The Pacific 200, crossing the Isthmus and heading to the Yucatan peninsula …

I finally left Autlan, allowing myself 12 days to travel 3000km’s to Cancun airport in the Mexican south east where I’ll be meeting Jenn to chill out along the Caribbean sea for a couple of weeks.

 

 

 

 

The first portion was to reach El Pacifico and travel along its coast on Highway 200 for 1,200km’s as far as the renowned surfing hotspot of Puerto Escondido. The winding stretch took me three days, crossed four tropical regions and lived up to all my expectations. It was three days of endless river crossings, mountain bends through the untouched forest high up on the edge of cliffs by the ocean and along its shores at sea level. The heat became intense the further south I went, there were thousands of crabs crossing the tarmac careful to avoid and little traffic to battle with. I checked out many beaches off the highway, stopping at La Ticla one night where time stood still, convinced a restaurateur to allow me to set up camp on his foreshore another night outside of Acapulco and took the long sandy road to the laguna of Chacahua for another. One morning I was on the road shortly after dawn but was quickly stopped around a mountain bend with flashing lights ahead and waited while a young man was pulled from his bloody car in a ditch, a chilling reminder of the hundreds of crosses planted along Mexican roads signifying a fatal accident. I stopped helplessly to chat to the stranded nurses whose car had overheated. I had ridden little over the past month so it felt like a fresh start and was happy to be back making small talk with children and men by the roadside or in their restaurants. The familiar questions came back: Where are you from? You rode from Australia on your moto? What size is the engine? Where you heading? How much does your bike cost? If you're heading this way, you must go here ..... 

 

 

The coast remains undeveloped and raw due to indigenous protected areas with little more that straw huts and portable food stalls for much of the journey. The area feels very peaceful and comfortable to ride through however throughout Michoacan and Guerrero I pass many more military and police checkpoints than other parts of Mexico which reminds me of what is happening here behind the scenes. I usually get waved through or queried on where I'm heading to or a quick check of my bags. These regions are notorious for the narcotic trade with increased violence and drug manufacture within the secluded mountains of late. Some towns in the area have created their own vigilante groups to protect against the cartels. Days after I ride through I read about a highway roadblock and shootout between rival gangs and the police which costs 22 lives. The story is a surprise and feels so isolated from my experiences.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Roadblock on the sandy roads off the highway 

 

On arriving at Puerto Escondido I plan to take a surfing lesson or two and meet a couple from Melbourne with the same intention so we book in a group lesson for the following morning at one of the more placid beaches and enjoy a fun morning chasing waves. Later on I have to look twice but cross paths with Chris, an old colleague outside an internet shop, having no idea he had resigned shortly after me and is now following the Pacific coast with his surfboards. We go for beers and tacos which I think keeps me bedridden for a further couple days and puts a setback in my tight riding schedule for the next week. Once recovered I spent the next few days covering arduous terrain crossing the Isthmus through the Oaxaca and Veracruz mountains, sitting behind trucks, stopping for hearty meals and a chat at isolated mountain restaurants and taking rests at lookouts over the valleys. It’s a welcome rest from the heat and mosquitos. I find a nice bar and nice company in Oaxaca City to try some Mezcal and wander through the city chocolate cafes, a modern art gallery and catch the opening night of the annual fiesta parading the costumes, music and customs of the various quarters of the city in the lively main square.

 

 

 

 

The past couple of weeks has forced me to address a few minor issues with the bike. Sixto has passed his 17,000km mark and non-mechanical adjustments were needed to keep him in the right shape. It’s easy enough here to find a roadside mechanic to help out with immediate service for less than $5, once to change the springs on my centre stand and straighten an element and a second for a new bolt for my foot rest which had snapped. The speed bumps will not be missed when I leave Mexico. 

 

 

 

 

 

I pulled in to Eduardo’s autoparts store to get some advice on fixing my saddlebag problem and he was happy to help out in the carpark, spending close to an hour replacing some straps and bolts and chatting about my time in Mexico and his time living in Illinois. He refused to take any money, pointing out the custom here is to offer genuine assistance to someone passing through especially a foreigner.

 

 

 

 

I ride on and make a two day stop at Palenque, to camp in the rainforest and visit some prominent Mayan ruins. I spent a long evening with an interesting mix of travelers and Mexicans. Visiting ruins in the stifling heat after a long day of riding, camping and a hangover proves difficult. The jungle ruins of Palenque are full of temples and an astronomy observatory, were progressive in art and architecture, established in the 3rd century, flourished in the 7th century and were invaded in the 10th century.    

 

 

 

 

 

 

My final stretch was to then cross the Yucatan peninsula to the Caribbean city of Cancun. I enjoy the easy modern highways with relatively cheap tolls, making stops in unimpressive industrial towns. At a gas station one afternoon I’m greeted by Caleb, filling up his Kawasaki 1500. We stopped for a water and chat. He fits the bill of a middle aged biker with emblems of different bikie groups sewed on to his vest and is the local leader of the national Manosos riders group. Caleb was on a long ride home to Morelia from his two week shift as an air traffic controller. He’s a very warm guy and offers me a place to stay for the night, I take him up on his offer as I was heading in that direction and we ride together for a couple of hundred kilometres and enjoy having a riding companion and learning a few signals. We’re stopped at a police checkpoint and my bags are searched more thoroughly than ever before, then continue on to Caleb’s place to drop off our luggage. I spend a memorable night cruising through the colonial boulevards, enjoying the best steak I’ve had on the road, a coffee and dessert stop and a beer at a local bikers bar with a bunch of Caleb’s very friendly Harley riding mates.  After a big breakfast and advice on new tyres which I want before heading into Central America, I farewell Caleb and ride on to Playa Del Carmen to find a hotel just in time for Jenn’s arrival.

 

 

 

El rancho 'La Primavera'

I decided to leave the tilapias after a few weeks but was enjoying the lifestyle and surroundings so I spent a further couple of weeks at an organic farm along the same road. I met Leonardo a week earlier and he was happy to have me spend some time at his ranch. The ranch belonged to an upper class Mexican family from the nearby city who have owned the land for many generations. It started out as a tomato plantation until it no longer became viable to grow tomatoes when ketchup began production in Mexico, driving down the price of tomatoes and has since been used to cultivate the more reliable sugar cane and keep farm animals. The popular restaurant was set up a couple of years ago and Leo, a trained chef manages it along with his mother serving upmarket modern Mexican fare. The future ambitions is for the land to produce all the ingredients for the restaurant, much like the agriturismi found scattered throughout the Italian countryside. Currently ducks, chickens and turkeys are used in the restaurant along with eggs, herbs and some vegetables. I spent some quality time here and gained a valuable insight into the Mexican way, how manana will always be manana and that ideas will always be simpler than aiming to manage a process from start to finish. I also appreciated spending time with Leo and Maria and learnt from their motivation to be organic, more self-sufficient and their attempts to live and work as sustainably as possible.         

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

The land here is quite rich and the ranch has many people working on it, equipped with a house, function area for hire, pool, barn and acres of sugar cane.  I got involved with feeding the animals, general grounds maintenance, starting a greenhouse, cleaning the barn and building a new area for the animals before finishing some afternoons in the non-chlorinated pool or relaxing in the high treehouse with views across valley.

  

Being a carnivore my entire life and being detached from the life cycle of my meat plate, a valued experience was being asked to find a healthy looking turkey to be prepared for a private function that evening. With Carlos' help I managed to catch the lucky turkey, calm it down and hold it tight as it's body slowly came to rest once killed, then plucked and cleaned it and passed on to the ladies in the kitchen. It was later served in fried tacos with mole sauce.

Patti, Leo and Maria with warm and welcoming Mexican hospitality. Both my farming experiences have been very worthwhile, to take a break from the road, to relate more to the earth and what it provides us, to get to know a local family, to see how a business operates in Mexico, the work ethic, finding peace in manual labour and eating healthy.

 

  

 

 

Jenny, Nate and Abbey arrived at the farm on summer uni breaks who were enjoyable company and easy to get along with. Nate, an impressive guitarist kept us entertained when chilling out.

 

 

 

 

 

We spent a couple of rest days camping, swimming and cliff jumping at a hard to find secluded waterfall a few hours away nestled away in the mountains.

Time at an aquaculture farm

I wrote to Jose` a couple of weeks ago through an organic farming network in the hope to spend some time living and working on his tilapia farm. I finally heard from him when in Mexico City and I was still keen so I spent two days riding north west, partly in the direction I came from and finally arrived at El Mentidero, a small village a couple of hours from the Pacific in the region of Jalisco. I’ve been here about a week and a half, enjoying it for the most part once I get over my first world irritations. It's nice to get back to using a pick and shovel and sweating it out in the humid mornings. I hope to stay for a little while longer. 

It took some time to forge relationships with the motley crew of people working here, they speak quite fast and shorten their words a lot more than I’ve been used to but I’ve slowly caught up to understanding their speech and way of working. The farm contains seventeen in ground and above ground tanks, some outdoors and some enclosed with a shadecloth. The farm grows two types of tilapia fish to around 250-330g, selling them live or cleaned or offering them fried, grilled or roasted through the restaurant at the roadside. The tilapia is a common freshwater fish, originally from Africa and is as intensely farmed globally as salmon and trout.       

I’m staying in the ant and mosquito infested cabaña above the restaurant and confined to the farm most of the time until I get cabin fever and wander off to the village to fetch a couple of beers and a packet of corn chips. I offer my labour and in return am given a bed, a few meals, endless mangoes and an opportunity to learn how a fish farm operates. I’ve got myself involved in most aspects of the day to day management of the fish tanks and general upkeep of the farm. There’s seven of us here most of the time and we share in the daily tasks. Dores and Lillia run the restaurant, the fish sales and cook all the meals. They vary from fish soup, fried fish, chicken soup, beef & vegetables or rice, beans and egg dishes. 

Two of Dores’ children live on the farm, two year old Yolei who is much of the life of the farm, always running getting her hands dirty, torturing the kitten by day and chasing the frogs by night and Machete Miguel who loves blaring pop music very loud. 

Mario is Jose’s right hand man who manages the tanks and is a wealth of knowledge on fish and Mexico for me and Guillermo is a jolly old man who works the mornings and wanders around doing odd jobs, fixing tools and cracking jokes. 

The fish need to be fed three times daily, at 12pm, 2pm and 4pm. We need to keep a close eye on how hungary they appear so as not to over feed them. When the sun is glaring or during or after heavy rain, they tend to eat less or not at all.  The fish tanks need to be partly purged twice daily to clean them out and to compensate, clean water constantly trickles in to the tanks. You’d be surprised how much a fish shits and how intense the water colour can get when drained. There’s no taps or valves to release water, just a simple upright pipe high enough to withstand the water pressure that needs to be lifted to release sewerage then connected back. The first few times were not easy to do this without getting myself sprayed and covered in green slime. 

We also choose a different tank everyday to cast a net and measure the weight of the fish and Mario monitors their progress. Once they are large enough, they’re moved to the tanks by the restaurant so people can choose or catch by net their purchase or meal. The fish are sold at 50 pesos/kg live ($4.50/kg), the equivalent for a meal of two fish cooked either way with a side of tortillas and salsa and slightly more if knocked to the head, scaled with a set of rusted nails on a wooden block and gutted to take away. That’s the general cycle of the business. 

Young families tend to come through on their way home for lunch or at dusk after working the fields for their meal at home. Wealthier groups of friends tend to dine in over a few Coronas. To keep myself occupied, there’s always plants to be planted, leaves to be racked, garden beds to be fixed, trenches to be dug. I spent a day with Guillermo and Mario damming the canal nearby with a heap of soil filled bags to allow more water to flow to the farm. No big deal, all the passers by just glanced and turned the other way. Today we dug out some piers by hand and will be welding recycled steel together over the next few days to form a new structure. In spare time I read or go mango picking with Miguel who swings through the branches whilst I catch the mangoes that fall down, or let Yolei amuse me.