September 24th - Still Guadalajara 

Ok, what I'm about to tell you actually happened and you'll understand why my bike has had a name and gender change. Whilst dear old Sally Satnav can no longer bear the same name as my beloved daughter. Also today I turned away from Jesus and followed my own path through this world - more of which later.
The main reason for visiting this City was to meet up with Tasman again who is visiting Guadalajara on a conference about Space. He kindly invited me to join him and his colleagues in a lecture this afternoon - but washing to be done and blogs to write. You can however, make up your own jokes about me and space if you like and post on the comments page - keep it clean though.
Firstly the City - it is a huge metropolis - jam packed with cars going nowhere. The road system is bizarre, you have 4 roads all running parallel, two one way and two the other. If like I often do, find yourself heading in the wrong direction and you want to make a turn to come back on yourself, then you have to travel miles to the next underpass, bridge or roundabout. 

Evening and the traffic has subsided - but if you look closely there are two inner roads either side of the main roads

I'm telling you this because today i had to travel from the hotel I stayed in last night, to the garage where a set of tyres I'd pre-ordered were waiting for me. I left at 9.30 and got there at 10.30 - a distance of three miles - not all the fault of Guadalajara traffic  - mainly SS - she's still called that at this moment in time, just to prove I can be patient.
Eventually arriving at the garage i was greeted by friendly staff, who  ushered me in and got cracking straight away. A procession of different people, staff and customers, came to view my very dirty and well used machine. If my Africa Twin was a lady, she'd have been totally embarrassed to be viewed in such a state of disarray. While there I asked them to clean the air filters and they also offered to give the dear thing a good wash.
The young lad (why in this country do the young men get left to do all the hard work, whilst more mature types merely observe) quickly got the front tyre done and set to on the rear tyre - I watched curiously as after his first attempt with new tyre firmly in place, he started to take it off again. This procedure was carried out a further two times as each time he punctured the inner tube, while putting it back together. i think that is even a record I have never surpassed on my bicycle. I know my friend Paul has probably beaten that record. Once tyres were in place they set to on cleaning the air filters - this was more time consuming than I thought, they had to take off most of the fairing to get to the filters. Anyway this they did and soon all was as it should be - Africa Twin was on its way to get a much deserved clean.

I had hoped that the contact that Jesus Garcia had given me on the road to Torreone would have gotten back to me, as it would have added to my story to really have been saved by Jesus. As with the Last Supper it wasn't Jesus who let us down, but his dear friend. Which is why I was in this workshop having these various bits and bobs looked at in Guadalajara.

The garage 'Powerhouse' were excellent, they bent over backwards to help me and even modified the Scottoiler (chain lubrication system) filling device that my dear friends in the US had fashioned for me. Being cautious I kept the American one, just in case the one modified by my friend 'Three Tube Jo ' didn't work! After 2 hours and having parted with a sizeable some of money (still less than the UK or US) i had a beautiful machine again. i left and was on my way to find the hotel where I'd be staying for the next two nights. Tasman had been there since the middle of the week and he had reported it to be a nice hotel -  I was looking forward to catching up again.

I punched in the address for the hotel into SS (yes, still Sally Satnav at this time) and set off. You've guessed it in the completely wrong direction - I was on a ring road so I guessed SS was just taking me around it - but no I finished up on the outskirts of Guadalajara at the complete opposite end of the city some 9 miles away from where I should have been. I reset SS and started again - this was more promising, I was heading back into the city and seemed to be on the correctly named road. Though I couldn't be sure!! To cut a long story short I arrived at my destination the Puerto Del Sol Hotel. It was at that moment that I decided SS had to have a name change and while I was at it, the Africa Twin too. 

My Honda Africa Twin is definitely not female I have decided - too much testosterone, though he/she is definitely beautiful, especially with the dirt wiped away. So he has been renamed, from this day forth my transgender friend will be called Bonito - which I think sounds more masculine and describes perfectly how he now appears. As for SS after today's escapade she (yes, you know the fable about women and maps) has inherited the name Tinkerbell. I think both names are highly appropriate and apt.

I'm now off to share a beer with my nephew and friends and tomorrow who knows what mischief we will get up to.

Adios 

Pete