Leaving Mexico, Hello Belize.
Still no luck getting my pictures updated, so I figured I’d go with an update instea since I just continue to fall farther and farther behind the torrent of my dad’s smaller pictures (Damn you 6MP camera!) and shorter posts. Let’s start with Palanque…
What a trip. Our friend Timo from Oaxaca had drawn me a map, with a detail I’d only ever expect from a German, laying out an amazing path through the jungle outside the designated park at Palanque. Beginning with dense jungle, we went over an amazing waterfall, through incredible Mayan ruins yet uncleared from the jungle, covered in moss, surrounded by near-impenetrable lush jungle, and with trees busting through complex piles of ancient rocks. Timo: We missed the orange string, but didn’t care one bit! Thanks!
Somehow, just before my dad convinced me to turn back, the trail dumped us in the parking lot outside the enterance. Drenched in sweat from the intense heat and humidity, we paid our fare and entered the cleared ruins. I’ve said before and will tell anyone who cares to listen, the ruins at Palanque defy our ability to describe. Moreso, they show our inability to express the emotion a place can instill in us. It felt magical. It was simultaneously somber, spiritual, exciting, and magical. It felt like Steven Spielberg may pop out at any time behind a giant movie camera filming Harrison Ford running from a boulder. Indiana Jones must have been born here.
Inside Palanque, there are a plethora of well-preserved ruins. There are many giant pyramids that served as temples, a decent number of housing complexes with staircases, rooms, hallways, and enterances still in tact. Stucco frescoes and intricately ordained rock patterns, faces, and figures clung to walls, under benches, and overlooking plazas. In the middle is a tremendous “Palace” with courtyards, tall arched hallways, preserved, labyrinths dripping with condensation and ambiance, and topped with a monumental stone lookout tower that looked like classical European architecture, but built before it existed.
We spent nearly the entire day wandering through the ruins, climbing ancient Mayan staircases, and thoroughly failing to hide our awe. Then we hit up the museum outside, which had contained a solid stone casket recovered from the far depths of one of the pyramids, covered in glyphs and chiseled drawings, and seriously, about 5 feet tall, 7 feet wide, and at least 14 feet long.
From Palanque, we hit the Yucitan, which is flat as flat could be. Cruising along at the highest speeds since the states, we still managed to be passed by semis decimating the posted speed limit. We found another place with cabañas in a town called Xpujil (try pronouncing that!), and I uploaded a few more pictures (still woefully behind) at an internet cafe. A decently cheap, incredibly loaded seafood soup later, and it was off to sleep.
Xpujil was surrounded by Mayan ruins, and after Palanque I wanted more, so we stuck around an additional night and went to two after futzing with our bikes. First, we went to Xpujil, the site for which the town was named. Containing an extremely impressive ruin with 3, massive towers, one with a terrifying ancient staircase leading part way up, I already felt our stay had been validated. We continued on to Becan, which was much larger, and very impressive, but didn’t quite stir the emotions as well as Palanque. A few more pictures uploaded, and another cabaña night.
Then it was time to clear out of Mexico. Finally! We zipped out of the Yucitan, stopping briefly at yet another Mayan ruin, Kohuilich (another fun one to say!), which is the remnants of a Mayan city. It was cool to wander through yet another very big site that was very different from Palanque: mostly housing, way more evident renovations done to the structures (you don’t add a bedroom to your temple :), and even a place that looked like a castle, with 24 foot walls, one enterance, and seemingly a guard station.
Zip over to Belize. The way there was amazingly well-labled if you know that Belice is Spanish for Belize, and we stood before the imposing Belize customs center. As my dad said, we paid $5 Belize ($2.50 US) per bike to have it off-handedly sprayed with pesticides, handed over our passports to be stamped, and happily passed, unpreturbed, over the Mexico-Belize border. We had paid extra for Mexican tourist cards and vehicle permits, but the Mexicans could care less.
We passed first into Corozal, a quaint coastal town. Everyone was friendly, the architecture was distinctly carribean (houses on stilts, rust and fading paint everywhere, decaying vehicles in yards), and the people spoke Spanish, some sort of pidgin language, and always English with an accent I can only call “Island” mon. As if to punctuate our change, we hit our first rain since heading out together, and man did it storm! I changed my remaining pesos to Belize dollars (kept at exactly $2 Belize dollars to $1 USD), and we continued to Orange Walk.
What a strange place! About 90% of the stores had names like “Xiu Jan Restaurant” or “Zhang Dung Store.” Try as we might, we couldn’t find one non-chinese restaurant, and ended up settling for one and ordering seafood (delicious and cheap!) while a bad Chinese soap opera playing on a TV over our heads provided the soundtrack for our confusion. Try as we might, we still haven’t figured out why more Belize businesses than not are owned and operated by the Chinese.
We stayed in a great hotel with the worst slow internet yet, and revelled in our fine beds, free coffee and bananas, and just plain swanky accomodations. Another 50 pictures uploaded, but I’m still not done with Palanque. Oy! We also met a very cool Ex-Pat named Kevin who was in the process of moving to Belize. He was starting to work in the experimental corn business there, and was a great guy to talk to to find out about the country. He also bought us breakfast. Rock!
From Orange Walk we headed to Belize City, where I intended to have us stay, expecting tourists galore, wonderful beaches, and drinks with little umbrellas in them. What we found was an unimpressive beach, no tourists or seemingly tourist industry, run down buildings, more Chinese stores and restaurants, and determined for at least my shaded beverage, we found only a bar that lacked little umbrellas as badly as our beverages lacked actual booze! Disappointment!
We searched like animals trying to find the one real Motorcycle shop in town, and a very nice guy on a scooter finally drove us all the way there. We lucked out and found two chains that were miraculously the right size (which is even more amazing since they didn’t have a master link, which means we couldn’t take out links if they were too long), foam air filter oil (I had practically given up on this existing outside the US), and spark plugs of the right size. We also bought cleaner to clean the air filters and a giant can of O-ring chain lubricant. Likely the biggest customers of the day, they gave us a discount. Too bad Belize dollars didn’t spare us the big bill!
Disheartened by Belize City, I gave up on my fantasy and we struck out for Belmopan (the capital, though a town of around 12k people so we’ve been told) as the rain poured down and the sun began to set. After striking out at 3 hotels, we found a very cheap one which we shared with 3 other adventure riders. We met them in the morning, great bunch: A guy from San Francisco on a ’92 BMW, one from Alaska on a newer F650GS (BMW), and an Irish lad on an Aprillia Pegasus (apparantly the basis for the F650, news to me!). They’d all started independantly and met up along the way, which was great to hear. Only the guy from San Francisco was heading all the way down to Tierra del Fuego – the others were heading as far as Panama – but at least we weren’t alone in our lunacy. It rained very very heavily all night. In the morning, we also realized my dad had lost his laundry bag (with socks and perhaps other clothes) and I had lost one of my 2 polyester shirts (arghhhhh!) in some completely unknown incident. At this rate we’ll be lucky to make it to TdF with our underwear and shoes!
We lucked out in Belmopan by finding the country’s sole Kawasaki dealership, and we had them install Joe’s chain, and they managed to track down and bring in 3 more oil filters, which would have been extremely hard to find otherwise. They also let us check our email, and had free coffee. For that, here’s our first real plug: thanks Motor Solutions!
From Belmopan, we hit San Ignacio, the last real town in Belize before the border. Supposedly, my good friend from grade school, Kevin Mezak, is somehow somewhere here in town, though I haven’t heard back from him. A small town like every one in Belize, I hope to run into him at the bars tonight, which I think I’ll be hitting up riiiiight about… now! Next stop Guatemala!