We’ve had quite a ride on the way from San Cristobal, Mexico to Xela, Guatemala. The first day out was great. It’s always nice to be on the bikes again after a hiatus. We did pretty well—we were hot and tired afterwards, but not in pain. The second day was pretty nice, too. That is until we were about 5 km away from our destination at the border town, Ciudad Cuauhtemoc. All of a sudden there were tons of cars backed up and none of them were moving at all. As we biked past them, I noticed several trucks that had passed us much earlier in the day. Our first real road block*. When we got close enough to see the road filled with people in the distance, we stopped to ask some policemen what was going on. They told us that the country people were blocking the road in protest, but they were only blocking cars, and we should be able to go through with out a problem. Feeling reassured that we weren’t biking into a hostile situation, we forged ahead. As we reached the mass of people completely filling the road, we were pointed to a small path through the ditch on the side of the road. Around the people we went and were riding again in a couple minutes. We stopped to buy some pineapple and watermelon from one of the vendors catering to the crowd. Here we found out that the road block was to protest corn prices. The rest of the ride into town was uneventful and traffic free. When we arrived at the hotel in town we were greeted by a Dutch tour group who had walked to the hotel/restaurant leaving their bus behind the roadblock. They had passed us on the road earlier in the day and were happy that we made it safely to our destination.

The border crossing was uneventful and bribe-free. We got our passports stamped for 90 days in the country, changed most of our pesos into quetzals and were off. For the first 10-20 km there were many people on or near the road. They all seemed to want to test out their english—shouting “hello, bye-bye, hello, bye-bye” with the occasional “hey guys” or “good luck” thrown in. Later, we discovered that all little boys under the age of about 10 like to shout “gringos!” then run to the road to watch us pass and yell “bye-bye” or run alongside the bikes for a while.

The ride away from the border was almost entirely uphill, so we decided not to push our luck with the knees and stopped in a small town called Colotenango, where we spotted a hotel by the road. We had a nice chat with the hotel owner, who assured us that we would be very safe in Guatemala as long as we don’t ride at night.

Matt awoke the next morning with a bit of an upset stomach. We didn’t have much of a choice but to keep riding so that we could make it to the larger city of Huehuetenango, where we could find a cash machine to replenish our small amount of quetzals. After about 10 km, or 45 minutes of uphill riding, Matt was feeling light-headed and needed a bit of rest in the shade. We pulled off of the road just past a bus stop and some men moving a pile of rocks. The rest didn’t really help and after attracting a bit of a crowd who were watching us from a distance, Matt threw up all the liquid he had had that morning. If any of you know Matt very well, you will know that he faints very easily when he is sick or in pain. He can’t even listen to verbal descriptions of injuries without feeling faint. So, after throwing up, he passed out just long enough to freak me out. I was just about to start figuring out the Spanish for “throw some cold water on him” when he came to. Then vomited up all the solid food he had eaten. The crowd watched until he got up and started walking around again.

Feeling much better after throwing up, Matt decided he could try riding again. We only had about 35 km to go that day and not much money, so we made the attempt. We quickly came upon another problem though. Having thrown up all his food, Matt had no energy. And he wasn’t feeling well enough to eat anything. So, we gave up on riding to Xela and bussed the rest of the way to Huehue, had a day of recovery there, then bussed on to Xela today.

Guatemala on the whole is a bit more chaotic than Mexico. This is especially true of the buses. The most common type of buses are referred to (by tourists) as “chicken buses” because they take pretty much anything, including live chickens, as cargo. I had read much about these old US school buses in our guidebooks etc, but I still was not quite prepared for the experience. First of all, they aren’t just old US school buses, but techicolor school buses, some of which have what looks like the hood of a semi-truck. The bus stations are really just tiny parking lots crammed full of buses. There are no tickets to buy, you just find the guy yelling out your destination, then get on the bus he points you toward. Once inside the bus, there is even more chaos. As we were waiting to leave the aisles were full of vendors selling newspapers, sodas, candy, popsicles and jello. On the 2 hour ride from Huehue to Xela, the entire bus was sitting at least three across, more if there were children in the seat, hanging on for dear life every time the bus tested the laws of physics on the curves of the narrow, winding mountain road. I was disappointed that neither of our “chicken bus” experiences involved any actual chickens—the closest we came was a bunch of eggs.

Despite doubts at times, we have made it safely (Matt is still a bit sick, though mostly able to eat again) to Xela and successfully met up with our host family. They have so far been very welcoming and fun. We have a date with the little girl to do some painting after we return from our first day of classes and orientation.

* We had previously encountered people holding up traffic to collect money for various projects. Two of them were very mild, held by school groups collecting money for their schools asking for money but not holding people up if they didn’t contribute. On the van ride back from visiting the runas of Yaxchilan and Bonampak, we encountered a fairly rowdy road block with probably around 20-30 men not allowing anyone to pass until they had made a donation to fund the building of a house in their community. Our driver, probably accustomed to dealing with this sort of thing, handled the situation very well and managed to get us past with a donation of only around 50 cents per person ($5 total) in the van, though it took some calm negotiating on his part.

Bringing Up Bobby the movie

As promised, the city of San Cristobal has lived up to its reputation as a charming, friendly colonial town that (most importantly!) has a mild climate. When we arrived by bus, we found a hotel and then immediately proceded to put on jackets and pants. Our hotel was thankfully willing to let us leave our bikes and most of our bags here while we took the bus to the town of Palenque. This section of bussing had been in our plan all along, as the road to Palenque from San Cristobal is about 220 km of tortuously winding road, in the exact opposite direction that we want to travel. After arriving in Palenque (both of us somewhat carsick), we set about booking our tours for the next two days. Since the town of Palenque is somewhat boring in and of itself, we decided to stay outside of town in this little community called El Panchan. It consists of several different encampments with cabins or dorm-style rooms to sling a hammock (big among the backpacker crowd), all surrounded by jungle. There was much less human noise here than there was in town, but we traded it for the noises of the birds and insects, who were surprisingly loud during the night. And I should mention that we were now back in the heat and humidity, so it was back to sleeping with a fan pointed at us all night. However, the rainy season hasn’t really gotten into full bloom yet, so it has been pretty bug-free so far.

At 6 AM the next morning, we were out by the side of the road waiting for a van to come pick us up. Our first tour was to the Mayan ruins of Yaxchilan and Bonampak. We first went to Yaxchilan, and since there are no roads to the ruins, we had to take a hour-long boat ride down the Usumacinta river (which is along the Mexico/Guatemala border) to see them. All of these Mayan cities were abandoned before 1000 AD, so rather than having been ravaged by the conquistadores, these ruins have been mostly ravaged by the passage of time, and encroachment of the jungle. In fact, the most recent inhabitants of these ruins appeared to be of the flying type (bats and birds). Anyway, back to Yaxchilan…the site itself is mostly known for its well-preserved carvings. Most of the carvings were done in limestone, which makes their preservation all the more impressive. We only had two hours here, which was a little rushed—we got to see everything, but we had to move quickly. The next site, Bonampak, is famous for its well-preserved wall paintings. Overall, the site is smaller than Yaxchilan, with its main attraction being three small rooms with paintings of various events in the history of the city.

The next day we did a one-way tour to the Palenque ruins, a couple of waterfalls, and then back to San Cristobal. The ruins at Palenque were simply amazing. The site itself has buildings of greater size and number than any of the other sites we’ve seen so far. We saw a map in the museum of the entire city of Palenque when an estimated 100,000 people lived there, and the amount of the city that has actually been excavated that you can visit is only a very small fraction of what it was at its height. After Palenque, we visited the waterfall of Misol-Ha. You can actually walk behind the waterfall and climb up into a cave carved out by additional waters that also feed the lagoon below the falls. Then we saw the biggest waterfall attraction of the area, Agua Azul. The water here is a very bright blue, and although the largest and most spectacular part of the falls is at the bottom, you can hike along a path for about a kilometer and see smaller waterfalls the entire way. This is a popular place for people to swim, and having been sweating the entire day, we definitely took advantage, finding a smaller pool up along the path where the water was calmer and the people were fewer. Then it was back along the windy road to San Cristobal, where thankfully, our bikes and bags were still waiting for us.

We’ve had a couple more days in San Cristobal to relax before we head out tomorrow toward the Guatemalan border. We should be in Xela (Quetzaltenango) by next Sunday to start our language classes. We have enjoyed our time in Mexico immensely and will be sad to leave, but we are also both really looking forward to improving our Spanish, and seeing what Guatemala has to offer.

I’ve been waiting to bust out that title for a while now….that felt good! I’m doing my Axl Rose serpentine right now as I’m typing…

I’ll expand a little bit on what Cindy wrote earlier about the heat. The guidebooks will tell you that weather down here (in Central America) is less dependent on latitude and more dependent on altitude. I don’t think I really processed that phrase until we descended out of the mountains. After having been well above 1000 meters elevation for over a month (since leaving Tepic), we really noticed a marked increase in temperature as we descended back below 1000 meters—like all of the sudden somebody turned on a blast furnace in front of us as we were riding. We’ve been too cheap to spring for air conditioning in our hotels, so sleeping has been rough lately (although fans definitely help). We’ve also had to shift our riding schedule—we can’t afford to waste the cool hours before 9 AM anymore, so it’s up at 6 AM and on the road as soon as it gets light enough to ride (around 7 AM).

Our crossover into Chiapas was mostly uneventful (and uninteresting). As Cindy mentioned earlier, I was able to take a bus back to Mitla to get our tent poles from the little town we were staying in, San Jose de Gracia. This part of Oaxaca was very reminiscent of Baja California, both in landscape (lots of brush and cactus) and in having long stretches with nothing but road and very small towns inbetween. After leaving San Jose, we stayed in the town of Magdalena Tequisistlan. Although we knew there wasn’t a hotel there, we had already ridden almost 90 km and were too tapped out from the heat to ride the next 18 km to a town with a hotel. We asked some friendly policemen if there was a place to stay, and they suggested we go to the palacio municipal. Next to the palacio was a building that was a sort of civic center; they told us that there were some classes there (dancing, sewing), and after those we could have the place to ourselves. It was great that we found a free place to stay, but there wasn’t much airflow in the building, which meant that it stayed unbearably hot during the night. The civic center was right on the main plaza, which played host to a pick-up soccer match between a bunch of teenage boys until almost 9 PM.

The next day we limped into Tehuacan Tehuantepec. A couple of days back, I had had a low speed fall after spinning out on some gravel on a hill, and twisted my knee trying to get out of the pedals. Thankfully, our day from Magdalena to Tehuantepec was short and flat, but it was still enough to put my knee out of commission for a while. So in order to keep to our schedule and give my knee some rest, we’ve been doing some bussing. We spent a couple of forgettable days in Tehuantepec (mostly trying to stay cool) before heading to Tuxtla Gutierrez, capital of the state of Chiapas. It was on this bus ride that we really noticed the terrain change to the lush greenness of the jungle (cue GNR music here).

We arrived in Tuxtla in the middle of their Festival of San Marcos, which was much like Carnival in La Paz, with music, carnival rides, and lots of food. We also visited the excellent zoo in Tuxtla, which is in a jungle setting and focuses on the wildlife found natively in Chiapas (some species of which are endangered due to loss of habitat and being sold on the black market). But the highlight was definitely our boat tour of Sumidero Canyon. They take you on a 3 hr ride in a motorboat from the nearby town of Chiapa de Corzo down the length of the canyon (which has walls nearly 1 km in height in places) to where it ends at a reservoir for a hydroelectric dam. We saw lots of wildlife along the way, including a few crocodiles that seemed to be posing for pictures all day.

We are going to bus to San Cristobal de las Casas next, and use our extra days to head to several Mayan ruins, including the famous Palenque ruins. San Cristobal will take us back up into the mountains (2100 m elevation), and we are REALLY looking forward to a break from the heat.

Certifying Coffee Aids Farmers and Forests in Chiapas

Good to hear that some of those little labels you look for when you buy coffee in Seattle are actually helping people. Well, at least until the bigger farms get on the bandwagon…

The US state department had issued a warning to travelers to avoid the area, but in December (after the troops had broken up the protests) said that it was safe to travel here. Additional research online would only tell us that Oaxaca was safe for travelers, but not whether the people of the city wanted visitors.

For a couple of reasons, we ended up deciding to go. One consideration was route—we spent so much time exploring Michoacan that we need to get a move on to avoid the hurricane season in the Caribbean (we are already too late to avoid the rainy season). Secondly, our roommates in Seattle spoke of Oaxaca with such fondness that we both felt like we knew the city already.

In Oaxaca, we found many tourists, mostly Mexican, French and German. The people we talked to (mostly employed by the tourist industry) said the city in general was pretty tense at times, but as long as you avoided certain areas it was always safe.

Much of the conflict is over the rights of the indigenous people, who have been recieving the short end of the stick since the arrival of the Conquistadors. Subcommandante Marcos, the leader of the Zapatistas in Chiapas, has been working on a united effort to bring attention to the plight of the indigenas all over Mexico. You can read more about these issues at narconews.com.

As I sit in the hotel room and write, Matt is taking the bus back to our last hotel where we hope our tent poles and stakes are waiting for him. This extra “rest” day is not completely unwelcome; we have descended from the mountains and are finding the heat and humidity of the low lands as large an adversary to riding as the mountains were. Perhaps a day of heat without the exertion will help in acclimating.

After more than a week in Mexico City and almost two weeks without riding (due to busing in and out of the city,) we are happy to be on the road again. The first two days on the bikes were great, we were feeling strong and not encountering too many hills. The Footprint Guide told us that the toll road between Puebla and Oaxaca was beautiful and stayed between 1500 and 1800 meters in elevation. Very nice, at least for those first two days. Then we found ourselves descending to below 1100 meters only to spend the rest of the day climbing back to an elevation of almost 2200 meters (for a total of over 2000 meters of elevation gain—our biggest day of climbing to date)! The moral of the story—never trust a travel guide when it comes to road elevation or distances.

We knew we had entered the state of Oaxaca when hot chocolate was offered along with coffee at breakfast. Oaxaquena chocolate, a blend of cocoa, sugar, cinnamon and almond, is divine. We purchased several brands so that we can have a tasting when we return to the states. We also visited the impressive ruins of Monte Alban and the gold-laden Santo Domingo Church, with its accompanying former convent that is now an amazing museum.

We are two days out of Oaxaca (the city; we are still in the state), heading towards the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the geographical boundary to Central America. We visited two archeological sites on the way out of town. The first was Yagul, which had a fortress/lookout on a hill above the city. Climbing up to the top offered great views of the ruins below and of the Valley of Oaxaca. The second site was Mitla, where the modern day city was built almost on top of the ruins. In fact, some of the buildings were destroyed and the stones used to build the church which sits amid the older structures. Milta was a Zapotec city and has intricately carved patterns on many of its buildings.

We have made arrangements for our language school in Guatamala, at the Proyecto Linguistico Quetzalteco de Espanol, which came recommended by our friend Melissa. We will be taking classes for two weeks. One week in the city of Xela (also known as Quetzaltenango) and one week at the branch school in the nearby mountains on a coffee finca. We have about two and a half weeks to get there, so hopefully there won’t be many more unexpected delays. We are also working on our route and schedule through the rest of Central America, so if you want to meet up with us somewhere let us know soon and we will happily work you into the plans (even tentatively)!

Spring parade in Patzcuaro

Monarchs in flight

P.S. OK, figured out how to embed the movies, but they don’t work correctly on the PC at the internet cafe I’m at. Can anybody confirm they can watch these?

We’ve been in Mexico City for about a week now, and it is about as crazy as you would expect a city of over 25 million people to be. First, how we got here. We were whisked to a bus stop in Toluca by Moises’ dad, and within seconds of arriving, our bikes were thrown under the bus and we were on our way. The disorientation only began there. We had a plan for how we were going to ride to Teresa’s parents house once we got to the city, and the route seemed pretty straightforward. However, when we actually saw the major roads and the traffic on them, we got a little freaked. We ended up riding from the bus station downtown to visit Moises at his work for lunch, and then continued from there to the delegacion of Tlalpan, which is in the southern part of the city. To give you an indication of how big the Distrito Federal (DF) is, to get from the city center in the middle to Tlalpan on the southern edge was around 30 km! Anyway, when we finally navigated our way to the house, we were weary from dodging buses and taxis, and very happy to be welcomed by Teresa’s family.

The last week has been spent alternatively packing as much sightseeing as possible into a day with days of downtime and recovery. Mexico City has so many amazing sights that in our week here, we’ve only scratched the surface—which is actually great, since it gives us an excuse to come back We got the chance to see some amazing art, not only modern artists like Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera (and other muralists), but endless examples of pre-Hispanic art at the National Anthropological Museum (you can easily spend a whole day at this museum). We also enjoyed visiting some of the neighborhoods, getting a feel for the town outside of the historic center. And of course, we enjoyed the archeological sites. Teresa’s mom has been our most excellent tour guide for most of the week, shuffling us from Metro to taxi to bus to Metrobus seamlessly, helping us navigate our way through the city.

The first site we visited was the Templo Mayor, which is right in the heart of downtown Mexico City, right behind the Cathedral. This was the heart of the ancient island-city of Tenochtitlan that was part of the Mexica/Aztec empire (for more information about the Mexica/Aztec distinction, check out this Wikipedia article). The most amazing thing about it to me was that it was only discovered in 1978! The Mexica had a construction method of enlarging their buildings by building over the top of the old ones. This temple had been built over seven times by the time Cortez came to conquer the city in the early 1500’s. Then, as was the method of the conquistadores, they razed the city and built Catholic churches on the sites of the old buildings of worship. And there the ruins of the temple remained until they were rediscovered by accident.

On Sunday we went with Teresa’s family to Teotihuacan, which is about 50 km north of Mexico City. This site is dominated by its two large pyramids, the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon. Surprisingly, it only took just over 10 minutes to climb to the top of the Pyramid of the Sun (and that was with lots of resting and lots of traffic). This site is so huge that there are still parts of it that are covered by grass and dirt, patiently waiting to be excavated. Unfortunately, the museum was closed though—yet another reason to return. On the way back, we stopped by an amazing restaurant called La Gruta (The Grotto), which is in a giant cave near the ruins. In addition to the atmosphere and food being incredible, there were three dance routines that were performed, ranging from one in ancient Mexica garb to one in the traditional style of Veracruz.

We’re expecting a package today from Amazon with a map and a guidebook, both of Central America. Although our highway map of Mexico has been very useful, we have suffered somewhat not being as mentally prepared in advance for our climbing days as we were when we had our elevation map in Baja. Our plan is to leave the city as we came in, by bus, to the city of Puebla. Then we’ll bike south to Oaxaca—all reports indicate that things have calmed down quite a bit there since the end of last year, so we’re looking forward to it.