MAYA-HO DOS!
To Central America, 2005

a Journey Across Mexico and Beyond;
or, Driving Through Central America
With the CHECK ENGINE Light On
by Ric Carter

Phase Zero
We try to get ready for this journey.
WHAT-HO:

Monday 7 Feb 2005. We're about to embark on a rather longish driving tour from Arizona across Mexico and into Central America and back, thense to California. The basic parameters of the journey are:

  • * After staying in Bisbee (far-southern Arizona) for some months, we'll depart expectantly southward in mid-February 2005.
  • * Our next appointment is near Sacramento, California in mid-July 2005. We'll likely return to Bisbee in early July, rest up, then proceed.
  • * In between are many kilometers and experiences. The trip may be cut short if money or health problems bite our ass(es).
  • * Unlike previous road trips, we're taking the 1996 Ford Explorer 4x4 SUV rather than the 24-foot RV, which is too big for our goals.
  • * We expect the HOT season in the Maya lowlands to commense around the end of March, just after Semana Santa (Easter Week).
  • * We plan to dash (HA!) via Chihuahua-Torreón-Monterrey to Tampico, and rather slowly tour through Veracruz, Yucatan and Petén before it becomes THE GREEN HELL.
  • * We may lay around in hammocks in cabañas on Gulf or Caribbean beaches, staring at the waves and dreaming about whatever...
  • * Must-see historic sites include Uxmal, Chichen Itza, Tulum, Palenque (Yucatan, Mexico), Tikal (Petén, Guatemala) and Copán (Honduras).
  • * As road conditions allow, we may cut through Belize to get from Yucatan to Tikal in Petén -- or we might have to go the long way around. Hmmm...
  • * As time and money allow, we'll see about going through Guatemala-Honduras-El Salvador-Nicaragua-Costa Rica -- hey, we gotta dream!
  • * Somewhen around late May we'll slowly head northward through the western Mexican highlands, via San Cristóbal, Oaxaca, Taxco, Morélia, San Miguel de Allende, Zacatecas.
  • * Again if time and money allow, we'll head up the Sea of Cortez via Durango-Mazatlán-Los Mochis-Hermasillo and back to Bisbee. But probably not this time.

HERE-NOW:

The end of the first week of February, 2005. We did three parties this week, more than in the entire last year -- just as we're about to leave Bisbee, we finally get into the social whirl! I sure hope they remember us when we return.

Three days ago we drove to Tucson for our international vaccinations, and to take sister Marsha out for a birthday lunch, and to do some near-final shopping. A pleasant but cold day, and we returned to Bisbee in snow. We have GOT to stop acclimating to this weather! I mean, we'll be in the TROPICS in a few days.

These last few months in Bisbee have been mostly fun, but also a bit tedious because we've trod the same roads many times now and we're ready for change. Still, there are worse places to be trapped whilst paperwork flies around the country.

We're awaiting some final documents in the mail -- arriving maybe today? If so, we plan to leave in a week. Lots of little matters to attend to, divided between 1) packing just the right amount of stuff, and 2) getting the house ready for short-term rentals in our absence. Thus I must complete the TOLAND ADOBE website.

We've naturally been poring over towering stacks of guidebooks and maps, straining our eyes at small computer screens (we're taking both sub-laptops along), compiling lists of destinations and distances, of stuff to take, yada-yada. How much fresh water and granola and motor oil should we pack? Is the insurance adequate? Where should we get new tires? Will we collect parrots as we travel? Take a guitar or just the mandolin? So many details...

We're buoyed with anticipation. This will be by far our longest road trip, and the first that doesn't involve camp(er)ing. (Maureen has navigated Irish and Swiss roads with her sister, but those budgets were greater -- we're doing this on a thick shoestring.) This will be our longest venture outside the First World. (Nova Scotia and Kaua'i, Hawai'i weren't too awful primitive, eh?)

We're anticipating many different peoples, and foods, and climates. (Our first tropical summer -- hmmm...) We expect at times to rent a place for a week or two or three, and dig in and gain the feel of a different locale, immersed in language, culture, cuisine. We expect to stomp all over strange places. And of course we expect to acqire piles of handcrafts with which to festoon decorate our walls and niches.


AND LATER:

Evening of the same day. Much has happened. The anticipated paperwork indeed arrived (and this was not a foregone conclusion, as various other items involving this agency had gone missing in the mails). We're still not certain about auto insurance for Central America, but we've nailed down a good rate for Mexico. We've determined that we DON'T need new tires yet (whew). And we've extended our required return date by a month, giving us a full SIX MONTHS to explore! Unless we go broke first...

Our plans beyond Mexico are still sketchy. In Belize are the Lamanai ruins and Caye Caulker. In Honduras, the Ruinas Copán, the mountain town of Gracias, and the Bay Islands. In El Salvador, the mountain towns of Suchitoto and Juayúa and La Palma. In Nicaragua, the gothic towns of León and Granada, and the El Castillo riparian experience (climate permitting). In Costa Rica, ?quien sabe? We need to do much more research, preferably whilst lazing indolently in spacious hammocks.

We'll figure it all out, eventually.



GREETINGS FROM BISBEE, AZ:

Monday 15 Feb 2005. This is another day-before-we-leave update. Yup, the current fantasy this Tuesday morning is that we'll wake up tomorrow, throw the last few things into the car, and head for the border. OK, so today we must pack, and throw out perishibles, and buy insurance, and tend to various crap. Tomorrow it's a roll to Douglas-Agua Prieta, do the border paperwork (tourist cards, auto permit, US customs registration, etc) and thense to the adventure.

Our initial goal is Nuevo Casas Grandes and its ruinas, just a couple hours away. Ah yes, we've learnt through bitter experience to KEEP THE FIRST DAY'S DRIVE SHORT.

Our primary goal is to see as much as possible of the Yucatan before it gets too hot. Thus we want to traverse Mexico quickly -- but not TOO quickly. So we'll take secondary highways down the Sierra Madre Occidental to Chihuahua, Parral and Lerdo-Torreon, then the main highways to Moneterrey andd Ciudad Victoria and Tampico on the Gulf coast in Veracruz state. According to the guidebooks, the ruinas buenas start around there.

Our secondary goal is to spend as long as possible down south, stretching our money the furthest. To further that end, we have a strategy: go slow. Time is money. Driving is expensive. When reaching a likely spot, stop and stay awhile. Rent someplace cheap. Mingle.

And another strategy: volunteer. We learnt in Guatemala that there exist various projects that can use international volunteers for interesting tasks, offering room and board. One example was a macadamia plantation near Antigua. The project taught farmers the how-to's of organic macadamia cultivation, gave them their own trees, and functioned as a co-op to buy and market their products. And the project welcomed internationals -- volunteers our age could work as docents, guiding visitors (and potential contributors) thru the project's domain. I don't know if we'd be exactly there, but something like that could be just right for us.

Back to the immediate future -- we read that it's suicidally dangerous to drive at night in Mexico. That means finding accommodations before dusk as we speed to Tampico. That probably means long nights in said accommodations. So I'll probably have time over the next week or so to hit my keyboard and make some major fixes to my web pages, make them more viewable on a variety of browsers. It's either that, or spend the evenings chasing scorpions or something, eh?

Anyone interested in reviewing our brief notes on the last few days' preparations etc for this trip can go to the last journal page and scroll down to February. As if you really care...

And a techinical note: these entries are written or dictated, then hand-keyboarded, then uploaded to BlogSpot which transmits to YahooGroups which send out emails. Somewhere in there, special characters get munged. So I'll leave out the accent graves, enyays, umlauts, and all other correct spellings. Damn software gringoizes the text...

That's about all for now. I'll break down and pack up our computers today, so the next you hear from us may be in a few days, I can't make any promises as to just when. Stay tuned for the usual voluminous journal notes, liberally salted with typos and errors and lies creative writing, as well as vacuous opinions and snide remarks. Me Mum said that our Guatemala journal ranged from exciting to tedious, which is kinda how the days went too. Expect more of the same, and lots of it. Ta ta.



GUIDEBOOKS:

  • * LET'S GO: MEXICO, ed. by Anthony Gabriele, et al (St Martin's Press, 2004)
  • * The PEOPLE'S GUIDE To MEXICO, by Carl Franz (John Muir Pub's, 1995)
  • * The GREEN GUIDE: MEXICO, GUATEMALA and BELIZE (Michelin, 2001)
  • * AAA MEXICO TOURBOOK (AAA Publishing, 2004)
  • * MEXICO: A TRAVEL SURVIVAL KIT, by Doug Richmond (Lonely Planet, 1985)
  • * HIDDEN CANCUN & The YUCATAN, by Richard Harris (Ulysses Press, 2004)
  • * CENTRAL AMERICA On a SHOESTRING, by Robert Reid, et al (Lonely Planet, 2004)
  • * LET'S GO: CENTRAL AMERICA, ed. by M.S. Zoninsein, et al (St Martin's Press, 2005)
  • * LONELY PLANET: GUATEMALA, by Connor Gorry (Lonely Planet, 2001)
  • * The ROUGH GUIDE To GUATEMALA, by Iain Stewart (Rough Guides, 2002)
  • * GUATEMALA: A NATURAL DESTINATION, by Richard Mahler (John Muir Pub's, 1995)
  • * ANTIGUA GUATEMALA: The CITY And Its HERITAGE, by Elizabeth Bell (Antigua Tours, 2002)

    • SOME MAPS:

  • * GUIA ROJI POR LAS CARRETERAS DE MEXICO (road atlas, 2004) (Guia Roji)
  • * GUATEMALA (1:500,000, 2001) and CENTRAL AMERICA (1:1,100,000, 2002) (International Traveler Maps)
  • * GUATEMALA: MAYA SPIRIT (tourist map, 2002) (Maya Spirit)
  • * LAND OF THE MAYA: A Traveler's Map (1989) (National Geographic)
  • * MEXICO and BAJA CALIFORNIA and CARIBBEAN, CENTRAL & SOUTH AMERICA (road maps, 2004) (AAA)




    • ON TOURISTS:

    "It is a fine thing to be out on the hills alone. A man can hardly be a beast or a fool alone on a great mountain."  —Rev Francis Kilvert

    "There I stood & humbly scanned
    The miracle that sense appals,
    And I watched the tourists stand
    Spitting in Niagara Falls"
     —Morris Bishop
    "Travel is atavistic, the day will come when there will be no more traffic at all and only newlyweds will travel."  —Max Frisch
    "Of all noxious animals, too, the most noxious is a tourist. And of all tourists the most vulgar, ill-bred, offensive and loathsome is the British tourist."  —Rev Francis Kilvert
    "The British tourist is always happy abroad so long as the natives are waiters."
     —Robert Morley



    ON RESEARCH:

    Prior to our earlier (2002) Guate­mala trip, I did huge amounts of online research, and posted links to many of our findings. For this trip, most of our research is offline, in the books listed above; and I just didn't bother to spend the time needed to compile more and more links that few will likely use. Call me lazy. Call me a dupe. Call me any­thing, just don't call me late for dinner. Ha. Ha. Ha. But I digress.

    Until the wireless web is ubiqui­tous, going on these long trips neces­sarily means that my usual online goofing research plummets to near zero, as does updating of my websites. Too bad. SkeptiLog and EatIt! and RRSB will all suffer, even more than usual. And on our return, I'll likely be busy working on pictures for many weeks. So don't expect much from me, and you won't be disappointed.

    And I won't be able to keep up with the details of world, national and local news. Gosh, I'll have to observe local reality with my own eyes, rather than consume all the reports that speed thru the ether like data-wasps. I'll have to read the history books in a few years to figure out what was important.

    These pages were composed using CuteHTML 2.3 under Windows ME on a 800x600 laptop screen for rendering by Internet Explorer 6 using small characters. Viewing with other browsers, settings or screen sizes may be less than optimal. Too bad, sucker.


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