Hola!

Okay not a big riding day or two but boy did we have fun. Last night at the internet cafe we flat took over the place. Every computer there had the Trail Rider web site on it and every one was checking out the photos.

While Chuck was down loading photos, I drew up a buisness card that you might have seen on the opening page of the web site. The worker there scanned them, and made copies of them and I cut them out on the paper cutter. So now we have official business cards to pass out, we have run out of my Trail Rider stickers and cards, so we had to take it into our own hands, pretty nice huh?

So we also answered about 40 emails, copied photos from the camera to the web site. Down loaded photos on to a disk, all kinds of stuff, I was there for hours, still in my boots and gear. Chuck went up town and brought back a bunch of little tacos and roasted onions, it was a good dinner and under $5! So see a small donation can really help us.

Speaking of donations, Len, the man behind the curtin, our web master, was able to get a pay pal account for us (see the Mexico Trip Photo Gallery) and we have been getting donations from all over, people I don’t even know. (and maybe that’s why they are sending us money! They don’t know me! Haha)

The internet place was really fun last night and we hope you all enjoyed the photo of my new hair cut, thanks Chuck, I guess it’s all fair, I slam him, he slams me. We are really having a good time. I can not think of too many other people I could do this tour with. Really, would being fed dog and having no toilet seat apeal to you? Chuck takes it all in stride and we just laugh it off.

We have finally arrived at our destination, we are at the town at the base of the climb up to Cueve Cheve, I’d tell you the name but can’t pronounce it so just know we are here. Tomorrow we climb up a red dirt road to the cave entrance. Chuck is out on the square right now trying to find infromation on the route, do we need a guide? Stuff like that. So we have made it a lot further than I ever dreamed. What has it been 11 or 12 days of hard riding? Any how the tempo has changed, we are now here and can relax. The pace was much more relaxed today and we got a really nice room, before dark, for about $22 American, so see a small donation to the pay pal account can really make a differance. I hate to keep harping on the money, but…..

So today we rode into the KTM dealer in Oaxcaxa, Super Moto KTM, what a cool scene. We drove right to the place, well with in a few blocks and a cabbie gave us the last instructions so that part was easy. We whipped the big bikes up on the curb and soon every one had come out to see us. Chuck needed some tires and my subframe had broken from too many speed bumps.

The speed bumps are in every town to slow traffic, that’s where we make the best time, we can pass a whole line of cars and get a “Sweet Jump” (to quote Napolian Dynomite) off each one. Some are huge, some are just lines painted on the road. It would tear a car in half to hit one fast so we just rip them up. I suppose that{s what tore my sub frame up, or it might have been the 4 days of hard road around Copper Canyon, Chuck thinks it{s because my butt is so big……

So back at the shop, the mechanic, who they claimed his name was Bitch, looked under and said he could fix it, and right away too! The bike was wheeled in to the service department and a team of mechanics tore into it, seat, fender, side panels, all the stuff, then they fabricated some brackets, welded it all up, even sprayed it with silver paint and wrapped it up in just a couple of hours. Way cool, thank you Bitch!

Chuck found a front tire to buy and another whole crew tore into his bike and soon we left on a couple of scooters to go see the sights and get lunch. We went to the museum to see this releic they had recovered from the Cave we are soon to visit. So we went to see it, guess what? Wrong musemum! My fault, I got Oaxacaxa Oaxacaxa, confused with the name of the state being Oaxacaxa, imagine that. Any how the lady got a good laugh at our ignorance, I just shrugged it off, gave her one of our home made business cards and went to lunch.

Chuck got a step through and killed it at a stop light trying to do a wheelie and could not get it started, pretty funny. MX champ pushing a step through to the curb. Soon he was on the gas and we drove around for a while, the church and museum were beautiful and would be a great place to spend an afternoon if we were not needed back at the KTM shop.

I had told the owner of the shop who Chuck was, you know MX star, bla bla bla. The owner was impressed, as he should well be, Chuck did the deed in his day MX des Nations Champ? Pretty lofty titles, so the boss thought Chuck was cool. Then I had given him one of my cool Trail Rider cards with my title of National Affairs Editor and all the stuff, so the boss figured he had some celebs in the house.

When we got back from our scooter ride? Both bikes were ready and washed. Plus….. This is going to kill you…. Ready? The televison reporters were there and we both got to do an interview to be shown to thousands of non english speaking viewers. Hard to look dumb when they can’t understand a word you are saying! It was too cool, we laughed for a good while. Lots of photos were taken of the crew and the work done and us and the bikes, it was a wonderful experience and some of the shops from home should learn from the level of customer service we recived.

The best part of the visit the bill was quite low, and the funniest part? At least to Chuck was: His tire was put on MY credit card! How funny is that?

So now we are getting ready to go to dinner, I hope to have a report and some photos from the cave tomorrow, we are going to dinner now. Keep those cards and letters coming, it ain’t a party unless every one is invited.

Carlos and Carlos