(23) San Patricio to Tequila
Well, we have certainly slowed down for a while. We had 3 nights and 2 days in Puerto Vallarta, 4 nights and 3 days in San Patricio, another 4 nights and 3 days with friends in Ajijic and now 2 nights and a day in Tequila. The general plan once we leave Tequila is to make a two day trip to Mexico City.
Neil’s girlfriend is flying down and we will be there for several days checking out the sights with her. From there we need to do some riding in order to be ready to leave Mexico by the end of the month. That section is still to be planned. It has been nice not being on the bikes riding every day though. So we’re happy taking the leisurely pace for a while.
We had a pretty uneventful ride from San Patricio to Ajijic. Most of it was done at speed on the toll road. We just wanted to get to our friend’s place so took the fast route. It was fast anyway until 6.5 miles from Jim and Christopher’s house when I got a flat tire. luckily the flat happened right in front of a little taco stand set up under a nice big awning. Since we were planning on changing tires in Ajijic anyway we just set to removing the rear tire and starting the changing process. If you look back at the bike pictures so far you can see that we’ve been carrying new tires the whole time we’ve been in Mexico. So I had a brand new rear tire strapped onto the luggage on the bike.
Pulling the rear wheel off the bike and getting the old tire and tube off the rim was pretty straight forward. Putting the first side of the new tire on and getting the inner tube in place were also pretty straight forward. Then we hit the brick wall of trying to pry the second side of the new tire onto the rim. No matter how hard we pulled we just couldn’t pry it on. By this time it had begun to spit rain and the taco stand owners were nice enough to let us move all our gear under the awning of their stand so we were out of the rain. The stand owner then mentioned that there is a tire changing place just back the road from us about a kilometer. By this time it had really started to rain hard, but we loaded the half installed wheel/tire on to Neil’s bike and he road down to the shop to have them finish the job.
After a while Neil came back but said the tire shop told him it would be several hours before they could get to finishing mounting my tire. So we set back up and started working on it again. Not long after that a motorcycle delivery rider (they are everywhere down here) saw us and stopped in to give us a hand. Unfortunately, even with the longer tire irons he had we were still unable to muscle the tire onto the wheel. However, he said that he could convince the folks back down the tire shop where Neil had gone before to do the job for us. So the two of them loaded things up and headed back to the tire shop while stayed with the gear and bike under the awning and watched it rain.
Neil sad the delivery guy did some yelling at them but the finally acquiesced and finished mounting the tire for us. Neither the tire shop nor the delivery guy would take any money for their work. Neil brought the wheel back, we remounted it on the bike and set off for the last 6 miles into Jim and Christopher’s about 2 hours after the flat occurred. At least by this time it had stopped raining. Unfortunately in our haste to get moving again we didn’t align the rear wheel properly. Neil could see it wobbling back and forth and I could feel it vibrate the handlebars really badly if I went more than about 30 km/h (20 mph). I knew everything was tight and it wasn’t going to come off, so we just made the decision to do the last 6 miles at 30km/h and limp in and fix it later.
All was uneventful after that. We limped in to the house about 3 hours late, but Christopher had gin and tonics waiting for us when we got there and we knew that everything was fixable in the time we were going to spend with them. So we came in had a drink and started to relax. Jim and Christopher had already made plans to meet up with some friends of theirs and go out to dinner that night. So after a nice G&T and a shower each we packed into their car and met some very nice friends of theirs and had a great dinner.
The first full day in Ajijic went a bit smoother. What with the flat, one of the spare inner tubes I was carrying was now used in the new tire. We also wanted to do an oil change and needed to buy oil. I also decided that it would be a good idea to carry spare brake pads with us as they could be hard to obtain if they needed to be replaced. They are small and fairly light so we can carry them no problem. Jim and Christopher were able to hook us up with a driver and we spent our first full day there driving into Guadalajara to get all those spares. Shopping was a great success and we got almost everything we needed. There were a couple minor things we couldn’t find in Guadalajara. I was able to call The Motorcycle Shop in Anchorage and have them put the remaining things we needed together for me. My other son Evan went by and picked those up and gave them to Paxon, Neil’s girlfriend. She will bring them down to Mexico City when we meet her next week.
Day 2 in Ajijic we were able to have the repair shop do two more of our tire replacements and Neil and I were able to do an oil change on the bikes. Yesterday we were able to get the last tire changed, fixed the rear wheel alignment issue on my bike and take them out for a quick test ride. Everything checked out great and we are now set to travel again. It was great to get to see and spend some time with friends there and they were fantastic about driving us around so we could pick up the various bits and pieces we needed and get the tires done. They made the stop stressless and smooth. One good thing to come out of all of it is that we no longer have the hassle of carrying spare tires with us anymore. It was a pain strapping them on the bikes and taking them off every time we stopped for the night.
Today was a very short 150km (about 90 miles) ride from Ajijic to Tequila. The bikes worked great and we took some nice back roads to get here. It was good to be riding again. We decided to leave our distillery tours and tequila tasting until tomorrow. The town is jam packed with locals from Guadalajara out for the weekend now. We’re hopping things will be a bit quieter tomorrow and we can more easily check out then town then.
Despite the little hiccup with the flat tire we really had a great time in Ajijic. It’s a beautiful place along Lake Chapala,. the biggest lake in Mexico. I’m sure John and I will go back to visit one of these days. This will probably be my last update until we are ready to leave Mexico City. We are definitely enjoying the trip and don’t let the unforeseen things get us down. We’ve had no serious mechanical issues. No one has been hurt and we have had no health issues. So that means we can just keep moving along and enjoy the scenery, culture, food and friends. Life is good!
