Back to Skool !

  Back to Skool ! 20/11/11.

  Morelia was a comfortable place to be, we stayed longer than anticipated. This was partly due to Revolution celebrations and we had also befriended Thomas, a lone Austrian traveller. Thomas kept us amused for hours, he was a good entertainer, and like us there was no strict time schedule to spoil the fun. The Mexican music bar just around the corner and the two for one bar not so far away made for easy life. I am not sure who was providing the entertainment in the music bar, as we were the only Gringo’s there, we did eventually get the band to play some good old rock and roll in end and the joint rocked the joint so to speak. West meets Mexico!

  Argentina is a long way off, and the need to expand the language knowledge becomes very apparent. It’s ok in big cities; there is always someone who can speak English, but you cannot live on ham and eggs, so the decision has been made to teach and old dog new tricks. San Miguel del Allende is the city to be, language schools in abundance. It’s only 140miles north East of Morelia, and we are in to the hostels at the moment with an address to be found in San Miguel.

 I was just enjoying the moment of the warm afternoon air as we cruised towards San Miguel, having one of those every thing is good moments and the bike without any warning just died on me. Not even a cough or a chug, just plain dead. Hoping that the fuel tank has run onto reserve I turn the tap hoping for some response, as there is an articulated truck approaching fast from behind. Fiddling with the keys and other possible switches did nothing to awake the dead engine; I dived off the highway on to the verge a came to a silent rest by the roadside. Just to test I thumbed the starter button hoping for instant life, but there was none. I know a dead engine for sure, by now my mate has disappeared out of sight. You never want to have to retrieve the toolkit, so consequently it is well buried on the bike. I had already resigned myself to the fact that I am going to have to remove the entire luggage to get to the toolkit, so I start by removing my riding clothes as it is still very warm made even warmer by a little stress. I poked the starter button one more time, just in case! I knew it was a waste of time, but you just have to. It was not a fuel problem; there was a good flow from the removed pipe, so it has to be an electrical fault, but to get to the all important parts the tank has to be removed. Feeling fairly miserable at fiddling with the spaghetti like wiring, I stabbed the starter button one more time in the hope for life. Nope, still dead. I am now wishing that I had disabled the safety circuits on the bike when I checked it over at the start of the journey, as with a little cunning it can all be disabled. I am hoping at this moment in time that I will be missed by my mate, he has a parts manual in his panniers, although I have a copy on a PDF file it is going to be difficult to read on the roadside in bright sunlight. Often electrical faults are simple, finding them is the difficult part, so stabbing the button one more time was the easy option, and as if nothing had happened my now untrustworthy steed thumped into life. We were getting along just fine, up until that moment. The relationship has taken a step backwards, and no amount of fiddling with the wires and switches could make it stop. I guess it will be a waiting game until the next time to start the process of elimination to find the fault. And so we continued, found the hostel and surfed the net for language schools.

 This hostel was not as cheap as others, and we had to pay to park our bikes. The beds were bony and the one and only window looked into the corridor. Flid quipped “it’s like being in the ###XXXX Zoo”!!  We should have put a collection tin outside; our freak show could have earned us money!
 There were several options for language schools; we stomped around town, found a better cheaper accommodation and no less the Prof. Ricardo Ruiz, teacher of Spanish within the court yard of the hotel. Perfect, all was good, we signed up for a three hour lesson, starting at 1600 hrs, by 1800 the eyes had glazed over, Just like French lessons of yester year! We reduced the future lessons to two hour sessions to fit our attention span,and at the time it became apparent that Ricardo was struggling too, as he popped pills and messed up the alphabet and pondered the next move. At this moment in time, after the lesson the hot topic was have we chosen a fake? It would be easy to produce the required poster with all the qualifications from the internet. One more chance we would give Ricardo we decided, or it will be the end. The following lesson saved the day, mornings are best and after all, and Ricardo's snails pace suited the learning capabilities of his class. I would guess that Ricardo was recovering from a Stroke or similar illness, he is a lovely man with a heart of gold and being still able to teach his profession obviously made his day, and with the wages earned he afforded himself a new hair cut. Judging by the squinting at the text books, our man was also in need of some reading glasses, so as a parting gesture I gave him my spare pair. He was truly grateful. I now have a very basic understanding of Spanish, I just have to remember it somehow! I would be happy with one word remembered per day!!!! By Christmas I may have a useful vocabulary.

San Miguel Cathedral

El Jardin,the central square. 

 San Miguel de Allende is a very well preserved city, and feels free and easy and is loved by the Mexicans who live here. It is a world national heritage site, so worth a look if you ever want to nip out. It was easy to stay five days, you get to remember the streets and the best places to go and buy the cheapest and best food and essentials. We survived here on £20.00 a day, and that included Spanish lesson, each that is.

Every day market on the square.

Side street from the square

The swing doors of a dodgy bar. No broken teeth or bullet holes, let's have a look.

After the initial silence, the band played on !!That is the beer stash behind the Amigo.

Broken cistern the result of a good punch up! You dip the paint pot in the adjacent  45 gallon drum for water,but alas it was empty.

 The name of the game is adventure, and the thrill depletes when stationary so the need to move on and step away from the comfort zone is a necessary task that has to be done. On the morning of departure the clouds were building and the wind was blowing, not an encouraging sight, so it was an easy decision to stay one more day rather than get wet. The intended direction is to Veracruz on the East coast and reading the map leads to uneasy decisions, as there is no straight forward route to Veracruz on the main highways that avoids Mexico City and paying tolls. The map is unclear as to which roads incur tolls so a food sortie was planned instead of dealing with the immediate problem.

 At times familiar food is missed, a Sunday roast would satisfy the yearning but it would be a hard task here, so the only option with a frying pan is an omelette, we stocked up from the market and produced a massive gut wrenching eight egg slug-of-a-dish. The plastic plate could hardly handle the load, flexing without support, a beer assisted the decent to the stomach where it laid a little heavy for the night. Not for my mate though, like a Greyhound out of the trap, a sprint to the bathroom on several occasions was most urgent!

 Feeling a little lethargic we heaved the bikes out or their parking space in the corner of the courtyard garden and carefully threaded them through the glass panelled door and garden divide. With even more caution we carefully navigated past the parked cars in the car port. Many eyes were watching, probably due to the flower pot incident when parking the bikes a week a go.

San Miguel from the high road.

 We have a route planned; the quickest way is via the highway and the toll roads, and to circumnavigate Mexico City. Much advice has been offered regarding Mexico City, best avoid we were told. Mexico City is the second largest city in the western hemisphere, with a population of twenty one million. Like a moth drawn towards lamplight we find ourselves in the undesirable suburbs of Mexico City. As far as the eye can see, the picture is a sea of flat roof tops covering abstract block buildings, with water tanks on top, concrete or dirt road lined with shack type shops and street food traders, with the general appearance of a recycling compound perfumed with a struggling sewage system. The roads are jammed packed with trucks belching black smoke, and maniac drivers dashing for the exit road, none of the sign posts seem to relate to the map, so the pigeon system of navigation is employed and any road East will do. It worked on this occasion, the City sprawls a long way, the outskirts look to be very poor, but never in anyway felt to be threatening. A smile or wave would greet you when ever your eyes met, and a few words at the traffic lights were common place. It was a relief to leave the City behind, only the continuous paying of road tolls and monotonous task of slowing down for speed bumps made it a dreary experience. We fly camped that night, the temperature dropped to -5 deg C, but due to the altitude there was no frost, the rising sun was a welcome sight.

East of Mexico City, 6500, just above freezing.