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.