If Only Every Tope Had a Silver Lining Like This

Silver linings are the best... we never would have found ourselves here had it not been for my mishap with the tope and hence meeting Jose and Laura.

So picking up right where we left off… What are the chances that:

1. Given all of the motorbikers in Mexico who we’ve met either in person or online… one guy from Mexico City sends us a lovely message and offers that his Dad, in Guanajuato, has a great workshop “should we need anything.”

2. And then I crash, in that city.

3. That the ONE person who stopped to see if we were OK and offered to help, in a city of 160,000+ people happened to be his mother?

4. That not only did his father have an incredible workshop, between Jose Jr. and Jose Sr. they’ve owned an Africa Twin and a Transalp?

Wow.



Leaving Hotel Embajadoras, after some much-needed R&R

Anyway…

The next morning, we arrive at Jose and Laura’s. They are warm and wonderful and welcoming. They have a lovely home, loving dogs for us to cuddle and they pour us steaming cups of the best coffee we’ve had since Northern California.

We were hoping Jose would have a pop-rivet wrench, the only tool Roel think’s we’ll need to remount the Hepco & Becker lock.



Within minutes, my lock has been re-mounted onto the Gobi case with Jose’s pop-rivet wrench. 

I love my Gobi Cases.


The Gobi cases fared much better than Walter. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how much longer my tool-box cum top-box is going to last for :/

Jose asked if we needed to do anything else on the bikes and we quickly took him up on the offer to do some work that we’ve been needing to do for a while:

-replacing the fork oil on the Africa Twin
-Flushing the brake fluid in both bikes
-greasing the clutch cables and other moving parts
-Sanding the Africa Twin’s front brake pads
-Etc.





When the bikes were finished, Laura and Jose offered to take us to Cristo Rey, a statue of Jesus high up on a mountain outside of Leon. He was indeed impressive and the view was not something you could capture with a camera.







And then they took us to a small town nearby that was at one time larger than Guanajuato, called Mineral de la Luz.



The padre of Mineral de la Luz’s cathedral, came out and opened the church for us. We wandered around, admiring the artwork inside of the church, but then the padre insisted upon bringing us back to his own home. We didn’t entirely understand why until we arrived: he might be Gaudí reincarnated.








Our mouths were gaping open the entire time we were wandering through his little paradise. The walls were constructed with semi-precious crystals and there were whimsical details everywhere we looked. The immense amount of creativity, attention to detail and love that has gone into this building was simply staggering. It was honestly one of the most amazing man-made creations I have ever seen, and I think Roel would say the same.



On our way back to Guanajuato, Jose and Laura took us to the town overlook for this stunning view of Guanajuato. We had "found" it by accident on the first night when we were lost, too, hehe.


A statue of Pipila, a hero of the city for his bravery in the beginning of the Mexican War of Independence.

And we never would have gotten here had I not crashed my bike and had a reason to take Jose. Jr up on his offer to work in his Dad’s shop.

And now, Jose Sr. is guiding us out of Guanajuato, our spirits lifted, the bikes in better condition than they have been in a while and feeling very grateful for simply being healthy and whole and finding the silver lining that the sneaky slippery topes of Guanajuato had in store for us.

One of the rare moments where Jose hadn't left us in the dust on his Ducati Monster