Saturday, February 21, 2009

Surfer Dude from Montana, Sprockets, Encountering the local Police and living with the Neufeld’s…

It has been a while since I last posted. Not sure if this will turn into a reflective piece or a travel log. Currently I am sitting in a coffee shop in La Paz and if you purchase a cup of coffee you get free internet and free calls to home. I have just finished talking to Rita (my wife), now it is time to post…

The riding has been nothing short of amazing – today I was able to drive down the beach at 60 mph with the waves rolling in just feet from my bike. Russ was going to video this experience, but according to him the batter to his video recorder went dead as soon as we arrived at the beach…the only evidence of this experience is the sand in my boots.

As some of you have already read my rear sprocket started losing teeth a couple of days ago – this essentially grounded me from riding. So I have spent much of the last 48 hours waiting for my bike to be repaired. When one is at a campground full of folks from Canada and the US and your friend our out riding even an introvert like me starts to meet people. Surfer dude from Montana has to be one of the most interesting people I have met on this trip so far. This guy is a carpenter and has spent the past 17 winters in Baja surfing. He and his wife surface in resort campgrounds every couple of weeks to shower, by supplies and catch up with what is happening around the world.

Tonight I receive my second fine in two days…yesterday the police pulled me over for “rolling through a stop sign.” With my lack of Spanish and the police officers lack of English we soon came to an understanding…I could go to the police station and pay a 2,000 peso fine or I could give him a 1,000 pesos and everything would be forgotten…without admitting to what I ended up doing, it would be fair to say the he and his partner had beer money yesterday. Now back to today – my sprocket was finally replaced by 3 PM and I wanted to go riding…off to the beach we went. After 3 hours of wonderful riding – Russ, Del and I are less than 2 miles from camp and supper – when a truck flashes his police lights – both Del and I are pulled over – Russ ditches us…the police also notice that our “amigo” left us in our hour of need. This time I know the routine – we are told that if we go to the police station the fine will be 1,000 pesos but if we pay now they will cut the fine in half…I pull out 300 pesos and say this is all I have – the office reluctantly accepts. Del opens his wallet and the police get to see how much $$$ he has – so his fine ends up being 470 pesos.

For those of you out there who are better acquainted with the “Neufeld” insistence of over processing every conversation…I need advice 

Tomorrow we ride to Cabo…it will be a 150 mile day on the bikes…

3 comments:

  1. The harder you try to reason with a Neufeld, the more you use logic and principle, the farther from resolution you will get. Best bet? Find an excuse to go for a walk and never bring it up again. :)

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  2. Sounds like you are having a lot of fun!!!! Thanks to all those posting pictures.

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  3. Del, what is it with you and cops? Were you in an escuela zone?

    Love,
    michele

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