On November 8, I said goodbye to Arizona and crossed the Mexican border at Nogales. Not without a little fear and excitement: It's hard not to replay the warnings over and over in your head – the drug gangs are going to kidnap or murder you, the police are corrupt, the roads are terrible, the water is contaminated, and so on.
Separating the good advice from the xenophobic bullshit, that's the trick, no? I strapped on my panniers, cracked open the predawn stillness, and put Tucson in my rear-view mirror.
I made it to Nogales before 8 am. The border-crossing paperwork, because I was importing a motorcycle, took about an hour. Turns out, that was the last thing that slowed me down all the way to Guadalajara.
Highway 15D South was smooth, straight, and virtually empty, a very pleasant surprise. I averaged 75 miles per hour right out of the box.
It took me only two days to get to Mazatlan, and one more day to glide into Puerto Vallarta. All far faster than I had figured. I was expecting potholes, dirt roads, dangerous curves, crazy drivers, dogs chasing my ankles. Instead I found wide, empty, smooth roads for the most part, and very few other drivers. While in the cities and towns there are a lot of fast drivers, for the most part, I've felt a lot more 'exposed' in Phoenix, Arizona, home of the signal-free left turn from the far right lane.
The toll roads were definitely the safest way to go for me and my wonderful bike, but three days' driving set me back about $160 in road fees alone. And the gas is about 75% more expensive than Stateside. So my first lesson: in Mexico people pay closer to the true costs of driving a car. In the States, of course, gas prices are low so that we'll waste as much as possible, so that oil companies can make the most money this quarter. And all taxpayers pay for roads, whether they walk, carshare, use public transportation, ride bicycles, use wheelchairs or drive Hummers. Of course bicycling ten minutes to work is far less wear-and-tear on roads than commuting 100 miles via a GMC Sierra, but this is America, where cheap gas and free roads are more important than continuing as a species.
And companies like Exxon Mobile use wholly owned offshore subsidiaries to legally shelter cash flow, so that, for example, of $15 billion in income taxes last year, Exxon paid none of it to the United States, and has tens of billions in earnings permanently reinvested overseas every year, shielding it from taxation. Mother Jones estimates that this shifts $100 million of the burden for roads and road services to the taxpayer. Why is this legal? I don't know, but according to the Center for Responsive Politics , Exxon Mobil spent $27,430,000 on lobbying in 2009. That might have something to do with it. (sources: Forbes.com, motherjones.com, climateprogress.com, opensecrets.org)
I had mixed emotions – on one hand, I support drivers paying more of the true cost of driving – absolutely necessary if we're ever going to make progress toward sustainability – and on the other hand, I paid the same amount of money as a passenger car, though I was driving a vehicle that gets 60 miles to the gallon and weighs less than 500 pounds, therefore having a far smaller impact on the road and the environment. Well, at least Mexico is going in the right direction.
As for the bike, no problems whatsoever. I could kiss the Suzuki engineers. Now that I've made it to Guadalajara, I will look for a mechanic to clean or replace my air filter, and tighten up the muffler cover, but otherwise, the 3800 miles I put on the bike since September 10th have had no visible or audible impact at all.
When I was off the main highway, and winding my way through small towns, I ran into a few rough passages. Whole towns basically made of speed bumps: cobblestone roads where the cobbles were three- to five-inch round rocks, unevenly spaced, which would vibrate the bike and my shoulders right down my spine. I was reduced to riding through town at minus 2 miles per hour.
Then, there were the police shakedowns. I passed about a dozen police checkpoints in my twelve-hundred miles in Mexico so far, but only two of the checkpointers wanted to stop me. But I didn't stop. That was a thrill, I gotta tell you. First one, when the local policia waved at me, I just waved back, and kept going. I figured that if they pursued me, I would say that I misunderstood. (I can misunderstand with the best of them. Two minutes of me talking in my absolutely crappy pidgin Spanish, and I guarantee they'd think I was an idiota.) But luckily no pursuit.
The second one was a bit riskier. The police dudes – heavily armed but not in uniform – waved at me, indicated a point on the road where I was to stop. It was by a speedbump so I had to slow down anyway. I slowed, they said “Buenos Dias”, began approaching the bike. But it didn't look right, these amateur policemen, so I sped up and just took off. The main dude yelled in his best angry dad voice, “HEY YOU”. Like thunder, his voice. But fuck it, I know it's just a shakedown. They want it that bad, they'll have to abandon their cozy little spot in the shade, get their fat asses in their cars, and chase me down. I just didn't see that happening. With my heart in my throat. I rode as fast as I dared, without speeding, extremely conscious of my rear-view mirrors.
I made it to the next toll booth some 40 miles away, no coppers waiting to arrest me. They got walkie-talkies, if I had been in the stew, it would have been then. But nada. Whew and double whew. I paid my toll and rode to Mazatlan a free man.
Next: Mazatlan, Puerto Vallarta, and Guadalajara!
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Monday, November 15, 2010
A Napkin for your Thoughts
Since this blog is entitled "Doug's Unsustainable Sustainability Tour", it behooves me to prattle on about sustainability on occasion. I visited many homes and hostels while I was on tour in the States, and had a chance to see what actions were or were not being taken in the name of sustainable practices. The gold star goes to Robert Ray in Phoenix, who is growing veggies in his back and front yard, and is in the process of installing large, ugly cisterns for water runoff reduction and for watering his plants. Water capture systems generally have a one to two-year payback, depending on how cheaply one can purchase the cisterns and associated equipment.
The one thing glaring at me was a simple step that saves money, paper, and limits garbage production, but only rarely did I see them in use: Cloth napkins! We could put the paper towel and paper napkin (and plastic spoon) industry out of business tomorrow, but only if we cared. At every household except for one, at every hostel except for Cambria, paper napkins were being used and discarded on a daily basis.
I don't mean to lecture, but I hope you can bear in mind that one pack of napkins not purchased is a big hunk of energy not wasted: Paper napkins tend to be 80% recycled, but that is not so big a deal: the recyclables are gathered in your municipality first, then shipped to the recycling processing plant, and the prepared processed paper is shipped to the Kimberly-Clark plant in Kentucky, and the packages are wrapped in plastic that is manufactured using ingredients shipped from a half-dozen other places, and of course the 20% pulp comes from trees in another state or country, after the tree is felled in one place, taken to another place to process it then shipped to Kentucky. When the package is ready for retail, it is shipped to your supermarket. How much gasoline and processing energy is used to produce one pack of paper napkins? I am told that it's a three-to-one ratio for most “recycled” products. (Natural Capitalism, Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, L. Hunter Lovins) In other words, not buying one pack of napkins for $1.39 is equal to saving $5.00 in energy costs.
So at least consider hauling out those old cloth napkins, using them a few times before throwing them into the washing machine – if you worry about cooties, you maybe can color-code them – Junior gets the blue ones, Daisy gets the green ones, you try not to get too much stuff on the yellow ones...
And the same for paper towels – I challenge you to be conscious of your paper towel usage – can you find a way to limit your paper towel usage to one roll per year per household member? I think every house I visited had cloth kitchen towels. Don't you?
And, lastly, disposable plastic spoons and forks – I don't see a great burden in carrying real, metal or wood spoons and forks and washing them when you return home. I don't think there is a great energy loss in washing a handful of spoons and forks instead of throwing them away.
One of my friends actually defended the throw-away culture we are so used to, saying that he believed technology was going to save us from climate change, so there is no need to act in an environmentally conscious way. But you know, so far, technology has not come close to replicating what trees and plants and water and soil and air does for sustaining human and other living beings. It is important to understand that trees cut in the Amazon forest affects the amount of rainfall in the American Midwest. And each time an individual acts to limit waste at the retail level, that expands as it trickles up the resource chain. One less pack of disposable whatever is one less product, one less packing material, one less carton, one less shipping to the store, one less processing, multiple less shipping of packing and manufacturing materials to the manufacturing plant, multiple less raw material losses. All from one conscious purchase decision. That I hope you make when you can where you can.
And don't get me started on the incredible wastefulness of clothes dryers...
The one thing glaring at me was a simple step that saves money, paper, and limits garbage production, but only rarely did I see them in use: Cloth napkins! We could put the paper towel and paper napkin (and plastic spoon) industry out of business tomorrow, but only if we cared. At every household except for one, at every hostel except for Cambria, paper napkins were being used and discarded on a daily basis.
I don't mean to lecture, but I hope you can bear in mind that one pack of napkins not purchased is a big hunk of energy not wasted: Paper napkins tend to be 80% recycled, but that is not so big a deal: the recyclables are gathered in your municipality first, then shipped to the recycling processing plant, and the prepared processed paper is shipped to the Kimberly-Clark plant in Kentucky, and the packages are wrapped in plastic that is manufactured using ingredients shipped from a half-dozen other places, and of course the 20% pulp comes from trees in another state or country, after the tree is felled in one place, taken to another place to process it then shipped to Kentucky. When the package is ready for retail, it is shipped to your supermarket. How much gasoline and processing energy is used to produce one pack of paper napkins? I am told that it's a three-to-one ratio for most “recycled” products. (Natural Capitalism, Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, L. Hunter Lovins) In other words, not buying one pack of napkins for $1.39 is equal to saving $5.00 in energy costs.
So at least consider hauling out those old cloth napkins, using them a few times before throwing them into the washing machine – if you worry about cooties, you maybe can color-code them – Junior gets the blue ones, Daisy gets the green ones, you try not to get too much stuff on the yellow ones...
And the same for paper towels – I challenge you to be conscious of your paper towel usage – can you find a way to limit your paper towel usage to one roll per year per household member? I think every house I visited had cloth kitchen towels. Don't you?
And, lastly, disposable plastic spoons and forks – I don't see a great burden in carrying real, metal or wood spoons and forks and washing them when you return home. I don't think there is a great energy loss in washing a handful of spoons and forks instead of throwing them away.
One of my friends actually defended the throw-away culture we are so used to, saying that he believed technology was going to save us from climate change, so there is no need to act in an environmentally conscious way. But you know, so far, technology has not come close to replicating what trees and plants and water and soil and air does for sustaining human and other living beings. It is important to understand that trees cut in the Amazon forest affects the amount of rainfall in the American Midwest. And each time an individual acts to limit waste at the retail level, that expands as it trickles up the resource chain. One less pack of disposable whatever is one less product, one less packing material, one less carton, one less shipping to the store, one less processing, multiple less shipping of packing and manufacturing materials to the manufacturing plant, multiple less raw material losses. All from one conscious purchase decision. That I hope you make when you can where you can.
And don't get me started on the incredible wastefulness of clothes dryers...
Checking in at 2000 miles - Phoenix, Arizona, despite their politics
When the odometer read 2000 miles, I was on the 101, skirting Scottsdale, my third 160-mile round-trip between my sister's house and Everyone Else in Phoenix.
At that point I'd been in Arizona for five days, having been chased out of the High Sierras of California by incoming snowfall, and upcoming Giants playoffs games.
I'd spent three rainy days in LA, a guest at a hostel in Santa Monica, a block off the Third Street Promenade. My fourth hostel of the trip, by far the biggest one I've ever been in. Great location, but a hostel with 160 beds lacks the charm one finds at your typical hostel. In San Luis Obispo, Cambria, Monterey, six to twenty people shared cooking, swapped stories in broken English, Spanish, German and French, planned separate and group adventures, in the limited common area. By contrast, Santa Monica was a barn – so many common-area rooms that it was unnecessary to share anything with anyone.
Then my last days in California - at Lake Elsinore at a high school friend's small but active ranch. I have video of feeding the horse and goat and chickens, but without assistance I cannot upload video. The blog how has a short, short video of a bear coming at me (did I say it was short? You try holding a camera with a 350-pound predator making a beeline for your ass...)
And then the two-day trip across the Mohave, saying goodbye to California for perhaps the longest time...
The Valley of the Sun has been fun, except for the aforementioned monster commutes. Base camp is the home of my sis and her partner, in a place called Surprise, Arizona. So named because so many people say "Surprise, there's shit way out here!" Peg and Carol took off for Oahu a few days after I got to Phoenix. Now it's just me and JibC, a wary golden-brown Sharpei. I finally won her affection by taking her for walks, a luxury not often afforded the energetic pooch, given the sedentary ways of her owner.
In Phoenix, I had a chance to visit another high school friend in the hospital and at home. The second visit, to his house, was something of an ambush. Between the invitation and the event, the guest list expanded from two to five, and Bob, still recovering from surgery, a follow-up to a decades-ago bicycle accident, seemed a bit overwhelmed. Sorry about that, Bob. If it's any consolation, we were really there for the World Series game ;-), a battle of number three pitchers that resulted in the Ranger's only victory. Otherwise the Series was a fantastic, dominating series by the Orange and Black, the best possible end to a fun and wild and highly dramatic season, full of dead-on pitching and just enough hitting, peppered with the occasional one-run heartbreaker.
As the Sierra camping was the high-point of the trip so far, the nadir to date was this Wednesday night, which was spent in violent regurgitation – salad and pizza and beer – some kind of food poisoning, I guess. Earlier this year, I had intestinal surgery, clearing out a blockage that stopped me from eating “hard” foods like nuts and popcorn for over 15 years. I'd had the pleasure of having my stomach pumped about once every three years; this surgery was supposed to clear out the problem for good. In theory, I would never again be retching on the bathroom floor for eight hours straight, waiting for daylight and a ride to the ER.
So as I was retching on the bathroom floor for eight hours that night, I was strangely comforted by the fact that 1.) no one was coming home any time soon, so there would be no ride to the ER this time and 2.) I let my American insurance lapse and my International (exclusive of the States) medical insurance wouldn't kick in until I crossed the border, some 250 miles away... (A Side Note: My COBRA benefits – mediocre coverage from Cigna that forces you to fight for every claim – costs me $650 per month, whereas my much more comprehensive International insurance is $180 for six months. But there's nothing wrong with the American health care system, nosiree...)
Anyway, I stopped throwing up, and 12 hours later I began sipping juice and eating jello. Within 24 hours I had lost 5 pounds (since regained) and wallowed in enough self-pity to last a lifetime. I never did pinpoint the culprit. One hopes there is not a new blockage, an occasional byproduct of the blockage-removal surgery.
Once I felt strong enough, I said goodbye to JibC the sharpei in Phoenix and hello to Abigail the needy dachshund in Tucson. Turned out to be a double-dogshit-day! My last walk with JibC, in the pre-sun morning, was the first and only time she actually took a crap whilst walking – she normally performs her doodie duties in the privacy of her own vast back yard. Given her short legs, she craps and walks at the same time, in order to stay just ahead of the steamy pile production. I was ready with a bag, but not just with a simple plastic bag: a specialty item made just for dog poo pickups: just open the flaps, fold it down, go over and under, scoop, turn, flip, double- fold, go over and under one more time, and voila! You have dog crap all over your hand. I'm sure glad they paid extra for these wonderful bags.
In Tucson I visited an old college friend, parent of Abagail the hot dog dog, and helped clear out a storage room that would be my sleeping quarters. At some point I picked up a dark rock and voila - a double-dogshit-day! I wondered if there was any cosmic significance to this event, whether I should run out and buy lottery tickets or something.
Anyway, in Tucson I went to the studio of an old flame, a woman I loved for many years, whose art and life has blossomed since we broke up. I remember thinking I should look up all my old girlfriends and see how their lives have improved since I got out of their lives...
Lastly, I visited my sister's partner's daughter, a pediatrician at the University of Arizona Hospital. I'm so proud of my quasi-niece. It takes a hell of a lot of dedication to go through the grind of becoming a doctor. I believe she's in her last phase of the doctor-training-dictatorship, a grueling series of 12 days in a row of 12-hour shifts. An incredibly f-ed up system, but true to the American ethos, it will never change.
So that's the last post from America. I'm actually in Guadalajara now, and my postings are running about a week behind. Only a week behind! Woo-hoo!
At that point I'd been in Arizona for five days, having been chased out of the High Sierras of California by incoming snowfall, and upcoming Giants playoffs games.
I'd spent three rainy days in LA, a guest at a hostel in Santa Monica, a block off the Third Street Promenade. My fourth hostel of the trip, by far the biggest one I've ever been in. Great location, but a hostel with 160 beds lacks the charm one finds at your typical hostel. In San Luis Obispo, Cambria, Monterey, six to twenty people shared cooking, swapped stories in broken English, Spanish, German and French, planned separate and group adventures, in the limited common area. By contrast, Santa Monica was a barn – so many common-area rooms that it was unnecessary to share anything with anyone.
Then my last days in California - at Lake Elsinore at a high school friend's small but active ranch. I have video of feeding the horse and goat and chickens, but without assistance I cannot upload video. The blog how has a short, short video of a bear coming at me (did I say it was short? You try holding a camera with a 350-pound predator making a beeline for your ass...)
And then the two-day trip across the Mohave, saying goodbye to California for perhaps the longest time...
The Valley of the Sun has been fun, except for the aforementioned monster commutes. Base camp is the home of my sis and her partner, in a place called Surprise, Arizona. So named because so many people say "Surprise, there's shit way out here!" Peg and Carol took off for Oahu a few days after I got to Phoenix. Now it's just me and JibC, a wary golden-brown Sharpei. I finally won her affection by taking her for walks, a luxury not often afforded the energetic pooch, given the sedentary ways of her owner.
In Phoenix, I had a chance to visit another high school friend in the hospital and at home. The second visit, to his house, was something of an ambush. Between the invitation and the event, the guest list expanded from two to five, and Bob, still recovering from surgery, a follow-up to a decades-ago bicycle accident, seemed a bit overwhelmed. Sorry about that, Bob. If it's any consolation, we were really there for the World Series game ;-), a battle of number three pitchers that resulted in the Ranger's only victory. Otherwise the Series was a fantastic, dominating series by the Orange and Black, the best possible end to a fun and wild and highly dramatic season, full of dead-on pitching and just enough hitting, peppered with the occasional one-run heartbreaker.
As the Sierra camping was the high-point of the trip so far, the nadir to date was this Wednesday night, which was spent in violent regurgitation – salad and pizza and beer – some kind of food poisoning, I guess. Earlier this year, I had intestinal surgery, clearing out a blockage that stopped me from eating “hard” foods like nuts and popcorn for over 15 years. I'd had the pleasure of having my stomach pumped about once every three years; this surgery was supposed to clear out the problem for good. In theory, I would never again be retching on the bathroom floor for eight hours straight, waiting for daylight and a ride to the ER.
So as I was retching on the bathroom floor for eight hours that night, I was strangely comforted by the fact that 1.) no one was coming home any time soon, so there would be no ride to the ER this time and 2.) I let my American insurance lapse and my International (exclusive of the States) medical insurance wouldn't kick in until I crossed the border, some 250 miles away... (A Side Note: My COBRA benefits – mediocre coverage from Cigna that forces you to fight for every claim – costs me $650 per month, whereas my much more comprehensive International insurance is $180 for six months. But there's nothing wrong with the American health care system, nosiree...)
Anyway, I stopped throwing up, and 12 hours later I began sipping juice and eating jello. Within 24 hours I had lost 5 pounds (since regained) and wallowed in enough self-pity to last a lifetime. I never did pinpoint the culprit. One hopes there is not a new blockage, an occasional byproduct of the blockage-removal surgery.
Once I felt strong enough, I said goodbye to JibC the sharpei in Phoenix and hello to Abigail the needy dachshund in Tucson. Turned out to be a double-dogshit-day! My last walk with JibC, in the pre-sun morning, was the first and only time she actually took a crap whilst walking – she normally performs her doodie duties in the privacy of her own vast back yard. Given her short legs, she craps and walks at the same time, in order to stay just ahead of the steamy pile production. I was ready with a bag, but not just with a simple plastic bag: a specialty item made just for dog poo pickups: just open the flaps, fold it down, go over and under, scoop, turn, flip, double- fold, go over and under one more time, and voila! You have dog crap all over your hand. I'm sure glad they paid extra for these wonderful bags.
In Tucson I visited an old college friend, parent of Abagail the hot dog dog, and helped clear out a storage room that would be my sleeping quarters. At some point I picked up a dark rock and voila - a double-dogshit-day! I wondered if there was any cosmic significance to this event, whether I should run out and buy lottery tickets or something.
Anyway, in Tucson I went to the studio of an old flame, a woman I loved for many years, whose art and life has blossomed since we broke up. I remember thinking I should look up all my old girlfriends and see how their lives have improved since I got out of their lives...
Lastly, I visited my sister's partner's daughter, a pediatrician at the University of Arizona Hospital. I'm so proud of my quasi-niece. It takes a hell of a lot of dedication to go through the grind of becoming a doctor. I believe she's in her last phase of the doctor-training-dictatorship, a grueling series of 12 days in a row of 12-hour shifts. An incredibly f-ed up system, but true to the American ethos, it will never change.
So that's the last post from America. I'm actually in Guadalajara now, and my postings are running about a week behind. Only a week behind! Woo-hoo!
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