m & d south on motos: Oaxaca - Tehuantepec - Puerto Arista

We made it to San Cristobal de las Casas in the mountains of Chiapas and finally have an internet connection. We got to ride some of the best mountain roads of our lives. We also passed through one of the most intensely windy sections of highway in the world. Between Tehuantepec and the Chiapas state line is a section called La Ventosa. Filled with wind farms, this is the narrowest section of Mexico, ocean to ocean, and the only section without a Sierra Madre mountain pass. Huge sections of the world's weather are funneled through this narrow section and it is a very intense section of highway to drive through in any vehicle. We spent a couple of nights on the beach in the deserted beach town of Puerto Arista at "Jose's Camping Cabanas," where we met some great people. Clay, from Canada, is a 22 year old geologist riding form Vancouver to Argentina on a KLR 650 motorcycle. The wind in La Ventosa caused him to crash his bike, scattering his gear everywhere and continually blowing his bike over as he tried to get it all together. Some torch-relay-for-Jesus people happened along and drove him and his bike 40 km until the wind was less intense and he could get his luggage sorted. The other people we met at the campground were an amazing Australian family celebrating their son Frankie's first birthday. They are driving from Canada to Rio Dulce Guatemala in an '89 Toyota camper with their two daughters, 6 and 8, and Frankie - the birthday boy turning 1. In Rio Dulce is the 40-something foot Catamaran that they bought and live on, which they will sail through the Panama Canal and back to Sydney. Their trip will be 2 1/2 years in total and is one of many they have taken around the world with their children. Truly inspiring. They lost several home-made sailboat parts and some mattresses in the wind of La Ventosa, never to be seen again. Marion and I felt fortunate to have made it through unscathed and upright. We have no desire to experience that particular section of road again.

We had a great couple of days at Jose's place and then set off through the Sierra Madre Chiapas range towards San Cristobal de las Casas. Amazing motorcycling and a steady climb from sea level to 8000 feet, including a long section where we drove straight through a thick cloud with almost zero visibility. Beautiful indigenous villages on the tops of the mountains really reminded us of the Thai-Myanmar border area and all the Chinese KMT hill tribe villages. Only these people grow mountainside corn instead of black tea. Near vertical rocky crag of a mountainside? They'll plant a corn field on it. It was freezing by the end and we were happy to pull in to the high valley of San Cristobal, a beautiful colonial town that is surprisingly popular with global tourists. We are planning of heading up to the ruins of Palenque in a couple days, then cross into Guatemala and see the ruins of Tikal before heading south toward Guatemala City and Antigua, Guatemala.

Here are some pictures starting in Oaxaca and continuing into Chiapas. Marion's bike is super happy with it's fancy new synthetic oil and new rear brake pads (check out how used up her old rear pads are). The ruins are at Monte Alban in Oaxaca, a great archeological site at the top of a mountain overlooking Oaxaca de Juarez. The pictures don't do it justice. Hopefully more soon - Davis