the view from the tent could be lethal if I were to sleep walk or indeed stumble on a midnight calling.

Utah could be called the tinnitus awareness state. We so rarely hear silence in our lives that when it does surround you it’s a shock to hear what is going on inside your head. In the desert, apparently you can’t remember your name, also you can’t hear a pin drop, not because of the noise, but because of the sand. Still I don’t have any pins to drop, but I did lose another year though and celebrated a birthday in a party of three.

No reception on my phone but at 9am it kicked off anyway with a reminder that said ‘ME ME ME ME ME’ I don’t remember programming that in but it’s the closest I got to a greeting card. Oh dear, deserts are renowned for their dryness and so is Utah, alcohol is not freely available here. Emergency hip flask and a rung out bottle of jager is the extent of the liquid celebrations.
Last year I dyed my hair red for my Axl Rose consume party, this year I'm red from the desert sand, stained from axel grease; I'm not smelling of roses.

Like the M25 I can’t avoid Vegas, wherever I go I seem to have to pass through the man made misery, selling high hopes with high wattage, taking everything and giving nothing, promoting the biggest, quantity over quality. The problem with big and no substance is that it leaves a vacuum and that is where the majority are sucked in. Manufactured for greed by greed. ‘Hot babes want to meet you’ say the signs on the trucks cruising the strip, no they fuckin don’t. Sluts and slots, indulgence and ignorance. Shattered dreams pound the pavement, hi-rise eye candy, unreachable and unavailable, a black pyramid of excess, the Egypt of negativity, a fake Eiffel tower and a volcano of butane. We sit in a bar of borrowed identity, a fake camp fire with tinted glass and blue light, over upholstered seats and over inflated drink prices for the privilege. You can smoke here, employ and fuck prostitutes but it’s against the rules to wear ‘head gear’ remove your bandanna it may offend. But it’s ok to take your whiskey to the breakfast bar at 3am and wear your do-rag there whilst eating your 8 egg omelette and reading the body language of the employed company on the other tables, ‘buy me 8 egg omelette -I love you long time.’ Yeah, they are known for their binding qualities.

3 hours ride from the stunning natural beauty of Zion

is the ugliness of Vegas, the epitome of all that is capitalist. The depravity of humanity, sex and money, alcohol and excess. I like all of those things, but on my terms, I won’t buy into this, I never do. I do my laundry in the sink it’s the height or my rebellion.

And after 3 hours sleep the dawn has me posing with tripod to capture last night’s dregs mixing with the new day’s fresh hope.

Hauling my gear through the casino to the bikes parked in a distant multi-storey, I encounter the zombies pouring their coins into noisy greedy thankless machines. The breed has evolved into something I don’t care to recognise. Made by a city, made by man, made by unhealthy and un-realistic desires. I don’t mind freaks and weirdoes, in fact I quite like them, it’s why I go to festivals, but this is a mutated and deranged form that is shocking and worrying; uncomfortable and out of place beyond the welcoming doors of the casinos and the advantage taking counters of the pawn shops. There is no end but the bus terminal benches and cardboard shelters for these luckless addicts of the empty promise, teasing machines, but it’s ok, ‘hot babes want to meet them too’ or at least they will if their reels a line, all on board for a row of cherries.


Off into the desert with dropping altitude and gaining temperature, altitude has been a very significant part of the trip. My new watch displays it with varying degrees of accuracy, and my dodgy carb deals with it with varying performance. I announce every drop and gain whenever helmets are removed. Like a stock market update the rises and falls are duly recorded and relayed. Jon was getting altitude sickness – he was sick and tired of me spouting 4 figure numbers, ‘Really? I find it quite interesting’ I guess he doesn’t have a head for heights.

Unfortunately my temperature gauge encompassed on my compass watch does not display such dramatic rises and falls due to it being on my wrist and my body temperature only changes with extreme exertion and twisting a throttle doesn’t really fall into that category. But it was hotter, I was fidgeting more and more on my seat, and the arid scenery was no distraction a few Joshua trees here and there, even the sat nav is passive as the streets have no name. Only the odd trailer and dilapidated home which sparks the eternal question ‘what do people do out here?’ Sweat, I think is the answer. Broken glass on the side of the road magnifies the sun into my dried and tired eyes, like I don’t have enough reasons to close them.

The final sprint onto crowded highways into San Diego, concrete, commerce and the spall of urban occupancy, how many motor home dealerships do you need. How many sales can they make? There is always an unanswered question in my head.
I sleep on my friends balcony, it’s almost become a tradition, I have that illusive and delicious sleep that I enjoy so rarely, generated from time on the road, born from sleep deprived Vegas, created by desert dehydration, being in the safety of the balcony but mainly I think the sleep formula came from my ‘Cosmic Down- Kelty sleeping bag, they gave it to me. Yes this trip I have sponsorship. Thank you Kelty, thanks you for my lovely warm inviting sleeping bag, I just bet hot babes want to get into it...well cold ones actually, so they can become hot.
Lots of fish to eat and lots of things to cross off the list. Down on the beach are hot babes but they don’t want to meet me. When I was living in a van here a quarter of a century ago they weren’t even born, sigh, how did that happen?
A sad goodbye, not to youth but to a friend from it, and then there are two, it’s time to go to Mexico, nothing more to do.
20 months since the first mention of the idea and now it’s time to cross the border with butterflies, not form the fear stories but the inevitable boarder butterflies, a year of sporadic dedication to learning Spanish. I do question the priority of what Rosetta stone has taught me; I can name hair colour and clothing but still can’t ask for a room or the bill. The colour of the dog presents no problem.

The Mexican border, the 4 lanes of the highway south become less and less crowded the signs say 2 things ‘guns are illegal in Mexico’ and ‘1 more exit before international boarder’
Oooo this is exciting. And then without so much as a stop sign we cross an invisible line, the sat nav freaks out and leaves it’s accuracy north of the boarder, the air is filled with the smell of the street vendors, tacos, meat and fish cooking over coals and wooden embers, there are stalls selling all things Mexican, (sombreros and ponchos- not dead babies full of drugs) I’ve never crossed such an significant boarder without so much as a uniform official looking on. Nada, nothing at all. For a country that’s world renowned for being so difficult to enter its remarkable easy to leave. No goodbye, no ‘submit your visa’, no ‘have a nice day’. I disappeared like the truth in a Fox news report.

I only stopped out of choice because I saw a sign that said auto insurance. We are not ripped off; it's professional, efficient, honest, and helpful.
‘Do you speak Spanish? You don’t?’
Yes ‘el perro es blanko’
‘What dog, where? I can’t see a white dog’ he might have replied. Dam my Rosetta stone and it inappropriate phrases, I'm more than capable of making up my own in-approapate phrases. (As regular readers are well aware)

Through choice we get ourselves processed, immigration, vehicle registration, and deposits etc. At first together, but then with bikes out of site and unattended it seems to make sense to take advantage of being two and so one stands guard whilst the other bounces from office to counter like a ball baring in a pinball machine, slowly getting the appropriate stamps and photocopies and then whilst Andy gets processed I irresponsible go to the taco stall and get an everything taco. I’m shouted at by Mr. Uniform for leaving the compound or something I didn’t understand, cus it had nothing to do with the colour of the dogs.

And that’s it, we are officially in Mexico, no drug cartels having shoot outs, no severed heads on fence posts, or blood stained streets, no stand and deliver road side robberies, just friendly faces and smiles, thumbs up out the windows of beetles. It’s hard to dispel 25 years of American film making that always portrays Mexico as the lawless and dangerous place where all things criminal occur. When they aren’t picking on Mexico it’s the bikers who are bad, but we all know that’s a myth, right?
The highway runs parallel to the boarder and the fences that separate the 2 countries are formidable and impenetrable, that is unless you’ve been to Glastonbury lately, in which case I think America could learn a few security lessons from Michael Eavis.
The fear has not entirely left me. When the cool Pacific air gives me a chill I find some waste ground to stop on to put in my liner rather than a lay-by where a local may be laying in wait with an ‘Hola, bienvenido’
But then we discover that America is not so far behind us as we pull into a shopping area with a Wall-mart, an American DIY stores and restaurants. The only evidenced that we are in Mexico is that the banks have different names.

Predictably it only takes 24 hours before we find out place in the precession, numerous long distance cyclists and the inevitable aluminium boxes of the overland motorcyclist.
A German couple with their flags flying from their bikes. I don’t feel the need to display my patriotism so blatantly but I do lick my finger and wipe the mud from my union jack sticker on my mud guard.

This is only Baja California its Mexico’s Goa a gentle transition into the real country. My guard is relaxed but never off.
Loud speakers are blaring through the streets of the dusty town and as Andy goes into a shop to get water I see the source of the noise. A car promoting a circus ‘attention, el circus es in de town, como and buy de ticket, see de amazing circuso’ or something like that,
The car is proceeded by a pickup truck full of scantily clad waving babes ‘who might want to meet you’
And then a big tuck with open sides and albino tigers inside and macho guys standing on the roof
Finally a ticket sales car follows up the rear and a police car finished the parade. Andy comes out
‘Ya not gonna believe what you just missed’
Wot? Really? No way!’
‘Come on, let’s cross the road I just bet they’ll be back’ ‘
We did and they were, more smiling and waving and perhaps just a little perving.
We are about to leave when a man pulls up to me in his jeep,
‘Hola senor, ow are you, dis es my son’
Oh know he’s not stuffed full of drugs is he? No he isn’t, he has a present for me, ‘a sombrero amigo for you, for luck for your journey, it is a gift from me, for you, I give you a gift’
‘Machos gracias’
How cool, then he shows me a number plate, it has a web site on it, as well as half the bumper of the truck it was attached to. For you my friend a gift, for luck, for your journey, I give to you’
What? Do I look like a fuckin scrap metal collector?
‘Mucho gracias’
Here Andy, have this piece of truck, I give to you for luck, for your tip, for you my friend, I give to you, you carry the bloody thing, I don’t want it, I don’t need it, I have a lucky sombrero.

And then we pass the parade on our bikes wave at the girls again I try to video the tigers on my camera as I pass, and completely run out of hands to pull in my clutch and stop at the red light, shit, this is how accidents happen, thankfully the lucky sombrero provides balance and I snatch the clutch with a finger that isn’t holding the camera and knock it into natural, wave at the girls again and off to the next experience.
The road moves inland, all my sat nav tells me is direction and speed. Perfect. I could feel myself loosing 17 years of instinctive truck driving navigational skills to this little know it all box, like the know it all box that took away my ability to memorize phone numbers and made me contactable just about everywhere, but not where we are going. No more cafes no more bars on my phone. Into the desert, tall cactus are about as Mexican as deck chairs are on a British beach, so I'm not sure why it is such a thrill to see them, but it is, they are certainly more photogenic that the stripy hired seats of the seaside resort.

They stick out of rock in there prickly majestic way and become stalagmites of awe as the light changes around them.

It doesn’t seem real, like a western movie set as we pitch out tents under stars dwarfed by the 30 foot succulents.

3 weeks 3 nonstop weeks. Dead babies full of drugs? Not on my watch.