Exploring Palenque with Fellow Motorcyclist – 20220628

For the second time on my trip I met someone else traveling by motorcycle. I found Jeanette on couchsurfing. She is doing a solo trip as well, and I have to say her trip seems much more impressive as she is a tiny lady from Singapore. She told me she already dropped her bike 5 times and is at the mercy of the Latinos around her 100% of the time as she is incapable of working on her own bike, much less even picking it up if she drops it. Not exactly a great place to be. So for the third time in my life I actually rode with another motorcyclist.

We rode to Roberto Barrios which was quite nice. 40 minutes and 30 pesos later we arrived. You could spend all day exploring the various waterfall pools scattered throughout the area.

We also ate there where I had some of the best tortillas I’ve ever tasted. How is there so much variety in flavor from something as simple as smashing corn into a circle? I don’t know. There were a lot of stray skinny dogs so we threw them our leftover meat.

The ride out was quite nice and quite easy. All pavement with your usual amount of topes in Mexico. When we got back we went out to eat at the same place Jeanette had eaten snails the day before. We wanted to try some quesadilla thing that ended up being exceedingly awful. It was called Chapay.

The next day we met at the market to try some Palenque market food. It was pretty meh to be honest. The plantains with cream were awful. Incredibly bitter.

I took burro to a motorcycle shop to get a tire changed and it was only 1700 pesos to throw a new front tire on. I am so happy to have the new tire, it was getting pretty sketchy on the old one and i was going to try to make it to Guatemala city on it which would have probably been a supremely awful decision.

We are going our separate ways in the morning. Me driving south towards road closures, horrendous rain, and Guatemalan narcos and Jeanette going north towards the burnt gringo skin of Cancun.

My trip thus far, although I have met multitudes of amazing people, has felt supremely lonely. The vast majority of the time I am riding totally alone, entirely unsure of what amazing or awful thing waits for me just past the next bend. And it requires mental maintenance 100% of the time to prune back the dark wet roots of loneliness that are always seeping into my moments of peaceful solitary bliss. I cannot help but think all the time about the quote by Chris McCandless. “Happiness is only real when shared.” And while I realize that I must go on alone, and that I would prefer to go on alone, I can’t help but let the absolute terror I have felt in various circumstances in Chiapas and Mexico as a whole boil up to my ears. And when I close my eyes I feel as if I am jumping into a tank of sharks with only people to stare at me from below through 1 way mirrors.

So tomorrow I continue as the words, “it is what it is,” constantly echo in my mind. As things break and tear and as beautiful flowers come out of nowhere to remind me of love long past. I sit on the bike doing whatever it takes to always inch forward wearing an apathetic smile, but sometimes a smile exploding with beauty and happiness, and sometimes tears rolling down my face. It somehow seems fitting that through it all, the kids that wave to me from the side of the road just see a guy in a shiny grey helmet moving by them for just a moment headed on the road south flashing the peace sign with his fingers.