Yesterday afternoon some Bikere friends of our Mexican hosts came to fetch us in a combi and we went out to dinner.

The food was different and there were more stew-like food which you put inside the Corn Tortilla, also some little ribs and then my nemesis, the “black Bean chocolate thing.”

I once made the mistake to say my favourite food was the black hard-shell taco with mince in. It also got lost in translation and now Doc thinks I like the Black Bean thingy, and they keep tin ordering it for me. Apart from producing more gas than was needed to float the Hindenburg, it does taste a bit like chocolates as they add spice and some sugar to it, one must spread it inside the taco then add meat.

 

 

I gave Eduardo a gift last night, an African Love letter (bead-work bracelet.) And then I gave the guy which collects ted us from the hotel and arranged the evening a wire-cheetah plus our Tour Business Card which he said he would put up in their Club House and also display the Cheetah there. We said our goodbyes and I went to the room and finished the Blog and looked at what is on the TV, well it was interesting to see Brad Pitt speak Spanish, in fact, there were about 8 Hollywood movies all dubbed into Spanish. I then fell asleep with the TV on, rather knackered.

 

What a mixed day this was. It started off emotional with the saying goodbye to Eduardo, he is such a great guy, not only does he have his own very successful Electronics business but he also is the top Padel (a new game combining tennis and squash) Player in Mexico in the Veterans class. Mislays handed over his Waist-Coat and there was a lot of hugging and slapping on the back as we greeted him. During the night Jorge arrived and we learnt that Jorge would also accompany us down to San Jose, the message must have got lost in translation as I thought he was coming to get his bike from Edward who rode it down for him so he could attend a party and then ride back with Doc, but I must have got that one wrong.

Then there was the hand over of the Remote (yes, the BMW’s now are all key less.)

Jorge is an entrepreneur with his own trucking company and is Super Cool and speaks very good English. Eduardo we heard tonight had never met Jorge and was asked on Saturday last week if he could ride Jorge’s bike down as Jorge had an emergency with his business. So Eduardo was also sad to see this BMW go which he became attached to and really looked after for the past week. So a hug was needed to say goodbye:

Lalo, we are already missing you!!!!!

So my morning started off emotional with the saying goodbye. My emotions built-up as I had to send a message to a family friend who was going in for an operation on Tuesday, so when we hit the amazing road we had today I was already not in a good space, in spite of the road being great. All that was needed was two tunnels through a mountain and into the lush green scenery we rode, with big green trees and lots of green grass. the sauna was still at full blast but the road was wide and with long sweeping twists and very little traffic. but my mood did not lift.

The road just got better as we rode and we did not stop until 300km into the ride, we needed fuel, and breakfast from the fuel station had to do.

Sadly the breakfast was not very healthy, but we only had a coffee at 6h30 at the hotel before we left this morning, so health was not my main concern.

Pie did try to be healthy with Wafer Biscuits and Juice.

I was not into a continental Gas station Breakfast like Pie and went for the savoury option. I did have a Drinking Yoghurt as well.

We continued along this sided wide great road, and the closer we got to the border the more people we found walking to the USA. Lots of families with the dad carrying the small kids. They had small back-packs on their backs and some were walking in Crocs. We also saw lots of Black people walking, which I later heard were from Africa who enter via Brazil who has very easy visa or on visa rules, and once in Brazil they start walking to the USA.

About 30km before the border we stopped to use all our last Mexican currency, our last Pesos, to put fuel into our tanks so we don’t end up with money we can’t use. While we sat inside the air-con little Garage Quick Shop drinking water, I saw a group of young people walking up to the petrol attendant asking for water, they were given half a bottle (you can’t drink the water in Mexico from the tap, you have to buy bottled water.) Millsy said we must go and speak to them, I knew it was going to end up in tears, and it did.

Jorge walked out with us and acted as translator, I asked them where they were from, they were from Venezuela, they had been walking for 15 days, (they had another 3000km to the USA,) I asked them what they eat and where do they sleep, both the young girls eyes welled up with tears and I did not need Jorge’s translation to know that they do not have money to buy food with, or water, I also then knew that they don’t sleep in hotels but under a tree along the road. I had seen a program on CNN and know that lots of young woman gets raped and exploited along the way. These people had walked through the Darien Gap, it’s full of Bandits and there is no official road between Colombia and Panama (we will either fly or ship our bikes across.) I had no more Pesos left but I knew Pie had, (his last remaining Pesos were going to be stuck-up on a wall as a memento.) I asked him for it and bought three large waters, a very large Coke & Cola (must be a 3lt bottle) and 3 packets of biscuits and gave it to them, their faces light up and more tears were running down faces, not all the tears were running down their faces, even the Ice-Men-Assasin-type in our group had an emotional moment. This was real human tragedy in action, people fleeing a once successful country now in ruins due to corruption and greed, and they are paying the price, South Africa came to mind, our children might not be walking 5000km to a better life but the situation was similar,  how sad.

One youngster had braces on his teeth, so it’s not low-life people, they probably come from good homes and suddenly they had very little options left and with nothing to lose took on this journey with no certain outcome.

Rocky had some Mangos left from yesterday’s breakfast which he also gave them, they sat there, right on the Fore-court of the Petrol station and ate the mangoes and drank the drinks and ate the biscuits, smiles all-round.

This was just the straw that broke the camels back, I handle the 1st 2 weeks of these trips well, but the last week is difficult, lots of up’s and downs, I ride an emotional rollercoaster, and today I had lots of emotional thoughts running through my mind. The friends operation, then both my daughters taking strain at home with very important Exams this week, then on Friday my one daughter is getting an operation to her knee and my wife had an operation to her wrist last week which was very painful this week, its not healing as it should, and then worst of all is that it is raining in Johannesburg. This does not sound like bad news, but if your country has no electricity thanks to an ever increasing corrupt culture, and a thieving government and you had to spend hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Rands to put Solar Power and Batteries, rain is bad news as with current level Stage 6 Land shedding where you don’t have power for at least 11 hours every day, the batteries can’t last without the sun, and the borehole that you sunk at great costs (as the water is also becoming a crises) can’t pump without electricity. Due to this my poor wife has been taking a lot of strain at her business and I am not there to support her, or my daughters. So not a lot of good happy thoughts was going through my mind, and then getting to face this human tragedy head on was just too much. I think we then rode past a gas leak as my eyes were burning and watered up so much I could hardly see the road.

Then we got to the border and it took us 3 hours to get through, it was a nightmare, in a sauna, not helping my emotional state at all. But we got our deposit we paid on our Temporary Import Permit into Mexico back, (R7000-00) and struggled to get a new permit into Guatemala, the staff were not really interested to help us fast, so long chats were had at the photo copier and then our VIN Numbers had to be photographed and more papers and more chats but them, but eventually we got our little stickers:

During the 3 hour border crossing my Mexican SIM card was still working, so I used the time to start “pulling-in” the photos to use in tonights Blog, what dedication!!!!

It was a shock for me to see the huge difference between USA and Mexico whene we entered last Sunday, but today was another step-down from Mexico to Guatemala, hectic, felt like I woke up in Thailand, scooters everywhere, mad congestion and my GPS did not show a single road, blank. We exchanged money and bought some water and then eventually hit the road, in search of a hotel.

 

 

We battled to find accommodation, we rode to three different hotels before they told us to ride a further 20km to the next town as that town had 3 hotels, so as it was getting dark we took off in a mad crazy dash with plenty of scooters and bikes, with trucks and busses and set of in search of a place to stay. We got lucky and found a great place, with a restaurant ready to serve us great food after a few ice cold local beers.

Not a lot of kilometres we have to show for a 12,5 hour day, but we will soldier on. Today was VERY SIMILAR to a day we had in China, we had just seen the Panda’s and then got stuck in the mother of traffic jams, with our bikes overheating and then a mad dash in the dark on a road full of road-works and much navigation issues and uncertainty. It was a bad day then, but it will forever be edged into my memory as day where we had to dig-deep and win, and then rode another day, so tomorrow is another day and I trust it will be a great one.

Doc hit me with another curve-ball today, in my planning I was not going to go through El Salvador, but Doc has friends there and they own a hotel and wants us to take short-cut to Honduras through El Salvador. I am not convinced that we will gain anything out of this short cut if the extra border crossing takes another 3 hours, but hey, I am a passenger on this train, lets go for a ride, lets go look and see Els Salvador tomorrow. We hope to meet up with Peens who arrived here a day before us and chose to ride off into the sunset to sleep at a beach 254km away from our town, so maybe we see him tomorrow, maybe not.

 

I also found the little “surprise” these two gents (Dogs and Tex) hid in my bag, but more about that later.

Good night folk.

Fleisch