Motorsports
By Art Bone April 25, 2008 San Miguel de Allende

In search of pyramids, zip lines & caves

There’s been a spate of movies lately about people who, when faced with imminent death, go on adventures they’ve been postponing all their lives.

 In The Bucket List, Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman go on a road trip to try some of the things they feel they’ve missed, before they kick the bucket. In One Week, an indy film from Canada, a young man with inoperable cancer goes on a cross-country motorcycle trip on a 1973 Norton. This is a common theme in literature: a final search for Enlightenment or an Epiphany, before the darkness of the grave.

None of the group of sanmiguelenses that gathered at George Field’s (AKA Jorge Campos) Bahia de la Luna hotel in Puerto Angel were under a death watch, at least as far as I could tell, except insofar as anyone over 50 is faced with his own mortality. Dinner conversation was mostly about memorable trips they taken in the past and trips they had planned for the future; almost never about wills and funeral plans. And yet, we were planning to do a trip that was, by my estimation and I think many people’s estimation, very adventurous.

What’s wrong with us? According to Hollywood, we’re supposed to wait until we’re on the verge of death to do this.

Our plan: Group together in Puerto Angel and, in a convoy of three motorcycles and two cars, proceed to Guatemala in search of pyramids to climb, zip lines to zip down, and caves to explore. Our secondary goals were the perfect cheap hotel room, the best available gourmet food, and the most interesting, challenging roads.

Our group consisted of George and Lauda Fields, Gordon and Maureen Morris, Paul and Alice Roderick, Mike Baumgartner, and Carol and Your Correspondent. The Fields, Mike and Carol and I were on three motorcycles, the Morrises and the Rodericks were in two SUVs.

When we set out, it was early February, we were on Daylight Wasting Time, the days were short, and the roads were very curvy, so it was well after dark when we turned onto the moto-cross track that serves as the road into Bahia de la Luna. The sign said “3 kilometers” but it felt like a lot more before we finally pulled into the parking lot and heard the ocean just a few yards away.

George and Lauda were waiting with dinner for us so we were soon fed, watered and ready for bed.

I awoke at first light and sat on the deck to watch the sun rise out over the ocean. Coming in after dark the night before, this was my first glimpse of my surroundings. The jungle-covered mountains come right down to the sea and form a beautiful little inlet with a quarter-mile beach of white sand. It’s straight out of Blue Lagoon with Brook Shields (and me in the Christopher Atkins’ role. A slim, young me, not the fat, old, real me.)

There are travelers who love to read all guides, look at all the websites, maybe check out a DVD or two from Netflix, and try to plan every detail of their trip. They make plans, then back-up plans, then contingency plans for when the back-up plan breaks down.

I’m not one of those travelers. I like to load up and go and make plans as the situation demands. I love the serendipity that results from spontaneity. My expression is, “I like to let the experience wash over me.” However, when the experience threatens to wash me away instead of wash over me, I have my wife, Carol, to fall back on. She’s one of those planners. I supply the inspiration and she supplies the perspiration. This plays to each of our strengths and, I think, makes us a great team.

We made an early stop for the night at Juchitan to avoid the late afternoon high winds at the windmill farms along the coast, then spent the next night at San Cristobal de las Casas, where we stayed with the only certified orchid rescuer in Mexico.

Two easy days of riding delivered us to the Chan-Kah Ruinas Hotel in Palenque. We had very nice little cabins, just across from a large, open-air restaurant that overlooked a huge pool, made to look like a lagoon and surrounded by palm trees. We were only about a mile from the pyramids.

And the pyramids didn’t disappoint. I’m always astounded by the amount of social organization it must have taken to accomplish the huge amount of work it took to construct these huge buildings.

Someone had to be planting the corn and rolling out the tortillas while the majority was chiseling stones. Who decided the division of labor?

We spent two nights in Palenque before heading south to the Guatemalan border. I’m not sure the town where we crossed had a name. A big, new road led right up to the border on the Mexican side and construction of a new, large customs office was almost complete. On the Guatemalan side, the road turned to dirt through a dusty little town then turned to a construction zone for another ten miles. Then, suddenly, we were on a brand new, wide, perfectly paved road. This was the pattern for the roads in Guatemala. They are amazing; either amazingly good or amazingly bad.

Border crossings are always problematic. Getting back into the US has become a chore, even if you’re a citizen, so it’s a treat when you find a customs official that regards you as a human being and not a potential criminal.

We stopped in the little town of El Naranjo to get our passports stamped and our vehicle permits. The customs office is a little shack by a small lake. It’s a bar as well as the customs office so we had a beer while everyone got their paperwork. The official there was very pleasant and seemed delighted to see us and help us. He must be new to the job. There seems to be something about government work that curdles the milk of human kindness.

When we asked about vehicle permits he said he didn’t have the proper forms, since where we crossed was not officially open yet, but we could get them in Flores where we planned to stop for the night--and the funny part was that we believed him.

Two mornings later found us sitting on the east side of a pyramid, staring out over the jungle of Tikal, waiting for the sunrise. When the tour was first described to me, I was dreading what I call the “Kumbaya Moment,” when everyone joins hand and lifts their voices in song to celebrate the sunrise and to give thanks to the Mayan spirits for allowing us to be there.

I’m not religious but I’m not spiritual either. If I ever have a religious epiphany I doubt that it will be while holding some strangers sweaty hand.

My fears were misplaced. It was nothing like that. As the darkness lightened almost imperceptibly, the howlers monkeys started up their roaring and the birds started up their cacophony. Gradually the shapes in the jungle took form and revealed themselves to be other pyramids, still covered with nearly a thousand years of jungle growth. It was a misty morning, which added to the mysterious appearance of the place. This city, which once claimed nearly a quarter million people, was abandoned long before the Spanish came to Central America and no one knows why, but the current theory is that they depleted the resources in the area and were forced to move.

Could there be a message for modern man in this ancient calamity?

Stay tuned for Part II in a future edition of Atención.

Art Bone believes that traveling and writing are two activities which are broadening—if not for the mind, at least for the bottom.