It’s been a long time since we wrote Part II and honestly, so much has happened since then that we had a hard time even thinking of what to write. The number of sights, people we’ve met, laughs, and struggles can be overwhelming to mentally sort through. But we did settle on writing about two of our favorite local characters that we met through southern Mexico. Enjoy.
Tobias (Stephanie)
After kicking off the trip in February and traveling over two whole months we finally hit the coast. I had been waiting for this moment pretty much since the start of the trip so needless to say, I was ecstatic. I love the beach not only for the chill beach-vibes but also for gorgeous golden sunsets over the Pacific and all the life that happens in those in-between places from land to the sea. We hit the Oaxaca coast, which has some of the most beautiful remote coastline and a few small villages we bummed around for about 3 weeks.
(Side note and some words of caution for all you travelers/readers: unplanned travel has it’s perks, but that also means you may end up in places during not-so-great weather. One of the lessons we learned the hard way is just how hot April in Mexico is on the coast…. It is the hottest time of the year and if any of you decided to travel in a van without A/C to these beaches, expect 90 degree F nights tossing, turning and sweating profusely into your mattress. Thankfully, we revamped the van with a small fan before heading down into the heat so it could have been worse… right?)
Even with the ungodly heat, we quickly became accustomed to the life on the beach. I would spend days lounging under an umbrella with a cold drink and a book while James would be in the water getting his ass-kicked by waves trying to learn how to surf. Life was good.
After a number of days we eventually arrived in a small town called Zipolite. We had been hearing great things, plus it was nudist-friendly so we thought it might be nice to even out those tans of ours too. Win-win!
Our first day we decided to scope the scene a bit, aka went to a bar and drank on one part of the beach, and then later, sat on the beach at our camp with a few beers (hard life I know). Now, something I wasn’t accustomed to originally that happens on the daily in Mexico is people coming up to you wanting to sell you their hand-made (or sometimes not so hand made) local crafts wherever you are. If you are inside a restaurant, expect people to come inside to your table to sell you things, or on the beach where you obviously want peace and quiet to read. They will come.
There was one dude in particular that through our ‘scene scoping’ activities I saw pass by at least 3 times with a really pretty sarong with bright colors in a mandala pattern. So, I decided to justify to myself that I needed to spend our precious budgeted money on this sarong if he happened to pass by a 4th time. Minutes later, there he was strolling back the other direction.
I flagged the guy over, which basically committed me to the sale, because these people tend to really run the guilt card when you show faint interest in one of their items. Thus, the haggle dance commenced! After much deliberating, the guy dropped his prices enough that I felt okay that I wouldn’t be bargaining him out of buying food for his family but it was also something more reasonable for the small piece of colorful fabric I wanted. Now, with the dancing done, I attempted to pay but to my avail the guy didn’t have any change. I walked away leaving him and James to chat while I went to find someone to break my bill into smaller chunks.
On my return, James and this man had gone past the customer-seller relationship and were in deep conversation. Tobias was his name and he was a doll. He asked lots of questions on why we decided to travel in the manner we do, and in turn shared a bit of his story with us as well. He actually sat in the sand to chit chat with us for a long while, sacrificing more potential sarong sales that afternoon and really helping us practice our spanish. During the following days we ran into Tobias regularly, and each time he would jokingly try to sell us something.
On the eve before moving on to a different beach we decided to join the nudey fun and take a naked swim and stroll. We walked down towards a little protected cove at the far end of the beach where we wanted to check out the large crashing waves on some rocks, but also had an area with softer waves hitting the beach for a dip. After we stashed our clothes up on some beach rocks and spent a good while exploring we decided to make the stroll back. I just finished getting my new sarong on and was packing up our water as James navigated to his clothes when out of nowhere we hear;
“James!!” – As we turn, we see Tobias walking down the beach holding up a pair of pants from his stack of sale items – “perdiste tus pantalones?” (did you lose your pants?) In the most comical of timing, Tobias was there for the rescue, with some pants for sale. Well done Tobias, well done.
Bernardo Ramirez-Perez (James)
In the deep south of Mexico, in the state of Chiapas, there’s a huge wedge of jungle that borders Guatemala. The highway through this region (the Carretera Frontera or “the 307”) serves one of the most remote regions of Mexico, full of lush jungle, gorgeous turquoise waterfalls, and tiny Mayan villages. Our friends Stacey and Darren raved about it and, looking for a change of scenery from the blistering hot Oaxacan coast, we decided to spend a week road tripping down the 307.
A few days in to the trip we stopped off at an area called Las Nubes. It’s basically a really pretty blue river with some waterfalls- pretty standard for Chiapas. On one side there’s a fairly pricey cabin resort, but the other side is owned by the local village (you can probably guess which side we went for). We pulled into our camp site for the night, a nice grassy area next to the river which was bustling with local families bathing and playing in the water. As we walked along the river I passed by a tiny man sitting in the water in his whitey-tighties who immediately struck up a conversation with me, the tall gringo in the middle of nowhere Mexico.
He introduced himself as Bernardo Ramirez-Perez and proceeded to tell me his life story. He had lived in California for a number of years (remember what we said in Part II about EVERYONE in Mexico having ties to the US? Yeah.), but he spoke no English, so we stumbled through conversation about California, Trump, and how many hours it took us to drive from Seattle. Eventually he popped the question:
“There are some caves near here. Do you guys want a tour?”
At this point we had spent several months in Mexico and we had learned that everywhere you go, there is someone wanting you to pay for some sort of tour. I was a bit bummed because I was enjoying talking to Bernardo and he had to go ruin it by trying to get money from me, so I gave him a non-committal “I dunno” and tried to change the subject. Eventually he came back to it.
“The cave is only a couple kilometers from here. I can take you in the morning.”
I gave in and reluctantly asked how much he wanted for the tour. He gave me a confused look and said “Es gratis! Eres mi amigo, no quiero tu dinero.” (It’s free! You are my friend, I don’t want your money.) At that point I felt like a massive jerk for misreading his intent so I apologized and said of course we would love to see the cave.
Meanwhile Steph had been off taking photos and missed most of my conversation with Bernardo other than the part where he said he would show up at our van in the morning to take us to a cave. We said “hasta manana” to Bernardo and after he left, Steph started expressing her doubts, which I will paraphrase:
“You agreed to let a random guy take us into the jungle with a machete? Who is this guy? What if he robs us? What were you thinking? Why the hell did I marry you? I could have married Dave from Accounting. Nice, stable, not at all reckless Dave. Dave would have bought me a house in the suburbs instead of a van in the fucking jungle!”
In my defense, Dave sucks and is boring. Also, as I explained to Steph, Bernardo and I are basically best friends now and he’s, like, totally legit. I don’t think my assurances made her feel much better. Fortunately, the next morning as we were finishing breakfast Bernardo showed up with a big smile on his face and an armful of limes and coconuts that he had brought us from his farm. Ha! Your turn to feel like a jerk, Steph!
Bernardo hopped in the van and directed us farther into the middle of nowhere to the start of the hike. We grabbed our headlamps and followed him as he machete’d his way into the jungle, eventually arriving at the mouth of the cave. As we ventured in Stephanie was nearly devoured by bats but we persevered and soon we were in the main chamber.
It wasn’t the most impressive cave we had seen, but we noticed two large unnatural looking holes in the ground. Bernardo explained that there are tons of caves in the area that the ancient Mayans used to hide treasures, and those two holes had contained pots of gold. On top of that, Bernardo knew of another cave that still contained an intact crown that he had left there because, you know, curses. So it turns out while we’ve been running around ruins pretending to be Indiana Jones, Bernardo has actually been chasing ancient, potentially cursed treasure! We need to step up our game.
After the cave, Bernardo gave us the locals’ tour of Las Nubes, and eventually invited us to stay at his house so that he could take us on the much longer hike to see the crown. Unfortunately, we had a date to keep in Merida and had to keep moving. But let our loss be your gain. If you are into archeology, spelunking, and/or treasure hunting then fly to Tuxtla Gutierrez MX, rent a car, drive five-ish hours along the Guatemala border, leave the highway to find a tiny village called Zacualtipan, and ask for la familia Ramirez-Perez who live next to the school. It will be worth your while.
In Conclusion
In several months of traveling through Mexico there’s still a lot that we didn’t see. But what we did see opened our eyes to just how huge and incredible of a country it is. We traveled through at least 13 Mexican states, almost all of which have “reconsider travel” warnings from the US State Department.
What we discovered was not the dark land of gang violence and public executions that American media portrays, but an amazingly diverse country full of awesome people and overwhelming natural beauty. Before starting this trip almost everyone we spoke to worried about us driving through Mexico but, as we always do, we decided to go and see for ourselves. We suggest you do the same.
At this point we don’t really know where this blog will go in our post-Mexico world. Maybe we’ll continue with the short-story format as we continue South, or maybe we’ll try something different. But we have been terrible at updating the blog regularly and we know we want that to change. So keep your eyes peeled and thanks for actually reading this far. As a reward here’s a ton more photos from throughout Mexico.
