Peenie Wallie

So I get up and gas up and head out of town this morning in Puerto Vallarta. On the way out, I stop by the malecon to get my picture taken, because I like to have photos of me in cool places, and I think that we'll all agree that Puerto Vallarta is a very cool spot. I liked it a lot. Way better than Mazatlan. Puerto Vallarta is more like a jungle. Mazatlan is more like a desert.

Now, my plan for today is just to follow the coast. That' been my goal for several years...to just ride down the paciific coast of Mexico, as I've already see the Gulf and the Carribbean side.

And I've picked 3 towns that are roughly 100 miles apart just so I have something to type into Waze so it will steer me in the right direction.

So I get up and get away by about 11:00 a.m. Also, there is some confusion because, apparently, I missed a time zone change ysterday. So, maybe I left at 11:00 a.m. Maybe I left at noon. It sort of depends on which clock you look at, and I'm carrying several.

When I start out of town, the road sucks ass. It's horrible. Huge potholes. And I see two guys on the side of the road with bikes and I stop and ask them..."does the road get better than this? Because this is horrible."

Like...I want to turn around and take a different route, because maybe driving down the coast was just a stupid idea and no one with any sense would even try it.

One of them says it is "mas mejor" further down the road. The other guy says "mas o menos" down the road. So, these are two conflicting opinions.

And, you understand that my Spanish is horrible, and I'm not in places where a lot of people would know English, per se. So I'm doing the best I can with the tools that I have, which isn't great.

Finally, I go with the guy that says it gets better, and I start down this twisted paved road full of potholes that twists through the jungle canopy.

At first, it's horrible and bumpy and twisty and it follows the coast and there are little hotels and lots of speed humps and just miserable, but then slowly, it gets better, and better until, finally, it's a nice ride down the coast.

When I've gone 100 miles, I'm at my first town, Chamela. There's no Pemex at Chamela, because, again, I believe I've said before....I don't really know where the Pemex stations are. I was just trying to pick towns at 100 mile intervals so I'd have something to hammer into my Waze app to get me down the coast. I got to Chamela, and if there isn't a Pemex station here, that's not a big deal. I've passes lots of Pemex stations along the way.

So, by the clock on the Honda, it's 12:00 noon (really 1:00 p.m.). But I've gone the requisite 100 mies before noon (sort of), so I stop for lunch at this little place in Chamela called La Viuda Restaurant. Again, you'll never hear of anyone that's heard of this town or this restaurant. We're in the middle of nowhere here.

But it's nice and I take off and after I've gone about 50 more miles, I get to the town of Melaque, and I gas up. I've gone 142 miles, so it's a good time for me to refuel.

Now, one of the things I'm starting to realize is that, the reason I don't track my expenses as accurately as I should, is because I'm always gabbing to people in Spanish and bragging about my adventure to Tierra Del Fuego/Ushuaia. So, again, I'm blabbing away and a car pulls up behind me, and now I'm rushed again and leave without getting a receipt.

So, I've got to work on this part, obviously.

Across the parking lot, there's a guy selling something from a cart, and I'm thirsty, and I've gone 150 miles already, so I ask him what he has, and me pours me a glass of fruit juice I've never had before. It's delicous. Refreshing. And I drink it all, and ask him what it was. and he said it was a mixture of Orange juice and Lemon Juice, apparently. I've never had this before, that I'm aware of. And it was delicious.

So now I take off again. But, it's sort of tough because, now, I've already had lunch, and refilled the bike, and drank an orange/lemonade in the shade, which is great, but now it's 3:00 p.m. (2:00 p.m. by motorcycle and camera clocks, but really 3:00 p.m.).

The ride is a really nice ride, but since the road loosely follows the coast, it twists and turns a lot. And there are lots of little towns every so often, and speed bumps. And, if you're going to ride 300 miles a day in this situation, it really means that you are going to be riding all day long. You can only go so fast through the jungle, as the roads hide all sorts of dangers. Dogs, donkeys, horses, cows, cats, hawks, buzzards, eagles, possums, foxes....lots of wildlife to dodge along the way, plus, there are potholes, speedbumps, blind curves, lots of road construction everywhere you go.

So, basically, you're going to be riding all day to get anywhere at all, and if you don't crash along the way, it's probably a miracle or an act of God.

So now, I really have no excuse for stopping any more, so I'm just hell bent for leather, racing through the jungle as fast as I can go, following this road loosely down the coast. Like...I don't actually see the coast all that often. Maybe once ever 30 minutes or once every hour. But the map shows that the coast is over there, somewhere. Just out of sight most of the time, for whatever reason.

So I'm blowing through this curvy mountain jungle, trying to get in my 300 miles before dark because....I'm not really sure why, but my theory is that if I don't go 300 miles a day then I'll never make it to Tierra Del Fuego before February.

I come to a bridge, and there is a crashed motorcycle/scooter/vehicle there. And about 3 other guys on bikes surveying the damage. I stop, because I'm human. To see if they are OK. If I can help. But the guy has already gone to the hospital. With out his shoe, apparently. He was talking on his cell phone, and he crashed and his bike is lying here on the bridge in pieces. Like...wow.

I really can't count how many times I almost crash on a daily basis, but it is several. Like...I'm shooting with no hands through the lens and almost run into the bridge railing. Or I come up behind a car going too fast, not realizing they're stopping for those fucking speed humps.

It's dangerous out there. It reallly is. Add to that the fact that you're trying to go 300 miles a day down a two-lane-black-topped road with no shoulder, and you start to see my predicament.

Now, let's consider, for a second, the situation where this is a should on both sides of the road. In that case, you have to be very vigilant. Because, if a car is coming at you, and a motorcycle is coming at you, but driving on the shoulder, then the car coming at you will come into your lane, and expect you to move over. This happens all the time. If you're not paying attention, they will flash their lights at you so that you move over, to allow them to pass.

So, you have to be watching for this. Also, if you are overtaking (passing) the car in front of you, if he is overtaking (passing), a bicycle or motorcycle on the shoulder, he will come across the center line as you are overtaking him (passing him). So, you have to be very vigilant in following the action in 4 lanes of traffic (2 shoulders and two main roads). THis is very different from riding in the USA.

So, I'm blowing through the jungle and now the sun is setting and I've been riding all day, racing through the jungle like a bat out of hell, and now, just before I get to the mythical town of Colola, if such a town exists, I come up on something different.

Now, I don't know quite how to explain what I found, or stumbled onto, but I have a video and I will post it, God willing.

Basically, it struck me at first as a long backup of traffic due to road construction. But, as I came closer, I decided that it was something different. I thought that maybe it was a political protest? I'm not clear what it was, but it was very disconcerting, and I have it all on my camera. I'll post it and let you be the judge.

So, finally, it's dark when I roll into the town of Colola. I'm very low on fuel. There is no Pemex. There is no hotel. It's the smallest town you've ever seen. Why do I do this? Why do I paint myself into these horrible situations.

I see some people on the street. "Donde hotel? Donde Pemex?"

But there's no hotel, obviously. And no Pemex, obviously. I'm so screwed. So royally screwed. One of my mantras is that I don't ride at night and for good reason. I don't want to die like the guy back there on the bridge.

So, I ask some woman on the street....Donde hotel. And she tells me that there's some "cabanas" back there and that's where I should go. Like I don't even know what a "cabana" is, but it doesn't sound like a "hotel room", and I'm not really up for camping on the beach so....

"Isn't there a hotel around here? How far is it to civilization? Why isn't there a Pemex in this town?" I'm about to lose my mind, and somehow, it's this woman's fault. Just some fading housewife on a street corner with a couple of ninos.

Finally, she mentions the "cabanas" enough times that I decide to go down there and check them out. Like...I'm not clear what choice, at this point, I have really. Riding in the day time is dangerous. Riding in the night time is suicidal.

So I start going back in the direction she pointed, and I keep stopping and asking "donde cabanas, por favor", and, of course, the people are the nicest people on this planet, and they keep moving me in the right direction, back the way I came from. Finally, I just ask a guy to take me there, and he does. He leads me there on his bike, and as I roll up, there are two other guys on bikes there already, and they're waving me in like I'm a freaking rock star.

This guy named Victor says, "Yes, you can stay here. The owner is right up there. His name is 'machine'."

So I roll up to the owner in an outdoor dining room.

"Internet?" I ask Machine.

"Yes. All the rooms have internet here," Machine replies. His English is perfect.

"Quanto es para room, machine," I ask.

"Tres cientos," he replies. "I'm thinking....$15 a night? That sounds a little steep."

I manage to talk him down to $10 USD a night. Now, understand, my private room is on the beach. I'm listening to waves crashing on the beach right now.

Then this is what Victor tells me....we will come back, once it gets dark, and then we can go look for turtles on the beach. Would you like to come with us?

"Yes. Yes I would like to look for turtes on the beach so, yes, please come by my room when it's time to go hunt turtles." Like...I'm not clear if this is legal, but I want in.

This, I think, is the high point of my trip so far, and that's saying something, because it's been a spectacular trip so far. But this has to take the cake. You go from being out in the dark, without gas, without a place to stay, and suddenly, the game shifts and you find yourself in a private cabana on the ocean with waves crashing just yards from your door, and people coming to get you after dark to go hunt turtles.

Like...this is what I came for. This is the adventure I was hoping for. This is the dream. To go from being lost in a foreign country without fuel and without a place to stay, and then to stumble onto a place that's so cool that a) no one else has ever even heard of the place and b) some guys want to come by later and take me turtle hunting.

I collapse in my bed, unsure how life could get any better, and wait for the return of the turtle hunters

They come back shortly after dark, at about 8:30 p.m., and say it is time to go hunt for turtles on the beach. At some point, I try to clarify with them...."It's OK for us to get the eggs from the sand?" Like, I'm pretty sure that's a felony in the USA. But down here, it's just what's for dinner, apparently.

But instead, what I stumble onto is the turtle breeding capital of planet earth, only no one has ever heard of it for some reason. But every night of the year, massive turtles crawl out of the ocean to lay their eggs. Then, the caretakers of this preserve dig up the eggs, and rebury them in marked locations on the beach, so they are safe from all predators. Then, they have little traps in the sand. So that, when the turtles hatch, they see a light, and scurry towards it, only to fall into a little trap. They are then removed from the trap, and released onto the beach, where they crawl into the ocean.

I got to help with this process, handling the baby turtles, releasing them into the ocean, etc.

It was a mind-numbing recovery from what could have been a very bad day.

I'm seriously considering staying another night here. This place is paradise.