| Jeff Poulter & Graham Tillotson: 12th August 2004 |
|
From Mexico to Guatemala.
Jeffrey's still out there eating tortillas and chicken, and drinking lots
of beer, I suspect. They are about half way now, very much on schedule,
and the voyage seems to have become more dramatic and certainly more exotic.
If they were wondering in Fairbanks why they had taken on such a huge odyssey,
they probably know why now. Mexico is spectacular! Much love, Mary
Chihuahua to Gomez Palacio
We stayed in the motel Maria Delores which was recommended by the Lonely Planet and a good job too. A delightful little two-storey courtyard with the brick painted a beautiful mid blue. Indeed it is a feature of the run through Mexico that the houses and buildings are painted wonderful, brave colours - much bolder that one would see anywhere in Europe outside south-western Ireland. The basic hue is a deep, luxurious yellow ochre which is matched by many themes in primary blues, yellows, reds and greens, pinks and mauves. It's as if the youngest child is delegated to choose the colours to paint the house. All buildings get the treatment, from humble homes to factories, offices, government buildings and schools. Everyday Mexico wears its art on its sleeve in the way that Italy reeks of design and France of elegance. I like it.
After 60 or so clicks we were stopped at our first toll booth and charged
42 pesos (two quid) for both bikes. Well, we thought, can't complain too
much at that. But then the toll booths arrived with increasing frequency
and mounting tariffs. I don't mind paying a few bob for a decent road but
these folk were starting to take the piss. Several towns on the route were
connected solely by a toll road. What do the locals do? Pennies to us are
somewhat more valuable to them. Also, I was annoyed that you didn't know
you were on a toll road until some bloke (actually rather pretty young
ladies, presumably to stop irate tourists giving them pieces of foreign
minds) drops a barrier and sticks out a hand. There is usually another
chap with a machine gun lolling close by, quite coincidentally, of course.
As we were stuck on the toll road, we ended up paying over 500 Pesos (£25)
by the time we reached Gomez Palacio.
We rounded one bend and came across a junction manned by some very surly soldiers wielding extremely large rifles. They indicated that we stop, asked us where we were going, spent some time wandering around the bikes looking them over, then with a jerk of the rifle indicated that we could get going again. Hope we don't come across these guys again.
One thing to add: many of the trucks around here are old sixties and seventies American luggers, which sport large bonnets that somehow always seem to be cubic and bulbous at the same time. Most of the original truck designers' bolt-on excrescences are exaggerated by painted highlights applied by proud owner drivers. Two non-standard additions appear mandatory: first, two large aerials attached either side of the top of the windscreen at an angle of 45 degrees, pointing forward so that they look like the horns of a beast; and, secondly, no truck hereabouts can be worthy of its salt without bull bars on the front. These bull bars (which used to be called cow catchers: why has the gender changed?) are mostly home made and mostly out of girders nicked from the local Forth Bridge. Bull bars are clearly ego related as they get bigger and bigger, and the point of this story is a set I saw heading towards me this morning which were at least ten rows high. The structure must have weighed the same as the truck and were welded with pride by some Juan, Jose or Miguel as the definitive statement, the ultimate fuck-off bull bars. These monsters would have tossed a poofy Dodge Ram 2500 V10 pickup into the scenery without even scratching their chrome- yellow paint. Game, set and match to this hero: his cojones win.
(Since their arrival in Mexico the boys have discovered that they're late for everything, that everything shuts earlier than the hours indicated in the windows, etc. Hmmmm)
But while there (in San Miguel), we meet Christobal. He's a 55 year old guy, son of a Glaswegian father and Mexican mother, who spent some time in the States including a term in the army in Vietnam when he was 17. Not surprisingly, his English was excellent. Embarrassingly, he tells us that the whole of Mexico is on Central time and that therefore we should have put our watches forward TWO hours as soon as we crossed the border into Mexico. That news makes a lot of other things fall into place too.
San Christobel
We moved hotels this morning to a cheaper one - less than half the price of the rather nice one we stayed in last night. Hardly as salubrious but it'll do and it'll keep us in budget.
San Christobel is a pretty enough place, albeit a bit touristy. For somewhere
with a reputation for political instability I am surprised that there are
so many Americans about, but there are. Mind you, they're mostly young
with copious body piercings so maybe politics is the reason they're here.
Last night we listened to a local Indian folk band of three voices and
three of the miniature guitars they have in this part of the world. The
music is vigorous, rhythmic but hardly tuneful. However, the most interesting
part of the evening came when one of the group picked up the complete lower
jawbone from some critter and started playing it like a maracas. The unfortunate
donor was probably a mule or somesuch and, as he rests, he can be comforted
by the fact that his bottom teeth continue to contribute significantly
to the local music scene. Or maybe he'd rather be chewing grass.
Anyway, picture a large (at least a foot long) lower jawbone held by the front teeth so that the jaw hinges hang vertically down in the form of an opening 'V'. A man holds the jaw in his left hand and strikes the outside of it with his right hand. There are two actions: the direct, sharp strike, which produces a sound like a snare drum with Jimi-Hendrix-size echo and feedback; and the downward stroke which sounds just like a washboard being played in a skiffle band. Weird. Really effective, though, and brightened up the band no-end, especially when played with lots of vigour and extra whooping.
Guatemala
We made it to Guatemala. The border crossing was easier than Mexico and a lot cheaper, so we were chuffed. Graham bet it would take five hours to cross the border, I said two. In the event it only took an hour for both sets of immigration and customs, including getting a temporary import visa for the bikes. Brilliant. Although Guatemala is obviously poorer than Mexico, it is still a really interesting place. We stopped the first night at Huehuetenango about 80km inside the border. We crossed at La Mesilla/ La Democracia and are now on Highway 1, the Pan American. We stopped last night and tonight in a place called Panajechal which is on the shores of Lake Atitlan, a beautiful and very large lake, towered over by three huge volcanoes and several smaller ones. They are all perfectly shaped cones, just like cartoon volcanoes, with clouds at the top.
Today we went on a seven hour boat trip around the lake, stopping off at three small villages around the outside. All three were poor and appeared to survive just on the tourist circuit. Yet, as we motored around the lake I could see with my binoculars some enormous, grand and obviously very expensive houses on the lakeshore. It's going to be the main problem hereabouts, the huge disparity between rich and poor. So much of the wealth is in so few hands. Tell me something new. Still, we did notice that Mexico is producing a sizeable middle class, at least a group who can afford small cars and take their families on holidays. Encouraging.
We both really enjoyed Mexico. It's a nice place. I must try to write up my thoughts about it before they all get diffused with the other Central American countries, six of which we'll be passing through in the next few weeks.
Tomorrow we'll start making our way to the city of Antigua which is supposed to be beautiful. We'll stop off at a town called Chichitenango as we've been told it's lovely and, if we like it, we may stay a night there.
Jeff 12.08.04 |
|
