LATEST ADV RIDE REPORT POST:

Mennonites - Bolivia
http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hubb/ride-tales/tales-from-the-saddle-55061-6#post493981
31 Jan 2015


Or just read it on the webpage
http://blog.talesfromthesaddle.com


CURRENTLY IN: Bolivia,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Tales from the Saddle Website

Follow on facebook
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Intro.....The story so far....

I left home alone on my Yamaha YBR 125 five years ago, and I still remember well the fears and anxieties of the long journey ahead, to Cape Town first. Having not ridden a motorcycle the thought of simply getting a puncture was terrifying. I've had 76 punctures now....My story is not the best, nor the most daring, but it is mine and I want to share it....

The photos too, are not the best but I hope they are honest and if any are spectacular it is just because of the greatness of the people and the places....and I've to be fair, I've had a LOT of practise!

This write up is just a copy of what began as a fairly standard blog. It has evolved a little to a story more for people who like to sit down and read. Whilst I love photography, I don't think that photos can tell the story (unless there is no story), Photos can certainly help though....at least, this is my opinion....I hope that you enjoy the write up....This below is what I wrote initially so long ago.....



got shot at in Turkey,


interrogated by the military on Christmas eve in Syria,



tailed and arrested in Egypt (who isn't though!),



crossed Ted Simons Atbara Desert in Sudan,



underwent surgery in Kenya,



accused of being a cow thief in Tanzania,



Crossed still-flooded flood plains in Zambia,



Enjoyed the delights of Namibia,



before finally reaching my goal after eleven months; Table Mountain, Cape Town.



All of this, alone, on a small budget, on a Yamaha YBR 125.

And its not over yet! Now I'm in the Americas, currently Mexico and heading south....you can read about it here (soon, when Ive written it!) but also see the website Tales from the Saddle - Solo Motorcycle Tour Around the World on a Yamaha YBR 125 where there are a myriad of photos, tasty tales and the ubiquitous map with a line on it.

You can also follow on facebook

I hope that some people find enjoyment in reading about it, and if not tell me why as Id like to improve my writing and photography too so please give me some pointers as Id really appreciate them!

Until later,
Nick

__________________
Tales from the Saddle Website
Facebook FanPage for TftS

I'll skip part one, on account of being lazy and having little internet time...so here's part deux....

It was time to leave the fabulous Colima. I loved this place, for it's complete lack of tourist garb, it's pleasant cafes, plazas and it's comfortable safety...and perhaps too for my fabulous hosts; Ernesto and Lea and other friendly people; those at Koki Moto and especially the great Sigi Pablo and his girlfriend Kaiko. But it was time to leave and, as always I find it hard to leave the comforts of 'regular' life.



"Don't stay too long in Michoacan." Lea said as I hopped back in to the saddle of a rejuvinated - after his work at Koki Moto - Rudolf. I didn't really know where Michoacan was, or if I was going there...I was off to some volcano as far as I knew and so didn't ask questions...perhaps I should have?

Soon enough I reach the volcano, it seemed nice enough here and wondered what Lea was talking about, the interesting mountain village of Angang the jumping off point to see what remains of the old village, now buried beneath a thick crust of lava. I deny the caberallo his offer of a horse wanting to stretch my legs out of the saddle, with a hike, peacefully through the forest and over the outer limits of lava glimpsing as I approach the church poking up half-buried in the black bubbled rubble, as if it's God against Nature.







Higher in to the mountains still I go, to view the Monarch Butterfly migration at over 3000m. Waking stiff and cold in the morning in a nearby forest, my heart is warmed by a young man, his son and their ever increasing number of rabid dogs, out together collecting tree sap, providing me with half their breakfast and despite my best efforts won't have a cup of my coffee! I don't say anything about them killing EVERY single tree for their sap.



The butterflies were a disappointment. Too few, in a dark patch of forest, nothing like I'd been told or imagined and I leave being hounded still by the horsemen and guides...perhaps the wrong time of the migration.

Then, having visited the towns of Patzcuaro and Morelia where I'm requested to return most hastily to England, though not quite so formally by the locals, I find myself at a car accident, a bus, smouldering still....then another and another, still ablaze, a truck shot out and on the horizon more and more fires, the air thick with black smoke, the army and police all around. Something is afoot.




I ask someone what's going on, how can I make progress on the roads in my best Spanish, which I realise quickly isn't up to much, when he replies,

"I don't know what the f$%! you just said, why don't you talk English...you do speak English....want some gear?"

"No thanks, just directions..."

I realise I'm actually in Michoacan and all starts to become clear - more so later when I read that one of the main druglords has been shot - and I try my best to leave the state, following other cars down little tracks and through fields doing the same...trying to get around the road blocks, trying to get out of Michoacan.

I have some time to spare before a meeting in Mexico City and so pop up to view the wonderful subterranean labyrinths of Guanajuato, a long detour but worth the trip and a visit with another kind farmer who lets me camp on his beautiful land near the city.







It's another cold night at altitude on my way to the big city, kept awake and then woken by a non-stop barrage of fireworks, commemorating or celebrating Saint Augustine or something....the road is quiet to Mexico City though as most everyone has driven off the road in a drunken stupor and I meet a chirpy Garry Dymond, whom I plan to stay with for four days before catching up with Adam for Christmas.

Two weeks later I leave, having realised that meeting Adam ( Short Way Round) is a bit beyond the realms of even Rudolf's quick feet and Christmas on his mind. Alas, I got to spend it with the fabulous Garry and his equally fabulous wife, Ivonne as well as fellow motorcyclists Rob and Duncan, of Motorcycle Menus | A culninary adventure on two wheels. Top chaps and great cooks both of them and Christmas dinner - served at midnight on Christmas eve.... well a little bit earlier; we were getting hungry - a gastronomic delight, but despite it's true excellence, twas not quite as good as my mum's!!!...there's just no pleasing some folk.

Staying with Garry was a true delight, staying in his house that once stood amongst pine trees on the edge of the city, has since been gobbled up by the growing millions of inhabitants and so gone is the dirt track and donkeys and instead is replaced by the 43 bus route and graffitti world....and a pretty good "panadaria."

"You live in the SLUM!" someone said...actually I think it was Garry...and actually it was fantastic...behind the safety of Garry's 'tagged' gate that is...



no really it was top! Garry is previously of the UK and so the food was tremendous....cottage pie, lasagne, apple pie, steak, chips....and toad in the hole and chocolate brownies made by yours truly (with no assistance from Aunt Bessie). I left weighing the 300lbs I started the trip on.









Soon though it's time again to leave those lovely comforts and hit the road though not before one last meal, a lunch of homemade gorditas - my Mexican favourite, made just for me by Ivonne!

I head off feeling extremely lucky to have met Garry and Ivonne...a meeting I am in great debt to the world for....and I consider that I have to earn some worldly brownie points soon, before something catastrophic happens.

Alas, it's too late, high up in the Sierra Gorda all movement ceases and Rudolf literally grinds to a halt....on closer inspection I discover that the bearings in the rear wheel have been sneakily replaced by pieces of tin foil.



Then my key snaps....

Standing waiting for a truck to help me out, a man in a VW Jetta - itself held together with string and wire - stops and is quick to tell me that unless I can get to Ciudad Valles myself, I'll be in for a very long wait, for there won't be any trucks this way.



So I strap the wheel together, completely without bearings



....and tot off a bit gingerly up the road with the VW shadowing me behind - even gingerlier - in his motorised ball of string.

Geoff (or whatever his name was) stops and tightens down the wire holding down his bonnet, signifying that we've made the first 15km to the main road, now for the fast stuff, 25km more to the city so he tells me and I give him an optimistic thumbs up, the wheel having only fallen apart once so far. But I lose Geoff in the obstacle course of "topes" (speed bumps), though I wait for him I assume he got bored and stopped for a cerveza and I carry on to Valles alone, where the wheel gives out again, though this time rather timely; outside the Suzuki garage. New bearings are made and only a few hours later I'm back on the road...I was expecting a lengthy stop in the city of days or weeks, waiting for parts! I start wondering if these very helpful people have just tipped the balance of debt I owe to the world irredeemably even further.....

Back on the road, and looking out for black cats, ladders, tipping balances and gun-touting druglords, I head to Sir James' garden...a highly bizarre and interesting house he built while most likely off his rocker on drugs as it is most peculiar and then a visit to the SPECTACULAR waterfalls in the area, reached only by rowing boat, 4km, upstream in a boat made for 12 sturdy fellas. Though for me it's just myself and my ample guide Celestino. We slogged our way up to the falls, earning several blisters....but it was worth it...105m high of emerald waters, and truly special.





Sr James Edwards gaff.....





"Those boats are ginormous!" said David, "El Gringo" in his bike shop in Matlapa. Obviously looking worse for wear after the mighty effort, he buys me superb breakfast from a beautiful woman, wrapped in banana leaves and cooked in an earth oven...the breakfast...not the woman. David, thanks, you're a top chap!



On I go, out of the jungle, through the cloud forest - where I get to see the inner workings of a cloud close up! - and then into desert! what a landscape! Alas, there are no photos as the camera was soaked days previous exploring some caves....which, it turns out, were rubbish....and full of water.
I need more parts for Rudolf, and email my contact in Mexico City....then I spend all day lost in the city trying to find the place eventually doing so only to discover it is infact a completely different Yamaha store to that which I wrote to!....luckily they are top chaps too....at Cuajimalpa and start taking apart a showroom bike to fix up Rudolf before they nip home for the weekend....Thanks GREATLY to them for helping me out at short notice and goign to such great lengths for me!



The balance is really tipping now and I ride along on tenderhooks....death must come soon, or maybe a sharp blow to my head....another cold night is all I get, and a still deflating thermarest, 22 punctures and counting - damn you cactus! - but a great visit to Volcan de Toluca and it's lakes, where Rudolf splutters at the altitude



....and then on down to the Pacific coast to revive him and me, north of Acapulco to collect a sleeping bag from Uri and Jackie, friends of Rob's whom I met in Mexico City.

Alng the way through the Sierras again,





in a tiny village I meet an old lady hosing the dirt and ask her where I can find tortillas....soon she returns with freshly made tortillas, and then offers me a coke....and then her nephew comes to chat too, Oscar....great chap, who "wants to give me something for the road" and gives me a cake and two packets of chips!!



Because of all the kindness goign around I'm getting anxious and seeing a boy and old lady with a puncture tire I stop to repair it....I get no thanks and feel a bit disappointed...peraps that's how it's supposed to be, perhaps it's more selfless this way, I shouldn't expect so much....

Then Ireach the beach and my new sleeping bag.....As I pack the new bag away on the bike Uri comes over...

"Nick, we all think it's best if you stay the night, have dinner with us, have breakfast....unless....that is...you have somewhere to be?"
"Are you serious!? Oh, that would be fantastic! I could hug you!!"
Uri mumbles and "OK" and so I hug him.

In the morning, after breakfast, Uri comes over again
"Nick, we think it's best if you stay today too, I mean if you want to and have nowhere to go?"
My reply was much blunter "Sounds good to me."





This was repeated, and repeated, and finally I have to leave for Oaxaca....where getting very worried about the tipping balance, I stop and help people, give them lifts, fix their punctures and try and be really nice....who knows what lurks....?

Now I must decide whether to race on south and skip the Yucatan, or obviously visit the Yucatan as I think I may have had my fix of Mexico, three months has perhaps been enough and I'm already thinking about exploring dirt roads in the Andes.

A special thanks to Uri and Jackie for letting me stay and bringign over a sleeping bag, Garry and Ivonne a very special thanks for letting me spend a wonderful Christmas with you, it really felt like home.

__________________
Tales from the Saddle Website
Facebook FanPage for TftS

Thanks for the post!
I feel like more and more people are starting to travel on small motorbikes,
they do have some advantages.
Keep on going , and good luck!!

__________________

as usual excellent photos and interesting report, I have been following your trip via your website and email updates avidly as I also run a ybr 125.

__________________
'He who laughs last, was too slow to get the joke'
Never confuse the map with the journey.

Thanks for reading guys....

I hope it's a little enjoyable, though I must admit there has been little in the way of off-roading in this latest installement, but that¿s just how it goes!

For Mexico PArt one, you canread my own blog, just follow the weblink, or alternatively look at Adam of shortwayround.co.uk own post on it at ADVrider...

Trails of North America...a photo journal - Page 9 - ADVrider

__________________
Tales from the Saddle Website
Facebook FanPage for TftS

Hey Klous,

Good stuff - both words and pics. And a vote from me for little bikes. Love 'em especially when you've got to pick one up and there is nobody around to help you!

Belle.....Yep, picking up the small bike is easier....still not easy mind you! I'm sure it gets heavier too....

I've been keeping up with a KLR recently too on some terrible roads...probably the worst I've seen....so soon you can read about those and me picking up the bike repeatedly!

But I'm all for small bikes on these trips, easy to pick up, get parts, cheap to run, fuel economy, more manove4rable on the rough stuff or if you have to man handle it across obstacles, cheaper shipping, easy maintenance....1litre of oil....ummm....there are more.....but that's enough.

What do you ride? Are you on a long trip....or thinking about one?

SA for the blog, its okay...I don't get much time to do it so its all a bit rushed....the book will be better....but thanks for the kind words, I need encouragment on that front!

__________________
Tales from the Saddle Website
Facebook FanPage for TftS

Great pics except the one of the outside of my house. Garryhostel has been very quiet so far this year but should get more visitors some time in the future. Leslie and Lloyd will put you up if you go through Playa del Carmen just send me a mail first so I can give you their contact info. What type of sleeping bag did you get and is it any good?
Safe travels

Garry

Fantastic, mate!

Thanks for sharing this awesome story with us!

__________________
Nick and his 2010 Yamaha XT1200Z Super Ténéré

A little thank you to the readers.....
Knight of the holy graal, guzzibob, milkman672042000, Noah M, greenmanalishi....hope you continue to enjoy it and let me know if you have any pointers for improvements.....anything....

Garry!!! How are things!? Got a great sleeping bag, very hot and sweatysome down sleeping bag from Kelty, $130, the cheapest I could get....but worth it I think! Thansk for the offer at Lloyds, alas wont be heading that far east, I am in Chiapas now with Duncan....and from here will head to Guat....so any pointers on Chiapas are welcome! How are things back home...how are the yorkshire puddings...regular I hope! Been out on the bike?

__________________
Tales from the Saddle Website
Facebook FanPage for TftS

I've written a new update but it doesn't seem to want to show the photos, so probably best to go to the website, here is available at the website

Blog - Tales from the Saddle - Solo Motorcycle Tour Around the World on a Yamaha YBR 125

But otherwise you can read it here, sans pics...sorry peeps....


I´m at home, in the living room sitting small and square on the couch, tucked over onto one side, wondering why it is I am here....at home....

The journey, it seems is over.

My mother is here. She is cleaning and I watch her, though she pays me little attention and as such I feel like a fly on the wall, well the couch, watching, unnoticed, transported, not really here....surely not...But I am. Two and a half years, and the journey is over.

There´s a strange hum, like electric pylons excited by the rain, except oddly; silent. There, but not there. The room feels odd too; empty, grey and cold; desaturated in every way. A sick feeling fills my stomach. I can´t believe it, that I´m back and can´t remember even, why I am. I look my body over, my legs seem fine, my head and arms too....so why am I here?

Who knows, (Lord maybe and the sneaky twit isn't telling me), for whatever reason I am home, at the beginning, where it all started, back at zero, everything the same, with me left still wanting.....but what to want now? (a bed, hot shower, Sunday lunch...)

"But I didn´t get to see South America or Central Asia!" (ahh, yeah all the bits I missed) I blurt loudly, angry now and I click my flingers as I point to her as if drawing out the exclamation for my remark. I stand up and make my way upstairs, stamping my way up the steps just like when I was a child, the same and nothing more.


The Chicken buses
I hear a cuckoo, he lives in the tall yellow conifer tree outside my bedroom window, I can make out other birds too that sing happily, tapping out their strange Morse code to one another. There are dogs barking incessantly as the first of the smoke pouring morning buses makes it's way to town; atop of which lie men, perched precariously atop mounds of loose luggage on the roof. There is a march band playing in the streets and somewhere the gas van roams reminding customers by playing its tune "Here we go round the mulberry bush" on a device that sounds like a child’s plastic record player to attract customers...and if you don't hear it you can smell it. Far off a woman announces the news from a loud speaker strapped atop a cars roof, sounds like propaganda. A dog barks, the church bells peel and a string of firecrackers go off celebrating the birth of a new born baby (commiserations). The sound of a much smaller bell grows nearer; an ice cream trolley; the bell strapped to it's vendor’s trousers by his boss like a time bomb to ensure he never stops moving (sell, sell, sell!!). I hear the sound of nylon flapping in the breeze and feel the warmth of the first beams of the rising sun, I feel and smell like a tomato in a greenhouse. I scratch the cocktail of ant, mosquito and spider bites over my hands, arms and legs uncontrollably and with subconscious pleasure. The fuzzy image brightens into focus and I realise with a huge relief that I am in fact, not at home and it was, of course just a dream. Paradoxically I also think; I'm still in Antigua.



Camp,with volcan Fuego erupting
I'm still in Antigua, the small Colonial City, surrounded by wooded hills and active volcanoes, punctuated along its seven streets by the crumbling remains of the long-gone Spanish rein reminding one that this was once the capital, now defunct - moved to its present day location 45km away; Guatemala City, after another earthquake flattened the place just when they were cutting the cake to celebrate completing the rebuild.


Antigua
I scratch at my bites some more and with increased vigour, though perhaps I didn't stop and somewhere outside a dog sniffs at my tent and I wonder why I'm singing "Here we go round the mulberry bush." Then my mind continues to swirls with thoughts of what could be causing the most recent problem or development in the great mystery that is; Rudolf, for he is having great problems.


A puncture...at 4am
I've been in Guatemala for over one month, but have travelled for only one week, though it was a fantastic week, and after a lengthy stay in Mexico the change was welcome. The border was a street hardly visible through the chaotic bedlam of shops, stalls, tuk-tuks, gasoline vendors (Mexican fuel much cheaper) and people flowing whimsically from one country to the other with wares, but a simple and cheap enough crossing (about $8).

A town is circled on my map, I can't remember when or why I circled it, but I head there anyway, along a great, smooth, gravel road, through the coffee fields of the north, beautiful people, in traditional colourful dress; flowered print, bandanners, gold teeth and a planetarium of gold spheres around their necks give the look of pirates! Each person balances vases of water atop there bobbing heads, or mounds of coffee or firewood in sacks strapped taught around their foreheads; men, women and children - with mini-sacks - alike, working together as a family.

Local lasses fill my water bottle

I stop beside two women chatting and ask if I can take their picture, "Why?" they ask perplexed, but their Spanish is worse than mine it seems, Akateko being the local dialect and after a minute or two and the gathering of more people I leave with my tail between my legs, and sadly no photo! The people, the lives and the landscape, and the road are fantastic, peaceful and serene, from mist covered green forest to sunburnt brown valleys and azure rivers of icy fresh water to swim and wash in, a more wild side than I'd seen in Mexico and one I'd missed since Africa (though still someway off that, but still brought back old memories!...secret hidden tea shops behind bellowing door curtains for one!).


Bad weather, a damp and dreary street
Unfortunately the weather turns nasty and when I reach the damp and fog drenched town I'd circled on my map I'm left still wondering what the heck I circled it for...the ride at least was good!

But now the dreary weather eggs me along and now, unable to photograph locals and unable to enjoy a good exploratory wander of the streets - being drenched and all - I flee to warmer climes, dropping steeply down from the mountain villages to the big smoke in the warmer valley which leaves me with feelings of mixed relief and anxiety that I've missed out on some of the delights there as I look back up to the mountains from camp.


A lovely bubbly market lass
But it needn't matter, I have the bustling bedlam that is the street market that encroaches in on the cobbled streets of Huehuetenango, to view and to roam, and to learn the nuances of the local Spanish slang. I spend a tiny fortune visiting many stalls, buying fruit and sampling food snacks in a bid to warm people's icy opinion of the camera lens with my Spanish charm(!), to try and get a photo or two....and though I meet happy smiling people, all I come away with is a fat belly and a top-box laden with broccoli....and a lighter wallet!

A short stretch on Highway one confirms that it's not really for me, too fast and a feeling of a certain distance between one and his surroundings and I make the first detour I can, along a dirt track to a dead end; road closed, but here I stop and meet with a family of basket weavers who, contrary to previous experience, allow free use of the camera, and they warm my heart if I don't warm theirs!


Camp over Huehuatenango, treated to a free concert and fireworks
I make my way to Xela, to visit and hike Volcan Santa Maria, which overlooks another and still active volcano. Xela seems to sprawl away on a busy road, a truckers route perhaps, lined with tire repairs and hotels by the hour and finding camp is tricky and sees me lose Rudolf in a cavernous concrete ditch in the pitch black of night, though when I do find camp I am treated to a free concert and firework display from the centre of town, the streets oozing with colour and character.

The volcano is only visible for a short window of time, meaning an early start. I fill myself with coffee at camp at 3:30am and can't believe my luck when I get ANOTHER puncture on my way to the trailhead....at 4am in the city, hardly ideal. When I finally reach the trail I race up it at full steam, puffing and panting at 4000m, managing to shave a half hour from the recommended time and sit in the cool high altitude air waiting for an eruption....and the cloud to clear....luckily it clears just as it explodes, though only barely....


Volcano watch...waiting for the cloud to clear


Beautiful dress of the Tzutzunil,Atitlan
Lake Atitlan and Antigua are only a relatively short ride away and hardly worth missing. The weather turns sour once again, but down at the lake it is fairing better and I trundle down a farm track to the lake edge and meet a friendly fellow who allows me to camp lake side. I visit the towns next morning after having coffee with the friendly farmer, but find them to have been overwhelmed by tourists who seem to have had a negative effect on the local populous it seems to me - I chat for awhile with a local market man (his wife doing all the work) and he tells me my name means Akalash in his language, Tzutzunil, though I check my dictionary I never work out what it means...but it brings a smile to his face.

But after buying more fruit and veg and a chocolate rice pudding in the market (still no photo) I'm keen to leave them to their lives, and retreat up to the upper throes of the jungle where the sound of macaws and toucans reign (actually I don't know what birds were there, sounded good though) and in the morning I start making my way to Antigua, on the way meeting Frank and Simone who I first met in Mexico city.


Lunch with Frank & Simone
and then...Antigua.

It started simple enough; no charging from the bike's electrical system. I returned to Antigua - after an initial three days stop - to a free campsite I'd just left to carry out repairs. In carrying out the repair I stripped the spark plug thread (novice) and had to send the engine head to a machine shop,


A stripped spark plug head meant a lengthy wait...
Then on rebuilding the engine with the newly repaired head, an exhaust valve was bent on start-up, one assumes hitting the piston head...how...it was discovered that the timing chain had jumped a full ninety degrees...but why?


The bent exhaust valve


Rudolf undergoes heart surgery
The bike is moved in to a dusty outbuilding at the campsite, I give the room a much needed clean and make some simple repairs to the lights whilst waiting for parts for Rudolf, parts I must wait for longer and longer, "return at 2pm, return at 4pm, return at 5pm, return in the morning...." and finally I vouch to never return to the Yamaha dealer in Antigua, the worst I've ever dealt with.

A lot of people; fellow motorcyclists, RV'ers, campers, policemen and even the police chief, as well as the ever helpful Julio, Andres and Ian, help in diagnosing the problem and the diagnosis is that essentially we are all a bit stumped, how does a timing sprocket jump ninety degrees, without jumping....

Late one evening, sat basking in the blue-white glow of a PC monitor in the police station office, perusing engine diagrams with very helpful Andres, who's come especially to help,

"This is bad news," says Andres.
"Umm," I say, realising that my stay in Antigua might be longer still (ohh, great).


The ever helpful Andres
Next to us, Officer Elisa - who kindly let us in to the office - picks another song from youtube to pass the night shift, a modern day cheesy version of George Harrison with a smooth and well-combed basin of nut-brown hair, on his head and above his mouth, adorns her monitor and the PC speakers and I ask if she thinks he's handsome: "He's not," she tells me, "but this guy is!" and she quickly clicks a bookmarked favourite revealing an even more - if possible - cheesy fellow, who looks just the same but with added benefit of a sombrero to hide his well manicured barnett, does nothing for the fluffy 'tash.

With a few ideas, Andres and I go to test our theories and I promise Elisa a coffee sometime and soon Andres and I confirm beyond all doubt that the problem is a broken sprocket on the crankshaft, meaning for a full engine rebuild, a new crankshaft. Several options come to mind;

1) Eat cake,
2) Drink tea,
3) Sleep,
4) Get on a plane to Colombia and buy Rudolf Jr.
5) Get a new engine,
6) Fix Rudolf.

After dabbling with options one and two, I wake up after completing option 3 and decide that option six is the only option for me, but only after a completing a new option, option 7: drink coffee. Phew....and To celebrate I have a number two and then drink some tea, probably with a "cubilete," a yummy cake, three of which can be bought for the princely sum of 1Quetzal (8p), and probably in the company of the fabulous Ingulf, a German rider on his way home, or, after his departure back to Germany, fellow Brit; Ian (whom I met originally in Mexico).


With Ian's help the engine is taken to pieces, one piece at a time, day by day, as we spend half a day here finding a tool, or half a day there making one, designing one, trying to get someone to make one, or breaking a part, shearing a bolt, scratching our heads, reading the manual and drinking more tea and eating mounds of cubiletes.


Thank God for Ian
Finally, the crankcase is split, the crankshaft now visible and exposed and now the problem I realise wasn't the crankshaft (good work speedy) at all and I must rebuild the engine, seemingly for no reason other than bad luck and a few dozen dumb idiots with silly ideas....me included. The moral - and one I struggle it seems to learn - is that it's always, always, always, always the simplest answer....and usually your fault, in this case; the camchain had come off it's sprocket and jammed behind the flywheel, meaning it would still turn the camshaft, but would slip occasionally (though to be fair, in my defense, I'd already contemplated this possibility).



The waiting game continues
So, again I face the recurring problem; the need for parts...and back to the Yamaha dealer in Antigua who tell me that only two of the dozen parts are available...seems odd. As I hate these guys and have broken my promise to myself never to return to this store, I write to another store in Guatemala who are not only much more helpful (in that they are actually of help) but they also tell me that I can have the parts for free, provided I do an interview...a fair price I reckon....he'll even ride out himself with the parts....but now I must wait just a little bit more....and go crazy.....in Antigua, but the road beckons, I can sense it.....

__________________
Tales from the Saddle Website
Facebook FanPage for TftS

After over 5 weeks of obtaining parts, tools, and breaking said parts, tools, as well as obtaining faulty parts and sending the engine off to the machine shop several times.....find out if Rudolf the Wonderous YBR will ever wander again....in my latest video....made because I have a lot of time on my hands....

__________________
Tales from the Saddle Website
Facebook FanPage for TftS

A huge thank you must be sent out to Guaterider....Julio, thanks so much for everythign you have done so far....

I'll buy the fish and chips in the UK one day...and I'm still working on the wedding tickets....

And the Queen is polishing Phil's sword ready for your knighthood, Thanks!

__________________
Tales from the Saddle Website
Facebook FanPage for TftS

Rode one of these in Vietnam last year two up for around 300kms. The seat was so hard. Great little bike otherwise. Great write up and blog.

__________________
Cheers.
Ross Moorhouse.

Ride reports from my trip to Vietnam....

http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...eam-real-49945

http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...eam-real-49945

http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...-vietnam-49956

Mine was okay, though it got a bit of a groove in it and became really uncomfortable. I re-sponged it last year, admittedly not a great job done, but it is better!

Otherwise a really workable bike!

__________________
Tales from the Saddle Website
Facebook FanPage for TftS