Before leaving Barra we had breakfast with “the Fixer” Thomas. This guy could be his own reality show. He has spent 5 months a year in Barra every year for the last 25 years. He stays in the same hotel we were in. He is from Chicago and has the gangster accent, “Any fooking thing you guys need you just let me know” “I’ve got people” This dude all but runs the town of Barra. He mingles with guests of the hotel like he owns the joint. We walk down the street and everyone in town waves and years “TOOMAAAAS”. We had a great time hanging with him. Thanks Tom.
We hit the road for Ixtapa and we were reminded right away why it takes sooo long to get anywhere in Mexico: Checkpoints, Topes, busses and little towns every 20 clicks or so. We had heard the next 150 miles or so used to be called “Bandito Alley” but they “have cleaned it up”. Well we found out how very quickly. 4 checkpoints and 4 searches for me. For some reason they only searched Dan once. I guess I look like trouble. These stops can be as much as 20 minutes and we stand there in the sun with our black riding gear on and marinate…. Its 80 plus and the humity is brutal. (I’m not complaining about the heat, Just telling you about it”) The first part of the road was awesome. Right on the coast, twistie and good pavement. the second half was fairly boring with no curves no view and tons of traffic as we closed in on Ixtapa. We were pretty used up after 340 miles in about 7 hours.
Ixtapa is your atypical tourist spot. Big hotels, Expensive bars, and lots of junk shops with hustlers begging for your money. I really didn’t care for it much. It was quite a change from the small town feel of Barra. We ended up at the “beer Planet” as they had buck beers. After a few we struck up a conversation with some folks from Minnesota. Then we find out she has sold real estate in Mezzeppa and Zumbro falls area. Which is where I went to High school. Were talking a town of 600 people. It is a small world…
We’ve had a couple folks mention that our “where are we” page is not up to date – we know and we’re working on changing it up a bit. In the mean time – you can hit our “spot device” page and see where we are in real time – here is the link.
Cheers!
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