Adios Mexico, Hola Guatemala8-15-06

I left Palenque by 9, happy to be going up in elevation and cooler weather. Palenque is a sweat box like you wouldn't believe. Once you break a sweat, and it doesn't take much, you are wet all day. Tikal, in Guatemala, is the only other place I have been that compares. I stopped at the Misol-Ha waterfall, just for a few minutes. If you have seen the Ahh-nold movie Predator, parts of it were filmed there. It's a cool waterfall, what else can you say. Went through the town of Ocosingo, which was the center of the Zapatista movement in the early 90's. The elementary school has a mural depicting balaclava clad rebels on it. I stopped and ate lunch at a restaurant there. I need to do some reading on the Zapatista's, I really don't know what they are all about. I did a little research on them from a tourist safety standpoint, but not their principles.
From Palenque to San cristobal is another one of those roads that is just mile after mile of mountain turns. It also must hold the record for topes per mile. It is just constant accel/decel, either for turns or speed bumps. My neck actualy got sore from the weight of my helmet, i think, from all the g forces.
San Cristobal ended up being another very pretty, old, colonial city. It is smaller than either Oaxaca or Guanajuato, and easy to get around in. It gets the prize for the most restaraunts and shopping of anyplace I have been this trip. It is also relatively cheap to eat and sleep in. I got a room for 80 pesos a night, but after looking around, I could have gotten a much nicer place for not much more money. There is a pretty well defined tourist zone here, and it's heavily patrolled by tourist police. I don't think this area will shake its' image as the city the Zapatista occupied for a long time.
There was a little plaza near my hotel that had something going on both nights I was there. On night it was a band with 2 trumpets, a trombone, guitar, bongos, and I don't know what else. The next night there was a folk dancing group. Very blue collar crowd at these, I suppose it was pretty hick stuff for the hipsters in town.

8-16-06

Spent the morning visiting the museums in town, pretty lame compared to the other cities this trip. The most informative one was actually a coffee shop. Lots of coffee is grown in Chiapas,and this shop sold locally grown products, and had displays showing the farming process and why fair trade coffee is important. Anyway, one of the brand names is Cafe Direct, so if you see some, buy it.
Spent the afternoon paying bils online and doing some non zen motorcycle maintenance. The bike has used maybe 4 ounces of oil in the 3,000 miles I have ridden in Mexico. The rear tire is wearing a litle faster than I had hoped, and I suppose that means the chain is to. I'm sure it is all the acceleration and braking on these mountain roads. The only problem has been the fan quit working, and by jumpering it, I knew the fan itself was OK. After I plugged all the connectors back together it worked again, but then quit again later. I think it was a bad connection in the fuse, as I put a different fuse in, even though the other wasn't blown, and it has been fine since. It really annoys me that you have to take the seat, and both side covers off, disconect the terminals and pull the battery out, just to check the water level. This bike has always had a tendency to boil a little water out of the battery, but I don't think it is anything to worry about.
Tonight there was a funeral procession that went by my hotel. I thought I was in New Orleans or something, as they had a ragtag brass band, bass drum, and some people dressed in clown suits. They had a pickup truck, with a virgen de Guadalupe statue in the back, leading followed by the band and the hearse. Go figure.

8-17-06

I rode the 140 miles to the Guatemala border by 11 am. After some lunch and a gas fill up, to use up some Mexican pesos, I got checked out of Mexico. Took maybe 15 minutes, they looked at the bike to see if the serial number matched the paperwork. Honduras was equally easy to get into. First thing i did was changed my pesos for Quetzales with a money changer at the border. These guys get a bad rap all the time by travelers, but he only made a couple per cent on me, if the official rate I looked up on the internet is right. Then I had to get my bike "fumigated". this consisted of a guy takig a garden sprayer and spraying about 1 drop of some liquid on the tires, cost 13 Quetzales, or 2 dollars. Next stop immigration, where a 90 day tourist visa was free. Then to customs, where a 40 day permit for the bike was 40Q or 6 dollars, and that was it. This crossing, Cuatemoc on the Mexican side, and La Mesilla on the Guatemala side, is set up so you can park the bike in front of the offices to get your permits. The bike was only out of my sight for a minute, when I went in to pay for my vehicle permit, at a different booth than where you fill out the form, and there weren't big crowds, like there are at some borders. I hope they all go this smooth.
Guatemala drivers makes Mexicans look pretty orderly, by comparison. Within the first 80 miles I had 2 buses come at me in my lane around blind curves. I'm not talking about just being 2 feet in my lane, I mean in the act of passing someone and totaly in my lane. One time I had to dive for the shoulder, which at the time was one of those concrete drainage troughs on the inside of the curve. It was real steep and it would have been real easy to lose it there, but I hung on. As I always say, the danger in these trips is on the road. If I would have been leaned over hard in the turns, it could have been bad news, so I am glad I'm riding conservatively.
I had to find an ATM before I could get a hotel, since I only had a little Guatemalan money, and I stopped in a couple towns on the way and asked about an ATM, and people said the closest was in Xela (SHELL-ah). I had no idea where or what Xela was, I figured my map just sucked and didn't show the town. Turns out that the locals call Quetzaltenengo by its' Mayan name, Xela. So after decoding that, I found an ATM, and my card worked first time. Last trip here, money was a big hassle, as my card was on the Cirrus network, where Guatemala uses Plus. So, being no dummy, I have a Plus card this time. And it worked.
Hotels are cheap here, I got a decent room, with my bike parked in the entryway, for 50Q or about 6.50 US.
I had forgot how much changes when you cross the border. Before I started travelling down here, I always had the image of Latin America as a pretty homogenous region, but evey country is distinct. All the brands of beer and food change, and some of the expressions are different, along with the accent. Makes it tough for the struggling spanish speaker, as I was just getting a little better at Mexican spanish. In Mexico parking is estacionamiento, where here it is parqueo. Live chickens is "pollo en vivo" in Mexico, where here it is "pollo en pie", or literally, "chicken on foot". Don't ask me how I know that one, I just do.

8-18-06

I decided to look into hikes around here, and found an outfit that had a flyer posted at my hotel. It is a non profit deal, run by volunteers, and all the money goes to fund a school and shelter for street kids in Xela.I went to their place and made arraingments to take a 3 day hike to Lago de Atitlan, which has 3 volcanoes on its' shores. This will start on Saturday the 19th, so I will be incummicado for a few days. I got a room at a hostel next to the guide place, where I can keep the bike while I'm gone. Should be pretty cool, it goes through some little villages that aren't on car roads, and over some mountains. It's about 50k or 30 miles, most of which you do the first 2 days, then hang out at the lake, and take a bus back here. I was planning on getting another Spanish course in San Pedro or Antigua next week and this will screw that up, but you have to stay flexible.

Ocosingo, Chiapas, Zapatista mural on school building.

San Cristobal, Chiapas, Open air market.

San Cristobal, Chiapas, 17th century convent that is being restored

San Cristobal, I had my first decent cup of coffee in forever at this place. Breakfast for $2.50, and learned a little about coffee growing besides.

La Mesilla, Guatemala, Someone we know was here before. One of Chris and Erin Ratay´s stickers on the customs building.

First glimpse of Guatemala.