At last... back to the Beach... Cancun

We finally reached the end of the 300kms stretch. Cancun, here we are, back in the tourist trap and busy city. So we drove north a little to find some quiet place to camp. A local told us to check out Isla Blanca, good place to camp and quiet, so we drove little north of Cancun to see what we could find. For a while nothing but hotels lined up along the coast. We then saw a sign for Isla Blanca so we drove down the dirt road and started to look for a place to camp. impossible to find since all the land next to the beach were privately owned by Mexicans or Americans with their weekend homes. Tired of looking I decided to stop at some little market store and ask if it was OK to hang our hammocks under their palapa. Lucky to find out the owner happened to be from New York and spoke english and told us we could camp by the Laguna in the back, so we drove our bikes on the dock. We never thought we would find this kind of pimp camp spot! this was a sweet one. One of the biggest challenge is to find a descent place to camp or hang our hammocks, but for some reason.... we always do end up finding what we need!

The long 300 KMs stretch from Merida to Cancun

The road was fast ... perfect highway, not much traffic, we rode along at good speed. We knew we it would be harder to find a place to camp along the 300 kms stretch of no mans land, so we tough about doing the overnight marathon... drive from Merida to Cancun, we had already been driving most of the day, but we felt good, roads were good, we had a good night sleep the night before. We were now getting further away from the ocean since we had to cross the mainland to the other side of the Yucatan. But all can never be to good... 25kms from Merida, 11pm needing some food and drink, looking forward for a break in Merida. I see Cal pull over in my rear view mirror, so I stopped. Then I hear Cal - " My CLUTCH! " cable broke. Great! What to do... fix it here by the hwy while cars drive by us at 11pm at 100miles / hr... not a good Idea. " OK, I push you, and shift on 2nd gear and go...." so we drove the 25kms to Merida. Pulled in at a gas station to fix the clutch. All I wanted now was a cold beer and fix Cal's Bike. NO BEER, they don't sell beer after 5 on sundays.. great so no beers. Greasy hands and one hour later we were ready to hit the road again. We knew Merida wasn't an option place to sleep, as it's a pretty big city, so we were back on the road...( by now we got the hang of the night driving, felt safe on the road, - only on certain roads- there is less traffic and don't have the heat of the sun beating on us) - getting late now we were getting tired. We started to scope out for a camp spot. I pull over on a dirt road, ... sweet, this is good! so we hung our hammocks. Few minutes later Cal looks under is Hammock... look!!! shit!! About a million ants are all over the place, army ants! not a good idea. It reminded me of a couple friends on mine T&T on their journey to South America, they had set their tent in the wrong spot and woke up with a nice surprise... red ants eating away the bottom of their tent!
"lets get out of here!" back on the road. I pulled in at a school yard, "looks like a good spot, safe, away from the road, and it's a school. We hung our hammocks between the school fence and a tree, happy once again to find a good spot.
Cal pulls out his sleeping bag, "F&%K!!!" ... "What" I ask - his bag had a hole from the muffler, went threw the bag and burnt a big hole in his sleeping bag. Pulls out his sleeping bag, feathers flying everywhere, smelling like a dead duck.
Another rough night for Cal. "We needed to get rid of things to make our load lighter and smaller... so thats a good start, too hot anyways for the sleeping bag!!" trying to make him feel better." Ya"... he says, "good night,.. F*%K"!!!"

The Coconut Road

After a days drive from Puebla. We were excited to get back to the coast, the smell of the ocean, beaches to sleep on and quiet roads was what we wanted after climbing Orizaba. Looking on our map, we decided on a road that followed the coast into the Yucatan. Passing threw small fishing villages, very quiet road that allowed us to drive with our FlipFlops, shorts and no helmet was paradise. The heat was intense, maybe up to 45'c degrees. We stopped at a deposito in hope to find Ice cold drinks, all other places had no electricity or Ice, so all drinks were warm. This one had cold coca cola, so we pounded cold drinks down while chatting with the owner. Looking at our bikes and gear, he seemed a little confused??? " Donde Va??" he asks... telling him we're making our way to the Paraiso were the main highway would take us into the Yucatan, then to Cancun...
My spanish is getting better everyday, but when you get in some of these villages, some locals have there own spanish - that what it seems like for us anyways... hard to understand what they say, and speaking 100 miles /hr makes it even harder.
We ask him if this way is the way, along the coast... "si si" he says, mumbling at 100miles/ hr then he makes hand signs like holding our bikes really hard. So I ask, " the road OK?" si si he says, again speaking at rocket speed.
OK, "Gracias" - off we go, all happy with drinks in our system, lets hit the road
Wasn't more then 500 meters were the road just stopped!!! the beach had washed out the entire road, it was from Hurrican Dean, had left it's mark. A foot deep in sand everywhere, so an alternative road had been built. So we drive along the coconuts that helped cars not to get stuck in deep sand, but with bikes, a total nightmare. Ok... back on the road, wow.. that was crazy, shit hope it's over. We continue on nice pavement road, but no more the 2 - 3 kms... we are back on deep sand and coconuts. Ho my god! shit how long will this be. Now we understood what the man was talking about, "hold on tight to your bars"
Cal looks at me at one point, around 15kms in... " should we turn around?" - "No Way - Not driving back this shit again... lets just hope it will get better soon " So we continued on. Blasted by the full heat of the day, we were getting drained, no water, no where to go but to keep going... Finally after over 20 kms, almost 2 hours later we reached the road, no more sand, just pavement, Smiles on our faces, but beat for the heat and drive, we were happy not to have turned around. Like we always say.. "south". Never North is the way. Unless the road is impassable, we will always go one way!
This was the hardest drive we had done, a good test, I'm sure there will be more down the unknown road.
Lucky once again to find a place to hang our hammocks, we decided we had enough for a day. I rested in my hammock while Cal was fighting all night with the mosquitos so he set up his tent to avoid the moziz, but instead, the ants found him in his tent. That night, Cal wasn't a happy camper...
Just another day on the journey!

Back to the Gulf Coast

Thank you to the Guevara Family.

We're gone now from Puebla and we already miss our new friends and family we made there. We spent a week with the Guevara family, and they made things easy for us. Victor arranged all the things we needed to make our day on Orizaba a success. We needed crampons and Victor found some for us so we didn't need to rent them. They were 200 Pesos a day which is 20 US $ and that was out of the budget for sure. As far as for the rest of our time in Puebla we relaxed and got things we needed for the road ahead of us. Vicky, Victor's Mom cooked for us every day delicious food that I already miss very much. Victor's sister's kept us busy with movies and entertainment. It was nice to stop somewhere and live with a family. Being on the road for 8 months now, makes us think more on our friends and family back home in Canada, well for me anyway. Alain is used to traveling this long so he knows how it is. I think there's a reason why things happen and this was a good example. They showed the outmost hospitality and treated us like if we were part of their family. We will be thinking of them every day we spend on this trip.

A day in High altitude, Orizaba 5747 meters Highest Volcano in North America

Ok this was honestly the hardest mountain I had ever been on in my life. It's not technical but it's at high altitude and I had never been higher than 13000 feet. Orizaba is over 18 000 feet, so a little harder for sure. Alain had been high like that before so he new what to expect. Victor's cousin Juan Pablo came with us to put some crosses on the summit he made for his mother that passed away a few years ago. It being mother's day this week end, it was good timing for him to have friends to go up with him. He was very strong on the climb and made to the summit first. Alain arrived shortly after him and I thought I was gonna die on the way up but 45 minutes later I joined them for the victory pic. I was suffering from head aches and I had a hard time breathing. I also thought I was gonna vomit at least 50 times but luckily I didn't. We had a hour break on the summit and tried to sleep a little to regain our strength for the way down. The way down was harder than I thought. It felt like it was never going to end. Around 4 pm all of us were at the hut looking back at what we had just accomplished. CAL & AL MISSION ORIZABA COMPLETE. I couldn't of been happier than that moment sitting down beside the truck. Now it's time to head back to civilization and drink some cerveza's. Corona's were on my mind. One hour later Al and I had our Victory cheers over a can of Corona. It doesn't tast the same as in a bottle but I couldn't care less.

Visiting the sites of Cholula and Puebla

After eating dinner and meeting Victor's family they invited us to stay with them for the night and also with them in Puebla. The next morning we followed them to the city and established our base camp at their home. They showed the outmost hospitality towards us and made us feel like family. We took a few days to settle in and Victor gave us a tour of the town and helped us find certain things we needed for the bike. He also brought us to Cholula which is a neighboring city. Cholula is a place where in pre Hispanic times priests gathered from all the city's around and performed all kinds of rituals. A lot of Pyramids were built and human sacrifices were held there. Every 52 years the people would cover the Pyramids with dirt to hide them and prepare for what they thought was the new age coming. After the Spanish came to establish them selves, since the early 1500 's they built over 360 different churches to change the old ways of thinking. To symbolize the era changing they built a beautiful church on top of the biggest Pyramid. It's a beautiful place to visit and a must see if being in the area. While we were there we saw some local kids doing some break dancing. They were the best break dancer's we had ever seen.

Right place at the Right Time...

After spending a nice relaxing day at the restaurant, we decided to hit the road the next morning and make our way further down the coast. It wasn't too long after leaving we saw a coffee shop that said Real Italian Coffee shop, with internet. Al looks at me " want to stop and check a few emails before we go any further? " I looked at him and said sure why not, internet with a real cappucino sounds good to me. It had been a while since we had a good coffee with internet. We spent over 2 hours in the nice cooled air condition coffee shop before I started to crave a smoke so bad I had to go buy one at the Pemex. When I was walking back to the coffee shop, I noticed someone was checking out our bikes. I stopped and made conversation with the guy. Told him about our vision to travel the world on these bikes and climb along the way. He asked me what our next goal was and I told him we were headed to Puebla to climb Pico de Orizaba. He looked at me and said" well you know I'm actually a guide for Orizaba so if you need any information I would be glad to sit down over a coffee and answer any questions for you. I thought to myself this is too good to be true because we had more than a few questions and now we had someone to answer them all. We headed inside and sat down with Alain who was on google Earth at the time and started chatting. After about half an hour Victor, the gentlemen we just met invited us to have dinner with him and his family at their cottage down the road on the beach.

Costa Esmeralda (Gulf Coast)

The smell of the ocean, palm trees, haaaaaa... didn't take long for Cal to park his bike and jump in! what an amazing feeling the ocean can be after a long hot mountain drive. Driving along the coast was a good feeling, passing by a sign, HAMBURGUESA, english spoken, mmm I stopped, "hey Cal... hungry!" What a question... Cal is always hungry, so we turned around and went for the burgers, chatted with the restaurant owner that came from new York, telling him what we were up too. He invited us to camp next to his restaurant if we wanted too. But instead we decided on driving a little more to find a spot on the beach, so off we go...
20kms later, stuck in traffic at a toll bridge, Cal says, " screw this traffic, lets go back and camp there, rest " ya sounds good so we turned around and basecamp at the restaurant and had our first real Italian pizza, relaxed in hammocks with a cold beer and listen to some of his life stories.

Xilitla to Gulf Coast

It must of been up there in the 40's as we left Xilitla, the waterfall swim was refreshing before hitting the road, excited to continue on south, we decided on a new route, first plan was to drive straight south, but after the intense heat of the inland from the last week, Cal said...." we should go to coast, let's hit the beach!" mmmm, good Idea, lets drive East then fallow the coast south and make our way to Orizaba (we plan to climb the highest point in Mexico) So off we go, back down the same 15 km road we drove up the night before, beautiful lush green mountains, windy roads, bikers dream....
8 hours later, bikers dream became bikers nightmare, 200 + km's later, and over 500 Topez (speed bumps) threw narrow high mountain passes, sometimes heat up to 45 c!!! we were really looking forward to the beach. Passing small towns, Pemex gas stations didn't come to often, at on point pushing our distance to where to tough we would for sure run out of gas... we've been going for 100 kms... next Pemex 70 kms!! shit.. passing threw a small town, next thing you know, see a sign on a tree.... GASOLINE VENTA !!! ouff, saved! Filled up the bikes. 70 kms, not bad... should take us maybe 1 1/2hrs but no... more like 3hours with the last 20kms of dirts road, pot holes and Topez every 1 km, it was the longest 20kms ever. Beers were good after this one!

Xilitla - Posa Edward James

It was a long drive to get to Xilitla, leave Guadalcazar on back roads, many speed bumps ( Topez) dirt roads, small towns.
we finally made it to Cuidad Valle. The sun was setting, so we were getting nervous on where to sleep. Being a big city, sleeping somewhere Cuidad Valle was out of the question, we stopped for some Tacos and decided to push it to Xilitla ( 80kms) Breaking our rule of no night driving for the second time... but all went well, traffic wasn't too crazy. Finally ... Xilital.. 15kms! Yes we'll make it. Up we go on a windy mountain road. Got to Xilitla, with luck a man told us... up up!! pointing at the road ???? Castillo??? I ask, "si - si" he says, "acampar alla"?? I ask ( can we camp there) "si - si" he says, Ok Yes for everything... must be good, lets go...
We are tired, needing a place to sleep, been driving for 10 hours. We finally see the Castillo, ( this is what we came to see) a famous castle that was built by Edward James, he also founded Xilitla, and started to crated his own " Garden of Eden " between 1949 and 1984.
Once we saw where the castle was... the question was .. where do we sleep? here we are driving up and down the road, thinking of options like sleeping on the side of the road... also out of the question, especially when a bunch of guys are drinking beers outside the castle .... ,mmmm bad Idea, but the guys offered us a beer, so hey, why not? starting talking, then ask where we could camp? turn out a campground was right in front of us, across the road! Haaa... you don't ask you don't get.
Stress over, we set up camp, loud drums playing all night, it was a mexican long weekend, great! But we had a safe place for our tents and happy not to be on the side of the road. next day... we visited, La Posa Edward James, and enjoyed a soak in some wonderful waterfalls to cool off before the next push to the coast...

Voladores de Papantla - El Tajin

Passing threw Papantla, we were told to visit El Tajin not far off the road, 15 kms... so we made a little detour.
El Tajin meaning " Thunder or Hurricane "some beautiful Pyramids are located here, but unfortunately we didn't visit, too
much gear on the bikes and a high fee to visit, we decided to pass, since we are going to see more Ruins in the Yucatan soon.
But we did show up in time to see the traditional dance. One guy stands on top of the 100 foot pole and plays a traditional instrument while 4 other guys spin around and get lower to the ground tied by a rope around their waist. Talk about a head rush!!

Along the road...

This cave was pretty cool to find, in the middle of nowhere, climbers told us about this place, some climbs are found from 5.12's to 13's... but we didn't climb, camped here for the night, did some yoga the next morning, and hit the road to Xilitla...