Traveling Companions

Along the road, we sometimes see locals waiting for a ride. We occasionally pick some up. A few days ago, we beat our record for the number of passengers we can fit at once; we had a family of 11 (with luggage) traveling with us for a couple of hours. It was a great experience for all of us.

Everybody loves peanut butter!

One of our 11 Indian passengers during a peanut butter break...

Jungle fever

The last couple of days we have been puttering along the Guatemalan border, visiting misty cloud rain forest, where we have seen gigantic trees covered with ferns, bromeliads and orchids. The best way to see orchids in bloom is when branches fall to the ground. Many times several species grow within inches on the same branch. We have also seen a large, orange roadside dendrobium that grows and blooms abundantly.

Another week in the jungle before we hit Palenque and San Cristobal. Life is good.

Now South and Going More South

Thomas and I finally reached Chiapas. It took us 33 days to drive from Monterrey, North Mexico, to here. It could be done in less than 3 days since it is only 1,700 km. However, we manage to drive more than 4,000 km to get here. Not that we were lost all the time, just that we enjoy going off track. The most enjoyable experiences we had and the most stunning sceneries we saw were along gravel roads, a number of them not even on the map.

The quality of the trails and eco-lodges that the Mexicans have developed is impressive. There are people here who care about the environment and do a lot to protect it. This is a strong contrast from areas where garbage are dumped along the road abandon cars.

The latest fantastic places we saw are (see pictures below):

Aguacero (West of Ocozocoautla, Chiapas state) a splendid canyon with cascade-waterfalls. We went further the gravel road to a small village. We stopped at the kindergartner, a modest hut, where we encountered the kids in the playground. We might have been the first tourists they met in their life time.

Hierve El Agua (East of Mitla, Oaxaca state) petrified cascades with an infinity swimming pool. A beauty that I had no idea could exist.

Chorreadero (East of Chiapa de Corzo, Chiapas state) a waterfall spewing out of a mountain through a cave. Entering the cave, we found an underground system that could take a full day to explore, we saw an underground lake fed by a waterfall. Thomas is not a fan of crawling in muddy tunnels; beside we are not speleologists, so we turned around.

Canyon of Sumidero (North and South of Tuxtla, Chiapas state).

Tambuque Balnerario (South of Ciudad Valles, San Luis Potosi state) another river spewing out of a stone wall creating swimming pools.

Huasca (North-East of Pachuca, Hidalgo state) with its basalt walls and waterfalls.

Canyon de la Angostura and Puente de Dios on the Rio Escanela (West of Jalpan, Queretaro state) where the water springs from all over in a narrow canyon.

We went climbing a few times. However, we climbed only 3-4 routes at each places. Here they are, in the order I prefer them:
El Pena de Bernal (East of Queretaro)
Parque National El Chico (North of Pachuca, Hidalgo state)
Copoya (South of Tuxtle, Chiapas state)
Yagul (West of Mitla, Oaxaca state)
San Sebastian Tutla (East of Oaxaca, city)

We continue to avoid the cities, unless there is a festival. We visited a zoo with local animals only, a great cactus garden, a British man’s bizarre domain, a few ruins, monasteries, missions, churches and other odd structures. Hopefully Thomas will write something about them in his next update.

Next destinations will be: a coffee plantation at the end of some road, San Cristobal de Las Casas, Agua Azul, Palenque, etc.

We have decided to prolong our trip. Instead of returning North next month, we will drive to Costa Rica. Thomas will spend March in California and me in The Bahamas. We will leave the VW Camper in Costa Rica, where we will return and resume our journey for 2 more months. We plan to drive back slowly in April and May. After all, May is a much better time to travel in the Copper Canyon, North West Mexico in the mountains, naturally.

Canyon of Sumidero

Aguacero

A Car with a View

Along The Road

Hierve El Agua

Hierve El Agua

Driving in Mexico

Huasca

San Sebastian Tutla

Tambuque Balnerario

Now in the Chiapas... and still going

Rescuing 2 Mexicans

The expression “alternative tourism” does not really apply to us. Where ever we go, where ever we “camp”, where ever we eat, we rarely see any tourists. Every morning we take the road, not knowing where we will sleep at the end of the day. Every day offers us new adventures, new sceneries, new food and new encounters with Mexicans of all ages and all social groups.

For 3 weeks, we have been traveling in North-Central Mexico; a mountainous region with scenic roads, many of them not paved. The weather always great, we haven’t seen the rain, however, we have experienced many cold days and nights. We have seen colonial pueblos, mineral, hot or warm springs, breath taking canyons, rivers coming out of mountains, giant tufas, rain forests, deserts, mist, waterfalls in all shapes, ruins, caves, deep valleys, etc.

Lots of people seem happy to chat with us, despite our limited knowledge of Spanish. Sometimes, they tell us about their best “spots”, they invite us to their modest houses. Once, we accepted a lady’s offer to sleep in her living room. Before we left her small village in the mountains, we bought her a flash light and fixed her shower.

Our VW camper takes the gravel steep roads very well despite the horrible speed bums. In average, on the roads we travel, there are more than one speed bump per kilometer, and some of them can greatly contribute to ruin a suspension. As a result, I had to learn to slow down. Sometimes, in a single day, we drive from 100 meter altitude to 2700 meter and down again; no need to say that the scenery is in proportion to these extremes.

We rarely stop to access the Internet, we no longer read newspapers or watch TV. Yesterday, I learned that Benazir Bhutto was assassinated last week.

We are heading to the Chiapas, it is probably a 9 hour drive from here, but it will take us more than one week to get there. We have already taken over 1,000 pictures. Thomas is putting some on http://www.flickr.com/ you can see some of them at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/1moment/

We occasionally rock climb, last time; we rescued 2 Mexican climbers attending a 4 pitch route leading to a 3,000 meter peak in the El Chico National Park. To reward us from saving them, they invited us in a restaurant in Real Del Monte. The best food we had so far (see picture). That was our last meal of 2007, it was a memorable December 31 day.