Day 51 - Semuc Champey is the furthest south I'm going on this adventure motorcycling trip. I was about to head back today, but decided to take a rest day and do laundry, and will head out in the morning. It is hard to turn around and point the nose of the bike north, because even though it's a long way back, mentally it means the trip is over.

It rained really hard last night, and while waiting for my laundry to be done, I caught a ride back to Semuc Champey from Lanquin. Click here for a video of what the shuttle is like. Wow, what a difference from yesterday. The river is now too high in volume for the cave to drink all of it, and the water is flooding over the tops of the pools. They are completely flooded and brown, unsafe for swimming, and quite unnattractive as compared to the beautiful turquise of yesterday. Compare the first photo above to the shot of the same location from yesterday. It was quite exciting being right next to the raging river, and what a contrast from the day before. Click here for a video the river at flood stage.

In other news, reports are starting to come in from arriving tourists of two separate natural disasters to the south: Pacaya has erupted! After 12 years of being a good little tourist friendly volcano to roast marshmallows in the lava, it erupted, covering Guatemala City in 2-3 inches of ash, closing the airport, and destroying the road where you hike from (in fact the whole town nearby is evacuated). It will be weeks or months before it is reopened to tourism, so that's a real bummer for me.

Secondly, the storm sitting off the coast became the named Tropical Storm Agatha, and flooding from the rains destroyed dozens of bridges in the country, wiped out a lot of roads with landslides, and killed over 170 people in mudslides. It's going to be tricky getting out of here.

Day 50 - I visited Semuc Champey today. Maybe it's time I describe exactly what the place is? There is a river, the Rio Cahobon, which is entirely swallowed up by a cave, where it flows for 300 meters underground, after which it reemerges again. The second photo above is of the river being swallowed. And click here for a video. This alone would be interesting to see, but on top, are a series of cascading pools filled with beautiful turquise water -- quite large and deep for swimming and diving. It's really a special place in nature and well worth a visit. And I was well overdue for a swim :)

The local tourism board has also hacked a trail through the jungle to get you a view of the series of pools from a mirador (remember that word?) about a thousand feet up. This is a really fun hike too, with narrow paths, wooden stairs, and rocky bits to climb. And the view is fantastic. Click here for a video from the mirador.

After spending a couple hours hiking the path and swimming in the pools, my group (yes, I joined a small tour) went on a cave exploration. Only this one was very different! You are led by a local Mayan resident, and everyone is given a skinny 12" candle. You enter the cave, which is filled with a flowing stream, and you must wade, swim, climb small cascades, and jump, all whilst trying to keep your candle lit. There was even a 15' waterfall we climbed up the middle of with a rope, while getting blasted with water in the face. Should your candle go out in the water, it's a group effort to relight it.

It was actually really fun and adventurous. When we first started I was regretting having left my Stenlight (uber powerful light for caving) at the hotel, but then I started getting really into the whole "one candle per person", the challenge of keeping them lit, and the flickering on the walls from only the few candles we had.

The only part I got frustrated with was when our guide announced it was time to turn around. All of our 12" candles had burned to about 3" left! My caving experience was screaming in my head, "don't enter a cave without 3 sources of light per person!" It was quite crazy really. We made it back out rather expeditiously, just in time, and some guys singed their fingers abit since they were holding nothing but nubs of candles at the end.

Day 49 (afternoon) - The bike finally met its match in the form of a steep grade on the way to Semuc Champey, which was solid mud due to the rain. The back wheel just spun and spun. Fortunately, it was an uphill grade (so I could turn around), and also only half a mile out of Lanquin, a town within 10km where most of the people going to visit Semuc Champey stay anyway. So I went back and found a hotel to stay at in Lanquin.

Just before entering the town of Lanquin, there is an extensive cave system which I stopped to explore. The first quarter mile or so is commercial, with a walkway lit with electric lights. The lit section was actually pretty long, and it took awhile to get to the end. The cave was quite muddy inside (even on the walkway, it was slippery) and I didn't go off exploring on my own. At dusk this cave is known for the thousands of bats that emerge from deep within. You can sit in the narrow entrance and feel them fly all around you on their way out.

Day 49 (morning) - Wow. Just... Wow. Today I had two, (and nearly three), laugh out loud moments while riding the bike on the mountain road to Semuc Champey. Laughing out loud because I just couldn't believe what I was experiencing (in a good way!) The last time I can remember having a laugh out loud experience was descending my second canyon (Dry Meadow), rappelling 5 feet away from a thundering waterfall, which immediately addicted me. Today I had two (and nearly three!).

I was riding on dirt roads, in the middle of nowhere, passing through tiny villages consisting of a few thatched roof buildings, amidst drizzling rain and fog that lay thick over the jungle but parted ever now and then to reveal either massive mountains towering around me, or deep, deep valleys far below.

This, truly, is the stuff dual sport bikes dream of when they go to sleep at night.

Yes, there were many small landslides, and one enormous (I mean, ENORMOUS) landslide where over a half mile of the mountain slid away, but nothing the BMW couldn't handle with ease. Splashing through puddles, pulling confidently up deeply rutted grades, bouncing over dirt speedbumps, purring along as schoolkids out for the afternoon cheered and ran alongside, what an incredible, incredible day. Click here for a short video enroute.

Day 48 - My plan from yesterday, to leave before the afternoon rains, didn't quite work out! It started raining at 8am (!) today, pretty hard. I looked at the weather radar online and saw that a large storm is sitting right off the coast and is going to hit tomorrow. So instead of going east to Antigua, I decided instead to head north, to Semuc Champey, which is "the most beautiful place in all of Guatemala". Then after the storm passes in a couple days I'll loop back south to Antigua for the ascent of El Volcan Pacaya.

I was sort of undecided -- a lot depended on the weather I encountered as I went north. Leti insisted that I NOT take the north road to Semuc Champet, as it is "muy peligroso (dangerous)", rockslides, muddy, very remote, hours between towns, blah blah blah (I mean, "etc.") Ludwig told me he tried riding the road once on a motorbike and fell, breaking his arm. So I placated them by assuring I'd be heading back to San Cristobal (Mexico) today, while secretly planning to make the decision en route. I left their house around noon, under a light drizzle.

At the decision point, whether to go left, returning to Mexico, or right, to unknown wonders in the remote mountains of Guatemala, it was not raining and the roads were dry. I went right.

Day 47 - Well my plan was to head out of Xela today, to Antigua where I will climb Pacaya, the active volcano with flowing lava that you can hike right up to, and roast marshmallows on sticks while the bottoms of your sneakers melt. I was going to stop by two places on the way: a glass blowing factory, and some pretty hot springs named "Fuentes Georginas".

However, it was getting too late to do those things and avoid riding through the rain which is coming every day in the early afternoon. And Ilda told me that Mishel was crying last night about my leaving -- "Mi amiga! Mi amiga!" she sobbed. So I decided to spend another night with the family -- go to the two places today, and head out first thing in the morning for Antigua.

I first went to the glass blowing factory, where I was told by the lady that they won't be blowing more glass until July. "Julio!" I exclaimed. Apparently they have too many items on the shelves to sell right now. So she showed me a 20 minute video on what glass blowing looks like instead. The whole time I couldn't stop thinking of my friend Jef (who works as a glass blower) ;)

Next I headed up the road to Fuentes Georginas. It consists of a series of pools, the topmost which has naturally heated, scalding hot water flowing into it from a hole straight out of the mountain. The outflow of this pool goes to a lower second pool, then a third, and a fourth. I only went in the topmost though, which was about the temp of a typical hot tub (except right next to the inlet, which was really quite warm!)

Mishel was happy to see me when I got back. In a store I bought UNO, the card game, and the two of us played most of the evening. Ilda even joined in on a game, and managed to win. Beginner's luck!

Day 46 - My last day of classes was today. I was awarded with a certificate for having completed basic level Spanish (woohoo!).

In the afternoon a few of us from the school went roller blading at an indoor skating rink nearby. One my new words to learn last week was "patinar" ("to skate"). I'd rolled my eyes at that one -- I mean how often do you use it? Who knew I'd have the chance within a week?!

I paid for Mishelita to come along and she had a great time. Plus it's good to know that I can still do crossovers skating backwards around the whole rink several times. I played hockey in high school so my forte is on ice -- I've only skated with wheels instead of blades of steel a few times, and it's a lot harder (with wheels). Incredibly it had been over 5 years since I skated! (Note to self: try to get to the year round indoor rinks in the Bay Area more often...) Mishelita and I skated around, dancing to the disco music hand in hand, and had ice cream cones afterwards. I'm gonna miss that kid...

Day 44 - After yesterday's wedding experience, I felt it was time to do something more in line with my interests -- so I climbed a volcano :) It is named Chikabal, and is about an hour outside of Xela. The volcano is long extinct; the slopes are thickly covered in vegetation and a lake now fills the cauldron. The shores of the lake are a popular place for local Mayan people to have small ceremonies.

I went with a tour group, and along with the guide, we had three young women from Connecticut who were volunteering at an orphanage in Xela, and an older lesbian couple from Oakland -- the latter two rode horses to the top.

The hike was pretty steep and strenous, so it felt good to be stretch my legs and work off some of those tamales! There was a nice mirador (observation platform) from the rim, and then we descended to the lake and walked on a trail circumnavigating it. Along the way I saw a small group of people burning something that looked like brownies and I asked what they were cooking. "It's a religious ceremony" one of them told me. "Oh, lo siento!" I whispered back.

Later in the afternoon, back at Casa Leti & Ilda, I filled them in my activity. They wanted to know how much I paid and I was embarrassed to mention it was 200 Quetzales ($25), which I knew was a lot of money for them -- about as much as Leti earns in a day as a teacher. In fact I was a bit upset myself at having paid so much -- I easily could have done the hike sola with the bike, and moreover we had passed two tourists from Britain who had gone alone. Oh well.

But the funny part came when I mentioned that the two older women were married to each other ("casadas juntas"). Ilda about had a heart attack. "A dios mio, a dios mio, aqui en Xela! Aqui en Xela!" ("Dear God, here in Xela!"), in reference to the fact that they were lesbian. Leti actually had to console her, holding her hand and soothing her! I was holding back laughter at Ilda's response -- it was, comical to watch. But truly sad at the same time.

Day 43 - Today was another great cultural experience -- I attended a wedding! One of Leti's students from years ago was getting married and she asked me if I wanted to come. I said sure!

It was an hour chicken bus ride out of town for the 3 of us -- Leti, Mishel, and myself. The ceremony started at 10:30 in the morning and was very Catholic with a full mass (the religious part that Catholics have on Sundays). I of course stuck out like a sore thumb, being 3 inches taller than anyone else in the room, and the only person without dark skin. I tried to be polite and stood and sat with everyone else, but I drew the line at kneeling before their god (I just sat). One thing Catholic mass's have is a lot of standing, sitting, and kneeling.

There was lunch afterward with chicken, rice, tamales, and tres leches cake. They were very nice and gave me a portion of food. I felt very awkward though -- especially since they asked me to sit at the head table! The bride and groom had finished and walking around greeting people, and I was sitting outside, For some reason they asked me to come in and take a seat up there. Needless to say everyone in the room was looking at me (about 200 people). I really didn't want to take any more attention away from the bride and groom on their day and I was happy when Leti said it was time to go home.

Day 42 - Incredibly, my week of classes has finished already! My goodness that went fast. I didn't quite get to cover everything I'd wanted to though, and decided to sign up for two more days next week. The other student that was here earlier in the week left for Tikal on Wed, so the school has consisted of only me the last two days.

My teacher told me today that the student that was with her before me, studied here for 4 months. She (the student) arrived knowing no Spanish (other than what everyone knows -- where's the bathroom, what's your name, good morning...). At the end of the 4 months, she is very nearly fluent -- speaking fast and comprehending very well. She's now found an apartment to rent in town with some local girls for a few more months. Wow! Hearing that made me really jealous, in a good way :)

After classes I accompanied Leti, Ilde, and Mishelita out of town to some public baths, which they go to every 15 days. It was a fun experience -- interesting for sure. You pay for a private room with a big tub sunk in the floor. Natural volcanically heated water, which is quite hot though not scalding, fills the tub. They sell shampoo and soap so you can, well, bathe. The three of them shared a room and I got one by myself. It was quite dirty inside actually. The once white walls were completely brown, the tile covered in brown, a plywood door for privacy, a grime coated window for light, and the guy working there quickly snatched a 2 inch beetle off the floor as I walked in. Riding the chicken buses to and back were fun. Mishel slept on the seat with her head on my lap.

I'm now at the point where I like the family. Everyone has their idiosyncroses, of course, and this is a real family like any other, not an ideal construct. In the photos above, from left to right, is Mishel, Ilda, Leti, then in the other Ludwig, Natasha (his girlfriend who arrived from Swiss), and Leti again.

The second was at night when the power went out, which has happened nearly every night. All the restaurants and banks on the street have diesel generators sitting outside that they fire up when this happens.

Day 41 - FINALLY! No pounding on my door this morning! I had just about had it and was going to ask for another family (yes, it was THAT bad!) My alarm actually had a chance to go off today at 7:30. Thank goodness!

Today the activity after class was free salsa dancing lessons. I wasn't really interested and skipped it. Ludwig instead invited me to a meeting of his poetry club in the evening. It sounded very "cultural" and I decided to come with. Well, cultural it might have been, but it amounted to listening to people talk in a foreign language for 2 hours, of which I couldn't understand anything. When it came my turn, they very nearly skipped me, but I said "Oh no, I have one, I can go". Thus my poem in Spanish (which I came up with off the top of my head): "No lo tengo. Por eso, es el fin." Very poetic I thought! Everyone clapped :)

Little Mishel had two hours with an English tutor today at home. He comes every Thursday. I hope they're not paying too much! It's a retired Swiss guy living in Xela with a VERY thick German accent. I tried talking to him in English and it was almost easier to use Spanish -- his vocabulary is very small. He referred to me as "the expert", haha.

Day 40 - Again, in the morning the pounding on the door! Yes, yes, a thousand times yes, I want breakfast in the morning! Only today it was worse. She had asked me last night, "Queires leche en la manana?" I had said yes, expecting a glass of milk. So what do I find waiting for me? A bowl of chocolate rice krispies with milk that had been poured goodness knows how long before. Completely soggy. That was all there was. I poked at it with my spoon. "Mishel, no te gusta la leche?" Ummm, no Ilda, not like this...

Today's activity after classes was a hike up La Muela, a volcanic rocky outcropping that also overlooks the city. We had a different guide and a few students from another school joined us. They were Canadiens studying here too. It was very foggy today and we didn't have much of a view, until the very summit when the fog parted a bit and we could see the city. The hike was quite fun -- very steep and even some Class 3 climbing on the rock.

I asked the other students how their homestays were going. One of them told me her family was great -- they made chocolate pancakes for her this morning, all she could eat. Grrr...

Day 39 - Same pounding on my door this morning by Ilde as yesterday. Same questions about my family and where I'm from. Argh! What is it with her?

There are only two students in my school, me and another girl. Both of us have 5 hours of one on one instruction per day with our "maestras" (teachers). In addition, the school most days offers "actividades". Today was a trip up "El Baul", which is a hill overlooking the city. Eager to get a little bit of exercise, I said sure! It ended up being just me and the 18yo guide, Pepe (the other girl didn't want to come).

We hopped in a mini-van shuttle bus which is the preferred way for locals to get around the city. This is quite an experience, let me assure you. It's 1.25 Quetzales (15 cents) to take one anywhere in the city. The drivers drive like absolute maniacs. They all have an assistant riding shotgun, standing upright in the open sliding door of the minivan, handling the payments and shouting out where the van is going to people on the sidewalks. On the old cobblestone streets it combines to be an experience more thrilling than any amusement park ride I've ever been on.

After a half hour hike to the top of El Baul, we had a very nice view of the very large city before us. This is a popular area on the weekends with a lot of picnic sites. Pepe and I walked around a bit, and then he led me to the most incredible thing! Slides built for adults! These were over a hundred feet long and made of concrete. Pepe demonstrated that the best way to go down them, is sitting on a bit of plastic. He stomped his empty water bottle flat and showed me how it's done. What fun! See an exciting video here.

Day 38 - Today was my first day of Spanish classes at the Minerva Spanish school. It is kind of funny, in addition to not knowing anything about Guatemala before getting here, I also did not know anything about the town I'm living in, Xela. I had picked it because I'd read that it is a good place to study Spanish -- it's not touristy and is high in the mountains, and few people speak English so you don't have them all trying to talk to you in English all the time. I had imagined a tiny hamlet with narrow streets, chickens running around, and mothers ushering their children inside doorways as I passed by on the motorcycle.

Instead, it turns out Xela is Guatemala's second biggest city with over 120,000 people. It's huge! Plus it's really crazy here. Large garishly painted US school buses ("chicken buses") barrel down the streets at crazy speeds, belching enormous amounts of black smoke from their exhausts. The tiny corner convenience stores all have floor to ceiling security bars. You basically stand in a virtual cage in the doorway and point out what you want, and the guy on the other side will get it and hand it to you through the bars. There are security guys with shotguns standing all over the place -- any store with merchandise of value (clothing, tv's, banks) has an armed shotgun wielding guy at the front. And they don't have it slung over their shoulder -- they stand with the weapon in both hands, at the ready. Volcanos surround the city on the outskirts -- most of them dormant, one of them active, with steam eruptions every hour or so (you can't see the steam from the city though -- it's on the backside of the mountain).

The Spanish classes went okay today. It's the same rote verb drills I remember from my two years of Spanish in high school -- "me, you, he, us, them" versions of verbs. Not super exciting, but I guess it's the way the language is taught. The picture on the left above is of the school.

My family seems very nice. They live across the plaza from the school, so it's less than a minute for me to get there in the mornings. In the picture on the right above, I'm living in the house in the middle with the blue gate. I have my own room and bath. The head of the household is a late 50's lady, Leti, who works as a teacher at a school an hour's public bus ride away. She is raising her 10 year old granddaughter, Mishel (same name phonetically as me). From now on we all decided to call her Mishelita, to avoid confusion :) Also living there is Leti's older sister, Ilda, and Leti's son, Ludwig, who is about my age (he's an uncle to Mishel, not father). And their nephew, Fernando, who is 24. None of them speak a word of English, except for Ludwig. And they are very Catholic, praying to their god and genuflecting before they eat anything.

Ludwig is a professional, working as a lecturer in the university by day and a volunteer firefighter at night. He is applying to study for a master's degree in Germany. He has a Swiss girlfriend, who is coming to visit this weekend for a couple of weeks.

Fernando is a party guy and a freeloader in the house. Apparently a couple years ago he had a job for a month and didn't care for it. He stays out late, doesn't contribute, and brings home questionable people. Leti and Ilde now have padlocks for all the doors in the house, and whenever they are out of the house at the same time they go around and lock all of inside doors, so that none of Fernando's friends steal anything.

Mishel(ita) is an adorable 10 year old girl. She is really spunky and loves to ride her bike around outside the house in the plaza. It's sad that her mother abandoned her at birth (she is now living somewhere else in Guatemala), but very lucky that her grandmother is raising her.

Ilda, the cook and cleaner of the house, has a bit of dementia I believe. Last night I told her I wanted to get up at around 7:30 am and would eat breakfast then. At 6:30 am she was pounding on my door. "Michelle! Queires desayuno?" "Yes! I mean Si! A las siete y media!" Then at 6:45, more pounding. Same question. Same response. Then again at 7:15! What is it with her?!? At breakfast the same questions we'd gone through the night before. "Do you have brothers or sisters? Where do you live, the US or Mexico?" (I can't quite figure out the last one -- it seems pretty obvious!)

Day 37 (afternoon) - After a couple hours ride I finally made it to the Mexican/Guatemalen border. The emotions running through me were tremendous! The last bit of Mexico is mostly flat farmland, and a literal WALL of mountains in the distance, below dark storm clouds, marked GUATEMALA! See it here.

I got my passport punched out of Mexico, and headed into the country of my destination, Guatemala. I must confess something -- I had absolutely no knowledge of Guatemala before this trip -- whether it was flat or not, or even that it was the country bordering Mexico to the south (I had to check). To my supreme pleasure I have learned that it is a wildly mountainous country with active volcanoes (complete with flowing lava!), farming fields on extremely steep slopes high above the valley floor, where the farmers literally rappel down to tend their crops, very good roads (better than Mexico IMO), and all of this combined amounts to the finest riding I've done. Yes, much better than the ride from Tamazunchale to Jacala.

When entering Guatemala, if you have a vehicle the first stop is a mandatory fumigation, where a guy sprays a pesticide on your tires. You have to pay for this on the spot, and in the local currency of course, which is now Quetzales. And there is a guy there happy to change Pesos or USD for you. I had completely forgotten to check the exchange rate on the computer before leaving in the morning, but remembered a couple people online who wrote that the exchange rates they were offered were pretty good. So I exchanged about $100 with the old guy that was there (I didn't see anyone else). About 10 min later I walked out of the immigration office and saw another money changer guy, and out of curiousity asked him how many Quetzales he would offer for the amount of pesos I had just changed. I took a step back at the number he showed in the calculator -- about 20% more! I couldn't believe it. I had really been screwed by the old guy. I'm going to think of it as paying a $20 fee for the transaction, rather than a 25% exchange rate!

I'd read a story of this border crossing, describing Mexico as being calm and tranquil, and crossing into Guatemala where it was a madhouse with people grabbing at you and being very forceful about selling their wares to you. There was none of that though. It was nice and pleasant and after getting my passport stamped and the bike import papers filled out, I was on my way. Total admin fees to enter the country including the fumigation and bike import papers were around $8 USD.

Now for another confession. Ever since I got interested in the activity of adventure motorcycle touring last summer, I have had a single picture on my wall at work that I've stared at fondly month after month, longing for the day I could view the same sights with my own eyes. The picture was taken by a rider 2 years before me, of the road shortly after he entered Guatemala at the very border crossing I just used. After 20 minutes riding, I was standing in exactly the same spot! Viewing the scene I'd longed after hundreds of times, there before me! I was living the dream -- I'd made it!!!

My goal for the night was a town high in the mountains named Quetzaltenango -- or Xela, as everyone local calls it. For the next week I will be in "Spanish immersion", staying with a local family and attending 5 hours of classes per day.

I rode for hours through the mountains in Guatemala, with vast dropoffs and vistas, seeing waterfalls gorging out the sides of cliffs. It was phenomenal and breathtaking. I have a feeling I'm going to really like this country.

Day 37 (morning) - Ahh, if only all days could put a smile on my face like this one did.

In the morning I headed out of Comitan towards the Carretera Fronteriza, the "Last Frontier", a lonely road that goes for hundreds of miles alongside the Guatemalan border on the Mexican side. It is known for heavy drug traffic, and Lonely Planet warned of numerous military checkpoints. I did not encounter any however, only a gorgeous road through misty jungle and mountains in the distance.

I reached the "Lagos Montebello", which are pretty but not especially so. A couple of them had an attractive deep blue colored water, but honestly they are no different than any of thousands upon thousands of other pretty lakes. The locals had the access roads to the lakes all blocked off with toll booths and wanted 10 pesos from me. I balked initially but on the 4th road where I attempted to try to get in, I finally caved and paid the money. I snapped a few shots of the lakes and headed back out.

From the lakes I went a bit further along the Carretera Fronteriza, beyond where the last tourist shuttle stops. It felt very adventurous out there on the remote road, in lawless land. After just a short while my imagination got the best of me, and I got scared and turned around :)

Next stop on my way to the border crossing was a place of some more Mayan ruins, named Chinkultic. I had a very enjoyable time there because I ended up being the only person! The ruins included a small village area, and next to them a steep hill atop of which is a partially restored temple pyramid commanding remarkable views over the surrounding lakes and forests for dozens of miles. It was very picturesque and peaceful there, as I imagined people centering their lives around this place centuries before me. Here's a video from the top of their outlook pyramid.

I spoke with the young guy at the entrance for nearly an hour -- he wanted to learn a few English words to better direct tourists (such as, how do you say "por alli" ("that way") or "juego de pelota" ("ballgame")). He said he didn't know why no one else showed up today -- normally 300 - 400 people a day visit, but yesterday there were only 40, and today I was the only one. Weird! The skies were darkening quickly though so I had to cut things short and bid him adieu, and head to the border crossing with Guatemala.

Day 36 - I've found that a good way to discover things to do is to walk around and see what where the local tour groups are going, and then go there on my own.

From San Cristobal a popular tour is to spend a day visiting the large waterfalls at a place named El Chapin, followed by a group of beautiful lakes near the border with Guatemala, named Lagos Montebello. Wanting to visit these without worrying about the afternoon rains, I very nearly signed up with a tour agency's day trip (for $30), until I realized that these sites were 3 hours in the very direction I'm heading out of the country. So I decided to seek these out on my own.

I left the hotel around 11am hoping to avoid the afternoon rains, under a blue sky. About an hour out of town, higher in the mountains, it clouded over and started pouring. Fortunately it only lasted an hour or so.

These rains are very dangerous -- it's quite hard to see the road with all the water on the visor of the helmet. Think of a car windshield without being able to run the wipers. And because the visor is only two inches in front of my eyes, it really obscures things.

In any case, I was able to find my way to the waterfalls at El Chapin, a few hours from San Cristobal. The site has a large number of picnic areas next to a beautiful stream of the same pretty cloudy emerald water I've been seeing everywhere. A lot of families were grilling out and swimming in the gentle pools.

The concrete path is level for a long way, then begins climbing steeply alongside many named waterfalls. The grand finale is a long cascade a couple hundred feet high. See a video of it here. Here the nice concrete path ends and you can continue another kilometer higher along a dirt path to see more waterfalls higher up, which I did of course. Also, there are two ziplines from one side of the gorge to the other, which you can cross for 50 pesos.

While I was at the top of the series of waterfalls, overlooking the whole canyon before me, the rain I had ridden through earlier caught up to me, and it began pouring hard. I headed back down through the jungle to the zipline structure, where I caught a little reprieve from the rain under the overhang. The ziplines were now closed due to the rain. I'm not exactly sure what affect water on the cable would have on safety (none?), but regardless they were done for the day.

The owner was also huddled underneath with his family -- a late 30's-ish Mexican guy who immediately began speaking to me in English. Ugh, I'm getting tired of people doing that. I'm here on this trip to get better at Spanish and this isn't helping! I decided to tell him I didn't speak English and was from an island in the Pacific named Topocunkoonga (don't bother looking for it -- I made it up on the spot!).

"Really?" he asked, "Because you look like you're from the US. Where is it?" "Near Fiji," I said. "What languages do you speak then?" "Topacokoonga-ese, and I'm learning Spanish." This was all in Spanish of course. It was easy to keep a straight face because inside I was a bit perturbed! :)

After waiting out the rain and making it back up the mountain to Comitan, it was now just at sunset, so I found a hotel and will wait until the morning to visit Lagos Montebello, followed by crossing the border into Guatemala!

Day 35 - I came to San Cristobal de las Casas, here in the Chiapas mountains, in the hope that I could descend a cave called Chorreodero. It is a 3.5km through trip which drops 330 vertical meters. Most of the drops, over 40 of them, are jumpable. It is one of the world's funnest caves and ranks as one of Mexico's most sporting trips.

Unfortunately, the monsoon season started the day I arrived. Despite having clear weather for weeks, torrential rains have happened every afternoon since I got here. Within 10 minutes of starting the streets here in San Cristobal have water a foot deep. Normally the season does not start for a month or two, so this is quite unusual, I'm told. This means it is impossible to descend the cave, as it is flash flooding every day.

I haven't been able to do anything but walk around the town. I just don't want to be caught out somewhere on the motorcycle when the rains start. Even though it's bright and sunny in the mornings, once it starts raining, it continues until sunset. Instead I'll come back through here on my way back from Guatemala -- maybe this will just be pre season stuff, and be a little better then.

San Cristobal de las Casas is a really beautiful town. It's high up in the mountains, surrounded by pine forest. The streets are clean, cobblestone, the air fresh and cool, and lots of people walking around. There's a lot of stuff to do around here -- I just wish the rain would hold off!

I met the guide for Chorreodero, Carlos, who is really nice and introduced me to his friend Maurisio. As it turns out, Maurisio grew up in Monterrey, and was a caver and canyoneer there. He knows everyone from Chuy (who put together the rendezvous there a couple weeks ago) to Fofo (vice chair of my local caving club in the Bay Area). We had a nice dinner at his house in town. He and his flat-mates were hosting 5 couch-surfers at the time. I think I'll try doing that on my way back up through Mexico -- I'm tired of the $30 per night hotel rooms!

There is a Museum of Jade here in the town. I got to try on some $2000 jade necklaces. They looked fantastic! I seem to remember the jade in Thailand was considerably less expensive though, so I was able to resist. Jade is definitely my stone -- my favorite item is a small jade necklace I got in Thailand that I almost always wear.

The pic of the day is of my hotel, in the morning before it starts raining :)

Day 33 - Leaving Palenque yesterday I stopped for the night at a hostel on the road just outside of the ruins. They had beautiful thatched huts for rent (with mosquito netting over the beds) for 200 pesos ($16).

I walked down the road a few hundred meters to catch dinner at a restaurant nearby, which I thought was lucky since we were in the middle of nowhere and there didn't seem to be anything around. I was completely surprised and taken aback to find they had a large outdoor seating area, extensive menu, and full open air bar. Even a stage. It seemed like such an anachronism out there in the jungle. There were even a few groups of gringos sitting around eating. I use the term "gringos" to mean white, non-Latino people, though in what was to happen later they were all Europeans -- no Americans.

I sat and had a couple drinks, and as time passed more, and more, and MORE people showed up. Then a live band started setting up on the stage. Before I knew it (those margaritas were STRONG!) the place was completely packed, literally about two hundred people (all European/Australian gringos from what I could tell and what my waiter told me). The band was playing, tour agency booths were set up on the side, people were selling trinkets, etc. What was going ON?!? By this time I was really feeling it too. Around 11pm the band shut down, but the entertainment was far from over! Poi (dancing with flaming balls on chains) and fire-stick performers began in front of the crowd to a second band of bongo drum players. I caught a video here. Finally at midnight I walked back ("walked" being perhaps too generous a word) to my thatched hut up the road and crashed on the bed. So weird! The place was called El Panchan. And on a Tuesday night!

This morning I heading out of the hostel to reach San Cristobal de las Casas, at 7000' in the Chiapas mountains, by the end of the day. The road was winding through the mountains and just beautiful. Watch a video from the saddle of the motorcycle here.

I stopped at a swimming hole called Agua Azul on the way up. It was really nice, and a lot of people were enjoying the beautiful day there. I caught an hour or so of swimming and playing around, and then headed back up the mountain on the bike.

The last hour or so before reaching San Cristobal it started raining, pretty hard. This was the first rain I'd ridden through since entering Mexico. I was pretty nervous (and for good reason), but there wasn't anywhere to stop. I finally made it into town around an hour before sunset, completely soaked through (I hadn't stopped to put my waterproof liners on). Plus, I have been in over hundred degree temps the last couple weeks, and here it is in the mid 50's and raining. What a difference! I stopped at a large hotel and ended up getting the room for 200 pesos, down from the 590 pesos advertised on the wall. The guy agreed to it immediately, without hesitation. It must be their off season :)

Day 32 (afternoon) - A hundred miles from Villahermosa is Palenque, a "medium sized" site of Mayan ruins, which is located right in the front range where the flatlands of Chiapas rise into the mountains behind. It is in a beautiful spot up on the mountainside and commands a vast view of the plains below.

The site closes at 5pm and I got there right at 4 (I spent a little too much time at the zoo I guess :), so they let me in for free. Even with just an hour, I was able to walk around and see most of what is available there, and not roped off. Click here for a video.

Palenque was smaller than I anticipated, but did have the best preserved architecture of the three sites I'd been at so far (Teotihuacan & El Tajin being the others). I'd read that howler monkeys live in the woods surrounding the site and you can sometimes hear them, but I guess this day they were saving their voices because I didn't hear them.

I have to admit though, that something about these sites is a bit underwhelming for me. I know they were built without iron or the wheel, but they had centuries -- thousands and thousands of people over dozens of generations. Perhaps it's because I went to Peru last summer and saw what the Incas were able to accomplish -- their craftsmanship is absolutely stunning in comparison (and Machu Picchu is out of this world beautiful).

Day 32 (morning) - Villahermosa is mostly an industry town in the middle of the hot flatlands. According to Wikipedia, it's a stopover point between Mexico City and Cancun. Or in my case, between Veracruz and Palenque.

Before heading out to the famous Mayan ruins at Palenque, I noticed in Lonely Planet that there is a worthwhile park/museum/zoo in town named Parque La Venta, and I decided to check it out.

I really don't like the concept of zoos for the lives that animals have to endure when caged up, but my 50 pesos ($4) to enter this one wasn't going to change anything. And I thought it might be interesting to see the more "jungly"-ish animals.

The park actually turned out to be pretty interesting, and I spent a couple hours there. It's part zoo, part path through the woods, part outdoor museum with a plentiful number of large Olmec artifacts along the path.

There was a black panther in a large caged area, which was really freaky because it was making loud hoarse noises, but all I could see were its green eyes glowing against its inky black fur. It was sitting in the shade under an overhang not 5 meters away from me, but it was really hard to see. I stood there imagining it stalking prey (including humans) in the jungle, and a shiver ran up my spine.

The toucan had to be the most ridiculous animal I've seen. I mean it literally looked like it had a fake toucan beak strapped to its head. I just wanted to take it off the poor guy! It stood there moving its eye to look at me and I felt so sorry for it having to go through life with that ludicrous thing attached to it's face. I suppose it's normal though and he felt perfectly fine.

There is a large hemispherical aviary that you could enter with a large number of species flying around, plus an underground dark section with big fat bats hanging from the ceiling and some sloth like creature. And on the path in the thick jungle large animals the size of small dogs kept running across in front of me. The information sign called them badgers and said they were friendly. Must not be the same as the MEAN badgers we had growing in Wisconsin!

The Olmec sculptures were interesting, and at the end of the walk is a cage with the "biggest predator in the world", which is a mirror behind some bars. Cute!

Day 31: Today was a big travel day. I needed to go nearly 300 miles from Veracruz to Villahermosa. So I didn't have a lot of time to dilly dally (and don't have a lot to report), but in the morning...

...I headed over to the Spanish fort, San Juan de Ulua. This is where the ending of Romancing the Stone was filmed. I was really excited to see it (it's a famous fort), but it was closed!! It is Monday, and lots of stuff is closed on Mondays in Mexico. Oh well. I thought of trying to talk my way in (not that I'd have any chance of doing so, of course), but saw that they were installing a new bridge to the fort, and unloading it from the trailer. So even if I got through the gate no way of getting into the fort itself :)

I caught a delicious meal of fresh fish, Veracruz style (basically with sauteed red peppers and onions on top), and started the long, HOT (100 deg+) ride.

I was nearly wiped out (financially) by the bloody toll booths! I paid over 500 pesos in tolls to get there, that's $50. It's frustrating they charge my little bike the same as a big SUV full of people. This along with the $30 per night hotel rooms are killing my budget.

C'est la vie.

Day 30: Based on Bruce's suggestion (thanks Bruce!) I headed to El Tajin today, which is a ancient city built by the Totonacs. These people were the first natives encountered by Cortez when he landed on the coast near Veracruz. They had lived here for 800 years and were conquered by the Aztecs just 25 years before Cortez's arrival. Thus they were eager to revolt against the Aztecs and ended up being instrumental in the Cortez's conquering of them.

The city is very different than Teotihuacan, in that it is in lush jungle as opposed to high desert. A short view of the grounds can be seen here.

The 3rd picture above, which looks like bleachers, is a Mesoamerican ball court. I'd come across one of these while playing Tomb Raider Underworld, and always wondered what the heck it was! In this game, which is like volleyball without a net, and using hips only, both the losing players and their fans would be beheaded and sacrificed to the gods. Depictions of these sacrificial ceremonies were on carved sculptures all over El Tajin (as in the rest of Mesoamerica too).

On my way out, I caught a performance of the Voldadores (video here). Four of them climb up a pole and then spin around from a rope tied to their waist as these ropes unwind from the pole. One guy, the priest, stays up top playing a flute and beating a drum. It has an interesting tradition, but I think it's absolutely ludicrous that the training takes 10 years. Seriously.

A sixth guy in costume went around asking for money before the performance. He stood in front of me for quite awhile and gave me a dirty look when I didn't give him any. I might have done so AFTER the performance, but I'm not too eager paying to watch somebody do what I'd rather do myself! I was hoping he didn't put a hex on me. So after the performance I went around trying to find him to give him a dollar but...

...A local girl saw me, and came up asking (in English this time) if she could interview me for a school project. She was with her family, and they video taped her asking me a lot of questions (in English) about who I was, how I heard of El Tajin, which is better -- US or Mexico, etc. So that was neat!

I headed down the Gulf of Mexico along the Emerald Coast (named so because the water is a beautiful green), to Veracruz. I tried to stop by some more burial ruins on the way but they were closed. In Veracruz, it was getting late so I just decided to stay at another... sex motel. This one was really nice too -- honeymoon sheets that spilled beautifully across the floor, nice music controlled by a switch on the wall, tiled wood floor, and the all important A/C.