May 27th, 12:30pm local time
Mexico City, Mexico
GPS: Coming soon
Distance Traveled: 1128km

Because we don't have the necessary permits to legally drive through Mexico City, we've had to be super cautious about speed limits, and have stuck absolutely to them, even when there doesn't seem to be a reason to be going 40km/h on a flat road with nobody on it.

Anyways, shortly after we woke up, the weather warmed right up, with temperatures peaking around noon at 41 degrees – the hottest we've been since northern Chile.  It's odd how we were mostly cold during our ride across the equator.  During the hottest part of the day, Justin ran out of gas while rounding a corner, and noticed a gravel patch on the side of the road where we could stop to put our jerry cans in the bikes.  Instead of slowing on the side of the road and moving over, he came to a hard stop right in the middle of the lane.  I came around the corner shortly behind him, and suddenly had to slam on both brakes hard enough for the ABS to kick in on both, in order to avoid him.  I still ended up dropping the bike, cursing loudly.  Dad needed a break by this point, so we cut up a pineapple Robbie had been carrying since Colombia, and had a little snack on the side of the road.  In forty degree heat.

This early stretch was very scarce for gas stations.  We were dying of thirst, but reluctant to stop until we could get both water and gas at the same place.  We finally gave that up for a bad cause, and pulled over to buy some water and gatorade.  At this store was a man snoozing in a chair out front, and we didn't really notice him.  Apparently he was drunk off his rocker.  At 11am.  He just loved us.  Wanted  to have a really in depth conversation, kept shaking our hands and hugging us.  He reminded us a lot of this guy dad works with named Terry.  Sorry, Terry.  We got some pictures of him.

Rob tells me that the area we drove through this morning is famour for the tequila and mescal it produces – indeed, one of the towns we drove through had a sign that i translated roughly as 'mescal capital of the world'.  Blue agave cacti are the identifying feature of this region – miles of the cacti are grown in orchards, and apparently this is what tequila is made of.  When we stopped later in the day, Justin made an attempt to find a bottle of Casa Noble Tequila (apparently one of the finest tequilas in the world – a 26 will cost $100 or so) but no such luck, even though it's distilled not far from where we travelled today.

We ran into several army checkstops, at each of which a soldier would pull each of us over to the side and rummage through our luggage.  They were very polite about it, though, which was nice – unlike airport security, these guys did their best not to rip everything out, and made an effort to put stuff back where it came from.

We're glad to be into the desert, and are looking forward to being dry for the rest of the trip.  Unfortunately, that didn't happen – shortly before we hit Oaxaca this afternoon, which is near the top of a mountain range, the temperature plummeted – from forty degrees to 18 in the space of forty minutes, and cold rain started slanting down.  We rode through it for about an hour before we were able to leave the mountain top and head back down to warmer climes.  I really, really wish that i could have just one day without getting soaked.  We've been rained on, to varying extents, every day since we first entered Ecuador.

In Oaxaca (pronounced Wa-hock-a) we noticed a Suzuki dealership with a V-Strom in the display window.  Of course, they're not open – honestly, who works on Sundays?

We were in such a rush to make Mexico City today (we figured we'd need a large chunk of time Monday morning to locate tires and get them installed) that we didn't eat all day, except for junk food at the gas stations we stopped at.  We're going to start having to make a better effort to eat every day – Dad has a very hard time coping with no food, 'cause he's diabetic (not the serious kind), and we all suffer when we push so hard that we can't stop to eat.

We were advised to take the toll roads through Mexico whenever possible, but weren't told how very expensive they were.  The four of us blew through $170USD our first day driving, and we didn't even hit toll roads until mid-afternoon.  With roads this expensive, I'd expect pitch black, fresh tarmac.  Instead, we got rough potholes with miles and miles of construction squeezing traffic down to single-lane one-way.  With construction efforts like this, i'd at least think we'd get a discount for the toll road – if not free passage.  The only good thing about the first section of toll roads was that it cut down traffic by a huge amount, and we were able to make good time even on the narrowed-by-construction sections simply 'cause we didn't have to wait for long periods of time before we were able to pass people.

There are now two riders with no windshields.  Justin broke his windshield when he was clotheslined by a tollbooth – apparently, he took too long putting his wallet away, and the tollbooth crossbar thing came down on the front of his bike, shattering his windshield.  He still didn't drop his bike.  I'm almost tempted to start chucking rocks at him on the highway just so he won't have a perfect 0/0 score.  

The tollbooth operator assured Justin that they would pay to have the windshield replaced, but we'd have to wait for the security guy to show up.  This was right about sunset, and we sat around for an hour and a half waiting for the guy to show up.  He took forty minutes to do his thing, took a bunch of pictures and filled out an accident form.  He didn't give us money for the windshield – instead, he gave us the address of a suzuki dealership in Mexico City that would fix it for us.  The only good thing about this delay is that we waited out a big thunderstorm, but it cost us two hours of riding when we'd planned to be in Mexico City at about midnight.

Tonight, Robbie wins the Bitter Betty Award.  He doesn't handle late night driving very well, and is always the first person to want to stop for the night, and the first person to want to leave in the morning.  Tonight, though, Justin wasn't giving in.  Justin's point was that Mexico City is HUGE – one of the biggest in the world, and we do not want to get stuck in rush-hour traffic trying to find the Suzuki dealership tomorrow morning.  His argument made sense, but Rob, as I said, does not handle a lack of sleep very well.  He stomped his foot on the ground, yelled “Fine, jerks!”, and sped off into the dark on his motorcycle towards Mexico City.  I could almost hear the bedroom door slam and the Teenage Angst Music pumping at full volume.

The freeways into Mexico City are scarily busy, even at midnight.  We were constantly being buffeted by the wind of passing trucks, and would find ourselves suddenly in construction zones with no warning.  Justin almost wiped out when the lane he was in suddenly ended.  Of course, shortly before we got to the city, it started raining, and the temperature plummeted for the second time today to about thirteen degrees.

We drove around Mexico City looking for this address for the better part of two hours, even after flagging down a police office, and then hiring a taxi cab.  He couldn't find the exact address, but he got us close enough that we could walk in the morning, and we collapsed into a very nice hotel nearby at 3am.  Of course, though, the only rooms available were as far from the elevator as it was possible to be.  At least they had a private courtyard with an armed security guard to watch our bikes.

I mentioned a while ago that Justin caught a bad sunburn in Cartagena – well, he started peeling today, and was shedding massive quantities of dead skin down the hallways in the hotel.  Eeww.

Bedtime,
Ryan Noble,
Mexico City, Mexico