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**Noel900r** · #**106** 6 Oct 2012

Reading your report you make me more at ease with what to expect when travelling in that part of the world.Travel safe.Noel

**ratbikemike** · #**107** 7 Oct 2012

I am glad somebody enjoys the post and I am pleased to be helpful. Who was it that said , 'If you can go on a holiday'...you can do this. Well, it is kinda true. Some holidays have a few more details..... Bruce, please spread da news at jafi, to all that might be intrested. Keep me updated when you can. mike PS: I must add I had good help and nothing would have worked well for me if I were younger

**saralou** · #**108** 9 Oct 2012

Hi
we are across the border and are now in Zacatecas for a few days. I am enjoying your blog. We will be in Oaxaca Oct 25 or 26 i think. Safe travels. Sara

**ratbikemike** · #**109** 9 Oct 2012

I'm sure you will enjoy Oaxaca. They have shopping and great dining and jazz. It is a charming town. The 180 churches take turns setting off large fireworks to promote themselves. Sounds like July 4 in the USA! Enjoy. mike

**ratbikemike** · #**110** 9 Oct 2012

Right after breakfast, I spotted this place. I just bet it is better to pay $10 or $ 20us more for a tire early than it is to not have any options later. I was not a lot early. It was a cheap brand I have never heard off and was marked at $1200 ($90us) I wrote $1000 on a piece of paper and smiled. The owner wrote $1100 and I said ok. ($82.50us) The other two tires I have been hauling around ... well, I had them from the trades I had made before I left and I could leave them behind or maybe use them up in Costa Rica. Or I can leave them behind any time I want. Did I say it was windy? These guys are taking wind power seriously. Scott Haskins and I rode together briefly but it looked like rain and it was already a long day for me, so I got a room and he tried to miss the rain. Before leaving I took a quick trip to the 'banos' (an important word that means toilet) and I found a baby in a bucket on the way. Bath day for the child.

**ratbikemike** · #**111** 9 Oct 2012

It was really a great ride from San Christobal to Palenque. The road was 95% good, but did have a few surprises. On some tight right handers, with my tire 6" or a foot from that painted line, I would sometimes get my head over that wall far enough to suddenly get a view off a 1000 foot cliff! Bulged my eyes right out.

**ratbikemike** · #**112** 9 Oct 2012

I found these two bad boys in traffic, at a red light, traveling to their next stop on the

truck. I stopped here thinking that maybe they had time to tell me where the local Kawasaki dealer is. They were not interested ... had never heard of Kawasaki etc. I left.

**ratbikemike** · #**113** 9 Oct 2012

I stopped here for a cold drink. A view from directly behind the store and also, off into the distance

**ratbikemike** · #**114** 9 Oct 2012

That is a tree, on top off a rock, on the side of the road. Did not look like much soil on the rock. It was all day at altitude. Those sticks, with the wires on them, are used to support vines. Some tough guy raises a crop there and hikes up and down that hill tending it. A lot of crops are raised on these hill sides.

**ratbikemike** · #**115** 9 Oct 2012

I can not read this and need not. One is a stencil of a police/army beating a couple. I left soon.

**Eclecticmale** · #**116** 9 Oct 2012

Mike it great meeting you in Mexico. I am glad you are still riding safe. Right now I am in Antigua, Guatemala until 13OCT12. Keep Riding, Raymond.

**ratbikemike** · #**117** 10 Oct 2012

It was good to chat. Too bad that two guys, that have got all the time in the world, only get a half hour! I will be in somewhere in ca in a bout a week. Thanks for being around. mike

**ratbikemike** · #**118** 10 Oct 2012

Some of the girls shook their booty a little to draw a crowd and then there was a morality play complete with large white labels for the characters and wise old birds to make sure the dance went well. I almost do not see any motos of this style at all. Note that, other than lenth and angle, the forks work as stock. All that 'springer' looking stuff is decorative and has no function at all. The springs are for show. 150cc......WOW....

**ratbikemike** · #**119** 10 Oct 2012

Just about the cutest 250cc single I have ever seen. The vegetation began to change as I came down the hill.

**ratbikemike** · #**120** 10 Oct 2012

Somehow I knew that the main road turned right. And I should turn right at the Mayan woman with the hair. And then I got into some big sky riding. When I stopped for a foto, this guy and several others stopped to check on me. He carries that knife in the scabbard on the side of his bike. He probably cuts vegetation along the high way with it. Nice kid.