The mountains of Chiapes

Sunday 1/22/2012

Day 8 Distance (238 km)

Palenque

     Today another early start, to beat the crowds and heat @ the ruins  of Palenque. It all seems to me the same, after I visited the last week various ruins and after the mandatory 2 hour sight seeing tour, we left and finally start climbing the mountains, after we first visited a water fall "Misal-Ha"

I had to take a swim in the cascade cold pool, what was refreshing.

      Sofar we had only flat roads this trip and it 

was time for a change and change there was and pretty soon we were a 2500 meter with all the views accordingly and it would be a test for my clutch, which was going out before we left, so actually had to go moderately up hill, to be sure I would make it home next week. After 4 hours of intensive steering, braking and watching out for toppes (bumps), we reached San Cristobal

I even made a video, while driving at 2000 meters high! Check it out, I did it driving without my hands on the 

handlebars!!!!

Misol-Ha waterfalls

Chiapas

San Cristobal is a nice old colonial town, were the temperature dropps to freezing in the night, but today was predicted 7 C, which is a nice change of the warm humid air in the last 7 days. We reached around 4 pm strolled around the plaza and took it easy till dinner time in the hotel to catch up what happened with the world around us. The internet in the Hotel was sofar the best, we came across!

Road to Palenque, the last Maya ruins for me this year, they say.....

Saturday 1/21/2012

Day 7 Distance (436 km)

Highway Golf of Mexico

Champelton

Today we were on the road before 7am, we wanted to go to Palenque, what was at least a 6 hour drive, filled up the bikes with gas, oil and chain oil and took of flying.

Rest stop on the Gulf

    2 hours later we hit the gulf coast of Mexico, just under the city of Campeche and had a very strong crosswind towards  the town of Champoton, what seems to be a nice fisherman city with a lot of activity.

       We had a breakfast stop at a nice beach side restaurant and decide shrimp omelet will do it for the location.

An hour later, we hit the rod again to try to get early in Palenque, were we arrived around 2 pm

Pure Vitamins

Sea going uphill 

This place was crowded with tourists and little shops and restaurants, I did my laundry here for $ 2.00, what was needed and walked around town till it was time for dinner and had to try to find Scotty, to see if he ran into trouble somewhere, so I can join him

Backward roads of Campeche

Friday 1/20/2012

Day 6 Distance (403 km)

Tulum

Tulum

Tulum

  Last night dinner was good, it was mussels, calamares, fish and oysters and around nine we called it the night and prepared us for the next morning, so we could visit another Maya sight in Tulum, this one was on the beach and after a short visit, we packed up our bikes again and were heading for Merida, the capital of the Yucatan. Soon we reached Chitzen Itza, had some lunch, but didn't visit the site, we had enough of Maya ruins for today and instead of going Merida, we decided to use some back roads and go further south towards Palenque. This part of the Yucatan, I believe never saw a tourist yet and we were the curiosity in every village we passed. 

Chris & Scotty Tulum

Don't know

Hopelchen

      Aroud 4 pm we entered the state of Campeche and soon after there we hit the town Hopelchen, checked in the only hotel and soon after that we found out the Mennonites were all over the place and the whole town was dry, No BEER, we couldn't believe this and decided tomorrow to have a very early start towards Palenque, so we could catch up with what we missed today!

Mennonites in the Shipyard and Mexico

Thursday 1/19/2012

Day 5 Distance ( 398 km)

Horse buggy

   Orange walk, a strange place with at least 100 chinese restaurants, so we picked one out, where we saw a few local Monnonites, about 30 in a family with lots of children and thought the food must be good and for sure it was Mushrooms with shrimps and lots of it.

Shipyard Transportation

      So we decided to visit their camp in the place called Shipyard, which is about 30 miles from orange walk and pretty soon we came across the buggies and horses, what is their only transportation mode, besides walking,

               They still talk their own slang   ( German) and do agriculture and wood work.

General store Shipyard

 

Low German

To make things more complicates, there are     Mennonites, Quakers and Amish in  Belize, but they do not really mix! It was as of time was set back 100 years in Shipyard and it was surreal and every one was travelling with buggies on the road and sometimes they go great distances! It is a must see thing and we all were happy we went out of the way to see them and at least we had some 100 km dirt road in the loop we made that morning.

Hotel parking

Horse buggy

There were no little restaurant or anything else to eat so when we returned to orange Walk to check out the hotel, we went first for break fast and you guessed it already "Chinese" there was no other food in this town, but that suited me.

After we left the hotel, we were heading for Mexico, using the Chetumal border and an hour later we reached, checked out of Belize for $ 20.00 exit tax and 5 minutes later, we were in mexico, where we had to do a lot of paperwork, but it is getting expensive now compared with Last year, no laws were implemented and to make the story yet, they charged each credit card almost $ 500.00 US, there was a refundable $ 400.00 deposit for the bike and they guaranteed, would be reversed when you leave Mexico, then there was a $ 23.00 immigration tax and at last , there was a $ 48.00 permit tax for driving in Mexico.

Mexico border Chetumal

     Anyway we left the border 1:30 pm and 3 hours later on an almost straight boring road, doing 130 km an hour, we checked in an apartment hotel in Tulum. Outside were thousands of people strolling down the highway, which had for a 2 mile stretch hundreds of restaurants, terraces and bars, so we felt right away at home.

Belize, finally I found some-one who can understand me

Wednesday 1/18/2012

Day 4 Distance ( 256 km)

The hotel, we were staying in was overlooking the lake and was quiet comfortable and in the morning we had breakfast there, took some scenic shots and packed up the bikes and left around 8 am. It was more or less an hour to the border with belize and half the time the road was unpaved with waterpools, pot holes and felt like a washboard, I guess the Guatemaleans were still pissed off the British took their "province" and decided to make a shitty road to the border. Once at the border, we had no hassle and within 20 minutes we passed both borders and had to stop at a little office to buy mandatory insurance for the bikes @ $ 6.00 per day, so we bought for 2 days!

Insurance Office

Road sign to the capital

The first little town San Ignacio was interested and soon after that it became a waste land, without people, restaurants, houses and gas stations and reached on fumes a gas station, where I filled my 5 gallon tank with 6 gallons  premium gas @ $ 5.66 and told them "They were giving it  away"

Had a beer to rinse the bad taste out of my mouth and around 2 pm found a very good road restaurant and had curry, my favorite meal! 3 pm we reached Orange Walk and we wanted today, A/C, Internet and cold beer and were asking around where the Chinese restaurants are, where Orange Walk famous for was.