While i'm getting my life back together, please look at a fine selection of my photos:

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Palenque

The road from San Cristobal to Palenque, again, was great. i can't say otherwise. Mexico is a GREAT motorcycle country!

Although in this stretch i almost died. Yes, DIED. A stupid mexican kid  in a red (i think....) VW Beetle thought it was a good idea to pass a truck where i was riding. Real close, i think there was about 5 cm. between the truck and the beatle and the beetle and me. And me and the road's shoulder. Pretty intense. I had to stop for a while to get my grips, shaking so badly i couldn't lit my cigarette. Jeez. I saw myself crashing. Some way to leave this paradise for another isn't it? Didn't see my live passing the revue though... 



I met two other motorcycle travellers on the road. 2 fully loaded 1200GSA's from Quebeck. They cheated though ;-) took a truck to Texas and started from there to Honduras and back.

Some people have money and limited time, others have limited money, but time. Looking at those GSA's reminded me of the good times i had with my GS though. One day...

Still love my TTR though! Still reliable. Wouldn't change it for a bigger bike.






(Observation: I thought a simple small bike wouldn't have the rich gringo appearance. I was wrong. In these areas people don't see the difference between a eur. 4000 and a eur. 20000 bike anyway, so every bike is bigger than what you see normally on the streets here.)



about 60kms before Palenque i had a nice luch at a recreational area. Nice waterfalls. I think it was called Aqua azul.


















I met Monica at the busstation and we went
to "El Panchan" a nice area halfway between the village Palenque and
the ruins. Lots of campsites and cabanas situated in a rainforrest.
Hot, humid and beautiful. Here's our Cabana.

Cool place to chill out for a while.













 
Palenque, the archeological site, sure is beautiful.



















Yes! I really was here, in case there's any doubt.




















Although the main
buildings are excavated, surrounding areas and buildings are still overgrown by
rainforrest.



This creates a beautiful atmosphere.











During the excavation lots of artifacts were found. Partially displayed in the Museum. Very special is the tomb of one of the great rulers. The moved it from the Runs to the museum. Quite impressive.







Guatemale is really getting close now.

I first thought of going to Belize and jump to Guatemala from there, starting at Tikal, another ruine site. We decided otherwise and backtracked to San cristobal and went to Comitan, were we visited a beautiful lake area.

From there it was an easy crossing into Guatemala at La Mesilla, stopover at Huehuetenango and finally, well deserved, a beatiful couple of days in Antiqua.


You can see all pictures of this part of the trip here.

 



San Cristobal

Next stop from Oaxaca was San Cristobal de las casas.

On the map it looked like a boring road. In reality it was mountains and twisties again.


Which was fun, partially. If it wasn't for the storm and bit of
rain. This part of Mexcico, the Isthmus of Tehuantepec is the smallest
part of Mexico and the area where northern and southern gulf streams
meet. Lots of wind and pretty cold (relatively, that is), dark clouded
skies and even a huge windturbinepark. If it wasn't for the mountains,
it could have been Holland. The wind and mountains causes heavy
turbulent winds which surprised me a couple of times. Coming around a
corner and almost got blown off the road into the steep ravines next to
it. Pretty exciting. So if you go there, be carefull!!



It took me 2 days to get to San Cristobal and spend the night in too expensive pesos $200 hotel in a city which has *nothing* to offer. I run out of daylight and it just started to rain when i arrived. Good thing they had satellite tv so i could catch up with Law and Order, Life and other popular american series.


Had to pass some moutainrange and had to go through 10 km of dense mist. Not really funny if you cannot see where you're going with all those curves.

All went well though.












San Cristobal i a nice colonial town, but without the  colonial beauty and had many narrow streets. At first sight there is no trafficrules and cars go a bit faster in these streets than is safe.














    
I met a Canadian on this corner. He drove a big 4x4 pickup truck all over Mexico and South America, even through the Amazon! And was writing a book about it.

He pointed out that there are trafficrules here. See picture. Red arrows mean STOP, Black arrow means you have the right of way.

Simple, aint it?!?









I love San Cristobal with it's narrow streets, touristy vibe and lots of cheap cafe's, restaurants etc.

It is fairly cold here, because of the altitude and the time of year. Afterall, it's winter here too!

(Same as all other cities in the inland of Mexico, btw.)













I kept in touch with Monica. She went all over the world but she didn't travel much in Mexico.
She took a bus, a plane and a bus again to meet me here. From here on we would traveled together for about a week. She on the bus, i on my bike. Too bad we couldn't go 2-up. I learned a lot of spanish from her.



 Just outside San Cristobal is are a few authentic villages you can
visit. The local trade is weaving.

Which, of course, you can buy as a
tourist.

The people are not very fond of tourists, and taking pictures
is not appreciated, accoording to our guide. So no pictures of the people.















Nice cemetary.
What you
don't see is all the rubish and trash on it.


















Here you can see all pictures of this part of the trip.
 

Guanajuato to Oaxaca

It has been a while since i wrote an exhaustive post. I returned to guanajuato to celebrate cristmas at the hostel we stayed before. The owners prepared a meal for christmas eve and all guests were invited. It was nice to spend the evening with a variaty of nationalities.


After christmas i continued my trip. Claudio managed to sell a few stories of his trip to Italian
motorcycle magazines, so he stayed behind to finish his job. Or was it
his girlfriend? Who knows. Anyway i was on my own again and felt
actually very excited about it. We will meet again, i'm sure.











From Guanajuato i went to Morelia, another wonderful colonial town. Spend a few days walking around and visiting Musea. It was here were i met Monica, a wonderful person, and probably the only Mexican who ever visited Finland. Yes, she likes traveling alot!



































She took me to a place near Morelia, Patzcuaro, an authentic village
near a big lake. Interesting, but touristy, mainly Mexican tourists
though.


De village is very old visit their website for more info.





















A mandatory thing if your around Morelia is to visit the S actuary of the Monarch Butterflies. It's amazing how these insects find their way from North America to exactly this place to cover for the winter. After a hike of about 3 kms from the parking lot you enter a dense forrest. I missed a proper zoomlens, but as you can see the trees contains countless butterflies.

From Tuxla, near Mexico City again a very scenic and curvey road and is a long days ride to the coast (carretera 134) and in dark i arrived in Ixtapa. Much to my surprise it was a pretty huge resort area. A friendly taxi driver took me to the agency where i could book a hotel, it was high season apparently and available rooms were scarce, according to the guy. He didn't want any dinero for this random act of kindness. Which made me feel good, being a US and CAN touristplace i expected otherwise.

Another big supprise was that hotel rooms started at about $1000. Ouch!!
(pesos, but still..). What motivated me to try to find the cheapest
lodging possible. A very helpful tourist official came after me and offered a room for only $550. Huge improvement, but no thanks. Earlier i saw sign  "Playa Linda RV park" and went off to check that out. Didn't found it though, instead i found a very nice and friendly trailerpark and camping very close to the beach. (Follow the signs Playa Linda and keep going all the way to the back). For only pesos $70 i could pitch my tent near the beach.


Nice. My neighbors were Mexicans in a mobile home and in exchange for the full story of my trip in Spanglish i got a beer and some nice quesadillas con salsa picante. Made my day. By that time i was tired  and about ten o'clock and passed out in my tent. Not for long though. Bad scrimps i ate earlier that day (first time i ate in a decent restaurant) fought their way out in the the opposite direction they came in. Different shape and color though...

In silence, well, not completely, i celebrated my first food poisoning in 7 months time. Oh Joy..

I took a day to recover and continued south for a two days ride following the  coastal hwy 200 to Zipolite. Accourding to Lee, another bike traveler i met in Guanajuato, a funky little beach place. The 200 is not the best of roads,  although some nice beachy spots exist. I must add that i still felt bad which probably influenced my perception of my surroundings. Zipolite, and that whole area, makes it definitely worth. See previous posting. Spend two days in a hammock reading a book, chilling out with young mexicans and Barbara, the Italian caretaker. Nice beach, good people, and bloody hot. Only $40 to pitch my tent a couple of meters from the beach. It's a nudebeach too and, apparantly as it goes, mostly people who really shouldn't, walk around naked. So be warned ;-)




When i finished my book "Atlantis". An adventure story about the discovery of Atlantis, well written and the way the author wrote it, it could all be trough! I wanted to see Oaxaca and took the 200 further to Puero Angel and went up the 175 to Oaxaca. Again geogeous winding roads through the mountains.


Well the first 130km that is, then it stretches out and becomes a pretty boring ride.

Halfway to Oaxaca is a small village i stopped for coffee. In Oaxaca i learned that this is the place to rent a hammock and chill out with fresh mushrooms and a certain weed.  Not my thing, but it might be of interest to other people.











Oaxaca is another wonderful colonial city. Crowded, big lively markets and damn good food! Nice museums and lots of cool coffeeshops, art galleries and restaurants situated around Centro Cultural Santo Domingo, a beautiful church with an old monestary which is converted to a museum. Really beautiful.





Monte Alban, the ruin just outside Oaxaca is definetly worth visiting. There i learned that in 1930 a tomb was found which wasn't discovered before. The above mentioned museum has a collection of the treasures found there, which contains very nice crafted jewelry.



From political engaged people i met here i learned that this part of Mexico is quite politically active. There was even a pro-palestine demonstration! You might think mexicans have enough to demonstrate for in their own country. Although not as severe as in the '90-ties the Zapatista issue still smolders underneath the surface. I still have to explore that piece of history.




This definetly is another side of Mexico. To me, till now Mexico seems a nice, friendly and fairly save place if you take care of your stuff and don't do stupid things. But maybe i'm just lucky, or naive. Or both for that matter.



They do know how to make a church around here...



I spend a couple of days in Oaxaca, it was a while i had seen so many tourists. Understandable, since this city with his ruins, museums, livery mercado's etc. is really special.

Here you can see a slideshow of all my pictures of this part of my trip.









 

 










  

Monday, January 5, 2009

Short update

Just a short update to let you all know I´m in Playa Zipolite, a nice and small paradise at the coast below Oaxaca. I had a couple of long and rough days. Finaly got myself a food poisoning, not bad after 7 months on the road. Pretty ironic that it was (probably) the one up-scale restaurant i tried. Takes the fun out of riding a motorcycle though. From Tuluca down to the coast (road 134) is a fenomenal road. Countless number of twisties for about 160km, with the occasional small town or Pueblo. Did i mention that i start getting to REALLY HATE these topes? And i'm onbly half way down to Terra del Fuego. Oh well.

Anyways, I probably stay a few days here before going to Oaxaca City. It's quite hippy-ish here. Too bad i cut my hair. Good vibes. Hot and humid thouhg.

I would like to thank everyone for all christmas and new years wishes. Means a lot to know people still think about me.



warmest regards,
Sander