That's OK, we'll just have to look out for our own topes, like the ones I happened upon today.
Even though they were on a side street that dead ends in a parking lot for a hiking trail, so not quite the same as ones on a main road, but seeing them made me think of your posts ;)
My neighbors recently passed around a petition to have two of them installed on the street where I live. There's no escape...
Looking forward to when you can pick this up.
Looking forward to when you can pick this up.Originally Posted by Rick Quinn
Yee Ha!
Mark
a/k/a "SLEEPING POLICEMEN"
In Merry Ole England they refer to these as being a "SLEEPING POLICEMEN."
Mark
Enjoying the report!
They are also commonly referred to as "Speed Humps" (or Bumps) here in the UK. They're commonly used to try and reduce speed in built up residential areas and rural villages, that would be considered a 'cut through' by locals in an attempt to save time and avoid queues on the main routes, especially during morning and evening rush hours.
Dave
RoadTrip Guru & Moderator
The Difference
Speed 'bumps' and speed 'humps' are two different animals. About a year ago I did a fair amount of research on this when my local homeowners association was proposing to spend $30,000 to rip up our existing humps (which had replaced previous bumps that the neighbors hated) and replace those humps with bumps!!! Bumps are high and very narrow, force you to slow to about 5 mph, and are meant for parking lots. Humps, sometimes referred to as 'tables', are lower and wider, force you to slow down to about 15 mph, and are meant for neighborhood streets.
AZBuck
I much prefer Humps!
I will be darned, learn something new here, just about every day. Armed with this new information -- I much prefer Humps!
Mark
The Long Lost Mexican Road Tripper is finally back!
I paused this field report with the intention of resuming it in four to six weeks. That was all the way back in July, for pitiful sakes, so for those of you who were following along with me as I recounted the tale of my Mexican Road Trip, I must apologize for the crazy delay.
I was finally able to start writing again last month. I’m pleased to report that I’ve finished the report, and I’m ready to pick up where I left off in this Forum, with the third and final segment of my south-of-the-border adventures.
I’ll begin with a brief tribute: Mike Fritz, my shotgun rider on this month-long road trip, was a good friend of mine since high school, almost 60 years ago. Michael passed away in February, but his memory will live on: most of the “road” pictures in this report were his, and they lend a level of authenticity to this material that would have been impossible to achieve through my writing alone.
Michael Fritz, 1949-2025
DAY 20: A World Class Drive!
From: PALENQUE
To: SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS
More than half of the mountains in Mexico, from the top all the way to the bottom, from the deserts to the jungles and all the volcanoes in between, are nominally considered the Sierra Madre, which is really just a sub-set of one of the world’s greatest mountain ranges: the American Cordillera, the longitudinal hump in the landscape that runs from Alaska all the way to Southern Chile. Once you cross the border into Mexico, the great range becomes the “Mother Mountains” and there are three distinct sections:
The Sierra Madre Occidental, which runs parallel to Mexico’s West Coast, from the border as far as the State of Michoacan.
The Sierra Madre Oriental, which parallels the Gulf Coast from the Rio Grande south as far as Puebla.
The Sierra Madre del Sur, which begins where the Sierra Madre Occidental leaves off, also parallel to the West Coast, extending from southern Michoacan to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.
The Sierra Madre de Chiapas, which picks up where the Sierra Madre del Sur leaves off, is not typically considered a part of Mexico’s Sierra Madre system. This seperate range parallels the coast beginning in Oaxaca, then extends southward into Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. (See map). There are actually two parts to the Sierra Madre de Chiapas: that coastal range, and, to the north, a mountainous plateau known as the Chiapas Highlands. MX 199, the route we planned to take, crosses the whole of the highlands from north to south. The distance from Palenque to San Cristobal de las Casas was only 132 miles, but it’s 132 miles of curvy mountain roads with switchbacks, steep grades, slow trucks, and villages chockablock with topes and bloqueos, unofficial road blocks. Google rated the drive at just over five hours, and it was likely to require at least that. Everything I read, and everything I heard, rated the drive as alternatively spectacular, dangerous, and fascinating, in seemingly equal measure.
The Isthmus of Tehuantepec, where the distance from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean is just 137 miles. Map shows the relative location of MX 199 and the Chiapas Highlands.
We already had a bit of first-hand experience with the road. We’d driven it from Palenque to the Misol-Ha waterfall, and from there we kept going south, most of the way to Ocosingo, where we ran into a Zapatista road block that completely shut down the highway. They wouldn’t let us through, so we were forced to turn around, all the way back to Palenque, and save the rest of the drive for another day. The first week of our Road Trip, we encountered no less than four of those road blocks, known as bloqueos, all of them affecting that same road, MX 199. (See Day 4 of this Field Report). At that time, back in 2015, they were strictly a form of political protest. By disrupting commerce, the Zapatista political movement hoped to focus government attention on their grievances, some social in nature, others economic, and the rest environmental, things like putting a stop to illegal mining and logging, banning the cultivation and consumption of drugs, and prohibiting any intrusion by the national government into local affairs. The movement had a relatively sophisticated platform that did a great job of stopping traffic, but it didn’t seem to be helping all that much, when it came to improving the lives of the ordinary people in the region.
In the years that have passed since my own visit to Chiapas, the bloqueos have persisted, but according to reports from recent travelers, their function has changed. Rather than stopping traffic to attract attention, today’s road blocks are more like toll booths, collecting a fee ranging from 50 to 100 Pesos from each vehicle using the highway. This has become a significant source of revenue for these rural communities, and the authorities, reluctant to start another Zapatista uprising, simply look the other way, tacitly allowing it to continue. There are so many of these unofficial toll booths that drivers are understandably frustrated, and things have gotten ugly. In one widely reported incident back in 2022, a Russian tourist was dragged from her vehicle and attacked by an angry, stick-wielding mob when she refused to pay the “cuota,” (the toll). Since then, and even before then, most of the tourists travelling between Palenque and San Cristobal de Las Casas choose to take a lengthy detour through Villahermosa and Tuxtla Guttierez. That route adds almost 150 miles and and several extra hours to the journey, but it has the advantage of avoiding all those roadblocks. Personally, I’m not opposed to the notion of an informal “tax” on travelers that benefits the local community. Groups of townspeople politely collecting tolls is hardly cause for alarm, but when the crowds hanging around the roadblocks turn into mobs and the mood gets angry? That’s another thing altogether, and in the case of MX 199, that really is a shame. On Day 20, when Mike and I made our drive to San Cristobal, there was none of that going on, and we were able to savor one of the coolest stretches of highway on our whole amazing Mexican Road Trip.
Read on, and I’ll tell you all about the day we spent
CROSSING THE CHIAPAS HIGHLANDS
on MX 199
Next up: The roller coaster of a Road to Ocosingo!
P.S.: It feels good to be back!
Rick
From Palenque, south through the highlands!
MX 199, from Palenque to San Cristobal de las Casas
Like most rural highways in Mexico, MX 199 is the only paved road for miles around. Property with frontage along the right of way is considered prime real estate, if only due to ease of access, so even when there’s no actual town nearby, it’s not uncommon to see houses (and tire repair shops) on any flat section of easement wide enough to accommodate them. Driving south from Palenque, we saw many of these isolated homesteads spread out along the road.
(Note that most of the images in this post are screen grabs harvested from Michael Fritz’s GoPro videos, shot through the windows as we drove)
Isolated homes along the highway south of Palenque, near the Rio Tulia
This first half of the route, between Palenque and Ocosingo, was already familiar to us, after our aborted attempt to make this same drive two weeks earlier. We’d actually driven it twice, there and back again, and I remembered the road very well, one switchback after another, following one overloaded truck after another as they struggled up (and down) the steep grades. A closeup view of the map reveals just how many narrow curves have to be negotiated along the way. It’s a bit like trailing a long strand of spaghetti that was caught in a tornado, and flash-frozen!
Driving mountain roads like MX 199 is my favorite kind of fun. After I finished college (half a century ago?!), I spent two years driving all over the northern Andes in a Dodge Powerwagon that I shipped to Colombia from the U.S., and those two years were some of the happiest times of my youth. The mountains of Chiapas were no match for the Colombian Andes, but with all the lush tropical vegetation, there were more than enough similarities to tickle my nostalgia bone. When the road was clear ahead of me, I sailed around those beautiful curves in a state of bliss.
Scenes along the road, MX 199 between Palenque and Ocosingo: beautiful mountain curves, my favorite kind of fun!
Passing those trucks became a minor obsession, but once I learned the rules of the road, that got a little easier. There’s no such thing as a passing lane, but if a truck in front of you moves over toward the right shoulder, and then puts on their left turn signal, they’re telling you that the road ahead is clear, and that it’s safe for you to pass.
Some stretches were more populated than others, with houses side-by-side, and on both sides of the road. Still not quite a town, but definitely a unique community with its own sense of identity. In most parts of Mexico, we saw welcoming smiles from the people we passed in rural areas. In the Chiapas Highlands, we saw resentment. They were, for the most part, too polite to say it, but what they were all thinking was “Yanqui go home!”
The famous Pan American Highway passes through San Cristobal de Las Casas on the way to Guatemala, but there aren’t all that many travelers attempting that route these days. There’s an ongoing problem with criminal gangs in some parts of Central America, so people who might otherwise have done that trip are mostly staying away.
The vehicle in this photo is an exception. They’re engaged in a “Pan American Expedition” (according to a sign stenciled on the side of their rig), and they’ve found a unique solution to the worrisome crime problem: their camper is a converted armored car, complete with gun ports!
Approaching Ocosingo, the largest town along the route and the scene of frequent problems with the Zapatistas, we ran into the first military road block we’d seen along this road. The soldiers were polite, if curious, wanting to know where we were from, and where we were going.
Next up: Ocosingo, and on to Oxchuc, heartland of the Zapatistas
Ocosingo and Oxchuc: Heartland of the Zapatista Movement
OCOSINGOThere was quite a lot happening in Ocosingo, the halfway point of this day’s drive. The town was bigger than I expected, with a population of 40,000 and many businesses. Ocosingo is the access point to Tonina, an important Mayan ruin, but, sadly, we just didn’t have time for it.
We noticed an unusual stone building: the Hotel Hacienda La Ilusion (The House of Illusion). Not sure how nice it was, as hotels go, but I was intrigued by the name!
We passed a group of children walking home from school; the young gentleman in the purple shirt shouted an enthusiastic greeting consisting of a single word: “PUTO!” (Loose translation: F**ker!)
This young lady didn’t like us much, either, but her approach was far more pragmatic. She had a thin rope stretched across the road, with a red flag attached to insure that we’d see it. We stopped, and she demanded 20 Pesos to let us pass. I offered 10 Pesos, which she grumpily accepted.
After Ocosingo, the terrain was a bit less rumpled, leaving more space for people. We passed through a series of small towns, including one that had a shrine emblazoned with the following: “APARECIO LA VIRGEN A LAS 8:00 DE LA MANANA EL DIA 12 DE DICIEMBRE DEL (2008).” Meaning that the Virgin Mary appeared in this very spot at 8:00 in the morning on December 12, 2008. That’s pretty darned specific!
A grocery store/cafe, painted in rainbow colors and festooned with slogans inspired by the Zapatistas.
MX 199 from Ocosingo to San Cristobal de las Casas
The Zapatista Army of National Liberation (ELZN), has been in business for three decades, since 1994, and these towns and villages in the Chiapas Highlands are the heartland of that movement. At one time, the Zapatistas took over the local government in Ocosingo, Oxchuc, and even in San Cristobal de las Casas. They are nowhere nearly as active currently, but their influence, and their core philosophy of “Here, the People Rule, and the Government Obeys,” still predominates in this fiercely independent region.
OXCHUC
Oxchuc was another good-sized town, about halfway between Ocosingo and San Cristobal. That place was Zapatista Central, and the scene of many protests and other incidents, including the previously mentioned attack on the Russian tourist who refused to pay the toll at their roadblock. When Mike and I passed through Oxchuc, there weren’t any roadblocks (not even the little ones, with ropes and strings), so we didn’t have any negative encounters.
Three wheeled truck with a Ferrari decal and a bullet hole in the back window
Surly dude in Oxchuc, crossing his arms to hide his holster
A pack of camionetas (small trucks) leaving Oxchuc
We did get a few surly glares. There was one dude in particular who appeared to be wearing a shoulder holster, but when he saw us driving by, he quickly crossed his arms to conceal it. Security guard? No uniform, so not likely. Mike and I speculated that he might be a cartel enforcer, supervising the loading or unloading of some sort of contraband. The downtown area in general was surprisingly congested; down every side street there were camionetas (little trucks) loading and unloading. Some carried cargo, others carried passengers, protected from the wind and rain by colorful canvas shells that formed a roof over the truck bed, and extended forward to provide additional protected cargo space above the cab. These trucks were clearly the vehicle of choice in the Chiapas Highlands, and we saw them everywhere along the road, sometimes traveling in packs.
Arco de Bienvenida, the Arch of Welcome, Oxchuc, Chiapas
On the way out of town, we passed under the “Arco de Bienvenida,” the Welcome Arch, Oxchuc’s most recognizable landmark, and a convenient chokepoint for blocking traffic, any time the need arises (or whenever the mood strikes). There is spray-painted graffiti on the wall of the arch trumpeting the Zapatista credo: “El poder no esta en el gobierno, el poder esta en el pueblo.” Translation: “The power is not in the government, the power is in the people.”
Up to this point in the drive we had good weather, but these were mountains, after all, and in the mountains, the weather is always subject to change. Clouds that had been building along the western horizon moved overhead and turned dark. We were finally getting close to our destination when the first fat drops hit our windshield.
San Cristobal de las Casas is a mountain town, sitting at an altitude of more than 7200 feet. Even at tropical latitudes, that much elevation equates to cool weather in October, which was also the tail end of an active rainy season. Our first view of “the most magical of the Pueblos Magicos,” (as described by former Mexican President Felipe Calderon) came through a veil of frigid drizzle, to the beat of rapidly flapping windshield wipers.
Driving in to San Cristobal de las Casas through cold, drizzling rain
Next up: San Cristobal de las Casas: The most magical of Mexico’s Magical Cities
Posting Permissions
Find latest started threads
Reply With Quote
