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entry 13: veracruz, mexico to chetumal, mexico 01/12/06

Our police escort into Veracruz. Believe it or not - it's a good thing!

After leaving Oaxaca we headed north to Veracruz, passing the volcano Orizaba, which is Mexico’s highest peak at 18,854 ft. Its impressive height allowed us to see it more than 50 miles away - and then our route took us right past its base. It impressed us even after living next to the Rocky Mountains for twenty-five years. The rest of the ride had great valley views and lots of tunnels before going flat for the last fifty miles to the coast. Roads leading to large cities are generally not tough to find and riding to their outskirts is usually uneventful. The tricky part is always the last five miles and finding the town centers – our preferred stopping point. Trying to navigate from a rudimentary “Lonely Planet” town map and sporadic road signs, while at the same time fighting chaotic traffic patterns is always a challenge. This time it turned out different. We stopped to gas up at a Pemex on the outskirts of Veracruz and there were two motorcycle cops taking a break in the shade. After swapping bike admirations (they were riding water-cooled Suzuki singles, which looked brand new), they offered to lead us right to our hotel! It felt like being in a parade as they had their lights on and drove slightly slower than the traffic. Finding a hotel should always be this easy.

It was dark by the time we headed out to explore the city and we quickly discovered the one underlying negative of this place - the smell. This town is one of the oldest in Mexico and I’m pretty sure not much has been done to upgrade its sewage system – not to mention Veracruz is a large port city with a big fish market a few blocks from our hotel. Even the street vendors put cardboard over the sewer grates to hold back the stench. We found the downtown to be fairly rundown, but ventured a bit further south the next day to find a fairly new area where we found a movie theater with VIP accommodations. We had seen these once before and loved them, so we quickly picked a movie and went in. These theaters take the U.S. stadium seating to the next level. They boast reclining seats with footrests, a table between seats WITH a menu and waiters that come to take your order. They serve items such as sushi and mixed drinks and of course popcorn and hotdogs. All this for about $7.50, food not included.

We call this one - "Self-Portrait of a New Year's Eve Gone Bad"

New Years Eve turned out to be a bust. It started when we took a cab to what was supposed to be the party on the beach and found out that the taxi drivers charge twice the usual amount on New Years Eve and triple for your ride back after midnight. When we arrived at the “party area” it turned out that no one was on the beach - but were all in hotels at high-priced parties. So we took another taxi back to our hotel restaurant only to find that they too were charging $100 a head for what looked like a kid’s birthday party at a Denny's. So we walked to the town square, found a restaurant willing to feed us a simple meal (without $60 party hats) and hung out in the square waiting for the party to begin. We looked for bars with parties and then we just looked for a bar. No luck. Midnight came and three people blew horns and we headed back to our room. Oh well, at least we stayed up to see the New Year in.

Not to sound totally down on Veracruz I have to mention Baluarte de Santiago (Fortress of Santiago). It is the last remaining fort (out of seven) that once provided the walled defenses of Veracruz. The canons remain and after you walk across a draw bridge you can visit a museum on the inside. It gave me a sense of how seriously they took the threats of pirates during the 17th and 18th centuries, because the walls were easily 6 feet thick. It was a fun, quick tour for me while Lynne, with little to no interest in forts, mingled with the locals in the adjacent park.

With the New Year under our belt we headed out on the road again, our next destination being San Cristobal de las Casas. Having driven over two thousand miles in Mexico, we now had a good understanding of how expensive the toll roads are in Mexico. There is always a free alternative - you just have to weigh your resources, ie, which is more plentiful at any given time - time or money. On this day, we chose the toll roads. We had hit several booths already when, on the other side of Minatitlan, we paid for a toll that was about eight bucks a bike. Three miles down the road we came to our turnoff which of course led right to another toll booth. They wanted another three dollars a head. Lynne showed them our receipts from the last toll booth - which you could almost see from where we sat, but he just held out his hand for the dough.

Arriving in San Cristobal, we found our pre-chosen hotel from the Lonely Planet fully booked (sidenote: our experience with the Lonely Planet guidebooks is that rooms are generally about 50% more pricey than they report). So we poked around a little bit and found a hotel close to downtown for $43. When we got into our room, we found the “Hotel Rules”: 1) No visitors. No problem. 2) No eating or drinking in the room. A slight problem, as we usually eat-in for breakfast. 3) Be back to your room by 9pm or face getting locked out unless you make special arrangements with management. Wow, I haven’t seen that rule since living with my parents. Needless to say we went looking for a new hotel the next day and found a rarity, a newly converted Holiday Inn (formerly a hostel) right downtown. We talked them into letting us have a room for three dollars a night less than the monastery we stayed in the night before. Good deal!

Colorful hammocks for sale on the steps of the cathedral in San Cristobal de las Casas.

San Cristobal was a pretty good mix of local Mayan art, Spanish architecture and masked men carrying guns. Okay, we personally did not see any masked men. I’m referring, of course, to the Zapatistas and their infamous uprising here in 1994 when they rebelled against the Mexican government while striving for a better future for the indigenous poor in the Mexican state of Chiapas. The rebellion led to about 150 deaths. Because of Federal elections in Mexico this year, the Zapatistas have organized a six month cross-country tour with the hopes of raising awareness again - but this time featuring more peaceful marches and demonstrations. The reunion tour kicked off in San Cristobal a few days before we arrived and newspapers were filled with stories of the Zapatistas and their leader, Marcos (a one-time college professor!).

All in all San Cristobal was pretty laidback - a good place to spend a few days. Internet access is cheap here – about 80 cents an hour, at least one newspaper written in English could be found and decent food was available at reasonable prices. January 6th found us being rained on for the first time since leaving California. The weather had turned cool, mid 40’s, and with the constant drizzle we stayed off the bikes and in our room, which was without heat but had a great bed. Read into that whatever you want.

A few days later we headed north to Palenque, following a great twisting road that had so much to see that our five hour ride went by quickly. The ride started out with a mountain terrain that had pine trees mixed with palm trees and villages that were distinguished by the colors and patterns on gorgeous blouses worn by the women. Also, the ride was a veritable barnyard tour, with goats, turkeys, pigs, lambs and horses on the road. Along with the animals on the road were small pickups that had been transformed into people movers. These hills were filled with small towns of indigenous folk and these trucks were their transportation around the hills and into the towns of San Cristobal and Palenque. They simply stood along the roadside and the trucks (which were plentiful) stopped to pick them up. Special cages attached to the beds held enough room for eight people with their cargo. These drivers new the road pretty well - a constant eye in the rear view mirror was required as they had no time for tourists. The most unusual sights on this road were what appeared to be a semi-pro basketball game, complete with uniforms and fans cheering both teams, on the side of the road – and, of course, the topless woman doing her laundry roadside. I guess modesty takes a back seat when it comes to cleanliness.

We made an attempt to stop at a tourist attraction just before Palenque, a place called Agua Azul, a waterfall that sounded like a good place to see. The highway sign indicated that it was about four miles down the road. We turned off the main road and traveled about three miles and then were stopped by some locals selling fruit and knickknacks, holding a rope across the road. We have come across this before and in a car it would probably be no big deal, but when someone is holding a taut rope in front of your bike, it could turn out bad. Lynne honked her horn, the rope dropped and we continued on. About a half mile further we were stopped by a bigger rope, a dozen or so hawkers trying to sell something, and a person charging a buck a bike to continue down the road. We get our ticket, thinking we had just paid to get into Agua Azul and continued on another half mile before being stopped again. That was one rope too many. These guys were charging for something else, and we were at the end of our day (not to mention the end of our rope). We turned the bikes around and went to find a hotel in Palenque. Aqua Azul will have to wait.

The Pavarotti of Palenque. This guy was WAY too happy at 7am!

Sometimes the most memorable part of a town are the sounds that wake us up in the morning. We’ve had birds, construction, hotel employees, and goats to name a few. At this hotel, we were awakened by what sounded like a male opera singer. Not really singing a song, but a short phrase that was repeated every five minutes, starting at 7am. After an hour or so of lying in bed (we have built up a pretty good tolerance to sleep-interrupting noises) we went outside to find the source of the melody and to buy tour tickets to the ruins. We discovered a small giant of a man sitting on the sidewalk bellowing out “Roo-ee-NAS” (Ruins in Spanish) and selling tickets to the temples. Since he was a good-natured guy and had a good 200 pounds on me, my irritation evaporated quickly.

The ruins of Palenque were awesome! We have visited several ruins before and found Palenque not only the most interesting but also the most comfortable to visit. It has a park like setting with plenty of trees for shade and lots of grass to help keep the temp down. Most people visit the only the two areas of excavated ruins called Groups A & B, but we found the path along the river and through the jungle to Group C, It was a great contrast to the rest of the sights and has the mostly untouched ruins, so you can see what the archeologists saw when they discovered the ruins. The Howler monkeys add to the atmosphere and when they get going they can be very loud! One question that always runs through my mind when climbing around any of these old temples is: Why did humans that were barely five feet tall construct buildings with steps that are two feet tall? I’m sure they were in great shape and I guess if you want to build something tall you go big on the stone blocks.

The next day we were on the road to Chetumal, our last stop in Mexico, and we spent a night in Francisco Escarcega where we experienced our heaviest rain and lightning storm to date. The thunder woke me from a dead sleep. If this is the dry season, then we are very glad we are not traveling during the wet season. Our room was on the first floor but the lay of the land was with us and our room was spared from getting wet. And as a side note, this was our first hotel without toilet seats and you were requested to put your used toilet paper in a trash can next to you. This really cut down on my reading time! The following morning we hit road construction for the first twenty miles but we were lucky again as the only clay/mud we had to ride through were the transition roads that went from one paved side to the other. The widening of the roads reminded me of what others who have gone before us have said - “See it before it all gets paved”. The rest of the road to Chetumal was a two-lane road that was covered by shade trees and felt more like riding through a national park instead of a real highway. It was a nice, easy ride.

Chetumal was pretty quiet, nothing much to speak about other than it appears to be a jump-off point for tourists coming into Mexico – which naturally means the hotels charge more. A tour group with about 25 Germans checked into our hotel right behind us and for once we felt like we had pretty good tans. The next morning we rode the three to four miles to the border where we had our passports checked and then had to turn in our tourist cards and vehicle permits. We then road over a bridge, which defines the Mexico/Belize border and stopped to get bike (liability) insurance. The insurance is required as there are several police stops that check to make sure you purchased it. The cost was $30 per bike for a month’s coverage. (Bikers beware - this cost is not regulated and we know others who have been bilked for much more money for the same insurance.) After that we stopped at immigration and customs. The total time for all stops was 90 minutes. The only cost was for the Belizean auto insurance. No problems, just a polite inspection of our panniers and off we went. Next stop Belize City!

From Lynne:

Our trusty map showing the chosen stroll route through the diverse country of Mexico.

Well, time for a look back on our two months in Mexico.

Most fun experience– climbing all over the ruins, jungles and waterfalls of Palenque. It was an awesome experience which I would recommend to anyone with knees strong enough to withstand the pounding.

Perceived rip-offs – a tie between expensive toll roads (note: no discounts for motorcycles, so we paid double) and tourist hotels which overcharge shamelessly and then nickel-and-dime you to death for everything from water to internet.

A wonderful thing – the graciousness of small town hoteliers who always went out of their way to make sure our bikes (and us!) were well taken care of.

Awesome rides – 1) Tehuacan to Oaxaca through the Sierra Madre mountains and sugarcane filled valleys, 2) San Cristobal to Palenque – thanks to a million topes (speed bumps), this ride never picks up speed, but the entertainment and beauty which Tom described above NEVER stops, 3) circling the volcano Orizaba.

Biggest disappointment – food. While living in Denver (with a huge Hispanic population) we could usually be found at our favorite Mexican dive restaurant several times a week– and self-proclaim ourselves to be aficionados of the cuisine. Traveling through Mexico however, I found the food to be boring and a bit tasteless – other than some killer tamales in Oaxaca.

Another wonderful thing – the way these two F650’s are taking the trip. So far, the whales have taken everything we’ve thrown at them with grace.

One last wonderful thing - the weather. The majority of the time we had really temperate riding weather and not a drop of rain for nearly two months! After the Pacific Northwest of the United States, this was brilliant!

On a sad note - it was very difficult for us to observe the plight of dogs here in Mexico - especially in rural areas. There is no correlation whatsoever between the US obsession with pampering their pets and what appears (in our eyes) to be a "survival of the fittest" attitude toward dogs here. Animal lovers be prepared.

Favorite stops – San Cristobal for me – just enough off the beaten track to be void of the “rank-and file” tourists, very rich in contempporary history, and at 7,000 feet it had that clean mountain air that I love. For Tom – Tepic. For him, this was the first truly Mexican-style town we encountered. Personally, I just think he liked the $1.20 shoe-shine.

I’m missing/craving – Mountain Dew! I read a newspaper article down here that said Coca-Cola has around 80% of the soda business in Mexico. Since MD is a Pepsi product, I haven’t seen the bright green “nectar of the gods” bottle since we left San Diego.

Overall, a wonderful experience. Can't wait to see what Central America brings. See you in Belize!