Bill and Cathy McArthur on the Road 2004: 11

    On Sunday, February 29, we left at 8:00 AM for Bacalar. This was an easy drive of about 160 miles of mostly good roads. We camped in the town park on a freshwater lagoon. There should have been plenty of room for us, but the park was full of families since it was Sunday. Consequently, we parked as if loading a ferry - very close. After we got situated, four carloads drove 20 miles and parked at the border with Belize. We parked and walked across the bridge to the free zone. There were several shops in the free zone, but other than cheap liquor there wasn't much worth buying. Just entering into Belize was the whole idea of the side trip, so our mission was easily accomplished. We made a few family phone calls when we got back to the campground and had to pay $1.50 per minute as we did in the other areas along the Caribbean. We had our travel briefing in the evening because of the long day scheduled for Tuesday. We ate dinner with Melva and Ann Marie in a small restaurant just outside of the entrance to the park. We all had an acceptable shrimp salad for dinner. Later, just as the camp had settled down for the night, another restaurant outside the park began a Karaoke contest from hell. The music and horrible singing was unbelievably loud and persistent. There was no way to escape from the sound until it ended at 12:30 PM. We hoped that all contestants were subjects of human sacrifice.

    Monday was a long travel day. The group exited the park at 7:00 AM and headed to Palenque, 305 miles distant. Most of the day the temperature was in the mid-90s. For the first part of the drive, the highway was extremely narrow with deadly looking drop-offs on the margins due to construction. Later, the roads were narrow with occasional double trucks and buses zooming by in both directions. For the drivers, it was a day of concentrating on the bit of road right in front of the vehicle; for the navigators, it was a day of looking at dangerous drop-offs on the right side and speeding traffic too close for comfort on the left. We arrived at our campground at a bit after 4:00 PM. It was still 94 degrees when we arrived. Once again, we had to park tightly because a couple of more groups were due later in the day and the next day. Our camper was squeezed in between two of the big motor homes. At these close quarters, it's lucky that we're all friends by now. As we were settling into camp, a big rig belonging to an independent camper got stuck in the mud. We all lent a hand and were ultimately able to muscle the motor home free. Our group enjoyed dinner in the campground restaurant. Although we were pretty far inland, the fish was as good as the chicken and beef meals. The cold  guacamole soup and the hot carrot soup were also quite good. We had full hookups in this campground after dry camping the day before. The camp showers were cold water only, so we showered in our camper before calling it a day.

    Tuesday was hot and humid. Bill set out at 7:00 AM to walk the 3 hilly miles to the Palenque Ruins site. By 8:00 AM the group's caravan was onsite as well. We met our guide, Francisco and began our tour. The location is in the foothills of the mountains and is contained within a rainforest. The area gets 180 inches of rain during a typical year, so the vegetation is quite lush. Francisco took us to several of the buildings and explained the history of the site as it is known today. He told us about a website, http://www.mesoamerica.com, that has good information about the Mayan culture. Because so many buildings are still buried in the jungle, much is yet to be learned about the Mayans at Palenque. After the tour, six of us hired Francisco for a "jungle walk" through the rainforest. Bill had specifically packed hiking boots for this area of Mexico, but took this tour shod in sandals. Francisco had said that there were coral snakes and bushmasters in the rainforest, so Bill wondered if his bare toes would tempt something to try a taste (it didn't happen). During the walk, we saw gum, rubber, cocoa, and many other species of tree. It was quiet and a bit eerie inside the jungle. Afterwards, we rode down to the museum with Gabe and Rosemary. The museum is still under development, but already it has good explanations and exhibits concerning what is known so far about Palenque. We returned to the campground for a lunch in the camper. We hired some local youths to wash our car and camper for $15 and then drove into the town of Palenque to run a few errands. The town was quite backward compared to many of the other places we have visited in Mexico. We were able to hook up the laptop in an Internet Café, buy a kilogram of coffee beans, get a few items in a mercado, obtain bread for breakfast in a bakery, and pickup a bag of ice in a tienda, so our trip was fruitful. We played cards with Rick, Blanche, Joe, Kathy, and Jim during happy hour. Cathy was the winner, with Bill finishing near the back of the group in the game of Golf which we first learned in Piste. Eight of us ate dinner in the restaurant next door to our campground. We had a good meal and lots of good conversation.

    Wednesday was the day for a couple of side trips to water sites. At 9:00 AM, we car-pooled up into the mountains to the west of Palenque to visit a site, Misol-Ha,  with a waterfall and cave. As we drove the tortuous road we had many reminders that we were in Chiapas State, home of the Zapatistas, a band of rebels. There were billboards warning of the Zapatistas, a noticeable army presence, and rebel dolls at several kiosks. We walked behind the waterfall and some of the group continued to a cave beyond where there was another waterfall through the cave. We continued on the same road to Agua Azul, a natural water park formed by a cascading waterfall and rocks and sandbars. Some of the group did some swimming in the fast moving, cool water. Lining a path leading up the waterfall, there were many shops and restaurants. We had a bland meal of Quesadillas and then headed back to the campground. The road had several spots where half of the pavement had collapsed down the mountain. There were some sections of single lane road. All of the road was twisty and most of it was steep. We all thought about the drive to San Cristobal the next day over this same nasty road. We drove 38 miles on this day; the next day would cover 138 miles. Bill had been concerned about our electric trailer brakes and asked Stan to take a look. Stan set the brake control to what he felt was a reasonable setting to get started in the morning. We had a short happy hour at 5:00 PM and a trip briefing at 5:30 PM. We went for dinner to the campground restaurant and enjoyed a good meal of cream of asparagus soup and grilled fish fillet with garlic. We both took showers in the camper.

    Thursday was a tough day of driving. It wasn't cold and it wasn't boring, so it wasn't too bad, was it? The caravan left at 8:00 AM and headed into the mountains along the same route as the day before. We traveled about 140 miles in about 6 and a half hours of mountain driving. The scenery was beautiful, but most of us were too busy driving or too busy helping to completely enjoy the views. On this day we had a multitude of topes, most of which were unmarked and appeared in villages (as expected), on downgrades, on upgrades, and on curves. We ended up in San Cristobal, about 7,000 feet in elevation. We regrouped in a Pemex station where we found out that our campsites had been given to two other caravans and that we had no place to stay for the night. Since we realized that we would be dry camping instead of enjoying full hookups as promised. Some of us hadn't filled our water tanks during the morning so that we would be lighter climbing the mountains. Those that had the driest tanks were able to fill them at the Pemex station. Our leaders obtained permission for us to use a truck parking lot for our campground. So, at about 3:45 PM we drove to the parking lot and set up camp. We had our usual happy hour with several people in long pants and sweaters or jackets and then most of us cooked in for the night. In our camper, we had rice pilaf, cheese, olives, and rolls. We used our furnace because the temperature dropped quickly after sunset. Dogs outside the truck park were howling and barking as we turned in. There was also another animal which sounded like kids hysterically laughing.

        Bill and Cathy