BUSTED!

Well, a short bloody trip this. When parts began spewing off Mo's bike Saturday followed by a stream of oil all over the Mexican landscape I got a sinking feeling which got worse as the day went on. We were 20 miles south of Los Mochis, anticipating a big day under bright skies when the primary drive sprocket, clutch, clutch housing and of course, chain went flying. We got a ride from 3 burly Federal Traffic policemen who responded to our arm-waving by piling out of their pickup, semi-auto M16's in hand, but were quite nice and briskly loaded the bike up and took Mo back to town while I followed. There, a gaggle of onlookers gathered to commiserate, and one of them, who owns a small ranch outside of town was our Good Samaritan as we loaded the broken bike in his little Chevy pickup and proceeded to find out from three different bike shops that 1) nobody had the parts, and 2) it would take five to seven days starting on Monday to get parts and fix things. Game over baby. I toyed with the idea of continuing solo, but gazing on the defunct Honda easily made the decision for me. Unless you can fix nearly anything on your bike and speak better Spanish than I do, going solo is out of the question. You need a buddy for the unexpected and you'd better expect the unexpected in Central America amigo!

After learning the bad news, Good Sam took us to a shipping business where we drained all fluids out of the dead bike, took off the gas tank, lights, and windshield and "packed it" Mexican style with old cardboard boxes. Sam took Mo to the bus station and kindly led me out of town so I could find the highway again. A bit on the lighter side: As Sam is taking us into town, he runs out of gas so Mo filled a 2 liter Coke bottle from his bike's tank and we grinned at each other as our friend gased up on the side of the road (on the usual virtual shoulder I might add!) See pic

Needless to say both of us were devastated. Mo probably more than I since his bike was the cause of our trip's demise. At Nogales, his girlfriend's sister is supposed to meet the truck with his bike on board and somehow get it into the USA.

I rode alone some 700 miles, staying one night in Guaymas where I took a few of the fishing boat/ocean pictures. Three Federale stops, but they just asked where I was going to and coming from and waved me through. One young soldier wanted me to do a wheelie before he would let me go, but I told him the added weight made that too difficult. ( as IF!) Not feeling especially adventurous after the day's events, I stayed on the main highway rather than trying to find the "free roads". Then, just to make things complete, the bike died and refused to start about 200 yards from the border. Long line, stop and go, and I think it vapor locked. I pushed myself to the Land of the Free, Home of the Brave.........showed my passport and assured the Border guards that I had no Mexican products with me, pushed another 100 feet to some semi-shade and waited. Still no luck after 1/2 hour so I drained the float bowl on the carb wondering if I had vapor there too and hey hey hey.........it started. I'm in Tucson now and will take a couple of days to make it home. As they say, "¡Cuesto lo que cuesto! That's all folks.