18-Nov-2009 3283 miles

A few last words about Mexico. We finally did see some of the things I hadn't seen since I was in Mexico, like McDonalds, Walmart, etc. I wasn't looking, they just appeared in some of the coastal towns. This whole trip across Mexico has really changed my view of this country in a lot of ways. The people were mildy curious about us everwhere until we got really off the beaten track, but never in any kind of threatening way. There was no place through Mexico that I was worried about the bikes being messed with or our stuff getting stolen. Often we left our jackets and helmets on the bike while we ate or went into a store and never worried about them. Mostly these people seem content with their lives and truly interested in trying to help us or just share with us.

Belize was an instant change in those attitudes. The first place we stopped after crossing the border to get a drink, we changed our mind after looking over the situation. There were a lot of people looking at us and in a lot less benign way than we had been used to. We would have had to leave the bikes out of site to have had a pop and we just decided to get further down the road further from the border town. At a town called Orange Walk, we went in to have lunch and the lady told us not to leave our stuff on the bikes, bring it in. So things have really changed and we will have to be more careful. Mexico has certainly relaxed some of our diligence.

Belize is an english speaking country so it is nice to be able to communicate freely. Or so I thought. At Orange Walk we ate at a chinese lunch place, had a terrible time getting the lady to understand that we wanted "shrimp fried rice" till I said "shlimp flied lice, shlimp flied lice". That did it.

Once we got into Belize City we cancelled the hotel we had reserved and moved to a Best Western. It was a bad place in a bad part of town. I would have been worried about the bikes the whole time. They were going to let us put them in the lobby at night but I didn't want them out in the street there during the day. Oh well, different world, time to embrace this change. I am sure it will get worse before it gets better.

Well, if you've read the book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, or hell, even the title, which by the way, you just did, then we've been doing the Zen part just fine. (Whew, that was a long sentence. Did it make any sense?) I can really relate to that analyzing your own sanity/insanity as your rolling down the highway at 70 plus mph, its a good thing to do. But now we have to get to the motorcycle maintenance part. Tomorrow we are going on the hunt for some parts, tires, etc. Nick is going to bring oil filters back from New York when he comes so we will change oil right when he gets back. My front tire is gonna need to be replace within the next 2000 miles or so and I would like to have a new one now, since the roads will be getting harsher and harsher for a while.

We also have some body maintenance to do at this point. We have yet to round up the anti malaria meds we need to traverse some of these countries so we'll try to make that happen tomorrow as well. Oh, and a camera, I need a damn camera. One of the coolest things I did before I left, I thought(I was so proud of myself), was find a cooler that we could put stuff like cold water, food, beer, etc. in and have cold stuff all the time. The idea was good but the implentation sucks. The ice melts, soaks through the cooler and makes a mess of everthing else in that box. So, I'm also gonna look for a 12v coldplate and wire it into the bike while I'm here. Then I can be so proud of myself again :) Turns out that beer is everywhere, water is a little harder to find and it is nice to have cold water on the bike.

The main stuff I am doing while Nick is gone is to Scuba dive and get some work done. I really haven't thought about much else except covering the miles, my own sanity/insanity as described above, and basic needs like food/shelter etc. for a while. 4xld. I may not blog for a few days, we'll see, but will be back when we hit the road again.