Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Palenque

23rd June

Biting the bullet, we become tourists and take a tour bus from San Christobal to the ruined Mayan site of Palenque. We were going to ride, but we have already overstayed our Mexican visas by a month and another 6 days for the round trip starts to look like taking the Michael. As it's a side trip we feel OK at not riding, but that's a point of view that is set to change. Especially when we need to leave at 6am in the morning. I hate mornings!

A few miles into the journey, Sue also changes her mind. The road is a lurching, rolling series of hairpins that goes on for 220kms as the road descends the mountainside down to the sticky jungle plains 2000 metres below. She does not travel well on buses and spends the 6 hour journey turning various shades of green.

For those of thus that can look out of the windows, it's just a fantastic series of views as we descend in the early morning light through cloud filled valleys. Later the clouds lift and and are shredded by the hot sun to reveal stunning vistas. It would have been a great ride.

On route we stop at 'Cataratas de Agua Azul' (blue waterfalls) - a beautiful series of cascades with inviting sapphire pools of cool crystal water where you can swim....


Fine smelling restaurants within earshot of the babbling waters invite us to linger, but the bus is leaving soon so we take the lovely walkway at the side of the river instead....


Next stop is the 35m cataract of 'Mizol-Ha'....


Where you can walk behind the falls and up a winding stair to a dark grotto....


Palenque is one of the most extensive and best known of the Mayan ruins. Fifteen square kilometers of jungle hid over 1400 buildings for nearly a millenia until a Spanish priest discovered the site in 1773. Now over 500 buildings have been unearthed from beneath tropical leaf and vine....


Palenque was first settled around 100BC and saw the height of it's power with approximately 8000 people living here around the 7th Century when 'K'inich Hanab Pakal' ruled over all. He and his son 'Snake Jaguar' built many of the most inposing temples and plazas. This is The Temple of the Inscriptions where Pakal's tomb was discovered. With 8 levels and rising 25m, the stair is the tallest here and is hugely impressive. You can almost imagine the firelit ceremonies carried out by masked high priests on the high altar, below a thousand heads thrown back to gaze upwards in awe. If Mel Gibson in Apocalyto is to be believed, these were ritualistic human sacrifices - a blood offering to the gods, with the bodies cast down the stair, bloodied and beheaded....


Scholars debate the meaning of Mayan art carved into stone tablets, and of the glyphs found in many of the building and on the sarcophagus of Pakal's tomb....


Amazingly (I think), you are free to climb the stairways and wander inside some of the ancient temples, though not all take the opportunity in the 100 plus degrees of mind melting heat. This is the view from atop the 'Templo de la Cruz' (Temple of the Cross) towards the Palace complex with it's observatory tower and gives some idea of the scale of this massive site....


'Templo de la Sol' (Temple of the Sun) set against the ever encroaching jungle backdrop has Palenque's best preserved roof comb.


We have just two and a half hours at the site - including time for lunch, and this is the main reason I hate coach tours. You could easily spend an entire day here and jogging through the site taking snaps on the move so you can catch a bus seems at odds with the gravitas and history of this civilisation defining setting. There is no time at all to visit the on site museum for an insight into the culture, and maybe some explanation for the mysterious abandonment of the site around 900AD.

It's a bit tragic really and the fact you can camp here increases our regret at not having the extra days to cycle here and spend enough time to do it justice. Still they have some nice flowers to rush past in the botanical gardens....

Monday, July 27, 2009

San Christobal de las Casas

June 21st to 26th

Nestled in a dip in the mountains is the Joval valley which is the beautiful setting for the cobbled stone streets of San Christobal del Casas. Replete with impressive old colonial buildings it's a pretty place to spend a few days surrounded by the pine covered ring of mountains. A typical street scene....


Despite the Spanish architecture, the streets ring to the tune of Mayan dialects - 'Quiche' is widely spoken here. Locals wear traditional Mayan dress of black sheep skin skirt and colourful tops as they hawk their wares in front of the cathedral....


San Christobal briefly stared on the world stage in 1994 when masked 'Zapatista' rebels took over the city. Apologising to tourists for any inconvenience caused, they calmly announced 'this is a revolution'. Rather than trying to topple the Mexican government, they fought to close military bases set up in the area, free prisoners and to enforce previous accords granting control of land rights to the Maya. In 1994 the government acquiesced, but land control has still not been granted to this day. The movement lives on despite media attention moving on, and parents buy zapatists dolls for their children in support....



The Mayan Medicine Museum has displays of herbs and candles used in traditional medicine over the centuries. There is a graphic video showing birthing techniques where a woman kneels before her husband with the midwife taking the catch behind. Oh how England would benefit from such a safe pair of hands in the current Ashes series.

Rituals are carried out to ensure safe delivery including passing an ominous looking, rusty old axe over the abdomen. This gentle symbolism apparently disuades the baby from needing a cesarean....


In a 16th century convent building there is a museum of local history depicting land use over the last 500 hundred years and the mix of tribes occupying this area before the Spanish. There are many distinct tribes, each with their own separate language. This is one of the major factors that helped the Spanish to invade so successfully with so small a force. Many tribes were at war with each other and some even aided the Spanish to defeat their enemies before being turned upon themselves. Other tribes could not unite due to the lack of common language. Taking account of language problems, this catechism shows spanish bible texts translated into 'Quiche', but also makes use of pictograms. It was used to convert the conquered Mayans to the new religion....


Outside the museum is a local 'artisans' market selling everything artisanal, including hand made Mayan clothing. In a system akin to Scottish tartan, tribes identify with a traditional style of weave and each has their own unique design. This is of the gringo tourist tribe....


There are flower markets with impressive, if slightly surreal displays....


The fruit here is incredibly fresh, juicy and abundant. There's even a delivery service....


Either side of the city centre is a hill, and each is a high perch for a church building, 'Iglesias' San Christobal and Guadalupe. God it seems, hears those closest to him. Brief climbs are rewarded with ordinary churches and extraordinary views of city and mountainscape.


We are again beset by another dose of the lurgy and Sue's world shrinks to a 4 metre radius around the bathroom. A 3 day stay turns into 6 and takeaway pizza becomes the staple diet. Outside the rainy season begins to tighten it's grip, and late afternoon heralds a ferocious deluge accompanied by awesome displays of lightning.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

San Christobal

June 19th

After the diversion of the Sumidero Gorge, all that remains to reach our next destination - San Christobal, is the final climb. Unfortunately we dropped several hundred metres down to the gorge at Chiapa de Corzo and San Chritobal is 1700 metres above us! There are 2 roads we can go by, 78kms on the free route and just 45kms on the toll road. We need to decide on one of them.

'Cuotas' (the toll roads) tend to be more direct, have steady gradients using bridges and tunnels to defeat the contours of the land and have wide shoulders for cyclists. They are also usually monumentally dull, having no towns or other features on route. By contrast 'Libres' (the free roads) tend to meander an interesting course between local villages and mountain viewpoints. On the downside they usually have no shoulders meaning you run the gauntlet of speeding traffic and they tend to be an exhausting series of steep climbs and height wasting descents. Often you lose half as many metres as you gain and 78kms would be an extremely tough day for a 1700m climb with all those drops. We opt for the cuota to save time.

Fortunately the cuota only applies to cars and lorries - for biciclettas, all roads are libre. This is the view back to all those paying customers and gives an idea of the gradient of the climb....


Several miles in, we start to appreciate the precision of the road builders. Cuotas are indeed very different to normal roads and this one looks like the course was mapped out by shooting an arrow direct from Chiapa to San Christobal. It neither deviates nor alters it's constant gradient and we are beginning to find this is a mental challenge as well as a physical one. On roads where the gradient does change you get a chance to rest your legs or at least use different muscles, and the view is always different - not so here and this climb goes on for 30 miles!

It's a grey day and the views we should get over the valley below are obscured in cloud....


We can see the cloud line hanging ominously above us like a barrier and in time we rise up to meet it. The world disappears....


It's like riding in a cartoon - the one where the artist is scrambling just ahead of us, just out of view and frantically painting in the next scene. It gets a little scary as visibility drops to 10 metres and cars occasionally drift into the shoulder, only seeing us at the last second. We ride in gloom for 10 miles.

The wet season has given birth to thousands of massive flying ants. These things are huge - perhaps an inch long!


Well I say 'flying' ants. They have wings, but 'flying' is being generous. As the bikes approach, they labour ponderousy, maybe a foot into the air to avoid us, then crash back down to earth and lumber on. It's like watching a stricken B52 bomber, overloaded with a huge payload trying to get airborn. Over night they seem to wise up and shed their useless wings and assume a more earthbound existence - leaving all heavenly aspirations to their leaner insect brothers.

Like I said, the climb becomes a mind game and any distraction from the numbing gradient is welcome, even if it is just watching rubbish ants trying to fly. The sense of enclosure from the encompasing grey starts to feel claustrophobic and we rue the fact that there are no views. Normally that is what makes a climb worthwhile.

Bridges lead into a grey abyss....


And then it starts to rain. This is one of those riding days that goes in the 'not so good' category. To make matters worse, my altimeter seems to be on the blink as it shows us to be 250m above San Christobal.

At last we understand why. San Christobal is set in a hollow, surrounded on all sides by pine covered mountains and it would be asking too much to build a tunnel though all that rock. The last 3kms is all downhill and at last the legs get a rest and we can pump some of the lactic acid out of aching muscles.

It's been a tough day. 45kms of an unrelentingly constant and fairly steep gradient. The roads of San Christobal have turned to rivers and literally flow with 2 or 3 inches of water. Bemused car drivers wave us through stop signs rather than delay our progress; whilst they enjoy their dry, heated interiors.

With relief, we find a hotel close to the 'zocalo' - the main square and dry off. Outside is a world of water....

Monday, July 13, 2009

The Sumidero Gorge

June 16th to 18th 2009

The climb off the coastal plain is a cracker. The road meanders it's lazy zig-zag way up the mountainside for 30kms for around 1500m of height gained. Both the temperature and the buzz of insects slowly recede, which are both welcome changes.

The plains just teemed with any number of nasty little bitey things and they obviously had a twisted sense of humour, taking direct aim on my nether regions. An unwelcome souvenir of their attention is the swollen red ring of itchiness I now have in the exact shape of a bicycle saddle. Cycling has become an uncomfortable fidgety, squirming search for a comfy spot.

The terrain starts to look a little like the rolling hills of mid Wales and Sue, a taff gets a little home sick as we climb. The land looks like it has been draped in velvet and we sing (badly) the Tom Jones classic "The green green grass of home"....


More scenes from a pastoral Shangri-La....


It's like stepping back in time to an England before it was concreted over and turned to a stone and steel jungle....


After the grueler of a climb, the land calms down again and sets about rolling merrily towards the next set of peaks....


Even the flutterbyes take a breather....


But the concrete jungle is here too and we stop in Tuxtla Gutierrez, an ugly traffic choked city of half a million which is stark contrast to the ride. The next day, we roll to Tuxtlas better looking sister city of Chiapa de Corzo just 10 miles away. This is the launch pad for river trips along the mightly Sumidero Gorge and we've got a boat booked!

Blasting noisily up the emerald green waters of the Grijalva River, we are suddenly dwarfed by sheer walls of rock a thousand metres high to either side. It feels like a trip down the the great river taken directly from The Lord of The Rings. We feel about the size of hobbits as we adjust to this new scale and crane our necks to see clouds fall off the tops of sheer cliffs...


Even the howler monkeys seem to be measuring the walls of their home....


Giant waterfalls - rendered miniature in proportion to the drop, deposit calcium ledges which are colonised by huge new growth. From a distance the effect resembles the oversize Christmas Tree of a colossus....


Everywhere is life. In nooks and crannies a million bats roost and snooze waiting for the coming dusk....


We see crocodiles sunning themselves on the river banks, statue like and unmoving, their massive jaws open and ominous.

On a rock; what looks like mud turns out to be the next generation - hundreds and hundreds of them - each of these 6 inch minnows destined to grow into fully fledged 12 foot horrors....


It's an incredible and impressive natural habitat.

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Coastal Plains

14th June to 16th

After the Sierra Madre ranges, the coastal plains come as a real shock - the cycling is just so different here. The physical challenge has changed from the brute force approach required to propel us up near vertical surfaces, to a brutal test of heat endurance. We have to be on the road shortly after dawn to fit in a brief few hours ride before temperatures rise to melting point.

We ride due East and there is no shade as the sun burns it's fiery course across heat hazed skies. By midday it is well into the 90's. Well that's the temperature in the shade - we cook in direct sunlight and water stops are frequent as we drip our sweaty paths in near total humidity. We carry 14 litres of water, an amount that disappears in just 5 hours. The terrain is flat, but it's tough going in this oppressive heat....


There are 2200 metre high mountains 20 miles to the north, but here the land is flat and lies at just a couple of hundred metres. That difference in height generates huge winds as the air literally slides down the mountain side. There is nothing to slow it as it races towards the coast 20 miles south of us. It's like riding into the open doors of a blast furnace as hot air hits us in the face. Lips and eyes sizzle, dry out and begin to cook in the face of this natural hairdrier blast. The locals take full advantage and the plain is littered with huge windmill farms, their blades scything and spinning in the rushing air....


But it is again a beautiful land. Low lying wetlands appear on previously parched land as the rainy season takes hold in the mountains. Everywhere there is life as bird calls screech and squawk - their cries and early warnings system describing 2 strange travellers invading their domain....


The skies blur and buzz with colour as a million butterflies ride the buffeting air waves of passing traffic. One takes a brief rest on the roadside, before riding the rollercoaster once more....


The heat begins to take it's toll and where we planned to cross the 110kms of flatlands between Juchitan and Tepanatepec in a day, we begin to reassess our plans. Almost magically, at the exact halfway point a hotel shimers into view in Niltepec and the sign displays my new favourite words - "Aire Aconditionado". For the bargain sum of just 200 pesos (15 dollars) we luxurite in cool air whilst the world outside boils.

Mexico's two southermost states (Oaxaca and Chiapas) share much in common. Firstly, a grinding poverty (they are Mexico's 2 poorest states) with higher proportions of indiginous Indian populations than other states. They are both based on a rural economy with many people eeking out a subsistence living growing crops of small homesteads. Mechanisation is rare and oxen and men plough the land in modern repitition of a centuries old tradition....


They are also fanatically religious with roadside graffiti invoking the power of various bible verses....


They are both also stunningly beautiful and new life is everywhere as the rains tease strange new colour from the green....


After 2 sticky, sweaty, debilitating days we reach the foothills of the Sierra Atravesada and we can at last begin to climb away from the sweltering lowlands. I have never felt so grateful to see the steeps....


Monday, July 6, 2009

Leaving the Sierra Madre Mountains

June 11th to 14th

England is quite a small country. When I ride there I might climb for a mile or maybe 2 if it's a big one. We leave Mitla and climb for 10 miles straight. That's constant climbing with no flat bits at all, just a never ending series of switchbacks revealing the next false summit. Then we descend for 20 miles!

And climb again another 10 miles, before dropping 15 more. We've ridden this kind of terrain often in Mexico, but I just wanted to put the scale of this place in to perspective as we cross from valley to valley.

We pass through Matatlan, south of Mitla and home to a thousand Mezcal stills. Everywhere there are ovens roasting pinas - the heart of the maguey plant after it has had it's leaves removed by machete. The air is thick, sticky and soporific from the aroma. A truck brings in fresh crops from the agave fields....


We're leaving the Sierra Madre ranges behind for good now, after around 1500 spectacularly gruelling, jaw droppingly beautiful, painfully tough and exhilarating miles of mountain riding. The ride from Oaxaca into Chiapas, the southernmost and for us the last Mexican state is said to be incredible. You drop from 2200 metres down to 400 or so onto a sweltering jungle plain before climbing the green cloud forests of the Sierra Atravesada range into Chiapas in around 10 days of awesome riding. I now know it's beautiful as I shortlist the photos for this blog and come up with 20! That's way too many and then I realise that was just the first day's ride.

Sue ponders how we're going to edit the list down....


As we take the road down and fall off the mountainside....


It's so green now after the month spent in Oaxaca. It rained almost all of the days we were there. The hills have come alive and cactus bloom in flower everywere. Some sport white sleeves like the covers on golf clubs....


Others look like their spikes have picked up red sponge balls like velcro....


There are open flowers of bright yellow and orange, or lime green pods, others have open tops and look like they have been filled with soup the colour of amber. The variety is amazing.

Now the deluge of rain is beginning to fill the rivers once more. Despite the prodigious volume of water however, the rivers still only trickle as a million miles of parched roots slurp greedily, slaking their thirst after 6 months of abstinence. Only the smallest amount of water escapes and makes it all the way down to the dry river bed..


The symbol in the centre of the Mexican flag is that of an eagle fighting a snake. The eagles beak closes round the snakes head as it's talons fight to grip the slippery body. I sweep round a bend and see that very image as a caracara bird tears a strip of meat from a serpent's side and begins to feed. As I fumble the camara at 40mph, it drops it's booty to the road and takes flight.....


Even after all these months and miles, the mountains can still throw up the unexpected as we ride though an area of huge, rock formations. A giant gorilla's head laughs at our surprise....


We begin to believe we are on the final descent as we drop to around 1000m and start to look forward to some flat riding, but after El Cameron we climb again for 20 miles! It's a cruel sting in the tail as the Sierra Madres refuse to let us go without a flight.

Then it is downhill, all downhill; for almost an entire day, the temperature rising as quickly as the land falls. Pockets of scorching air singe past us as we race downwards and the land grows ever more green. We finally reach Tehuantepec with it's impressive statue at the gateway to the city and take a long, last look back at the mountains that have held us for so long. Now they are already fading back into the distance....


Suddenly, after all that time at altitude things have changed. The humidity is total, the temperatures incredible. Winds have picked up as the land has flattened and the mountains no longer impeded air movement. It's a hot wind full of moisture and we are instantly slick from sweat. Insects and butterflies swarm in the air and giant ants crawl over everything. We take a snack break and dropped bread crumbs begin to move as they are carried away to unseen lairs. We experiment, dropping larger and larger pieces and watch amazed as teams of ants are marshalled to haul away credit card size chunks of tortilla.

The road has changed too. Gone is the 3 dimentional world of climbing twists and turns. Now there is a shimmering black ribbon of tarmac arrowing dead straight all the way to the horizon....


The skies are big again and we run in a tiny groove of civilisation cut through the ranks of dense vegetation stretching miles and miles to either side. Stage one of the ride to San Christobal is over, the mountains are defeated. Now a flat scorching run across the green, green plains and then yet another mountain range to tackle....