Cardenas, the city of joys and pains

Oct 17 to Oct 30

So it's been quiet on this blog lately, ha...That's because we've been quit busy in these last 6 weeks, and the adventure took its role a bit too seriously. We've experienced everything from complete horror to fantastic fun, sometimes at the same time....
But lets start with the beginning, shall we?

We were puttering along on the Cardenas-Villahermosa hwy, when suddenly I started to hear my engine much louder than before, and upon looking down, I saw oil splashing on my boots. I can't begin to explain the sinking feeling I got right there. Pulled over, tried to see if I could see anything, and hoped it was just a seal. While doing the 4-legged search, a car pulls over and a big and jovial mexican starts talking fast to us. Ok, slow down buddy, I can barely ask for a hotel room, let alone explain what's happening. Eventually he understood, and informed me that he was a biker himself, and that he owned a motorcycle shop. Wow, I couldn't believe my luck...In retrospect it's all ironic, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
He took us back to Cardenas to his shop, called a few guys, and we headed back in a pickup truck to retrieve the corpse. He also mentioned "mi casa es su casa" and I didn't really know what he meant by that cause that only happened 3 weeks later...

As before, I'll let the pictures do most of the talking.

There's our good friend "Memo", and the bike freshly arrived.

The "shop"... I was starting to have a few doubts at this point, but their enthusiasm was contagious.

We went out, and he called all the bikers, the night turned out to be a lot of fun. We got drunk, test rode each other's bikes (!) around the plaza (Caro an R1, and me a 50cc cruiser), and to top it off, at 2am, woke up the Mariachis for a good old mexican show!

We stayed in a hotel for the first few days, and then the co-owner of the shop, a lady who lived in the back of the shop (!) proposed us to stay with her. So we took over her bed...

...While she slept in a hammock

Mexicans like to hang out together and we had many meals like these

Unfortunately I got some digestive system infection, and I was miserable for a few days, eating only chinese soup. The infection also affected the stool and going to the washroom was a nighmare. Why? Cause the city (and the region I was told) has a huge water problem, and many parts of the city don't have running water. The truth is , the government doesn't care that this 230,000-people city has an old infrastructure...
Baby wipes came to my rescue....ok, enough with that.

Ok, so what's wrong with the bike...lets take it apart.

Everyone is an expert.

Top-end is destroyed due to oil starvation. The damn thing consumed most of the oil in the last 2500kms. Worse than a 60' Norton.

Here I'm talking with Kawasaki with skype telephone, on a high-speed wireless internet link. But there's no running water....
This is when the nightmare begins. Kawasaki informs me that the main part is backordered with no ETA. That means between 1 and 2 months of waiting time. Crap!!
So I posted some messages on a few forums, got a lot of replies, some amazing offers and some good information. Eventually I located a used part and had it shipped express to Cardenas.

The most beautiful truck in the world...

But while all that was happening, we were spending a lot of time with our new friends, and they each took turns to keep us very busy. Here, we eat whole fish in a restaurant partially under water (they get inundated during rainy season). No matter, the food was fantastik!

Another thing that mexican bikers do is meet a lot! Like twice a week, and from different cities.
The first one we attended had a larger turnout than the following ones, and it was actually a special event, for us the "canadienses"!

Here's another meet. Lots of hugs and fancy handshakes.

Many expensive bikes, most of the owners work for Pemex, the Mexican oil company....Also noticed many bikes were actually american salvage bikes that couldn't be registered in US. Some with scary repairs (like welded headstocks!)

And the Mamacitas, find the canadian one. It's easy, she's the only one not sticking her ass out :-)
Their pants are ready to explode...

This dude is the second mecanic that worked on my bike (the first one lost a piece from caroline's carburator while cleaning it - so I fired him)
He is also a competitive racer, with a huge stack of 1st place trophies. Marvin Sanchez.
The gal in the back is not bad either :-)

Some friends we made: He's a nutriolog, a paying job, cause there's a lot of overweight people in Mexico. He commutes year-long on his BMW1200GS.

Andy, a really good guy and friend, he amazed us on how far he went to help us. A rare specimen.

Here we went to visit some local Maya ruins.

It's like a family picture!

Some locals...

The colours have not been enhanced, it was an intense green.

Roadside repairs, everyone lends a hand (or an opinion)

Don Julio had this 1948 Indian, in a kinda so-so shape. He must have been a don, cause he also had about 200K$ worth of vehicles in his garage. But very down to earth and pleasant.

Stayed a few days at an engineer's house. Like all the houses in Mexico, it has several layers of protective grilles, that are a pain in the butt to open. No quick exit here!

This other biker, Andres, invited us over to his father's house for breakfast. I saw a bunch of trophies for endurance running, including this one: the actual flame holder for the 1988 Mexico Olympics. Cool!

The national dog, these ones were some hysterical samples...Very courageous on top of the garage.

******************* The transformation has began ***********************

The "Mexicanization"

hola gringo, quieres platanitos?

The quintessential mexican

And the first client

Cher, a cool dude, Caro got stuck to him cause he looked like her brother. At least that's what she told me...

Girls here like to pose....I think there should be limits. Pepe and Claudia (which got along with Caro very well, always giggling about something)

Very cute couple, really made for each other, Andres and sweet Sugey (always smiling, too)

Another cool dude built this contraption with a veedub engine, cool. And he used it extensively to go on trips around Mexico. Even cooler.

******************** Animal Section ***************

Caro giving all the love she can to a little stray kitten. The thing fell asleep.

Random Chihuahua in a market

And the trully outstanding Terry, with a heart bigger than himself. We absolutely adored this dog.

"Elote" is boiled corn with mayo, sour cream, cheese and chili. Awesome.

La Venta park, Villahermosa. It has a zoo, and an archaeological section with Olmec stones, very nice.

This black panther was toooo close to me.

One of those rare good shots (with point'n'shoot)

"Les sangliers"

So far the experience has been a mixed one, many people have tried to help us but made things worse. There seems to be a universal lack of logic and common sense here, but you can't stay mad at them, they really mean well and are very enthusiastic. Unfortunately it took us a long time to figure it out, in a place that was new to us and where our standards and experiences did not seem to apply.

That's it for now, there's more for the next post, as the bike's problems are far from over.