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Published: December 27th 2006
Bahia Kino
Freedom camping on the beach
Hotel Continental, Juarez Crossed over to Mexico today for the first time and will probably do a bit of to-ing and fro-ing along the border. We crossed over to Mexico in a major dust storm, El Paso is a hole, but at least we now have all the relevant paper work and documentation to take our car into Mexico. The Americans are convinced we will be back as they can’t believe anyone would keep heading south around here. Mind you when I see how seedy El Paso and Juarez are I can understand why they may think that. Just ran into the same 12 year old boy escorting yet more fat American old men back to the room down the hallway in the Hotel Continental we are staying in on my way to get ice. Depressing, that makes at least 5 different sets of men I have seen him with in the few hours that we have been here.
20 Feb 2000
Columbus, New Mexico Greetings from the campgrounds in Columbus New Mexico, right on the border of Mexico (where Pancho Villa invaded the US in 1916 and where the US first used airplanes in
Saguaro Cactus
Hel checking out some new ideas for the garden a military context - don't worry Fran I have photos - enough of the history lesson).
We are currently cruising along the US side of the border, heading for Tombstone. Ran into the federallies doing random drugs checks as we heading back over the border to Columbus, they were very interested in our chilly bin which was quiet funny, we thought that maybe they were after fruit - given this is what the customs officers back in NZ are always looking for. We plan to go South in a few days...
Internet connections in Mexico are very patchy... The mail from Mexico is also very slow - airmail letters taking a month or more to reach NZ, so please don't think we have forgotten you if the flood of correspondence slows a bit...
First port of call will be AMEX office in Chihuahua (to pick up mail), after that we'll be heading towards Mazatlan, should be there within a fortnight. We should be able to get a cyber cafe in Mexico City to pick up messages etc. We plan to be in Mexico for around a month, crossing over to the Yucatan and Belize before doubling back
Panchos Car
Scott checking out new wheels to cross into Guatemala.
23 Feb 2000
Nogales; New Mexico Scott and I are hanging around the border town of Nogales; I have to head home for some work related stuff and to catch up with the wayward daughter.
I am afraid we horrified the local travel agents with our pronunciation of place names; they had that who let you out of the country look. I guess it’s the same look we give Yankees mangling Maori place names back home.
24 Feb 2000
Hermosillo, Northwest Mexico Passed through Hermosillo (don’t pronounce the H) on the way down to the coast. Land dry and inhospitable, plenty of Saguaro Cactus towering over the Desierto Sonrense.
25 Feb 2000
Baha Kino, Gulfo California Not much to do here but lie in the sun, drink cervessa and watch the pelicans dive bomb fishing… ahhh this is the life. Beer is very good too, especially the Negra Modelo.
28 Feb 2000
Mile 301 camp - Roadside Yecora Today we wound our way up through the Sierra Taiahumara mountains and camped by a little shrine to Virgin of Guadalupe in Yecora, on our way to see the
Waiting for Pancho
School children visiting Pancho's place Cascade de Basaseachic. Lots of logging around here, but not like at home, most of the logs being taken out are around a meter long and less the 300mm across, barely make a fence post.
29 Feb 2000
Motel Linda Vista, Cuauhtémoc, Chihuahua Odd passing through so many apple farms, with Mennonites in bid fronted overalls and straw hats (men) or long skirts and kerchiefs (women folk) mixing with the native Indian and cowboy booted Mexicans.
1 March 2000
Chihuahua, Central North Mexico Ah Chihuahua, apparently this is the murder capital of Mexico. Not that we noticed. Booked into the Hotel San Juan for ten days. More cowboy boots and hats then one can poke a stick at. Outside the Catedral, in the Palza de Armas, the band rotunda serves as a 16 person book shine and appears to be constantly full. A gaggle of school children laughed at us as we made our way around town. Scott recons it was me and my impressive knees prominently displayed by my travellers’ shorts. But I recon it is him, they have never seen a grown man display his toes in jandals around here.
While in Chihuahua
we plan on checking out the impressive Pina Morales murals and Hidalgo’s eternal flame, as well as Pancho’s house which is now the Museo de Historico de la Revolution. Scott is impressed as they have a lot of his old guns, and the car he was shot down in to, still bullet ridden but Scott recons he could get it on the road again (not that the trust Trooper is giving us any reason to complain).
We also luck out on the most impressive bit of over the top Art Nouveau in the country at Rosa’s house, Quinta Gaeros. Sorry no photos aloud, you just have to go and see it for yourself.
But perhaps our best find in Chihuahua was the excellent Huevos Ranchos we had for breakfast each morning in the café just next door, eggs on homemade corn tortillas smothered in chilli sauce (with slices of Halopeno) refried beans on the side and stacks of wheat tortillas to mop everything up with… Hmmm delicious, pity that in a country that grows stacks of oranges the only juice they had was damn tang to wash it all down with.
11 March 2000
Hidalgo del Parral, Mazatlan
Love that lizard... iguana actually Central North Mexico
After a very pleasant stay Chihuahua (and a quick trip back to NZ and back for me) we headed back out on the road again. Scott was itching to get back on the trail of General Francisco Villa, (and no I didn’t name Frances after Panhco Villa). So it was off to Hidalgo del Parral, where they shot the general down (on the 20th July 1923). The most interesting thing for me about Parral was that we stayed in yet another fab fifties decorated hotel (with an excellent beer nook on the roof over looking the Catedral). It’s as if Mexico is where all chrome and vinyl furniture has come to die… mind you it was still in pretty mint condition, pity we have so little room in the truck to stack a few choice pieces.
12 March 2000
Durango, Central North Mexico We hit the road again, this time heading to Durango. More buzzards along the roadside eating dead cattle. Stopped off at Canvitollo to see Pancho’s villa and retirement home to his army - La Division del Norte. Not a bad spread. Pity we couldn’t wangle a deal to look after it.
Durango was yet another cowboy film town, the iron dragons featuring on the light fittings on the Teatro Richardo Castro were impressive though. We settled into another cheap beer nook hotel overlooking the Catedral, and enjoyed an evening of hand rolled cigars and Sol cervessa.
15 March 2000
Hotel Belmar, Mazatlan The trip to Mazatlan involved over 315 miles of windy road over the Serria’s and down to the coast, when we were not dodging massive logging trucks (with more tiny logs) we were travelling through miles and miles of Avocados, Finally we reached town and the Pacfico Brewery - ah home, almost. Checked into a seedy hotel on the Playa Olas Atlas, visited the Devil’s cave, played with the Iguanas, and watched more Pelicans dive bombing the ocean as I ate yet more garlic prawns at the restaurant Los Pelicans in Playa de Norte.
17 March 2000
San Blas, Central Pacific coast For reasons that escape me, we went down to San Blas, something about an old fort (Cerro de la Contraduria). I really liked it as it billed itself as having no condos, no resort hotels, no shopping malls, no freeways no golf courses
Chichen Itza
Yes, hands on hips is the hip pose and no stoplights. But what really caught my eye more was the weird dress up parade that took part in the town. Kids dressed as little princesses and princes kind of made some sense. But the poor boy dressed as a rooster being dragged around by his mother, now that was just cruel. And as for the virgins with candles on their heads, well words escape me. We settled into what turned out to be our last camp site with the tent of love, the aptly named ‘Playa Amor’ trailer park. All white washed coconut palms, blue, blue ocean and yet more pelicans to watch. Somehow we ended up going down to Puerto Vallarta, which was a mistake as the road still doesn’t go through to Guadalajara so we had to back track back up again
20 March 2000
Cahuilla, Western Central Highlands Today we visited tequila, driving through miles of Agave tequila A. Weber, the Blue Agave that they make tequila from. We stopped off to enjoy a tour and got to learn how the harvest and roast the ‘pineapple’ hearts before brewing them up in the watched over by the ever present Virgin of Guadalupe and then distilling the results. We learnt that ‘Reposado’ was tequila that had rested for 2 months, while ‘Anejo’ was the good stuff that had aged for a year. Scott impressed the crowd on the tour with his sculling of a full beaker of raw tequila, the guide had only meant him to have a sip… needless to say I drove home, not before noticing that the tequila brewery / distillery was set in a mango orchard.
21 March 2000
Guadalajara, Jalisco, Western Central Highlands We passed through the interestingly named Composela on the road to Guadalajara today, I don’t think it had much to do with compost though… I must be suffering from gardening withdrawal. Anyway great fountains, interesting market, and lots of odd bronzes. Scott nearly lost his hat (bought at the real mans hat shop in Alberque) but I backtracked and found it for him - he had left it behind in an internet café. Lots of nice shady parks too, very useful for people watching and dozing in the heat of the day.
23 March 2000
Guanajuato, Northern Central Highlands We whizzed through Leon on our way across and checked out fantastic hand painted tiles ‘azuelejos’ in Dolores Hidalgo (and the local hot spring).
Guanajuato is an old silver mine town with roads underground in old mine shafts and the old river. Kind of reminded me of Wellington with all its houses built on top of one another as they went up the hills. Very cultured and very pleasant. We were treated to a rousing rendition of the William Tell Overture (dum dede dumdittio dum dum… hi ho silver and all that) with the band pumping it out from the band rotunda at full volume, watched by a kit in a Dalmatian suit (what is it with boys dressed up in animal suits?).
I really liked Guanajuato and it was one of my favourite spots in Mexico, I could have gladly stayed on indefinitely, despite my appalling Spanish, as it had a real international vibe coupled with a feel of old Mexico which made it really welcoming.
We checked out a number of churches and the hooks on the Alhóndiga de Granaditas (public granary), — they hung the heads of Miguel Hidalgo, Ignacio Allende, Juan Aldama, and José Mariano Jiménez on the Alhóndiga's corners, to discourage further independence movements, didn’t work though and even the nuns that pass the corners still cross themselves in respect as they pass by today.
The Teatro Juarez is a sight to behold and you can get some idea of the wealth that they dug out of the tunnels around here by stepping inside, carefully over the glass tiled floor into the smoking gallery. More guilt and gilt is on display on the way out of town in the encrusted Temple la Valenciana, built apparently by a mine owner in an attempt to make up for all the deaths of local workers in his mines.
I preferred the burnt orange edifice of the Iglesia de San Diego back in town or the Gaudi-ish candy floss towers of the Catedral San Miguel Allende in San Miguel.
31 March 2000
Tula, North of Mexico City On the way from Guanajuato to Mexico City we decided to stay at Tula as it meant we would have time to check out the ruins and have a clean run through the city the next day. Our aim was to avoid the crime ridden centre by staying at the two most interesting towns on either side - Tula and Puebla.
We arrived in time to find a reasonable hotel and make the short trip to the archaeological zone. The ancient town of Tula covered 13 square kilometres, but they have only really dug up the ceremonial centre, and you can see numerous grassy mounds yet to be excavated. Tula was the capital city of the Toltec people founded by Topiltzin, who worshipped Quetzalcoatl (the feathered serpent god), for one reason or another Topiltzin relocated to new Toltec state in the Yucatan and founded Chichen Itza. He vowed to return and seek retribution to those who drove him away, and since Topiltzin was light-skinned, long-haired and bearded, the Aztec emperor Moctezuma feared that he Hernan Cortes (the Spanish conquistador) was Topiltzin returning when the turned up on the Gulf Coast in 1519.
Enough of the history lesson, the site has some amazing Telamones whose feet are nearly as broad as mine.
25 March 2000
Coyoacan, Mexico City Our cunning plan to get in and outa dodge (okay Mexico City) was working like a charm, until we hit the ring road, actually a minor navigational error on my part, we entered in the wrong direction and had to drive all the way around the polluted capital till we got the turn off to Coyoacan that I was looking for. Still we made it safely to the Blue House at Londres I was looking for - the Museo Frida Kahlo. Being the proud owner of my own 'Casa Azul' I was keen to check out the real thing, even if she went for a more conservative look with broad red stripes and a classy green door (as apposed to my own teal trim and vivid orange door). Still pretty cool to wander around the cool green (if somewhat dark) garden, check out the her tehuana (traditional ornate dresses), tiles on the kitchen, paper mache day of the dead figures, pre-Hispanic objects, her wheelchair and body casts, very narrow bed and beautifully sun streamed studio.
After Frida’s place we went around the corner to check out the bullet holes in her mates place at the Museo Casa de Leon Trotsky… yes well even with the thick metal plates covering the windows he still got done in by an icepick buried in his head while he sat it his desk in the summer of 1940 ( by a sectary or secret agent of Stalin, depdent on the version of the story you hear).
Pity we are just whizzing through here as I would really like to have seen some of Diego Rivera murals etc. But just not up to handling a big rampant city like this, especially as we are driving, next time.
25 March 2000
Puebla, South of Mexico City Well; this place may be called they City of Angels, City of Tiles, Heroic City of Zaragoza, but we will always know it simply as the City of Thieves! So much for our plan of avoiding the crime ridden city of Mexico, we just got stun a few kms down the road. As we could not stop in the forecourt of our hotel, to many other vehicles, we merely parked around the corner and carried out hand luggage in… when we went back to get the rest, well it was all gone, the Trooper was striped clean, apart from a pair of miss matched boots (one of Scott’s and one of mine) left behind in their indecent haste. Still on the bright side we had finished camping so I guess we will just pack lightly from here on in, and if we need anything we can always pick it up on route.
Philosophically we went off to check out the amazing tiles we had come here to see, and of course to find the police station, now that really was a test of our rudimentary Spanish.
26 March 2000
Puerto de Veracruz, Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave Well it is as hot as hell down here on the Gulf of Mexico, and the place is fairly hopping. The town was founded by Hernán Cortés, who first landed here in 1519 (a bit before us). Still the old Trooper made it here in fine style with its lightened load. After pulling into a seedy hotel which has a ceiling fan and a nice cross breeze, we joined the rest of the locals down at the malecón to listen to a wicked son jarocho band (a mix of Mexican folk music and Cuban son). The waiter that served us was a dead ringer for a mate of ours back in NZ, Shane, either that or the heat, pickled chilies and cervessa was getting to me.
The rest of this blog page is to come…
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