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.
