Today we arrived at Oaxaca. We knew we were getting close to a big town when the roads became busier and the driving became more erratic. The best part of town, we have found, is to stay in the historical district. This area usually has the most Hotels and places to eat and see. As soon as we saw the turning for the historical district we turned off. After travelling backwards and forwards for a while we found a good but cheap hotel on the outskirts of the historical district but on a quiet road. We settled in, then headed straight for the Yamaha dealers and laundrette.
We found the Yamaha shop fairly easily but once inside we found no-one spoke any English, so it out with the books and after a long conversation we found out that the tyres should be there tomorrow. So we dropped off the laundry and spent the evening wandering around part of the town.
The next morning we headed back to the Yamaha dealers and after a lot of talking, I was taken over to the Harley dealership, which was run by an Australian who spoke fluent Spanish and we finally sorted out why the tyres weren’t there (There supplier hadn’t delivered as requested!) and we assured they would be there Monday.
By this time it was early afternoon and we left a little frustrated but we tried to use the time wisely by catching up on the website, getting some repairs to our bike boots and getting some photo copying of our documents completed which we will need at the borders in Central America.
The next day was Sunday and we planned to have a really relaxing day. So we were up late and had a long breakfast in the main town square which like many Spanish town squares was just set aside for a bandstand, trees and places for everyone to walk and eat. As we finished breakfast the local police band started and we listened to them play a variety of music including classical and the obligatory Mexican horn and drum number. But this time the drummer had a very big drum.
<IMG SRC="http://pic4.picturetrail.com/VOL784/4062504/8448420/129438290.jpg" border="0" alt="Image Hosting by PictureTrail.com">
Who says size isn't everything...
After that we had a wander around the local market before heading back to Hotel to do some more web work.
Streets of Oaxaca...
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<IMG SRC="http://pic4.picturetrail.com/VOL784/4062504/8448420/129438443.jpg" border="0" alt="Image Hosting by PictureTrail.com">
Is Oaxaca the Southend of Mexico... Wedding dresses and trainers in the same shop?
<IMG SRC="http://pic4.picturetrail.com/VOL784/4062504/8448420/129438230.jpg" border="0" alt="Image Hosting by PictureTrail.com">
Mummy, Mummy, I want the one at the top....
On the way we saw what looked like a wedding at a church but later we found out it was a party to say goodbye to their local priest. There was the a Mexican band and the church square was full of people dancing. When the music stopped one of the men said a phrase in Spanish which the dancers all found funny and the music started again. Also most of the dancers had wreaths on their heads and the women held a number of small branches which they seemed to beat the men with every so often.!!
<IMG SRC="http://pic4.picturetrail.com/VOL784/4062504/8448420/129438515.jpg" border="0" alt="Image Hosting by PictureTrail.com">
Mexican dancers...
After the web updates had been completed we headed back towards the square for dinner and after a good meal and several drinks we were once again heading back to the hotel past the same church that had the party for the priest. The party was still going. By now the dancing had stopped and it had moved onto the fireworks.
When we arrived, there was a man in a conical shaped suit dancing on his own to the band. Attached to the suit were a number of fireworks. Ranging from catherine wheels to rockets. As the fireworks went off the man danced in time to the music!!! This went of for two more men before the grand finale. In the church court yard was a 40 foot tower covered in fireworks. The bottom was lit and in sequence from the bottom, off they went. The display lasted only a few minutes but It was a clever contraption and all went as planned with it finishing with the big rockets firing off into the night sky.
The weekend break was over too soon and after breakfast we inspected the maps for the best and safest route to and through Guatemala and Honduras. I had been looking at the US & UK Foreign Office advice last night and there were some stark warnings for certain roads to avoid in Guatemala and so we agreed a best route. Went to get the boots and after getting some more photocopying done for the border officials to come and popped in to see if our boots were ready but the man said we had agreed 12:00 and it was only 10:30 and to come back then…we had, but for the minor repairs it seemed a bit unnecessary. We went back to the Hotel and switched the contents of our panniers to allow for easy access to the inside of the pannier where our fire extinguishers were to be fitted.
That done, we rode into town, collected our boots and arrived at the Yamaha dealer. Our emotions were sent on another roller coaster as we walked into the shop.. initially we didn’t think the tyres had still arrived, then we discovered they had but only 3 of them…which the manager thought was ok…but we reminded them we ordered 4.…..after a bit of debate he offered a front Pirelli Scorpion to pair with the rear MT60 but this would take an hour to collect. The tyre profile was similar and I know the Scorpion is fitted to the KTM 950 Adventure so it must be ok and so I agreed.
Next we asked them to fit our newly acquired fire extinguishers, which happened OK except the mechanic put mine one on wonky ..we then learnt that they call him Burro which means Donkey. The whole process of changing the tyres and fitting the extinguisher was done in good humour with what seemed like nearly the whole shop involved.
Finally it came to the bill -we weren’t charged for the exchange of the tyres for the ones Mike bought in Acapulco, nor for fitting the fire extinguishers. Just the tyres and fitting them. The overall thing had not gone smoothly but they had done their best to accommodate us and we wanted to show some appreciation so we gave the Manager 250 peso’s to buy some postres (Cakes) for the shop (that’s about £14) and a bargain. Mike took a few photos, we bungeed the TKC80’s on and set off.
<IMG SRC="http://pic4.picturetrail.com/VOL784/4062504/8448420/129439023.jpg" border="0" alt="Image Hosting by PictureTrail.com">
The guys at Oaxaca Yamaha...
It was late now, about 4 o’clock. We hadn’t eaten since breakfast and were both thirsty too. We found a restaurant next to a Pemex gas station, got some gas and had a light lunch and headed off on the I-190.…..there were a number of I-190 signs all going in different directions. On the second failed attempt (this time having gone up into the hills) at the direction we didn't wanted to go in we decided to find somewhere to stay as too many times we’ve ended up searching for somewhere late at night in the dark.
We were offered a very basic room for 400 Pesos which is what we’d been paying in Oaxaco for a nice room. We finally decided on a hotel a few doors up for 650 pesos which was way over our budget but I’d already turned down the cheaper accommodation. The hotel is lovely and we were invited to park our bikes in the Hallway near our room off the road. Pretty cool as the hotel is very new. As we settled down to our respective tasks of Spanish lessons and web updates we decided on a coffee so I went off and found a girl at the bar who took my order. I was then told it would be delivered to my room-it was and I was told it was ok to pay in the morning. To cut a long story short we were phoned at 10:40 to say that there would be nobody to take the payment in the morning and could we pay now……we were in bed !
<IMG SRC="http://pic4.picturetrail.com/VOL784/4062504/8448420/129438359.jpg" border="0" alt="Image Hosting by PictureTrail.com">
Another night under the roof...
The first alarm went off at 6:55, the second at 7:00, when we were supposed to be getting up…we then heard a faint glimmer of a Mexican band sound…which grew in volume…and grew and grew until it was directly outside our Hotel…..at 7:00 am !! The stayed for a while and then finally marched off playing away !!
We set off trying to find the elusive 190 we wanted, not the two we found last night. Finally after some dust track rides and re-tracing of steps we found the right one and settled down to getting on with the miles. Huge amounts of corners again and the opportunity to test our new MT60/90 tyres. The combination worked very well on Mike’s bike and seemed ok for me. It was very very hot today and it seemed to sap both of us so we stopped earlier than usual for a break. A relatively quick lunch and we set off again to more corners. We saw some small forests of Cactus growing on the hills along with just as many neatly planted Yucca type plants., and a bit of rain and the usual array of animals wandering across the roads.
Finally we seemed to make a bit of progress only to meet up with some of the strongest winds we seen/felt so far and we were slowed to about 30.
We needed some gas and a drink so we stopped at a Pemex and managed the Mexican equivalent of a cheese toastie ! Not long after that we were unable to find the Mexican 200 despite many many attempts. In one of these attempts we ended up riding by an open dumping tip which stank and was quite surprised to see the quality of the type of people rummaging about in it.
After a number of false readings from the GPS and an number of dead-ends Mike asked some locals who confidently directed us. Two blocks down, turn right and keep going….they didn’t mention having to make a few other turnings. Finally after crossing over quite a few miles of farm land we were re-united with the 200. It was now getting dark and the wind was still pretty high and the first sign to anywhere I saw was 141 km, not a good omen, 20miles later I saw the sign for a Motel and a Hotel.
We went to the Hotel as it looked better on the outside, and was pleasantly surprised to find the room to be 250 Pesos, which was doubly helpful as we were almost out of cash. We took the room and moved in only to discover 2 air vents between 2-3 ft by 1 foot letting the lovely wind oxygenate our room, and whilst I appreciated not being asphyxiated to sleep again by Mike's shoes, it was very blustery in the room, a bit like camping with one of you tent flaps open , however all the rooms had non-controllable vents and so we settled in for a windy night.
<IMG SRC="http://pic4.picturetrail.com/VOL784/4062504/8448420/129438624.jpg" border="0" alt="Image Hosting by PictureTrail.com">
"Barn door" vents...
Despite Mikes many reservations about our inside outside experience he managed to get a reasonable nights sleep, but I didn’t fare quite so well. As we were still on a mile-eating plan we were up and dressed by 07:30.…and soon after advised that Mikes bike had been blown over during the night…Fortunately his new super-wide panniers acted as a sort of auxiliary side stand and little damage was done barring a few scrapes. Bike righted, we jumped on and headed off for our first 100 miles of the day, a bank and some breakfast.
The first 20-40 miles soon slipped by and we were optimistic that we’d hit the 300 we were hoping for ..but all of a sudden, wind came our of nowhere and forced us down to 30, then 20 mph……finally as we started to cross a bridge I came to a halt and it was all I could do to hold the bike upright, Mike was soon in the same predicament. The wind was impossibly strong and just kept gusting and gusting. Finally I could no longer hold my bike up and over it went, Mike watched helpless on as he was still hanging on to his for dear life. I walked back to see Mike and helped him to hold his bike upright but I noticed my ignition was still on so, after a quick check with Mike he was OK, I returned to my bike, and as I did so, Mike couldn’t hang onto his any longer, and over it went too ! We stood there, and only just stood there as the wind was doing its best to blow us off the hill.
We concluded that the best thing we could do in the short term was to get them out of the wind ASAP. About 500 metres away was a cutting and we decided that was where we were going to aim for..once we’d figured how we were going to right the bikes and get them over safely.
Just at that point a friendly Mexican saw our dilemma and offered to help. When we righted my bike, Mike saw a coach approaching and tried to wave him down so we could use his profile to shield us from the wind…he waved back as he overtook us…very friendly chap !!
We got my bike over, still quite a struggle for three men, and then we took Mike’s over with 4 of us and we nearly ended up going clean off the edge of the bridge. Before we lifted Mike’s bike up he couldn’t resist the humour of the moment and took a photo of me and our Mexican friend standing against the wind and preparing to lift my bike up.
<IMG SRC="http://pic4.picturetrail.com/VOL784/4062504/8448420/129438389.jpg" border="0" alt="Image Hosting by PictureTrail.com">
This ISN'T posed. We were just about standing up...
We rested for about 15 mins in the cutting whilst working out how we were going to continue our journey. Our Mexican friend offered to drive on our left hand side to protect us from the wind for a while….which he did. A few miles later the wind had dropped to a manageable level but he stayed with us until his turn-off some 10-15 miles later.
We stopped for breakfast shortly after that, now 10:30 ish., and we continued to laugh at the whole event. We did meet the odd gust here and there but had decided to stand on our foot-pegs to get the centre of gravity down and more control on the handle bars (Mike tested it first). It worked although very frightening leaving your seat when the wind is gusting at you and very tempting to sit back down again but the method worked and took the severity of the winds effects off of us.
We aimed for an early stop as we have the Guatemala border to cross tomorrow and we wanted to be rested and prepared for that. Despite the grotty town of Huixtla (starting to look a bit like Nogales-see our first Mexico log entry) we managed to find a decent Motel just outside of town and got a room each for a change, all for $20US each.
We have found that whilst our Spanish vocabulary has improved, our ability to be understood seems to have diminished. Three meals we’ve had today have all bewildered our waitresses. It may be that as we are tired, we have entered the drunk-like syndrome where everything one says sounds fine to themselves but absolute nonsense to every body else! .a bit like the French Policeman in ‘ello ‘ello…..hard though it is to imagine such a thing…
We were up and away ready for crossing into Guatemala early. However we didn’t expect to find the road to the border to be so winding or with so many road works. Large sections of the former road had fallen down many of the mountain roadsides and many other road works were underway. The road surfaces at points was very poor and had the nasty habit on a couple of corners of changing half way through. We survived all this and got to the border and mistakenly went to the Mexico section and winded up trying to explain why we didn’t have any paperwork for our month in Mexico (as we didn’t fully appreciate all the various forms, visa and taxes we were supposed to get when entering. The boarder guards waved us on etc).
The official finally said there seemed no point in doing anything now so we might as well go to the Guatemala border…so off we went.
Well, after having the wheels of the bikes fumigated we tried to get Visa’s for our passports but as we didn’t have any Mexico stamps in them trouble started to evolve and we were told to go back to the Mexican border and get our passports stamped. We tried to explain that the Mexicans sent us here, which started off falling on deaf ears. They repeated that we needed to go back to the Mexican border a couple of times and we assured them in Spanish that we understood but there was no point as they‘d sent us here. Finally a couple of Spanish ladies came to our aid and translated to the Officials what had happened. After a few smiles and some reassuring looks we finally got the stamps in our passports.
We then had to go to another section for a temporary import for the bikes. Once all the paper work was in order we were waved through but not before the harrowing experience of trading some dollars with a guy who looked more like a bus conductor. We were recommended a hotel only about a 10 minute drive from the border, we found it and settled for the night.
John
We found the Yamaha shop fairly easily but once inside we found no-one spoke any English, so it out with the books and after a long conversation we found out that the tyres should be there tomorrow. So we dropped off the laundry and spent the evening wandering around part of the town.
The next morning we headed back to the Yamaha dealers and after a lot of talking, I was taken over to the Harley dealership, which was run by an Australian who spoke fluent Spanish and we finally sorted out why the tyres weren’t there (There supplier hadn’t delivered as requested!) and we assured they would be there Monday.
By this time it was early afternoon and we left a little frustrated but we tried to use the time wisely by catching up on the website, getting some repairs to our bike boots and getting some photo copying of our documents completed which we will need at the borders in Central America.
The next day was Sunday and we planned to have a really relaxing day. So we were up late and had a long breakfast in the main town square which like many Spanish town squares was just set aside for a bandstand, trees and places for everyone to walk and eat. As we finished breakfast the local police band started and we listened to them play a variety of music including classical and the obligatory Mexican horn and drum number. But this time the drummer had a very big drum.
<IMG SRC="http://pic4.picturetrail.com/VOL784/4062504/8448420/129438290.jpg" border="0" alt="Image Hosting by PictureTrail.com">
Who says size isn't everything...
After that we had a wander around the local market before heading back to Hotel to do some more web work.
Streets of Oaxaca...
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<IMG SRC="http://pic4.picturetrail.com/VOL784/4062504/8448420/129438485.jpg" border="0" alt="Image Hosting by PictureTrail.com">
<IMG SRC="http://pic4.picturetrail.com/VOL784/4062504/8448420/129438443.jpg" border="0" alt="Image Hosting by PictureTrail.com">
Is Oaxaca the Southend of Mexico... Wedding dresses and trainers in the same shop?
<IMG SRC="http://pic4.picturetrail.com/VOL784/4062504/8448420/129438230.jpg" border="0" alt="Image Hosting by PictureTrail.com">
Mummy, Mummy, I want the one at the top....
On the way we saw what looked like a wedding at a church but later we found out it was a party to say goodbye to their local priest. There was the a Mexican band and the church square was full of people dancing. When the music stopped one of the men said a phrase in Spanish which the dancers all found funny and the music started again. Also most of the dancers had wreaths on their heads and the women held a number of small branches which they seemed to beat the men with every so often.!!
<IMG SRC="http://pic4.picturetrail.com/VOL784/4062504/8448420/129438515.jpg" border="0" alt="Image Hosting by PictureTrail.com">
Mexican dancers...
After the web updates had been completed we headed back towards the square for dinner and after a good meal and several drinks we were once again heading back to the hotel past the same church that had the party for the priest. The party was still going. By now the dancing had stopped and it had moved onto the fireworks.
When we arrived, there was a man in a conical shaped suit dancing on his own to the band. Attached to the suit were a number of fireworks. Ranging from catherine wheels to rockets. As the fireworks went off the man danced in time to the music!!! This went of for two more men before the grand finale. In the church court yard was a 40 foot tower covered in fireworks. The bottom was lit and in sequence from the bottom, off they went. The display lasted only a few minutes but It was a clever contraption and all went as planned with it finishing with the big rockets firing off into the night sky.
The weekend break was over too soon and after breakfast we inspected the maps for the best and safest route to and through Guatemala and Honduras. I had been looking at the US & UK Foreign Office advice last night and there were some stark warnings for certain roads to avoid in Guatemala and so we agreed a best route. Went to get the boots and after getting some more photocopying done for the border officials to come and popped in to see if our boots were ready but the man said we had agreed 12:00 and it was only 10:30 and to come back then…we had, but for the minor repairs it seemed a bit unnecessary. We went back to the Hotel and switched the contents of our panniers to allow for easy access to the inside of the pannier where our fire extinguishers were to be fitted.
That done, we rode into town, collected our boots and arrived at the Yamaha dealer. Our emotions were sent on another roller coaster as we walked into the shop.. initially we didn’t think the tyres had still arrived, then we discovered they had but only 3 of them…which the manager thought was ok…but we reminded them we ordered 4.…..after a bit of debate he offered a front Pirelli Scorpion to pair with the rear MT60 but this would take an hour to collect. The tyre profile was similar and I know the Scorpion is fitted to the KTM 950 Adventure so it must be ok and so I agreed.
Next we asked them to fit our newly acquired fire extinguishers, which happened OK except the mechanic put mine one on wonky ..we then learnt that they call him Burro which means Donkey. The whole process of changing the tyres and fitting the extinguisher was done in good humour with what seemed like nearly the whole shop involved.
Finally it came to the bill -we weren’t charged for the exchange of the tyres for the ones Mike bought in Acapulco, nor for fitting the fire extinguishers. Just the tyres and fitting them. The overall thing had not gone smoothly but they had done their best to accommodate us and we wanted to show some appreciation so we gave the Manager 250 peso’s to buy some postres (Cakes) for the shop (that’s about £14) and a bargain. Mike took a few photos, we bungeed the TKC80’s on and set off.
<IMG SRC="http://pic4.picturetrail.com/VOL784/4062504/8448420/129439023.jpg" border="0" alt="Image Hosting by PictureTrail.com">
The guys at Oaxaca Yamaha...
It was late now, about 4 o’clock. We hadn’t eaten since breakfast and were both thirsty too. We found a restaurant next to a Pemex gas station, got some gas and had a light lunch and headed off on the I-190.…..there were a number of I-190 signs all going in different directions. On the second failed attempt (this time having gone up into the hills) at the direction we didn't wanted to go in we decided to find somewhere to stay as too many times we’ve ended up searching for somewhere late at night in the dark.
We were offered a very basic room for 400 Pesos which is what we’d been paying in Oaxaco for a nice room. We finally decided on a hotel a few doors up for 650 pesos which was way over our budget but I’d already turned down the cheaper accommodation. The hotel is lovely and we were invited to park our bikes in the Hallway near our room off the road. Pretty cool as the hotel is very new. As we settled down to our respective tasks of Spanish lessons and web updates we decided on a coffee so I went off and found a girl at the bar who took my order. I was then told it would be delivered to my room-it was and I was told it was ok to pay in the morning. To cut a long story short we were phoned at 10:40 to say that there would be nobody to take the payment in the morning and could we pay now……we were in bed !
<IMG SRC="http://pic4.picturetrail.com/VOL784/4062504/8448420/129438359.jpg" border="0" alt="Image Hosting by PictureTrail.com">
Another night under the roof...
The first alarm went off at 6:55, the second at 7:00, when we were supposed to be getting up…we then heard a faint glimmer of a Mexican band sound…which grew in volume…and grew and grew until it was directly outside our Hotel…..at 7:00 am !! The stayed for a while and then finally marched off playing away !!
We set off trying to find the elusive 190 we wanted, not the two we found last night. Finally after some dust track rides and re-tracing of steps we found the right one and settled down to getting on with the miles. Huge amounts of corners again and the opportunity to test our new MT60/90 tyres. The combination worked very well on Mike’s bike and seemed ok for me. It was very very hot today and it seemed to sap both of us so we stopped earlier than usual for a break. A relatively quick lunch and we set off again to more corners. We saw some small forests of Cactus growing on the hills along with just as many neatly planted Yucca type plants., and a bit of rain and the usual array of animals wandering across the roads.
Finally we seemed to make a bit of progress only to meet up with some of the strongest winds we seen/felt so far and we were slowed to about 30.
We needed some gas and a drink so we stopped at a Pemex and managed the Mexican equivalent of a cheese toastie ! Not long after that we were unable to find the Mexican 200 despite many many attempts. In one of these attempts we ended up riding by an open dumping tip which stank and was quite surprised to see the quality of the type of people rummaging about in it.
After a number of false readings from the GPS and an number of dead-ends Mike asked some locals who confidently directed us. Two blocks down, turn right and keep going….they didn’t mention having to make a few other turnings. Finally after crossing over quite a few miles of farm land we were re-united with the 200. It was now getting dark and the wind was still pretty high and the first sign to anywhere I saw was 141 km, not a good omen, 20miles later I saw the sign for a Motel and a Hotel.
We went to the Hotel as it looked better on the outside, and was pleasantly surprised to find the room to be 250 Pesos, which was doubly helpful as we were almost out of cash. We took the room and moved in only to discover 2 air vents between 2-3 ft by 1 foot letting the lovely wind oxygenate our room, and whilst I appreciated not being asphyxiated to sleep again by Mike's shoes, it was very blustery in the room, a bit like camping with one of you tent flaps open , however all the rooms had non-controllable vents and so we settled in for a windy night.
<IMG SRC="http://pic4.picturetrail.com/VOL784/4062504/8448420/129438624.jpg" border="0" alt="Image Hosting by PictureTrail.com">
"Barn door" vents...
Despite Mikes many reservations about our inside outside experience he managed to get a reasonable nights sleep, but I didn’t fare quite so well. As we were still on a mile-eating plan we were up and dressed by 07:30.…and soon after advised that Mikes bike had been blown over during the night…Fortunately his new super-wide panniers acted as a sort of auxiliary side stand and little damage was done barring a few scrapes. Bike righted, we jumped on and headed off for our first 100 miles of the day, a bank and some breakfast.
The first 20-40 miles soon slipped by and we were optimistic that we’d hit the 300 we were hoping for ..but all of a sudden, wind came our of nowhere and forced us down to 30, then 20 mph……finally as we started to cross a bridge I came to a halt and it was all I could do to hold the bike upright, Mike was soon in the same predicament. The wind was impossibly strong and just kept gusting and gusting. Finally I could no longer hold my bike up and over it went, Mike watched helpless on as he was still hanging on to his for dear life. I walked back to see Mike and helped him to hold his bike upright but I noticed my ignition was still on so, after a quick check with Mike he was OK, I returned to my bike, and as I did so, Mike couldn’t hang onto his any longer, and over it went too ! We stood there, and only just stood there as the wind was doing its best to blow us off the hill.
We concluded that the best thing we could do in the short term was to get them out of the wind ASAP. About 500 metres away was a cutting and we decided that was where we were going to aim for..once we’d figured how we were going to right the bikes and get them over safely.
Just at that point a friendly Mexican saw our dilemma and offered to help. When we righted my bike, Mike saw a coach approaching and tried to wave him down so we could use his profile to shield us from the wind…he waved back as he overtook us…very friendly chap !!
We got my bike over, still quite a struggle for three men, and then we took Mike’s over with 4 of us and we nearly ended up going clean off the edge of the bridge. Before we lifted Mike’s bike up he couldn’t resist the humour of the moment and took a photo of me and our Mexican friend standing against the wind and preparing to lift my bike up.
<IMG SRC="http://pic4.picturetrail.com/VOL784/4062504/8448420/129438389.jpg" border="0" alt="Image Hosting by PictureTrail.com">
This ISN'T posed. We were just about standing up...
We rested for about 15 mins in the cutting whilst working out how we were going to continue our journey. Our Mexican friend offered to drive on our left hand side to protect us from the wind for a while….which he did. A few miles later the wind had dropped to a manageable level but he stayed with us until his turn-off some 10-15 miles later.
We stopped for breakfast shortly after that, now 10:30 ish., and we continued to laugh at the whole event. We did meet the odd gust here and there but had decided to stand on our foot-pegs to get the centre of gravity down and more control on the handle bars (Mike tested it first). It worked although very frightening leaving your seat when the wind is gusting at you and very tempting to sit back down again but the method worked and took the severity of the winds effects off of us.
We aimed for an early stop as we have the Guatemala border to cross tomorrow and we wanted to be rested and prepared for that. Despite the grotty town of Huixtla (starting to look a bit like Nogales-see our first Mexico log entry) we managed to find a decent Motel just outside of town and got a room each for a change, all for $20US each.
We have found that whilst our Spanish vocabulary has improved, our ability to be understood seems to have diminished. Three meals we’ve had today have all bewildered our waitresses. It may be that as we are tired, we have entered the drunk-like syndrome where everything one says sounds fine to themselves but absolute nonsense to every body else! .a bit like the French Policeman in ‘ello ‘ello…..hard though it is to imagine such a thing…
We were up and away ready for crossing into Guatemala early. However we didn’t expect to find the road to the border to be so winding or with so many road works. Large sections of the former road had fallen down many of the mountain roadsides and many other road works were underway. The road surfaces at points was very poor and had the nasty habit on a couple of corners of changing half way through. We survived all this and got to the border and mistakenly went to the Mexico section and winded up trying to explain why we didn’t have any paperwork for our month in Mexico (as we didn’t fully appreciate all the various forms, visa and taxes we were supposed to get when entering. The boarder guards waved us on etc).
The official finally said there seemed no point in doing anything now so we might as well go to the Guatemala border…so off we went.
Well, after having the wheels of the bikes fumigated we tried to get Visa’s for our passports but as we didn’t have any Mexico stamps in them trouble started to evolve and we were told to go back to the Mexican border and get our passports stamped. We tried to explain that the Mexicans sent us here, which started off falling on deaf ears. They repeated that we needed to go back to the Mexican border a couple of times and we assured them in Spanish that we understood but there was no point as they‘d sent us here. Finally a couple of Spanish ladies came to our aid and translated to the Officials what had happened. After a few smiles and some reassuring looks we finally got the stamps in our passports.
We then had to go to another section for a temporary import for the bikes. Once all the paper work was in order we were waved through but not before the harrowing experience of trading some dollars with a guy who looked more like a bus conductor. We were recommended a hotel only about a 10 minute drive from the border, we found it and settled for the night.
John
