Cultural commentary: what can you carry on a MotoConcho?

Before we begin this installment of Cultural Commentary, a little housekeeping. What is a MotoConcho? Sometimes just called a Moto, or a Concho, these mini motorcycles are one of the most popular means of transport in the DR. Everybody has one, including Cameron. They are essentially what we would call "retro" motorcycles; low back, small engine motorcycles that act as solo transport, taxi cab, family station wagon, and delivery vehicle depending on your situation. Cabarete is filled with motos driven by young entrepreneurs who swarm the roads looking for tourists who need rides to the beach. We required their services several times and always were impressed with their driving skill and courtesy.

What you notice right away, after the sheer quantity of conchos on the road, is their payload. Before we came down, we were told to look out for "interesting" cargo. Man oh man, have we seen some concho cargo. Most of which did not get photographed because we either didn't have a camera on us or couldn't get the shot in time. All of the photos you are about to see are from a single day. About 2 hours on the road total. And this is not showing the dozens of amazing conchos I wasn't able to shoot in time. So with such a small sample size showing so much crazy sh*t, you can imagine what the overall population is like when you are simply driving down the street and taking all the sites in.

So without further ado, I present to you a montage of concho cargo from 5 November 2013, in the vicinity of Cabarete, DR.

This guy is carrying a massive box of some sort. It is not tied down. Look closely and you can see he has his left arm bent, with his hand behind his head holding it: 

Two young girls coming home from school:

Dude driving with 2 by 4's resting on the back seat. These pieces of wood were about 6 feet long. Again, one hand on the throttle, one hand on the cargo:

This kid was hanging on to a propane tank:

When Jesse and Cambria went across the street to get a papaya smoothie, I had 5 minutes to take concho photos. Here is the first good one- dad + mom + infant swaddled in mom's lap:

Next was a dude and his buddy carrying a chainsaw:

This is what they call a Dominican Car Seat. Check how young this kid is:

Others, like Jesse, Angela, Cameron, and Jack have all seen gnarlier stuff than this. They don't bat an eye unless there's at least four humans on a concho and even still, it only gets interesting if there is also livestock on board. I've heard of coffins on conchos, lawn mowers on conchos, passengers with IV drip bags on conchos, and my personal favorite, conchos carrying other conchos as cargo.

That is all.