Date: 2/11
City: Puerto Escondido, Mexico
Kilometres ridden:
Cumulative kilometre: 24808
First we took a couple of pictures from Acapulco in daylight.
We decided to start a bit earlier to avoid major traffic through Acapulco. All went well, we even had a look at some nice looking sandy beaches. We continued until we hit another traffic jam. It ‘only’ took us 15 minutes in a hot humid environment with all our gear on, to get through it -you get the picture.
We forgot, today was the 2nd November, ‘dia de los muertos’ a public holiday in Mexico so most of the people tried to get somewhere. We continued for another 180km before we filled up the bikes. I was sitting on my bike and Sigrids bike was on my right hand side. After we finished filling up I paid, and when the petrol station attendant said something I turned around. That was the moment where my bike just tipped, I tried to hold it, hit Sigrids bike, so in the end my bike toppled Sigrid’s bike over… Great! Bike domino!!
I was always wondering if something like this really happens. It wouldn’t have been a problem if my starter switch hadn’t disintegrated ~ it must have hit something. Below a before and after picture, do you spot the difference? :/
So I looked at the ground, found the button and the spring, hoping that I found all the spare parts. I started the bike with my Leatherman tool – finally found a good use for it, something other than cutting tomatoes and bread…
We rode the bikes over into a shady place and started to pull my tools out to disassemble the button unit. I fixed the spring, put everything together (nothing left ) and it started again, yeah! Thing is, I’m not sure why… More on that one later.
So we continued, started to look for a hotel around 5PM, the first one was nice but too expensive. Then we rode to the next town, the hotels were similarly expensive, so we decided to drive back and move into the expensive hotel – advantage wat the location – on the beach.
It had a restaurant on the side. After putting the bikes in to the reception area,
we had a short dip in the pool
then went to the restaurant. We found out it closed at 6 PM and we were there at 6:30. So we purchased 2 beer from the hotel went into our room and had our bread from yesterday (from Wallmart) and some chips. Internet was down as well, so we couldn’t really Google where we would go tomorrow, but with Lonely Planet and the GPS we found a guideline. It’s only ~100Km tomorrow, so we will have a slow start and breakfast in the restaurant.
Date: 3/11
City: Zipolite , Mexico
Kilometres ridden: 93
Cumulative kilometre: 24901
We had breakfast in the morning at the restaurant on the next property, overlooking the lagoon. We were the only guests in the hotel and in the restaurant; a bit of an eerie feeling. Then we packed the bikes and when I tried to start my bike the button nearly fell out.
Bummer! But nothing that you can’t fix with Gaffa tape for a bit. We continued on and rode until we arrived in Zipolite, after asking for directions multiple times. The GPS didn’t know this beach town. We tried to find the accommodation that was suggested by Fernando, and asked around. We eventually found it, it looked very nice and expensive. We asked for the price and they came back with 1000M$, which is the budget for a whole day. The reception lady that we talked to was from Austria. We explained our budget situation and she recommended the hotel next door. So we sussed it out and the price was only 250M$ for a room with sea view, shared bathroom and shower, so we took it. The pictures below show our balcony and the way to the beach.
I started to have a look at the switch, pulled it apart, fitted it together, but it didn’t work, I couldn’t figure out why. After a while I thought there must be a part missing. I dismantled Sigrid switch, and right, there was a bit missing, we must have lost it at the petrol station. So I organized a beer lid (hard work 😉 ) and cut a bit out, cut it to size, put it in and it worked 😀
Yippee!
We had a nice talk to the owner, why he was here and what he did before. Then we meet two Aussies, one from Alice and the other from Queensland, unbelievable! They were short on Vegemite and ask if we had brought some :).
After a short talk we went to the beach and took a couple of pictures of the Sunset.
On our way to a restaurant we saw bikes we recognized. They were Chris and Brooks but we didn’t see them. So we had dinner at a local restaurant, Fish for Sigrid, Shrimp for me – they didn’t have omelette or scrambled eggs 😉
We also tried some fresh coconut milk.
They had some small sea turtles in a barrel, when I ask them if they were for eating, they declined indignantly.
After dinner, they asked Sigrid if she would like to release some young sea turtles to the sea, so she did.
Tomorrow we will have to drive into the next town to get money from an ATM, this will be the last time were we move the bike for a couple of days. Tomorrow is holiday, we won’t do anything, great 😀
