BIG MAN ON CAMPUS

10-13-06

The heavy rains woke us up early in Pichucalo not surprisingly considering the hotel was made of tin. Jay’s troubles continued, his bike would not start again, even after changing his plug out it wouldn’t start, I thought he might have some moisture in his tank or carburetor so I bought some starter fluid and gas stabilizer, not an easy task when all the labels are in Spanish, very few if any people speak English in the smaller towns. After putting the stabilizer or what I hoped it was stabilizer, we got a nice big flame shooting out of Jay’s bike after a few good shots of starter fluid and his bike came roaring back to life. We put the small fire out that was still burning in his air box and we hit the road. The road to San Cristobal was amazing.
The road twisted through the mountain jungle like a python strangling its prey. It almost seemed like a video game the road twisted climbed and descended its way up and down the mountains. The thick jungle came right up the roadside and in many places canopied the road, vines and branches literally reached out from the dark jungle taunting and teasing you. In many places the jungle was so thick it became dark as night in the middle of the day. The heavy rains from the previous night had done some damage, parts of the road were completely washed away, mudslides and running water covered sections of the road. Several of the bridges were damaged or partly gone. It was one of the most gripping sections of road I’ve ever been on. The ride climaxed with an incredible accent up to San Cristobal. We had now been driving for about three tedious hours when we were consumed by a thick fog right out of a Steven King novel. Visibility was at about 10 feet and we were still trying to negotiate the twisting road that clung to the sides of the mountain with sheer drop offs of hundreds of feet around each corner. We finally started our decent into the city when I realized we were not in fog but actually driving through the clouds.


"the fog"

The Hotel Media Luna is a block of the zocala (remember the town square) in San Cristobal and I couldn’t have been happier to get of my bike and check in, I was done riding for the day and was ready for a beer or two. Lucia the lady who runs the hotel let us park our bikes in the open air atrium in the hotel so we could keep them off the street. As we unpacked our bikes and did some inspection Jay, noticed his sprockets and chain had some issues, they were not lining up, the chain was getting caught up in his back sprocket and the sprocket teeth were worn in sections, we both knew they would have to be replaced. San Cristobal is an extremely remote mountain town in southern Chiapas. Getting parts for his bike was going to be extremely difficult. After a day of running around the city, hours on the internet and frustrating long distance phone calls Jay finally found a company in Washington state that would ship him the parts here to our hotel, so San Cristobal is our new home until the parts get here in about a week. I couldn’t think of a nicer place to be stuck in. It is like a Mexican Boulder (or Northampton for my east coast readers) It is a college town that has a very liberal outlook, the town is mélange of international backpackers and tourists, university students, indigenousness Mayan people, local merchants and broke down motorcyclists. The town has a history of mistrust of the government and contempt of the church both of which have long persecuted the local people, it is a cradle of revolution, sounds like a good place to spend a week. In 1994 the city made word headlines as the Zapatista rebels took control over the city in an armed rebellion against the Mexican government. The locals are very proud of their independence and support of the Zapatista movement. The state of Chiapas is respectful of their land as well as its indigenous Mayan population. It’s a city where the stone age intertwines with the modern world it is a city of magic and wonder.

Since we were to be stuck in the city I figured I would make the best of it, I enrolled at the Universidad de San Cristobal for Spanish classes. I feel like Rodney Dangerfield in the movie Back to School. I am learning a lot but it sure is a confusing language. So here I wait in this beautiful city, we’ve been here for four days. I am enjoying the time of the bike but am starting to get the itch to move on to other adventures. We’ll I got to go I got some homework to do, or as I call it trabajo por casa.

The school has some pretty hot co-eds