Two Moto Kiwis Arctic To Antarctic May 2012...

[Two Moto Kiwis]

Originally Posted by dr. vammen

Hi There, a buddy of mine told me to check out your ride report.. Started at the beginning and got sucked in!! 4 hours later I finished the thread. Wow what an adventure! Sorry to hear the mighty DR crapped on you.. must have had a lemon. Anyway you both are an inspriation to continue on with your dreams through thick and thin.. Great story and look forward to reading on ... Now that I have caught up..

Thank you so much, your words are truly appreciated ..... hopefully you won't get bored now cos we are in for plain sailing

..nutha report coming in the morning, we are stuck in Oaxaca due to the teachers strike blockading the city exits and down town so the place is bought to a stand still so tomorrow is a forced office day

[ciedema]

Originally Posted by Two Moto Kiwis

Likewise missing the good times but we will catch up again soon I am sure, you back in Oz now?

Luv to you both

Andi & Ellen

Sounds very good. Yep back in Oz hopefully for the shortest of times. House went on the market yesterday so hopefully we can sell it nice and quick. We have had some interest already so all good. Still uming and ahing about where to spend summer.

[Two Moto Kiwis]

Getting into town we stopped at the correct place to go to the Zoo to start with, walking through the gardens and lake along the way, the water probably not drinkable but making beautiful colours.





The Zoo, first to to say is it is FREE ... yes FREE, could not believe it.

First thing you say is well it must be crap if it is free, NOT ON YOU LIFE!! this place is incredible, well kept and great facility, I saw animals there I have not seen before and to be fair I went mad with the camera, I will bore you will only a few shots ... the rest you will have to go see for yourself.

Grizzly bear



A Busy turtle



A Lyncs, beautiful cat



Monkeys



Camel



A lion



Rhino



Giraffe



....last one, Panda bear



No more or I will bore you to tears ... but I just loved the place

After leaving the Zoo I was half spent ... certainly not expecting the amount of stuff to see and do, next stop the Museum ... yawn ... not much of a Museum fella really and given I am an insomniac I use the opportunity to go to sleep.

The Museo Nacional De Antropologia



Ok in we go, 57 Pesos each (about $5.00) so not too bad, first thing is have a coffee to refuel, secondly I didn’t need my lunch as I had a huge feed of eating my own words.



This place blew my socks off, starting at the Maya section we wondered through, the displays and setup is astounding, we continued our way around the Museo for the rest of the afternoon before meeting a friend for tea at 6.30pm.







Central waterfall feature in a single span monster roof, very impressive to say the least.





Mayan stuff



Beautiful rock carvings



Pre internet books , check out the detail















We also have visual confirmation that Gangnan Style is also a remake from hundreds of years ago ... just a copy cat

The original



The remake



The latest BMW 1200GSA



I would have to say am very impressed and this is an understatement, it is incredibly well done and seriously worth while going to, from a non Museo dude you can take that as given!!

On finishing our epic Museo visit and still fizzing from the Zoo we met up with Sean who met in Hermasillo.

Sean took us for a small tour then we went to Villa Maria restaurant for tea.





The food was beautiful and the atmosphere outstanding and fun with mariachi band singing away at full noise.



On our way home we continued our tour getting a great insight into Mexico City, a huge thanks to Sean for taking us out for tea and showing us around .... Sean, spot you back in NZ mate!!!

[Two Moto Kiwis]

Was another semi R&R day building the extra chain guard for Maya to help keep the chain a little cleaner, also cleaned the air filter and made some brackets for the windscreen.

I had to stay close to the banos due a tummy upset.

That evening was special, Chinese New Year.

Getting into February, lots of our Chinese friends start to remind us that Chinese New Year is coming soon. Ellen has to do something to show she is still Chinese so making dumplings is on her to do list.

Dumpling making is very time and effort consuming. It’s been a while since she had made any of them. Ivonne helped Ellen to get some pork mince from their butcher shop, we also got all the ingredients we needed for the dumplings.

In the making, Ellen couldn’t find a suitable rolling pin. She was looking for a solid round stick, not too big but not too small. After trying a handle off an egg beater, she decided to find something more “Chinese” to do the task.

Ellen thought about Andi’s alloy wheel bearing dolly in his tool box. It’s an aluminum stick, worth a try. Ellen got the stick out, washed it three times with detergent, here we go, got the right tool .... Andi is right “The World Is A Workshop”





Ellen always complains about me using kitchen utensils to fix my motorbike, now the table has turned, it is Ellens turn to use my tools as a kitchen utensil so yeap “The World Is A Workshop” use what ever means you have to make it work.



We had our dumplings made and cooked professionally, we had a proper Chinese meal for the Chinese New Year. Garry, Ivonne and Ivonne’s mum seemed to like Ellens dumplings, at least we found a good excuse to get us wearing the party hats and drink wine.

Ivonnes mum



Garry



Ivonne



Ellen



Me



Garry with his supercool ktm tie ... looking a tad worried about what we are going to say about him



The mob




On a side note Garry had never tried them before so was completely outside of his comfort zone and was bullied into trying them and he even enjoyed them, onya mate well done.

[cold comfort]

An exhausting schedule of cultural experience and dumpling consumption. Hard to top eh? Love the monkey pic. Looks like the aftermath of a RTW DR rider.

[Two Moto Kiwis]

Mexico City Day 5

For me it was one to get our racks modified slightly to take out the wobble, the top case wobbled a bit on corrugations and toppes so instead of waiting for things to crack I added to braces in to transfer the load.



I met Sinoe from Moto Desierto, very nice guy and very helpful and a rider beyond belief in the mad Mexican traffic.



First I had to buy a full 6m bar of tube and .5 kg of welding rods, next we had to get two 3m bars back to the workshop after cutting the main length in half.

No worries, bungied to the front and I held it up so Sinoe could ride us back to his workshop.

Sinoe had some other jobs to run so I carried on and fabricated how I wanted the job to turn out.

Maya created quite a bit of interest with many photos and people stopping to look.

Mexico City Day 6

The Pyramids And Birthday Party .... the perfect combo

Sunday, great day to visit the mighty pyramids north of the city, the main pyramid, pyramid of the sun in Mexico City is the 3rd tallest in the world so definitely worth going too.

We had a stunning day dished up for us and to be fair the crowds (according to Gary and Ivonne) was pretty good so the lineup only about 80 metres long and we were in pretty quickly.



Four of us lined up and ready to go





The stomp up the pyramid was in three tiers, good for a rest part way up and photo stop op.



There was a steady flow of people up and down, at the top of the big pyramid there is a small metal “thingie” that you can place your finger on and feel the power ... after doing that we all walked around the top of the pyramid like superman and wonderwoman taking in the spectacular views.



From the top







Finishing with the biggie we continued to the smaller pyramid called the pyramid of the moon the other smaller pyramid are all just and breath taking with the amount of work that went into them.

From the other end



Show the size of the place



Ellen on one of the side works



Mini panorama



That evening we were invited to a 30th birthday party for first response motorcycle doctor and a very nice guy indeed, there was family and friend there and two dodgy kiwis, they had mariachis singing at 110db and dancing, it was quite the bash.

The main man





Mariachis



Garry and Ivonne dancing the night away



Tamalis were supplied for the evening supper along with some non alcoholic drinks, we had taken some wine so that went down very well.

[ozrockrat]

Ha that monkey photo made me instantly think of too many miles on a KTM seat

[AtlasExp]

Less pictures please!!!!

[Ozgirl61]

Mr Ozrockrat if you get monkey ass like that , you are on your own, i shall not be helping you out........Great photos, Mexico City looks fantastic, better than i had thought it would.. having to change my mind abit with your photos..Happy New Year Ellen, dumplings looked great, you are quite the inventor....

[Two Moto Kiwis]

Originally Posted by cold comfort

An exhausting schedule of cultural experience and dumpling consumption. Hard to top eh? Love the monkey pic. Looks like the aftermath of a RTW DR rider.

Yeah it was hard but we managed .... as for the butt .... hmmmmm aftermath of any rider !

[Two Moto Kiwis]

Originally Posted by ozrockrat

Ha that monkey photo made me instantly think of too many miles on a KTM seat

wouldn't be so bad if it was orange ...

[Two Moto Kiwis]

Originally Posted by AtlasExp

Less pictures please!!!!

Less PINK for a starter

Picture is worth a thousand words ........

[Two Moto Kiwis]

Originally Posted by Ozgirl61

Mr Ozrockrat if you get monkey ass like that , you are on your own, i shall not be helping you out........Great photos, Mexico City looks fantastic, better than i had thought it would.. having to change my mind abit with your photos..Happy New Year Ellen, dumplings looked great, you are quite the inventor....

We can arrange to photosmudge ... I think pink would suit him

Mexico City is cool, you need to get in and stay a few days to get a good sample of what it has to offer...dumplings are extra tho

[Two Moto Kiwis]

Only 137 km to do, easy as, relaxing start saying goodbye to Ivonne, we had our directions nailed so we were good to go.

We had not even left town and a bus nudged our left pannier nearly sending us to the deck, it was all my mite to hold Maya up but we got away with it, the dickhead didn't even do a thing

Luckily this is all we have to show for it .... I won't show you my undies



On exiting the city and just getting onto the cuota road we came across a bad truck crash on the other side of the road, it slowed things slightly but we managed to carry on easy enough, there was a line of traffic probably 5 km long banked up tho on the other side.



Worthy of TV coverage



Thinking how lucky we were not to be jammed up in that our road suddenly came to a stand still, as far as we could see there were cars and truck banked up ... argh no.

It was stinking hot, uphill and we were crawling at best, so Maya didn’t overheat we kept turning her off and starting to move up, it took us two hours to move two km, we had had enough of that, Maya had the fuel issue of squirting fuel out of the sensor when the tank got pressurized by heat and today she was like a boy dog having a big wizz.



A truck and a pickup has collided and it was fooking mess, both vehicle out of our lanes but the lanes had been narrowed hence the monster bottle neck





Not and ideal situation, finally we broke free from the traffic and managed to cut so clean cuota road stopping at a small town to tank up tummies and Maya.

Somehow we managed to screw something up direction wise and we bypassed Cholula and got to Puebla which we didn’t want to do and on the way we also managed to go to a road where Toppes were EVERYWHERE stop ... start ... stop ... start ..... it was fun!!! so Plan B was quickly activated.

Along the way tho we managed to get stuck is a small street parade so a bit of a bonus, we had front row seats





A band



We found a hotel not too badly priced and called it quits for the day.

Walking into town to the very local scene we had ended up in was interesting, not another whiteyfoo to be seen but the locals were all smiles and very friendly and we had a beautiful feed of something not having any idea what we order other than pointing at others plates and saying Dos Por Favor (two of those please)

All in all not a big milage day but one for of accidents, 3 done, things come in 3's we are sorted now ... being trashed from heat, crashes and toppes we bunked down for a good night sleep.

[Two Moto Kiwis]

If you wondered why we are not moving now it is because Spot has crapped out.

We have contacted spot and await there response to replace it so in the mean time our block will cover were we are.

Luv to all

Andi & Ellen