Episode 1
(7-24-17)
I'm 23 months out from this next trip. I'm nervous, terrified, excited and apprehensive. I've done something like this before. But it's not quite the same this time. At this point, this far out from the beginning of the next adventure, I'm not sure if I'm better prepared or if I'm more nervous. Despite this trip being almost 15 months out I still feel rushed in getting ready. I guess you can't ever really be completely ready. And whether it's fifteen months out or 3 months out, it's always going to be the same. The same feeling will exist.
I was sitting almost directly across from Patrick in a hard, white plastic chair I had dragged out from my own room at this motel. It was the type of light-weight, plastic chair you can find at almost any Walmart or stationed in a security guard booth. Uncomfortable, slightly misshaped but it would do.
Near the Guatemala border.
I arrived sometime in the afternoon and had passed the motel once. Lost, as always. I should add that despite my propensity of getting lost on this adventure, this time it was slightly more understandable as the motel was set back off the main street and, as I remember it, the motel wasn't clearly marked or identified. In my mind, it was understandable the someone would pass this place.
After making some quick greetings with Patrick, I had rented a room two doors down from his room. We had spoken the day before, caught up and we had agreed to meet here near the Guatemalan border the day before while I was still in San Cristobal. I asked Patrick where I should park my bike. We had already discussed his status of recuperation when I was up in San Cristobal de las Casas. I had checked in at the motel and established my belongings in my own room, two doors down from Patrick's room.
I wanted to cross the border on this day but Patrick relented. He had acquired an intestinal parasite about a week earlier somewhere up on the Pacific coast from some bad well water he had drank during a storm. He was too polite to refuse his hosts offer for a drink and, as a result, had suffered this past week with worms in his shit and overall ill health and nausea. I think the thought of passing worms out his anus had make the condition worse for him, as it would have for most of us. Whenever he started to describe the condition, he would look a little more ill and extremely uneasy. I could barely take the description he had given me the day before of what he had endured since acquiring the worms. Despite me being eager to cross the border into Guatemala that day, his argument of having one more day to recover and us getting a fresh start crossing the next morning made sense. In that conversation we agreed we would lock our rooms up, walk down to the Farmacia and get him some medication. We would also pick up some alcohol and get drunk this night as we didn't have to travel again until morning. In what quickly became hindsight, it was a great plan. Or so we had thought.
I had dragged out the plastic chair from my room, two doors down, and placed it outside his room on the narrow cement walkway in front of his room. He took the same type of chair out of his room and also situated it outside his room, placing it directly across from my chair. He had his laptop and had asked me if I wanted to watch some NASCAR races with him while we caught up on our travels. He took out his laptop, plugged it into a socket on the front facing wall inside his room and logged in. Within seconds there were NASCAR races on and we began to catch up, starting from the time we had gone separate ways back in San Blas.
Patrick, Elena and I at Stoners Surf Camp. San Blas.
I had met Patrick about 2 or 3 weeks earlier up in San Blas, just a little northwest of Tepic and a good distance south of my last stop in Mazatlan. I don't remember how I ended up in San Blas, or whom had made the recommendation to go there but I was there and before I even found a room for the night I found myself putting around town checking things out. I had passed Stoners, a beach side motel just off a mouth to the inlet of the Estero el Pozo and fronting the Pacific Ocean. I had already passed it along with the other ocean side motels that shouldered it when I had turned around at the end of Virgilio Uribe road at some sandy spot facing the ocean where other cars had parked to take in the ocean view.
Stoners had a few thatched roof, raised cabins out front and that drew me in. I noticed these when I first passed. It looked interesting and it seemed even more interesting to be able to spend the night in an elevated, stilted thatched roof hut only feet from the Pacific Ocean. It sounded perfect. I rode in off the asphalt and onto the beach sand that made up the front lawn of the motel. Pass the thatched roof huts that were to my left I pulled up to where an outside restaurant on the property started. This was also thatched roofed with many tables underneath and there were no walls. It could be understood that the weather here was so great that there was no need for walls to protect patrons from the elements. It seemed to be paradise. As I pulled up the where the sand got deeper and the restaurant began I noticed another bike like mine, albeit newer and more farkled. It was another BMW GS, sans rider. But a bike like this was not seen often on my trip and it's mere presence indicated another like-minded traveler.
I pushed my side stand down with my left foot and once I knew the bike would tip no further into the sand, I dismounted and walked up to the first person I saw and asked about the availability of a hut out front. The huts were all booked for the night, probably a good thing since it was pretty humid here and there wasn't even an indoor fan installed to keep cool. The huts were as basic as could be and they were unavailable. My curiosity, outside of securing a room for the night, was on this bike and it's absentee rider. I asked about the owner of the bike and the proprietor pointed to a gentleman sitting with his back towards me and facing the ocean, sitting at one of the tables towards the middle of the establishment. As I would learn seconds later, this was Patrick the Canadian, owner of the newer adventure bike with Canadian plates. We would meet, exchange some brief introductions before meeting up again later that night for dinner at a panderia about a mile down the street later that afternoon.
The next day, despite my intentions to leave town, I would meet up with him again spending the day at Stoners sipping on beers while he and a young, blonde surfer girl he introduced me to puffed on some herb. That day would pass quietly, serenely and without any regret for not moving on that day. As the hours would pass, Patrick would remind me that the time to commit to leaving to safely make in to the next town or city was approaching. And as time passed by softly that day, us sitting in those chairs under that thatched roof within distance to hearing the ocean breaking on the beach not far away, it was then that fate had decided that I needed to stay here in San Blas at least another night. It was just me, this Canadian and a little Aussie surfer girl sipping beers and enjoying each others mismatched company and it was magical.
Parked near Stoners Surf Camp in San Blas where I met Patrick.
The next day, Patrick and I decided to part ways with him heading straight down the Pacific Coast towards Guatemala and me ping ponging back and forth inland and back to the coast. The surfer girl would stay at least a few more days while she nursed her heel back to health. That day when I was introduced to her by Patrick she had been stung or was it stabbed by a sea ray while surfing or swimming off the coast of Stoners. Her heel was infected and pussy and she wanted to see it get better before moving on up the coast towards the Baja peninsula where she was roughly scheduled to meet up with another friend that was to host her. Patrick and I decided that we would stay in intermittent contact with each other while we progressed towards Guatemala.
We had decided that if we were both near the Guatemala border around the same time that maybe we would cross the border together.
This is what brought us together at this otherwise guest-free motel just barely a breath away from Guatemala where we would both witness the largest drug transaction most people could ever have the misfortune to be exposed to, right there in front of us, trapped in our plastic chairs, staring at each other while we feigned ignorance of what was occurring in our presence, nearly upsetting the fragile balance of observer of highly illegal activity and those executing the behavior.
Patrick the Canadian.
I don't state this story to exemplify the inherent dangers of Mexico or any Central American country. In my experience, for the most part, danger seems to find those that invite it into their lives. Mexico was never any more dangerous to me than any large American city. As a matter of fact, I felt safer here and in Central America than I did at any Motel 6 in the U.S. But I do state this anecdote to illustrate the unpredictable nature of travel and experiencing places. Sometimes we just happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. This was one of those times.
Patrick had introduced me to Benjamin when I first pulled into the motel. It was Benjamin that had come out of the office to greet me. Patrick wouldn't exit his room for a few minutes after. I knew I had the right place when I spotted Patrick's bike parked inside the courtyard of the motel, out of the sight of the main street I had ridden down twice before trying to find this place. I was here and ridden down from San Cristobal that morning.
Benjamin seemed to be no more than 18 or 19 years old, at best. He was the sole proprietor and employee it seemed – host, maintenance, security, and every other position that comes with running a motel. The only guest at the time I rode up was Patrick. With me there he now had two guests checked in and that would remain that way until much later that night, when an odd grouping of two men and two women would show up. Adding to the mystery surrounding these other late to arrive guests was the fact that they would be gone before we got up the next morning at 6 AM. But they wouldn't arrive until after midnight and for now it was just me, Patrick and Benjamin in this little outpost of a town bordering the Guatemalan border and city of Mesilla. At this time it seemed idyllic and perfect. Patrick would come out and greet me, I would check into my room two doors down from Patrick, leaving my gear from my bike locked inside my room and Patrick and I would walk down the road to the Farmacia to get him some medication for his worms and to get us enough liquor to celebrate the impending border crossing properly.
San Blas beach musicians
When we returned to the motel we decided that I would pull a chair out of my room, a chair out of his room, park the same out in front of his open motel room door and watch some NASCAR on his laptop while we regaled in our travels that led us both to this location weeks after we had initially met. We drank, invited Benjamin over to join us and we all sat around telling stories. Benjamin seemed to find our adventures fascinating, despite his limited English and my poor grasp of Spanish. Patrick was completely ignorant of the Spanish language and had somehow gotten himself this far by pointing, shrugging his shoulders and knowing the Spanish word “si”. That was his extent of Spanish communication and he never seemed embarrassed of this fact.
At some point later in the evening, once it was dark and we were pretty much thoroughly drunk, some vehicles pulled into the motel courtyard. They pulled in all at once as if they were following each other from some unseen point. It should be stated that this motel had a building structure in the shape of a capital “L”. The shortest part of the building was the shortest part of the “L” and that was mainly, as I remember it, occupied by the office. The rest of the motel structure, that part encompassing the guest rooms, was the longer part of the “L” and that part was mostly hidden from the street by a tall, cinder block retaining wall. So when I rode past the motel the first time, from the street the only thing I could really make out was part of the structure consisting of the motel office and a few of the first rooms on the left. The remainder of the rooms was hidden from view from the street. As I later surmised, this was convenient to those that would want to stay hidden from the traffic on the street, not that there was much traffic to begin with as I remember it.
The vehicles that pulled in were a small “people mover” van, something like a Toyota or Volkswagen van that was used as a small bus. There was also a taxi, a 4-door passenger car and a large truck with a canvas or similarly tarped bed. In my recollection it reminded me of a lifted military looking truck with a cab up front and a large bed in the back covered by this tarp like material. They pulled in and one of them must have asked Benjamin to ask us to move our bikes from the parking spots and away from the retaining wall and over to the farthest corner of the motel. Benjamin came over while we sat, after speaking to one of the drivers of the vehicles and has asked us to move our bikes. We obliged, without hesitation or question and returned to our seats, bottles of alcohol and ignored NASCAR races on the laptop. The vehicles all pulled into the courtyard, positioning themselves out of view of the roadway and obstructed behind the retaining wall. Patrick and I mostly ignored them and didn't think anything of the fact that this hodgepodge of vehicles pulled in together. Blame it on the alcohol or just a lack of situational awareness, we were ignorant and continued to imbibe.
Near the Guatemala border.
In almost no time, as now the sun had set, men came pouring out the vehicles. Some were assisting in moving large suspicious bales from the largest military-looking truck into the remaining vehicles. We had barely noticed what was going on when I asked one of the men on the ground that was getting bales passed to him from someone up in the bed of the large truck if he needed help.
“Necessita ayuda?” I had asked.
He shook his head no and sheepishly smiled. It was at this moment that I put it all together. I think Patrick had also noted what was going on at this time as he made no mention of it prior and up until this time we were merrily furthering our intoxication and deep into conversation between ourselves.
“Do you see what is going on?” I asked Patrick.
I tried not to sound like I was whispering as I didn't want to draw suspicion to us and I tried to mix the question in with what would seem like regular, continuing conversation. I didn't want there to seem like a break in the conversation. We had the noise of this many men working, as well as the NASCAR races and the fact that we were speaking English fairly fast in our favor when discussing what we were both now witness to. We did not break eye contact with each other as this question was posed by me and Patrick had responded nervously
“Yes. Just keep on talking like we know nothing and everything is exactly the same as it was before these guys arrived." Patrick murmured.
I responded “agreed”, doing my best to conceal my response within normal chatter. And then I started to bring up our plans for crossing in the morning and what we may encounter then.
The men continued to work and it didn't seem long for the transfer to take place. This all made sense as I remember someone telling me up near Creel that this was the harvest season. In my mind I was questioning whether this was something coming over the border from Guatemala, something being transported to cross the border into Guatemala or neither. It would seem with our near proximity to the Guatemalan border that it would be one of the first two options. It didn't matter as now we were both stuck here exactly as we were until the situation went away. Getting up and bidding each other good night in the presence of what was going on would seem suspicious as could be, all things considered. We definitely couldn't get up and leave. Our only option was to sit here and pretend that we weren't aware of anything going on outside of our conversation. That was what would keep us safe.
The men and vehicles were gone within minutes. As could be expected, it felt like hours. Everyone was gone with the exception of two men that remained behind standing against the retaining wall with about four bales of the not so mysterious goods. They stood with their backs to the wall and facing straight ahead towards the two gringos on the plastic chairs trying to pretend they weren't terrified. I was guessing that they couldn't fit all the product in to the vehicles that were there and that they left the product behind with two men until they could find a surrogate vehicle to pick up the remainder. At no time did I see any weapons, oddly enough. But that didn't ensure me that they didn't have them.
Minutes in Patrick took out his cellphone and held it up in front of his face to better view the screen. Out of a place unseen previously, Benjamin came running up and started yelling “no fotos! No fotos!” Patrick stated to him that he was trying to text his wife and before he could barely finish stating this I strongly stated, teeth clinched, for Patrick to put his fucking phone away now. Patrick did so and just as I saw one of the men start to move away from the wall and take a step in our direction. Benjamin made a hand motion to this man to stand down. His body language seemed to state that he had this small oversight handled and that everything was cool. Funny how so much can be communicated with just some body language in the right context. Shortly after another van arrived and the men loaded the bales into the van, hopped in and they were all gone. Patrick and I decided that despite their now apparent absence, we would not discuss any of this until the next day when we were already over the border
Later that night two more vehicles would show up with a couple in each vehicle, both at the same time and sometime after midnight as Patrick and I were wrapping up our night. They watched us intently and sat outside of a couple of rooms while Patrick and I sat in front of his room. They took the one room between our room and the other room to the side of my room. I had both couples shouldering my motel room and it was an uneasy night. We exchanged some quick pleasantries with one couple and told them about our planned departure the next day into Guatemala. To be safe we wanted to let them know that we would be on our way early the next day, on to another country and out of everyone's business. This is what we tried to communicate, even it we were being a little paranoid at this point.
Aduana. Guatemala border.
The next morning they were gone by the time Patrick got up at 6 AM. I woke up at 7 AM and we were on our way crossing the Guatemala border at La Mesilla and heading quickly towards Huehuetenango.