After going out alone to explore the Oaxaca nightlife, Levi didn’t return to our dorm room until 9:00 AM. I got up around then, had a nice hot shower and walked to the Zocalo for a cappuccino. Spent a very pleasant hour and one-half sitting at a cafe table watching the parade of traffic like a rich gringo tourist. Got back to the room at noon, woke the boy up, and we walked back to el centro for breakfast.
Then we took off the suspect part and started off on foot for a part search adventure. We stopped at a moto repair shop, and got directions to nowhere. We then continued on, looking for a Kawasaki dealer we had located on the internet, and we actually found it! But, of course, it was closed for siesta. So we sat on the curb eating ice cream and watching the world speed by until the shop re-opened at 4:00. They were indeed a Kawasaki motorcycle shop, but had no parts fort large bikes at all. We took a part that looked like it would work, and started the hike back.
We installed the replacement part, and the bike did seem to run better now. We will test-ride tomorrow.
Went for a walk to see some of the amazing churches here, and then returned to the hostel to have dinner with some of the other travelers we have met here; Germans, Canadians, and Mexicans. We had a great time, a good Indian dinner, and enjoyed the company.
Tonight we have a great private room here, two beds and a real locked door, all for $14.00 a night. What a deal!
We are staying here at least one more day, planning on seeing Monte Albon and perhaps dome other local sights.
More pigs as we get further south into Mexico. Pigs running across the street on their stubby little legs. Pigs digging through garbage. On one notable occasion, pigs routing through a giant pile of trash that was on fire. My dad later suggested that “Pigs routing in flaming trash” would make a fine title for my book, but I think it’d be important to first identify my target demographic, as I suspect that could be a divisive name.
On our way to Puerto Escondito, another tourist town and our cue to finally jump off the coastal highway to head towards Oaxaca City, I started having issues with my bike. It seemed to run ok at higher RPMs, but at low engine speeds, it would die. Repeatedly. Usually at dangerous or at least very annoying spots. When attempting the fabled blind mountain corner double-semi pass, it’s remarkably important to have a motorcycle that doesn’t stall facing speeding oncoming traffic.
When we found a hotel, my dad started working on the bike while I went in search of a new spark plug, some carb cleaner, and fuel filters. We figured a bit of dirt or bad gas was likely behind the issue. After being bounced from pemex to pemex, I found a guy who sold me some carb cleaner, and a genuine motorcycle shop for fuel filters and a spark plug. By the time I found my way back, my dad had my carburetor out. It didn’t seem to be very dirty, but we cleaned it anyhow. Then we checked the spark plug, which was practically hanging out of the engine. D’oh! Who ever heard of a spark plug working its way out of an engine after 5,000 miles of reliable performance?? We tightened the spark plug and grabbed dinner: “Domino Pizza.”
In the morning we assembled my bike and put the fuel filter’s I’d bought onto both bikes… big mistake. We fueled up and got about 10 clicks north of town on our winding mountian road, and my bike stalled. Pulling to the side of the road, fuel could be seen pouring from the bottom of the bike. Whaaa? It turns out in the few short miles we’d gone, the fuel filter had already shattered, severing the fuel line between the tank and the carb. Fuck. A quick look at my dad’s bike, and his had shattered but not completely severed yet. If he tried to go back to town, there’s a god chance he wouldn’t make it, and we’d be stuck with 2 disabled bikes, no longer together and watchable by a single person.
So I started walking with my thumb out. I made it about 30 feet, and the first car that passed stopped and picked me up. I explained to them that I was having trouble with my motorcycle and jumped in. I sat in the back of his old van with an old man, two women, and two young girls. They drove with the sliding door open, and I had a rear-facing seat next to the door, which meant every time he made a left turn, I had to strain from falling out. There were, of course, no good places to hold onto, so I got stuck pushing against the track for thedoor, which was oozing with black grease. I’d be the last person to complain though, as even if no one spoke on our 10 minute trip back, he blared old Queen music in English, and took me all the way to the motorcycle shop I needed. I picked up two different fuel filters and some new fuel line, and caught a cab back.
Then things really got interesting. The road from Puerto Escondito to Oaxaca winds through a particularly rugged set of mountains. On our map, there’s a stretch that has the same length as others listed at 40km, but this one says 167km. But curves and topes have been done to death out here, and we’re looking for an adventure, right? So they added extremely poorly maintained roads, car-eating potholes, rocks, sand, washouts, and traffic. Bouncing through steep corners, avoiding potholes, sandtraps, and oncoming traffic, we entered the clouds and a slight sprinkling of rain. We must have been over 7000 feet up in a matter of miles from the coast. There were ledges we passed so thick with fog that the world seemed to end at the side of the road, with only gray mist beyond. The mountain views were the most epic I’ve ever seen, but as tempted as we were to stop, our bike problems had sent us out of Puerto Escondito horribly late in the afternoon, and we had to make it to a town with a hotel before the sun went down, not to mention how hard we worked passing slow-moving vehicles we didn’t want to get stuck behind again.
We stopped briefly in the small village Jauchatengo to grab something to drink. I opted for a coconut full of coconut juice, squeezed orange, chili, and about 3 shots of some weird kind of booze. The town was made entirely of women and little children, and in a matter of moments, small girls were being flung upon us. Was I married? What did I think of some little boy’s sister? Thoroughly uninterested in trying to lash a 12 year old girl to my bike, I stuck to enjoying the booze-filled coconut before pressing on to Sola de Vega where we stayed for the night, just as the mountains became completely shrowded in darkness.
We went to the restaurant across the street from our hotel, and halfway through our meal, the bartender walked over with 2 more coronas that one of the bar patrons had sent us. He came over and told us welcome and proceeded to explain how Oaxaca is the greatest place in Mexico, which really means the world. We decided when he excused himself to allow us to finish our meal to get him and his friends a round of Mezcal – a tequila-like liquor made from the same Blue Agave plant as tequila, but outside the one state of Mexico that owns the rights to call its Mezcal “Tequila” – since I hadn’t tried it yet. It’s not imported into the states. The guy and his friends were, of course, only too happy to have some Mezcal with us. Completely tanked, they proceeded to banter on, belching and regaling us with reasons Oaxaca and Mexico are the best places on earth. We wanted to make it to an internet cafe to work on our blogging before it got to late, so we begain working on our exit. My dad escaped first to the back of the restaurant, where he was hit on by a couple homosexual males near the back of the bar. I guess we’re back to Xenophobia: 0 Homophobia: 0.
Aaaaand for the first time in ages, I’m current! It’s Sunday morning in Sola de Vega as I type this. Next up, Oaxaca City.
I got up early and started putting Levi’s bike back together. It runs better. he road off on my bike, again, looking for fuel filters and air filter oil. He found a moto store and got fuel filters, but no air filter oil.
Giant hamburgers for breakfast; we are getting a really late start. No hot water for showers, but a quick dip in the pool is refreshing.
Less than 20 k. out of town, already in the wild mountains, Levi’s bike suddenly stops. The new fuel filter had broken in half! Mine was leaking and ready to break as well. I sat on the side of the road and waited, while Levi hitch-hiked back to PTO. Escondido for repair parts. within an hour, he was back, with some fuel line and different fuel filters. These new filters seem to be working fine; at least so far. So now it was 2:30 in the afternoon, and 100° F. We stared east again on this crazy mountain road, curvy and narrow and now, just for extra excitement, cratered with giant potholes and loose sand areas. The potholes were big enough to do real damage. The scenery, however was spectacular; Oaxaca is truly a beautiful area. Driving this road was like playing a video driving game – race around blind curves and dodge the potholes and oncoming trucks and buses, without falling down 2000 foot unguarded drop-offs. At one point we were up (I am guessing) around 8000 feet. It got cold enough for us to need our jackets and liners, and we were ‘in the clouds’, with the fog swirling around us and pouring down the mountainside around us. Just a sprinkle of rain; not enough to make the road slippery, thank goodness. From 100º to 60º in less than an hour!
After 2 hours and a total of 60 miles (!), we stopped for refreshment in San Pedro de Jauchatengo. I had my usual OJ, and Levi find a coco drink with alcohol that lit him up!. This was a super-friendly town, with mostly all women and girls working the shops and markets.
Off again, now rushing the setting sun. More curves, more potholes. More high mountain passes and fantastic vistas. Pink and purple and red and gold mountainsides. Just at dark, we come down into another tine town, Sola de Vega. Found a nice hotel (actually has hot water!), and a great dinner (shrimp diabla). A group of Mexican men at the bar bought us beers with our dinners; after dinner we bought rounds of mescal and had a great time. I got propositioned by a pair of homosexual boys, presumable prostitutes. Levi says I must look gay with my short hair and no beard. It was muy creepy, I thought. I suspect that they assumed that Levi was my boy companion, and not my son. Weird.
Part of our rationale for stopping in Zihuatanejo was to avoid Acapulco, a decision quickly validated by visiting the place. The path to Acapulco was punctuated by frequent roadkill, including what had to be a giant rat, and for reasons unknown doubled road signs. I don’t just mean we saw the same sign twice, I mean every sign from the speed limit to the directions had an identical, but newer, version erected directly in front of it. Either they made a slight clerical error in their sign ordering form, or the contract to put up a new set of signs didn’t include taking the old ones down!
Anyhow, the path into Acapulco was understandably mindbogglingly beautiful. The road wound through mountains butted up against the coast, overbuilt with massive mansions and resorts, overlooking fantastic sand beaches. We drove aimlessly through the city in search of some photo ops (though I unfortnately don’t currently have my camera and cord with me), until finally being directed to the tourist hot spot. I only wish I had my pictures handy… Though beautiful, the Acapulco beach was miles of fully adulterated beach. The waves were more people than ocean. Surrounding the coast were massive, sky-scraping resorts, and ringing the water was an impenetrable infinite expanse of blue plastic cabanas with white resin chairs. It was just possible to make out the natural beauty that once put this city on the map before choking on the overpopulated expanse that now made it up.
We only stuck around long enough to take some photos, then began the arduous process of finding our way out of town. Stuck following signs for Mexico City, the road we were on seemed to miraculously add a sign for the Mexican highway we wanted.
It also added more topes (speed bumps). Coming down a particularly impressive mountain in Acapulco, a tope caught us by surprise, causing my dad, who was leading, to swerve to the right past the car in front of him which was coming to a full stop to avoid bottoming out on the tope. I, to the right, was also hauling on my brakes, and had to swerve into the next lane, luckily narrowly avoiding both the car behind us in that lane and my dad. Acapulco wasn’t done with us yet though. As our road out of town finally became quiet and empty, and strangely wide, I motioned my dad to take the lead, and he started accelerating past me. We’d just passed a sign indicating the speed limit to be 80km/hr, or about 50mi/hr, when my dad, still accelerating, hit a speed mountain. He sailed completely airborne in front of me. His body went shooting up from the seat, the entire bike at an upward angle that a Knievel would envy. Somehow, he managed to land in a hail of dust and continue. Hauling on my brakes, I went careening over the giant tope with only my front wheel leaving the ground. Whew.
We continued on to the town of San Marcos, where we found a very cheap, very impressive old hotel. Obviously old and pretty well maintained, it was built around a courtyard with a beautiful pool. High ceilings and doors hung on offset pivots instead of hinges. We met a group of Americans – a brother and sister, and the brother’s girlfriend – traveling the coast of Oaxaca state on vacation with which we shared some crazy coincidences: the siblings were from eastern Michigan and had went to U-Michigan, and the girlfriend and brother now both lived in San Francisco. At night, on my way out to grab some beer, I walked past the giant pile of trash next to our hotel, and was starteled to find that I’d startled a handful of pigs that had been routing in the trash. Had some pretty good tongue tacos and a good night’s sleep, where I can only hope I dreamt of never again seeing a beach as overcrowded as the one I saw that afternoon…
No hot water in the AM (despite the advertisement), so while Levi slept in I walked to the central area of this tiny town. There were three horses tied up next to the bikes. Stopped for a fresh OJ, and talked with a young man from Chicago who is ‘hitch-hiking around the world’. Stopped at a farmacia to see about getting a laxative, but could not communicate what I wanted. Picked up a razor, though, to try to keep from getting too wild looking in the days ahead. Without my beard and with my hair cut short, I look completely different.
Levi was now awake, so we headed out and spent some time working on raising his rear shock. Roped the back-end of the bike in a tree to take off the weight while we pounded on the adjuster with a screwdriver and a rock. Back to the farmacia with dictionary in hand, and this time I got what I needed.
This was a nice hotel, with a beautiful courtyard and a nice pool.
Left for Puerto Escondido; 10,000 topes; hard on brakes, transmission, chain, clutch, everything, including rider. Out of Guerrero state and into Oaxaca; lots of military checkpoints now, but they do not even look at us.
After gassing up in Pinoter National, Levi’s bike starts running poorly and stalling out at low RPM. It is extra hard for him with all the stop-and-go. We make Puerto Escondido early, but instead of some internet and beach time, we strip his bike and remove the carburator. He rides around and gets supplies, and by then it is dark. We had a ‘Dominoes’ pizza for dinner, although I am pretty sure that Mr. Monahan back in Michigan didn’t get a cut of the cost from this vendor!
Hotel was OK; once grand but now a bit run down; nice pool that hadn’t been cleaned in while, and no toilet seat (now seems to be the norm). After dinner we disassembled the carb and cleaned it. Discovered that the spark plug was loose to the point of almost having worked itself out completely. Many loose and missing screws/bolts.
Levi found an unlocked WIFI hotspot by walking around the area with his laptop; he spent two hours sitting on a curb outside the hotel blogging and doing email.
Got a late start, as usual. Cold showers; good breakfast across the street from our hotel. Fresh squeezed OJ; what a treat. Walked to playa for picts, then easy out of town. Easy trip to Acapulco, except for the bullshit toll road. Somehow I got stung by a bee while riding, and it hurt like hell for a long time. Levi wanted to drive through Acapulco, just to see it, and it was the overcrowded zoo you would expect. Persons crammed onto the beach like sardines in a can.
We did good getting out of town and back on mx-200, until I hit an un-marked topes from hell (speed bump) at 50 mph, and got both wheels off the ground. Definitely an unexpected and unwanted thrill. Levi said he wished he had a video of it.
We stopped at a little town called San Marcos, in Oaxaca state, at dark. We both had enough topes for one day. We found a $15 motel room, with a nice pool and air conditioning. Had to settle on lengue tacos for dinner (not my favorite), but SanMarcos turned out to be such a friendly town. One family at the restaurant tried to flirt with Levi and get him interested in their 20 year old daughter. A very nice experience here; everyone seems to love US citizens; can’t imagine why!
I really like the song “Ixtapa” by Rodrigo y Gabriela. Like most foriegn songs, I don’t even attempt to comprehend the lyrics, and I’ll be the first to admit that before the first days of this trip, I didn’t even know Ixtapa was a city in Mexico. Turns out it is, and now I’ve been there.
The priviledge of saying that last sentence wasn’t easy to attain. Incredibly poor road signs had us backtrack at one point for 15 minutes before I figured out we were going the wrong way (there were actually 2 roads running parallel and a sign that pointed ridiculously in the wrong direction for our destination fed us back the way we came on the other road). Another 15 minutes of sameness and we were in Ixtapa. We decided to stop in the neighborhood of Zihuatanejo and Ixtapa given our desire to stay the hell out of Acapulco, which was a long days ride from our starting point, and would have brough us into one of the busiest tourist towns at night on New Years Eve… bad idea! Anyways, the song doesn’t do the town justice. Subtle and with feeling, the town for which this song I enjoy shared few of the same characteristics. Stuffed with chain stores and restaurants, and larger than life resorts and condos, I was only too happy when the tourist information guy told us we needed to head out of Ixtapa and into neighboring Zihuatanejo for a cheap motel for the night.
Somehow, we again optioned for the thoroughly confusing, dangerous, winding backroad between the cities and through the mountains, but had little trouble finding a reasonable place to stay. It was obvious from the exchange between concierge (nephew) and owner (uncle) that we had beat the rush, and were paying less than the poor saps who showed up late would be stuck with. And Zihuatanejo was beautiful – a perfectly compact old downtown area pushed up against a wonderful beach on a bay attached to the pacific. It was warm, not nearly overcrowded, and beautiful.
The beach in Zihuatanejo
After settling in our hotel, we hit the beach. Beautiful and warm, the water was all I could ask for, including not overly crowded. I came to find out, however, that we weren’t alone either, when I was jabbed viciously by a sea urchin in the foot, and plunged into severe pain.
Instantaneously changing from having a blast in the water to howling in pain, I hopped the 50 feet from the scene of the crime to the beach, wondering what could possibly have gone so horribly wrong. Reaching the beach, I discover my foot is, indeed, bleeding a moderate amount, and I attribute the unbelieveable pain to the salt water. I wipe the wound off, begin the process home, and am a bit taken aback when my ankle starts to feel like a muscle does when it’s been extremely overly exerted: sore and tired. Walking behing difficult, I start to worry a bit more when the feeling in my ankle moved up to my calf. A block or so closer to my hotel, it’s in my upper leg. As I’m rounding the stairs to our room, it’s entered my thigh. By that point, we’ve figured out I’ve been poisoned, and the only question is whether I’ll be surviving this little encounter, or if the clock is ticking before this unpleasant experience hits my heart and I keel over. Luckily, it gave up at the thigh, and I live to blog again. Lucky me eh?
Later, we had a great dinner at an Italian restaurant, and had finished it with a long and fruitful conversation with the owner’s son and a friend of his from California. Afterwards were live music and fireworks set off from massive cannons with no police tape, barricades, or other protection – only common sense. I once again enjoyed the liberal drinking policies afforded by our location, and drank in the streets. Somehow, the town was quieter than Alamos in Christmas night, and we actually got some sleep.
Out of Manzanillo and back on the road. Again we made a pretty graceful exit back onto the long, winding, coastal road that feels it necessary to divide every small town it can possibly find in half, with a handful of nasty speed bumps just to keep things interesting. Through the military checkpoints on each border, I had the opportunity to contemplate the irony of soldiers in camoflage with reflective roadworker vests.
We called it a night in the small town of Lazaro Cardenas, in a hotel called Sol y Arena. Our room had the largest criquet clone I’ve ever seen chilling on our drape. My dad and I headed to La Mira, the town just down the road, for dinner, and on my way to my bike, a guy on the street offered me a beer. I stopped and talked to him for what turned into close to an hour. I told him about my trip, he asked me how he could charm American women. I asked if he was into the blondes, big affirmative there. A guy who’d been deported after living in Oceanside, CA for 10 years came into the conversation for a bit and started trying to make trouble in his fluent english. He called one of the friends of the guy who’d given me beer gay, and the guy I was talking to thought he was talking about him. He got very serious and tried to explain that he definitely was not gay. It took awhile to explain to him that I figured that out by the third time he asked me what American girls liked. Xenophobia 0: Homophobia 1. The guy also explained to me that his sister had paid $4,000 USD for false papers so she could join some other part of their family in Carson City. What a world.
Needless to say I added a few more signitures to the bike, even if one of his friends, a definite aspiring grafiti artist, scrawled “Diablo” on the front. Oh well. Tomorrow, zihuatanejo!
Bananas, coconuts, tomatoes, chilis, and mountains. Such is the landscape southbound from Puerto Vallarta. Winding through more crazy mountains, we saw some pretty amazing scenery, PCH eat your heart out:
Beautiful and desolate.
We ended up trecking to Manzanillo, slightly farther than intentioned after I refused to take the first hotel we came to. In the middle of arguing on the side of the road with my dad, a guy in a truck came up and started asking us questions about our bikes. I asked him if he knew where to find a cheap motel, and he said absolutely, and when he asked if we knew Manzanillo and we obviously said no, told us to follow him. He lead us far out of his way (to Guadalajara) and through Manzanillo proper to a section near the beach, which he may have not realized was incredibly busseling given the time of year. Though he led us to a cheap motel, it was fully booked. So too were the next 3, and the ones after that were far more expensive than I wanted to pay. We reluctantly asked at a Best Western at the end of the strip, and hit a sort of paydirt. Though very expensive, the people behind the counter took pity on my haggard features, and at one point I had all three counter-jockies at work finding us a cheap motel in the area: one looking up numbers in their address book, one googling away, and one on the phone calling for prices. As incredible as this may be, I was still in utter shock of being completely in the conversation I had with the man behind the desk. We spoke fluently and withohut hitch, and I understood everything he said. I’m still miles from fluent, but it felt great to pretend for a few minutes.
Best Western’s best found us the… best in the area. It was slightly off the strip, and directly on an amazing neighborhood park. The park had kids playing into the wee hours of the morning, a store that sold beer (hooray!), a giant severed head sculpture, and even a restaurant open in the middle where we had our dinner. Add in satillite TV with news in English that allowed us to catch up, however briefly, with global goings-on and we had a pretty sweet deal. While having dinner, we had a long conversation with a caretaker and appliance repairman who handles a handful of homes for wealthy Americans. He filled us with thoroughly fascinating insights into the goings-on in that part of Mexico from the 1940’s through the present, all in stunningly fluent english considering he’d never left Mexico or trained formally. He told us about how Manzanillo is something like the #2 port in Mexico, and practically the exclusive one serving the Chinese. He spoke of how many black market goods are smuggled in, and how much garbage is shipped out to China.
On the way out of town, we saw the port, and it was unbelievably massive. We also got another pair of conflicting directions from Pemex employees. Ahhhh, Mexico, how I’ll miss you when you’re not even still in my rear-view.