I left Oaxaca early on Monday morning 8/18 to start the long ride to San Cristobal de las Casas, nestled high in the mountains of Chiapas state, with the coastal town of Salina Cruz as a pitstop on what would otherwise be a 12-hour ride. I'd like to tell you that the route to Salina Cruz was something amazing and special, but really, it was five hours spent mostly cruising on the autopista, dodging occasional rain showers. Salina Cruz is a thriving and rapidly growing port town on the Pacific Coast of Mexico; as I approached, the haze over the town seemed to indicate more showers, until I passed through it and realized that what I'd thought was distant rain was actually coming from an oil refinery on the outskirts, and that Salina Cruz itself was perfectly clear. I mentally apologized to my lungs.
My AirBnB for the night was located on a large natural breakwater full of unnamed streets, which made finding the actual place somewhat difficult until my hosts flagged me down outside, figuring that the conspicuously large motorcycle had to be carrying their customer. Once I'd situated myself, I found a nearby meal of shrimp tacos and took a short walk around the nearby beach; with night gathering and fatigue from multiple days of riding and exploring starting to take its toll, I opted against diving into the waves, and went to bed far earlier than usual.
I woke up to rain spattering against the windows, and groaned to myself, already anticipating the day I was about to have. I don't mind getting rained on while riding, but an entire day of that didn't sound terribly appealing. I'd been able to pull the bike under shelter overnight, so at least I could say I'd started out dry. Thankfully, it hadn't rained enough for the roads to my AirBnB and around Salina Cruz to flood, so I was able to make my way out of town easily.
The road leaving Salina Cruz and heading back towards the highlands of Mexico wasn't anything special, but the scenery around it, even with rain falling, was an unexpected surprise. As I traversed what locals call the Isthmus of Mexico, I was met with the sight of the largest wind farm I'd ever seen by far; hundreds, if not thousands of windmills stretching over several square miles to catch the winds blowing in from the ocean, so many they disappeared into the fog in every direction. Had it not been raining steadily, I'd have stopped for photos, and I'm still kicking myself for not doing so even with the possibility of soaking my camera. Surrounded by fog, rain, and the first few foothills indicating that I was leaving the coast, it was a memorable sight. The further I rode, the more I realized how much of a toll riding in the rain takes over a long distance; I was feeling far more fatigued than usual, and at times was starting to worry that I'd have to stop for the night at one of the many autohoteles scattered around most of Mexico's main highways. At some point I caught a second wind, and as I approached Tuxtla Gutierrez, the largest city in Chiapas, the rain finally let up and gave me a chance to dry out a bit.
The route up to San Cristobal from Tuxtla ascended rapidly into the mountains, and with the rain having moved on and the sun poking through in places, I had the chance to take a real look around. Readers who've never been to Mexico may hear stories about Chiapas being a dangerous or violent place, and there is some merit to that given incidents that have occurred in previous years (though nothing significant since 2017 or so), but I can tell you from first-hand experience that Chiapas is an absolutely, stunningly beautiful part of Mexico. The mountains I was riding up were high enough that for much of the time, I was even with or above the clouds, and the glimpses I got of the cloud forest landscape below were breathtaking.
The only problem was the road itself; after a smooth ascent, the road abruptly changed to torn-up, grooved construction-zone pavement. For the non-motorcyclists out there who didn't immediately cringe when they read that, imagine riding a bicycle with someone trying to yank the bars back and forth, and you'll get some sense of what riding a motorcycle over grooved pavement is like. It was bad enough that even at a crawl, I'm not sure my wheels were ever in line for more than a few seconds. Luckily, I soon arrived in San Cristobal, and met my hosts for the next few days. Ron and Katherine (Kippy) were old friends of my father's, with Ron and my dad having grown up as neighbors, and had been living in Mexico since 1970; Ron is a professor of anthropology, and Kippy owns La Casa del Pan, a bakery and restaurant in downtown San Cristobal, with a second location in Mexico City. They met me outside of town and guided me up to their amazing house overlooking San Cristobal. When I say amazing, I mean it; Ron and Kippy's place is likely the best lodging I'll have all trip, with what amounted to a private suite to myself. Not seeing a garage, I found a convenient tree to part the Twin under, but Kippy insisted that that wouldn't do. This was her solution:
Yes, that is my motorcycle wedged into my bedroom, and yes, that is me looking utterly silly about it. Probably the best digs she'd have the whole trip, too. The large, furry welcoming committee that became my shadow for the next few days didn't hurt, either.
I spent a total of three nights with Ron and Kippy, and enjoyed every minute of it. Kippy and I took a short afternoon trip to El Arcotete on my first full day there, a large natural bridge spanning over a river of the same name that runs down through San Cristobal. The river was beautiful, but the caves winding through the natural bridge and cliffs overhead were amazing, with intricate stalactites and stalagmites everywhere, sometimes making it difficult for certain 6'+ Americans to get through, but offering something interesting to look at everywhere you turned.
My three days with Ron and Kippy in San Cristobal were the first I'd been able to truly relax since crossing the border almost two weeks earlier, and the breather was more than welcome; my second day there, I started feeling fatigued, achy and feverish, and took full advantage of an extra day and night of rest. I had a reasonable suspicion that I'd contracted a mild case of Dengue Fever, given the symptoms, the onset approximately four days after I'd been eaten alive by mosquitoes in Oaxaca, and the fact that I'd positively identified at least a few of the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that carry both Dengue and yellow fever (vaccinated already, don't worry). I was still feeling a little under the weather as I packed up and said my goodbyes on Thursday morning, but I wanted to keep pushing onward.
My next destination, and my final stop in Mexico before crossing the border, was the area of Lagunas de Montebello, a group of 59 lakes and cenotes close to the Guatemalan border famous for their colorful waters and gorgeous scenery. I arrived late Thursday evening to the cabin I'd rented on Lake Tziscao, met by a host who turned out to have spent several years working in a factory in Shelbyville, Kentucky. We exchanged pleasantries before I turned in early for one more fever-filled night.
The next morning, I woke up feeling almost entirely fine, and set out to explore the area around the lakes. After following a few signs for caves and swimming areas that either ended in disappearing roads or barbed-wire fences and once again testing the Twin's off-road ability while fully loaded, I finally found myself looking out over a few of the gorgeous, deep blue lagunas, and further on, found one of the swimming areas I'd been hoping for. The cool, blue water washed away the last traces of fever, and I felt all sorts of refreshed as I made myself a quick lunch by the lakeside before drying off and striking out for the Guatemalan border.
I planned on crossing at La Mesilla, one of the busier entry points into Guatemala, but one I knew for sure had the proper entry/exit facilities for vehicles (there are several uncontrolled points of entry on the border, but that is absolutely not advised if you're traveling with your own vehicle). It was here that I ran into my first genuine problem on the trip; remember way back to my post about crossing the Mexican border in Laredo, when I'd mentioned the border control officer who inspected my motorcycle taking my documents for a few minutes, handing them back to me, and waving me on? I'd failed to notice, in my anxious state and with multiple Mexican stamps already in my passport, that the officer hadn't actually stamped it THAT time, and thus I had no actual proof of having entered Mexico legally. I had a brief moment of panic, hoping that I wouldn't be denied exit status and have to go all the way to the US Consulate in Oaxaca to figure things out. After explaining the situation and what had happened at the US border to the officer examining my passport, and a few minutes of debate, he figured that the border control officer in Laredo had assumed that, like the vast majority of people crossing there, I'd only planned on shopping around in Mexico and returning later that day, in which case they rarely stamp passports. He had me pay the exit tax, made a note in my passport, stamped it and sent me on. To say that I was relieved would possibly be the understatement of the trip. Regardless, after the required fumigation by Guatemalan authorities, and waiting for over an hour while their passport control system crashed in the middle of processing my application, I officially crossed into Guatemala, and the first truly new country of the trip!
According to the bike's odometer, I had ridden 2,070 miles since crossing over in Laredo two weeks earlier. In that time, I'd met a whole series of incredible people, seen places I'd had no idea existed before starting out on this trip, gained a litany of lifelong memories, and fallen in love with Mexico in all kinds of ways. I'd left a few marks on the bike, but had come through largely uninjured, and mostly healthy. Mexico will be a very hard act to follow, but I'm looking forward to what comes next!
Mileage: 3,605.
Glad you are feeling better! Be sure to double check all the paperwork at borders moving forward!
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