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a haven in the hills – Valle de Angeles, Honduras
Ela and I bade farewell to Lowell and Mayra, our friends in Santa Elena who so kindly hosted us for a needed week of rest, and headed to a small town near the capital, Tegucigalpa. Valle de Angeles is a quiet, green, artsy pueblo tucked away in the mountains 45 minutes of winding, two-lane highway…
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attitude is everything – Tapachula, Mexico
We have learned not to trust the GPS estimates of travel times. In these jungle mountain roads, 60 kilometers can easily take three hours to traverse. Sudden rain, topes, large trucks, livestock, potholes, the inexplicable disappearance of a road, wrong turns, confusing signage, etc. – all add up. We got halfway to Tapachula dipping up…
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red tape at the border – Chiapas, Mexico
We woke early and made our way deeper into Mayan lands, stopping for breakfast at a lovely little restaurant with a stunning view of a valley bursting with cornstalks. One gets the sense that all you’d have to do is throw a handful of seeds, and the next day, your harvest would be ready to…
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viva la revolución – Chiapas, Mexico
We bade farewell to the city of Oaxaca and headed south on route 175. It runs south along the valley floor and then climbs high into the mountains, serpentine and lush. At San Jose Pacifico, we found a rare gem of a community with fresh-brewed kombucha from a quick-footed local bruja, international travelers, rich local…
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stone soup and shattered glass – Oaxaca City, Oaxaca, Mexico
At some point in the night, probably while Polo (our new friend and couchsurfing host) and I were sharing a smoke and discussing UFOs, someone, or a group of someones, bashed in Berta’s backseat window. Ela was quietly sleeping, resting off the stomach problem that had ruined the first part of her day, Polo and…
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diagnostico – Mexico City, Mexico
The road stretched wearily between the blurry red taillights of traffic and the tall pines of the forest growing up as a fortress between us and Mexico City. The windshield wipers throbbed as a slow and steady heartbeat in the drizzle. The last dust of the Sonoran desert dripped down, comingling with the mountain soil…
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all-inclusive – Mazatlan, Sinaloa
We started early in the morning in Topolobampo. The sun was brilliant and it was hot by 7am. The town was alive, the market was crowded, and with the brightly-painted homes stacked atop each other, seemingly woven into the steep hillside, I thought of coastal southern Europe. We didn’t notice any tourists at all, and…
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somos innocente – Sinaloa
Another day of grueling heat on the road through Sonora. Dust devils and fires on the horizon, bottles and bottles of water drunk. The toll roads were being protested by their workers, and so we had to pay nothing for their use. Bonus. We were stopped twice by Federales upon crossing into the state of…
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the sun’s anvil – Sonora, Mexico
We arrived at the border town of Nogales and filled up the gas tank. Fuel in Arizona is significantly cheaper than once you cross into Mexico – an incongruous thought when you consider per-capita earnings and the value of the Peso to the US Dollar. We changed currency at the bank and Ela shot some…
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climbing out of the vortex – Sedona
After a long, hot day of driving through the desert, we arrived in Sedona to have lunch with friends. It was good to see them and laugh, but the heat was oppressive, and the crowds of paying tourists looking for metaphysical healing got me feeling a bit cynical, fresh as we were from the Hopi…