May 29th, 2007.  3am Local time.
El Paso, Texas
GPS:N31 50.458, W106 34.359
Distance Traveled: 1432kms

Robbie can sure be a beast if we don't get moving immediately in the morning.  He's been our alarm clock for as long as we've been on this trip, and has dictated our waking hours almost from the very start.  Today, for some reason, he let us sleep in (to 'test' us, i guess) and got mad when we didn't get up with him.  We're all pretty cranky, actually, but the rest of us are cranky in the evenings.  Rob starts cranky and mellows out as the day wears on.

Anyways, we didn't get moving until about 8am this morning, and we had fourteen hundred kilometres to travel from start until finish.  With straight roads over the desert like we expected throughout the remainder of Mexico, we didn't think that it would take us much past midnight to get us into El Paso.

We were wrong.

The toll roads we'd been told to travel on would take us way out of our path all the way up to Monterrey before jogging west again to head to El Paso.  Rob and Justin decided to take a secondary highway for the first leg of the day, saving us time and (of course) money.  Almost immediately we got stuck behind a long convoy of construction vehicles on a two-lane highway, travelling about 40km/h.  Of course, I freaked out, and started yelling about how we should turn around and get back on the toll road.  After some flipped fingers were exchanged, we continued on our way.  Five minutes after I yelled at everybody, we hit four-lane divided highway with a speed limit of 120, and I got to feel like a real jerk for a while.  Of course, I apologized at the next stop.  Stupid construction vehicles.

Anyways, we didn't end up getting permits in Mexico City, but were no longer too worried abou tit.  We hadn't had any problems with the army asking for papers when they searched our luggage, and we hadn't even seen a police officer since we got into the country.  We did pass one, speeding slightly to pass a large truck uphill.  As soon as we saw him, we hit the brakes and refused to pass, but he stuck his hand out the window and waved us on.  Every single country we passed through up till now, we've been stopped by the police, sometimes multiple times – even in Honduras, which we were in for less than two hours.  

Our entire three days in Mexico, traveling thousands of kilometres, and we didn't ever even talk to a police officer, except when we were lost in Mexico City.

We had a very long way to go today, and as a result, wouldn't get into El Paso (we figured) until about midnight.  Motorcycle dealers typically aren't open that late, so we figured we'd find a dealer with the tires we needed, and get them to deliver them to a hotel we could stay at, changing the tires that night with the tire spoon we bought from the awesome guy in Mexico City.  At noonish, we stopped to make the phone calls.  The first one we talked to had a tire we could use, but refused to sell them to us except in person.  They wouldn't have it any other way, they wouldn't have someone come and meet us at the dealership when we got into town (we offered to pay extra), we couldn't even get the guy to look at our website, and he couldn't have cared less about our predicament.  

The next guy we called, also a Suzuki dealer, was a world of difference.  He had two tires that would fit, and while he couldn't just deliver them to a hotel, he agreed to meet us at 4:30am so we could get the tires and be on our way.
That took about an hour to accomplish, before we were back on the highway.  The roads are incredibly straight.  We were all just ecstatic to finally be leaving spanish-speaking countries, and started clowning around a little bit on the lonely highway (we'd go LONG stretches of road without ever seeing another vehicle).  Justin stood up on one leg on the seat of his motorcycle and whipped past dad.  I laughed for about twenty minutes straight after that one.  Justin got a bunch of action shots, and was feeling pretty neglected 'cause he's the only rider with cruise control (need cruise control to maintain velocity while you're aiming the camera) and thus gets no action shots of himself.  He's going to see about installing the cruise on another motorcycle later so that he can be in some pictures.

I'd been kind of bitter about having driven all this way through Mexico and never once having some real Mexican food, so around dinner time we stopped for fuel and found this little roadside cantina, and got ourselves some street tacos.  Actually, they were gorditas, and they were pretty dang tasty.  Except for the fried lard one.  That one was pretty gross.

Most of our trip today was on toll roads, and we burned through another couple hundred dollars paying the stupid tolls.  We all have to go through one at a time, but I guess I missed the bar coming down and going back up again at one toll, 'cause i whipped through it right after Justin and I guess i came within a foot or two of being clotheslined right off my bike.  Oops.

We've all been running a huge sleep deficit each night, and tonight it came to a head.  Robbie and I were getting increasingly frustrated at the length and frequency of the stops we'd been having.  Sean and Justin just love to pull over and fritter away an hour every time we stop.  No one really yelled, but we were all very frustrated with each other by the time we got back on the road.  Two hours later, I pulled everyone over to make sure Dad was okay (he's the one typically having problems with the long hours and late nights) – to my surprise, he was chipper and fit to ride.  Rob and Justin were the ones falling asleep in their seats.  Apparently the breaks are good for Dad, and everyone apologized to everyone else, and we were all laughing again within minutes.  Tired laughter, though.  We all just wanted to make it to El Paso.  It's a huge milestone, getting back into an English-speaking country.

We did make it to El Paso by about 3am.  We'd all been brooding on what kind of trouble we'd get into for having traversed the entirety of Mexico with no transport permits.  To our surprise, and great relief, we didn't have to go through exit customs to get out of Mexico (which we'd been hoping for, but weren't sure) and just jaunted through the US Customs in about ten minutes.  I fricking love borders like that.

We drove through El Paso (and what a difference it was – on our way through Juarez at the border, i saw several road kills of indeterminate age, garbage and litter everywhere, and scary-looking locals hanging around on corners.  El Paso is brightly lit, well labeled, and friendly) and quickly found the dealership that had our tires.  We'd forgotten about the timezone change, which was nice 'cause we gained an hour for sleep, but wasn't nice 'cause one of us had to wait up for another hour to go to pick up the tires.  Surprisingly, Dad volunteered to go do it.  We were all too tired to argue with him.

Rob noticed a blue V-Strom 1000 in the window of the shop, and as we were peering through the windows at it, we heard Dad begin cursing loudly back at his motorcycle.  Turns out he'd just STRAPPED HIS PASSPORT to the back of his bike with a bungee cord.  It had come loose somewhere between the border and the dealership.

He's mostly choked 'cause it had all the stamps for all the countries we'd been through – at least he's this side of the US border now, and we'll not have too much trouble getting back into Canada, I'm thinking.  Still, that sucks a whole bunch.

Before I forget, Robbie did up a Google Earth thing when we were back in Cartagena.  It's out of date, now, but it's detailed for the entire length of South America.  We'll get another one done up in a day or two detailing our route through Central America and Mexico.

Here ya go:
<!-- m --><a href="http://noblequest.org/nq_google_earth_path-05-21-2007.kmz">http://noblequest.org/nq_google_earth_p ... 1-2007.kmz</a><!-- m -->

It's so nice to be able to ask for a hotel room and know what the replies are.  We got two amazing rooms at a Super8 with soft beds, A/C that works, and a shower that doesn't make my toes curl – with hot water!

It's super late, and i'm super tired.
Bedtime,
Ryan Noble,
El Paso, Texas

PS – We'll be coming through Utah on Thursday (i think) and i would KILL for a Hickory Kist sandwich.  And some clean underwear, but I can take care of the undies myself.  Thanks, Lindsay!  <!-- s:D --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_biggrin.gif" alt="Very Happy" title="Very Happy" /><!-- s:D -->