The next morning we moved to an old hotel, parking the bikes in the quiet central courtyard, trashing the room with all our gear and then coming out to find a camo wrapped F800GS parked next to our bikes. We never saw the rider, but Mexico has been loaded with BMW 650 singles and all the twin variants including plenty of 800’s. Occasionally we’ve seen a 1200 on the tollways passing the other way with a wave but it’s been rare. Other than our friends Fanda & Kaschka and Tibor & Anna, we’ve only seen one other couple traveling - they were in Puebla but we couldn’t coordinate swinging around to meet them. The only other riders were three guys on the Devil’s Backbone outside Mazatlan.
We grabbed a quiet lunch on a side street and wandered towards the square.
As with all things Mexico, a religious festival parade broke out on the streets, replete with religious icons and children, clowns and demons.
True to biblical tradition, it also included Jim Carey’s Grinch, space aliens, drum bands, disco dancers, werewolves and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. I knew the Catholic Bible differed from the Protestant Bible I grew up with, but…
BTW, I found out that “anti-gringo-photographer” feelings are officially removed when a party's on. They flock to you and pose with big smiles
The fiesta stopped for a lunch break at the main plaza, then continued on with a little less enthusiasm as the tortas, tamales and heat sank in.
A couple of transvestites joined the mix for a little spice, one of them doing a shakedown dance on the guy next to me - I think the man regretted his decision to wave at the tranny.
Throw in some space zombies and anything else you can think of, including beer drinking cowboys at the end and you’ve got yourself a religious parade, but hell, it’s Mexico.
The parade continued on for distant parts of the city, the sound of the bands, explosions and general hubbub continuing as the noise slowly drifted away.
We wandered as the afternoon passed, exploring, walking and sitting on the curb people watching until late in the golden hour.
A couple of days earlier, I'd received a text from family that my mother was gravely ill and did not appear to have much time left. The doctor had prescribed heavy antibiotics and advised waiting three days to see if they would have an effect.
Our plan was to leave for Guatemala in a couple of days, but obviously that was now in limbo. If she did improve, we would continue slowly into Guatemala and if not, we’d head back for Texas.
After being in the city center, we decided to find a place higher in the mountains and located an AirBNB host with a great cabin on a hillside overlooking the city. We moved again, her cabin absolutely awesome, replete with deck, fireplace and funky architectural design. It was new construction with high energy efficiency and very artistic design. The place cost her a measly $250 US per month, which included all utilities, internet and cable. Wow!
In conversation that evening, our host said she’d been a mortgage banker in California, but had become disgusted with the banking system so rigged against consumers, her job entailing repossessions and such. After the crash in 2008, she was laid off with a severance package and decided she’d had enough of the US economic system. It paid for a time of world travel and searching, finally ending up in San Cristobal.
I asked how she made money to live and said she harvested marijuana crops seasonally. I was a bit nervous she was working for the cartels, but was relieved when she clarified she traveled to California each year, working on a pot farm near Humboldt for a couple of months at a time. She said she lived on the pot farm communally with other harvesters for the season, making enough money to easily pay for her to live in Mexico and put money away for international travel. She had decided to use some of her surplus to open a health drink store in San Cristobal and was in the process of finding a storefront.
She warned us of the occasional EZLN road blockades, but said they were generally not bad situations, also warning us that the teachers in the region had a strong union and did their own road blockades and protests, occasionally taking over the tollway booths. Sometimes they let all the traffic go through free, to hurt the government's income, and sometimes they charged tolls to build their own treasuries.
It sounded like the region of Chiapas was an interesting place to live and she confirmed that the area was considered pretty “independent". I asked about the nearby indigenous town of San Juan Chamula, her response being that we should go with a guide and not on our own, not that it would necessarily be dangerous, but that they were a self-governing city and had their own laws and customs we might unknowingly break. She said they executed criminals and dealt with crimes in their own way, the Mexican government generally staying out of the picture to avoid regional war and violence.
The Catholic church in Chamula had been taken over by the indigenous people years before and now is a place of tribal rituals and hearings, exorcisms and similar from the medicine men. There are some gruesome rumors about things that happen to folks who anger the tribe. Taking a guided tour sounded good, as with my luck it would be the one time in my life to accidentally run over someone on my GS and I’d be flayed alive. Plans were made for the next day.
It was not to happen.
Early the next morning I received a text that my mother had significantly worsened and they expected her to pass in three days or so. The decision to return was cast, but Kim and I faced almost 2000 miles to try and get back to Dallas in 3 days. Throwing on all our gear and packing quickly to get on the road, I told Kim we’d just go as far as we could each day and see what happened, prayerfully hoping that we would make it in time.
As we approached the town of Tuxtla Gutierrez from San Cristobal, there was a major traffic jam on the tollway. Cars were stopped and parked everywhere. As we weaseled our way to the front, I saw crowds of protestors all around the toll booths, waving signs and banners. No cars were entering the booths, but I crept up slowly not knowing what the response would be...
Instead of being shaken down by angry protestors, we were greeted by friendly, smiling teachers, handing us flyers and waving us through with grins, shouts and thumbs up's. We’d encountered our first tollway takeover, having just heard about them the night before. Passing through the tool booths, we motored slowly past parked cars and pedestrians on the other side who were heading towards the toll booths. A mile or two into Tuxtla-Gutierrez, memories of the hellish stop-and-go, 106º day was fresh in our minds when we saw more road blocks ahead.
We couldn't waste time with so many miles ahead of us and decided to take advantage of the chaos. We rode directly around barricades and into the midst of the crowds, people looking at us incredulously and a bit confused as to what was going on. One half-mile long blocked street was cleaned by passing through the crowds and spectators, intimidating the folks with the physical size of the GS's. No one was aggressive, but they weren't happy either, after the initial shock of us busting their lines wore off. These groups weren’t the same friendly smiling folks as at the tollway booths.
At the end of one stretch, there were policemen lined up across a busy highway, watching us pull out of the crowd. I didn’t know what they’d do, since it appeared we might be a part of the protestors. As I sat waiting and Kim rolled up, the police started walking out into the traffic towards us. I hesitated, but they stopped traffic and gave us big waves and smiles, letting us into the the traffic flow. They didn't seem too worried about the whole scene and I guess it was frequent enough that no one cared much. Hey, it’s Mexico.
We finally broke free of Tuxtla and faced the long road ahead, passing through jungle terrain and mountains toward Coatzacoalcos in Vera Cruz on the coast. The heat and humidity rose as we raced along as fast as possible.
By the time we reached Cordoba and the beautiful mountain passes around it, we were feeling the day but decided to push on for Puebla. It was dark when we finally arrived, staying with a previous AirBNB host. We’d made 600 miles or so despite all the traffic delays.
Early the next morning, we reluctantly gassed up and ate some junk food for breakfast, unsure where we would end up for the evening. The choice was to continue north in the familiar direction of Saltillo and then Laredo, or to try a new route along the eastern edge of Mexico and a crossing at Reynosa. Eventually we decided to go for Saltillo, since we knew the route somewhat. The decision proved to be correct, as by chance, the next day there was a gun battle and vehicle blown up by the cartel in Reynosa right near the bridge. It would have sucked to have been trying to cross over when that occurred…
It was a long, long, hard day to make Saltillo, but we did it only to find all the listed hotels booked. After an hour or so of searching on the bikes, we found a pricey place and crashed for the night.
The next day would bring Nuevo Laredo, leaving Saltillo early and rolling through the cold, windy and foggy mountain pass west of Monterrey, before entering the endlessly flat stretch for the U.S. At the turnoff for Colombia International Bridge outside Nuevo Laredo, we headed north to bypass the massive traffic jams at the Laredo bridge. Colombia is about 30 miles north of Laredo and adds an hour of ride time to go up and back to down to I-35, but it normally has far less bridge traffic. Avoiding sitting in the heat for an hour or two made the decision easy.
We arrived at Colombia and canceled our motorcycle import permits at the little booth outside the main building, only complicated by the fact my deposit had been made on a credit card that was compromised and replaced with a different number. A few minutes in the Aduana, my Gomer Pyle impressions and much arm waving to explain that the $400 vehicle deposit refund needed to go onto a new card was finally accomplished, with a few extra xerox copies and pesos added.
A few more minutes getting our visas canceled and we were on the way across the bridge. I wondered aloud to Kim if they’d want to search us since we’d been in Mexico for over three months. There were ZERO cars in the line, the US Border Patrol Agents were almost friendly, definitely bored, mechanically checking the passports and asking a couple of questions, then smiling and waving us through with no problems.
It felt weird as hell to be back in the U.S., not that I don’t love it, just the instant awareness of control you feel versus the laissez-faire feel of Mexico. An hour or so later, we rolled into Dilley to see Motohank on the way through, grab our tent we’d sent back with him in Teotihuacan, shared some lunch and then headed for San Antonio. We decided to be “smart" since it was already the afternoon and to avoid the hellacious traffic around Austin, swung way out east on I-10 to catch the 130 tollway north.
All was well, other than the toll charges clicking up, until we got within the vicinity of Austin, hitting a massive stop-and-go traffic jam. We were beat, it was hot, hot, hot and we had a long ways to go still. After sitting in the heat and unable to lane-split in the wide gaps between the miles of vehicles, the sexy, wide blacktop shoulder of the new highway was too much for Kim and she took off down it. I told her it was a bad idea and we might get shot since we were back in Texas, but I had to follow along. We made it a half mile until I saw the head of a motorcycle cop above the railing of an overhead on-ramp, riding down to merge into the traffic jam.
His timing was perfectly unfortunate, as he ended up directly behind us. I’d whipped into the edge of a lane as much as I could, but Kim was too far ahead and hadn’t seen him, only hearing my warning but unable to move back into the lane. I knew the jig was up and moved on up beside her, to the sound of a siren behind us - and I’m sure the cheers of folks in their cars as they put away their guns.
The Texas Highway Patrol motorcycle officer rolled up slightly behind us (I didn’t even know DPS had motorcycle cops) and began yelling at us. We had slowed to the point of wheel wobble and he wobbled along with us as I shouted through my best Gomer Pyle idiot smile “We’re sorry! We’ve been in Mexico and forgot!” He grouchily yelled back “Get in line and sit in the traffic. It sucks but we all have to.” Whew what a relief Goob!
To my consternation however, he pulled right behind me in the stop and go traffic. Though I was happy we didn’t get a ticket, I was tense as heck that my license plate had expired a couple of months earlier while in Mexico and now, a heat infused cop who didn’t like us was literally right behind me. For miles and miles. I knew he wouldn’t let that stand since we’d also been guilty of riding on the shoulder.
I wandered back and forth in the lane in the hopes of distracting him. I tried to subtly change lanes, and no matter what I did, he ended up right behind me. For a moment he pulled into the lane adjacent and rolled up beside Kim for some reason. She asked him something loudly and he got distracted just a bit too long, almost running into the car in front of him. Flustered and embarrassed, he sped ahead a couple of car lengths. I was so relieved and made sure I stayed behind him all the way.
We kept our pace behind him all the way to the I-35 merge north of Austin where he finally turned off... amazingly, two tickets averted. Back in the US less than a day and already feeling the iron grip of control. It made me really miss the freedom of Mexico and the common sense approach to much of life. There, they don’t care if you can fit your motorcycle between cars and why would you sit in the hot sun if there was room for you to take the shoulder? There is a tangible control spirit in this land. But I digress.
It was full-on dark by the time we had reached I-35 north fo Austin and shed our DPS escort. The exhaustion caught us both, and we really needed to stop for the night, but knowing we were only 3 hours away from Dallas made us push on. Riding the highway in the dark, blinded by headlights, so tired we were goofy, surrounded by semi’s and redneck diesel pickups really hammered us to the point of danger.
We reached Dallas around midnight, numb and vibrating from our 17 hour riding day, ears ringing loudly, having crossed borders, suffered in bad heat, traffic jams, stress and fatigue from our two previous 600 mile days. We were wiped out, Kim especially so and I felt sorry for her. She had pushed on further than she should have, showing an inner strength and fortitude she didn’t know she had. My suggestion to stay in San Cristobal in the cozy cabin for a week or two until I could ride back down and escort her back without such a rush, had been ignored, and she chose to tough it out alongside me, despite my serious concerns.
Our three month Mexican journey had ended abruptly, unexpectedly and unceremoniously, leaving the next phase of Central and South America uncertain…