From Anchorage to Ushuaia by Bike

Road Trip 2: Mayan Ruins

We spent a day on the beach at Tulum. The colours of the Caribbean waters – blue, turquoise, green – all blended together and contrasted with the clear white of the sand. The next day we went to the Mayan sites Chichen Izta and Uxmal. Both are are UNESCO World Heritage sites, and because of that, Yucatan state adds a cultural and tourist tax on the price of admission, which makes it double compared with the other pre-Colombian sites in Mexico.

The sites were both wonderful, and very different in their architecture, and in the contemporary populations: Chichen Itza is one of the seven wonders of the world , so naturally full of tourists, but there were also many vendors. We could barely walk without tripping over someone selling reproduction pyramids. Vendors were not allowed in the ruins at Uxmal, but they were right there waiting at exit. Although Chichen Itza probably wasn’t our favourite, we really enjoyed both the sites.

On our way back, we stopped at Agua Azul – meaning turquoise waterfall. Our first impression wasn’t the greatest: we were stopped by a roadblock manned by locals asking for 50 pesos… for road cleanup. Confused, we looked around us. The road was littered with all sorts of garbage, and we wondered what exactly our toll was supposed to be contributing to…. likely only their pockets! Then we came to the official roadblock, another fee to get in. As soon as we stepped out of the car we were accosted by vendors selling trinkets and food. But we were able to climb up to the top of the waterfall and swim in a natural pool which we had almost to ourselves. It was lovely.

PS All the pictures of the trip are posted.

This trip is separate from our work within the Association Planète Durable et Solidaire. But we will continue to post updates on the website in order to share all our adventures with you.

Back to Reality

Heather went back this morning, and the vacation is over. We are back within our work for the Association Planète Durable et Solidaire. Sébastien went to bring the bikes from Tuxtla Gutierrez back to San Cristobal de Las Casas. While he was coming back from the airport, where he dropped off the rental car, I took care of my broken spoke. The owner of a little shop fixed it for me for the very modest sum of 5 pesos (remember that 1 euro = 18 pesos!).

I also found a bus company willing to take us and our bikes to Quezaltenango , the second largest city in Guatemala. That will mean that we can go quickly through that area that we have been warned against – by several French and European governments and by people who know Guatemala well.

Right now we are just enjoying our last night in Mexico!

Sara

Before leaving Tuxtla, we went down the Canon del Sumidero in a boat. It was 30°C, and the wind from the boat was !!refresh!!ing. But it got hot when we stopped to take a closer look at the vultures, the crocodiles, and the m!!onkey!!s that live along the sides of the canyon and the steep rock walls that line it. At its highest point, the walls of the canyon go up 1000m!

We picked up the rental car – after a rigorous and extensive inspection. The Europcar agent took note of every single minuscule scrape and counted the number of floor mats (4), license plates (2), mirrors (5 – two exterior, the rear-view, and of course the two vanity mirrors on the inside of the sun visors!), and wrote down that the cigarette lighter was missing as well as the car logo from the back. We were already familiar with the roads in Mexico, and so it didn’t surprise us that much considering how they drive here.

As soon as Heather arrived, we headed up to San Cristobal. It was a very pretty, colonial town with a large Mayan population. Mayans are usually quite short. I’m not very tall and I felt like a giant! We walked all around the city and through the markets.

From San Cristobal, we drove through Chiapas, past residential areas of Zapatists, and arrived in Palenque. The road was bad and very windy, riddled with “topes” (speed bumps). We had quite a scare when we had to break suddenly after coming around a bend because some local residents had put up a make-shift roadblock. The wanted us to pay to go through, ostensibly for road clean up – clean up that the women in the group were doing by lighting grass beside the road on fire. We tried to explain that we never throw garbage out the window and that we shouldn’t have to pay for its clean up. We even showed them that we had a garbage in the car. They really didn’t want to let us pass so we took advantage of another car going the other direction to drive past the barrier. Since we started driving, we’ve seen many passengers throw all sorts of garbage out of their windows... and they are not tourists...

Later, just as the sun was going down, we came across the tell-tale reflective tape of another long distance biker. We offered to help him and we handed him some water. It was all that he asked for, and all that we could give him. But we know how much of a difference a liter of water and a few friendly words can make on a tough hill. We thought about going back to find him once we had arrived in Palenque, but the dark night and the thought of military road blocks put us off.

We really enjoyed the ruins at Palenque, despite the heat and humidity. After the windy roads of Chiapas, there were only endless straight lines that took us to the ruins of Becan and Tulum. We were pretty much the only other visitors at Becan (there were three other cars in the parking lot) and we got to climb up the pyramids. At Tulum though, it was a whole other story. It was tourism en mass and everything that goes along with that. The parking lots were full of buses whose AC units were permanently cranked and made a huge racket, and there were souvenir stores flanking the entrance way with prices marked in USD and where the vendors called out to us in English. Far from the ruins, in the town itself, it wasn’t much better. The prices were at least double compared to what we had seen so far in Mexico. Along the coast, everything was more expensive. For a hotel room like we’d been staying in so far, they wanted more than 6 times the price: 2000 pesos for three, when the night before we had stayed in Becan for 300 pesos. We were finally able to find a little hotel for a reasonable price – but not next to the water.

It wasn’t really our scene. We did what we came to do – went swimming in the turquoise waters of the Caribbean Ocean next to the ancient Mayan ruins, but tomorrow we will be back in the “real” Mexico!

A lot has changed in the past couple of days in terms of our relationship with Mexico and Mexicans. And yet we are still the same, we speak and dress the same. But instead of riding a bike with 30kg of luggage, we are driving a car. No more delightful encounters with helpful locals, smiling, friendly and honest! Instead, it’s annoyances, scams, and forced smiles in the hopes of making a sale.

We ran into that roadblock that we wrote about above. There was also the little girl who grabbed hold of the side mirror while we drove slowly over a speed bump and wouldn’t let go as she tried to sell us some of her corn. And then there are the gas station scams. Twice, trying to fill up the car, we had two different scams. You have to understand that you’re not allowed to pump the gas yourself in Mexico, they have attendants whose job it is to fill up the cars. The first scam involved distracting me by asking me questions and trying to get me to turn away from the pump. After a few minutes, they showed me that they’d put in 100 pesos, or about 12 litres and asked for the money. I know that that is not enough  to fill up the tank, and so I asked them (there were three of them standing around me, all “attending” to me) to fill up the tank. They reset the pump to zero and filled it up, to 250 pesos. Then one of the attendants took out a calculator and added 100 + 250 and showed me the total. Luckily, I had noticed that it took way longer to fill up the tank to 250 pesos that it had to fill it up to 100 pesos – more than four times as long. I explained to them that it just wasn’t possible that they had really put in 100 pesos worth the first time around and that I wasn’t going to pay them 350 pesos. There was a bit of back and forth between us, and then they discussed among themselves and finally jut asked me for 250 pesos. Oof! I think what happened was that the first time around, they just hadn’t reset the pump from the last person and then had tried to charge me for that amount too. Clever, no?

The second time around it was a little different. They showed me that the pump was set to zero – as if they knew that I was on to their tricks. As they were filling up the tank, they asked me a few questions, but not many because the pump stopped at 70 pesos. It must have been programmed to stop there. They took the nozzle out to show me that no gas was coming out when they squeezed it. But I knew that we needed more gas than that, and so I told them to keep going. They pushed some buttons on the machine and I saw the counter start up again, but not from zero. And they kept chatting with me, no doubt to distract me. Then, once the tank was full it was the same story: one of them took out a calculator and added up 280+70 and tried to charge me 350. I told them several times that I had seen that the counter had continued from 70 and hadn’t started again, and finally they gave in and I paid them 280 pesos.

It’s true that taking break has been good for us, but we are also looking forward to getting back on the bikes! Biking allows us to have real contact with the local people, in a much more natural, simple, spontaneous and honest way.

Sebastien

Our road trip is separate from the Association Planète Durable et Solidaire, but don’t worry, we are still going to post our adventures on the website to keep you all updated.

It’s been three months here, and we just realized that we never told you anything about the prices in Mexico.

The exchange rate has been  about 1€ = 17 pesos during our trip. [Trans. note: $1 CAD = 12 pesos; US $1 = 15 pesos as of March 1, 2009].

So here are a couple of prices to give you an idea:

• Hotel room, two people with a private bath: from 150 pesos
• A main dish in a restaurant: between 40 and 120 pesos
• A lunch menu, including soup, main and a drink (called Comida corrida): 35 pesos
• A croissant or pastry: 3 pesos
• Half a pound of pasta: 2.50 pesos
• 1 kg of avocados: 15 pesos
• A bag of 10-12 oranges: 10 pesos
• A soda (600ml): between 6 and 10 pesos
• A taco: between 5 and 10 pesos
• 1 kg of mangoes: 10 pesos
• Movie ticket: 42 pesos
• Admission to the zoo: 20 pesos
• 1 hour in an Internet café: between 5 and 15 pesos
• Cab ride: from 20 pesos
• A trip on a “collectivos” (Volkswagen minivans refitted to hold up to 17 people): 4,50 pesos, for as far as you need to go along their route and do not change vehicle
• A hand-embroidered shirt: 100 pesos
• A liter of gas: 8 pesos
• A stamp for France: 14 pesos [Trans. Note : to go to Canada it was 11 pesos]
• Bottled water – either big containers with 19 l, or jugs of 4 l, or bottles of 1.5 l or 600 ml, their all pretty much the same price: around 15 pesos
• Doctor’s visit: 20 pesos

Electronic goods and toiletries are generally prices the same as in France

PS: We visited Tuxtla Gutierrez, but it wasn’t particularly exciting – except for the fact that it had all the amenities of a big city. We got lost in the big supermarkets that we hadn’t seen in quite some time (normally, we just stop in little convenience stores since big stores are generally not an option – either too far or non-existent); we wandered around the mall that was just beside where we were staying; and we took public transportation to visit some of the areas of the city (of course, since we don’t know where the combis are going because there are no definitive maps nor routes, it sometimes happened that we stayed on the same bus to end up exactly where we started!).

We also went to the Zoologico Miguel Alvarez del Toro, called the “Zoomat” for short. The zoo had all the animals of the Chiapas: everything from m!!onkey!!s to pumas, including turtles, crocodiles, parrots, and snakes. We got to see some interesting birds but also the effects of extinction in the region… and we came face to face with at least a dozen local snakes, some of which are venomous. Certainly enough to make us forget about bush camping for the next little while!

We were also able to visit one Microfinance Institution where no one spoke either French or English, and so we had to conduct the interview in Spanish. We actually managed quite well, and we were very proud of ourselves. Especially when you think that we’d never studied Spanish until arriving in Mexico three months ago!

Sara 

We know this is a long article, but we wanted to share it all with you

Bald-faced corruption (by Sébastien)

In Baja California we ran into a lot of military road blocks, and now since Oaxaca, they're back. About every 30km we pass of road block by either the federal police or the army. We'd never had any problems – we just bike right on through and no one had tried to stop us. It's not so easy for the cars though, and especially those that are driven by foreigners.

A couple of days ago, we were eating lunch at a taqueria next to one of these road blocks, and we got to see how they really work. Sometimes the soldiers would search the entire vehicle. And twice, to speed things along, we saw the people hand over some of what they were transporting. The first time it was two big bags of peanuts, and the second time it was two brand new shirts, price tags still attached, that the soldiers had carefully picked out. It doesn't seem like much, but that was only what was the most obvious...

In Mexico, corruption is ubiquitous. No level of social interactions is immune. According to everyone that we've met here, it always helps to hand over a little something in order to get what you want. Officially, the President denies that it’s a problem, but we've even seen TV ad campaigns trying to prevent corruption.

Note: the road blockades are there to prevent drug and small arms trafficking. What surprises us though, is that the blockades are often only in one direction – from South to North. The drugs are coming up from Columbia or Venezuela and going through Central America to get to the US.

Central America (by Sébastien)

Even though we haven't crossed the border out of Mexico, we're already in Central America! Geographically speaking, it is the Isthmus of Tehuantepec that separates North America from Central America. Along the land bridge we passed through groves of mango trees with their sweet fruits hanging from the branches.

We know – and many people have reminded us – that the countries of Central America are much poorer than Mexico and they are sometimes politically precarious and susceptible to upheaval.

That is the case for Guatemala, which we will soon cross into. Violence and insecurity have been on the rise for the past couple of months. Nobody really seems to be talking about it, even though several regions in the country are classified as dangerous by the Ministries of foreign affairs in quite a few countries. In Mexico, Patrice already warned us about the country. Réal, a Québecois that we met a little while back and who had been in Guatemala, confirmed the rumors. We've also been reading the blog of two women from Switzerland who are biking through Central America, and we were dismayed to read that they had been robbed near Lake Atitlan in Guatemala, and everything was stolen except their bikes. We've said it before: our itinerary is subject to change depending on the political situation of the countries.

We've decided: we're going to take the bus from San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico, to Quezaltenango, Guatemala. It's a less risky and much faster way to cross the dangerous border area between Mexico and Guatemala. The area is dangerous because of the drug traffickers and the migrants leaving Central America for Mexico or the United States. In brief, those people are generally desperate to cross the border and they often have to pay smugglers to get themselves across. And without any money, they will rob anyone going by.

This is neither the first nor the last crossing that worries us. We knew there were risks when we went through Tijuana three months ago. We found out that the day after we had gone through that there had been a shoot-out and 20 police officers had been killed. After that, the army took over the city. The army has a much stronger presence in Mexico than in Guatemala, which might explain why it is safer here.

Once we reach Quezaltenango, we'll get back on the bikes and cross Southern Guatemala. It seems safer and we also avoid the capital city and the region around Lake Atitlan.

Numbers that make your head spin (by Sara and Sébastien)

3 countries, 8 months, only 1 flat tire, and 10,000 km!!

We did it – and it was an emotional moment!!!

Do you know Mr. Chkoumoune?* (by Sara)

Mr. Chkoumoune began his day by dropping Sara's t-shirt on the well-greased bike chain.

Later in the day, while taking a break, he went to get water because in the country where he is right now you can't drink the tap water. He thinks that a 2 liter bottle is a good way to deal with the situation, and besides this particular bottle seems a little cleaner than the other options. When he opens, however, there's a surprise:  Pchchchchhchittt! It was sparking water. Not the greatest for biking – it tends to explode all over the place.

Passing through pretty country side, there's someone working in the field, and Mr. Chkoumpune wants to take a picture. He tries to open the bag attached to the handlebars and he breaks a nail.

In the evening, he stubs his toe on the bed, even though he's wearing sandals. Ouch, it hurts! And when he stands back up, he bangs his head on the shelves.

The next morning, he wakes up well rested and in a good mood, thinking that maybe today he'll get to be Mr. Good Luck. He tries to move Sara's bike, but it gets stuck on the corner of the bed. He gets annoyed, and.... spprrrriinnggg! One broken spoke and another bent.

And the morale of the story? Mr. Chkoumoune is Sébastien, but you probably guessed that already. And of course we love Mr. Chkoumoune, but we would rather he didn't join us too regularly on our trip.

*Chkoumoune: bad luck, ill-favoured, when everything goes wrong

Chiapas: with open arms and open hearts (by Sara)

We've met many people since arriving in Chiapas.

It all started when we stopped to buy some cold drinks. There were two men on the patio, each with about a dozen empty beer cans in front of them. I went up to them thinking that they were the managers of the little “restaurant.” But they called the manager. His supplies were low, and he had only 2 bottles of pop left. As I was about to pay for them, one of the men with the beer said that he insisted on buying them for us, which he did. Then he followed me back towards Sébastien  and offered to buy us lunch. We were hungry, but it had already been a long and tiring day and we still had 30 km to go, most of it uphill. Still, we took him up on his offer, it seemed he really wanted to buy us a meal. And so we were served the only thing the “restaurant” had on offer: a soup with pieces of chicken and tortillas. Yum.

We continued on our way and came up to a sanitary checkpoint. The head of the station flagged us down, even though there was no one at the checkpoint and we thought we could just pass right through. We were worried he was about to make us open our bags, and we had 2 tomatoes, an avocado, some cheese, an orange and some mangoes – not normally things they let through. But actually, he just wanted to talk with us and he invited the whole station to come over. The questions came fast and furious, but we were able to understand and explain ourselves in Spanish pretty well.

Later that same day we stopped at a gas station to get water. Just beside us was a family squished into a little car. There was the mother who was nursing a baby, a little girl about 3 or 4 years old, the grandmother, and the husband who was driving. He asked us where we were going, and we were only 5 km away by then. I told him that, and he was so happy for us. He went in to get some drinks and he came back with two lollipops for us, welcoming us to Mexico and wishing us “bon voyage”. It was like he knew we were almost finished one of the longest days we'd done since Anchorage.

And for our last break, we stopped at another gas station (here all the gas stations have little stores beside them). We talked a bit with the manager there who was curious about our rides: he didn't know whether they were bikes or motorcycles. Sébastien picked up a big bottle of lemon-flavored water, but he refused to let us pay for it. He said it was his contribution to our trip!

We finally arrived at Tuxtla Gutierrez, the capital of Chiapas. We were supposed to phone Gabriel, our host for three nights, but we didn’t know exactly which numbers to dial. There's a long distance code that you dial if you're not in the same region, but if it is a cell phone then you have to add 045 at the beginning plus the state code (but for a land line you don't change anything). A bit confusing. So we stood in the telephone booth, but we couldn’t get through. I asked a man beside us for help, but he wasn’t not sure either which numbers to dial, so he went to ask a friend for advice. He came back and dialed a number on his cell phone, and introduced us to Gabriel as two Americans (since here, if you're not Mexican and you're traveling through, you must be American) and handed us the phone.

Since we got to Chiapas, it feels like a whole different country: the people are warm, friendly, welcoming, and come up to us to ask about our trip and give us a hand if we need it. They buy us drinks and food, which is sometimes a bit awkward, but we've never been able to refuse their offers since it seems to come from such a good place.

The Transjurassienne of 2009 (by Sébastien)

I wasn’t able to be at the starting line of the Transjurassienne this year, [Trans. note: an annual internationally renowned cross-country ski race that takes place in the Jura, where Sébastien is from] but we did our own little “transju”! Sunday was one of the most – if not the most – difficult days since Anchorage. We biked more than 80km in 6 hours 40 minutes, with a head wind, temperatures of more than 25°C, and going up a total of 1600m in altitude.

And we didn’t take it easy the next day, we were back at work. Another 80km in the heat and up and down the hills.

Let me tell you – with our bikes fully loaded, what we did Sunday was just like doing a Transjurassienne or maybe a Marmotte [Trans. note: a biking race in the French Alpes].

Coming Up for Us (by Sara)

We’re in Tuxtla Gutierrez now, the capital of Chiapas, for the last leg of the Mexican part of our trip.

We will start off by visiting the city, and we need to find a bike shop to fix Sara’s wheel – it managed to travel 160km along roads pitted with pot holes with one broken spoke and another bent.

We’re also hoping to visit at least one Microfinance Institutions, since there are seven here.

Then, we’re taking a couple of days off, outside the aegis of the Association Planète Durable et Solidaire. Heather, a friend of Sara’s (and English translator of this blog) is arriving Friday to spent 8 days with us. We will put the bikes to bed while we travel around the Yucatan Pennisula in a rental car.

After out touristy excursion, we will take the bus from San Cristobel de Las Casas to Quezaltenango, the second biggest city in Guatemala, in order to avoid the area defined by the Foreign Affairs Ministry as “dangerous”.

Sébastien

After leaving Oaxaca, we stopped in Mitla, where we were not only able to visit the Zapotec ruined city, but we also got to take part in a village festival. Representatives from all the surrounding villages came to show off their traditional dances and clothes. Despite the frigid winds, it was a fantastic evening!

The next day we got back on the Panamerican Route heading South. We were surprised by how little traffic there was on this famous highway. The Southern part of Oaxaca state is very poor and sparsely populated, but the people are just as friendly and the country side just as beautiful. The small farmers farm their land using d!!onkey!!s, oxen or horses, no machines. Along the way we've seen a lot of locally made Mezcal – it seems to be a common activity in the region. The differences between the North of the country are striking. But we're found a least one similarity with Basse California: the dogs are just as mean and aggressive! As soon as they see us coming, they go crazy. They bark like mad and try to chase us down to bite us in the middle of the road, even if we are coasting downhill at 40km/h. The swerves that we do to avoid them are getting more and more dangerous.

Monday we camped near a river that actually seemed pretty clean. Clean is no longer a guarantee here – the state of the side of the roads is getting worse and worse. Garbage of all sorts litters the roadside. There are many signs against littering, but to no avail: “A clean road is a safe road,” “Live up to your education, don't litter.”

In three days we went from 1700 m to 200 m in altitude. The downhills were beautiful, but we also had a number of tough climbs under the punishing sun. The climate has changed a lot: it's much more humid and we are starting to see trees again as well as all sorts of different kinds of birds. We've been hearing some quite interesting noises coming from the bushes at the side of the road, and once we saw an iguana cross the road right in front of us.

Our daily encounters have also been engaging. First, there was a kid, around 12 years old, who crept up shyly beside us and sat down on the steps of the taqueria at the top of a hill where we had just bought some cool drinks. He seemed very interested in our bikes and wanted to know where we were going. We're not sure whether he really understood our answer, and then when we asked him if he went to school, he said no. Later, as we were about to leave, he took a chance: “Do you have a dollar?” “No, sorry.”

At the bottom of the hill, we thought we would come across our town-stop, but we didn't make it past the crossroads leading to the village. A couple of taxi drivers spontaneously stopped to help and pointed us in the direction of the only hotel in town.

Tuesday night we stopped in the village of Tequisistlan, about 2 km off the Panamerican highway. We caused quite a stir arriving with our fully-loaded bikes. All the villagers looked us over from head to toe. The few that were brave enough to speak to us asked us why we had come all the way here, explaining that they hardly ever see any tourists over there. A supermarket supervisor asked us a lot of questions about our trip, and then offered us his help for anything we needed.

Yesterday we had a tough day. We left early (at 7:30, the sun rises at 7) to avoid the heat and the wind that had been blowing for two days. We were able to do 50km in the morning without any trouble, and with the wind behind us and a little to the left.

After a break at Tehuantepec for a pastry and a glass of “agua de frutas” (fresh fruit juice mixed with water – we had melon and coconut) we thought we only had about another hour before reaching Juchitan. In the end, it took us more than three... the straight 26km stretch between Tehuantepec and Juchitan was tough going. On the plain, there was a strong wind blowing in sharp gusts which practically blew us into the ditches beside the road. So to avoid being blown off the pavement, we had to ride further to the left, and in the busy traffic, it was getting dangerous. We managed about a dozen kilometers, and only just escaped being blown over a couple of times. Sara couldn't take it anymore and got off to push her bike – not as easy as it sounds. The wind buffeted us from all sides, cocooning each in our own thoughts. Then the wind got worse. Alright, it was time to admit defeat. Sara had been ready to throw in the towel for a while, and I finally relented. We hitchhiked the last 12 kilometers. After five minutes with our thumbs out, a flat bed stopped. A couple helped us put the bikes on the truck, and settled us there too: no room up front in the cabin. They dropped us off, without a word, at the gas station in town. We did the rounds of the town looking for a place to stay. Incredibly, in one of the poorest regions in Mexico, without any real tourist attractions, we couldn't find a decent room for the price that we would normally pay (200 pesos, or about US$15). Here, for that price, our room wasn't very clean, and there was only one pillow and no hot water. Up until now, for that price we were staying in the equivalent of a 2 star hotel!

The market here is overflowing with fruits, vegetables, fish and other meat all sitting in the sun and the dust. And those that are sheltered from the wind are instead covered with a cloud of flies. They also have iguanas for sale, but we haven't tried those yet.

To our great surprise and immense pleasure, we were stopped by a couple of Zapotecs, even though we weren't with the bikes. We talked with them for 15 minutes (in Spanish!) - they asked all about our trip and we asked all about their lives.

PS: Thanks so much to everyone who sent us encouraging messages – they really mean a lot to us.

Sébastien