You'll Be Sitting Ducks!

So said one friend, when told of plans to travel Mexico on a motorcycle with five or six others...thus the "patossentados" url for this blog.  That was actually a relatively mild reaction.  According to many, many people, none of whom, I gather, have ever actually BEEN to Mexico, the country is seething with bandits armed to the teeth with, well, with mainly machetes, the better to chop off our heads.  We shall see.  I managed to survive the Shining Path folks, during their heyday; the Pinochet regime, whilst they were busy building walls out of people; Bolivian cocaine producers; and of course, the New York subway system, among other horrific situations.

She Who Wants to Always Be Obeyed refused this particular trip, to my surprise, so I broadcast a call for suicide riders on various motorcycle intergoogle forums, and we ended up with this crew:

Me, the Loser of the Keys, the Maker of the Reservations, the One the Others Will Think is the Guide and Daddy;

Jim, a retired fella who appears to spend all his time riding his motorcycle across vast distances;

JD, who, sadly, rides a noisy Harley Davidson, and is thus destined to ride at the rear of our little parade;

Joe and Juanita, intrepid Californians who braved a snowy pass just yesterday so as to arrive in Austin in time for...BBQ;

David, and his son Garin, joining us for the first few days of our adventure, before they push on to Panama, wherein they must pass the dread El Salvador, no doubt having their heads chopped off,  as everyone knows one is a Sitting Duck in El Salvador.  David is apparently off to dig the Panama Canal anew, and Garin, a mere stripling, is weathering the employment downturn by traveling the world.

The schedule:

Day One, April 26:  across the desert from Austin to Ciudad Victoria, Mexico, the most harrowing section, as macheteros line the roadways looking for heads to send flying.

Day Two: To Xilitla, a garden spot of a rain forest mountain village: www.junglegossip.com will provide information.

Day Three:  Squiggly roads to the mystery of Teotihuacan, then on to Cholula, outside Puebla, not the Cholula of hot sauce fame, for four days and nights of base camp and adventuring.

Day...whatever is next: To Guanajuato for two nights and

Then Days next and next back through the horrid Mexican desert via Saltillo to the border and Austin.

What could POSSIBLY go wrong?  Three different brands of motorcycle, riders of varying experience, hardly any Spanish speakers, and the terrifying and frequent topes, pronounced "to-pehs", Speed Bumps of Death, placed randomly all across the country.

 As I write this, the various players are converging on Austin, trying to remember, "he said to look for the big pink hand in the front yard."

Follow along if you like, comment away, but please, we KNOW about the heads-chopped-off part already.