Oh what a day….  We got out of Veracruz late yesterday afternoon, complete with new tires and chain, I got an oil change and some other minor stuff,  Boy the new tire makes the bike handle so much better, even if it is on backwards… Oh well, I didn’t want to say any thing, I don’t know how much difference it will make.  Just being new and round makes the bike turn better, it had worn flat across the middle and didn’t{t handle well.  The guy’s at the KTM shop really went out of their way to help us and they did a great job.  I really appreciate it and thank you very much.

So we left town and headed to Orizaba.  It was a beautiful ride,  Town stopped at the bridge and country started on the other side, it was very nice.  Farms and ranches as far as the eye….  We made it to Cordoba just at dark, Orizaba was only a few miles beyond.  Mistake.  Traffic was a snarl, the road was twisty and the last few miles took almost an hour.  Should have stayed in Cordoba.

We pulled into a motel and Chuck was showing off his ‘command’ of the Spanish language, when the man told him ‘ You should speak English.’  In other words, he was butchering his Spanish soooo bad….  ‘You should speak English,’  I thought it was funny.   Then Chuck is showing him the road book for the rally course we are looking for.  He looked at it and said: ‘Where did you get this?’  I thought that was funny too, I guess it was his inflection because it does not look funny here.  ‘Where did you get this?’  Dirt bike guy’s I replied.  He was very nice and had a nice motel business going and of course he was helpful and sent us to the what we assumed was the starting point for the road book.

The thing with a road book, is you HAVE to start in the correct place and get your mileage correlating with it or you are lost.  That is exactly how we spent most of the day, lost.  3.4 East, wrong, 3.4 West, wrong, 3.4 South, maybe.  18.5 left, nothing 18.9 possible, and that was the way it went,  We rode up and down dead end roads and wrong turns all day.  My self I wanted to go back to town and replace the map we lost a week ago.  Then find our own route across the mountains.  I mentioned it enough that I just quit mentioning it.  We are using a map that shows the entire country on one page.  Like trying to navigate the hills of Kentucky using an entire USA atlas, impossible.  There’s Lexington, Louisville, and Charleston WV.  All we have to do…..  I’m pretty frustrated with the deal.  You know, if I had lost the map, I would have apologized and made every effort to replace it, that’s just the kind of guy I am, but it’s been gone a week and no effort has been made to replace it.

Chuck has called the rally organizer and got instructions from him over the phone, we will see how that works out tomorrow.

We are in a spectacular area, check YOUR map, we are between Mexico City and Veracruz,  Cordoba may be on your map.  If it is email me which way we should turn…..   Any how the mountains are very steep and green.  8,400 feet above sea level was our high point today, we are at about 5,200 tonight.  The villagers are very shy, many run for cover when they see us.  We stopped for a break in one square and it took about 10 minutes before any one would even come near us.  I walked along from store to store and they are just full of clothes and shoes, not just work stuff either, but fashion stuff.  People would just cower when I would say HOLA.  Each village has it’s own dress code, I’m guessing these are Indians more than Mexicans.  It is very much like the places I visited in Peru.  At the head of the valley we are in there is a storm brewing, the sky is black in that direction and fog is coming down out of the hills, it is cool enough I need a sweater.

Tomorrow is a new day, I hope we can find our way on the road book and not spend another day wandering around lost. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.

Charlie