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Riding to Semuc Champey (and a minor crash)

December 14, 2009

I neglected to describe part of my last night in Antigua in my last post.  It won’t take long.

I’d been in contact with an ADV rider named Kent, and he sent me a message saying that he was in Antigua, and would I like to meet up for a drink?  Kent was doing a similar ride to Tierra del Fuego in order to raise funds for the Global Peace Network, and was staying in Antigua to learn Spanish at a local school.  You can read more about his journey at http://www.alaskatoargentina.org.

I’m always interested to hear another rider’s stories, so I made plans to meet him at my hostel in the evening after my volcano adventure.  Kristina, my roommate at the hostel, and Nadia, who I met on the volcano tour, also joined us.  Together the four of us walked to a local bar and recounted our travel adventures.

Nadia and Kristina.

Bars in Guatemala close early.  Pretty much everything shuts down by 1 AM.  After closing time, we stood in the street and debated what to do next, but with nothing open, there were few options.  Just then a group of locals invited us in to a neighboring restaurant/bar for a private afterparty!  All together, about 25 people rushed into the afterparty before the bar owner closed and locked the doors.  With the music playing, and the strong (and free!) drinks flowing, our little group of four had a really great time.  Our conversations veered into the relative merits of keeping oneself trimmed down there, and continued on into more unprintable subjects.  All-in-all, a great night!

Kent, Nadia and myself at the illegal afterparty.

The following morning I packed up my things and departed Antigua.  I’d heard from lots of travelers that a place called Semuc Champey was very much worth seeing, so I figured I’d take a little detour northward to check it out.  On the paper map I’d bought, it appeared as if Highway 5 was the most direct route from Guatemala City to Coban and the road that would take me the rest of the way to Champey.  I soon found out, though, that even paper maps are not always trustworthy.

I had some trouble finding HWY 5 initially.  Guatemala City is huge and confusing, and highway signage leaves something to be desired.  Something I still have not managed to figure out is exactly how to parse highway signs here.  For example: I’ll be riding down a highway, such as CA-1 (the panamerican highway), and ahead I’ll see a sign which says, “Guatemala City (CA-1), continue right” and below it, “Antigua Guatemala (CA-1), continue left”.  What does this mean?  Does CA-1 continue to the right, or to the left?  Highways don’t branch in the States, and as near as I can tell, the don’t in Meixco or Guatemala, either, but the signage is very misleading on this point.

Anyways, on to the ride.  Highway 5 from Guatemala City to the city of Rabinal is not completely… well, complete.  There is an 80 mile section which has yet to be paved.  This is why I took the KLR and not the Ducati!  I let out some air from both tires and continued on to the dirt.

Not all of this highway was as wide and nice as this section.

It happened close to the end of the dirt section.  I was coming around a right hand curve at about 12-15 mph when an oncoming motorcyclist surprised me in my lane.  I swerved out of the way and felt my front wheel dig into the gravel, causing and the bike to wobble side to side  before sliding out from under me.  I lowsided on the left side of the bike.  The other rider continued on, probably unaware of the trouble he’d caused.

Thankfully, I’ve been pretty good about ATGATT (all the gear, all the time) on this trip, and this day was no exception.  I bounced back up and ran a quick status check on all my major limbs.  Yup, everything is still attached and OK.  The bike was a little worse off, but nothing too serious – a corner of the left pannier had dug into the dirt, causing the whole pannier to rip off from the luggage rack.  The crash cage on the front end was tweaked, and the shift lever was bent in towards the engine.  All in all, not a bad outcome.  The dislodged pannier’s attachment points were bent out of alignment, but this was quickly fixed by banging on them with a large rock.  I muscled the shift lever back into place with a little grunting.  The crash cage is still bent, but I guess that’s a good thing – better it than the radiator/fan assembly!

The Curve. I was coming the opposite direction, but the crash spun the bike around.

I took a short break to calm my nerves.  After some food and water, I felt good enough to continue (albeit at a much slower pace).  This crash could easily have been avoided if I had been more paranoid about each turn and slowed down to just a few MPH until I could see that the road was clear.  Lesson learned, I guess!

I was still a little shaken up, so I stopped at the next town and found a hotel room for 60Q (about $8 USD).

I parked just outside my hotel room.

I felt much better the next day.  The road from Rabinal was fully paved, so I added some air to my tires, and the rest of the ride to Champey was easy and uneventful.  I’m constantly impressed by the sort of scenery that Guatemala offers.

Guatemala is a mountainous country, making the roads delightfully curvy.

Very little of the Guatemala that I've seen is flat, so farmers have learned to grow crops on hillsides.

I reached the city of Lanquin in the early afternoon.  Lanquin is the closest town to the park which contains Semuc Champey, and I found a private room in a hotel for the equivalent of $12 USD.  There were cheaper rooms for $6, but one look at them and I figured that the extra money for a private bathroom was well worth it!

Walking in to town from my hotel took about 5 minutes, and the surrounding jungle made it an interesting walk.

Heavy labor is the norm for locals here. I've seen small children carrying loads of wood larger than themselves and old men with heavy sacks strung across their backs.

I’d arrived too late for a tour to Champey.  I briefly considered riding the 11 KM to Champey myself, but I decided against it.  Tours to Champey leave in the morning, so I paid for two nights and made it an early night.

I think this is a good length for a posting, so I’ll get to the day I spent in Semuc Champey in the next one!

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Hot Lava: check!

December 11, 2009

Guatemala is a disorganized, loud, and hot country.  Nicely paved two-lane highways turn into 80 miles of dirt without warning.  Insects are everywhere and you need to watch your belongings at all times.  I love it here!

I spent my first night in Guatemala in the city of Quetzaltenango, or as the locals call it, Xela (Shey-lah).  My first impression of the place was not great and I imagine this has lots to do with the uncomfortable ride across the border.  Buses and trucks spew foul-smelling oily black smoke into the air, and they drive extremely aggressively, making it hard to pass them.  Igor and I only rode ~80 miles past the border but by the time we arrived in Xela, I’d worked up a mean sweat and was ready to take a nap.

Igor wanted to spend a few weeks in Xela to learn Spanish at a local language school, so I said my goodbyes and rode away, solo once more.  I truly enjoyed traveling with Igor and Pepe, but I also appreciate having my own pace and my own direction.  As any motorcyclist will tell you, riding in a group can be fun, but it brings additional stress to the ride.  Was he able to pass that truck? Are they still behind me?  Am I going too fast?  Too slow?  Such thoughts occupy my mind, while riding solo puts me in a more pensive and untethered mode of thinking.

I had the worst chinese food of my life when I went for breakfast in Xela. I don't think I'll be ordering asian cuisine again until I get back to Seattle.

After enjoying my “breakfast”, I gassed up and left Xela.  An interesting thing about Guatemala is that gasoline prices are listed by the gallon instead of by the liter.  Distances are still measured using the metric system, as well as all other volume measurements that I’ve seen (bottled water, oil, etc), but gas stations are different.  You notice these things when you ride a motorcycle – lots of time to think.

The road to Antigua took me through a brief section of fog before descending. Actually, I guess it's not fog if you're at 8000 feet - then it's just clouds, right?

After a few missed turns, I finally found Antigua.  Riding in Guatemala is quite an experience, I must say.  GPS maps are a “best-effort” affair, and even paper maps can be inaccurate or misleading.  After the last few days of travel I’ve determined that any travel-time estimates that I make should be at least doubled.

Anyways, true to reports, Antigua is a very lovely and very touristy town.  I stayed in “Hostel 5″ near the town  square.  The hostel had hot water, clean beds, and free breakfasts.  It even had a spot inside for my motorcycle!  I met some new friends while staying in Antigua, but I’ll get to that in a minute.  First, the main affair:

From the second floor terrace of Hostel 5 I could see Mt Pacaya (an active volcano) in the distance. See the smoke?

I have dreamed of seeing hot lava up close ever since I was a child.  When I decided to do this trip, I made a list of destinations to visit, and Mt. Pacaya was right at the top.  Mt Pacaya is an active volcano and depending on the level of activity, it’s possible to climb up and see molten lava flow down the mountain.  This is something that the authorities in USA would never, ever allow, but in Guatemala, anything goes!

A shuttle bus took me and 13 other tourists from Antigua up to the trailhead on Pacaya for 65 quetzals/head, or about $8 USD.  The ride was fast and scary and when it ended, I was very happy to step on solid ground again.

Entry into the park cost 40 quetzals/head, and the price included a local guide to take us up the mountain.  I never learned our guide’s name, but he was pretty memorable!

Our guide was full of stories and crazy antics. At one point he found a huge larvae and stuck it in his mouth.

The first half of our hike passed through lush jungle, which turned into sparse greenery before giving way to bare rock.

The smoke plume varied in intensity by the minute.

Once we got to the lava fields, the hiking became significantly tougher.  Newly cooled lava is filled with sharp edges and rough surfaces that really, really want to cut your knees and elbows up!  Our guide slowed the pace considerably and we made it up without any injuries.

At first the lava fields were flat and easy to hike...

...but the route got steeper.

Eventually the trail became so steep that we had to use our hands for support, so I put away the camera.  We did stop to rest and drink water, so I had a chance to snap some photos of the gorgeous scenery.

A side view of a two-week-old lava flow.

Kristina stops for water with Volcan de Agua, an inactive volcano near Pacaya.

As we continued hiking, the group began to notice the occasional warm breeze.  In Guatemala, the temperature is still pretty nice even at 8000 feet, but you don’t usually get hot breezes on the sides of mountains.  Our guide stopped and dug into the loose rock a few inches, then instructed us to place a hand inside the hole.  The rock was hot to the touch!  According to our guide, the lava here was mere days old.

After another few minutes of climbing, we started noticing charred rock and a fiery smell in the air.  On the side of the trail I saw my first glimpse of what was to come:

No lava yet - just extremely hot rock.

A stick placed near the red hot rock quickly burst into flames.

After two hours of hiking, the trail finally leveled out and I saw a crowd in the distance.

This was it.  We had arrived.  We scrambled over the still-hot lava crust, careful not to place a limb near anything still red.  In retrospect, the whole experience seems unbelievably dangerous, but nobody got hurt and I’m very glad I went.  This is what I saw:

It looks just like it does in the movies.

My first impression: molten lava is HOT.  I know what you’re saying: “um, no shit, Joe”.  The thing is, you don’t appreciate how incredibly hot this stuff is until you’re standing 20 feet downwind of a river of lava.  I did approach it close enough to poke my walking stick into it, but to do this I had to splash water over my exposed skin, and even then I only lasted a few seconds.  2000 degrees Celcius is pretty difficult for my pasty white skin to handle.

I felt like a little kid next to that lava.

The lava river flowed over a ridge and down the side of the mountain.

As dusk ended, the glow from the lava became much more noticeable.

That’s about it.  The climb back down the mountain was in full darkness.  Everyone had headlamps or flashlights, so we could see just fine, but nevertheless we took it easy until we left the lava fields.

Looking back at the lava flow.

This experience was incredible, and I will never forget it.  I don’t know what else to say about this, so I’ll just leave it at that.

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Oaxaca to Guatemala

December 8, 2009

I have three days worth of travel to cover, so let’s get to it.  When I last left off, I had just arrived in Oaxaca after a long and thoroughly fun ride.  I ended up spending two nights at a youth hostel there.  The weather was delightful, and on the morning I left  I woke up early to visit the ruins of Monte Albán, which lay just a few miles outside of the city.  These were the first ruins I’d seen on this trip, and I really enjoyed them!

The ruins were interesting, but I actually felt quite impressed by how flat the ground was. That can't be easy to do.

There were several guided tour groups, but I declined to join them, and instead decided to explore the place on my own.  As a result, I don’t really know much about it, but I had a good time making up scenes in my head of what life might have been like at one time.

Pictured: the ping pong tournament court.

The ruins seemed to be in surprisingly good condition for their age.  An information placard said that the ruins dated from as far back as 500 BC.  I later realized that this achievement for the Nahuatl civilization might not be as impressive as I initially thought when I saw a team of workers restoring a crumbling stone wall.

To be fair, the workers looked like they were taking extreme care to make the repair work as accurate as possible.

By the time I arrived at Monte Alban the sun was already high in the sky, and since I was still wearing my motorcycle gear, I didn’t last very long in the heat.  I left Oaxaca in the early afternoon and rode towards San Cristobal de las Casas in Chiapas, the last Mexican state I would visit on this trip.  Another motorcycle rider named Igor (igorshen on advrider) and I planned to meet up in San Cristobal and possibly ride together through the Guatemalan border.

Leaving Oaxaca in the afternoon.

My route took me out of the valley and back towards the coast, where I made it to a small town named Juchitan de Zaragoza just as it got dark.  The town wasn’t anything special.  The ride from Juchitan to San Cristobal, however, was pretty interesting!  There is a valley just outside of Juchitan with a very large wind farm.  I found myself riding down a long, straight highway with an extremely strong crosswind (I would guess 30-35+ mph) which was a little unnerving.  If you’ve ever ridden a motorcycle in strong winds, you know how quickly you get pushed from one lane to another if you’re not careful – especially on a tall KLR!

I took this photo while sitting on the KLR on the side of the highway. The gusts of wind were so strong that the bike nearly toppled over several times.

After the wind farm, the road began to climb.  San Cristobal sits at a lofty 7000 feet, and the highway I took (190) goes over a 9000 ft mountain pass before coming back down.  The sky actually threatened to rain for the first time since I left Seattle!

A light mist eventually turned into stinging rain drops when the road actually entered the clouds.

At 5500 feet the road entered the cloud cover.  Visibility dropped to ~50 feet and stayed that way for over half an hour.  Thankfully, most other drivers slowed down to reasonable speeds, and the highway had a wide enough shoulder to move over for any lunatics that wanted to pass.  It actually rained for a short time – the first time since leaving Seattle!  Eventually the road passed out of the top of the clouds and I arrived in San Cristobal shortly thereafter.

A small corner of the lively market place in San Cristobal.

Igor had sent me an email with a location where we could meet that evening.  When I got there, I found him talking with Mike (bouldergeek on advrider), another motorcyclist from the States.  Mike was on the return leg of a ride all the way down through Central America to the Darien Gap at the end of Panama, and Igor ran into him by chance.  The three of us went out for drinks and talked shop for a while.  Mike had lots of advice about places to stay and things to do in the countries ahead.

From left to right: Mike, Igor, myself.

Mike, Igor and I made plans to meet the following morning for coffee before Igor and I set out on the road together.  To my surprise, when I found them the next day, a fourth motorcyclist had joined us!  Pepe, a Mexican guy from Monterrey, had seen Igor that morning, and he decided that riding to Guatemala for a few days sounded like fun.

Before we left, Mike gifted a spare oil filter to me, which he didn’t have to do and which I accepted gratefully.  I now have three spare filters, which should be enough to get me down to Patagonia with regular filter changes.

The three adventurers set out from San Cristobal. From left to right: myself on my KLR 650, Pepe on his BMW F650GS Dakar, and Igor on his KLR 650.

The Guatemalan border is only about 2-3 hours away from San Cristobal, so we took it easy on the ride down.  Based on Mike’s recommendation, the three of us stopped at a town near the border called Lagos de Colon for the night, with the intention of crossing the border early Monday morning.  Lagos de Colon is a small town with several beautiful freshwater ponds that feed into one another and eventually cascade down into a small river.  There were a few places where the water had overflown the roads, so we had a small taste of the many Central American water crossings ahead of us.

One of several short water crossings.

The next morning we rode the last few KM to the border and began the emigration/immigration process.  Unfortunately, Pepe realized that he could not actually afford to travel into Guatemala, so with reluctance we said our goodbyes and Igor and I continued on together.  As non-mexican citizens, we had to cancel our Temporary Vehicle Importation Permits (TVIP) at the Mexican Aduana office (customs) and get our exit stamps in our passports.

Pepe and Igor trying to figure out the Mexican Aduana. The process to cancel our TVIPs was actually quite painless.

Guatemalan immigration and customs was also pretty easy.  A charge of 40 Quetzales for the vehicle importation and 13 for “fumigation” and we were on our way.  A second border successfully crossed!

Importing the bikes into Guatemala at the Aduana office.

My first impressions from Guatemala are mostly good.  The people have all been very friendly and the terrain is mountainous, green and beautiful.  I don’t like how polluted the air gets in the city, though!  Vehicle emissions are even worse here than in Mexico, if that’s possible.  I hope that the rest of Central America won’t be as hazy and dirty.

Well, that’s just about it for now.  I plan to head towards Antigua today.  There is an active volcano named Pacaya just outside the city, and I want to see some hot lava!

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I made it to Oaxaca

December 3, 2009

I did not write in very much detail about yesterday’s ride.  This was mostly because yesterday was intensely frustrating, and I did not want to think about it.  My plan was to find the road that connects the coastal highway (MX-200) with the inland highway to Oaxaca, but my hopes were frustrated by bad roads, misleading directions, and imprecise/inaccurate GPS map data.  After a long and broken conversation with a group of four local men who (I think) were saying that the road I wanted was in very bad condition, I cut my losses in the late afternoon and returned to the city of Ometepec for dinner and a night’s rest.  As it turns out, this was just what I needed.

Today I woke up earlier than I have this entire trip.  I woke up so early that it was still dark out!  Laugh if you want, but I am not a morning person by nature, so setting my alarm to 5:30 AM was truly a testament to my devotion towards finding Oaxaca.  I was on the road by 6:30, and the sun did not rise until close to 7 so I enjoyed the twilight and the cool morning air while I had it.

The fields were covered in a thick mist this morning, and the riding was cool and quite comfortable.

After a couple of false starts, I found the right highway and made my first real foray into the highlands of Mexico.  The road I took (MX-125) starts off slowly, but soon begins to climb into the mountains.

Clouds dominated the skyline on the southern side of the mountain range, but it never rained.

This was exactly what I’d been looking for.  Don’t get me wrong – the coast is nice, and I love the beaches and the sandals and the warm weather, but I’d been missing the mountains and those lovely mountain roads for a while.

Today was a day of (nearly) non-stop jaw-dropping riding.

The air chilled considerably as I climbed. I actually had to close the air vents on my jacket for the first time since entering Mexico!

The riding was phenomenal, and it was only with great difficulty that I was able to pause and snap a few shots before jumping back on the bike and zipping off.  The extremely narrow (and often non-existent) shoulders complicated things, as I had to search hard for safe places to leave the bike in order to shoot photos.  I’m very glad I did so.

The road had very little traffic, which helped make it safer for photographing.

Imagine this, only 200+ kilometers of it.

Exhibit A: one extremely satisfied motorcycle rider.

According to my GPS, the route peaked at about 8000 feet, whereupon it began to descend into the valley which contains the city of Oaxaca.  The mountain must have a very powerful rain shadow effect, because the southern side was green and moist while the northern side remained arid and hot.

The northern slope was less green but still beautiful.

The mountain road eventually turned into a high-speed toll highway which I followed for the last 110 KM into Oaxaca.  By then my ass definitely felt the effects from all the hard mountain riding, so I was more than happy to coast the rest of the way to the city.  I found a hostel near the historic center of the city, and tomorrow I intend to explore some of the ruins near the outskirts of Oaxaca.  I probably won’t stay for more than one night since I’m excited to get to Guatemala, but this city has already shown me some cool sights.

La Iglesia de Santo Cristobal - a really large church in the middle of the historic center of Oaxaca.

I watched these kids toss around a large, inflated plastic bag in the city's main plaza.

I had my first chance to try the Oaxacan cuisine. This tamale wasn't much to look, but it sure was tasty!

My first impressions of this city are decidedly good.  It’s at a higher elevation than most places I’ve stayed so far (5000 feet), which helps with the heat and the bugs.  I’m looking forward very much to going out tonight and checking out some of the bars that I noticed while walking around earlier this evening!  I don’t know where my next destination will be, but stay tuned – I expect to be in Guatemala in 3 or 4 days.

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Casita de la Playa

December 1, 2009

Ooh, boy.  This is going to be a long post.  I have a whole week to cover, so bear with me.

Ola and I rented a small beach house on the shore of Santiago.  We were just a few miles north of the port city of Manzanillo, on the Pacific coast of the small Mexican state of Colima.  We found the place online and decided to take a chance on it.  It was very worth it!  The beach literally abutted our lawn and we had an incredible view of the ocean.  The house was built just last June and we were one of the first people to stay there.  It was a real treat!  There was a locked parking area for my motorcycle, air conditioning, and a well-equipped outdoor kitchen.

Standing in front of the Casita as the sun began to set on our first night.

Our casita's lawn. The outdoor kitchen is in the back, behind the hammock.

One of my favorite things about the house was the kitchen.  I’ve been eating out and snacking on pre-cooked meals this entire trip, so cooking our own meals was a welcome change.  The kitchen was outdoors and separate from the main house.

Crepes and nutella under a palapa roof with a view of the Pacific Ocean - hard to beat!

The kitchen had a hammock nearby with a very nice view.

One of our goals for this trip was to have as much beach time as possible.  Ola flew in from Seattle, which is currently cold, wet and quite dreary, (or so I hear!), so after spending some time on our own sandy beach just outside our house, we rode to another beach that the house’s caretaker recommended.  I’m not sure of this beach’s name but it is in a community on the west end of Santiago called “Club Santiago”.  A nearby peninsula protects the beach from big waves, making the area a desirable place for snorkeling.

Sitting beachside and waiting for our drinks.

Something that I have not yet acclimatized to is how pushy the vendors are here.  I know that we were in a touristy area, but I felt a little overwhelmed by how many people came to us to display their bracelets, necklaces, pottery, pastries and other wares.  One man in particular was extremely pushy with trying to sell us a snorkeling tour – I think he approached us four or five times, and each time we declined!

Nevertheless, I really enjoyed all the beach time, and we did eventually end up going for a snorkeling tour of the bay.  The Club Santiago bay has several underwater attractions including a sunken ship from the 1800′s and a coral reef.  Our boat operator gave us a tour of the coastline and explained some of the geological features.  He only spoke Spanish, so I served as a translator for Ola, and together we had a great time.

Ola, looking pretty on the bow of the boat.

Ola took a picture from the bow of my considerably less pretty mug.

Look, an elephant-shaped rock! I usually wouldn't post this, but it was actually kind of cool in a dorky, touristy kind of way.

After the narrated tour we dropped anchor next to the coral reef and donned our snorkeling gear.  It had been about 10 years since I’d last gone snorkeling, and the first several minutes were rather difficult.  Knowing logically that you can breath with your face underwater is one thing – overcoming the primate instinct to get your face the hell out of the water is another.  I had to take some time to calm my breathing before I could enjoy myself, but after a short while I got back into the hang of it and had a great time.

Eventually I was able to do some diving and enjoy swimming through the plentiful fish.

There were a good number of fish near our anchor point. Unfortunately, the water was fairly murky and not many of my shots came out, but I liked this one!

On a side note – I am extremely happy with my camera purchase.  Prior to this trip I did some research (actually, my photographer girlfriend did the research) and I bought a Panasonic TS-1 camera.  It is waterproof, dustproof and (reportedly) shockproof.  I’ve been very satisfied with the photo quality and it was fun to take some photos underwater!

Happy snorklers, heading back to the beach for some post-snorkeling food and drinks.

All that swimming made us quite hungry so after returning to the beach and tipping our guide we found a table at one of the many beachside restaurants and ordered an appetizer of fish ceviche (yummy chopped fish cooked in lime juice and served with onion, tomato, and spices) followed by shrimp quesadillas and barbequed fish fillet.

The fish was not actually barbequed, but I don't remember the actual Spanish word, and BBQ is a pretty close description.

No mexican vacation is complete without tequila, so that evening  (or maybe the next one, I don’t remember – it all just blurs together into one scrumptious, lovely week!) we had an impromptu tequila tasting at our home.  We’d bought a bottle of Campo Azul blanco a few days before, and we added a bottle of 1800 Anejo and 1800 blanco to the selection.  Salt, lime, cheese, bread and marinated sardines completed the evening.

The 1800 anejo was our favorite.

One of the many amenities that came with the house was a set of boogie boards, which we naturally used several times.  Having the beach just feet from our front door made playing in the surf a low-commitment, high-comfort activity!

This was Ola's first time boogie boarding. She's a natural!

I caught a few waves, too.

We played in the surf for hours. I felt like a little kid, and had a really great time!

Another notable adventure occurred during a day trip that we took.  The house’s caretaker recommended that we visit a small town called Comala which lies just a few miles outside of the state’s capital city of Colima.  It was only 100 KM away from Manzanillo, and the route looked straightforward enough.  We jumped on the KLR and took the libremente (non-toll) highway out of Manzanillo towards Colima.

The adventure started when we arrived in the city of Armeria.  The libremente and the cuota (toll) highways merge here, and there’s a series of turns that are marked only with small “To Colima” signs.  I saw the first two, but I missed the third, and continued off-course for a good 20 minutes before acknowledging that we were going the wrong way.  Our diversion took us through progressively poorer sections of Armeria and eventually onto a narrow, bumpy, and windy dirt/gravel road.

Some curious locals stare as we ride by on the KLR.

At this point we were both thinking: this can't be the highway to the state's capital, can it?

The dirt road came to a river. We could see several bridges but none of them were accessible to us. Doh!

After realizing that no access to the bridge we needed existed from our dirt road, we turned around and headed back to Armeria.  My GPS was invaluable here, as it prevented me from taking further wrong turns on the way back.  After another 20 minutes of hot, sweaty, dusty riding, we made it back and I parked in the shade next to a store.

Ice cream and lots of water kept us in high spirits.

The store’s owner gave me directions, and after checking the tire pressure and adding a few PSI, we continued on.  In my haste to make it through the city, I had missed a right turn onto a fairly major thoroughfare.  It was a good lesson, and it just goes to show that in Mexico you need to have patience and care when riding.

Laughing and enjoying our rest!

Shortly after our detour, we arrived in Comala and found a restaurant near the town square for a late lunch.  We’d set out from Santiago at about 1:30 PM, and by the time we arrived in Comala it was 4:00 and we only had a few hours of daylight left, so we didn’t get to explore the city much.  Our lunch was delightful and the square was a great spot for people-watching, though!  I think that my favorite part was the ride itself.  Ola and I had never gone for a long ride together on the KLR before.  At home, we’d only gone for rides on my considerably more aggressive Ducati 996, which was fun but only for feasible for short rides.  The KLR was comfortable for both of us and I could see us going on more rides when  I return.

We didn't get to see much of Comala, but I didn't much care.

For our last night in Santiago, we went out to dinner at a nice steakhouse called Vaqueros.  It was next door to Walmart, but don’t let that fool you – it’s really, really good.  It was also the by far the nicest place I’ve eaten dinner at this whole trip.

The half a bottle of champagne and two margaritas may have contributed to my rave opinion of this restaurant, but honest: the food was amazing!

Well, that’s about it.  The week was just what we both needed, and I don’t think it could have been any more perfect. Ola is back in Seattle, and my plan now is to make a break for Guatemala.  I am currently sitting in a youth hostel on the waterfront of Acapulco, so I still have a couple days of catching up to do with this blog.  Hopefully I’ll get another post up tonight and we’ll be fully up to date!

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A beach house in Manzanillo

November 23, 2009

I arrived in Manzanillo yesterday and I will be staying here for one whole week.  My girlfriend flew in yesterday and we’ve rented a lovely little beach house together.  I am looking forward to having some time to relax and explore!

But to catch up on the last couple of days:  I left  Tepic on Friday after finally finding a shop that carried 10w40 motor oil.  A Honda motorcycle shop near my hotel had it in stock, and after some convincing, I finally got one of the mechanics to change the oil in my bike.  I would have done it myself but I did not have a catch pan and the shop only charged me the equivalent of $24 USD for the change.

Draining the dirty oil from my KLR at a Honda shop in Tepic, MX.

I did not change the filter – I only brought 2 spare filters with me, and I expect that I’ll need to change the oil in my bike about 4-5 times total, so I am going to change the filter every other time.  Hopefully this will be OK!

Motorcycle owners really push the limits of tires down here.

Glad to have new oil in the bike, I set off for the coast  and for Manzanillo.  I had the option to ride inland towards  Guadalajara, but I’m glad I chose the coast, because the highway (MX 200) is absolutely amazing!  Like, “200+ miles of 40mph twisties on a well-maintained one-lane highway with little to no traffic” amazing.  For the most part I was having too much fun to stop and take photos, but I did snap one of this guy:

Yeah, yeah - they're harmless and friendly and not creepy at all. *cough* Right.

I rode through the beach town of Sayulita and explored it as a possible resting point for the night, but while the town had a certain old-time feeling, it was completely crowded with vacationing Americans so I decided to move on.  At that point I still had about 3 hours of daylight left so I continued down HWY 200 towards the warm waters of the Pacific.

These trees are litterally everywhere, but I still get a kick out of them.

The sun began to set at around 5:20 so I started looking for a place to spend the night.  I found a small beach town just a couple KM off the main highway that had a couple hotels so I got a room for $250 pesos.  The town wasn’t too interesting – just a couple of restaurants and homes – but the beach was pretty nice, and I bought a pirated DVD from a guy selling DVDs and CDs for about $2 USD just for the hell of it.

This is a pretty common layout for Mexican beach towns - a main (paved) road that runs the length of the town parallel to the ocean, with dirt side roads that lead to the beach.

I arrived in Manzanillo yesterday at 2 PM and found our rental house without much difficulty.  The GPS map that I have for Mexico is not particularly good for city streets, but I’ve found that I can look up the latitude/longitude of an address with Google Maps and then use dead reckoning to find it.  My girlfriend’s flight arrived at 3:30 and I went to the airport to pick her up.

The house is wonderful and I’ll be sure to get some good photos of it before we leave.  I probably won’t post any updates this week as I’ll be too busy exploring and enjoying my time with Ola, but look forward to something new next week!  Until then-

Cheers!

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A few days in Tepic, Nayarit

November 21, 2009

I woke this morning, groggy and confused, to the sound of loud percussion and brass instruments playing nearby.  It took me a while to place this sound as it seemed so incongruous with the usual early-morning din of a city.  A quick glance at the clock told me that it was only 6:15 AM.  What kind of manic would allow a marching band to play so early in the morning?

After a few false starts at getting back to sleep, which were interrupted by intermittent drum- and trumpet-playing, I finally resigned myself to wakefulness and stumbled into the shower, which was thankfully hot.  Showers have been hit-or-miss so far and I am learning to appreciate them when they have  hot water.

Eventually I made it to the street and over to a large plaza located immediately down the block from my hotel, where I found these guys doing their thing:

See the white building in the background? Yeah, that's my hotel.

OK, so that explains the source of the wake-up call.  I planned to stay in this city for one more night, so I hoped that this was not a daily occurrence.  I wandered down through narrow streets in search of some breakfast and saw all kinds of odd activity.

One of many trucks that I saw with towers of speakers powered by generators.

I found a seedy-looking covered market with butcher shops, fruit stands and several small restaurants, and decided to sit down and see if I could experience a “real” local meal.  I’m not sure if they even had menus.  I pointed at something another patron had ordered and said, “yo quiero eso tambien”.

"Eso tambien" turned out to be two fried eggs, some beans, and a mess of tortilla chips cooked in salsa, all covered with some kind of not-very-strong cheese. Pretty good, and it was only 25 pesos.

 

My breakfast was cooked by this pretty girl. The "kitchen" was a bit cluttered but she managed.

Sated, and now fully awake, I went back out onto the streets to learn what exactly was going on.  The sidewalks were by now lined with people and I figured that it must be in preparation for a parade – but for what, I had no idea!  A woman I asked informed me that November 20th was the day of the Mexican Revolution – hence the festivities.

People lined the streets past the Catedral de Tepic in anticipation of the parade.

While walking down the parade path, I heard somebody ask, “¿de donde eres?” (where are you from?).  The question was repeated, and I turned around to see a group of seven young kids smiling and looking up at me.  “Los Estados Unidos”, I replied, and we launched into conversation – where are you going? where did you learn Spanish? can I come with you?  They insisted that I take a photo with them:

These kids were very excited about me and my trip. When they learned that I was going solo, several of the girls asked to join me!

The actual parade was a little disorganized and difficult to photograph.  I had fun watching the proceedings, but as the morning went on and the temperature rose, I began to feel the effects of my interrupted sleep and I decided to retreat to the air-conditioned comfort of my hotel to rest.  A little while later, I went back out and caught the tail end of the parade.  After it ended, I snapped a photo of this guy:

Half motorcycle, half cart!

I’ve seen several of these strange-looking vehicles around.  At first, I thought they were some kind of specialized motorcycle produced by a company that caters to street vendors.  Upon closer inspection, I realized that no – these are literally motorcycles, minus the front forks, that have been welded on to metal carts at the point on the frame where the triple trees would usually attach.  The carts have a swivel that allows the front two wheels to turn, making the cart maneuverable (albeit awkward).  I love the ingenuity!

As the daylight drew to a close, I went to the plaza to relax and read my book when I saw this lovely sight.

While eating dinner at a cafe down the street from my hotel, it occurred to me that I hadn’t had any real dessert on this trip yet, so I ordered this:

It was delicious.

Tomorrow I will try to change the oil in my motorcycle (I tried to make it to a mechanic today to change the oil in my bike, but they were all closed – presumably because of the holiday).  I could change it myself, but I haven’t found a place yet that stocks a 10W40 oil.  I’m hoping that a mechanic will have a supply.  If all else fails, I will use a higher viscosity oil, which would probably work just fine in these higher temperatures, but makes me a little nervous.

That’s all for Tepic.  I’ll continue south tomorrow, although I haven’t decided yet whether to follow the coast or head inland.  Oh, what difficult choices I face – c’est la vie!

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La Paz and a Ferry Ride back to the Mainland

November 19, 2009

The last time I updated this, I had just arrived in La Paz, Baja California Sur.  I am now back over on the mainland in Tepic, Nayarit.  Several days have passed so I’ll try to catch up on what’s happened in this post.

I spent two nights in La Paz (Sunday and Monday night).  By pure chance, I found the quirkiest hotel ever.  It was owned by an older man and staffed by his (I think) brother and nephews.  The name is Hotel YNK, and I highly recommend it.  On the first night I spent in La Paz, I finally set out to find some dinner at around 10 PM, but it turned out that pretty much everything was already closed.  The nephew of the hotel’s proprietor cooked up a tasty bowl of cheese/bean/veggie something and fed me for free!

I parked my bike in the courtyard of the hotel in La Paz.

The city of La Paz is very large and I wasn’t able to find a comfortable place to hang out, so instead I took a few day trips out to some local beaches north of La Paz near a city called Pichilingue.  One of the beaches was completely primitive and had the most lovely sandbar that stretched out over several hundred yards.

The Balandra beach had a shallow sandbar that extended several hundred yards out from the shore, never getting more than about 2 feet deep.

I spent most of an afternoon at the Balandra.  Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my bathing suit on this particular outing, but luckily the water was shallow enough to get by with rolled-up jeans!

Standing in the sandbar and enjoying the warm waters of the Gulf of California.

Tecolote beach lies just a few miles east of Balandra.  It is more popular due to its size and the several restaurants and bars that cater to beachgoers.  I had planned to take the ferry over to Mazatlan, and it was not scheduled to depart until 8PM on Tuesday evening, so I spent most of Tuesday relaxing at Tecolote.  It seemed to be a popular destination for families and vacationing foreigners.

Relaxing on the beach near La Paz.

The woman at the ticket office for the ferry told me to arrive at the gate at around 6PM, so I packed up my stuff and left Tecolote as the sun began to set.  I arrived at the port in Pichilingue and got in line with the rest of the non-commercial vehicles, and while waiting for the boarding to begin, I struck up a conversation with two American guys.  Their names were Jacob and Erik, and they had been traveling together from California in an old Mazda pickup truck down the coast of Baja and hitting various surf spots on the way.  I must say that I envied their cargo capacity!  They carried two surf boards, some fishing rods, coolers, camping gear, and a whole lot of other stuff.  Not that I’m complaining – I love my KLR!

I decided not to spring for a room on the ferry, and I think it was an OK decision.  The rooms cost an extra $700 pesos, or about $55 USD, but there are rows of seats available for sleeping on at no charge.  Jacob and Erik loaned me a blanket and a pillow from their room and with my earplugs in I slept for nearly a solid 8 hours.

The ferry from La Paz to Mazatlan is big.  It has a restaurant, a cafeteria, a bar, an arcade, a nursery, a kennel, an on-deck pool, probably hundreds of private rooms, and several common seating areas.

The lower deck of the ferry. Notice the pool in the left side - it was covered, but presumably in the summer months it is available for passengers to use.

Thanks to the increased size it is much steadier in the open waters of the Gulf of California than the ferry that I took from Guaymas to Santa Rosalia, so I did not have to strap down my motorcycle, and I also did not get seasick.  I did, however, come down with the beginning symptoms of traveler’s sickness near the end of the trip.  When we disembarked in Mazatlan at noon on Wednesday I was feeling pretty bad, so I decided to look for a hotel to spend the night instead of continuing on down the coast like I had planned.

The night I spent in Mazatlan was pretty miserable, so I’ll save you the details.  Suffice to say that I’m even more paranoid about watching what I eat and drink now.

The following morning I felt somewhat better, so I packed up my things and put some distance between me and the bad memories of Mazatlan.  I’m a little disappointed because I had heard good things about the city and I expected to enjoy Mazatlan, but I couldn’t wait to get out of there!  I don’t think it had anything to do with the city itself – I just felt sick the whole time.

I was still recovering so I decided to take it easy by following the “cuota”, or toll, highways.  These highways are extremely well maintained and unlike most roads in Mexico they rarely pass through town.  This means that you avoid most of the topes (speed bumps) and rarely have to slow down.  I was unsure of how far I’d be able to ride, so I didn’t really have a destination in mind.  There were signs for a city I had never heard of called Tepic which lay just 200 KM outside of Mazatlan, so I decided to try to make it there.

As I drove, the scenery changed perceptibly.  At first the terrain was the same arid, desert-y landscape that I’d become accustomed to over the last week and a half. Eventually this gave way to orchards, and as the elevation climbed and I continued south, jungle!

At some point during the drive south from Mazatlan, the scenery changed. I am no longer in the desert!

With the elevation gain and the jungle came a welcome drop in the temperature.  I’m excited to see trees and vines instead of dirt and cacti!

I reached Tepic by 4:30 and found a hotel near the historic center of the city.  I spent a few hours walking around the marker area this evening, and I can already tell that I like this place!  It feels much more authentic than many of the towns I’ve visited so far.  I think that it’s a combination of the narrow streets, the old buildings, the open squares and friendly people, and I will probably choose to spend another night here.

Tomorrow I have one important goal: I need to change the oil in my motorcycle.  I’ve been keeping an eye on oil in Mexico, and most places seem to only carry 20w50 grade oil.  The manual for the KLR says to use 10W40, but this is probably only correct for the temperate area where it was sold (USA).  Since Mexico is so much hotter, a 20W50 oil will probably work just fine, but I’m going to do some research this evening to make sure.

I’m going to wrap up this post with a picture that I took today.  The air around here is filled with particulate, most of which I assume is water vapor.  This makes it hard to take photos of far-away things, but it can create some neat effects.

Crepuscular rays radiating out from a cloud. Yes, I had to look that up on Wikipedia.

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Santa Rosalia to La Paz

November 15, 2009

(I haven’t had internet access for the last few days, so I wrote these posts offline and am uploading them now.  The previous post is also new)

I took the ferry from Guaymas to Baja California (Santa Rosalia, to be exact) last night. It was supposed to be a 9 hour voyage, but due to bad winds or something it ended up taking a total of 13 hours. I spent a full night on the ferry and finally disembarked at 9 AM this morning. It was a pretty interesting ride. As far as I can tell, there were only about 6 civilians (including myself) aboard – the rest of the passengers were all military. The parking bay of the ferry contained my motorcycle, three humvees and a large truck carrying some kind of military boat. I had a fun time trying to talk with some of the military guys! Most of the soldiers fell asleep quickly, and I finally settled in for some rest at around 11:30 PM.

Parked on the ferry with the only other vehicles.

I woke up at around 5 AM extremely sick to my stomach. I had taken an anti-nausea pill before going to bed, but apparently it’s effects hadn’t persisted throughout the entire night. I threw up a couple times before falling asleep on the top deck in the warm light of the rising sun. It sounds bad, but it really wasn’t – I only felt sick for an hour or so. However, I am definitely going to stock up on dramamine before taking the ferry from La Paz back to the mainland..

See, it's not so bad. Taken in the morning just before arriving at Santa Rosalia.

So we arrived in Santa Rosalia at around 9 AM. The “customs” was a joke – I accidentally rode right past the office, which was easy to do since the majority of the passengers were military and did not need to go through customs. I was actually already on the road when an customs officer motioned me to come back.

They had a dog sniff my bike, and then I was asked to go into the customs office with my identification. However, the computers in the office were down, so they didn’t even look at my passport! Gotta love Mexico!

After leaving Santa Rosalia, I quickly realized that La Paz (my destination) was much farther than I thought (400 KM). I had planned to have a leisurely ride, but in order to make it to La Paz before dark, I pretty much had to book it. Still, I enjoyed the ride immensely. The Baja countryside is just gorgeous, and the roads are twisty and reasonably well maintained.

Taken on MX-1 in Baja California.

I arrived at La Paz a little bit after dusk, which was unfortunate. I did not want to ride at night, but I had misjudged the time it would talk to get down here, and there were no hotels for the last ~200 KM! What’s done is done, but I will definitely keep better track of time in the future.

Yeah, it's alright here.

I’m now in La Paz, and I’m staying in an incredibly cute little hotel. It’s very dark now so I can’t really take any pictures, but I’ll get some tomorrow.

OK – I’m going out to explore my new city!

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Last Day in San Carlos (I swear!)

November 15, 2009

People in San Carlos have been raving about Baja and the city of La Paz for the last few days, so I decided Friday morning to take the ferry to Baja California for a little 3-day side trip. The ferry departs from Guaymas (just 10 miles from San Carlos) at 8 PM and arrives in Santa Rosalia on the Baja Peninsula after an 8 to 9 hour overnight voyage. However, the ferry does not run on Friday, so I bought a ticket for today (Saturday), which means I spent another day in San Carlos. This town has really grown on me! I think this is the first place that I’ll really miss. It was recently devastated by a hurricane, and repairs are ongoing, so I would love to come back when everything is up and running again.

An embarrassing yet harmless spill in some deep sand outside of San Carlos.

I planned to have a quiet, stay-at-home Friday evening. (Hah!) My new home for the night was a fully furnished condo with a kitchen, so I bought eggs, bacon and milk and cooked up a tasty breakfast-dinner. Just as I sat down to eat and read my book, however, my neighbor John knocked on my door to invite me to a music show. It was early, so I agreed and we drove to a local bar where a classical Mexican singer was performing. We only caught the tail end of her act.

She had a gorgeous voice, but the venue left something to be desired.

Since it was only 8 o’clock, John and I decided to find another bar, so we drove down the main strip of San Carlos and eventually settled on Poolhouse (the same place I’d gone to on Wednesday).

As we walked up to Poolhouse, I noticed a crowd gathered around a soon-to-be-opened restaurant that my french friends, Marc and Ben, were starting. The two french guys were trying out the newly installed wood fire stove by cooking pizza after pizza, so of course I had to stay and sample each one! Eliane was also there, and it was really nice to see them all again.

From left to right: myself, Marc, Benoit

After all the pizza supplies were exhausted, I said goodbye and went up to the Poolhouse where I found John (who left soon after that) and Jen, the cute bartender from Wednesday. I told her about my travel plans, my life in the states, and about my lovely girlfriend. After flirting for a while, we set up a lunch date for the following day.

Our lunch date was very nice – just the kind of one-on-one interaction that I’ve been missing. I picked her up the following day at 1 PM, and together we rode to a remote bar on the beach called the “Soggy Peso”. As it turned out, due to damage inflicted by the recent hurricane, the Soggy Peso had no running water – which means we were understandably uncomfortable about eating their food. So, we took off for a wonderful little restaurant about 6 miles south, where we had a delicious lunch of ceviche, crab and lime & chili-marinated shrimp.

Jen and myself sitting on the beach at the Soggy Peso, listening to live music and enjoying the view!

After lunch, we returned to the Soggy Peso to enjoy the beach and the sunset. We spent the rest of the afternoon listening to a live band, talking, and enjoying the view. So lovely!

Alas, eventually all things must end, and our afternoon came to a finish at 5 PM when Jen had to get to work.  I gave her a ride on the back of the KLR, said goodbye, and left San Carlos behind me.  Onwards to Baja!

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