La Poderosa

My grandpa is the best.

In my family I was the firstborn child, the very first grandchild, and for a long time the only girl. As you can probably imagine, I was spoiled rotten. My mom always tells stories about how I was so wanted and loved that there wasn't a day in my life when I wasn't showered with gifts and that as I grew these gifts, although they became fewer and further between, they became more and more thought out and in turn truly special.

Well...

This past week, in celebration of my mother's birthday which is actually today (Happy Birthday Mama!) we went to my grandpa's hometown which is where my mom holds part-time residence. I hadn't seen my grandpa in a while. Actually, I didn't even get to see him this time because he was at the farm (he is an organic banana exporter and he also raises chickens); however, when I arrived at his house, there was a homecoming gift waiting for me...

For the past several weeks, I have been talking about buying a bicycle or a Vespa because I refuse to spend more money than absolutely necessary in gas- not to mention that I get a kick out of such things. Four days ago, I got as a gift from my grandpa a motorcycle. It's not a huge super duper motorcycle but I thought it was the coolest thing since Wonder bread. I named it La Poderosa, after the one in Motorcycle Diaries.

The thing is that I didn't know how to ride anything other than a bike due to the fact that growing up we were never encouraged or even allowed to ride anything other than bikes. As a result, I spent the better part of last week learning how to ride.

And I learned.

I was riding that thing all over town like a bat out of hell. La Poderosa could go 120kph and I was taking advantage of a nearly deserted coastal highway to learn what I could and could not do with it. If I may say so myself, I looked like a damn cute badass riding around with my purple helmet :)

The problem was that I was having issues stopping.

My feet are pretty small and so in order to switch gears or step on the break I literally had to lift my foot and move it in a weird way so that I could actually reach the pedal. Yesterday, after I finished one of my many rides I crashed into the gate of my mother's house.

I thought it was pretty funny to be completely honest. My mom didn't. Neither did Gus.

Although my injuries consisted mainly of a few cuts on my fingers and a few bruises on my leg and my collar bone area, La Poderosa had a REALLY rough fall. Now she needs plastic surgery.

Everyone thinks that now that I have ridden, and fallen, I have gotten the desire to continue riding La Poderosa out of my system. I have not though. If anything now I am on a mission to learn how to stop! Ha! this may be my first fall before the many that could lead me in the path of becoming the next Jeremy McGrath.

It would be so much fun!

I am out looking for adventures. This was adventure #1.