So good to have Tony
Guatemala mountain fog
The view from Annie's deck
Danille and Tony
Good to be in Ccentral America
Kayaking lago Atitlan
Jeremy discussing bate with a local fisherman
Nima cliff jumping
The city of D.F. has been great but we were ready to push on. I find while in the traveling mood it is hard to sit around in one place. One starts to feel restless and eager to go and explore the next destination. Thus we gathered all our stuff, loaded the van and prepared for the coast.
But first! We had one last pickup: A Mr. Tony Marzzeli. Although Jer and I weren’t very happy about this little addition to the trip we’ve decided to make the best of it. We hopped on the metro, which we now know like the back of our hands, and headed for the Topa (Bus Station) where Tony and his beautiful girlfriend Danielle had just arrived. Some time during our freshman year of college Jer and I felt bad for this poor New Hampshire boy and decided we’d be his friends. Since, we’ve taught him all about skiing, soccer, and now Latin American travel. Jeremy and I ran around the bus station and sure enough there they were, backpacks and all (sadly Tony had arrived with a fresh haircut, no curly locks).
Tony and Danielle are on a two month Central America trip of their own. They are planning on cruising south from Mexico City through to Panama City and back.
Leaving Mexico City takes what feels like a full day, and by the time we actually hit the highway it was already dark. The highway heading south to the coast and Acapulco is all on beautifully paved, expensive toll roads and one would think it would be a fairly straight forward drive. Well unlucky for me, this evening had something else in store for us. As the night dragged on Jeremy and I looked for a comfortable spot to pull over and pop the top. I spotted a faint pull out and decided to back track. I brought her to a halt, threw her in reverse and headed towards camp. “Bam,” I ram right into the corner of a highway curb and completely destroy our back tire and dent the wheel. Well wouldn’t you know it, the hit was enough to cause our electrical system to hit the proverbial fan. Basically a metal chain slid into our auxiliary battery wiring system and caused an electrical fire. Before I knew it smoke was coming out from under my seat and all around the fuse box. Lucky for us the van still started, we disconnected all the camper equipment, changed the wheel and pushed for Acapulco.
Thank God our van made the drive that night because by morning she was completely dead. The following three days of our Acapulco vacation consisted of headaches, heat, and the search for a mechanic. We found Alfredo, an older mafia looking man, with a shop filled with restored 70’s Mustangs and other beautiful cars. He took off with the van assuring us that it would be fixed later that night. We ate dinner and returned to a closed down shop. We waited and waited, pondering how grim our future would be if we never saw him again. Then about two hours later, Alfredo comes flying around the corner in the van and we jump to our feet in relief and excitement. He was kind enough to work well into the night getting everything that was burnt re-wired.
Although it was late, four days of Acapulco were more than enough and we were anxious to see the town of Puerto Escondido that we had heard so much about. What came next must have just been a good stoke of karma. We arrive late in Puerto and took the first road down to the beach in hopes of a camp spot. Right as we pull up, Tony spots a Suburban with a Utah license plate and an Alta sticker. The Driver is this Mexican dude who works for this lady named Annie; he was out dropping off guests and in all the commotion offered to take us to meet her. We followed this Suburban, the whole time trying to guess what this Annie lady was going to be like. First we figured she was a Mormon, because of the car. Then we figured, no she’s got an Alta sticker, can’t be Mormon. We pull up to this beautiful house outside of town and the driver, Marcos, asks us how we knew Annie. Well he felt pretty bad as soon as he figured out he just brought a bunch of dirty vagabonds to his boss’s house. A few minutes later Annie comes down the stairs and we explain our awkward arrival.
Well wouldn’t you know it, Annie turns out to be a long time Alta ski bum and knows every possible person in Little Cottonwood canyon. We have a great time catching up on Alta and laughing about how random it was we met her. She immediately opened up her whole house to us, we parked the van in her driveway and took a late night dip in her pool.
Puerto Escondido is the perfect size small town with a great little surf/backpacker culture. The main beach, Playa Zicatela, is lined with colorful surf shops, hotels, and restaurants. Along with Rio Nexpa, it is my favorite beach town in Mexico. Unfortunately, it was raining the whole time we where there and thus weren’t able to get any surfing in. We did meet up with a great young couple from the north east, Wes and Stephanie, and also bumped into our other road trip buddies Micah and Rachel whom we met on the ferry from Baja. We all made a great meal together and had one of those fun moments one only gets when in a foreign country having drinks with new friends. That “Where are we?” feeling.
The drive to the Guatemalan border brought another unexpected breakdown. Late in the night while driving I suddenly felt all the power die and we came to a stop in the middle of what we thought was nowhere. By chance we ended up being right between a Volkswagen dealership and a PeMex station. For the cost of six beers we towed the van into the gas station and were able to get a mechanic by sunrise. This time it was the alternator which was getting a bad connection somewhere and finally lost all power to the car. The mechanic got her running right away and felt that we were good to continue our journey.
Border crossing number two: Mexico/Guatemala, at Talsiman/Carmen. The excitement started about 40 kilometers before the border when people would drop everything and sprint to the road waving there credentials and signaling us to stop. They would demand to see our papers for the car saying they had to be stamped before we crossed the border. We very soon realized that their badges were fake and thought the whole thing was rather funny. These people try to get your papers and once you hand them over it will take a couple hundred dollars to get them back. The sketchy thing is that all through Mexico there are police in normal clothes who have road blocks set up to check people’s paper work and look for drugs, thus it is hard distinguishing who to trust. These border helpers continued to jump in front of our van all the way to the actual border (we’d slow down and then speed up, it was great fun) where we found the real border guards. At the boarder about a million people try to assist you in getting the paper work done. They’ll walk you through all the hassle and then you tip them on your way out. We were immediately swamped by fifty little Guatemalans, all waving there badges and looking for our business. Although we could get things done perfectly fine on our own these guys made in almost impossible, we could barely think with all there “Mister” this and “Mister” that. The whole crossing took about two hours, five minutes to get our passports stamped and the rest of the time to get the proper paper work and sticker for the van.
Immediately we could see the cultural change as we drove into the country. Suddenly we’ve left the flat tropical feel of Mexico and are in deep forested mountains of Guatemala. The road from the border heads straight up into the mountains. Everything changes, the climate much colder, the people all dressed in traditional outfits, and the kids all fly kites. There isn’t one power line in the towns that doesn’t have an old kite wrapped around its wires. To me it almost felt like we were driving around north-east of Cuzco, Peru. Guatemala, as we’ve come to find, is the Mecca of Toyota trucks. I am convinced that every Toyota truck in the world will some day make its way to Guatemala for the remainder of its life. Needless to say we are all drooling over them.
Our destination was to stop at the famous open market in Chichicastenango, and then drop down to Lago Atitlan. Sadly the market was nothing more than a gringo shopping festival. Tour busses filled with tourist walking up and down the clean market streets. There were a lot of cool things to buy: wooden masks, jewelry, traditional clothing, and amazing rum and raison ice cream. But it surely did not have the feel of a dirty, over crowded Latin American market, especially because no locals were shopping.
Trying to get down to Lago Atitlan was like circumnavigating a cereal bowl. The roads were narrow, mostly dirt and brought us through some off the beaten tack towns. Kids were running around with smiles, everyone would wave and direct us on in the right direction. Getting our big van down these tiny cobble stone streets can be very exciting. We found a few streets that the van just couldn’t drive up. Most people take a bus down the big town of Panajachel, and then take a boat to one of the smaller towns along the lake. We chose to drive to the far town of San Pedro. Once we made it around the lake it was time to drop in elevation to the lake. This road was a test for the van; at least fifty switch backs, back to back dropping roughly 1,200 meters in elevation. Jeremy had the van in first gear, pressure on the brake and we were still struggling to keep our speed down. We had to come up with a complete “what if our brakes give out” plan, which consisted mainly of bending over and kissing our butts goodbye.
San Pedro turns out to be just what we needed: $2 rooms, great food, and a tranquilo atmosphere. The town lies on the southern edge of the lake, surrounded by lush mountains, and three towering volcanoes. Lago Atitlan is roughly fourteen by seven kilometers and1,562 meters above sea level, plenty big. The town is made up of indigenous Mayans who speak Tz’utujil, Evangelical Christians with their numerous temples, and a multitude of tree hugging backpackers.
The plan is to stay here for a few days and engineer a plan to get the van back up the road and out of the basin. We’ll take our time driving through the country on our way towards El Salvador. Now that we are in Central America, things should get pretty exciting. I’ll be eager to see how the cultures differ from country to country, along this slender strip of land.
As always we appreciate everyone following the site and hope you all enjoy it.
Orelé,
Nima