Bad roads, diarrhoea and biking at its best

The Herald updates Gareth Morgan's motorcycle trip through the American heartland. This week he leaves middle-class US and crosses the border into Mexico

There is something irresistibly enchanting about motorcycling in the Third World. We've had six weeks motorcycling in the US but have now crossed into Mexico. It is like the lights have suddenly come on again - we're back where expedition motorcycling is at its best.

Difficult to put your finger on what exactly it is that makes touring so much better away from the developed world, and now we're back into familiar territory we've had plenty of discussion as to what the magic is. Is it the familiarity of diarrhoea after most meals? I doubt it - while that's a sure indicator you're back below sanitation levels we take for granted, we agree it's not an aspect we covet.

Is it the welcoming, friendliness of the people? No, that is with us wherever we go and it would be hard to meet more generous and approachable people than we have encountered in the US.

Is it the poverty - does that give us a buzz? Not really but certainly it fascinates those of us who have grown up in the white, middle-class corporate monoculture with its deception of permanently insufficient income and spending as salvation. So yes, the so-called poverty of the subsistence lifestyle does provide an enriching experience for us aliens.

Then there's the food - you never know what you're ordering but it's always exciting waiting to see what it might be! There's the roads - it's so much easier to find rough terrain. And there's simply the different way people live their lives in these countries - doing things our regulators wouldn't countenance in our cotton-wool world. Remember when you and your mates were allowed to sit on the tray of a truck or pickup and hoon down Main St on Friday night? Well, in some countries that's still allowed - Mexico is one.

The culture clash is still alive and edgy in the Third World. Here we see very proud cowboys atop elaborate Spanish saddles prance their ponies through town and not flinch at those in their Dodge Rams or Chevvy cruisers - also wearing white Stetsons. We see the native (Tarahumara) Indian proud to walk through the crowd in traditional finery - the women in fully pleated skirts and blouses and the guys in loincloths, and brightly coloured, long-sleeve shirts. But again there is pride in identity - the monoculture has yet to seduce everyone.

Then there's the danger. Within the first 200km of riding in Mexico we've been confronted by army checkpoints, with machineguns trained on us as we've spilled the contents of our panniers across the road for them to inspect. Drugs are big business here and the US has Mexico's Government in an arm-lock to ensure it does its utmost to bring to an end its role as a gateway for cocaine into the US. With Mexican immigration such a hot issue there is leverage on President Vicente Fox and his boys are out to scare the pants off anyone travelling within cooee of the Rio Grande on the Mexican side.

When you meet a policeman in the street and he sports a holstered pistol as well as a semi-automatic - you realise that batons won't get far in this environment against the drug barons. The crosses on the fence facing the US to compatriots who have drowned trying to swim the Rio Grande to realise their dreams remind us that in most parts of the world life is cheap - at least in comparison to the cost of protection we afford it inside our world.

The developing world really is a wake-up call. It provides many reminders - not just on what we've gained but also what we've lost in pursuit of the Anglo-American spending-led, risk-free nirvana. Hollywood and brands have much to answer for.

Still largely beyond the reach of US cultural imperialism and loss of identity, the developing world isn't totally insulated from our influence though. The reach of our corporate state is wide indeed.

The Coca-Cola Company for example provides all the bottled water that citizens of these countries are so short of, although Coca-Cola syrup itself is more ubiquitous here than clean water - a resounding triumph of marketing for that corporate. I wonder how many years before Mexicans are as fat as their northern neighbours. Hopefully many.

But perhaps the greatest attraction of the Third World to us on these motorcycling expeditions is the lesson it reiterates every time we return. Generally citizens here are not miserable despite our own culture portraying that as inevitable if your income isn't at a certain level (ours), and rising. That correlation, which we take as fact, and busily organise our whole life and society toward procuring, is clearly humbug.

Then there are global economic dislocations that constantly remind us that our own capitalist-socialist model provides no universal solution. That we in New Zealand for example drive incessantly to increase the productivity of farms when the world has had a surplus of food for decades but has chronic inefficiencies with distribution has always bemused me.

Where are the market signals that say stop producing so much but start distributing more efficiently?

The fact that most of the Third World lives in arid lands, with torrid climates and clean water a luxury item, explains much of the reason their material living standards are hampered. That they face enormous trade barriers - such as George W. Bush's agricultural subsidies and steel tariffs, is just another nail in any aspiration they might have for materialistic heaven.

Still, life goes on here and believe it or not most are very happy - providing they can eat and have shelter.

Oh well, must get home soon and upgrade the boat and beach house.

Latest travel blogs and photos from the "Backblocks America" road-trip are on World By Bike.