Mazunte (cont'd),, Puerto Escondido, and Palenque

Well, holy crap.

We owe a collective, huge debt to the friendly folk of Mexico for getting us out of yet another car-related mishap.  When last I updated you all, we were stranded in a nice little beach town called Mazunte with a broken car that had leaked all its transmission oil out.  (Now, as for how this happened.....I'm pleading the 5th).  It took about a day and a half, but our nice-ish car was replaced by a sad sack of a beater called a Chevrolet Chevy.  Not kidding.  It is pretty much the equivalent of a modern day Ford Pinto, but it was running and we were stranded so we were in no spot to be both begging and choosing.  Into the Chevy we piled and made our way an hour or so down the windy coastal highway to the surf town of Puerto Escondido.  There we pretty much parked the car and left it and did all our traveling by way of foot and taxi.  ´Twas a good call, as we'd find out soon enough.

Puerto Escondido is a bustling surf town, it would seem, during the winter months for some surf competitions and such.  It was, however, relatively slow and light on tourists during our stay.  Our first night there, we checked out the Zicatela locale, known for gnarly waves and hopping nightlife.  We had some beers at an awesome little joint called The Spot (I mean, how can you not go into THE Spot?).  What started as an innocent venture ended up awash in beer and tequila and conversation with a random Australian surfer we met.  We merrily made our way back to our hotel (Hotel Mayflower, in case you're ever in the region....it's awesome and cheap, about $30 per night for a very nice room) and passed out.

Remember, fair readers, that every single time I mention 'our' adventures with drinking, I mean 'my' (Chris') adventures with drinking.  I think that Leann has imbibed about two drinks the whole trip so far.

The next morning was decidedly rough and a nice trip for some coffee, breakfast, and serious beach time was in order.  We'd already found a cool little restaurant called Danny's, so we grabbed some grub and coffee and then headed off to Carizalillo beach.  This beach is one of the most amazing places I´ve ever been in my life.  It's a little swath of beach surrounded by cliffs on both sides and is only about 200 yards long.  Tiny little open-air restaurant slash bars dot the back end of the beach.  The beach is only accessible via some 170-odd stairs heading down.....a nice haul back up, to be sure.  After a nice stint at the beach, some good sun, and some cool waves we headed back to the main area of Puerto Escondido to grab some pizza (meh) and have an early night (yay!).

The next day was spent nearly entirely on the same Carizalillo beach.  Nikolai and Adrian, our traveling partners, were equally impressed.  We essentially rotated between grabbing sun on the beach, getting overheated, then cooling off in the cool and easy ocean.  What an excellent day of vacation-style relaxation.

 The wonderful, amazing, hidden beach of Carizalillo, one of Puerto Escondido's finest treasures.

The next morning we decided to roll out pretty early, as we had a long day of driving ahead of us.  Our next destination was the town of Tuxtla in the state of Chiapas (probably most famously known by Americans as the home of the Zapatista revolutionaries).  It was to be about a 9 or 10 hour drive and we hoped to get in while we still had light.

So off we went in our little POS car, full of hope and excitement for the day ahead.  I was the first driver and noticed a little jingling noise coming from underneath said POS.  First chance we got, I pulled over and checked it out.  It was an array of wires dangling loose under the car.  Uh, ok.  We kind of stuffed the wires back in the car and headed out again.  I drove for maybe 3 or 4 hours and we decided to grab food and switch drivers.  After some decent roadside tacos, we were back underway.  Another couple hours went by with little fanfare other than  yet another undetermined noise.  Driver switch part deux occurred just a couple hours later and the noise became more prominent.  It sounded like maybe a CV joint issue, as it mostly happened around turns.  We were now in no man's land, figuratively, as the only civilization around were extremely tiny mountain towns (pueblos) with only a hundred townspeople and few, if any, amenities other than food and drink.

The noise got worse.  And worse.  And worse.  We finally pulled over to check the situation out and noticed smoke coming from inside one of the wheels.  Not good at all.  We were decidedly in the middle of BFE at this point and didn't really have any options.  We waited for a while for the wheel to cool off, thinking maybe we had some sort of brake issue or something.  Now, I'm no mechanic but I know pretty damn well that smoke eminating from tires is a very bad sign on sketchy mountain roads.  What else could we do, though?  We rolled on after the cool-down period.

Then things went to total shit.  The noise turned into a shudder.  The shudder turned into a total rear-end of the car shake.  The rear-end of the car shake turned into us stopping the car in the middle of the road.  We got out to inspect the damage.  Lo and behold, the whole fucking wheel had come off.  Not just the tire.  Not the hubcap.  Not a lugnut or two.  THE ENTIRE WHEEL.  We now had a 3 wheeled vehicle.  Uh, yeah.  We were still about 120 miles away from our end destination and about 50 miles from the nearest actual city.  Moreover, our car was sitting dead in the middle of the northbound lane of a two lane highway in the middle of the mountains.  Fubar.

We put on our shoes, gathered our stuff, and prepared for a walk to the nearest village.  A car stopped to talk to us almost immediately after our breakdown and let us know that, no, they didn't have phone reception and, yes, there was a village about 10 km away (Rizza de Oro, or something similar.....middle of nowhere).  Their car was too tiny to accomodate four people and their bags so we continued preparation for the trek.  A big commercial truck also stopped on the side of the road.  Luis, now our amigo and savior, came to take a look at the damage on the car.  He concluded the same as us ---- fubar.  He helped push the car off the road onto a kind of drainage ditch on the side so that it wouldn't get totaled by oncoming traffic and potentially even hurt or kill somebody.  He then offered us a ride all the way to Tuxtla.  Bewildered by our amazing luck, we graciously accepted and piled into his semi truck.  Leann, Nik, and Adrian all fit in the back sleeper area of the cab and I sat shotgun next to Luis (who soon told me that he hadn't slept in two days.....uh oh).  Before departure we were approached with an offer of help by another truck driver.  Apparently Mexican truck drivers are all saints.

We rode with Luis all the way to Tuxtla to the outskirts of town, since huge trucks weren't allowed on the inner roads.  He even helped us hail a taxi to get into town.  The dude is just one awesome amigo.  We gave him some cash, which he tried to refuse but eventually accepted after Nik pointed at a picture of his kids and said 'give it to them'.  He gave us his address in Guadalajara and, in my opinion, we now have a bro for life.

We stayed in an unremarkable, kind of dirty, cheap hotel in Tuxtla after grabbing some grub late at night.  The next day, which was yesterday, Nik and Adrian parted ways with Leann and I.  They headed to the mountain town of San Cristobal while we mosied on to Palenque.  After our six hour bus ride (the bus that we took was better than anything I've ever even seen in the USA.....first class all the way with mega leg room and a bunch of TVs) we landed in Palenque and found a room in an awesome little hotel with air conditioning for only about $20 a night.  We've been exploring the town today and it's very cool.  Tomorrow we head off for a tour of three different spots, including some amazing looking waterfalls and, of course, the famous Palenque ruins hidden in the jungle.  I´ll make sure to post some pictures of this adventure when I can.

We'll be hitting the road in another bus tomorrow night after the long day of adventuring and we'll be going all the way to Tulum, a small beach town in the Yucatan just south of Cancun.  It's an 11 hour bus ride and it's an overnighter so we'll see how that turns out.

That's about it for now.  We will not be renting any cars any time soon.  Oh, and if you ever get the chance, avoid renting from EuropCar at all costs.  Unless, that is, you feel like riding around on three wheels.

Also just thought I'd throw a quick shout out or two to both of our families (love all you guys!), the Bataan Park Guts Brothers (five hole Trammel for me), and the folks at Rotojunkiefix.com.  Keep on keepin' on!

Also added pictures from Monte Alban and Hierva el Agua to the Flickr feed at http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisandleann/  Check 'em out!