PAV Blog Day 18-30_2.08-2.20: Mazatlan, San Blas, Puerto Vallarta, Ramadas at Tecuman, Playa Azul, Acapulco

I've come to terms with falling behind and decided to post all of the highlights from each city!

Location: San Pedro, Guatemala
Music: Frou Frou
Feelings: I'm enjoying have time to myself to put my thoughts into words.

San Blas:
This was a small local vacation spot with very few tourists. We rode through the town to find a place to camp and ended up getting an offer from a local "restaurant" owner to camp on the sand underneath his rooftop. It was tempting but the sandflies were horrible so we found another place more towards the center of town. I had been coming down with some sort of sinus cold and had really taken a hit from the day of riding so I stayed at camp while the guys went out for dinner. It was a pretty uneventful pit stop but we all got our much needed food and sleep.

Puerto Vallarta:
This was a huge tourist city with a large enough port to fit two large cruise ships which were quite a sight to see after having been through so many small villages. We ran around most of the afternoon looking for oil and motorcycle paraphernalia. We found an RV park to camp for the night but they told us there was no room. It was already dark and we werent in the mood to find another place to stay. We talked to a number of the friendly Canadians staying there and one mentioned there was plenty of room to stay behind his camper. He and Milan went into the office and they convinced the owner to let us stay. Peter and Carole Borgman were the couple we were camping behind. Once again we were graced by the hospitality of complete strangers. We hungout with them all night and talked about life and traveling. Peter was a Gideon and his son loved to race motorcycles. In the morning they made us breakfast and coffee and wished us on our way. I'm thinking about writing a book about traveling retirees because they are some of the nicest people I've met.

The Ramada at Tecoman
This was an interesting place to stop. We were on our way to Playa Azul but hadnt made good enough time to get there before dark. We were stopped at a military checkpoint and had our bags checked. The guy checking my bags was a nervous, pimply, teen carrying a gun almost as long as he was tall. He pointed to the two tubular shaped pieces of luggage (my tent and sleeping pad) that were strapped in front of my back box as a seatback. I realized I had slipped my machete between the two and began opening the pelican case on the back of my bike. I guess he assumed I didnt fully understand...
The guys with the guns suggested we go back a few hundred feet to a road that would take us to a fishing village. You may have noticed the title of this paragraph was The Ramada, but this was no Ramada Inn. The dirt road was lined with small stick huts with thatched roofs that lined the beach for a good half mile. We passed a family as they were closing their fence and asked where we should setup camp. They offered us their Ramada which fortunetly for us was the nicest one there. Milan and I rode to a small village ten minutes up the road where they had a store. I was impressed at how much they had for being in the middle of nowhere. We bought fish and beers for dinner. We we got back to the hut the guys showed us a bucket of water the owner had brought us before he left saying, "cafe para manana". The water was filled with mosquito larve and was a orangish green. Though we all had a good laugh the gesture was appreciated.
Bean had a rough night with his stomach and had to toss the cookies a few times. He was the first to get sick to this extent.
It was such a cool experience to stay in an authentic fishing hut. This was where the owner and his family came to fish and make a living and here he was offering it to a bunch of roughnecks on bikes. Traveling has showed me there are more good people in the world than we give the world credit for.

Playa Azul
We finally made it to Playa Azul and decided to stay the night instead of pushing it to Acapulco in one day. This was another small locals destination. We stayed at a small hotel with airconditioning and cable for two days and enjoyed relaxing. Nothing special here except in the middle of talking to a local expat some local boys rode up and made a drug deal. It wasnt a new thing to see except I was sitting right in the middle of it.

Acapulco
We rolled in through a winding, gridlocked rode that took FOREVER. After waiting in line with the cars for a good fifteen minutes, our bikes overheating, we decided to play the thread the needle game. The guys took the sidewalks and open spaces to the right of the cars while I threaded the Mexican needle up the center line. The trick is to make time when the oncoming lane is open, get their attention as they're headed towards you, and hope they make room, and if they dont, duck in close to a car or open space on your right. Its definitely a move that takes precision and good timing but after 2ooomiles of weaving in and out of Mexican traffic we've become pretty good.
We found a cheap hotel and posted up for the night. We went out to a dance club and hungout with some people from the hotel. We had a good time and good drinks. It was nice to hangout with english speaking people again.
In the morning we fixed Milan's radiator fan by replacing it with a small metal bedside fan. It worked but we would have to end up replacing it again soon.

Pictures tomorrow? Hope so.