Day 26 - Hotel Santa Clara, San Cristobal de las Casas

It had been a noisy night. We were staying right next to the town square and the little town partied until late, right outside our window. The girls were parked up in the street right outside our window, we could see them from our balcony, and bikes had been whipping up and down the street till the wee hours of the morning. It made for an uncomfortable sleep as every time I heard a bike start up, I was listening in case it was one of ours. It wasn’t and we had nothing to worry about, but it did mean an unfitful sleep during the night. Being Sunday and knowing that it would be unlikely that we would make it through the Mexico/Guatemala border crossing as the bank would likely be closed on the Guatemala side, and our research had told us that you needed to make a payment at the bank in order to complete the process of passing through the border, we had decided to head for the border town of Ciudad Cuauhtemoc, which was only about 3 and half hours from San Cristobal. As such, we were in no rush to leave in the morning as we expected that there would be very little to do in the little border town. We had a bit of a lazy morning and only got on the road around 12:00. It was great to relax a bit and not push on first thing, which is our standard arrangement. The ride down to the border town came with the usual “bumpos”, which was starting to get really tiresome. I suppose that they do the job of ensuring that vehicles travel slowly through towns, but they are an absolute pain in the ass. About 10 minutes away from our destination, we were bombing down the highway when I noticed a biker in a service station as we were riding past. It is just one of those things that I noticed, a relatively tall guy (so unlikely to be a Mexican) in riding gear. I couldn’t see his bike as it was behind a pump, but he had clearly heard the bikes coming and was walking towards the road to have a look at who might be coming past. Jorik was riding in front of me so got to see the bike before me and it came over the comms that it was Gregorio, the Scooter Guy. we immediately slammed on anchors and turned around to go and have a chat and say hello. he was super pleased to see us, and it was great catching up again as it had been a few days, and we were eager to hear how he was getting on. He was well, and whilst he had had a few issues with the scooter, it was nothing that he couldn’t fix and get back on the road. His toolbox is right at his feet, and it looked pretty well used, not to mention the fact that his scooter looks a little beat up. He mentioned that he had heard the bikes and was sure that it was us, as the Girls have quite a distinct sound, different from the other motorbikes that you hear. We chatted with him for a bit and explained that we were about to stop for the day at the little border town a few minutes down the road. He was going to press on in Mexico and head for the border to the south, which was still pretty much a full day (if not 2) for him, but he wanted to cross further south into Guatemala. We said our goodbyes and hoped that we would see him further down the road, but I think our routes are going to differ when we cross into Guatemala so it might be that it would be our last encounter with Gregorio. As we were about to head off, he gave us a quick warning that the local police had told him to be aware of the Cartels, which were operating in the area. We had noted that the last few towns or settlements had appeared to be abandoned, which was really odd. Gregorio tends to sleep at police stations and in gardens as he camps whenever he can. It is much cheaper for him and as he is on the road for a very long time, he doesn’t have the same budget that we have. At the last police station, they had welcomed him to pitch his tent to the rear of the station but warned him that he shouldn’t camp out as the Cartels would see that as an opportunity to either steel from him, or worse. With this stark warning fresh in our minds, we pressed on to Ciudad Cuauhtemoc and the hotel we had found on the internet called Media Luna. As we came into the town, a sign jumped out at me that Media Luna was to the right and we needed to turn off. However, when we did turn onto the dirt track, we couldn’t find anywhere called Media Luna. There was no signage for the place. We rode up a steep hill on this dirt track and ended up at a little shop, which was open, but there were still very few people around. We could see the Immigration buildings and the area where vehicles are inspected before they cross the border, so we were definitely in the right place, we just couldn’t see the hotel. We headed back down the hill, did a bit of a ride around, but there was nothing to be seen that looked like a hotel. Whilst we still had the benefit of Jorik’s mobile service, we checked the address of the hotel again and it certainly looked like it was located next to the little shop, but the only building there was securely locked up with a massive gate to the driveway and a second gate near the entrance to the shop. I went in to the shop and asked the lady if Media Luna was next door and if so, was it open. She said it was and asked me to wait whilst she went round the back and obviously found the owner to open up for us. He was very friendly, and we arranged a double room, with aircon (result) for MXN500 for both of us for the night, which is a not too bad. He told us that there was not a lot going on in the little town, but there was a restaurant across the road where we could get some food, but we shouldn’t be out too late and that we were to ensure that the gate was kept closed. Once we had unpacked the bikes, had a quick shower to clear the daily sweat and grime off, we went in search of food. It was only about 6:30pm, but the restaurant had already closed and there was just a local bar open. Well actually it was more like a dingy room with a fridge and a load of what appeared to be Mexican truckers in there sucking back on beers. Not a particularly attractive opportunity for us, so we headed back the other way towards the town and past the Immigration buildings. We found a little street vendor with a hot dog trolley serving a few people but thought we might be able to find something a little more substantial in the town. We didn’t, the town was very quiet. It might have been because it was a Sunday, but it just felt eery that there were so few people around. We headed back to the street vendor and grabbed quite a tasty burger before heading back to the hotel for an early night. The next morning, we would tackle the border crossing.