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Published: December 11th 2012
After my little detour up to Tijuana, I managed to just make the ferry over to the mainland, meeting up with about eight other bikers who were slightly better organized than myself and had been waiting patiently to board the ferry for a couple hours. After straping the bike down, we headed up to the kitchen for some beers and dinner. One guy from Britain, Andy, had run into the same Tourist Visa as me, but had managed to bribe an official in Cabo with $50 rather than flying all the way back to Tijuana. He let me share his room though (I didn´t even have a seat cause I was so late for the ferry) for free, so we´re making the $500 back bit by bit. 18 hours later we arrived in Mazatlan, did a quick loop of the sea wall road and then I headed south down the coast to San Blas with a Czech couple on a Harley, and Andy. This was the first time riding in a group for me and, beause the Czechs had GPS, I didn´t have to worry about directions and could just follow along. We arrived in San Blas just as it was
getting dark, found a cheap room with Andy, and then headed out for some dinner in the town square.
Mexican towns are all based around a town square with a church on one side. There´s always amazing food nearby and people are just out hanging out talking in the square, making out with their significant other, or watching a festival of some sort, of which there seems to be a different one every day. After dinner, we hit up a bar that had a crocodile out back. Apparantly this croc had bitten off two fingers of an 8 year old tourist a few years back because she put her hand in the cage. When the parents´tried to sue the bar the Mexican police just said she shouldn´t have put her hand in there. We did not put our hands in the Fluffy´s cage.
Spent one day in San Blas at the beach and Marco (a Dutch guy from the ferry) and two Kiwis on a two year trip down to Argentina (Andi and Ellen) showed up the next day. So now there were 5 people at our hotel, three of them basically named Andy. Next day, me, Marco,
and Andy headed for Sayulita, another beach town further down the coast. I had met a girl from Montreal, Josianne, at the hostel Seattle and she´s now managing a hostel in Sayulita so she hooked us up with free accomodation. I put away the motorcycle gear for about a week and lived the beach life for a while, consisting of some surfing, paddle boarding, yoga, and a few beverages here and there. Marco and Andy had each gone their separate ways by the time I left Sayulita, but I had arranged to meet up with another biker from Colorado, one day´s drive south of Puerto Vallarta. Max is an 18 year old high school grad taking one year off before heading to university next year and also driving a Kawasaki KLR. Only instead of bring camping gear, he´s carrying a guitar, ukelele, and a machete.
Me and Max headed out from Barra de Navidad last Sunday, again down the Pacific coast, passing through banana and palm tree plantations. Halfway through the first day, we were cruising through some trees and I thought I saw what looked like a giant spider walking out of the trees onto the road. A
few minutes later, I saw another one, and then realized that there must be thousands of giant tarantulas crawing through these trees. No camping in these woods. Or stopping for pee breaks for that matter. I did stop to harrass one spider for a bit though and he was good sport and posed for some good photos.
Next day, we headed inland towards Mexico City at Ixtapa. As soon as we left the coast and started climbing into the Sierra Madres, the temperature dropped quickly. The road was pretty much deserted as we entered Guerro Province, though we passed a few police convoys. Continuous twisting roads took us up into fog and cloud/pine forrest. We´d estimated the Ixtapa to Altamirano leg to take 2 hours based on distance but because of so many switchbacks through the mountains, it was closer to 4 hours, and pretty much dark by the time we got to the other side of the mountaines and arrived in the police infested city of Altamirano. Don´t know if there was somebody important in town or what, but the federales were everywhere, and the place resembled a police state. At our taco stand during dinner, four storm
troopers showed up to get food and, while one ordered, the other three took up defensive positions around the perimeter of our plastic tables and chairs. Either we spent the night in the safest town in Mexico... or we didn´t.
Surviving the night, me and Max were back on the road the next day with our next scheduled stop Taxco, a former silver mining town set on a steep hill overlooking a valley. However, because it would be a short riding day, we decided to check out an ´archaelogical site of interest´as shown on Max´s national geographic map. Turning off ouur main route, we headed about half an hour into desert country, passing through the small town of San Miguel Totoapan on the way. After a fruitless search for said ´site of interest´we gave back and headed back to the main road... only this time there was a truck load of local police from San Miguel waving us off the road. They asked for id, went through Max´s bike, made some phone calls, and then another truck full of police showed up so now there were about 15 of them, half with face masks, all with large rifles. Max
is fluent in Spanish and was explaining why we were where we were, basically looking for something that they did not think existed. Eventually, they said we were good to go, that it wasn´t safe where we were, and had us follow them back to the police station, where everything was explained again to the boss... and then we took some pictures with the whole gang after assuring them that we would head back to the main road and on to Taxco.
We stopped for lunch and then continued on our way. Lunch on the road generally consists of pulling over to a busy looking stall for some street meat. The best street meet going in Mexico is Pollo Asado, basically a whole chicken cooked over charcoal with some pretty delicious seasoning. Taxco itself is set on a steep hill, the buildings are all whitewashed, and over 80 percent of vehicles in town are Volkswagon beatles and vans (no idea why but they´re everywhere). It was the annual silver festival while we were there so things were extra busy. Some rich silver baron back in the day donated most of his money to building the cathedral in the town
square so it´s one of hte nicer ones in Mexico, with gold plated everything inside. I bought myself a machete in Taxco, pretty much because Max had one, so now I feel like more of a man, riding around with a giant knife on the back of my bike.
On Thursday, we left Taxco for Mexico City, stopping along the way to check out a giant cave. This cave was 2km long and we spent two hours walking to the end and back... which I discovered was quite the distance in motorcycle boots. As far as caves go, it was pretty impressive. Next it was on to Mexico City, where our brilliant plan was to ´get close to the city... and then go around it´ to the ultimate destination of Teotihuacan, the pyramid site north of the city.
As brilliant plans often go, ours had a few holes in it. First we got too close to the city before trying to go around it. Next, we arrived in Mexico City around 5:00 pm, thinking we could navigate our way through in a couple hours. Between Max and myself we had his incredibly not-detailed map of the city and
my blackberry with google maps, not the ideal tools for street navigating in the gigantic traffic jam that passes for Mexico´s capital city. Because we got too close to the city too soon, we were stuck in grid-lock, headed deeper into the mess. After performing some questionable traffic manoevers to get headed back outside the city, we tried a few different routes. About an hour or so later, still going in circles, I managed to lose Max at which point it was every man for himself. Our intention had been to cut around the east side of Mexico City. Instead, Max ended up going right through the thing, and I took the long way around the west side of the city. Max beat me to the pyramids by 1 hour (it only took him 5 hours to get through town), and I pulled in around 11:00 pm, after stopping for dinner at a Domino´s, because I had to charge my ´map´. I would seriously recommend a 100 km buffer radius for anybody considering driving ´around Mexico City´.
Friday, I woke up at 6:30 because I wanted to see the pyramids early in the morning. Max slept in because mornings
tend to not agree with him. Teotihuacan is one of the oldest pyramid sites in Mexico (as far as I know), with the third largest pyramid in the world (the sun pyramid) and a smaller but cooler looking one (the moon pyramid) separated by the ´Road of the Dead´. I was the first person through the gates as soon as they opened and promptly climbed up the top of the sun pyramid, past the red barricade blocking off the peak, because the security guy wasn´t there yet. Hot air ballons started flying over the site and I had a good hour up there by myself before anybody else started showing up. Then I went over the moon pyramid and had a nice peanut butter and tortilla breakfast, watching the morning get busier as tour groups started to show up. The great thing about being on a bike is that you can go where you want, when you want, and you´re not constained by anybody else´s schedule. Max showed up around 11:00 just as I was leaving for some lunch. We both came back in the afternoon and stayed till closing time. Pretty cool day.
Until next time,
Andrew
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Trevor
non-member comment
Excellent
It always ends up to be about the people you meet. Keep having fun. Trev