Back to the Beach again

In the morning, after not a lot of sleep (due to screaming babies, crowing Cockerels, and barking dogs) I had a go at the increasingly challenging clutch problem on my bike. I lay it down and took a cover panel off the side of the engine (actually just the drive sprocket cover) and I found where the clutch mechanism went inside the engine housing. Fortunately there was a simple adjustment point there that I was able to "tinker" with and get it all working normally again. I don't know if all bikes are like this but I'm glad mine is. Anyway with the bike able to use its full power again I headed back towards the coast.

The road was very twisty and wound up and down through the mountains for a full 5-6 hours of nothing but tight turns and jungle vines draping from cliffs and the undergrowth crowding onto the road (about 1/3 covering the lanes a lot of the time).
This makes for great riding although quite tiring and I swear I didn't get above about 65kmh for 3 hours straight... There are of course plenty of hazards and you have to drive accordingly because about every tenth corner there will be something to avoid! I have come across all manner of domestic livestock of course with horses being the most flighty and therefore most dangerous, but there are cows and sheep and goats and pigs and chickens and turkeys etc. There are also more dogs here than you can swing a good stout stick at. There seem to be just about as many dogs as people in Mexico although they don't seem to be owned by anyone for the most part and they are by far the most common form of "road kill" that I see. There are also cars coming your way in your lane and cars going slowly in your direction too. There are buses and trucks that belch out huge plumes of black smoke. There are guys on donkeys and horses and trucks just dumping piles of rubble in the middle of the road! The road is about the only smooth flat space around in much of the mountain country and it therefore gets used as a general purpose work space by just about everyone.

There are also a constant supply of speed bumps called "Topes" that slow you down for transit through absolutely every minor town (one house is enough). They are usually clearly marked but occasionally not marked and every once in a while there will be an unmarked on in the middle of nowhere that will really test out your brakes and wheel rims and suspension (and it'll remove your center stand too if you hit it too fast).

The more interesting obstructions though are the native wildlife.
Ive nearly hit vultures on several occasions as well as quite a few good sized green iguanas and a few brightly coloured weaver birds. Ive been mowing down the most dazzling array of spectacularly coloured butterflies that I have ever seen and have also nearly run down a couple of the largest spiders imaginable (The size of my hand with big hairy legs and tints of orange and yellow on them).

About the only thing I haven't seen as yet is a chameleon... but then again, that's the thing about chameleons :)