We met mama in Oaxaca

Well we made it by some miracle to Oaxaca within an hour of our mother and stepdad. There were a lot of long days riding, and we drove 2500 miles of coastline and didn't get in the ocean once, but we made it mostly in one piece. We have very sore butts, and are glad to stay here for a while. In Acapulco Eric slipped on some oil and dropped his bike which broke the clutch lever. Thankfully we had a great group with us who helped to get things fixed within an hour, which included Mario finding a clutch lever in a little shop on a GXSR (the owner insisted on GIVING it to us!) which we had to file down to fit and Marcel knowing how to hot-wire the clutch release relay. Amazing! Somehow this would not have been so easy in the USA.
The drive up to Oaxaca from Puerto Escondido was breathtaking for its beauty and lack of oxygen (went over a 9000 foot pass within a few hours of the ocean). We passed countless bicyclists riding up crazy steep hills on single speed bikes, one with a cinder block strapped to his back. Ate lunch made by a lovely grandmother and granddaughter in a large shack alone in the mountains, huevos con chorizo with freshly made tortillas....mmmmmmm.

We will go to language school for a couple weeks here now before continuing south. Oaxaca is a lovely town. Below are some pics from along the way showing the mountains near Oaxaca, the rooftop cabana we stayed in right on the beach in Puerto Escondido, and one of the many beautiful beach vistas that we drove past.

A bottle crushed by Eric's bike (oops...)

¡In Aculpoco!

The last few days have been a real adventure. We have been driving from Mazatlan down the coast and today we are in Acapulco. We spent Christmas eve in a very cool little beach town called Barre Navidad (by some cosmic chance), which had wonderful Christmas eve celebrations. Christmas was a really nice long day of driving along gorgeous coastline and through twisty (very twisty!) roads. We met up with 5 other bikers on the ferry from La Paz and have started an impromptu biker gang. There is Mario from Guatemala who lives in BC, Marcel from Switzerland, Robert from Oregon, and Peter from San Diego. It has been a great benefit to ride in a group, and the camaraderie is really nice. Yesterday Mario got ran off the road when a car went into his lane, and we all went and got him up, and going again. He was ok, but really shaken up. His rear rack was broken, and his front fork was out of alignment, but we found a long piece of rebar and we managed to get it straight again. The moral of story is to expect oncoming traffic at every corner.

¡we drove the baja!

We drove the Baja in 3 days. It was pretty much a high speed burnout. The last 2 days we drove 400 miles each. One of those days the wind was so bad it nearly knocked us off our bikes and we were riding at about a 45 degree angle in to the cross-wind. We passed through about 10 military checkpoints but were waved through all of them, no problems. We are in La Paz today waiting for the ferry to come tonight and are about to do some well needed laundry. It is a 13 hour ride across to the mainland, then we are heading down to Oaxaca with a couple other riders we met in La Paz. The Baja was fantastic. Lots of cacti, friendly folks, good food, great ocean roads and excellent camping. Last night we camped at bajio de los muertes, but the rich developers changed it to the bajio de los Sueños...apparently the bay of death doesn´t sell too well. It was beautiful and there were a lot of fishermen around. Here are some pics from baja...

Last night in the homeland

We arrived in San Diego last night and are staying with family (man, its great to have such wonderful family!) and decided to stay an extra day to test the bikes and take care of some last minute bizz. This morning we finally pulled the bikes off the truck and started them up for the first time since Portland, which was very exciting except Paul's wouldn't start. It turned out to be a blown fuse, so it was a quick fix and we were off across town to the zoo which was great. Tomorrow morning we cross the border at Tijuana and head down Baja, hoping to get about 200 miles south...and the trip really begins!

We will be updating our location on the map that is linked on the sidebar for anyone interested (hi mom!)

Sonoma

Our first stop was at our friend Josh's place near Sonoma, which was magical. He lives in an amazing little one room house that he built and his neighbor Tobias lives in an equally cool cabin. Tobias performs as a clown and sword swollower, and is a great banjo player. We celebrated Hanuka with an intense game of drinking dreidle (sorry Josh...) The next day we went driving around in Josh's 1946 army jeep which was like a little mountain goat, pretty amazing what it could get up and over. We also played around on the full trapeze set-up that is just down the trail from Josh's house. Here are a few pics:

A magic tree.










Josh's house










Josh's house from across the creek.









Rope ladder to heaven











Josh and Yona with gun.












The trapeze setup









Josh's 1946 army Jeep









Tobias the sword swallower's book of magic.









A newt









Eric and Tobias on the banjo...oh and Balthazar the cat.

The motorcycles packed in the truck

the bikes are almost ready...and Eric is really black.