The air was cool when we left Xilitla a little after 9:30am but that was soon to change as were headed towards the gulf coast today. The ride was on all small roads through small towns and villages which meant lots of topes. For those of you that don’t know, Mexico’s roads are littered with varying sizes of speed bumps made of varying materials as you go through towns and villages. I guess it’s the only way to get people to slow down. For motorcycles they are both a curse and a blessing. A curse because of course you have to slow down considerably to ride over them and also because they are often very hard to see so can be a last minute surprise and heavy handful of brakes. The blessing part is when you can time passing over the speed bump while overtaking a slower vehicle or truck as they have to hit them much slower than bikes with decent suspension. This is where my little 250 dual sport comes in handy. I can stand up and hit them a a pretty good clip with my tall suspension. Anyway, we must have hit hundreds of them between Xilitla and Papantla. We also came upon a demonstration in one of the small villages blocking the road with rocks and debris, but they quickly let us through so no issues.
Papantla is a mid sized town in the state of Veracruz. We rolled in late afternoon and found a pretty cheap hotel for about $10 per bed. We were too far from the square to walk but there was an old church next to the hotel so explored that a bit. The hotel itself also was old and appeared to have some interesting history attached to it. We got to climb up to the bell tower (which rang on the hour and half hour between 6am and 9pm) for a nice view of the city and then grabbed dinner on the street from the various vendors selling mostly tacos. I got what I thought was a veggie tostada but it ended up having some dried chicken mixed into it. The next morning we went to the square for breakfast and then were off to Veracruz.
The morning was already hot as we were on the east side of the coastal range. It would get considerably hotter as we approached Veracruz running mostly toll roads. I have a hard time keeping up with the bigger bikes and it takes a lot of mental concentration to run the little bike over 65mph as it gets a little twitchy at higher speeds. Usually they all run ahead and I catch up at a toll booth or when going through a congested town. We stopped for lunch at a beautiful resort right on the beach and although I enjoyed my cucumber/avocado salad, I’m looking forward to finding a salad with lettuce other than iceberg which is all I’ve had so far. We arrived into Veracruz at rush hour but after getting past a slowdown due to a stopped truck, it was not too bad the rest of the way to our hotel in the central historic district. We had rooms at the Hotel Veracruz Centro Historico right across from the main square – a pretty nice hotel for only $20 per bed. The heat index in Veracruz was 113 when we arrive and I was feeling a bit sick. My camelback bladder had sprung a leek a few days ago so I haven’t been able to drink water while riding. I try to down a bottle or two at our stops, but the high humidity was not allowing my body to keep up and I think I ended up getting dehydrated. I felt terrible and had a massive headache. I passed on dinner that night and just stayed in the room drinking water and laying in bed. Luckily it only took me down that one night and I was feeling normal the next morning.
Tuesday we took a cab to see Fort San Juan de Ulua built by the Spanish in the 15 and 1600’s. It’s a large complex of fortresses, prisons and a former palace. We hired a local guide who explained the interesting history to us in English. Glad we hired him (only $3 US each for the two hour tour) as he was an encyclopedia of knowledge on the history of the fort. By noon it was time to leave as the midday temps were reaching 100 with super high humidity. After relaxing in the hotel for a bit, I walked around the historical district and snapped a few pictures. We took cabs into the newer section of town for dinner and drinks. The new town wasn’t too interesting with no shortage of neon signs and chain restaurants. We took cabs back to the old town square and listened to street musicians before retiring for the night.
Wednesday morning was hot already when leaving around 8:30am from Veracruz. As we were gassing up in town, a little altercation came up with the attendant. She filled my tank (all pumps are attended in Mexico) and I gave her 400 pesos for my 328 peso gas bill. I glanced at the 50 peso bill and change she returned and put in in my sleeve pocket for easy access at toll booths. After pulling away and waiting off to the side for the other she came up to me waving my 200 peso bills and shouting in Spanish something about wrong change. Hank came over to translate and it appears she though she gave me 100 pesos too much in change. I was quite sure she gave me the correct change and objected. The manager came over and initially sided with the attendant. I stood my ground and they decided to close the pump and count all the money to balance it against her cash. You pay attendants directly with cash and they keep the wads of bills in their pockets. Seems like a terrible system but that’s how they do it. Anyway after about 15 minutes of waiting the manager returned and stated that the attendant was incorrect and had given me the correct change. I was ready to say screw it after about 5 minutes of waiting in the stifling heat (100 pesos is only about $5 US) but I think Hank wanted to see this one through just on principle.
After about an hour of riding we were climbing into the mountains and enjoying cooler temps. The forecast was for rain so I had geared up with the liners in my jacket and pants. It ended up raining on and off for most of the afternoon. By 5pm we were just getting to the outskirts of Oaxaca. Once we hit the city traffic was heavy and it took almost an hour from there to reach our hotel in Centro. We are about 5 blocks from the Zocalo which is the main square. A quick walk to the square indicated that the city is already packed for the upcoming Dia de Muertos celebration. I had a delicious salad that had some mixed greens and romaine instead of the iceberg in all my previous salads in Mexico. Oaxaca is well know as a food mecca so I’m sure the salad quality will be this way in most restaurants. After the Day of the Dead celebration over the weekend I check into my AirBnB apartment on Monday and start a month of Spanish language and Oaxacan cooking classes. So looking forward to this experience!