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Published: October 22nd 2012
Road miles to date: 17,796
We were all set to leave Durango, short of one motorcycle battery which was delivered by Jorge that evening. Our delight at receiving the missing link was cut slightly short when we rememberered it would need up to twenty hours of charging before use. So it was that we booked one more night in the hotel where we now knew the names of all the staff, as well as the guys in the shop next door and the girls in the shop across the road. Twenty hours and a hotel a bit worse off for electricity later due to our battery charger (later returned on a chanced, lucky refund), we waved goodbye to all our friends in Durango and thanked whoever is watching out for us as we set off for Zacatecas.
We had been warned by a few locals to watch out on the road to Zacatecas as it was notorious for false roadblocks and hijackings. Our plan was to fill the tank with petrol, twist the throttle and stop for no man. Despite the intricacies of such an elaborate plan, the ride and the road were fairly uneventful and we arrived in
one piece before spending a customary hour long search finding an affordable place to stay.
The city of Zacatecas is built in a narrow valley and was founded on rich deposits of silver mined from its hills. When the Spanish conquistadors arrived, they capitalised on the mines and the city expanded at a rapid rate, becoming the silver mining capital of the Americas for a period of time. As the population grew in the narrow valley, the residents expanded the city up into the hills. The result is some extremely steep and narrow, cobbled roads that traverse the hills through colourful, higgeldy piggeldy neighbourhoods.
Today the city is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is a hub for music and artistic culture which manifests itself in the art adorned restaurants, museums, colourful buildings, music festivals, ornate cathedrals and a big student population. We stumbled on a callejoneadas on the night we arrived - a festival which was established by a student and exists for no other reason than to dance and sing and drink through the City's tiny alleyways and cobbled streets drinking a beer based punch called heribertas (named after the founding student) carried in jugs by
donkeys until, we guess, the beer runs out. It was only afterwards that we learnt the beer was free.
After a fantastic couple of days in the city, albeit for a sticky fingered maid who relieved us of a few pesos, we set off for Queretaro. Although the journey between the two cities was pretty uneventful, Queretaro was a vibrant place and immediately shot up to Isabel's favourite list. We stayed in a hidden treasure of a hotel where Ruth took care of us, letting us do laundry and ordering us some delicious local food from her friend. The actual city was very relaxed and the visiting Mexican tourists meant we weren't singled out nearly as much as usual for being the tourists that we are.
On our way out of Queretaro we hit the tail end of the annual city marathon and so ended up riding round in a few circles before we actually got on the road to Toluca. The ride was more of an interesting one than usual and we came across a few road works along the way where paved road met dirt road then went back to paved road which then dropped off
a fair few inches back onto dirt road followed by some questionable road markings and equally questionable local driving where a few collisions were marginally avoided. This mixed in with a fair share of notoriously camouflaged (totally unmarked) Mexican topes (speed bumps) which don't seem to abide by any standards for height or width and are usually preceded by an urgent call of "hold on" from Byron before we fly over them. If we are quick enough to stand on the foot pegs occasionally we can save our derrières from the sharp return to the road, but unfortunately nothing can save our already hammered suspension from descending further into a state of disrepair.
As we neared Toluca we took a wrong turn and ended up in an incredible mountain town that was a long way off getting its share of the earlier roadworks. The town was by no means tourist-rich and so was much more rustic and authentic than our recent destinations. However, we had a date to keep with Garry Dymond so backed up on ourselves and continued on to Toluca.
Garry Dymond is an expat Brit who has lived in Mexico City for over thirty years
with his wife Ivonne and they routinely invite overland travellers to stay, so much so that their home was affectionately renamed the Garry Hostel by one visitor and has stuck ever since. As they are situated in the suburbs of the biggest city in the western hemisphere, Garry kindly rode out to meet us and we followed him back through a labyrinth of dangerously deep potholes, camouflaged topes, vertically steep hills and suicidal dogs, to their haven of a home.
Apparently there is no formal road test in Mexico and if you can buy a licence you can drive, ride and for all we know, fly. We don't know this for sure but after a few days on the city's roads, it's not inconceivable. What did surprise us was the seeming lack of road rage, in comparison to British standards. Being cut up, undertaken, pushed out of the way, jumping a red light, tailgating or simply stopping in the middle of the road to chat to your compadres is apparently not cause for more than token hoot on the horn and it was surprisingly refreshing to partake in the mayhem. When in Rome and all that.
As the
city is unbelievably huge, we followed Garry to work during the day, parked the bike in his own private car park and went exploring. The subway system wasn't too different to the Tube, until we hit rush hour. Personal space does not exist down in the Mexican subway, so much so that police guard the entrance to the first two carriages which are kept exclusively for women (not a bad idea TFL). Unfortunately, with Byron in tow Isabel didn't get to experience such luxury and we pushed our way into cattle class with hundreds of Mexican men. Then the lights went out. The forceful pushing and squeezing to get on and off the trains makes the London system look positively first class. Once on the train, no effort is made to reserve even a slight half inch of personal space, no very tiny gap left between one armpit and one face. The armpit will go fully in the face. Like on the roads though, we didn't witness any aggression or irritation that would erupt at such physical invasions on a British train. But then at less than 20p a journey its likely anyone would put up with it.
As
we made it out of the subway in one piece, we stumbled into the Plaza de la Constitucion where we found Mexico was hosting the Homeless World Cup football tournament. After spotting the Scottish team who had just won a game, we found out that England was about to take on Germany. Just in time, we took a front row seat and watched our boys win a convincing 5-3 victory.
Byron used the next day to service the bike and do some general tinkering while Isabel sheltered from a long downpour of rain with Ivonne inside. Ivonne treated us to some delicious Mexican home cooking and introduced us to a few long standing Mexican soap operas.
That evening they took us to the birthday party of their very good friend, Alfonso. Immediately upon entering his house we were given two big glasses of Tequila. While we've been in Mexico we've discovered why Tequila is only drunk as a shot back home - they definitely don't sell us the best quality on the market. The party stepped up a notch when Alfonso's daughters arrived bringing with them their friends and a Mexican band who performed an outstanding evening of
traditional music and dancing. Being made to feel so welcome at this party, despite our inability to fluently communicate, was fantastic and something we could never have been part of were it not for Garry and Ivonne.
The following day we tailed Garry into the city again and sampled more of its delicious street food, wandered through the parks and spent a good few hours in the famous Anthropology Museum. It's safe to say we left knowing a whole lot more on all things Teotihuacan, Mayan and Aztec which prepared us for the next day when Ivonne generously gave up her time to take us around the Teotihuacan pyramids just outside the city. The site dates back to 100BC and is believed to have been home to up to 125,000, people placing it amongst one of the World's largest cities during its time. The reconstruction of the ruins gives an incredible impression of how the city would have looked and with Ivonne as our guide, we learnt so much about the history and culture of the area and the ancient people of Mexico. On our way back, Ivonne took us on a detour to Coyoacan, once home to Frida
Kahlo, where we passed the time eating, drinking, watching a rehearsal of an Aztec ritual and generally having a good old Mexican time of it before judging it safe to miss the traffic filled roads and go home.
As is now an increasingly recurring theme on this trip, our intended two day stopover turned into five days. On our final morning Garry and Ivonne joined us on the road, navigating us out of the city and towards the small mountain town of Rio Frio where we had lunch together before waving our goodbyes as they went off for a weekend camping in the very green mountains. Despite taking the free road, which we discovered leads you through every single town and village along the way, forcing you to slow down at least every fifteen minutes so that a hundred mile journey takes over three hours, we reached the town of Tehuacan to spend the night before moving on the next day, into the Sierra Juarez mountains.
We took the Mex 182 road the next morning across some beautifully lush countryside, past field after field of sugar cane, corn, huge crops of flowers and palm trees before reaching the
mountain road. As we ascended higher the scenery grew increasingly awesome, the drop off from the road got steeper and the rolling mountains below spread out further and further until all we could see was an abundance of green. Being Sunday, the road was relatively free of traffic and totally free of the usual big trucks that menace the highways. The ride was nothing short of epic as we rose higher, into and above the clouds. We came across some real gems along the way including rushing waterfalls that spilled over into the road, local men and women, all of considerable age, walking barefoot and carrying wood on their backs using straps to balance them across their foreheads, donkeys and horses carting wood, no end of the Mexican popular classic VW Beetle, men and boys casually wielding machetes, swarms of buzzards circling for fresh carrion and the usual Mexican stray dogs that chase us with ferocity but never close on their kill. The road took us through some character-filled mountain towns and villages where the buildings and huts rest precariously on cliff edges, chickens, donkeys, dogs, horses roam the roads, enormous, wheel destroying potholes lie in wait and everyone we
came across returned our waves with welcoming smiles.
As we began to descend down the mountain the temperature slowly rose along with the humidity and the landscape grew increasingly tropical. We rode through smaller towns where orange trees lined the roads and we began to see palapas (palm leafed roofs) again. The horses from higher up disappeared and were replaced by little motorbikes that are industriously used to cart whole families about - a kid on the tank, two adults on the back and another kid squeezed between them. As we slowed in one of the villages for a dreaded tope, a battered motorbike pulled alongside us and the grinning helmet-less rider with his girlfriend on the back and a huge sack of oranges lodged in between them asked us where we were going and then motioned to follow them. They were from the town we were heading to and so ended up escorting us the final stretch of probably one of the best rides of the trip, through more fields of sugar cane past two enormous, beautiful lakes that sat either side of the road and into Tuxtepec, which was overrun with these tiny motorbikes overloaded with people.
That evening, no sooner had we cooled down and been out for food than the phone rang and the receptionist called us downstairs. Our new friends from the ride, Lillian and Alfredo, who had guided us to the hotel earlier had returned to see how we were getting on. We spent some time trying to talk with them but our Spanish still needs some work. As they got ready to leave Alfredo embraced Byron whole heartedly and declared "usted es mi hermano"... You are my brother. A great end to an amazing day.
Leaving the mountains behind the next morning we arrived in the pancake flat Yucatan Peninsula. From a look at the map, we thought this part of the road would be beautiful as it followed the Gulf coast North but instead we came across very little for miles other than the road itself, small villages with packs of stray dogs, the occasional coastal fishing town and waterlogged fields. After two fairly boring days of riding and one stop off in Villahermosa at an ominously police-guarded hotel and the best street tacos so far, we got to the old pirate port and colonial town of Campeche on
the gulf coast.
After finding a great hotel near the sea where we parked the bike Mexican style (in the lobby), breaking the hotel's wooden ramp in the process, we planned to spend a day off the bike and on the beach. Unfortunately being a town on the coast doesn't equal having a beach so instead we spent a day wandering about this beautiful, incredibly colourful and well kept colonial town that was the current home of a street exhibition by sculptor Javier Marin.
After exhausting the camera with photos of many a sculpted face and colourful building, we packed up the next morning and rode an easy 130 miles up to the next town of Merida where we decided to chance our first stay of this far so trip in a backpacking hostel that became a little haven. There we came across, amongst others, the first English people that we'd met on this trip so far who were also travelling. Pete and Rachel were backpacking with their two very cute girls, Tilly and Kiah, on a similar route to ours for nine months and we spent a couple of evenings with them and a few Mexican beers
in the very un-British setting of a tropical Iguana's garden, surrounded by Mayan woven hammocks beside an outdoor pool in late October.
We used the time in Merida to take buses out to the jungle and explore the local cenotes. Cenotes are a deep, natural pit or sinkhole that result from the collapse of limestone bedrock that exposes groundwater beneath. They were considered by the Mayans to be the entry into the underworld of the dead and so were used for sacrificial offerings. Studies in the 1980s mapped the pattern of cenotes and the extensive network of underground caves that connect them in the Yucatan Peninsula, show they may have been caused by the aftershock of the meteorite that is thought to have wiped out the dinosaurs. We visited four of the cenotes in the area and each was uniquely incredible, as well as slightly scary when facing a vertical ladder that takes you down through a hole in the ground where a pit of water over 15 meters deep sits and, despite its idyllic crystal blue colour, there always looms a least one enormous black cavity into the unknown.
The trip to get to the cenotes was
equally as exciting. Local guides lead carts drawn by their own horses along a ten kilometre track of rail, deep into the dense jungle, stopping at each cenote to wait while you disappear into the ground to visit them. As the track is a single one, and slightly loose at that, when another cart comes from the opposite direction one of the guides stops, lets his horse go, everybody gets off while he lifts the cart off the track to let the other cart pass before lugging it back on again, calling the horse back and continuing along until it happens all over again. Despite the number of times we passed other carts in this manner, we still couldn't work out the etiquette that dictates which guide or direction should yield to the other.
All in all Mexico continues to be our favourite country so far. The culture and history is incredibly rich, the landscape is ever changing but always beautiful, the food is delicious, the people are so happy and friendly, the weather is fantastic and just about everything brims with colour. We will be sad to say goodbye in a couple of days as we head into
Belize then on to Guatemala.
(Scroll further down for more photos)
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lee
non-member comment
Were you running a bit low on funds at this point!?
How much love?!