PowerCycle

12/29 Lot’s of hills today. Not kidding. They were brutal. None were very steep but they were huge and there were a lot of them. I was very glad to finally get to Tepic. It rained last night so the humidity really kicked in. I burned through a lot of water which was bad because of the route I took.

I cheated and rode on Mex-15D for most of the day. 15D is the toll road vs. 15 which is the free or Libre road. Having a wide shoulder makes all the difference in the world. Being able to ride without having to constantly watch for vehicles coming up behind you makes for the much more relaxing day. I did have to worry about the police pulling up and telling me I couldn’t be on the toll rode but I don’t think they care. Two police cars passed me and kept going and I didn’t have a problem going though 2 manned toll booths. As long as you stay out of the toll booth lanes by keeping to the far right, on the sidewalk if possible, they’ll let you pass. The only real problem with the toll road (Couta) is that it skips all the little towns and there are almost no services. I didn’t hit a place to get water for 35 miles and had that place not been there I would have definitely run out.

I’m missing my Canon camera today. Kept seeing huge lizards and lots of birds I’ve never seen before. They were too far for the P&S camera so I didn’t bother trying.

Maybe if I’m lucky I’ll get some sleep tonight. The $7 a night room I stayed in last night had some design flaws: the adjoining walls didn’t quite reach the outside wall or the ceiling. So at 3am and 4am when my neighbors got up to take a shower, go to the bathroom and go to work I got to hear everything.

After paying for my room with my credit card and then sitting down to eat dinner the waitress comes back and tells me my card was declined. My bank’s fraud department said they didn’t see a reason but I’ll have to call back during business hours. I checked online and there’s no balance so it’s not like I was late or anything. What a pain. At least the call won’t be horribly expensive now that I’ve finally embraced using Skype. Two things I wish I’d thought of before leaving on this trip: bringing a 2nd VISA card (nothing else is accepted down here) and bringing a 2nd ATM card from a different bank (for backup). Both things I have; I just didn’t think to bring them.

Update: Tried the credit card for breakfast and it worked fine.

The hotel is called the Zar and its rather fancy. The room is spacious and everything is new and clean. The shower was awesome. The noise for the heavy trucks using their their engines to brake is the only thing that ruins it.

Weather in Tepic when posted:

Temperature: 14 °C, Humidity: 100%, Wind Speed: n/a, Cloud Cover: overcast

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 30th, 2009 at 1:34 am and is filed under Leg 2. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.