Further along my return trip I stopped in Ocosingo for lunch, but it was a mad house so I had to park a couple blocks from where any food joints were.  I haven’t spent much time in this town so it was a good excuse to walk around a bit more, but it was hot and I had all my gear on so only did so much exploring.  From here it is an easy ride to San Cristobal and I would be there in no time, or so I thought….  Churro and I are cruising along when we arrive to some kind of scene.  There are cars lined up parked on the road, and a couple trees are down.  Oh shit, since it is Chiapas it is clear this is a protest.  I am close to San Cristobal at this point, so pull up to see what the deal is.  The guy in charge immediately tells me I am not getting through.

  I laughed, made some jokes about Churro being too big anyway, but continued the small talk.  The younger guy nods his head saying I can go, but the jefe isn’t having it.  I am not pushing it, we are talking about something else, but after 5 or so minutes or so he changes his mind and tells me to go for it, I can make it.  I knew I could sweet talk you sir.  Of course now I am nervous cause Churro actually really is heavy, and there is only a small place for us to get around the trees….and you know, 100 or so Mexicans waiting to watch the gringo try to make it.  Suddenly two small bikes pull up, so I let them go 1st and they barely make it….but they seem to lack riding skills so I know Churro can make it.  I jump on Churro, closed my eyes, and told him to go for it.
I don’t know what happened but we made it, waaahooo, nothing can stop us now.  Welll, nothing but another 50 kilometers of protests.  How naive I was to think these trees were going to be all that shut down the road.  No no no, these pueblos banded together in unison and shut down everything from that point until San Cristobal.  I felt like I was riding in a post-apocalyptic time, there were trees down everywhere, fired burning in the road, and hundreds of people walking down the road since they couldn’t get rides from town to town.  Occasionally there were big rigs blocking the road, and banners hung up with their issues which were the cause of the protest.  Churro and I had to ride under trees, over branches, into the ditches etc.  Sometimes I couldn’t even see a way to go, there were no paths for motos cut, it was chaos.  I pulled up to 1 downed tree and laughed, I drove an hour through all this only to be stopped now in the middle of nowhere.  There was a large group of guys on the side of the road so I asked them if there was a way through and they pointed at the tree, and told me to go under it, in the ditch.  My response was to simply laugh.  The ditch was slick, and steep, but they told me they would help, so suddenly I was ducking while 10 guys pushed us under the tree, Churros windshield was scrapping along just barely fitting.  I then hear a roar of  cheers so give a wave while ridding up out of the ditch, only to come to a disappointing stall in front of the crowd.  I laughed, they laughed, eventually Churro and I rode off, making it to San Cristobal a few hours later.  I never felt like I was in any danger, in fact I often got cheers from the crowd whenever I got to a new road block.  I did not stop and snap pics though, to make sure I stayed out of trouble.  This one spot was pretty isolated so I snuck it, but there was always people around

Been here several times, I don’t love it, yet I love it.  Too many hippies for me, too many foreigners selling their crap to support their lifestyle…what can I say it rubs me the wrong way.  But I love the area, and it is perfect for exploration with a friend like Churro.  Unfortunately it is not the safest area, and there is a lot of poverty here.  It is tough for me to know when warnings here are real or just the typical fears…but I take them more seriously here, even though I would probably be fine.  I took off from San Cristobal on some small squiggly lines, I went through some amazing spots, and I knew it wasn’t a route a typical foreigner would be on, I caused a lot of turned heads but all was good, and the weather was perfect.  I stopped to grab a photo, and a dude rolls up and starts conversing with me.  He is from Tuxtla, and also rides, though was in his cage that day.  He warns me that I shouldn’t be going the way I am going, and has me turn around and follow him towards another area.  I don’t know the difference, so away we go as I follow my new friend/potential kidnapper.  I am having problems shifting, and knew that the clutch cable was on its way out but decided to keep following him for now.  He takes Churro and I on some cool roads, we eventually come out on top of something called heavens highway no idea what it was, but as you can imagine it had a great view.  We cruised down to the bottom of the mountain where the road split, from here my new friend had to head off and keep working, he was just taking some time out of his day to share a bit of Mexico with me a random stranger.  He told me to hit him up when I came through Tuxtla as well, generosity typical of many people I have met on my journeys.

From the bend I then started to ascend up yet another picturesque road where I am stopping to take pics now and then.  I come around a bend, decide I want to turn back for some pics, and not paying attention do a complete rookie mistake and come to a stop at the apex of my u-turn on a hill, so that Churro and I slowly fall downhill over onto his side.  No worries Churro is a tank, so I pick him up and pull him off to the shoulder.  Its beautiful out, and the shifting has been driving me crazy so I decided I was going to replace the clutch cable now.  I replace the cable, jump on Churro to head down the hill and realize this time it is not the cable, when Churro and I fell the clutch shifter bent.  We pull over, see it is cracked and ready to brake off completely, so I add some JB Weld since I have no other options.  If I had vice grips I could make a shifter, but my options are limited as I brought the small tool kit for the day trip.  Worse, I have Churro in neutral so I cannot even shift into gear to look for a mechanic or try and make it home.  But, what an awesome spot to be broke down working on Churro, if shit is going to happen, it might as well be in a pretty location.  A few locals in tradional clothing with a couple sheep in tow check me out while I wait to let the JB Weld dry a bit.  The stuff I had says 4 hours, and I only had 2 until dark, so I was giving it 1 hour.  Eventually the hour is up so it was time to cross my fingers and see what happens.  I get it into 1st but feel the shifter giving instantly, I decide it’s too risky to shift and drive the back way to San Cristobal trying to blend in while revving along all the way in 1st.  Nothing to see here folks, nothing to see here.  Of course we made it, and got it fixed the next day without any issue.

Making my way back to Michoacan I cut through Oaxaca and found myself in Pueblo at 1 point.  I have not previously explored Puebla or the nearby areas, when we 1st got hear over a decade ago I had food poisoning and was projectile vomiting for days.  My friend was out and about and told me it was nice, so I figured I should see it after all this time.   Karen got Churro and I all turned around coming into Pueblo, constantly getting lost until we finally just headed to nearby Cholula and setup shop there.  As usual I just walked around and ate.   Due to covid the pyramid with the church on top was only kind of open, some days it was closed, others you had to set up appointments or so I did not go up and see that.   No idea what else happened, but after riding through Chiapas protests the rest is pretty blah anyway.
Oaxaca

Cholula