There's Sand In My Ears...

...but now that sand is white. Since I last posted we have traded the black sand and sea snakes of Mexico's southern coast for the white sand and humpback whales mas northerly. That's right, we're on our way home. Technically, anyway. Right now we're in Puerto Vallarta with a bunch of Couchsurfers. Here's how we got here:

HASTA LUEGO CUYUTLAN

We had one more day at the house in Cuyutlan after our last talk. It's been a while since I've highlighted any expats, so I'm back one mo' 'gain with a doozy. Danny. Oohhh Danny. We could tell you were off from the start. A Canadian from Alberta in town on sabbatical. That's fine. You were towing a boat. You have (or some generation before you had) clearly achieved some definition of success. You asked us about our bikes in a knowledgable way, and coherent enough for someone who may have been on cocaine. I'd put your age at around 45, despite describing yourself as "our age," and I'd put your Spanish at infantile despite you claiming to know some. Danny was friendly, as  most expats are to awesome young white travelers, but totally oblivious to the fact that we-din-givva-fuck. He finally earned some curiosity when he jumped unexpectedly and passionately into an account of his recent ayahuasca experience in Guadalajara. Basically, it was the best thing he's ever done and also maybe altered his mind permanently. Oh well. Hasta never, tweaker.

The last thing on our Cuyu to-do was back in Manzanillo. The snorkel gear we haul with us has gone grossly underused. The whale shark was the only success we'd had with it so far, unless you count the "abundance" (couple) of fish Tim saw during his auto-voyeuristic pee break off the boat trip from the last post. Who brings goggles on a pee break? Which now makes me think, maybe "abundance of Fish" in that context was actually a clever declaration of phallic pride, in which case GOOD ONE FISHEL SORRY WE DIDN'T COME LOOK! (The sea snakes in the first paragraph were actual serpents, not a reference to that joke). This trip was to a shipwreck. And after first driving to the opposite side of town, we realized the shipwreck was at the exact same beach we had gone to for the boat trip two days prior. The 300 foot tanker sank within swimming distance of shore in 1959 and is so shallow that the stacks stick out of the water. The black sand and port activity made it a murky affair. There were some fish, but we were mostly too scared to dive beyond what we could see or stick our heads through any of the windows. The monochromatic muck added to the mystique of the ghost ship though and I had never seen a shipwreck before so I was happy enough. Tim and I swam out from another section of the beach for some acceptable enough reef action, we ate some silently protesting clams, and headed off to the movie theater.

ZOOM ZOOM BAM BAM

Options were limited at the theater given our time and language constraints, so we got tickets to Need For Speed. Any movie in English is great when you're traveling, so nobody was worried... not about that anyway... I couldn't find my necklace... I flushed and started sweating when my habitual chest fondle lacked the typical jingle, and one of the first things that crossed my mind was "How am I going to explain this on the blog? Will I even live to blog again??" The necklace has three pieces on it, given to me by my grandmother, my mom, and Danielle, all of whom make my leading ladies list. Each piece is different and irreplaceable. Gram gave me a similar necklace before my pre-blog trip to Brazil, and I won't say that it saved my life, but I will admit to rubbing and kissing it while sitting behind an abandoned building on an abandoned road, arming the taxi full of my friends with the most weapon-like artifacts I could find in the front seat for the fight to the death we had mistakenly convinced ourselves was about to go down (bootleg gasoline stop). Divine or not though, the necklace was meaningful. I gave my comrades their movie tickets and sped off back to the beach to look for it. On the way there, I creamed a bird, right on the windshield. I saw it coming for long enough to say "ah shit" and duck my head behind the windshield before I hit it. There were feathers, but no blood - a clear sign that I was to forge on. I was really hoping the necklace was still at our table and not in the urinal trough where the cross-eyed attendant had watched me change clothes and bathe with the one liter bucket of water he filled from a well.

I pulled in and checked the parking spot we had used, now occupied by a big white van. No luck. I asked the restaurant workers, who remembered our table and hadn't see it but helped me look. Nope. Fuck. Fuck you, pervert del baño. What sort of show am I going to have to put on for you to give me my god damned accessory back? For the record mom, Gram, and Danielle, I would have done a lot. Luckily a second scan of the sand next to the big white van answered my prayers. There it was, mostly buried and all sandy. Didn't care. Picked it up and kissed it and sped off. So long, pervwad! I was late to the movie about driving fast and I was in l  awless Mexico on a motorcycle, so I made pretty good time getting back to the theater and was primed for a dose of nostalgic adrenaline as I watched some money-grubbing nerd's live action interpretation of one of my favorite video games ever (sup Stu).

TIME APART

...well, not exactly. Aside from our new family, we have been social with no one. We expected to stay in hostels but have only seen one so far and it was full. We are all friends. We all love each other.  But shit. A man can't even be with himself without needing a break every hour, let alone someone else 24/7 for three weeks. MAJOR GROUP BLOWOUT. Honestly though, only one so far... not bad. We haven't separated, per se, but we found some other people.

 It was good timing and has helped everyone get over the tension hangover that results from all well-intentioned but negligently delayed hash-outs. All appears well, with the help of our current host Samy, an Algeria-born Canadian. We are with three other Couchsurfers - a couple from Texas named Soilo and Jessica and a feller named Rida from Saudi Arabia. I'm sure I'll have intimate insights (assumptions) about each one to share, just not while they're sitting in the room with me. We had a hilarious day at the beach. We loaded all 8 people, a cooler full of beer, a parasol, a boogie board, and other beach necessities. Pretty much everything except helmets because hey, Mexico. Well, sometimes. Outside of the corner store a cop pulled up with his helmet hanging from his handlebar and hassled us for not having helmets. Samy, the complete host that he is, basically just kept talking until the cop stopped playing with his handcuffs, told us to have one helmet per bike even if not on a head, and rode off. Tim rode backward to hold the cooler to the rack. Rida carried the boogie board like a sail on the back of Samy's scooter, and Kali donned the parasol like the experienced moto-jouster she is. We found what we were looking for - a bunch of amused onlookers and a sparsely populated, rocky white sand beach. HAAAAAAAALLELUJAH! We played in the waves, cut our feet, found a dead eel, and got away from our group simply by expanding the group. Gracias a dios. Justkiddingloveyouguys.

KALI'S STIFLING STEED

Kali and Tim have done an especially good job preventing any further gas dumps. I'm going to go ahead and call it petcock blocking now. Pats on the back all around. But her steel horse is definitely the Seabiscuit of the group, if I'm remembering that movie at all correctly. It's had a couple electrical hiccups over the weeks, starting with her aftermarket air horn falling off in the middle of the road. We didn't recover the horn, but Joe eventually installed a new quieter horn, at which point the headlight stopped working. Or maybe it already wasn't working? I can't keep these things straight. All I know is Tim noticed a loose key nested in the wiring and a couple days after removing it, Joe noticed the headlight working again. Joe takes credit for the repair. And Kali's bike is still my favorite of the three. It's not the sleek stallion Joe rides or the Clydesdale Tim and I mount, but it has the most character and is the most fun to ride. It's also the only one I don't get to ride. But I'm also the only person who didn't buy a motorcycle for this trip, sssoooooo....

Tomorrow: skydiving? Snorkel safari? New trip plans? We'll see.

Love,
The Dirty Riders


BERG'S EYE VIEW

-Mexico has lots of iguanas. They are big, but they don't offer much resistance under 850lbs of motorcycle, man, and luggage.
-Alex's road kill count: two, in two days.
-Joe's dead dog count: up to six.
-Aside from today's officer, the police and military have been no problem. We've been waved through every single military checkpoint, and even had a police escort on a day trip from Cuyutlan. We did worry it was a trap since they led us at twice the posted speed limit but nope, they just drive like everyone else.
-In my last trips I've had reports to make on what I've been reading but I've barely cracked 50 pages so far. I'd replace it with random facts I learn from Tim and Joe talking about random socio-political ongoings, but ain't nobody got time for that.