Worn the same two changes of clothes over and over again

Sniffed my clothes to see if I can wear them again. More often than not, I ended up with a plaque clearing, head shaking “woah.”

Eaten dinner alone. ( I wonder if it’s related to wearing the same clothes over and over again. )

Watched bad, mindless TV in my hotel room. I knew it was time to go when I came across a Fran Drescher (The Beautician and the Beast) movie, and I WATCHED IT!!

Solitaire

Peru

Chicken with french fries. Everybody eats chicken with french fries outside of Brazil and Argentina. And when you can find something else, you almost always get french fries.

Bad coffee.

Things I haven’t done enough of -

Learned enough Spanish or Portuguese

Seen enough of the world, specifically, Brazil, Argentina and Chile.

Lan Peru

Seen enough Brazilian beaches, specifically bikinis.

Started a revolution in Bolivia, becoming El Presidente. I was sick the entire time I was there, restricting my political goals.

Law and Order and CSI — Las Vegas. I’ve gotten kind of addicted to these shows, I’m hate to admit. I haven’t watched hour long TV shows since “Hill Street Blues.” Then again, the other option was well, staring at the walls.

Taken enough pictures.

Brazilian steak houses.

Argentinean steak houses.

Things I’ve learned…

Seattle is the greatest city I’ve come across. Buenos Aires was pretty nice, and I could probably have been talked into living there. But Seattle has it all — geeks, different cultures, art, music, fast and free internet access, mountains, CSI and Law and Order, pasty women (wait — strike that.) and gadgets.

America leads the world in bathroom technology. Granted the Japanese have a pretty good lock on the toilets, but they can’t compete with our whole package — shower and toilet. I start my showers now with a rousing “Star Spangled Banner”, a salute, and occasionally a tear.

I’m tired of being single. I’ve seen a lot of really cool stuff, but I want someone to share it with. I have this to refer too, but it’s not the same. The times spent with Louis were some of the best time of my trip, and a large part of it was there was someone to talk to. I don’t think I’m going to take a trip alone again.

I like my country more now than I did before. I mean I liked it before, but now, I think it’s even cooler. Especially the showers, and the soft, soft toilet paper that you flush away.

People in the US are horrible drivers. I didn’t see bad drivers anywhere in Latin America. The only wreck I saw was in Buenos Aires, where, incidentally, they are the most polite (no horns, respected pedestrians, etc.)

I’ll go back to Argentina.

I still can’t grow a beard.

Mexico has never seemed like a larger country than when I was driving balls to the wall trying to get out of it.

I left Coatzacoalcos early, and drove most of the day.   I don’t remember much about that day other than bad roads (MX has huge traffic bumps — much higher than the US, and on main (non-toll) roads. )  Along the road, I had a decent lunch at a waterfront open air restaurant.  It was very fresh, cute waitress, and very overcast.   Otherwise, there was some rain, and I passed quite a few waterfront RV parks (getting closer to the US?)

Drove through Tampico, and into a little suburb called Altamira.  I found a hotel on the main drag that offered parking (that should sound familiar.)  It wasn’t too bad, and I the TV had all the channels, so it seemed appropriate.    Once I got there, and showered, the sun was down.  I walked down to a Taco cart and got a few tacos.  It was pretty nice, and a decent end to MX for me.   In the morning, I got an early start, and watched two high school lovers check into my hotel.

After my uneventful night in a Chetumal, I woke up early and put on my freshly laundered clothes.

On the news was word of tropical depression/hurricane heading this way, so I was going to see how many miles I could do.   Once you’re out of Chetumal, there is but one way out.

OK, that’s not quite true, as I could have gone around the coastal route, but two things prevented me.  First was I was tired of ruins.  I’d seen over a dozen, and was thinking that I didn’t really want to see any more.    The second was the loneliness.   One day I’ll come back with a partner and make a nice vacation — rent a car, spend a week looking at the ruins. It sounds very nice.

Like I said, I got an early start.  Pretty close to Chetumal, I found a nice turnoff to some new ruins — I forget the name now.   There was an entrance building, and I paid my fee.  I had the place to myself, and it was kind of neat.  Relatively small, much more overgrown than everything I’d seen so far (except for parts of Tikal, but Tikal was maybe 100(?) times the size of this.)  Nice, interesting, etc.  From there, I drove pretty leisurely to Coatzacoalcos.

Leisurely might not be the completely correct word.  I was never stopped by any sort of authority, outside of today.  Three times there were Federale road blocks, and three times I was pulled over.  Most interesting to me is that each time I was stopped, they only looked in my right side bag.  On my BMW, the kickstand is on the left, so when you’re on the kickstand, the right bag is quite a bit higher than the left.  Now, I wasn’t always on my kickstand, but the right bag was the only one searched 3 of 3 times.    Everyone I dealt with was professional, spoke english, and seemed a bit embarrassed to be stopping me.   Being embarrassed was a bit odd considering how much firepower they had.

I arrived in Coatzacoalcos during rush hour.  I don’t remember too much about the trip, or the arrival, except for a few things that have been seared into my head.  First was the horns.  In Mexico, when the light changes, cars four or five cars back will start honking their horns.  It’s crazy.  I like Mexican drivers much better than any American drivers I’ve ever seen.

The second part seared into my brain was when I was in traffic, trying to find a hotel.  It was rush hour, and traffic was like most traffic at that time.  As the lights changed,  I heard something behind my bike.  I looked in my rear view mirror and saw a cat doing some sort of Ballet dance of death.  He was hit by a car, and then another, and I was transfixed.   A completely black cat, and it was seemingly vertical the whole time, almost like it was dancing.  It was hard to watch, and took almost no time.  I found a hotel that had some sort of parking, but it just meant I got shitty hotel room next to where I could park my bike.  I consider it a win.

After getting a shower, I decided to find something to eat.  This little town was quite nice.  There was a small square where a traditional Mexican band was playing, with dozens of families walking around, both watching the band and watching their children.   Other than a cool breeze off the ocean, it was American writ Mexican.   I spent a bit more time walking around the city and ended up with a somewhat early bedtime.

I left Tikal early, hoping to make it to Belize.  I had pretty high expectations for Belize, as they speak my language, and it should be a beach paradise.  On the way out, I got a bit lost, and needed gas too.  I pulled over and asked a nice older gentleman and his young daughter about gas and directions.  They gave me good directions in english, and as I was leaving say something to the effect of “We’re glad you’re here.  Thank you and please come back.”  It was one of the more touching parts of my trip.    As I was leaving him, four Dual Sport riders passed me going the other way.  They were a mix of BMW’s and KLR’s.  For whatever reason (maybe because it was a curvy road?), they didn’t wave.  Sometimes, I’ve seen people doing cool things where I thought I was the only cool one in the world, and they’ve annoyed me.  Maybe I did that to those guys.  Oh yeah, people ask about the roads.  The roads in Guatemala were very good.  They all seemed to be new, and not very crowded.

Once I got to the Belize border, I thought my spanish speaking troubles were over.  Oh no!  For some reason, the guy behind the counter didn’t think my passport photo looked like my drivers license.  It’s the craziest thing in the world. He ended up getting a supervisor to look at it, and after some arguing, agreed to let me in.  I don’t have any idea what the problem was — no one else ever said anything about my photos.   In the times I’ve had trouble at border crossing (into Guatemala, out of Guatemala), usually, just playing dumb works very well.  I’m going to keep that up.

Once I was allowed in, I was informed I had to get insurance to be in Belize.  There was an office outside the immigration office — only one.  I went in and bought insurance, and paid what I thought was too much money for too little time.   Fully insured and certified to be Greg Cain, I headed towards Belize City.  I found the waterfront, and rode my motorcycle through the narrow streets.  It was a different world than any I’d been in for some time.  Everyone was black, in a Caribbean environment, speaking english.   The roads were pretty narrow, and not that fun to drive on (rough, and some stone.)  As I was leaving the one part of the city, and headed towards the suburbs, I pulled over to read my map.  A nice guy doing yard work walked up and started talking to me.  He was pretty insistent that it wasn’t safe for me to stay near Belize City.  I was headed away from Belize City, didn’t have the greatest Belize experiences, and it was somewhat early, so I decided to head for Mexico.

Once out of Belize, and into the warm embrace of Mexico, I headed to Chetumal. It wasn’t far from the border to the downtown area.  I don’t remember too much about the area, other than getting a non-descript room (Holiday Inn was very expensive), walking around the non-descript city, and doing laundry by wearing my clothes in the shower.