1-11-05

It was a very nice day for a ride. They all seem to be going that way down here. This part of the road trip I have come across several places where the road is gone from the heavy rains that they must have had down here. Sometimes there will be a rock and today a few rocks painted white along the edge of the road. When you get up next to them you can see that part of the road is missing. There was one place where almost half of the road and all of my side of the road was missing. There was no sign or even rocks at that place and fortunately there was a small truck in front of me that swerved to miss it and I followed him. It would have killed us all if it had happened at night. These Mexican roads need to be watched constantly even on the best roads as they can change instantly.

Down below Acapulco there are not the medium size busses as there are up north. There are hundreds of these little pickup trucks with racks on the back that are making the runs down this highway and picking up folks. Sometimes they haul cargo as well as passengers. The bench seats fold up and they can get quite a load of stuff on them.

The area opened up quite a bit as I got up in the hills. This is cow country and there were lots of pastures that were being grazed by the Brahma cattle. The Brahman cattle seem to be the cow of choice down here. I suppose they can handle the heat as well as the parasites that must be heavy down here.

The cows are not that big and heavy like the ones up north. I see often two or sometimes three cows in the back of a ¾ ton pickup. That is a heavy load for sure even if they are lean cows. I think they are in the pickup to be taken to town and butchered. Those butchers cutting meat are working with hot meat and not that chilled stuff that butcher in the US have to work with. One guy I was watching cut meat was amazing. He took a steak and cut it in thin layers sort of like if you viewed the cuts from the side, it would look like a W. When he was done he hung it up and posed for this photo. He was proud of his ability and glad I recognized what he had done. This steak was about ten inches long and about a inch thick when he started and you can see how long it is now. I guess this is what you get when you order steak as you get a thin little steak. He got the whole crew for the photo. These are really friendly folks and like their photo taken.

As I said the country opened up some and there were some really big trees every now and then. I suspect that the big trees have been harvested years ago as wood is always valuable for lumber everywhere. I went by this church and another church that had these same type trees  planted outside to the left. This one was one of the most beautiful trees I have ever seen. If they were planted when the church was built it must be a couple of hundred years old.

It is the day of the dead today and I have been alert to see what happens. I was going through a little town and the traffic stopped and I rode up to the front of the line and there  were somewhere around thirty kids dressed in these costumes that had traffic stopped as they were dancing in the street and had both lanes blocked. I got up there just as they were leaving the street but did catch these kids playing around with some traffic. They seemed to be bearded mules or something, it is hard to see from the photo just what it looked like.

Another thing I noticed was that some of the roadside memorials to killed family members or friends were decked out in flowers. This may be where all the flowers that were being sold went. I didn’t get a chance to check out the graveyards today but I have noticed that they have been working on them cleaning then up.

I am in a medium size town of Puerto Escondido and I saw some kids dressed up in costume and I think they were begging treats or maybe money in little plastic jack o lanterns that they carried. I can hear a group of kids having a party next door and there are lots of firecrackers or something like that that is exploding out there too.

I stopped at a high-class hotel when coming into town that was down by the beach. There were a bunch of KTM motorcycles parked around and I figured that it would be fun to be with fellow bikers. Dang the room was 93.50 or something so I left them and looked for cheaper digs. I went downtown and up a street past a tourist area and stopped at one hotel to check it out. It was forty bucks so back on the road. Up the way a little further I stopped at another and had a woman from across the street try to motion me into her hotel. I checked the one I was going to check and it was twenty bucks but thought what the hell I check and see what she has. It turned out she wanted seven fifty and she gave me a double room for the same price, as I didn’t like the small one bed one. There is a tourist place down the street where there are many vendors that sell stuff. There are all kinds of things for sale that is laid out in the street or on small tables. There are lots of jewelry, knickknacks as well as clothes and of course food everywhere.

I talked with the hotel owner who also owns the store next door to the hotel. He and his wife introduced me to their daughter as well and told me to please contact them if I wanted anything. They are really nice folks and speak some English. The guy told me that there was a fellow in a couple of days ago on a bike like mine. He said he would be back in two weeks as there is a big motorcycle race that is going to be held here. That sounds pretty cool but I will be long gone by then. I guess that must be what all the KTM motorcycles were doing at that really nice hotel I first went to. Those KTM race guys must have lots of bucks and maybe sponsored by KTM, which is a Austrian made bike. Hey Bill Shockley, you have time to come on down and race yours!!!!! I will say that the guys that I saw in racing gear looked young and very capable of going fast.

I saw a young girl several days ago and noticed that she was the darkest skinned Mexican I have ever seen. They range from almost white that are maybe mostly Spanish decent to very dark brown from the Indians. Well since seeing that girl I have seen several very dark guys and when I read in my travel book by Footprint “Central America and Mexico that I got at Joe’s, Miles City Books and News, I ran across the information that there was evidently a small try at black slavery down here. There is an area of mostly Afro-Mexican near and I guess I am seeing some of those people spread out into other areas. Evidently the slavery thing didn’t go over well down here, I guess because they were able to get the local Indians at little or no cost or maybe the Catholic Church didn’t like it.

11-2-05

I took a long walk this morning and walked through the tourist area and up the hill to the Mexican area of town. I knew I should have taken my camera as I found lots of interesting stuff. On the way back I stopped to visit some of the little surf shops and see that all the cool surfer stuff is expensive. I did find a couple of palateria shops that sell those frozen juice bars that I love so well. It is interesting that in the Mexican area they are fifty cents and  down in the tourist areas they are sixty cents to eighty cents. I had another watermelon bar that are becoming my favorite, they have the little seeds in them too. The other day I got a coconut bar and it was wonderful with real coconut pieces in it. This morning I got a pepper one. The guy wanted to make sure I understood it was a chili bar and it would be hot. It wasn’t that hot but it was interesting. I don’t think I would buy another one on purpose but it wasn’t that bad.

I took another walk up on the ‘wrong’ side of the highway this afternoon to try to find some of the things I found this morning. I was looking for the Mexican machine shop that I found in a really nicely shaded by big trees lot. The guy had a huge lathe that must have been twenty feet long. It seemed to be in great shape and was well oiled. It may not be as clean and precise as the Polish machine shop in Silver Peak, Nevada in its stuffy little shack, but it looks like the guy gets the job done and has a really nice place to work.

I did like this little shack on a big lot right down town. It is amazing to see something like this right next to a big two-story building with business on both sides and on a busy street.

I did find one of the posters on the motorcycle races that are coming up and snapped this of it.

I see several KTM guys riding around town and this must be a big event. The footprint book says that this is some of the best surfing in the world here and I can see quite a few total surfer dudes. They have long dreadlocks and lots of cool tattoos on their hard well tanned bodies. There are lots of European or American type tourists here but I almost never hear English spoken. I guess almost everyone but me speaks Spanish.

I see a lot of these being worn around that part of town. They are recycled tires.

I have had good service at the Internet shops around here. They are a little more than the shops in the smaller towns. Here they are charging a buck and a half an hour and where I was in San Marcos they were charging a buck. When I was in the north and especially over in Baja last year they charged three bucks. I guess they catered mostly to gringos and they will pay more and be happy. When I was in Arizona last year one place wanted five bucks an hour. The good thing is that they have high-speed service and I think I will be able to hook up my little slow computer and get things done much faster and not run out of battery before I get done. I am leaning to type better on it but still depend on the spell fixer that makes you able to read this.

The travel book says that this area has been on the build since the 80’s and it is sort of uncontrolled growth. That certainly seems to be the case as there are all sorts of business jumbled all together. There must be a hundred small hotels and they are everywhere. Even on small back streets and I wonder how they all get business. This is not the tourist season and things are really slow so it must get really crazy when all the hotels are full and restaurants rolling. I ate last night down in the tourist area and it cost seven bucks. I ate this afternoon at a little Mexican restaurant and it was a buck and a half.

There are a few Anglos around but this is primarily a Mexican resort area.

I saw one of the coolest thing yet down here. I saw the guy twice going by but never did get a chance to get the camera out and snap a photo. What he had was a little bike maybe a two fifty or so with a gooseneck hitch mounted on the seat behind him. His trailer was two wheel affair like the little three wheel bikes that the peddlers use. The hitch looked like it worked great and it followed right close behind. I saw him turn a corner and he took it leaning but of course the trailer stayed level. I gotta look into that if I get a chance. What a wonderful idea for hauling heavy loads behind a bike. It looks like a much better deal than a trailer hitched behind the rear wheel. I love the different way these guys do things.