TECH
keepemflying
holes in the tube and folded it up to become part of the gear “for next time,” if there is a next time, On my first trip down here back in the 1980s, I suffered 11 flats as I rode across the country.
I did lose my taillight, as the glass
bulb was shaken out of the base, so no brake or running lights from behind. I carried a spare but ended up buying a slightly more powerful one in an Auto Zone. Auto Zone has really made some inroads into the auto parts industry in Mexico, and I could count on seeing one or two as I rode through the larger cities. That, along with the loose electri-
cal connection I tracked down and fixed (after REALLY tuning up every- thing in the ignition system) was the sum total of issues with the bike. It just cruised along between 65 and 70 mph much of the time. I remembered to use sunblock, since for the first couple of weeks I had the winter sun in my face all day long as I rode south, and I managed to contain the peeling nose problem to a very low level. Mexico continues to modernize; I
see changes each time I go down there. There are more hotels avail- able, both true travelers’ lodging and the by-the-hour “no-tell motels,” and more American fast food chain places like McDonalds and Burger King. One saving grace for those places was that they usually had Wi-Fi set up in the restaurant. I saw more support for computer service. When I was at the cyber-café where I sent in the last part of last month’s article, their com- puters did not have access ports to accept
the memory card from my
digital camera. I jumped on the bike, ran down the street about a mile and looked in at a computer accessories store I had passed a few times. For about $13, I was able to purchase an adapter that allowed me to send about nine photos to our editor, Bill. When the charging cord for my iPad
46 BMW OWNERS NEWS June 2016
One of the 75 or so bulls being set off in the square. The crowd of "participants," almost entirely young men, just kept getting closer and closer as the evening wore on.
broke, it was no problem to walk to the OXXO store (like our 7/11s) by my hotel and pick up a replacement. I rarely had to worry about getting gas;
there seems to be more PEMEX stations every time I am down in Mexico. The cou- ple of times I did start to worry, I was on new stretches of toll road where the “gasoli- narias” had yet to be built. In such cases, I have found that if gas is scarce, small shops and repair places will sell gas at marked-up prices. For this trip, the cost of premium gas was $13.94 pesos a liter. This works out to around $3.60 a gallon. The alternative, the unleaded regular (magna) ran slightly less. I encountered perhaps four stations that were out of premium, and one of those was completely out of gas. Most of these were encountered during the week-long holiday of Semana Santa (Holy Week) when many Mexicans are off work and are travelling. The gas station bathrooms, once legend-
ary in their funkiness, are now maintained at a pretty high standard. Just be prepared to hand five pesos to the attendant or put it in the “propina” jar. Like the natives, you always want to carry your own supply of “papel saniterio.” Other improvements? Well, just about every hotel now has Wi-Fi. You might have to stand in the parking lot to make it work, but it is there. I encountered a bit of rain. After leaving
the fireworks fiesta at Tultepec, as I was running around Mexico City on mountain highways, the storm began. After 50 miles or so, even with all the gear on, I was soaked and could feel hypothermia creeping in. I dove off the road into the next town and found a room. The next day, I took one look outside and paid for another night’s lodg- ing. That afternoon, things started clearing up, and I left the next morning, looking at the snow that had fallen on the mountains I had just ridden through. Two days of riding and I was in the true tropics, warm and humid. I landed in Merida, and this time I knew
where I wanted to end up. I easily located the same hotel we stayed at the previous year, and the owner remembered me. I rented a kitchenette room for the equiva- lent of $200 for the next ten days. The next day I rode the 200 miles to Cancun in plenty of time to locate the hotel where Susanna had reserved a room, check in and then get to the aeropuerto to collect the wife. A quick 15 miles back up the coast road and we were in for the evening. We were in an IBIS hotel, a sort of business class place for around $70 a night. The next morning, we set out back to Merida, In Merida it was hot! We hung out at the
hotel, walked or rode to several nice restau- rants, and did a lot of window shopping. We
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