Mexico City to Palenque (Mexico)

24-27 August (Mexico City -> Oaxaca -> Puerto Escondido -> San Cristobal de las Casas -> Palenque)

From Argentina or Bust!

On the 24^th I got a late start out of Mexico City after sleeping in till 8 a.m. and checking out a few sights around the city. My plan was to make it to Puerto Escondido in one day but I quickly realized that that was not going to be feasible with the remaining sunlight. I then made Oaxaca my destination which is about a five hour drive. Right after leaving the city limits I passed Mexico City's very own volcano—Mount Popocatepetl. Standing at 5426m its North America's second highest volcano and quite an impressive sight up close. I was fortunate enough to be on the right road to drive right past it. I would post the pics here but I took them with my digital SLR in RAW format which I haven't figured out would to manipulate into JPEG using the new LINUX-based netbook that I'm on right now so it will have to wait till I put everything up on flickr eventually. The drive itself was spectacular. I ascended from ~800m to over 3000m in less than 20 minutes on some crazy twisties up the volcano ridge. The fertile soil surrounding the volcano is home to many farmers who were in the middle of a harvest of various vegetables and grains as I drove by. It all made for some fantastic scenery. About 2 hours into the drive I past through a small town where all the kids made and played with small toy trucks. The families then sold these toy trucks to travelers driving by. I stopped and chatted with one of the kids for a few minutes and then bought him a coke as I felt bad for keeping him from playing.

From Argentina or Bust!

[Toy trucks mentioned above]

About 30 minutes later I started passing some fields of corn with farmers working the fields. This really enticed me—to drive through them that is. I saw a farmer on his bicycle driving through the fields on a little path and I thought to myself, “I can do that!”... so I did... and boy was it fun... that is, until the federales stopped me coming out of the field back onto some unknown road. Federales is what Mexicans call the police. I thought I had broken another law and was just about to pull out my bribe money when I realized that I had just startled them by flying out of some corn field looking the way I did. They just wanted to talk and see the bike. It must be quite boring being a federale assigned to some town in the middle of nowhere. I finally arrived in Oaxaca (pronounced Wah-ha-ka for those of you wondering) right before sunset and once again was lucky enough to find the absolute worst little hole-in-the-wall hotel this side of the Rio Grande. This place didn't even have running water but all I really cared about was the fact that I could park my bike in the lobby. I went out into town to see if I could get myself into some trouble and found it in the form of a delicous taco stand which was serving mezcal and posole along with the usual taco fare. I had myself a moundful of carnita tacos and some posole while making friends with the stand's proprietor, a young 28 year old gent who loved meeting foreigners. A few hours later the young man and I had successfully scared away most potential customers with our joking and laughter.

[Taco stand in Oaxaca (mentioned above)]

My real payment for eating from an non-health-inspected food stand in Mexico came later that night when I got a mild case of Montezuma's Revenge. Luckily for me the local 24hr chemist was able to hook me right up with some good ol' mexican drugs and the worst was quickly over.

[Oaxaca at night]

The next morning I woke up at 6a.m. in order to get to Puerto Escondido in time to enjoy the surf and sun. While running through my daily pre-ride bike inspection I found that the rear shock dampening adjuster had broken off its mount. This wasn't a major problem as I could easily zip tie it onto the frame until I could get my hands on a mig welder to make a more permanent repair.

But while I was removing the fairings off the bike to access the frame, a large bolt fell out of one of the fairings. Normally this wouldn't have shocked me, bolts come loose all the time, it's just a fact of life and hard riding. The reason this shocked me somewhat was the fact that this bolt was the kind of bolt that holds engines together. This could not be good. I spent a good hour tearing the bike apart until I found the culprit part and put the bolt back in place. It came from the oil cooler and had I not 'fortunately' broken the other part, I never would have realized that I was only a few hundred miles away from losing the entire engine oil cooler. So far I had to use nearly everything I put in my tool kit which is impressive considering I'm only 7 days into the trip. After getting the bike back together and loaded up I was back on the road and this time my destination was the Pacific Ocean—a sight I hadn't seen for quite a few years. I was 300+ kilometers away and the locals were telling me it would take 5 hours. I didn't believe them of course. After 30 kilometers of dodging everything from herds of goats, small kids playing in the middle of the street, out of control grossly overladen vehicles, and the random donkey in the middle of the road, I realized that it was in fact going to take me 5 hours or more. It turns out that what is actually slowing me down more than anything are the topes everywhere. Tope is the mexican-spanish term for speedbump, and here in Mexico, they love their topes. But what they like even more is to leave them unmarked for unsuspecting drivers to slam on the brakes at the last minute just in time to see their cargo fly off. I assume this is a sick form of entertainment for the village locals since by most unmarked topes one can usually spot several small kids sitting around waiting for the next loss-of-limb-and-life accident to take place right before their very eyes. Not that I blame them for sitting around waiting to see such an accident considering their alternative forms of entertainment, e.g. playing with a stick or poking a goat with the same stick with the latter being apparently the most popular here. In fact it can be said that the sport of NASCAR racing's very existence can be attributed for the accidents that inevitably occur in ever race. I mean, why else would anyone want to watch several dozens cars, all exactly alike, go in circles a few hundred times if it weren't for the off chance of getting an opportunity to witness some horrendous crash full of twisted sheet metal and blood. I guess what I'm saying is that these little kids by the side of the road in Mexico aren't much different than NASCAR fans. I'm glad it's just my friends who know me reading this blog, otherwise I'ld be sure to get some hate mail for that last comment. On a motorcycle I am more fortunate than most others on the road in the sense that they are more a serious nuisance than a hazard as I'm able to use the larger topes more like launching pads for my aerial tricks. Nevertheless, these nuisances require that I drop below an optimal cruising speed which frustrates me to no end.

Below is the first decent video clip from my helmet cam taking while on some fun twisties on the road to Puerto Escondido.

So I made to Puerto Escondido after 5+ hours of very exhausting riding. Up till now the ride itself required minimal concentration but this one commanded my full attention due to the bad condition of the road and the unending curves, such that by the end of the ride I felt like I had just finished an olympic distance triathlon. The first thing I did when I arrived was jump in the water (minus the helmet of course) and was immediately told to get out by the lifeguards because of the strong undercurrent. Undercurrent or not, I was not getting out of the water till I was ready to get out and merely pretended not to understand Spanish, which made them eventually pretend to stop caring. I spent the rest of the day relaxing on the beach, drinking mango margaritas and hanging with a group of Californian surfers from an old stomping ground of mine, San Diego, who gave me a few basic surfing lessons. The waves were absolutely monstrous and I ate it more times than I care to admit here.

[Surfers at Puerto Escondido]

The next morning I got up early and made ready for the journey towards Palenque, a famous Mayan ruin site. I knew that based purely on the map's distance, it meant that I could make it there in one day, but judging from my previous day's experience with the tortuous mountain switchbacks, I figured I'ld only make it as far as San Cristobal de las Casas. And I was right. I arrived in the city made famous by the Zapatista uprising of the 90's about 8 hours later and was quite fortunately that I did, because the town turned out to be the most enchanting little place I've come across so far. Completely unpretentious and lacking the hordes of tourists that plagued San Miguel de Allende, San Cristobal is a little jewel nestled in the high mountains of Chiapas that combines the scenery of Boulder, Colorado with the passion of Bogota, Colombia. I ended up staying at a hostel with several other tourists with whom I explored the city's nightlife and many hidden alleys.

The next day I slowly drove the 4 hours to Palenque, stopping at Agua Azul—a popular waterfall—along the way. Unfortunately the water was anything but azul as there had recently been some rain in the area which made the water a murky brown instead of the clear blue that the spot is known for. That didn't keep the local kids from having fun though.

From Argentina or Bust!

[Agua Azul]

[Palenque (the ruins)]

From Argentina or Bust!

[Palenque (the town) at dusk]

At Palenque I met a nice Austrian girl from Salzburg with whom I hung out with the rest of the day. She needed someone to practice here Spanish with and I was in need of a German refresher, so it worked out nicely. So here I am in Palenque preparing the route into Guatemala tomorrow. I got some help from a local here in town who has family in one of the border towns and has advised me to take a small rural trail into Guatemala where I can avoid an $80 boat ride. From here on out the riding gets much tougher as tomorrow is a lot of dirt trials with some small rural backroads as an appetizer. There is no immigration at the border and apparently there is a river I'll have to wade across with the bike. This is exactly what I've been waiting for. The next destination is the Tikal area of Northern Guatemala and then the beaches of Belize.

New Orleans (U.S.) to Mexico City (Mexico)

19-23 August 2009

From Argentina or Bust!

[San Luis Potosi (Mexico) town square]

I spent the first night in New Orleans with a old Navy friend of who served with me on the USS O'Brien in Japan. It was good to see him if only briefly. New Orleans is still a large construction site busy rebuilding itself since the destruction caused many years ago by Katrina. Before leaving New Orleans, or “Nawlins” as the locals refer to it as, I indulged myself in some fine ol' Cajun cooking. I stopped at a little hole in the wall diner near downtown Bourbon street area and had what's called a Cajun biscuit and it turned out to be probably the best breakfast I've ever had. It cost me $5 USD and I tell you, Michelin star restaurants had nothing on this place.

Between New Orleans and San Antonio, Texas nothing on any real significance happened other than the fact that I was soaking wet to the bone for about 500 miles. I entered the rainstorm thinking that it would only be a sprinkle, but then the sprinkle, turned into a moderate rain which then quickly turned into a torrential downpour with gale force winds. I found myself inclined at a 45 degree angle while trying to drive in a straight line with only about 20 meters of visibility. By then I figured it was too late to put on my rain gear so I just stayed that way till it was all over about 8 hours later. I spent that night in a hammock in the middle of some uninhabited woods near the outskirts of San Antonio and was awoken to the sounds of deer feeding nearby.

The next morning I made my way to the Texas-Mexican border but before the crossing I stopped at a local electronics store to pick up a spare battery for my camera. While at the checkout counter I experienced something that I thought was only possible in one of those late night talk shows where people on the street in the U.S. are asked to answer the most basic of geography questions--the answers to which are always embarrassingly wrong. I'll be honest that I never believed that there were sufficient people out there who don't know the very basics of geography such as “where is Africa on the globe” and had been therefore convinced that the majority of these skits were merely staged. But today my naivety was harshly revealed to me by the young cashier. He had asked me for my zip code for the usual marketing reasons and I replied by telling the young man that it wouldn't be necessary as I live don't live in the U.S.. This then elicited further questioning from him such as “so where do you live?” to which I replied with “London”. At this point the young man paused in deep thought and with a straight face asked me “what language do they speak in London?” I was in shock for the next few seconds and tried to give him a chance to redeem himself by telling him that London is in fact in England in the hopes that he would snap out of his mental stupor—it did not work. I was then momentarily relieved to hear his female colleague next to him speak up, insult his stupidity and then proceed to inform him ever so confidently that “they speak French in London, you know, because it's right next to France”. I felt the blood drain from my face and my limbs go cold and numb. I quickly looked around in the hopes to find some hidden camera where all this was been taped for some prank show—which was unfortunately not the case. I couldn't bring myself to answer the young man and just walk out of the store feeling somewhat uncertain of the future of that generation.

The next stop was the border. After a solid 3-hour dance of bureaucratic paperwork bliss, I was finally on my way into the Mexican heartland. I must admit it was a strange feeling making that cross off of American soil. I think it was more just personal confirmation that the trip was actually underway and that there was no turning back past this point.

It took me about four hours to make it down to Monterrey where I decided to lay up for the night. I walking into the first hotel I came across in downtown Monterrey. I was even able to talk the girl down from 350 pesos to 200 pesos for the night. I set my backpack down in the room and closed the door behind me. When I returned to my room with the rest of my gear, I found that the key didn't work. I then found out, or better said, the hotel management then discovered that none of the keys they had for that room actually worked. My backpack was now locked inside my hotel room. This was just one of the many little things that reminded me that things operate a bit different down here. I then spent the next two hours helping the hotel repairman/porter/security guard remove the door from the frame. It was another moment of deja vu as I recalled the time in Beijing when my roommate unknowingly locked me in my own apartment after leaving for work and I then spent several hours removing a metal door frame from its concrete foundation just to get out of my own apartment. It was the same thing, only this time around I was rewarded with a few tacos and a beer for my assistance in the matter. Later that night, after some greasy Mexican fajitas and a few pints of Dos XX from the tap at the local hangout, a German Bierhaus with Karaoke music, I was ready for some shuteye. It was only after I was already in bed that I realized that the hotel was earning some extra revenue through deviant methods as there was a "partnership" with the brothel next door. My auditory senses were quickly inundated with harmonious moans from multiple directions, all of which were out of synch with one another. Oh well, it was nothing that my trusty earplugs couldn't resolve.

The next morning I got an early start and headed to San Luis Potosi using the road less traveled. Easily the best ride of the trip so far. I drove for nearly three hours in the mountains on hairpin turns, passing goat herds in the middle of the road and flying down small single track dirt trails that attempted to shake my bike apart. There were times where I had to remind myself that I didn't have my race-prepped Ducati anymore and instead was driving a fully-laden Beemer. I thought of the Martins (B & M) from Steam D and knew they would fully appreciate the roads here. I even found a small deserted village in the middle of nowhere. Neither my GPS nor my detailed topo maps showed its location. There were basketball courts and buildings that looked like they hadn't been kept up in over 30 years. I drove through doorless buildings with my bike thinking I was recording the whole day on the helmet cam only to find later that night that the past 2 days of video had not been recorded due to a memory card malfunction. It was very disappointing not to be able to share the ride with you all but I'm certain that there are many more good rides to come. As I pulled up to a small hotel in San Luis Potosi at around sunset another fellow motorcyclist traveler pulled up next to me. Matt from Michigan (U.S.), and he was headed back home after a two month wandering through Mexico.


[Matt: fellow motorcycle traveler]

We exchanged stories the rest of the night with several locals who proceeded to edify us on the local alcohol of choice, the name of which escapes me for some reason or other.


[Small town entertainment]

It was a great night filled with amazing food, drink, and eventually some late night salsa dancing at the only club in town where I even ran into the hotel attendant who had checked me in a few hours earlier. The next morning Matt and I bid each other farewell and as he headed north and I pointed my front tire towards Mexico City, I was invigorate with the prospect of many more great evenings like the one I had just had.

It was now Sunday the 23rd and my plan was to stop for lunch in San Miguel de Allende before pulling into Mexico City for the night. On the way to San Miguel de Allende I stopped at a fresh strawberry stand on the side of the road and indulged myself in some of the most delicious strawberries and cream I had ever had along with making a new friend Ismael, the proprietor of the stand pictured here. He shared with me the nuances of strawberry cultivation and I recounted a few travel stories he was keen to hear about. In end he pulled out a small flask of his family's special homemade tequila and gave me a small taste. An hour later after Ismael refused to accept payment for the strawberries, I was back on the road with another a deeper understanding of what makes the people down here tick.


[Strawberry proprietor extraordinaire]

When I arrived in San Miguel de Allende I was somewhat disappointed to see it flooded with tourists prancing around in a Disney World sort of fashion. The town's architecture and cobblestone street were exquisitely maintained and I found myself just wandering around the small side alleys trying to avoid the crowds. As beautiful as the town was, I honestly couldn't take much of it so I decided to call the visit short and head out of town to eat have lunch at small mom and pop mexican cantina and then headed onwards to Mexico City. In Mexico City I met up with Luis Berrondo from LBS and was generously put up at his place for the night. Next up... Rancho Escondido and Palenque before hitting Guatemala.

Here I have to mention that I was very disappointed after 3 days of riding to discover that most of the video I had recorded on my helmet cam was corrupted due to a faulty memory card. I was only able to resolve the problem after arriving in Mexico City where I bought a few new memory cards. It's all fixed now and should be good for the rest of the trip. That being said, the upload times here in Latin America take an eternity and I therefore don't think I'll be able to upload the huge HD video files until after the trip. I'll try and make tiny snippets, like the one below, from here on out. Till the next posting...

Atlanta to New Orleans, U.S.A

After 920 km of riding, Day 1 has finally just come to an end. The weather gave me a nice welcoming with tornado birth formations appearing just a few miles from my starting point. I am hoping this wasn't a portent from the gods of bad things to come. Because if was, I'm not listening. You can get a vague idea of what I was seeing from the video below.



I had just cleared the storm when my brand new iPod stopped working. I could not believe it. I was only 15 minutes into the trip and was already writhing in mental anguish at the thought of having to deal with the fact that the next 68 odd days were going to be musicless. I thought of my good friend Santiago and knew that this alone would have caused him to cancel the trip. But then I quickly reflected back on my previous life in the military and realized that for a brief second, the MBA was causing me to get soft. No music, too bad. I knew I was going to have to deal with much worse than no iPod in the months to come. I thought back to my first cross-country motorcycle trip in 1994 when I rode from San Diego to New York to save money on a plane ticket. Back then all I could afford to do for musical entertainment was go into the next gas station and hope that there was something good on the radio that would get stuck in my head. Afterwards I would jump back on my bike and proceed to "sing" into my helmet at the top of my lungs--luckily with no fear of retribution from a would-be tortured audience. Sometimes I would get lucky and there would be something playing on the radio that I actually enjoyed. At other times though, I wouldn't be quite so lucky and would find myself singing Madonna's "Like a Virgin", or even worse, some horrid song from one of the many talentless boy bands around at that time. All these flashbacks came back to me in an instant and I found myself dreading the thought of what song would be playing at the gas station this time around, and considering I was still in the Deep South, where country music was abound, I feared my chances were pretty high of ending up singing a song about some redneck shooting his girlfriend who had run away with another redneck with a bigger truck--or something along those lines.

A few hours later somewhere in Alabama I came across a holy site which would have brought a tear to my eyes had I actually been from The South. That's right ladies and gentlemen, what happens when you mix Alabama, hunting, fishing, and good 'ol backwoods southern religious fervor together? I'll tell you what you get: The one and only Bass Pro Shops Flagship Store! For the non-North Americans reading this, I feel some background information is necessary at this point. Bass Pro Shops is a company which sells everything from fishing rods, handguns, and large-bore rifles, to the ever requisite 4-wheeler to get you around your favorite hunting&fishing area. Their consumer base is generally made up of males age 15-43. Most of them have mullets and close blood relatives with whom they hope to join in unholy matrimony. Rednecks from around the globe have an obligation to make a pilgrimage here at least once in their lifetime. The preferred method of transport, judging from the parking lot, is not on foot as one would imagine a pilgrimage should necessitate, but instead is apparently done exclusively by 4x4, and most of these being outfitted with a minimum 4-inch lift kit, a gun rack, and let's not forget a confederate rebel flag waving high and proud.

Ok... enough, I think we all get the picture I'm trying to paint here. So why was I so excited about this place you ask? Well, right before starting off in Atlanta I had accidentally scratched a lens protector for my helmet cam which I had fabricated out of a pair of rifle scope covers and this Bass Pro Shop would most certainly have the replacement parts I needed.

After carefully scanning the area for anyone who would blow my cover and identify me as a infidel, I was able to quickly infiltrate this holy redneck place of worship without incident. I've attached a short reconnaissance video of my brief visit. Note the stuffed animals hanging high on the walls as far as the eye can see. My guess is that they were there to remind any would be criminal what would happen to you if you were caught disrespecting this fine institution.



Shortly after safely leaving the Bass Pro Shop with my booty I was doubly rewarded to find that my iPod did in fact work! (the cause of failure turned out to be the vibrations caused by having it mounted on the handlebars) Things are looking on the up and up! Next stop... the Texas-Mexico border.

Pre-trip post

I'm now just a few hours away from departing upon this long awaited journey on two wheels to Argentina. The trip kicks off in Atlanta, U.S.A. where the motorcycle I'll be riding has been kept while I've been living in London this past year. In total I should be on the road for 67 days and will have ridden an estimated 20,000 miles +/- 10,000 miles when I reach Buenos Aires—it all depends on how many enticing off-route trails I find myself wandering down. It's been my experience that the real adventure lies just around that corner or on the other side of that river that I had never intended on crossing and I certainly don't intend on inhibiting my instincts from these sources of a good adrenaline rush.

Many of you have asked what inspired me to do this when I could far more easily fly down to Buenos Aires and save myself the hassle. The word hassle really brings a smile to my face especially in the context of what I know I'm about to encounter on this impeding journey. And hassle will undoubtedly come in many varieties. In previous trips, hassle took the form of a bitter undersexed middle-aged immigration agent who had nothing better to do than tear my luggage apart in search for that bootleg DVD she just knew I had purchased in Beijing, and which eventually caused me to miss my flight. Or better yet, in the form of a Bulgarian customs agent who's lack of the most basic knowledge of spices led to a night in prison for attempting to smuggle saffron across the Turkish-Bulgarian border—a culinary misdemeanor at most. Anyone who's traveled outside their home countries has assuredly experienced their own version of hassle. I'm just thrilled to see what kind awaits me in a few hours.

That's it for now... my next post will be from the road with hopefully some pics and helmet-cam footage. Please do be patient... the best footage is still many days and thousands of miles away.