How low can we go.

[gspod]

With heavy hearts we left Tamasopo and continued south. The president of Mexico (at the time) was focusing on oil production and using the proceeds to build infrastructure - which mainly meant road works.
Whilst the building of the roads looked efficient with machinery and techniques much like ours the diversions were either none existent or totally impractical for larger vehicles. So this meant that we were either riding through a building site or on, unsealed, village back streets. Fine for adventure bikes but trying to get past buses and lorries beaching out diesel fumes and spraying up dust made it slow going. In general the road manners were fine but there was often no clear, designated direction so, even at an average speed of 20mph vigilance was essential.
Eventually we pulled off the main road and rode up into the mountains to Xilitla (unfortunately pronounced heil hitler - I kid you not!) it’s famous for Day of the Dead celebrations and the surrealist gardens created by Edward James:

Las Pozas

Extraordinary sculpture garden created by an eccentric English poet.

www.atlasobscura.com

We were there at the weekend, which was the town’s main DOTD celebrations, and very traditional - it really was lovely to be there. The gardens were……..surreal

 

[Deise]

Great photos and report - thanks

way back in post 11 - Bia is Irish word for food ( apologies if you knew already )

 

[gspod]

Great photos and report - thanks

way back in post 11 - Bia is Irish word for food ( apologies if you knew already )

View attachment 335447

Thanks Deise
My father had a little bit of Irish but I didn’t know that, I suspect the house originally gave alms

 

[gspod]

We spent the next 2 days riding south, it’s DOTD holiday time and every town and village is one big market with the associated sights sounds and smells. The roads conditions go from smooth, through rough with pot holes to full on standing on the pegs - it must be hell for the bus passengers and we joke about doing some training and returning as suspension technicians to make our fortunes .
The mountain scenery is like nothing I’ve seen before, we’re going between 1500 and 2600 metres but it’s green and lush. A mixture of deciduous hard woods, pines, cactus, palm trees and huge aloe vera, all with grass in between. We’re under, in and above the clouds but there is one annoyance - anywhere like this in Europe, US, Oz etc there would be view point pull-ins to admire the view, take pictures or even have a picnic but there’s nothing like that so it’s really dangerous to stop.

 

[gspod]

We stopped off in the very beautiful city of Puebla and A found a gorgeous, city centre, air B&B. We wondered around, one minute in the Alley of Toads, (https://www.ciudadespatrimonio.mx/alley-of-the-toads/?lang=en) next having a beer in a bar that wouldn’t look out of place in Paris, we ate in a pizzeria straight out of Naples and the main square was as fine as any we’ve seen in Spain. We were also there for the actual DOTD so the square was packed - stalls, music and the costumes were amazing.

 

[gspod]

 

[dr nosh]

The interior of that church is fabulous..

What is the next picture - A library or museum of some sort?

 

[gspod]

The church is called the Rosary Chapel:

Rosary Chapel

The splendor of this 17th century golden chapel has led it to be called the "eighth wonder of the world."

www.atlasobscura.com

The whole of the inside of the church is covered in gold.

Yes you’re right it is a library - Biblioteca Palafoxiana 1646, the oldest library in the Americas:

Biblioteca Palafoxiana - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[gspod]

We trundled on, heading for Oaxaca - the food capital of Mexico. We pulled off the main road and down a dirt track for a mile or so and came to a small village with a motel and restaurant - I say restaurant but it was just a wooden shack with a wood fired hot stone, it did however provide the best meal of the trip so far. It was a type of Mexican pizza called a Tlayuda.

 

[gspod]

 

[gspod]

Well we reached Oaxaca and booked into a lovely air b&b with a pool and a15 minute walk into town. Unfortunately we had arrived at one of the worlds greatest culinary cities and we both came down with, what the Americans call ‘Mexico’s revenge’, we suspect it was stale water from the office style water dispenser in the apartment. The upshot was that neither of us could stray far from the smallest room in the house for the next couple of days.
We recovered fairly quickly and took a look around the lovely city and famous market. We also rode out to see the nearby Monte Alban ruins: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/415.

 

[gspod]

We had thoughts of visiting the surfy towns of the Oaxaca coast and pretend to be cool for a while but we had decided to keep going so, even more, we had to draw the line between being tourists and travellers and spend our money accordingly. With this in mind we decided to head for Central America in quick time.
The quickest way was the South East border but there are lots of road blocks. We had already encountered one - they are civil demonstrations where a large group of people will block the road with vehicles. In most places they are peaceful but the police don’t break them up so it’s a time issue. However, we had reports that that the ones east of us were dangerous and carried a threat of theft so we decided to go north and cross into Guatemala using a smaller border in a safe area.
What a good decision that was , we left in fine weather but new we would ride into rain in the mountains. We climbed to 3000 metres, dropped then climbed again 3 times over a distance of around 100 miles. The views were fantastic, at the top of the second climb we went through heavy rain but out the other side the vistas were stunning. Again it was difficult to stop for photos.
In the afternoon we encountered a road block but, despite a drunk guy trying to sell me a bag of fish, we didn’t feel threatened however, it was obvious that it wasn’t going to break up before dark so we retraced our steps a few miles and found a nice little hotel.

 

[gspod]

The night before the Guatemalan border we stayed in a nearby ‘love hotel’ - these can be seen along the roadside throughout Latin America and provide a nice room with a private garage for the occupants to park their cars unseen. It proved perfect for us, offering a larger than normal bed, secure parking close to the border, and it even had a great restaurant for breakfast - I assume for residents that had worked up an appetite. It wasn’t any more expensive than a normal hotel - although we didn’t pay by the hour so probably got a good discount
After a hearty breakfast we made for the border, passing through an indigenous village where fish were hung in the trees for sale. Leaving Mexico was fairly straight forward and took about half an hour but at the Guatemalan side 5 Mexican bikers on big adventure bikes pulled in just in front of us. I’d say, that this added about an hour to our progress but the delay was worth it as they really helped us with the process, even though they couldn’t speak English. The process included going into the nearest Guatemalan town to get insurance then back to the border so I just followed one of the Mexicans and he sorted everything. They were going to a bike festival in Costa Rica and shared their route with us, we were planning a different route but changed after their recommendation. So all in all the delay was worth it and we would meet them again.

 

[gspod]

 

[gspod]

Whilst on the Mexican side the border offices were in a modern building block, the Guatemalan officials were stuck in this lorry - still it did have air conditioning and everyone was trying to cram themselves in to shouts of ‘cerrar la puerta‘

 

[gspod]

Whilst we were waiting a small flock of sheep and a pig crossed the border without documents

 

[gspod]

Propaganda is a sad fact of life. Guatemala was not what we were led to believe. As soon as we crossed the border it felt more civilised than Mexico: the roads were much better (European standard), no litter and the shops and businesses were neat, tidy and modern. The scenery is lovely too with Tolkien-esk cone shaped hills and mountains which give it a fairytale feel. As recommended by the Mexican bikers, we went north and found a lovely lakeside hostel on the island of Flores in lake Peten Itza and chilled for a couple of days - on the way we stopped for an ice cream - what I thought was peanut turned out to be sweet corn, which was strangely nice

 

[gspod]

The hostel owner said we could park our bikes in reception at night so we rode them in off the street every evening at 8pm. She also told us that the rains had been the heaviest she had ever known and the lake was extremely high, flooding the promenade and access road.

 

[gspod]

There were backpackers at the hostel - hard work in the heat, relying on buses (they call them chicken buses because they’re tightly packed in). One of the buses to get there was an overnighter and, as I was making the coffee, at 7am a few would come in looking like Zombies. The bikes are definitely the best way to travel - you get the sights and smells, freedom to go where you want, it’s quicker to cross borders than with a car/camper as they’re searched for food stuffs and, of course, motorcycles are the main mode of transport in these parts (sometimes 4 people on 1 x 150cc bike) so it’s toots, waves and smiles everywhere.

 

[Northern jock]

This is the best advert for the region I've seen, enjoying it and inspired by it.

More maps to buy!