Short lived dreams

We caught up with Marco in the restaurant of the hotel and made a plan for the day. Originally he wanted to truck the bike to his mechanic so we could do some of the stuff I pointed out to him that was in need of some sort of solution. But then the plan changed and I stayed at his workshop changing the speedometer which was broken and attempting to do a few more things.

Marco left and I started pulling the bike apart under the hawkish glare of a security person who looked like a paramilitary and was not pleasant to have around. I refrained from making any of my characteristic harsh comments not because of fear, just in order to preserve harmony and not to antagonize with my hosts personnel.

When I removed the old speedometer I noticed a wire not completely isolated but I did not pay much attention to it. After trying to adjust the throttle which was sticking, I started the bike and went onto checking if there was any improvement, when a thin column of smoke started coming from underneath the headlight. Panic! I had trouble stopping the bike and shutting the electricals off.  It was a horrible moment.  It reminded me of when I almost blew up the Yamaha XT500 on a highway in El Paso Texas prior to my trip, after a seal that I placed incorrectly gave way and let most of the engine oil escape out. So here I was in Oaxaca, at mile zero of my trip, and I almost toasted the bike changing a speedometer. Utterly ridiculous and very embarrassing.

But that was not the end of things. After isolating the wire found at fault I went on to starting again the bike and nothing changed, more smoke cam out of the guts of the headlight and also at the centre of the bike, where the fuse box is.  Another panic shutdown, this time I could see fused cables. Damn! Why the fuse wasn’t blown, protecting the entire system? What exactly was going on? I checked the fuse box and found the answer: the 10 amp fuse was rigged with wire; it was probably a 50 amp fuse now and that is why the entire system was being fried.

And I had not gone for a ride with the bike, even once.

A very eventful day zero

The flight to Mexico was plain as plain a fully-booked flight could be. I met a nice lady on the line to the aircraft, Laura, a Mexican mother of two kids who moved to Miami with her husband around 12 years ago. He enquired about my reasons to go to Oaxaca and listened with amazement about my impending motorcycle trip throughout the Americas.

Instead of killing five hours at Mexico City airport I decided to take the metro and go to the Zocalo or Main Square of town. I had never been to Mexico city since when I rode from El Paso Texas to Buenos Aires I by-passed the whole traffic nightmare and went to nest in Puebla, a little bit South of this gigantic place which hosts 30 million people.

It was a tight adventure time wise but it was well worth it. I spent more tem in the underground train system that outdoors but all the old centre of town is magnificent, monumental, pretty much alive and very Mexican. For this Christmas the government installed the largest artificial ice skating ring in the world, a bit of an extravagance and a not-very-green thing to do in view of the current Copenhagen summit on world climate change.

 Also they built the Guinness-record tallest Christmas tree, standing tall 90 metres from the pavement.

Back to the airport and eventually to the plane despite a 1 hour delay that would have been better spent walking around the city and being hustled for reading glasses. Yep I hit a rad which obviously was the hub for things optical, and I’ve been offered cheap lenses by different people at least 20 times in one single block. Unfortunately no + diopter contacts to be found, so the search continues,

The ride to Oaxaca was great, a little Embraer wonder which looked and felt like an executive aircraft. The scenery breathtaking, the  twin volcanoes Popocatepetl and Ixtacimhuatl on the left, a reminder that this is a very unstable place to leave in, one can see the deep valleys carved in the gorges, either prehistoric alluvional forces or more sinisterly, molten lava.

Landscape quickly changed to flatter grounds, leaving the massive mountain systems characteristic of central Mexico behind. Arrived in Oaxaca with the most beautiful of suns, and a sky devoid of any cloud.

Marco was waiting for me at the airport, we recognized each other somehow, shook hands had a bit of a hug and then we jumped into his XX5 and went to town.

We went straight to see the bike and it was beautiful. It was surrounded by three other BMW’s in Marcos private workshop. I was quite pleased with what I saw, we stated the bike, talked a few things and then, after adjusting my view to the artificial light and doing my glasses I started noticing that the bike was not as good as it first looked like. My heart sunk.

Kathleen wasn't happy

Kathleen, my host in Miami, wasn’t pleased about my bad guest manners.

I've met Kathleen a around six months ago when I was on another motorcycle adventure. I dug her out of couchsurfing, took my chances, bunked with her and we had a great time. A chain-smoker online poker player, Kath wakes up in the morning, cracks open a can of diet coke, lights a ciggie and goes onto playing some rounds of Texas hold'em online  Then she goes to work after luncthime, gets back around seven-ish and plays some more poker, drinks diet coke and smokes til late at night. She is 71 and is one of the sharpest cookies I have ever met.

Back to the issues at hand, and in total honesty, I was a shocker of a person to be with, I was in an out of the house frequently, concentrating in my immediate and not so immediate problems, namely: inability to access my savings via ATM and having some cash to move around: not finding contact lenses over the counter: having to source a decent-priced helmet since the one I bought on ebay never turned up: having around 30 different little petty things to sort out in 4 days, with no wheels on the first day in Miami and with a weekend in between.

Yes it can be said that I was not the spirit of the party.

Free ride!

 

Met with Nando of calle 8 motorcycles. I met Nando on a petrol station a few moths back when I was riding my SR500. He praised the bike and the condition it was.

I sensed by his accent that he was Argentinean, he told me was a motorcycle mechanic to drop by if I needed something and handed out his card and to be honest I had no plans in calling him or seeing him again.

But when I started developing carburettor problems with the SR and instead of helping, my Harley-loving host started to believe that a great idea was to ditch the bike and buy a Harley instead, I called Nando and went to his workshop.

He ended up being a godsend, another great reminder hat in life best things turn at your doorstep when you keep your mind and heart open.

Early Xmas in Miami

The leg to Miami was a shameless attempt o save money and nothing else. Save on plane tickets which are cheaper from here to Mexico, also save on postage and customs duties by concentrating all goodies needed for the trip in Kathleen's home.

When I got in I found an immense pile of parcels which I proceeded to open with the glee in the eyes of a child in Christmas. Most of the items received were great, but a few disappointed. I ended up with a long list of hurdles to go over and been busy as, far more than expected.

The weather isn't helping, my state of mind is as variable as the weather iteself.

Schedule

Well everything is kinda ready for the trip.

For those who wanna see pictures, vids and comment of the places visited, you will have to wait a bit.

I am off to Miami on 3rd December at night, arriving in Mia early morning of 4th December. Then i will fly to Oaxaca on December 8th in the morning and will meet Marco and see the bike hopefully in the late afternoon.

I expect to leave Oaxaca no later than December 12th direction Playa Del Carmen.

I will be filing from Miami and try to write a few more pieces of the prep stage, without getting too technical. Then it will be all travel, the people I meet, then things I see, the stuff that happens and places visited.

I hope you enjoy this. I have not written in a long while despite of having over 25 years of media experience, mostly as a writer and photographer.

Just be a bit patient with this first stage and then I promise you won't be disappointed.


Back to packing.

A visit to Alejandro

Facundo told me that he knew of a guy who was a former police BMW mechanic.

BMW airheads were the bike of choice for the local police and matter of factly, most of airheads bikes you see in Argentina are police-issued bikes. Nowadays the Guzzi is favoured, possibly because of price and nothing else.

I called Alejandro who was a bit suspicious to start with, but he quickly warmed to the idea of my motorcycling adventure and invited me over to discuss a few things I wanted to deal with.

Since my only prior experience with a R80G/S was a brief riding in Facundo's one and a couple of questions I asked him over coffee, I was in great need of getting to know the machine better.