Gomez Palacio, Northern Mexico

Distance travelled so far: 11,200 km

This is just a quick update. A full Notes will be written in due course

The reasons for the long silence since my last E-mail are two fold. First, we had to race through North America and through the north of Mexico just to catch up on our schedule. Thanks to Honda, we were quickly 14 days behind schedule. Through their incompetence, we were stuck in Fairbanks, Alaska for 12 days. And just two days after we got going again, we were stuck a further two days in the Yukon (in northern Canada). The same tyre went flat four times, the Honda dealer in Whitehorse (the Yukon´s capital) having a hand in that problem too. (I´m very unimpressed with Honda, I have to say - they´re completely useless!!!) So we had a lot of catching up to do.

Where our schedule had us staying for two nights in a place, mostly the second night was wiped out. And we did lots of long days, all over 400 km with quite a few over 600 km (which on a motorcycle is not funny!!)

But second, and surprisingly, we found that when we did have time, there were virtually no easily available internet facilities in North America, the only easy place being Vancouver. If you were in a town and asked someone where you might get access to the internet, they looked at you like you were from Mars. Public libraries (thanks to Bill Gates) were the only places where they seemed to exist but we didn't have time to search them out. Ironically, it has only been since we've been in Mexico that internet cafes have suddenly appeared. Flip and her friend Sue are flying out to Mexico this weekend and we plan to spend a week together at San Miguel de Allende, about 200 km north of Mexico City. During the day Jeff and I will be in language school and the girls will be out sightseeing, but hopefully we'll spend the evenings together. And then we'll be back on schedule. And that means, a more leisurely pace from now on. And more frequent contact. I'll say one thing - Mexico has been hot! We crossed the Desierto de Altar from Mexicali to Hermasillo, a two day trip, in temperatures of 110 degs F (which is also not very funny on a motorbike!!!). Even here in Gomez Palacio, at an altitude of 1,200 metres, we´re just coming to the end of another desert crossing in temperatures of 95 degs. Tomorrow we start to go a lot higher where it will become much cooler. Yippee!!!!

I will send a more detailed E-mail, probably from San Miguel. Keep those E-mails coming in!!!

Graham 15.07.04