And off we set again…………………or so we think?We’re rarely far from the sea and Palm Trees by the thousand.We hadn’t missed these sights, however, they provide prosperity to the people who live nearby and we cannot help notice how better maintained the towns are that benefit from the oil drilling platforms.We are suspecting a problem with David’s rear wheel, the same wheel that had a new rim fitted ten days ago. We’re 25 km from Carmen and no sizeable town for almost 200 km to properly access the damage. We decided to return to Carmen (population 200,000) where we were hoping a solution could be found.We tried to wave down pick ups and larger vehicles, however, no one was interested…..The local bus service tried to help but he could only take one bike in his boot (there was already one in there) and we were not going to separate either ourselves, bikes or luggage.Whilst recovering from the disappointment of the bus not being able to take us these friendly helpful chaps (angels in orange) pulled over and gave us a ride in their pick up on top of the rusty pipes and iron plates they had replaced today – they were oil industry welders.
When we have time we will list how many European highway laws we broke during the course of this return journey to Carmen. Riding in the back of pick ups is a national past time here and the only thing that made others stare at us was that we were sharing with Mexicans. Our leading rescuer is called Jesus (believe us when we say we’re not making this up). This is probably the only time we could be caught for speeding?
First part of the rescue was to return the ‘company’ vehicle to base.
The second part of the rescue from these road angels was to transfer our kit and bikes to one of the chaps own pick ups because he knew a bicycle shop that could help us. Olivia was upgraded to Business Class for this trip whilst David remained ‘in the hold’ with the bikes.This is the source of our salvation – our lady engineer identified four loose spokes, one of which had a missing nipple. We were going nowhere without this being remedied.The wheel had to be taken to another workshop across town to carry out the adjustments.She was a lady of few words, however, she seem to know what she was doing.A Chinese takeaway was a welcome sight after the highs and lows of the afternoon.
Mexico and Belize 