Misadventures and Many Miles

From Mexico City we drove to the town of Cholula. This town is known for their cultural and religious celebrations and we timed our visit so we would be there during Palm Sunday. Additionally, Cholula has the largest pyramid in the world – on top of which is built a Catholic Church! Historians don’t think the church builders knew they were constructing on top of a pyramid because the structure was completely overgrown when the Spaniards arrived. Now it has become a dual religious site for both indigenous believers and Catholics. We also got to explore a tunnel that goes completely through the pyramid – cramped but very cool!

Our first misadventure started shortly after we left Cholula. As I was merging on to a major highway I felt my rear tire hit something and seconds later the bike was not handling properly. Fortunately, there was a large area to pull off so we immediately pulled over. It did not take long to diagnose the issue: a large piece of metal was embedded in the tire! Even with the reality of the situation; I had to thank God because this was our first flat tire in over 17,000 miles of travel!!! I removed the punctured tire and strapped it to Sharon’s bike and drove it to a nearby Llanteria (Tire Repair Shop). The piece of metal had done serious damage to the tube but the technician thought it could be repaired and we didn’t have a lot of other options in the area. I drove back to where Sharon was ‘holding down the fort’ by my one-wheeled bike. I remounted the wheel (with some help from Sharon) and we got back on the road…for about 40 miles…then the tube repair completely failed and we were stranded again on the side of the road! To make matters worse the shoulder was only about five feet wide – not much safety room on a busy highway. I removed the rear tire (again), strapped it to Sharon’s bike (again), and drove off to find a way to get it fixed (again). Deciding that the tube was actually beyond repair I went to the nearest large town and visited motorcycle parts stores until I found a replacement tube. From there I went to another shop and had the new tube mounted. Finally, I drove back to Sharon and the bike and with the help of Sharon and a Mexican Federal Police Officer remounted the fixed rear tire. Needless to say, we did not get very far that day (in miles).

Eventually, we arrived at San Cristobal de las Casas, the town where we had decided to spend Holy Week / Easter. We had high expectations for the cultural festivities surrounding this event, however, we were disappointed by the lack of organization and number of events. We are sure part of the problem was the fact that we have experienced multiple amazing ‘Semana Santa’ celebrations in other parts of Latin America which skewed our expectations. Don’t misunderstand us, we did have a great time in this town and truly enjoyed the parades, processions, dances, and other festivities. We also had a delightful AirBNB host family and they took amazing care of us during our stay. It was about this time I, Chris, needed to take medication for parasites. And a week later Sharon had to do the same. We filter all our water so not sure where we picked up the bug.

The next section of our journey was a whole series of misadventures due to bad information (darn internet and guide books) and bad mapping (Google Maps – FAIL). We tried to cross into Guatemala at a small border town, but the immigration office on the Mexican side was non-existent so we ended up having to drive to a completely different location to cross the border (about 5 hours away). Upon crossing into Guatemala we used Google Maps to find us a route to the Honduran border – big mistake. After three hours of driving, the road we were following ended in a forest! Google insisted the road continued on as before, but the hundreds of trees directly in front of us indicated otherwise. Around here is where Sharon’s bike fell off its kickstand and into my bike which also fell over and snapped my kickstand right off! But I digress…to lose as little time as possible from this routing mistake we opted to take an off road route to our next stop. Well, this ‘shortcut’ turned out to be a few notches above our normal comfort level for risk. Lots of loose rock, deep ruts, very steep (8,000ft climb), and just overall a very technical dirt road – not fun on bikes that are top heavy and weigh about 550 lbs with all our gear. Thankfully we arrived at the small town of San Mateo Ixtatan shortly before dark. It took us five hours to go 18 miles! At this point we did a serious situation assessment because the road in the direction we wanted to go was purportedly WORSE than the one we had just driven. So, in the end, we drove the other way and basically ended back on the Pan American Highway almost where we had left it two days earlier…tired and frustrated, but intact and very grateful that time was the only thing this particular misadventure had cost us!

It ended up taking us a week to reach Honduras. We were exhausted (especially Sharon due to migraines and parasites), but the joy of soon being reunited with friends we love near La Ceiba raised our spirits! I won’t bore you with the Guatemala – Honduras border crossing but in short it was long, hot and expensive. Our last hurdle to reach our friends was a teacher’s protest on a bridge we had to cross. It is quite common for disgruntled parties of all kinds to blockade the bridges on major highways in Latin America to get government attention and their demands met. Normally, foot traffic, bicycles and motorcycles are still permitted to cross…normally. Instead of being able to cross right away though we had to wait around for about 90 minutes and then were permitted to cross through the many protesters.

Will pick up from there next time!

Chris & Sharon