Journey to the Bottom of the World

Update from Zacatecas

I ended up spending a couple days more than I had expected in Creel.  The town itself was nothing to get excited about, but I decided that something had to be done about my boots.  They were unbearably potent to say the least.  Not in a stinky feet kind of way, but in an ammonia / decomposing-carcass kind of way.  I can almost live with stinky boots, but the smell was being absorbed into my feet and into the bottom of my legs.  Even after two days, and having scrubbed my feet on three separate occasions, they still stunk.  Not a good way to make friends in a hostel.  So I filled my boots with a diluted-bleach solution and let them sit in the shower for a while.  When I finally rinsed them out, it had already began to rain and it continued throughout the following day.  Judging by the various growths and discolorations on my feet, I thought that a full-days ride in wet boots would not be a good idea.  So I waited out the rain and the sun on the following day dried my boots.  Now my feet, and anyone within 100ft of my boots, could not be any happier.

I set off early on Saturday morning to see Copper Canyon from an overlook in Divisadero.  It´s a popular stop on the famous train ride into Creel.  Although it was a bit hazy, the view was incredible.  I´ve never been to the Grand Canyon, but Copper Canyon is supposed to be larger and/or deeper.  In my opinion, the view was nice, and well worth the detour to check it out, but it was nothing compared to what I would see that afternoon.

After checking out Divisadero, I made my way south to Batopilas.  It´s a small town with a pop. 1,200, and it´s located at the bottom of a 5000ft canyon.  I had seen pictures of the road that leads down to the town, but pictures do not do the place justice.  The Canyon itself is huge.  I can´t even begin to guess how wide it is.  The road was unlike anything I have ever seen before.  There are enough switch backs, white-knuckle narrows, and blind-turns wide enough for one vehicle, to keep even the most easily distracted driver fixated on the road.  I was completely exhausted at about the half-way mark.  It became hotter with each switchback, and the road seemed to go on forever.  The heat, combined with my body ´´adjusting¨ to the Mexican cuisine (read ¨stuff coming out of both ends¨), made the trip a real struggle against dehydration.  I arrived in Batopilas around 5pm and found a quaint hotel for $10 a night.  Still battling a headache and with my stomach "adjusting¨, I skipped dinner and called it a night around 6pm.

The ride out of the Canyon was much more enjoyable, since my stomach let me drink water again.  I headed east to the state of Durango and spent the night in Hidalgo del Parral.  I never thought I´d say this, but I was happy to see straight roads.  Aside from the first day in Mexico, nearly every road has hugged the side of a mountain or wound through the woods.  It´s a lot of fun to ride, but it takes a long time to get anywhere, and it's both mentally and physically exhausting to ride like that for 8 or 9 hours.  I was also pleasantly surprised to see that Durango invested in road signs.  So the straight roads, combined with excellent sign-age, allowed me to cover some good distances and reach the city of Durango the following day, and the city of Zacatecas in the state of Zacatecas yesterday.  In fact, the only thing that slowed me down was when my bike was running very poorly on my way out of Hidalgo del Parral.  After fiddling with the idle and the air/fuel screw, I finally pulled off the road and started disassembling the bike in order to diagnose the problem.  I started by taking a look at the air filter, and decided to oil up a spare and replace it.  No luck, it still ran like crap.  I started to unbolt the tank so I could dig into the carburetor, when I noticed that my choke lever on the handlebar was engaged.  That will definitely cause your bike to run very poorly.  Seething with anger at myself for being so stupid and not noticing that earlier, I suddenly heard the last words my friend Ryan shared with me when I left Scottsdale.  ¨Jeff, don´t be so hard on yourself all the time.  When things aren´t going right, take a deep breath and relax.¨   So rather than smash something, or stab a hole in my gas tank and make an even worse situation for myself, I decided to fake a smile and take a picture to mark the occasion instead.

New Pics and Captions Added

New post coming soon!

Mexico Time

I apologize for the long break between posts, but I think the laid back pace of everything in Mexico is making me lazy!   The country runs on 'Mexico Time' and it's definitely a pace that I can get used to.  Don, the owner of the hostel in Manzanillo, shared a story with me that I think sums up the idea of 'Mexico Time'.  Don was having a Palapa built (a thatched roof that you see in many tropical locales) and the guy doing the work told him that he had to take off for the afternoon to get more materials.  To Don´s surprise, the afternoon had come and gone, the sun had set, and no one had heard from the builder.  The next day also came to pass; again with no sign of the builder.  Late the following afternoon, the builder showed up with a truck full of palm branches and continued construction.  The man shared with Don that he and his sons had driven out into the forest to gather materials.  After drinking too much beer, they decided to camp out in the woods for the night.  The following morning they woke up and still had some beer left, so they let the festivities continue and gathered materials later that day.  Eventually they collected what they needed and returned to the hostel to continue construction.  The man was not offering this story as an apology or as an attempt to explain his absence, but was simply sharing with Don what he thought was a perfectly logical chain of events.   What I find interesting about this story is not the fact that a bunch of guys got drunk in the woods, but how this is a perfectly normal chain of events that should be expected in Mexico.  I can´t imagine what would happen if you hired someone in the States to build a deck, and two days after leaving to get materials, the builder explained that he had decided to get drunk and camp-out instead.  But here it doesn´t matter if the Palapa get´s finished today or two days from now.  It´s only a Palapa and it will be finished eventually.  Ahh,.. 'Mexico Time'. 

Interestingly, the same people that live at one of the most relaxed paces I have ever seen, suddenly follow a different creed when they get behind the wheel.  As soon as I ride into a town with a population of 20,000 people or more, I can't help but think that there's a finish-line somewhere, and I'm the only person who doesn't know about it.  But maybe it´s something about the road itself.  I´ve begun to move at a snails pace during every other part of the day, but riding in a congested area brings out the hidden bicycle courier in me.  There was a time when I would sit in congestion like all the other cars, but then I noticed that I was the only motorcycle sitting in traffic.  So now when there´s a gap between cars, I shoot through it.  If five cars and a tractor trailer are backed up at a tope (a massive speed bump), and I think that I may be able to slingshot around them, I´ll shoot down the dirt to the right, or down the oncoming lane to the left.  There´s no logical explanation for it this sense of urgency, but when in Rome....

Aside from being on Mexico time, my second excuse for why I haven´t posted is that life has become too easy and I don't have anything exciting to write about.  The vast terrain of the North, combined with the dirt roads and mountain passes, instilled a sense of adventure in each days ride.  But as the trip has moved south, nearly all of the roads are paved, it´s much more populated, and a gas station is never far away.

The trip has taken me to several of Mexico's Silver Cities, including Zacatecas, San Miguel del Allende, and Guanajuato.  Zacatecas was definitely my favorite of the cities because it sill had a normal, non-touristy feel to it.  All of the markets and food stalls that I frequent all too often, are all in the city center.  While Zacatecas is a popular destination for both foreign and Mexican tourists, I felt like I was witnessing the lives of real people, not walking through a city centered on tourism.  San Miguel del Allende, although beautiful, was the antithesis of Zacatecas, with more rich American retirees frequenting the city center than Mexicans.  All of the things I loved about Zacatecas, had been pushed out of San Miguel's central plaza to make room for Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, and even a Subway.  Guanajuato struck a balance between the other to, but still didn't have the authentic feel that Zacatecas had.

After Guanajuato, I rode south to the town of Patzcuaro.  I had aspirations to circle a lake immediately north of the town and visit some of the indigenous communities located there, but the blinding downpours drowned out any plans that I had.  So rather than hang around the lake I headed east to check out a Volcano that grew out of a farm field in the 1950's, and swallowed a town.  I'm going to have to trust that it's actually there, because I couldn't see it with the rain and cloud cover.  Hoping to have better luck with the two, 12,000ft-plus Volcanoess in Colima, I was equally disappointed when the continued rain made a hike up the volcanoes less than appealing.  Here again, I had to trust the locals who reassured me that there were indeed two volcanoes in the immediate area.  Throughout the course of that week, it rained all day and everyday.  During the rainy season, it typically rains for a couple hours each afternoon, but i think there was remnants of a tropical storm moving through the area.  Oh well, better luck next time.

 

From Colima, I made my way to the Coast, where I spent 5 nights in Manzanillo.  I originally intended to spend two nights there, but on the first day I was introduced to a girl who was fluent in both Spanish and English, and she was able to meet with me for two hours each day and tutor me.  While my Spanish still has a long way to go, I learned a lot over the four days and I´m no longer limited to speaking in the present tense.  You can only imagine the looks people give you when you tell a story in the present and then explain that the story happened a week ago. 

The ride down the Pacific Coast on HWY 200 was both a lot of fun and picturesque.  A good portion of the road hugs the coast and winds along a mountainside.   I stopped in numerous small towns to eat and rehydrate, but spent nights in Zijuatanejo, Playa Ventura, and I´m now in Puerto Escondido.  The small towns between the major resort destinations don´t see many foreigners, so the people were very friendly and excited to ask me where I was going and where I came from.  Most people have a double-take when I told them that I started in New York. (No one knows where Connecticut is)   

 

I apologize for this post sounding rather mundane and just a summary of where I´ve been, but I guess it´s a good thing that I don´t have anything ¨crazy¨ to write about.  I don´t want to jinx myself, but my bike has run flawlessly, and I've had an entirely positive experience with each and every person I´ve met.  Whether it´s a shop owner, the Federales, a person on the street, or the soldiers at the 15 or more military checkpoints I´ve been through, everyone has been friendly and more than willing to help me or offer directions.  In fact I´ve only been pulled over by one police officer and that was in Zacatecas.  I was at a stop light and an officer on a motorcycle pulled up beside me and honked his horn.  I thought, ¨Here we go!  Let me guess, I didn´t come to a complete stop, or I made an 'illegal' turn, and I have to pay a fine.¨  Instead, the officer smiled at me and asked where I was from and where I was going.  He then shook my hand and wished me luck in my travels.  Before I could even comprehend that the officer wanted nothing more than to say hi, he had already vanished into the congestion ahead, leaving me with a smile on my face. ¡Viva Mexico!

Final Days in Mexico

The beaches south of Puerto Escondido did not disappoint.  After lounging on the beach in Zipolite for three days, thinking that the beaches (at least on the Pacific side) couldn´t get any better, I packed my bags and began the six hour ride to Oaxaca.  About 30 minutes into the ride, I ran into a Canadian guy on a KLR650.  We stopped to exchange stories and he asked if I had been to Mazunte, a beach about 25 minutes north of Zipolite.  He went on to explain that he and his friend started a trip like mine two years ago, but never made it past Mazunte.  They fell in love with the place and used the rest of their trip-fund to buy property there.  I figured that any place good enough to end a trip, is worth checking out.  So I turned around, road past my beloved Zipolite, and found a place to stay in Mazunte.  I can go to Oaxaca tomorrow.  Mazunte quickly became my favorite beach, and I spent my 26th Birthday in the surf, followed by some great live music in the evening.  After three days in Mazunte, it took all I had to pry myself away from the town and ride inland.  When I finally hit the road, I decided to bypass Oaxaca and ride more south to San Cristobal de Las Casas. 

 

As I approached a bridge crossing a fairly wide river in Zaragoza, I noticed the traffic ahead was at a standstill and that the bridge was packed with people standing shoulder to shoulder.  Knowing I wasn´t going to be crossing the bridge anytime soon, I turned around and made my way to a Pemex to top off my tank and inquire about another route.  The only detours on my map were of the 10 hour variety, so I was really hoping some local knowledge would save the day.  On my way to the Pemex, and still in dense traffic, my rear tire abruptly hopped about 10 inches to the left, and my whole bike darted forward, as an overly anxious cabbie collided with my right pannier.  Collided is a bit harsh of a term for what actually happened, but it was still enough to almost send me off the bike.  With the bike tipping to the left and teetering just a hair shy of the point of no return, I finally battled it upright in an exhausting display of stubbornness.  There was no way I was going to let the bike go down: I would rather die of heat exhaustion.  As soon as I had it upright, I gave the cab an obligatory ¨what the ___?¨ wave, and I pulled off to the side and he followed suit.  I got off the bike to have a look and there was nothing more than a dent/scratch.  The cabbie climbed out of his car and squatted down to examine his fender, all while giving me the evil-eye like I had just ran over his best friend.  I quickly began thinking through my limited Spanish vocabulary for verbs like, ¨to hit¨, ¨to collide¨, or even ¨to crash¨, but I came up with nothing.  With verbs, you can´t simply throw an ¨o¨ or an ¨a¨ on the end of an English verb and hope for the best, like you can with some nouns and adjectives.  So telling him that I wasn´t going to pay for anything because he hit me, was going to be difficult.  The word ¨vendejo¨, came to mind though, but I refrained from using it.  Thankfully, the cabbie must have decided that I didn´t do enough damage to his car, so he gave me one last look of disdain and drove away.

San Cristobal was much like all the other colonial cities, complete with a plaza, cathedral, cobblestone roads and sidewalks, etc.  The thing that set it apart were the great fruit and veggie markets, where I was able to pick up a pineapple and two pomegranates for $1.30.

 

  After spending just one day in San Cristobal, I road north to the Ruins of Palenque, where I found a great little cabana in the jungle:  Real jungle too, complete with howler monkeys doing what they do best.  I visited the ruins this morning, and although they´re not as spectacular as the pyramids in Egypt, it´s hard to fathom how anyone could build the city without using work animals, iron tools, or the wheel.  On top of that, everything was painted blood-red back in the day, with blue and yellow accents throughout.

   

I´m in Comitan at the moment, and on Saturday I will leave for Guatemala, making this my last post from Mexico.  My journey through Mexico has taken me more than 4,100 miles.  While I´ve only skimmed the surface of the sites, language, and culture, Mexico has made a lasting impression on me.  The people of Mexico have been friendly, welcoming, and generous: So much so that it took some getting used to.  At first I couldn´t help but think that they were trying to get something out of me, but all they really wanted to do was say hi, and practice their English.  Contrary to what I expected heading into Mexico, I´ve always felt safe here.  There were a couple of times where I was on edge, but it was only from my mind playing through all of the ¨what ifs¨, not because something bad was actually happening. 

Mexico has been a suprisingly beautiful country.  Don´t let my pictures fool you though.  Mexico is not all colonial cities and beautiful beaches.  I think that the majority of people here live very hard lives.  I´m not making a value judgment on what´s better or worse, but there is something undeniably ¨hard¨ about farming by hand, earth-moving by hand, or mowing the side of the road...by hand.   It´s not uncommon to see elderly women and small children carrying huge bundles of wood on their backs, with the weight suspended by a strap across their foreheads.  Even in the touristy areas, some people work from 8am to 12am, 6 days a week, and bring home next to nothing.  I don´t have demographic information to back any of this up, but I´m certain that running water and something other than a dirt floor is still a luxury that only a minority of the population enjoys.  I haven´t refrained from taking photos of  "real life" because I want my photos to be pretty, I just don´t feel comfortable taking pictures in those situations at this time.  I think that once I can actually communicate with people on a higher level, then I may feel more comfortable taking culturally relevant photos, or at least comfortable asking people if I can take a photo.

Finally, the people of Mexico seem genuinely happy.  Although they may not have as much stuff as people in the States, and many live what I feel is a very hard life, it seems that there's a lot more time set aside for friends and family, and that people are happy with living a simpler and less hectic lifestyle.  A lot of that stems from the 'Mexico time' I wrote about in my last post.  Maybe 'content' is the word I´m looking for.  Regardless of the label, I hope I can embrace a little bit of that mentality throughout this trip and more importantly, incorporate it into my life when I get home.

I hope that wasn´t too preachy.  Anyways, see you in Guatemala!