I was hoping to leave tomorrow but that’s not going to happen. The only thing still not working as it should is my stomach. I need at least one healthy day before I start riding so maybe 2 more “rest” days. This kind of stinks. This is officially the longest I’ve been sick in possibly my entire life. Not sure what I have. A cold/flu started things (runny nose/mild fever) but now I think some food poisoning was introduced at some point too. On a positive note I can rule out any new cases of head trauma. Picture below. Who ever said Thermarests are just for sleeping on?

Met up with Karin and Marten for tea (lame I know but I’m sick). We were in a coffee shop on the main tourist drag so we quickly became targets for kids coming in to try and sell us little trinkets. I managed to “no, no, gracias” the first kid away but this little girl came over with the quietest little voice and saddest face I’ve ever seen. My heart kind of melted a little. These kids are like 6 or 7 and I felt kind of bad so I gave her some change. I suspect she went out and told the other kids because it was like a train after that. Next up were a brother and sister. The boy thought it would be fun to pinch the skin on my hand together so I pinched his hand right back. That went on until we were both laughing. After that adventure we went over and had the best soup at place that I’ll get the name of tomorrow. K/M even met a Mexican guy there that spoke Dutch.

Worst rest days ever. I don’t know what I have or who I got it from but I think I’ve almost kicked this thing. What started out as a headache has worked its way down my poor body in a rather systematic manner: headache, runny nose, sore throat, coughing and then stomach problems (won’t go into details). I tried walking around today to get some fresh air and didn’t do too bad. There’s a church at the top of a huge hill that I wanted to see but I gave up half way. Didn’t have the energy for it.

Lot’s of people out enjoying the nice weather. The market was crazy. Not a good place for tall people though. Glad I was wearing my bike helmet. Just kidding.

There are a lot of people struggling to survive here which is sobering when you’re strolling around with a nice camera and a full stomach. There was a guy sitting in one of the aisles at the market with his leg extended out. He had a really bad case of elephantiasis on it and I doubt he could even walk. The indigenous people, mostly of Mayan descent, have tonnes of sidewalk booths set up where they sell everything from blankets to jewelry. There are just so many you have to wonder if entire days go by where they don’t sell anything.

The hippy/dreadlocks people here are a bit wacko. I can’t tell where they’re from but I don’t think it’s the States. One pair was playing a set of drums outside a church while a hippy girl spun around some rope or something. Really? It seems a bit tacky to me to travel to a developing country and try to hit people up for loose change so you can keep traveling the world. Maybe its just me though. Besides the hippies the other foreigners here, of which there are quite a few, seem to stay pretty low key.

Tourism has definitely left its mark on the people that live in the main historical area of the city though. For the first time someone made a snide comment when I couldn’t explain in Spanish what I wanted. It was a guy in a bike shop and after spending all of 15 seconds trying to tell him I wanted a bike tube he walked over to get it and muttered “Spanish” under his breath. Fair enough–not speaking the language very well sucks but give me a break. It’s not like I was being demanding about it and it was kind of obvious I’d traveled a long way so there shouldn’t be an expectation that I know every word in the language. If I encountered a foreigner traveler in the States or Canada and they couldn’t speak English it wouldn’t even cross my mind to be anything but helpful. If I was living here totally different story. Of course you never really know what experiences he’s had with people before me so I’m sure that played into it. Pete had a similar experience with some seemingly anti-gringo sentiment and that guy speaks Spanish better then anyone I know. On a positive note, one good thing about this place is that almost no one stares at me (except the ladies). I kind of miss the small towns now.

I also haven’t seen anyone since I got here. I had to bail on seeing Roland/Belinda and Karin/Marten this morning and Pete left this morning and I didn’t get to see him either. If I got any of them sick I’d feel horrible.

Weather in Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chis. when posted:

Temperature: 36 °C, Humidity: 32%, Wind Speed: 30km/hr, Cloud Cover: scattered clouds

03/26 At this point I’m fairly certain that I’ll have permanent brain damage before I leave Mexico. Can’t all the door frames just be one height? A couple days ago I smashed into one so hard I thought I was going to pass out. Coming out of the bathroom a second ago I turned around and had another collision. Good thing I didn’t pursue a career as a submariner. Someone needs to come up with a lightweight, portable, yellow-colored door frame guard. This only seems to happen in motel rooms so something like that would be perfect. Maybe I should just wear my bike helmet 24/7. That would look cool.

Found a great bike shop just around the corner from my new pad. They had to use a power drill to get the broken bolt out. Listening to someone going to town on your bike with a power drill sucks. Glad they were able to fix it though.

I’m sick. It started yesterday with a sore throat and runny nose. After moving to a new motel (La Posta de Zapata) and getting my bike fixed I’ve just been laying in bed all day. Pete leaves Sunday and Roland and Belinda are in town so hopefully we’ll all be able to get together for some drinks. Karin and Marten should be here in a day or two as well. I’m going to hang out until Tuesday.

03/25 Wow. Talk about a big climb to get up here. Almost 5600 feet to be exact. The heat wasn’t that bad and the higher I got the cooler it was. I went through a lot of water and had it not been for some restaurants 20 miles from Chiapa I would have cut it pretty close.

The toll road worked out pretty well. I heard you can get onto it from the free road outside the city but that possibly involves climbing a fence and that’s no fun. Zipping back out the way I came in added a mile or two but it was worth it. I did have problems with some dumb ass drivers. The toll road is two lanes with a wide shoulder but people love to drive on the shoulder which means I have to be on the lookout. Why they ride on shoulder, especially when no one is trying to pass them, seems pretty stupid to me. Not only is there more glass/debris on the shoulder if something happens they have no room on the right to correct. So every once in a while someone would ride within a couple feet of me because they didn’t like that I took up a couple feet of the shoulder.

My favorite thing was watching dumb asses get stuck behind someone moving slower than them. Even with double yellow lines, signs saying no passing and a blind curve they’ll still drive right into the oncoming lane to get around the other vehicle (usually a very slow 18-wheeler). Even fully loaded buses did it. About half the time the poor guy coming the other way would have to dive over to avoid a head-on collision. Apparently killing someone, like a bus load of children/mothers, isn’t something that some people worry about here.

Pete made it into town but he’s at another hotel so we’ll hang tomorrow. For the 2nd time the bolt securing the bottom of my front rack to the frame snapped off so I have to get that fixed tomorrow. There are a bunch of bike shops so I’ll run over there after I change hotels in the morning. I’m going to stay for a couple days so I need something cheaper.

First impressions of San Cristóbal are very positive. Lot’s of things to see here. I’ve never seen so many gringos in one place! This is a very popular spot for backpacking tourists and the hipster crowd that likes to stay in hostels of which there are many here.

GPX Track

03/24 Got down to the dock at 8am ready to head down the river. The tour left a little closer to 10am because they wanted a full boat (15 people) so we hung out and talked to a guy from Guatemala (OK, Pete talked to him; I listened).

The ride down the canyon was not disappointing. The first thing we saw was a crocodile sunning on the bank of the river. It wasn’t quite the first time I’ve ever seen a croc since there’s a place in Florida that has both alligators and crocodiles living in the same place but it was pretty sweet to see one 10 feet away (Flamingo in Everglades National Park has both and I think its the only place in the world that does). The massive canyon walls were also a sight. Seeing what 3,200 feet looks like when you are looking up from the bottom of it puts things in perspective when we just rode up 5000 feet the day before. It was also cool when you realize that the canyon was formed when the earth just split apart (the canyon is actually a fault line).

Next we spotted some spider monkeys in the huge trees lining the river. It was hard to get a good shot of them because they were pretty high up but we saw at least 3. We ended up seeing even more monkeys on the way back and another crocodile. Glad I wore a hat because there’s no shade and no canopy over the boat. At US $12 for a 2 hour guided tour it was money well spent.

I found another hotel close by (Hotel Posada Real) that is a million times better than this place so I’m moving this afternoon. They have internet access and AC so I was sold pretty quick. Pete will give my key to this place back to the guy in the morning because he’s staying here. I’m not going to ask for a refund it would be too much of a hassle for $7. I doubt I’d get it anyway. I barely got any sleep last night thanks to the traffic, people talking outside my window (that doesn’t close), alarms going off and the dogs barking. The pillows (with no pillow cases) look like they were rolled in mud and Pete said his blanket had glitter on it so it’s doubtful that was washed after the last guest/dancer slept in it.

Met up with Pete for dinner. On the way to get him Belinda spotted me walking down the street! Her and Roland just finished the boat tour and were on their way back out of town. How I keep running into them in such random places blows my mind.

The ride tomorrow is going to be crazy. I’m fairly certain that I’ll be climbing for over 5,600 feet. San Cristobal is basically uphill for 35 miles. I’ll also be on the toll road so water is going to be scarce and the temperature is probably going to break 100 F. Bring it!