Ducati Sporting Club UK > DesmoDue Race Series > DesmoDue - General Questions and Chat > Timmy Topanga: Otei's So-Cal Adventure.

[CK]

Hummers??

Pah, you didnt need to fly all that way Timmy, you could have just popped up to 'lil ole Woking and seen the 2 in Dukes Court front car park.

The company (THQ) uses them for advertising the latest 'puter games and the staff take it in turns to use them as 'pool' cars

[Otei]

Day 3: Cabo San Lucas:

We waited to get a sticker, then we were called to line up and wait for our tenders.

Tenders are also known in other situations, as “lifeboats”. That’s right, we were going to have to get to the land, via another little boat. I hadn’t been too keen on this idea, as I’m not too keen on boats in general (I know, i know, I’m on a bloody cruise!). However, once we’d waited in line for what seemed like an hour, we finally got onto our little vessel. It was pretty cool seeing the giant cruise liner disappear behind us, and I really did get a feeling of what Captain Bligh felt like as Fletcher Christian and the other Mutineers s******ed and waved at them as they were cast adrift. Fortunately though, we had an advantage over Captain bligh and his crew, an engine..and a bloke to steer the boat...and a wallet full of dollars. Yeehaaa!



We came in to moor at cabo San Lucas, and there were Pelicans everywhere, and it was an awesome sight to see them in the wild, not in some zoo or bird sanctuary.

After being greeted by a couple of fake pirates, we trotted off in the direction of the dolphin centre, which had numerous real pirates trying to sell jewelry and other such trinkets. this would turn out to be a major source of mirth later in the day.

We were guided to the dolphin centre and after receiving wristbands that were similar to a track day, we were then required to sign a waiver..er..just like a track day. I was wondering if we were going to be racing these dolphins or something. turns out that it wasn’t too far from the truth.




We had ben told by the instructors not to touch their heads and faces (although Amy managed to touch some faeces as ours swam by..yuk!), but as the dolphin was circling us, I accidentally smacked it in the face whilst trying to maneuver myself in the pool. I had a feeling it wouldn’t let me get away with it, and I was right. A little later it swam past me and flicked me in the knackers with its tail. B a s t a r d.

In all seriousness though, the whole thing was incredible, and every bit as good as I had imagined it would be. The highlight was the belly ride, where the dolphin laid on its back, you grabbed its pectoral fins and it motored off around the pool as you tried to wipe the inane grin from your face. Typically, being a racer, I asked if it could go any faster, but it seems you have to tuna dolphin to get any more power out of it *Badoom, Tssshk!”

We bought some pics and a DVD, and in all fairness, the pics and especially the DVD were highly impressive given the 10 minutes they had to edit it and create it. Very good indeed my Mexican Spielberg wannabes.

We didn’t have to be back at the boat for a while, so we wandered round the front to grab a bite to eat. Every few yards, we would be accosted by jewelry sellers, but we must have looked slightly “street” as most of them would also mutter “want some weed?” or “wanna get high?”...”Cocaine?” Personally, I put it down to Amy’s tattoos and several Mexican guys shouted “Hey, do you wanna know where the tattoo shop is?”



On the way back to the boat later on, we had gotten tired of being asked if we wanted any gear, so when one young lad asked us again, I told him we had loads of drugs, that we were gonna have a crazy party and that he was invited. His face was a picture, it went from streetwise young geezer, to shocked and surprised teenager faster than you could say “ 2 loopy Gringos”. Quality.

In-between amusing ourselves with the local drug dealers, we went and had a bit to eat at a place called Margaritavilla. We had some quesadillas and some fajitas, but the decisive factor was the huge, and I do mean quite titanic Margaritas that we were served. They were like buckets, I s h i t you not. We were pretty toasted after these, so we staggered around the little town for a while taking pics.



The trip back to the boat was as cool as the trip away from it, and I took a bit of video, whilst simultaneously taking the **** out of a group of Canadians in a South Park style.

We had booked a massage each before we left, so we got our asses in gear and went to check that out. We had a very nice, tiny little South African chick called Riki doing our treatments, and although she was small, she could suck like an experienced hooke...I mean, her massage pressure was impressive to say the least.

The day was flying by, and it was time to head to dinner once again, with our mildly less dull friends. The boat was pitching about quite a bit and the lightweight majority had stayed away from any intake of food aboard this floating roller coaster. This included Gerry, the wife of our dining table partner, David. He seemed less uptight when she wasn’t around, I can’t imagine why that might be, as her whiny, nasally tones had endeared her to us no end.

He asked how our day with the dolphins had gone, and we both broke straight faced into a yarn about how a woman in our group had gotten in the way of one of the dolphins and been knocked unconscious by its tail as it splashed out of the water. I added that we thought her teeth had been knocked into the water, but that it was just pieces of polystyrene from her flotation vest. I also tacked on the fact that the Mexican trainer had been in floods of tears. Amy assisted ably, and we managed it without cracking up.

Ironically, David then told us how their son had fallen over and knocked his teeth backwards, requiring a trip to the local dentist in the process. Irony?, or was David smarter than he looked and giving us a bulls h i t rebuttal? We’ll never know I guess,.

The previous day, we had ordered a bottle of wine to go with our meal, which was served to us by Antonio our wine waiter, who was a real character and a sterling bloke. Amy had done some wine tasting previously, and did a thoroughly convincing impersonation of someone that knows what the hell they’re talking about when it comes to drinking wine. She slooshed it around in the glass, then stuck her beak in it and had a good whiff before finally tasting it and proclaiming it fit for consumption. I took the **** a bit and she told me that if she hadn’t liked it, she could have sent it back. The next night however, was a different story. Once again, our resident wine swiller sloshed the claret around, gave it a quick snort, but didn’t look too impressed. Antonio, said that we would try to find something with a bit more body about it for the next night, and promptly hightailed it. I laughed my ass off and said “Well so much for sending it back then!”

After a few more drinks we were even less impressed than when we first started, and this really shouldn’t have been the case, as everyone knows that it doesn’t matter what you drink when you’re already ****ed. I collared Antonio and asked him what the point of swilling the booze around and sniffing it like a bunch of daisies, then having a thimble full if you couldn’t send it back if you didn’t like it?

He looked a little stumped for a second, then, like the true professional he is, he explained that it wasn’t really anything to do with the taste of the wine, more to ensure that the wine was in good condition. I told him that I was no wine expert, but that I really didn’t think that this was a $48 bottle of wine, in anybody’s language. There was a good glassful left that we’d attempted to palm off on David, but he wasn’t having any of it either, so i asked Antonio if he was able to taste it for us.

I wasn’t sure if he’d be allowed to drink on duty, but to my immense surprise and incredible amusement, he stood upright and boldly stated “Of course Sir, that is why I carry this!” and proceeded to pull out the biggest Hip hop looking chain, which had what can only be described as a silver plated, shallow ladle without the handle, attached to the chunky ghetto necktie. He put a Portuguese sized portion in his pimpin’ metal booze pouch, and gave it a swill. His face started to look like a bulldog that had licked some **** of a stinging nettle, and eventually declared that it really shouldn’t taste like that. Amy looked very pleased with herself. good skills, wino.



Antonio, who we now very aptly named Flava Flave, promised to give us a free bottle of wine for the next evening, which was certainly mission accomplished, and without having disrespected the guy in any way shape or form. We staggered around the sloshing ship before retiring to bed, safe in the knowledge that we couldn’t have had much more fun that day if we’d had the entire Monty Python team as our tour guides.

[Otei]

Pah, you didnt need to fly all that way Timmy, you could have just popped up to 'lil ole Woking and seen the 2 in Dukes Court front car park

B u g g e r!

I wasted all that money then. That'll teach me

[Otei]

Day 4: Mazatlan:

Initially we’d arranged to go on a walking tour around the streets of Mazatlan. This, however, would have involved tagging along with snail paced, geriatric coffin dodgers. Having had second thoughts about this, Amy decided to see if she could cancel the tour without losing our money. Imagine our delight when the very efficient Monica managed to sell our tickets on and refund us the equivalent of several long island ice teas, which we can highly recommend as brain cell killers.

So then, somewhat novelly, we were actually attached to a dock this day. Having disembarked on shank’s pony, we discovered that it was at least three miles into the old part of town and a further two into the new sector. We really weren’t interested in the new sector and wanted to see the old part of town and some of the attractions that were being hawked by the so-called “tourist information guides”. It seems that everyone you talk to has an angle of some sort and something to sell. Having eventually decided to walk to the main attractions on our own after spending a good 5-10 minutes talking with one of the taxi drivers, we realized that after approximately 300 yards the day’s temperatures would kill us quicker than a dose of ebola in a fast forward time machine.

We skulked back to the taxi driver and hoped that the $30 fee for the 1 1/2 hour that we had already negotiated after we got our independent heads on still stood. Fortunately it did and Gustavo, our particularly fluent english-speaking driver, started to take us on a mini-tour of places we wished to visit.



It turned out that Gustavo had experienced living in LA at some point, which is why his driving skills in heavy traffic were up to the mark. We arrived at our first destination, which Gustavo proudly told us, was the second tallest natural lighthouse in the world. His tour guide skills didn’t extend to knowing which was the tallest, but this could have been due to the fact that his brain was overpowered by the sublime stench that was emanating from the sewage plant inconveniently located directly next door.

We knew we were limited with time, but Amy seemed to think the clock was ticking faster and started making her way up the rocky slopes like some demented, tattooed, sweaty mountain goat. I attempted to excuse my utter lack of fitness on the fact that I was carrying the rucksack, which she rebutted, and took all of the wind out of my sails by saying that I could wait where we were and she would run the rest of the way. The fackin’ head case.






Fortunately, and much to my relief, about 3/4 of the way up, she saw sense and decided that even though we’d seen a 90 year-old-man jog past us on the way down, that time was of the essence, and we’d head back after taking a couple of photos. Gustavo was highly impressed when we lied through our teeth and nodded furiously when he asked if we’d reached the top, accompanied by a resounding “Yep” from Amy.

Next stop was a lookout point that viewed the lighthouse that we had so unsuccessfully managed to scale. For me this wasn’t a surprise, but what was a surprise, was that a guy who was selling masks, and that was old enough to be our great-grandfather, propositioned us with the supply of some “good good cheeba”, once again!

After this, we pulled up alongside a statue of a guy on a motorcycle. It turned out, after we had totally disrespected his memory by taking comedy pillion rides on his monument, that he was Mexico’s equivalent of Elvis Presely. His name was Peter Infante and he was a famous movie star and singer who died in a plane crash. Gustavo told us that he loved motorcycles and had starred in many movies featuring motorcycles, which was good enough for us motorheads.Reeespect, Mr Infante.



Gustavo was then slick enough to take us to a shop that served free margaritas, which was good skills x10 from our articulate human broom faced dude. After quaffing a couple of these, we scurried off to what was in our minds, the extreme sports event of the day, the cliff diver. Gustavo proudly trumpeted the fact that this daredevil beaner was going to jump 45’ from a cliff into just 6’ of water. After the free booze, this sounded quite impressive, and we laid out $5 to watch our superhero perform. After a short period, our man clambered his way onto the precipice, saluting the crowd, and possibly praising Jesus, before belly flopping into the frothing waters below. It was impressive enough, but I do believe that I’d rather have had another margarita for the money and tried it myself.

Amazingly before this X games marvel, our time had already expired with Gustavo. We had already said our good-byes before the cliff diver and taken a few photos, one of which was of an intriguing red gate that covered a cave that wound its way into the cliff face a good 30’. There was a metal devil’s head on top of the gate and the word “iablo” (missing D) on top of a pitchfork. Amy took a photo with flash into the deep recesses of the cave, and it was only when we downloaded it to the laptop later that amongst the beer cans and other assorted litter we saw lucifer himself mocking our blindness.





We then worked our way back through town in search of margaritas the size of fishbowls. Tragically, it would appear that one would have to go into the new part of town to find these and we had to settle for several more smaller versions. We zigzagged our way through the back streets, managing to discover the real Mazatlan and being fortunate enough to get photos of the huge contrasts that a tour guide would never wish to show you.

We stopped off at an internet cafe to see what gems Dom had come up with, and it has to be said he didn’t disappoint. We then made our way back to tequila central and had some more margaritas with some nachos. By this time, we were completely fooked and mozied back to the ship.

We crashed out for a bit. Amy went to the gym and I just slobbed it out on a sun lounger next to the pool. The biggest surprise for me was hearing an American tell a funny joke. “Why are the streets in France lined with trees?” “Because the Germans like to march in the shade.” Not groundbreaking, but it made me chuckle.

We again went to dinner and amazingly, Gerry seemed to have sprouted the beginnings of a personality overnight. We were given a stark reminder of her idiocy though when her shrill intonation requested an explanation from me as to why the English aristocracy had people to put their trousers on for them. “What’s up with that?” she whined. I explained to this recently qualified lawyer that it had about as much relevance to modern times as the slave trade does to modern America. I don’t think she understood. The only saving grace was that David hadn’t informed her of the dolphin smack down and we got to bullshit her via the medium of her own husband’s voice because neither of us could be bothered to tell her. It was then off to bed, having drunk about 18 gallons of water to try and rehydrate ourselves following the day’s tequila fest.

[Otei]

day 5: Puerto Vallarta:

Once again in order to reach land, we would have to take one of the tenders / lifeboats to shore. We decided to go quite early this time as when we were in Cabo San Lucas, the day had evaporated more quickly than the water in our bodies. The main areas of interest in Puerto Vallarta (henceforth known as PV) were a short taxi trip away ... once again too far to walk and particularly so, considering the temperatures were already getting quite heady despite the fact our breakfast hadn’t even begun to digest yet.

We were dropped off at the beach front, which was quite frankly beautiful, with a nice mixture of quirky sculptures, sand castle style art, and giant flocks of frolicing pelicans. We tried to find an impartial tourist guide, as once again it seemed that anyone you asked had some form of bias towards a product they were punting.

We found a guy in a tiny little office on the shore front who gave us all the information we required regarding the local attractions and was also seemingly duty bound to give fair warning of the gay area, which unless we liked seeing men in thongs holding hands, we should avoid.



I had received an email from John Sanders complaining that if this was supposed to be a biker’s holiday, where were the babes? With this in mind, we headed to the hooters bar that the same tour guide had pointed out. However, when we got in there, it seemed that none of them were really of high enough quality to bother the digital camera with, so I think we will save that one for Hooters of Santa Monica (be patient John...).

Having paid for the water and orange tangos in the Hooter’s bar with a hundred dollar bill, it only dawned on us when the girl was on her way back that we we’re unlikelly to receive American dollars in change. Sure enough, we ended up with a load of pesos instead. This wouldn’t have been a problem if it weren’t for the fact that this was going to be our last day in Mexico. We were going to need a pretty healthy excuse to spend the rest of this money.



Sure enough, as we strolled towards the end of the beach, there sat some Sea-Doos for hire. A bunch of kindly Canadians agreed to watch over our possesions and we went to hand over 550 pesos (~ 25 quid) for the two of us to get our much needed motoesque fix.
During our mild deliquency, we seriously considered whether we had enough gas to reach Cabo San Lucas and it’s tantalizingly enourmous margaritas. Amy did the maths, taking wind direction, slip streaming of cruise liners, and possible tows from friendly dolphins into account and begrudgingly admitted that we may just have to come back to Cabo San Lucas on holiday for a week. After half an hour of giggling and air time, trying to create our own ramps in the waves, we headed back to shore, resisting the temptation to bump the bald heads of the bathers with the hull of the SeaDoo.



The moto fix had given us an appetite and naturally a thirst for tequila, so we went and had lunch and some drinks having collected our belongings from their benevolent guardians. We continued into the old part of town and after have taken some pics of some interesting spots, I happened upon a shop selling the most awesome Mexican wrestling masks you ever did see.

I literally had 250 pesos to my name, 100 of which was required for the taxi back to the ship. The street-wise and somewhat aggressive sales woman demanded 250 pesos for the mask. I explained to her that I would happily pay this were it not for the fact that it was very hot and we needed 100 pesos for the taxi back to the port, otherwise we were walking and would very likely die.

She seemed to think that I was just playing the bartaring game, and as she came down in quantities of 10 pesos or more, I kept telling her “No, you’re really not getting this, are you? It’s 150 pesos, or we end up walking.” Finally she relented and said “Ok, just give me the money. 150 pesos.”

It was great that I had managed to bag such a quailty mask for such a good price, but we then both realized that we really badly needed a drink and couldn’t spare any cash. The search for an ATM became more like the search for the A-Team, eventually Mr. T and howling mad Hronek found a bank and with it an ATM that dispensed enough cash to buy water, energy drinks, and the bread covered with sugar that Amy was desparate wasn’t just a figment of her imagination and that all of the time she spent in England asking for granulated sugar to put on her bread and butter wasn’t just some sort of perverse personal kink.

At this point we both decided that the weather was way hotter than we had given it credit for even for December (I guess you’re a lot closer to the equator in Mexico) and realized that it was getting the better of us. A quick rest in an internet cafe was all that was needed to convince us that the next stop should be a taxi, then a cold shower on the ship.



Traffic in the taxi was pretty heavy and I thank god that when I asked the guy if he had air conditioning, he finally realized what we were talking about, wound the windows up and gave us sweet relief from the unreal heat. Son of a bitch, December.

When we got back, I decided that there was no way I could resist making some comedy use of the wrestling mask that I had bartered so hard for. We had a beach towel that matched the mask exactly, so I tied this around my neck as a cape, hoisted my underwear up to my navel and just as an unsuspecting old man was arranging a sun lounger outside our cabin window, I flung back the net curtain, hammered on the window, and squeald “I am a famous Mexican wrestler” at the terrified old chap. Me and Amy fell about laughing for what seemed like ages and tried to recreate on video for posterity a little later on, but the first time is always the best, and it just wasn’t the same. Fook me it was funny, though.



We monged out for a bit and by the time dinner was due to be served at 8:30, we were both on song again. Having gotten away with the dolphin story so convincingly, we decided that Amy had been subject to an attempted mugging in the center of PV, but that she had used her kickboxing skills to great affect and floored the sqealing Mexican man with a quality roundhouse to the jaw. Naturally this tale was told in animated detail to David and Gerry but we both soon realized that Gerry wasn’t as green as she was cabbage looking. She whispered something in David’s ear, and as his face dropped, it took on a look that could only have meant “Really, they’re lying? I’ve been such a dumbass.”



Our dining guests, Gerry and david.

Nevertheless, we continued to chat and offered them a glass of “good” wine, which David took us up on. The reason we knew it was “good” wine was that in a lame attempt to make Antonio show us his Flava Flave / wine tasting cup, we’d asked him to taste the replacement bottle for us. During this display we learned a surprising amount about his hip hop apparatus and it turned out that the design of the little dish was far more complex than we could have ever imagined. We anxiously await using this new found knowledged on the next unsuspecting wine stewart we encounter.

Strangely, despite Gerry’s new found and highly justified distrust of us, we found a bizarre common ground in that they were huge fans of Ricky Gervais and particularly “The Office”.
We spent a good while discussing this and as usually the case when I am somewhat inebriated and spewing forth verbal diahorrea I was completely unaware that a slightlly bored Amy, who knew nothing about Ricky Gervais, was blatantly theiving my alcohol from under my very nose. It was therefore a shocked Otei that went to take a sip of his very expensive Long Island Ice Tea and discovered that it was pretty much only ice left in the glass.

I had been eating steak quite a bit, during our mealtimes, but had sadly been without any english mustard, so I asked the waier, gabriel if he had any at all. he went off and came back with exactly what i expected him to, Dijon mustard. It was then that the somewhat pompous Polish maitre d, (Rsyksyard or somethin, it was pronounced Richard, anyway). I said that they realy should have English mustard for the English steak lovers on board, and he proclaimed that they did have some and would go and find it.

He was gone a litle while, and returned with an unbelievably smug grin on his face as he goosestepped up the restaurant with a dish of English mustard in hand. Good skills mr Poland.

The final bit of mischief as we were heading off to bed was at the expense of a young girl that had knock one of the phone recievers off the wall mounted telephones. We arrived just as she turned her back, having finally managed to replace the handset. I flicked it off its mount as i walked past muttering “Oops, look what you did!” Poor little lamb then gamely struggled to get it bacl on the wall again as we strolled off s******ing. Pure evil, but maybe it builds character...or something!

[Otei]

The last couple of days were at sea just sailing back to San Diego.

During a day in Mazatlan though, we'd seen the most unbelievable pile of a motorcycle you ever did see.

It had a totally bald rear tyre, no reg plate and no cap on the fueltank. It was obviously a mix up of different bike and bodywork. Can anyone workk out what the silver dream machine is?

[TP]

Is it an old Honda VF with the later VFR 750 bodywork?

[Otei]

To be honest, i have no idea what it is for certain.

I'm pretty much with you on the whole "Old VF with newer bodywork on it", but I think the bodywork is CBR 600.

It was a perfect example of what the Mexican police consider to be real priorities in their daily lawenforcement though.

I think this pic illustartes the Mexican attitude to a tee:

[Otei]

When we got back to San Diego, we went to the SD Animal Park.

It was pretty good. I don't really like Zoo's much, but this had free roaming areas on a scale that blew your mind. In fact, there were some areas, that with the benefit of the San Diego mountain backdrop, looked like their real habitat. It was only the fencing that occasionally gave it away in a photo.

[Otei]

The next day we jut chilled out and did a few bits and pieces that needed sorting.

On Sunday though, we went off to see something I've wanted to see since I was a kid. when I watched the E.T film years ago, and I really liked the look of the neighborhood that they used in the film.

As it turns out, It's as nice as it looks.

We rolled up in the truck, BMX strapped in the back for some pics and had a look. As I was going towards the drive, the owner came down and I introduced myself.He was a realy lovely bloke, and spared quite a bit of time telling us about the history of the place.



He hadn't been the owner when Steven Spielberg made the movie, but he said that Spielberg had been flying around in a helicopter, looking for the area that he had in his mind for the shot. When they turned up at the door of the house, the owner wasn't a big film buff, didn't know who he was and wasn't too keen to go along with it.

Then of course, dollars were offered and it was a done deal.



The present owner, Tony, had been in residence when the directors of Charlies Angels wanted to use the house again though, and Drew barrymore made a return to the house, only this time she was naked. Awesome!

He gave us an insight into just what goes into making a film. He said that the crew were there for a week, filmed just one day, and that it was for about 6 seconds of footage at the beginning of the film. cameron Diaz had been rollerblading up and down the street and playing with the local kids.

They'd had so many support vehicles that it was ridiculous. Even a gardener that had different plants on hand if they decided they wanted them. Unreal.

So I had a ride around on my BMX, made a few people in cars smile and we drove off with me having satisfied a long standing and very odd ambition. I can't help it I'm afraid.



I needed Hawkman's red hoodie though!