Kai and Bike behind Mechanics House, Santa Elena, OAX, MX

After the mechanic in Santa Elena who was to work on the bike was drunk on the appointed day, I took my bike on the back of a not quite long enough pickup truck back to Puerto Escondido to the official Yamaha mechanic – Mario (just past the Crucero near the ADO bus station).   Mario while being funny, competent and honest changed the spark plug (yes, that is all that was stopping it from running) and did a fairly complete service on the bike – while pointing out that I had brought him a part that didn’t even belong to my model of bike.

So I drove down highway 200 yet again and this time managed to pass Santa Elena without resorting to taking a bus.   The highway wound through the humid jungle with occasional sea views.  As Mario had pointed out, my front brake pad was dissipated such that I was  grinding metal on metal while stopping.   So I stopped at the Kawasaki shop in the purpose-built resort town of Huatulco looking for a new pad.   They looked at the bike and produced various completely different pads shapes and sizes.

Beach before Salina Cruz, OAX, MX-2

I continued down the highway and was tempted by the view of the sea and drove down a gravel road, through a village, and came to the sea.  It was a windy sand-swept hot plain of a beach with sand encroaching the surrounding hills. The landscape was dry, inhospitable and surreal with a group of fishermen sitting in the boat on the beach with sand blowing past them.

A further 60 kms and I was in the hot bustling windy town of Salina Cruz, a port and refinery.  A visit to Yamaha, Honda, and sundry automotive parts shops lead to one man who interrupted his lunch to get on the back of my bike to direct me to an old man with BMW’s and MotoGuzzi’s in his house/shop. He removed the brake shoes and the first fellow and I set off to a basement dwelling brake man. The brake man took one hour to put new brake pad material on the shoes while I drank some offered mezcal.   $100 pesos paid to him and I returned to the old man who put the shoes back on the brake disc and refused payment for his 1/2 hour of messing about with my bike problems.

Bike on beach before Salina Cruz, OAX, MX

PS. The Garmin GPS other possible power input connector (USB) broke before I left Puerto Escondido, so there is no map of the route…  So possibly no tracks until Panama.

Kai and Bike behind Mechanics House, Santa Elena, OAX, MX	The pirate bus back to Puerto Escondido, Santa Elena, OAX, MX	Beach before Salina Cruz, OAX, MX	Beach before Salina Cruz, OAX, MX
Beach before Salina Cruz, OAX, MX	Beach before Salina Cruz, OAX, MX