Then next two days getting to Palenque went ok – 200 miles to Villahermosa (another traffic nightmare) and then an easy 100 miles into Palenque on the 20th. I got there by lunchtime, had a relaxing meal at a restaurant just off the main plaza. This was the day before the Mayan “End of the World” was predicted* to occur, so town was full of different groups of people with their own take on the meaning of the whole thing. I’ll call them “hippies” for want of a better term…
There was a guy sitting at the next table, saying that the world wasn’t actually going to end tomorrow (phew) but in fact it would just be 3 days of darkness. That’s not so bad eh?
I found my way out to the hotel that had been booked by my ADVrider contact, which was only a few kilometres from the ruins. It was still early in the day and I didn’t expect to see him yet – last I’d heard about a week before he was in northern Mexico, but planning to use the Cuotas so should have been able to get there in time.
When he didn’t show up that night I emailed him – turned out he got tired of riding and decided to stay somewhere for a few days – and neglected to tell me. So I had the hotel room (and the bill) to myself…
On the big day I woke to a big, fat, tropical downpour. It was good in one way – I was on Day 119 of the trip and in that time I’d only seen 2 days of rain. So it was good to get some real rain for a change. It put a bit of a damper on proceedings at the ruins, but I think it added to the atmosphere.
I left Palenque after 2 nights instead of the planned 3 – the hotel was more expensive than I was accustomed to and with no roommate to split costs, it was time to move on.
The road from Palenque to San Cristobal was another beauty with quite a few small villages along the way. This was the first section that I’d noticed the topes being used for strictly commercial purposes. The idea is that if you can get the traffic moving slowly enough it is more likely to stop at your fruit/taco/drinks stand. “Official” topes tend to attract these facilities, as well as the vendors that stand in the middle of the road passing out drinks and food as cars are crossing the topes.
However… good spots by the official topes are at a premium, so if you can’t move to the tope, why not just build your own tope wherever it suits you? I started seeing topes made out of mud, or mud and rocks, with conveniently-located food stalls right beside them. Better still, why build a tope at all when you can stretch a rope across the road and force vehicles to stop?
I met a German guy on a KTM on the last stretch into San Cristobal, we rode into town together and decided to save some money by sharing a room.
No worries about finding a hotel here – there were maybe ten on the first street as Joachim and I rode toward the central plaza. I was in the lead so picked one at random. There’s always two questions for the moto traveler on a budget – what is the price? Is there parking for the moto? If these two check out then it’s “is there hot water?” and check out the room. If all those things are up to par then it’s time to park the bike – in this case a large secure parking area just behind the hotel.
Sharing turned out to be a bad idea! Remember the rain at Palenque? Joachim had been camping in it, and all his gear was soaked through. Do you know what clothes/tents/sleeping bags smell like after they’ve been wet and stuffed in a pannier for a few days?? 
The more I hear about KTM’s the more convinced I am that they are a poor choice for a RTW bike (I suspect KTM knows this, and is the real reason they didn’t put up the bikes for Ewan and Charley in The Long Way Round). Joachim’s 990 Adventure had seen a couple of episodes of almost total power loss, but then it had seemingly fixed itself. We did a bit of research an it seems that along with the well known water pump problems (there’s another another example on a 2000-mile-old bike) there are also frequent issues with the fuel pump and fuel filters ($120 for the set of 3!). This seems to be the problem with Joachim’s bike. For someone with minimal mechanical skills, a tight budget, and an unwillingness to carry half a pannier full of spares, a Weestrom would have been a much better choice. He’s going to continue and hope for the best, all I could do was wish him luck.
