Patagonia 
with Frank Butler
Well Guys,
To be perfectly honest I was not that thrilled to be going to the USA. I had been there many times before and the problem I felt I had was that that country was over exposed, it wasn't really an adventure travel location. Everyone who has ever watched a TV or seen a movie is familiar with America. The only way I could get excited was to try and weave some potential for adventure into the itinerary.
To this end I thought that I would make the Mississippi River the 'theme' for my trip. That idea cheered me up greatly.
So with Huckleberry Finn firmly in mind I started to put the practical side of trip planning into practice, I bought a ticket on-line from Virgin Airlines, as usual it was cheaper to buy a return ticket than a single so I bought one with a return date six months after my arrival date, that way if I needed it I could bring it forward but once it was expired that was the end of it, that was going to prove to be a small problem later. I organised the U.S.A electronic visa on-line, which is valid for a maximum stay of three months. I even filled out the declaration that I had no intention of over-throwing the government; on reflection I might have been a little rash there also.
I had a bit of luck arranging to get Mr Beem over there too. I called a local freight forwarder and when I was giving him my email address he recognised the 'dot pg' ending and asked why I had that. It turned out that he was a main shipper for a friend of mine back in Papua New Guinea, so he gave me an excellent rate and allowed me to use my own crate and unlike any other Health and Safety obsessed company in the UK he allowed me to pack the bike at his warehouse, there by saving me more money...his name is Phil and he runs Gulf Services in Welwyn Garden City, in Hertfordshire. He is the best deal by a mile for moving a bike across the Atlantic. [for freight to or from UK contact Phil @ Gulf Freight Services Ltd, T: 01438 840 305, F: 0871 989 2916]. We arranged it so that Beem would arrive four days after me; this would give me a chance to get my bearings in the Big Apple and would save on exorbitant storage charges.
So on the appointed day I left Sheila and John my Sister and Brother in-law on the step of their North London home and headed off on another great adventure. I spoiled myself and took a taxi to Heathrow.it made leaving them easier, there is nothing worse that humping two great bike bags up and down stairs when you are sad.
At Heathrow there was a problem...my visa was for three months the return ticket was for six months...please explain? I had thought about this and the simplest explanation was that I would travel across the States for three months then cross over into Canada and travel back through Canada and fly out in six months. That satisfied the man from U.S. immigration and he let me board the flight after I had showed him the Bill of Lading for Mr Beem...but he would have to take a few details He said that he hoped to do a trip like that once his children had grown up...he was a nice guy.
When I arrived at JFK it took an hour and a half to get to the immigration desk. I thought this must be what they mean when they say "American know how" So I got my turn for interrogation. I must state at this time it was not the new enhanced interrogation that we hear so much about lately, it was the good old fashion type of question asking...questions that they already know the answer to, as your whole life is there on the screen in front of them.
It began with:
"So Neil Francis Butler known as Frank how long will you be in the United States”?I was not angry about this blatant information harvesting or the fact that they were so keen to let you know that THEY knew ... I was bemused by the insecurity and this posturing to prove they are not scared and are in control, to cover up what very nearly manifests itself as outright panic on a national level. This view was to be confirmed a week later when the presidential jet Air Force One flew over the Statue of Liberty on a photo shoot, and half of Manhattan had to go home early with an attack of the vapours. Of all the questions they asked, the one they should have and didn't was why do people want to hurt us?
"Three months please Sir."
"What is the purpose of your visit"?
"A motorcycle touring Holiday, Sir."
As part of a one thousand days around the world trip is it?"
"Yes Sir".
" What is your profession?"
"I'm a Diver Sir".
"Oh yes you work at Walindi Plantation Resort in Papua New Guinea...oh no you currently work at Rabaul Dive Centre"
"How do you know all this Sir,”?
" You would be surprised what we know ... please put your fingers on the scanner, now your thumbs, now look directly into the camera...thank you, enjoy your stay in America...Land of the Free", that last bit was an add on by me.
Anyway an Estonian Taxi driver took me to Brooklyn, and there waiting for me with a glass of red wine in hand was Monique. Monique is a good friend of my cousin Celine who lives in Paris and she had offered to be my host for my stay in New York. Yes, it pays to be Irish and have more family than the population of most small cities. It turned out to be just as well that I had a gracious hostess, as Beem would be delayed by a few days as the container he was in had been selected for a security x-ray, at an additional cost - $50 to be exact. I wished I could have a business like that. On the other hand it didn't seem very democratic that they can just slap another charge on you and you get nothing for it...they wouldn't even give me a copy of the x-ray for my scrap book.While waiting for the bike clearance I did lots of good stuff running around the 'City that Never Sleeps' being a tourist, and when not working Monique would show me what it was like to be a New Yorker. Mostly it involves being angry and saying things like "Hey, I'm Walking Here". and complaining about the weather. We went to a confirmation party for the daughter of one of her best friends. It was a great afternoon and evening. The parents were Irish/Italian, she was Irish and he was Italian, many generations ago. The other party goers were split along the same ethnic lines so at the end of the evening all the Irish were outside drinking and telling huge lies and the Italians were inside playing poker in what looked like a scene from the Sopranos, I haven't laughed so much in years. I enjoyed New York immensely mostly because of Monique.
The BMW owners of America have a book called the Anonymous Book it is designed so that if you ride a BMW and somehow by some freak of nature you break down or have any other kind of problem, you can look through the book by State and Town and find a number for someone willing to give a hand, that can vary between a cup of coffee or coming with a trailer to pick up your bike and rebuild it for you.
I called up Jim Silva in Buffalo, New York State, because in his listing he said that he had a spare bed that was just what I needed as I wanted to see Niagara Falls that is just twenty miles up the road from Buffalo. It is not easy to call someone who has no idea who you are and ask them if you can come and stay in there house...but with the average hotel costing seventy plus dollars a night, there was a good incentive. Jim was fantastic ...it was not a problem he had a heap of space and I was more than welcome. Meeting Jim was like meeting up with an old friend...he was really easy to get along with and his girlfriend was charming. He came for a ride with me up to the Niagara Falls and showed me around, and we went for a beer on the way home. It was a good day. I stayed for two nights with Jim. He waved me off after cleaning my helmet visor and oiling my Bike chain...he was a real gentleman. From Buffalo I was headed to Chicago and I was still on the slab as they call Motorways over here, and I was getting slabbed out, but it was hard work to get off the big roads...the country is just designed that way. It's all about moving quickly.
On the way to Chicago I was just passing Cleveland on route to Toledo when the weather turned foul so I decided to stop. That night was the first night that I had to take a hotel room I stayed in a Super 8 chain hotel which cost me $76 and I had to sign a form that I would not do doughnuts in the car park or take the bike into the room, what would have be like if I had stayed in one of the cheap hotels (pic of form)
On the way to Chicago the next day I stopped off in Sturgis just to see the site of the 'Happening'. which takes place there every year when 400,000 mostly Harley bikes get together to have a few beers. If you didn't know what happens there, you would assume that it is just another small mid-west town, I had a ride around, had a brief chat with a Harley rider at the traffic light who had a cousin in Australia and then left, it was just nice to have been there.
I got into North Side Chicago that evening, the traffic was murder and the temperature was in the high thirties. I was staying with Dave Chakrabati and Gabby. Dave was a member of the Horizons Community and had a huge house that he shared with two other people, I could have the whole basement floor and use of his garage, but he would be mostly tried up doing a motorcycle instructors course so I would have to make my own fun. So I parked Beem in the Garage and got a ticket for the EL, the elevated light railway that runs around the centre of Chicago in a loop and off I went sight seeing.
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I started at the Chicago Art Institute, which must be one of the best Museum/Galleries in the country. They have more Monet’s than I even new existed...they are seriously cashed up. Then I tried to get on a river cruise, but that was fully booked for three days, so I walked around the city centre and went to the Hancock Building to see the city from its second tallest building, It was while I was up there that I spotted Wrigley Field, the home ground of the Chicago Cubs and as it was only a few miles from where I was staying I put it on my list of places to visit. Chicago is a lovely city to visit. There seems to be always something to do.
Next morning I had fixed up Gabby's bike so that I could ride it down to Wrigley Field and just take a couple of pictures. On the way down I stopped a guy with a Cubs Baseball cap and shirt, just to make sure I was headed the right way, that’s how I met up with Bob. It was a Sunday so I thought that the stadium would be closed but as it turned out Bob was on his way to a game, and he had a spare ticket that he would be willing to sell, he let me have the $60 ticket for $45 which was all the money I had on me. Then he threw in a beer and a crash course on baseball for nothing. He was a passionate enthusiast and I learned a lot. That was another good day.
I decided to buy a GPS as I was planning on staying with people in suburbs all over the place and all the regional maps were expensive and hard to get. So I bought the cheapest TOM TOM I could find, for $140 and then I went to see if I could find a Sim Card for my phone, I was told it would work out cheaper to buy a pay-as-you-go phone for $50 so I did. I was told that it came with one hundred minutes, in fact it came with five minutes and when I went back to the acme covered youth who sold it to me he felt so bad that he put ten dollars worth of minutes on it out of his own pocket, as a sorry for wasting my life...sort of thing. He made me late for my next big appointment.
I was going up to Milwaukee to see the Harley Davidson Factory. Back in 2003 or 2004 I tried to organise a visit to the BMW factory in Berlin to see where Mr Beem was made, I spent three days there being ignored and messed about until eventually I was told that it would not be possible. When I arrived at the Harley visitors' centre you would have thought that it was one of their bikes I was riding around the world on. They were the most hospitable company I have ever encountered. The tour was a delight it wasn't just like a one hour long advertisement for Harley Davidson, like say a tour of the Guinness factory in Dublin is. It was an education, and the employee car park was full of Harley's. I enjoyed that.
My next stop was to be Green Bay, Wisconsin. There I had a contact by the name of Dan Saari, Dan had been planning for many years to ride down to Tierra del Fuigo at the southern tip of South America. Then his wife developed early onset Alzheimers, and that kind of put paid to his plans for an adventurous retirement. There is a lesson to be learned there. Dan is still planning to make that trip and I have no doubt that he will, I told him that I would tell the people down there to expect him.I arrived in time for Dan's 63rd birthday party and that was a great way to start a friendship. We were to meet a few of his friends at a local bar and talk of all things travel. It was very pleasant, but we may have had a little too much to drink, because when we got back to his place we took his Hot Rod for a burn around the block at 1:00am in the morning. Next day we met up for breakfast with Steve who had made a trip up to Alaska with Dan. It turned out that Steve had recently ridden in Nepal and years before had ridden a bike from Kenya across Africa to Bamako in Mali, so we had lots to chat about. That afternoon we went to see Dan's grand-daughter play softball; she was very pleased they won, and it was a good game. To pay a bit of rent the next day I had some fun racing around on Dan's Ride-on mower, cutting his five-acre lawn.
I took the time to work out a route through the Wisconsin countryside and stay away from the slab on my way across to the start of my Mississippi adventure in Minneapolis. It was a good ride lots of cow smells and red barns that look as if they arrived in an IKEA flat pack direct from Sweden, you really do feel the Scandinavian ancestry in Wisconsin the people speak in that same singy songy way that the Norsemen are famous for. As an aside I came to the conclusion that the secret to the success of the USA in the last two hundred odd years can be put down in a major part to the fact that they had a fantastical naturally rich country to start with, the farm land is exceptional and they have a lot of it.
Coming into Minneapolis I got my first sight of the Mississippi or a least thought I did, it turned out to be the St Croix, a tributary, maybe it would be this simple mistake that would prejudice my attempts to get a job piloting a Mississippi Paddle Steamer. In Minneapolis I stayed with Craig Moll and his young lady Kelly.
The first night I was there we went out and had Mexican Food, we also had Mexican drinks, which made our early start later than intended, Craig had volunteered to be my guide on a scenic ride down the Wisconsin bank of the Mississippi as that is the more picturesque side. It was perfect riding weather, cool with blue skies. We stopped off for a late breakfast and decided to have the green eggs, just for something different to do, which turned out to be scrambled eggs with pesto and spinach. Surprisingly tasty. Then we spent the rest of the morning just cruising and looking at the river, until we came to the Dam Saloon a rather disreputable place just below one of the Mississippi’s many locks and Dams, hence the rather risqué name. It is an old Barge that has been beached on the bank on the river and sits at a rather deceptively steep angle it is basically a shithole but it does have a bit of a vibe about it, so we had a couple of watered down drinks and listened to the bar tender bullshit with great amusement. Then Craig rode with me down as far as Le Cross and headed back up the Minnesota side to be back in time for diner with Kelly and I pulled into a little hotel beside the river and went bar hoping in a three Pub town.Next morning I rode for two hours in the rain and decided that I was not in that much of a hurry so I stopped in Prairie de Chien bought a bottle of rum and tried to write up my journal, with limited success.... No success actually. I got talking to a nice couple who had come down on their Harleys to spend the night at the Casino. So that pretty much scuppered the journal, they bought me a slap-up breakfast the next day.even though they didn't win at the Casino.
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I left to go to Natchez, which I wish I had known about earlier in the trip because then I would have gone to Nashville. The reason is that there is a historic route called the Natchez Trace Parkway which runs along some wonderful country and through a series of historic towns. It's the route that the Kentucky men used to take back home after they had taken there flat bottomrf barges down to New Orleans and now it has been made into a limited access road four hundred and four miles long which sound just like my cup of tea, but I didn't find out about it until I got to the end of it...daaaam.After Natchez I made for Baton Rouge, but I got there too early to stop, besides that, this country is not a cheap as it used to be so I pushed on for New Orleans. I got a room on the edge of the French Quarter and went for a look around, I had been in The Big Easy back in 1996 and was keen to see any changes. If there were any I couldn’t see them. All the hype about New Orleans being washed away really did seem to be just that, so I asked about that and had it explained to me by a young lady over a couple of Hurricane Cocktails that it was the Ninth precinct that copped all the water and that was the place to go if you want to see mass destruction and the results of dishonest Government.
I have seem enough mass destruction and ogling someone else's misery has never been my idea of a fun day out, so I went Air Boating in the swamps instead, which is my Idea of a fun day out. 
I had managed to go from one end of the navigable Mississippi to the other and never get my feet wet, I had crossed it countless times, I had sat down beside it, I had camped beside it, but I had not once been on it, or in it...maybe my heart was not really in being a river boat captain. Or even a paint chipper. Perhaps I would be better suited to being a Cowboy...Yeehaa Texas here I come.
I sent messages ahead that I was searching for the Texas experience. I got replies from Houston, San Antonio, Willis and New Braunfels, which was all the places I had planned to visit, I got fantastic offers of hospitality but no one knew a Cowboy who was hiring, but they would keep looking...how cool is that? People, are quite possibly the most interesting and surprising species on the planet.I left New Orleans via the southern route that took me down along the coast through the Bayou and then headed northwest toward Lafayette and spent the night there, then I set out for Houston. I was coming into a city called Lake Charles, in west Louisiana which is well known for having this huge high bridge across the lake which looks like an Evil Kinevil take off ramp and it was there that I found out that I have a phobia...I am afraid of really tall bridges in high wind while riding a motorcycle.... I mean I am really afraid; white knuckles at twenty miles an hour type of afraid. But it is almost worth it for the sense of relief coming down the other side, but not quite. It would not have borne mentioning except that I had a similar experience just outside Austin a week or two later...now I can't bear even to look at a tall shiny bridge, travel doesn't always broaden your horizons. but it can tighten the buttocks.
I arrived in Houston with the help of my New GPS; I went straight to Dave G's house in the heart of Old Houston. I have always tried to avoid the use of too much technology or gadgets on this trip, I think that asking directions and figuring things out was an integral part of the experience, but it doesn't work in the States...there is no one around to ask here...you can sit at a junction and look lost and not a single person will pass by in ten minutes, people in cars seem to not see anyone, so the GPS has been invaluable for the States, I plan to sell it before entering Mexico...I still think the old ways are the best, if you want to see out of the way place or meet the people, being lost is the best way to do it, It makes you pay more attention too.Anyway I arrived at Dave's place. He had just got home from his IT job so we went out and had a little look around Houston and then went and had a Mexican meal and went on a pub crawl, we meet a bunch of Good ol' Boys and had a few laughs it was a good night out.
Next day we had breakfast Burritos at another Mexican place and met up with some of Dave's friends who have formed a Burger Club...they choose a different place each month or so and go there and score their product...why I know not...but they seem to have a good time doing it so why not. Later we went off to find Dave a custom leather belt at this huge flea market out side of town, it was just how I imaging Mexico will be...I loved it, even if it was hotter than hell and there was nothing cheap there.Dave had only just come back from a trip to South America which had taken him seven months, so he was full of helpful information and heaps of stories so we had a great old time comparing life on the road. I even had time to do an oil change and put on a set of new front brake pads in Dave's garage. It was nice being with someone who understood and still remembered what it is like to be on the road on your own.
He went out of his way to show me all the different sides of Houston he took me to see the Presidents statues that most Houstonites don't seem to know about they were made for a theme park that went bust before it got off the ground.
We went down to see the oil refineries in Pasadena in the evening which is often described as what hell would look like if it manifested on earth...personally I thought it was quite nice. He also remembers how different your budget is from when you are working to when you are travelling. We went to a restaurant called a Taste of Texas, which Dave remember as a child as being a great authentic steak place, when we got there it was more like MacDonalds meets the Savoy...it was nothing special with overly attentive staff.... don’t get me started on the tip thing...and ordinary food, the thing is the bill came out rather on the high side and Dave picked up the tab. he said 'you would not have come here except that I suggested it, so it is my treat....' It was a very touching moment, he completely understood.
But the best thing was that Dave took me to a Sunday Church Service...I went to see Joel Olsteen...this was no ordinary affair this was mega Church going, it was the best run circus I have ever seen. I thought it was all harmless and the fifteen thousand people who attend each of the four Sunday services seem to get something out of it, they all seemed happy and contended by the message. The Church is a converted Basket Ball stadium they have the gift shop the Cafe the whole nine yards...probably ten yards, it was a real experience, We got seats in the third row because I had come all the way from Australia to receive the word...I must confess I left there admiring the Bloke and his Missis they could sure pull a crowd.I left Dave and headed up to Willis in the hope of becoming a Cowboy, but it was not to be, John P was having a hard time on the Home front, as there was no practical advise I could give him. I stayed for one night and I thought it best to move on and headed for New Braunfels
I had been emailing back and forth to Scott Walker, he was not directly on my route but he was trying to find me a Texas experience...to spend sometime helping out on a ranch or something similar.
I arrived in New Braunfels after coming cross country from Willis, it was a nice ride but things were definitely getting hotter, the sun was hot from seven in the morning and had a real bite to it, so it was wear something light, slap on the sunscreen, and keep the fluids up...it was like being back in the Sahara. Whenever I stopped for petrol, and I must say at nine dollars a tank it is one of the few cheap things still available in the States, people would ask if I was on my way to ROT. Of course I had no idea what ROT was so a very jolly black woman explained that it was the Republic of Texas Rally, a huge gathering of bikes that takes place in Austin every June for four days, see . She said it was mostly Harley riders getting together to look at each others bikes and pat themselves on the head but it is quite a spectacle when several thousand Bikes come down 6th Street and not one of them with an operational exhaust system. I had to go and see this.
When I arrived in New Braunfels, Scott and his wife Janette were out, they had left a note on the door -FRANK,The air-conditioning was on and the beverages were water, juice, and BEER.
Make yourself @home back here. I've put out some snacks and beverages.
We're @ yoga will be back around 8 pm
Computer wireless log in abc123.
These people know how to make a person feel welcome. I was staying in the Back Shack, a place that Scott had just built out of reclaimed wood from an old house he and a friend had knocked down...it was very nice...loaded with character.
Scott said that he had been asking around but Cowboy jobs were hard to come by especially for a "tenderfoot, greenhorn Gringo" like me.
We talked for a while and I mentioned that I wanted to go to the ROT Rally; he had commitments but wished me well. He thought that I may stick out somewhat with my lack of Tattoos and riding a Kraut piece of Shit, but I was willing to give it a go, so the next day I headed for Austin all I had to do was follow the noise. And to be honest I did feel a little out of it...I felt a bit like a Ballerina in a Rugby Scrum I just wasn't man enough to be in this company so I took some pictures and went back to New Braunfels to see what I could do to pay my way.
I said to Scott that I would be more than happy to help him with his next project - to build a patio cover in return for a room and board while I was waiting to have tyres delivered and hopefully organising another contact to see if I couldn't get a job as 'Hop-along Cassidy's' assistant I was already emailing a guy in San Antonio..
The first thing was to put a new bearing in the table saw motor, then work out what we could do with the materials we had, it was a little bit of a puzzle to try and get the last of the recycled timber and tin and make it into something that would look right and still be able to take a hurricane once in a while, we had a good time piecing it all together and we were both pleased with the turn out...but more importantly so was Janette. 
Just as we had nearly finished the job the new tyres arrived and I got them fitted by a real nice guy Michael at the Appelia dealership down the road. He even loaned me his V12 BMW to go and get new bearings as the rear hub sprocket bearing were shot...and he helped me fit them, technically I helped him fit them as he was a bloody sight better than me at it, and he did it all for mates rates.... which surprisingly is not that common over here. Scott and I had asked around before I decided to buy the tyres on-line and everyone thought that it was OK to charge $140 for a tyre. Seventy dollars plus tax to fit a couple of tyres...well I don't need to tell you what I thought about that. Basically I bought the tyres half price on line and Michael fitted them for half price, which was more bloody like it.
Now I am off to San Antonio...Hold up there Hop-along...I'm coming.
Texas, June 21st 2009
Scott was kind enough to ride with me down to Dave Evans' house in northern San Antonio and hand me over to Dave's care in relatively good condition. Once my adoption papers had been passed over, Dave took us out for the greasiest hamburger I have ever tasted...I was delicious. Scott said goodbye and I was left in Dave's generous hospitality, we soon settled into a nice routine, up at 8:30 out to breakfast by 10:30 then off to see something or do something. Dinner out at 7:30 pm, then out for drinks and the repeat again the next day...we had some great laughs...so much so that Dave invited me down to his house at the beach.
He had built this huge Quonsett Hut in the middle of a respectable suburb of Rockport, mostly just to annoy the neighbours. It also had the added advantage that it would not blow away in a hurricane which in that area is a very good idea. We kept up the same routine down there, often threatening to go fishing but the heat was an absolute killer, often up to 40 degree celsius...so that spared the lives of a multitude of fish I am sure.Dave is a fanatical Texan, absolutely loves the place, heat and all. He even likes the police. On the way down from San Antonio to Rockport we were stopped for speeding ...going seventysix miles an hour in a seventy zone. It was just like the movies, they zapped us with the radar while coming in the opposite direction, then they did a u-turn in the middle of the road and came after us as if we were Bonnie and Clyde...all the lights and sirens going. We pulled over without a shot having to be fired, which I think quite disappointed them, as they both got out of the car with hands poised on guns. They looked like a couple of particularly well pressed cowboys about to quick draw, it was great to see. Dave got out with his vehicle papers and they stood there in the blazing Texas sun making sure that the guilty were brought to justice.
One of the officers who was your average six foot six Texan came up to my side of the vehicle and knocked on the window for me to lower it. I was loath to do so as the air-con had been working overtime to get the car down to a tolerable temperature. Reluctantly I pressed the button and the glass swished down. 'Where are y'all going, where y'all coming from, y'all got a bit of an accent...' When I explained to him that it was in fact he who had the accent, he burst out laughing and told his partner that we were all right, and to just give Dave a warning. That's why Dave likes Texas police, they have a sense of humour.I must confess that I had come to admire the Texan way of life myself...they don't mind calling a spade a f---ing shovel. They are honest, proud and forthright people, just they way I like it
Dave in his turn sent me off to the care of Lloyd ...a.k.a. Pink Lloyd. He lives in Brownsville, which is the most southern town in the United States. It is also where I had planned to cross the border into Mexico.
The ride from San Antonio to Brownsville took about six hours, pretty much in a straight line...not very exciting, but very hot and in places very windy...which did add a bit of excitement, but not really the kind I was looking for.
I arrived at the house to be greeted by J.W, who is Lloyd's father-in-law. J.W 'was a state trooper back-in-the-day and ain't no socialist'. He is a Texan and a capitalist, who says that America hasn't had a good President since Reagan. J.W tells it the way he sees it. I am sure if he had not just gotten over a quadruple by-pass he would have given me a good kicking for suggesting that Obama was the best thing that has happened to the States in years. I still thought he was a good ol' boy, not sure what he made of me, 'some kind of pinko' I suppose.
Lloyd arrived home just in time to prevent J.W from going to the cupboard and getting out his old State Trooper's shooting Iron and popping a cap in my Liberal arse...it's nice to meet people with conviction. It turns out that Lloyd is a very young looking fifty two year old who reminded me of a cross between Dustin Hoffman and Woody Allen. He also has his own convictions...he is sure that God is a Catholic...I keep thinking it's a good job that I never talk about politics or religion.
Lloyd had arranged to take a couple of days off work and take me across the border and show me some of the good stuff in Mexico, for four days in all. That night I went on-line to find some motorcycle insurance for Mexico. The prices were all over the place, but I eventually found a basic policy for a little over $130, which to my way of thinking is way too much money for a month's insurance...but it is the law, so pay up and look happy, I did, even if I wasn't.
The next day was a Thursday so at 9:00 am we headed into town to the bridge and I popped in and said goodbye to the U.S Customs and Immigration people and was on my way to Mexico. Lloyd paid the bridge toll for both of us and over we went and pulled over, went in to a newish looking building and got my one month's visa, the maximum I could get on entry. Then we went next door to get a temporary vehicle entry permit for the bike. It was all going well, too well, and then the girl's eyebrows knitted and she looked at the documents again and called her supervisor, who in turn squinted her eyes and asked Lloyd...'where the f--- is Papua New Guinea' or something like that.
He went to great lengths to educate her and explained about the round the world trip and that the bike had made one hundred and sixty crossings just like this one. She was not convinced and took the papers across to the Customs Director who invited us into his office and then read all the numbers from beginning to end and pointed out that the Model Description was in the place where the Chassis Number should have been.
We gave him some more papers and he eventually agreed that it was nothing to worry about, and stamped the form. All we had to do was to pay $29.50 for the sticker, but the sticker has to be paid for with a credit card in the name of the registered owner of the vehicle, and my card was blocked for Mexico so the transaction could not go through. The only other option was to pay a bond of $300.00 which I would get back when I took Beem into Belize...hopefully.
We went outside and Lloyd and I talked this through, I thought it foolish to give money to people at borders, this was a dearly bought opinion gained over the past seven years, but Lloyd was adamant that it was no risk at all. My reasoning was it was highly unfair to Lloyd since he had taken time off especialy to come with me and it would be churlish of me to make him stay in a hotel three miles from his house in another country. So I said if we can't get the block lifted then I would pay the money. We tried phoning England where the card is from, but they were having an emergency in that department and would not answer. Eventually I thought to phone my sister Sheila in London and ask her to do it on-line which is what we did, but the card would not clear for Mexico until the next day...sooooo I paid the cash and we will see what happens down the line. It was already 2:00 pm...Time to get on the road....