The Good, The Bad, The Mofugley

Once in a Blue Moon, you’ll get a Tour that breaks the crust

and slides you into real Adventure. This is one of those Tours

Right to Left: Rob Cormier, Dan Ryan, me, Paul Furlong. Off to see the Wizard

These guys, Rob and Dan, came to me well seasoned. Both expert riders, ex racers and veterans of Tours the world over… We were excited about this trip.

They stayed at Villas de La Colina next door and we left on my wife’s birthday at 8 AM Sunday 4 April 20010

It was a beautiful, if boring day up the Pan American till we crossed into Nicaragua. We made it to Granada by 3 in the afternoon on Semana Santa…. or Holy week… Easter, for you Gringos.

Total Kilometers, 361.5 or a

Total Miles, 224.6

We stayed at the Alhambra Hotel in Granada, one of Nicaragua’s two ex-Capitals. Old Spanish and carefully preserved, this hotel and town could have been Seville, Spain. We drank beers and took naps in hopes of finding night life later. Shouldn’t have bothered, we slept through till the next morning….

Day 2, we coffied and rode to visit the Masaya, an impressive volcano not far away. So close, we had to wait for it to open….breakfast was in order. We found a place hidden away just off the highway. The food was good, the jokes corny.

As we waited for our eggs to hatch, there was time to look around. Here’s what we saw….

Taken at the Copan Ruins I presume... this one had no legs. Photo: Robert W. Cormier

Days to remember

Days to Forget

The days of war are gone but now and then you’ll see a tank with holes or a Soviet truck slowly sinking back to earth.

Eggs heading home, we ride up to the Volcano. I’m no expert about these things but I’ve seen a few. So far, this is one the most impressive. Friends have reported standing in the parking lot while boulders landed on tour bus’s around them. Today, it was active enough that a phosphorus cloud eruption made pictures imposable.

On a clear day, with a good arm, if you hit the hole, you won't hear a sound. Photo: Robert W. Corimer

Right to left: Dan, Rob and the Gash

There's a great Museum near the base. This display shows the puzzle that is Earth

On we rode ….almost to Honduras and spent the night in Ocotal. There, we had three or four beers.

And went to our rooms….

Next Morning we had breakfast and rode some of the most beautiful country of the tour. Soon we arrived at the Honduran border for a leisurely shoe shine and exchanged Cordoba’s to Limpiras. ….there was plenty of time…some lessons need to be learned by repeated failure. Crossing this particular border is best done without help from those who would, “get you through quickly”.

These boots are made for polishing and sitting on foot pegs

Stark office, manual typewriter.... one finger...good intentions...time

There’s this little dance I do on the bike as I sing away from a border… damned if I can remember it…. Good thing to keep pride small…but we got away and rode the rest of the day, through Tegucigalpa, till we arrived at Agua Azul where we spent the night.

Lago de Yojoa. Photo: Robert W. Cormier

Touring back home, I’d come across a gaggle of tourists on quads. In single file, a man at the front called a guide. He took them through a section of woods and brought them back in exactly two hours….have lunch and go out with another group. My tours aren’t like that. I try new routes…I get lost and have to ask directions. Why should today be any different??

About Directions:
Often enough a map is wrong, a town on the wrong side of a river, an intersection just a bit too far north, now impossible to reach from a back road. Sometimes a very nice two lane road will lead to a swamp or even rural corporate gates. Then there’s the BIG LIE gringos get from people who don’t want to say “no”. When asked if this road will take you to Santa Barbara, they will nod in the affirmative. It’s only when you get into a box canyon they will point to where you just came. Road signs sometimes point the wrong way. A man, born and raised in a town of five hundred won’t know where the only hotel is… The big town on the map isn’t marked on the road signs while a town that isn’t on the map is… These people aren’t stupid, just different things are important to them. I know it frustrates my customers that I ask directions so often…. But I get them home…every time.

Just About the time we were entering this “short cut” and San Pedro Sula eliminator, we stopped for gas. This is when one of the KTMs refused to start with the electric starter. Not one of us was able to kick the beast with the side stand down. We pushed till we were blue. Eventually with almost musical technique in the use of compression release and clutch, we got ‘er started. It began to overheat when I asked for directions and there were times when decisions were made simply based on how long we could keep it going. There was some gnashing of the teeth but we kept our perspective and our cool on such a hot day. Needless to say I was embarrassed. I take pride in my motorcycles.

Tired and thirsty, heading into Copan

The ride between La Entrada and Copan is always spectacular. This last 100 Km is all curves over hilly and varied landscapes. Sometimes pure virgin macadam…others on a pot holed combination of dirt and old pavement…. and the things you see.. semi crumbling little churches kept up with fresh paint and much sweeping.. wooden hammock bridges crossing the river to our left as we ride by… and “nichos” to remember family who had died along the road.

We arrived at the Copan Ruins late and found a room quickly. It was time for showers and beer. …. and dinner. I declared the next day off so the guys could see the Ruins and I could fix the motorcycle. I found a man called the “Maestro”. He was. He manufactured a puller for the flywheel on a dirt floor and we were able to fix the starter by cutting and stretching a spring. Amen

Due to a lost chip, there are no photos from an evening that I took some of the very best of my life. We found an old expats bar/restaurant as the sun back-lit our faces and the centuries old terracotta roofs behind. It had been an emotional and physically trying day and we were animated and ready for shooting…. Rob and Dan are friends now, and the banter is light and easy between us. I like people who ride, don’t you? Doesn’t matter if you ride with the Breed, carry pizza or polish your sport bike in the park on Sunday Afternoons. We all share that common thread… motorcycles

Me enjoying Motorcycles. Photo: Robert W. Cormier

Rob getting his picture taken.

Rob and Dan enjoying Motorcycles

Maybe from boredom, just clocking down the kilometers going North to Guatemala, Rob and I got into a race from a hundred K roll-on (a hundred Ks is about 62 Miles an hour) to about 150Ks (about 93 Miles an hour). It was foolish, I own both bikes…what could I win? My 650 BM beat my 640 KTM by a hair. Saddle bags flapping like a wounded duck, wind filling my jacket like the Michelin Man… hardly a serious endever….the line from a rock song filters into my helmet… “Moma told me not to look into the sun….But Mama….That’s where the fun is!!! a piano picks up a chop sitck beat and the song continues …. as we did; making time in Guatemala. I take a new route and it works! We ride up through Guatemala City to Antigua and a hotel I stay at there.

Stairway to Heaven....perhaps for a different couple....

Antigua, Guatemala never disappoints. Established in 1759, it’s been a major market ever since. Yes, that’s one of 3 Volcanoes overlooking Antigua. There are another 30 distributed throughout the country. You can see many of them as you ride.

Ancient City Lights. Photo: Robert W. Cormier

People come for Kilometers around....

Saturday Morning we’re bumping down cobble stone streets heading for the highway that will take us to Mexico. Guatemala has some very good four lane highways and as you swoop through the mountains, the heart of Mayan Culture passes by with it. Everything is carried on the head if you’re a woman. Men use their backs… Kids too…

Nothing special…stop and shoot just about anywhere. Guatemala….!

We stopped in Huehuetenango for gas and a butt break.

It’s a hot and noisy intersection where bus’s drop off passengers and loads of produce from topside. Always a traffic jam, always a cop separating them like drunken wrestlers; while deep sea foghorns blare from these 500 horsepower fire breathing bus’s making them roughly as musical as MTV.

We all pushed our starter buttons…only two started. A sticky Wicket on the best of days…. a bleedin’ disaster in the middle of Guatemala.

I don’t remember…maybe Rob’s bike did start but it was the last gasp of yet another sprag clutch gone south….this time the other KTM. By now we knew the drill and didn’t shut that sucker off till the Mexican Border. Thus, our trip changed from one of drinks with umbrellas to beers in noisy bars.

It was imposable to ignore the beauty of the last fifty Ks of twisty canyon as a dying light played shards of color against gray slate walls. We were happy to arrive in the sleazy little town of La Mesilla.

I picked the best hotel in town…one that provided security for the bikes, and we got cleaned up for dinner and a couple beers. I still had the puller we made for the other bike in Copan, so I bought the few missing tools, a hammer and ratchet and 24mm socket are not the kind of tools one carries in his kit. We set out for food and beer…not necessarily in that order…

Now I’m going to show you a picture that was not taken on this ride.  I’d just like to show the flavor of a border town in the absence of any other pictures. So please…this is just a bar Ric and I passed through long ago, for a beer.  As I remember, it was about one in the afternoon and we continued riding the rest of the day.  Y’all in the temperance committee, stand down!

A Scorpion on your hat is a sign of Manliness in Latin America….depending on who’s hat it’s on I guess…

Next Morning we sauntered up the hill with implements of destruction…and hope … at least in my heart….

We dragged her out into the light just to make her mad. Then I stripped her to the flywheel and that’s when the sweating began. This wasn’t a factory puller and it required the removal of two 5mm Allen screws which are always lock-tightened. My wrench was warn… I quick raced down to the tool store and bought a whole set for that one fresh 5mm and was soon on my knees again in the dirt… POP! it broke loose and I thanked my maker right then and there. Got the next one and pulled that sucker. Pieces fell into the dirt like the bones of a witch doctors bad dream….one that told me this was a kick start motorcycle for the rest of the trip….

We got her cranked down the hill and rode the 20 meters to Guatemalan Immigration and customs. I’m sure Rob kept her running till she was hot… Leaving a country is not as hard as entering the next. Leaving, they can see you still have the bike and haven’t’ sold it and made taxable money in their country. Half hour later we were free to ride the 4 Kilometers through nobody but the garbage dump’s country … to the Mexican border.

I raced (racing is generally pretty slow here) through Immigration and stepped into customs with the confidence of one who has done this many times. The same guy is always there and I realize, this may take awhile…. He reads every word of every document I have for three motorcycles. If there’s something wrong, he will find it ….and he likes me. He’s put on weight. I realize he plans to grow old here and retire.

“But you have a moto in your name and two in Corporations. You need to put one of the corporations in your riders name and you be responsible for the one in your name”, he said blandly.

Blandly like it wasn’t a Sunday and there wasn’t a national football game playing just across the border…. One can’t argue with Mexican authority… nor pay them or guilt them into understanding you have two customers who don’t want to spend the night in this town. So… Rob watched the bikes in the sun, while Dan and I took a taxi back to Guatemala, somehow found an attorney in a town 20 ks away… a second and more expensive cab ride away. After waiting till lunch was over…2:00 PM in a civilized country, we sat swatting flys and waited for the good doctor to type up a new document. Now with wings we raced back to the border… raced from the Guatemalan border to the Mexican border… to find the window closed and me looking at my feet.

We were told the best hotel was just down the street on the right. We went with our overheating orange motorcycle. The clerk was laying in the dirt and didn’t seem as if he wanted to get up. So we went to the hotel we were told not to go… they had rooms… one, it seemed was only being rented by the hour as an exhausted and surprised old man stepped out into the light. I insisted on a single bed and they said they had one for me….

Sparse but clean.... "what the hell", I said, "it's only for one night..."

Looking at my notes: “Rob has been huffing but is cool now… Dan is ready to catch a bus out and leave me with the bikes. I believed I had a mutiny close to happening…the clock was ticking. Rob had met some “experts” who told us we would have to ride day and night to make their plane in Texas. I knew better but at the same time we were sitting in this dumpy hotel and had a bike that was not starting easily. We ate something somewhere and I decided to take a nap. I dreamed about the kickstand on these KTMs and the reduced throw the left side kick-starter had before it hit the kick stand. I remembered this is a European motorbike and civilized countries put center stands on their bikes. Our Enduros didn’t have them.

Next thing I knew the boys were there, excited, waking me, summoning me to this bar they’d found up the street.

It was a hotel and bar/restaurant much better than the one we were in but it was too late to change. So we settled in to having beers and talking to some of the locals, a surprising number who spoke English and who’d lived in the States. It was late when we embraced our pillows and there wasn’t a sound till early morning rooster wake up.

We stood, haggard and unshaven in front of Customs, sure we’d once again be with wind flapping and bug strewn teeth.

But you know, an adventure doesn’t become an adventure till you can hear the fat lady passing gas, ready to sing… My friend at customs was off today and there was a minor mistake on the new document that would cause a revolution not seen for the last hundred years…. “Better get it fixed”, he said in his own native tongue…. Rob was able to sit in the shade and read while Dan and I took a taxi to the border and another taxi back to Democracia for a change more suited to our new customs agent. We waited while the meter ran for the office to open… In due time it did and the girl in the office had a spare blank copy with the boss’s signature on it. She made the change and licked new stamps and rubber stamped new authority with extra initials and a special blessing from the President of Mexico. ….and we were off, air drying signatures and a sense of “can do it” in our hearts… paying as we went.

So I sez to Rob, “you know, I’ve read a lot about this starter problem on LC4s and most riders agree, once you get the hang of it, you can kick start it just fine….” I had nothing to lose, I believed they both hated me and would hire airplanes to fly a banners all over the world that said, “Paul Furlong’s tours suck!!!”

But Rob rubbed his chin and looked at the bike… “and it has to be done with the side stand up…” I heard myself say… and so it was, brothers and sisters… that bitch started for Rob like an obedient dog, and did for the rest of the trip.

MEXICO!!!! Photo: Robert W. Cormier

We left at 11:30 AM and rode for eight and a half hours…almost 400 Ks. Our idea was to make up time and get back to a schedule. We stopped in Rajdales Malpaso, still in Chiapas and found a funky hotel with character. Good sports, the guys were getting into it again.

Up in the morning early, pay the bill and on the road by about eight. We did 561Ks that day and stopped in Chacha Lacas just North of Veracruz. We knew there were beaches going up the East side and the idea was to just ride till we were happy with ourselves and find a playa to stay the night.

Bedraggled Motos waiting to be snuck inside after the Restaurant closes...

Why would you put a ship... or a whale... or an anchore?

Color to Mexicans is like steel to Germans....

Notice wires supporting roof. See new second story oppening... all in preparation for high season....

A man with mischief in his heart....

His best Alfred Hitchcock impression....

It rained a lot and we were mostly lucky. It made for these kind of shots.

Off season and High season are two different animals…. like tea and coffee… there’s a peace that comes when you’re alone in a place like this….

Tranquility like this can carry you for many miles....

We woke with creaky bones and that kind of resignation one feels when he’s near the end… and humped our luggage down the steps to our bikes…..

On the last day we buzzed down the freeway headed right for the States. We stopped in this Mexican truck stop and ordered us up a meal…

We had a waitress who had a sense of humor and a meal that flat Rocked....

As fate would have it, we arrived a day early….rushing as we did, past places we might have stayed an extra night… but the rhythm was set and we could only keep moving to the beat, enjoying every moment just the way it was.

We crossed into Brownsville, Texas and gassed for the last time. There was a pregnant moment where I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to just ride to 802 Motor Sports and say, “thanks, it’s been fun”, and send them on their way. I suggested a US burger together and they happily accepted. We filed into Wataburger stood in line. I ordered what they did…and took my seat.

Doing my best to keep my swagger, I apologized for the trouble we’d had. I told them I was selling the KTMs and getting the KLRs that they recommended. I told them they had bikes to ride anytime they were in Costa Rica. I asked Rob to please accept some money I felt I owed him and he had the humility to take it. Pride is a terrible thing… The mood was upbeat as we lite our bikes off for the last time and headed to 802 Motor Sports and the end of our odyssey through Central America. Here is the last picture I took….

Fin

Later Log:

Dan and Rob emailed me afterward and said they had a good time in Corpus Cristi and went to a museum there before flying back to Canada.

I did as they suggested and bought two new (08) Kawasaki KLRs the next time I was in Texas for a tour.  What did I do with the KTMs and my BMW?  I bought an old Ford Van with over 220,000 miles on it; and stuffed three bikes, canned goods and electro domestics from Walmart with a ton of cheap toilet paper and a cooler full of power drinks….and drove it all back to Costa Rica.   It was an interesting drive….

Ford Needs a Pat on the Back for Building such a Great Truck…

802 Motor Sports, Brownsville, Texas. Good People to Deal with.

Ruben and Firelli Hernandez, the Heart and Soul of 802 Motor Sports

Meanwhile, back home, I spend my time getting ready for the next tour and explaining to my wife how much more we’ll make next time….

A Douche for the Duck

A Woman who has heard it all….. my sweet Gabrialita