Dirt roads to Lanquin

Tuesday 1/24/2012


Day 10 Distance (246 km)

Scotty on the dirt road

      We decided Huehuetenango sucks, polluted, trashy and smelly, but it was the cheapest hotel this trip $2.00 p/p, you can't beat that and you didn't need A/C or fan (There was not one any anyway) 

So after a good breakfast just before 7am, we left  the town towards Lanquin. The road in the beginning was good and soon we were again up high in the mountains and all we did was making  curves and pulling brakes, but eventually we hit the washboard road with potholes and the road was so bad, we only were making 15 kph. The biggest landslide, I ever saw in my live, was on this road and I guess one third of the mountain must have collapsed from 3000 meter high and block the only road, but some farmers created their own road on their property and were charging toll, but only $1.00 per vehicle. Made some interested video, but the internet here in Lanquin is terrible, Anyway after suffering for a couple of hours on this dirt road, we reached Coban, ate at  McDonald and continued to Lanquin were we reached around 4 pm. Took a well deserved shower to get the dust out of everything and  hit the town for some beers. 

Old Pan-america highway into Guatemala 2500 meters

Monday 1/23/2012

Day 9 Distance (268 km)

San Cristobal 

Last night, we walked in Cristobal, to check out the street scenery and looking for a good steak house. The place was crowded after dark and soon we found a good Argentina restaurant, which was showing the size and different cuts, outside in front of the entrance on display. Decide to go back into Guatemala tomorrow and were looking forward to the high mountain roads we had to cross.

San Cristobal 

San Cristobal 

     

San Cristobal de la Cases

         
                                  They didn't see me and they got lost!!


Left 10 am after we did some sight seeing and soon we were on the  road to La Mesilla, the border town in Guatemala, it was amazing scenery and beautiful mountain roads, we passed and 2 hours later, we hit the border, checked out of Mexico and they told us by Aduana, they would return the deposit of $ 400.00 for the bike on our credit card! Towards Huehue, we hit 2500meters. There was a landslide on the PanAm and traffic was already lining up for miles, but with the moto's we were in no-while first in line. After an half an hour we were allowed to pass and continued our way.

Traffic jam mud slide

Border La Mesilla

Mud slide Panam

 Around 4 pm, we reached the town @ 2000 meters, settled down and checked out the town

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!