The Adventures of David and Gary
at the Mexican Rodeo

Day 7 - Friday, November 8th
Culiacan, Sinaloa, Mexico

So Jim, Jay and Alex, upon consensus, went to Mazatlan while Gary and David stayed back to have the pump seal fixed. To let you know the predicament we were in here, and just how odd it was, we called California Kawasaki the day before and queried the service manager trying to find out what would cause such a gush of precious liquid. His response... "Bad Luck". Gary's favorite mechanic in Los Angeles at Outrider of Santa Monica confirmed the cause... with a minor variation... "Rotten Luck." It seems a bad water pump seal is pretty rare and totally random.

We hung out at MegaCross Sports, the Kawasaki dealership, all day waiting for the part that wouldn't come. We put more stickers (Dunlop, RobRoy, Meier, etc.) onto the bikes trying to forget about the possibility that we may be stuck in Culiacan over the entire weekend, setting us back many days in a town that wasn't even on the list for extra days.

Not wanting to spend more money than absolutely necessary, we went across the street to buy the components for dinner in a grocery store. Upon David's suggestion from a trick he learned while walking across the country years earlier, Gary went in search of BRAT (bananas-rice-applesauce-toast) to put his plumbing back in order. Bananas were no problem, minute rice was unavailable (obviously only an American phenomenon) and a language barrier halted the search for applesauce until we found some in the babyfood section. As for toast, uncooked bread would have to do.

Before we had a chance to eat and just before closing, Ernesto, the owner of the dealership, asked if we played basketball, hoping that he and his partner might get a little game of 2 on 2 going. Thinking this is probably not a native sport to Mexico, we felt assured we could whip 'em good. The game was fast and furious. Mexican and American history and blood were wrapped into that game. Who could have known Ernesto was such an agile sportsman by looking at him. Luckily for the American team, Marco was nicely overfed by his wife and breathing hard. We won, but only by a hair.

After the game we had established a true friendship with them. We wanted to buy them a couple of beers, but for Marco that was out of the question...his wife was waiting eagerly for his return home. Ernesto accepted the offer, so the three of us piled into the cab of his pickup truck and rode off into the night. We stopped off at a birthday party for a 13 year-old girl Ernesto knew. A "special" friend of Ernesto's, the beautiful Flormirella, joined us at the party, and from there the evening became truly unexpected and spectacular.

A Night at the Rodeo

Ernesto and Flor (short for Flormirella) took us to a rodeo club, complete with dancing cowgirls and cowboys, mechanical bulls, and line dancing. The specialty of the club was a live indoor rodeo show. Ten brave Mexican cowboys each took their turn trying to hold on for 8 seconds to a real bucking bull as a cheering crowd of hundreds sat on bleachers outside the small ring. One of the vacalleros, a handsome fifteen year-old, got a little stomped on, but he appeared okay. The energy of the crowd energized all the contenders, and a few of them managed the full 8 seconds.

The rodeo ended, and the crowd moved back onto the dance floor. David and Gary danced like mad fools, desperately trying to learn the local steps. A whole procession of young ladies, all friends with Ernesto and Flor, tried one after the other to teach us. When the one-on-one thing didn't seem to work too well (though David wasn't really doing too bad, especially with the hips thing), the whole group of friends formed a circle and everyone just danced as they wished.

When exhaustion was too great to ignore, Ernesto and Flor took us back to our "hotel" for the evening, the Kawi dealership. Our new friendship was enough for Ernesto to trust us sleeping amongst all of his showroom bikes. We bid them a good-night and spread our sleeping bags out, lulled to sleep by the intermittent traffic just outside the metal gates and the soft patter of the nightwatchman's shoes.

Miles - none

Trusting us to attempt the transplant, we opened up the donor carefully and were immediately stymied by a stubborn radiator hose. The surgery came to a halt. Another quick call to the states deterred us from going any further; the part we needed, it seems, should only be removed and/or replaced with only the proper tools, and even then, sometimes the piece breaks in the process. While sitting there in a state of static uncertainty, the two patients with their innards exposed lying inert on the showroom floor, our knight in shining armor arrived on a vintage Kawi LTD with a plush plaid seat. It was Antonio the mechanic, a friend of Marco's. The fact that he didn't have the proper tools did not dissuade him at all. He quickly removed the offending part from Gary's bike, definitely destroying it in the process, and took the replacement out of the other bike (hopefully still intact). However, in order to reinstall it into Gary's bike, he first had to drain the oil and completely remove the right-side engine cover, clutch cable, and rear brake pedal.

A Master at Work

Watching nervously as Antonio pounded the new seal into place with nothing more than a rubber mallet, David and Gary were again reassured by Ernesto and Marco that Mexican mechanics don't need no stinking tools to get the job done. Within the hour, the job was finished. Gary fired up his bike. No water leaked from the pump housing. Tony accepted 150 pesos (less than $20) and rode out on his plaid-seated cruiser just as cooly as he had come.

Out of consideration of our absent comrades, we faxed the hotel in Puerto Vallarta to tell them we would make it in 2 days to Guadalajara as planned. Glad to be getting back on the road but sad to be leaving our new friends, we packed up our water-proof bags and loaded up the bikes. We all promised to keep in touch and hoped to see each other again one day, either in their home or ours.

Mazatlan was our destination for the night. With the daylight burning away, we made a mad dash along the hairiest road yet. Passing buses and trucks by the dozens, we zoomed unknowingly past the Tropic of Cancer just as the sun went down. We probably wouldn't have seen it anyway through our bug-smeared Scott goggles. (Product placement, what a concept!) We stopped a couple times to check Gary's radiator. Still no leakage. Once in Mazatlan, we headed straight for the strip along the beach to the hotel where the other guys had holed up the night before. It was too expensive for just two people, so we found our evening's repose at the wonderful and moldy Hotel San Diego. At least it had a hot shower.

Since we were refreshed from our extended stay in Culiacan, we cleaned up and hit the town. First, we ate a great dinner at a local restaurant gratefully devoid of non-Mexicans. Then we cruised Senor Frog's, Mondo Banana, and Bora Bora before finally settling in at Valentino's for dancing and Mexican-style Karioke, which is really no different except everyone sounds like Julio Iglesias. We didn't stay for too long, for we knew the next day would be a long ride to Guadalajara.

Miles - 152

The terrain had started to change once past the Tropic of Cancer; the landscape grew more lush, sub-tropical, and hilly. The road twisted through the countryside and we found ourselves enjoying the ride more than any of the previous days. The flat, straight roads up north seemed to just pull us along, lulling us into a trance broken only by the arrival into the next city. But today, we were able to interact with the pavement and the scenery, and the towns we passed were more an unwelcome interruption of the ride than a respite from the monotony .

Since there were only two of us, we were able to keep a steadier pace and move more quickly. Using the Collett communicators, we were able to guide each other around the many vehicles moving less rapidly than us. (Yes, you guessed it, we were hauling ass.) At several points, we were faced with the decision of taking the toll road versus the free road. The advantages of the toll road are much less traffic, much better surfaces, higher velocity, better air quality, extra lanes to pass slower vehicles, no towns to confuse you and break your suspension with those damn topes and vibradores (speed bumps), and oh, did we say higher velocity? Disadvantages - major pesos. The advantages of the free road are, um, well, its free. And I don't mean saving just a few pesos, or even quite a few pesos. We just can't see spending almost $20 each per day to ride just a few hundred miles. But since we knew that the luxurious Crowne Plaza Hotel awaited us in Guadalajara with complimentary rooms, we said what the heck, and jumped on the toll road.

The first toll was a palatable 26 pesos ($3.50), but the next one at 56 pesos had us heading for the nearest exit to the free road. Once back on the slower, dirtier, stinkier, bumpier, more crowded, town-clogged free road, we wondered why we had ever foresaken it. We stopped for food and drink in the eponymous town of Tequila, took some photos amongst the agave, and roared triumphantly into Guadalajara with the sun still high in the sky (and that after crossing another time zone in the wrong direction).

We found the hotel without a hitch, checked in, and decided we should check up on the rest of the gang. Much to our surprise, when we called the Westin Regina resort in Puerto Vallarta to see when they had checked out, we were connected to their room and Jim answered the phone. It seems the road along the coast to Puerto Vallarta the day before had kicked their butts and they turned a two-room/one-night stay into a one-room/two-night stay in order to recuperate. (We think they just couldn't resist the warm waters and the 5-swimming pools.) Jim promised they would leave their tropical paradise in the morning and make it to Guadalajara by the end of the day.

Grateful for the chance to stay in Guadalajara an extra day to recuperate from our two hair-raising days of Mexican roads, we went out into the fresh night and sampled a little of the city. Since it was Sunday and not a lot was happening, we went into the center of town to the old town squares and walked around amongst the locals. It was a mellow end to a long day and the soft beds of the hotel welcomed us warmly.

Miles - 338

(This entry was sent from the Universidad Autonoma de Guadalajara. Thank you to Jorge Covarrubias.)