03/03 Poverty really sucks. It’s been getting worse as I travel south and in one of the towns it was pretty bad. As soon as I pulled up to a store to buy some water about a half dozen women came over trying to get me to buy something. I ended up buying 3 tortilla shell things with chili (and chicken?) inside but I didn’t really like the taste so I ate the first one there and then gave the other ones to a woman and her kid a little ways down the road.

I discovered what kind of traffic the trails in the area get that the kid with the slingshot was trying to tell me. At 7am this morning I heard something walking outside my tent so I sat up and looked out. Apparently the very few trails alongside the road are used by cattle ranchers to move their herd up and down the canyon. About 20 (big) cattle proceeded to walk within a foot of my tent as they lumbered past. Fortunately none of them stepped on me or my bike that was laying next to the tent. The rancher came up last and didn’t seem to care that I was camped there which was good.

Awesome scenery again today. I’ve never loved and hated anything in my life as much as I’ve loved and hated this highway. The constant up and downs can be brutal but damn is the view nice at the top. I’d probably do it again even knowing how hard its been. I did a little number crunching and in the last 10 days I’ve climbed almost 30,000 feet–a little higher than Mount Everest.

The weather has been phenomenal for days. It’s hot but there’s usually a nice breeze. The night got pretty cold (no frost) and the stars were out in force. It took me 5 seconds to spot Mars.

Staying in a kind of expensive (US $35) resort/motel but I was going through internet withdrawal so it’s worth it. The other couple places were almost the same price and they had no net access (OK, one place did but the manager didn’t know what the password was for the wireless). More dumb teenage girls thought my attempts to ask for a menu at the restaurant here were pretty funny. There must be a thing with teenage girls in this part of Mexico because I’ve never had anyone actually laugh before. I should have walked up to them and gave them a big freaking hug because my shirt smells like death.

One of the housekeepers just decided to peek in front window that was open with the curtains closed. She got a treat because its warm in here and I just got out of the shower.

Pictures on the way tonight (unrelated to last paragraph). Need to go eat.

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03/02 New record today! I blew away my old one day ascent record of 4,018 feet and hit 4,690 feet in one day. It’ll be fun to see the GPS elevation profile when I get get online. Nothing hurts on my old body so I’m pretty happy.

Finding a place to camp tonight was a pain. 99% of the time I was going up or down a steep canyon road that had nothing as far as a reasonably flat and secluded place to toss up my tent. The other thing that made it difficult is the number of people living in places that I wouldn’t have guessed anyone lived. The first place I found looked like an old trail that led down to a creek. I wasn’t there 20 minutes before a guy comes walking out of who knows where with a slingshot and a backpack. He didn’t seem to care that I was putting my tent up but he made it sound like the trail was a little more used than I thought. Even though I was pretty beat I packed up and kept climbing up the hill. I lucked out. Not 1/4 mile up the road I found another trail that goes back into the bushes about 50 feet. There’s even a little creek so I get to hear running water for the first time in a long time.

Speaking of wild, something dawned on me today. I haven’t seen a single wild animal since Baja. At least nothing bigger than a squirrel. I might have missed live things I guess but I’d at least see dead carcasses at the side of road. There hasn’t been a single thing. No deer, rabbits, coyotes, etc. It’s not hard to figure out why I suppose. Mexico is ranked among the five most heavily deforested countries in the world. No trees = no shelter = no animals.

Some stupid punk teenage girl annoyed me. In the last town I was in there was a sign next to a building that said La Cabana. A cabana sounded lke a good place to crash for the night so I asked how much. The entire time I was trying to ask about the place the girl was laughing like I was doing a stand-up routine. The Dad(?) was saying something but he talked so fast I couldn’t understand him. Finally I got fed up and left. I realized later that maybe she was laughing because that was the name of the “restaurant”; not that there was actually a cabana there. This place was a covered shack with no walls–it wasn’t any different than any other place I’ve seen so who knows. I hope I see her somewhere where they only speak English so I can laugh at her. We’ll see how she likes it.

It’s hilly on this mountain highway but the views are incredible. Water hasn’t been too hard to find which is good because I’m going through a lot of it. The towns/villages are populated by Indians, and even though I read you’re not supposed to, I couldn’t resist taking a quick shot of 2 of the girls walking along the road. They were just so freaking cute. I don’t think they saw the camera anyway. There were about 20 kids in total that just got dropped off from school. The boys all stopped and stared but about 8 girls saw me and ran off the road and hid. It was kind of funny.

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03/01 Here’s 20 miles in Mexico. There should be about 20 more of these pictures but I didn’t stop until 5 miles into the ride. For the first time in Mexico I saw 2 guys picking up garbage at the side of the road. The one guy said they worked for the government. I think they are wasting their time. A bulldozer and a dump truck or hundreds of people are needed for this mess. The 40 miles yesterday were just like this. He also said they don’t have community service as a punishment for criminals. I asked him why people toss their garbage out on the road and he didn’t have an answer.

My left Achilles tendon is a little sore from all this climbing so I cut today short. Should be good to go tomorrow. Looking down the road it doesn’t look like its quite as hilly as it has been.

Update: here’s a really good write-up about the garbage problem in Mexico: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4916749.html

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02/28 I think I’m ready for a new country. There are a lot of great things about Mexico but I can’t stand the garbage anymore. It’s disgusting. Imagine driving through a place like Yellowstone and seeing rotting, stinking piles of garbage everywhere. The canyon I was in today wasn’t Yellowstone by any means but it was one of the nicest looking places I’ve ridden through so far. But everywhere I looked there was crap people had tossed out or dumped. The worst places were areas that cars could pull off the road. It’s like people stopped to eat or whatever and just tossed everything out the window. Or they drove there to specifically dump their household garbage that had been building up.

To me it seems like people just don’t care the same way they don’t care about following other kinds of normal regulations like speed limits, no passing zones, stop signs, driving in actual lanes (not side-by-side in a lane either) or red lights. Driving like a manic is one thing since its not a visible thing (if you don’t count the makeshift roadside memorials at every curve in the road) but tossing out your garbage is a pretty simple thing to not do unless you just don’t care.

The government is useless too. There are virtually no public garbage bins outside the main tourist areas in major cities. Stores owners sometimes leave cardboard boxes out for people to use. The highway through Baja and the toll roads are the only roads that have roadside stops with garbage bins. The ones on Baja were usually overflowing but its a start. There are no “chain gangs” cleaning up the roads. Why not? I’m sure there are prisoners here. I’d guess that having the police/guards outside would be dangerous since the drug cartels would have a field day so maybe that’s a bad idea. Thanks useless War on Drugs. And is there some reason why plastic isn’t recycled? At least 80% of the garbage lining the roads are plastic bottles. Maybe ban them? Oh that won’t work because then the US distributors would start crying. Thanks NAFTA.

I know there are bigger issues here but getting people to respect their country seems important. Haven’t people heard the phrase, “A clean home is a happy home?” It has to bother the people that live here. I know the horrible drivers do because I see other drivers get pissed off at them all the time. Next time I run into someone I can actually talk to I’m going to ask them about it.

Anyway, if I kept my eyes from looking at the side of the road or my nose from smelling all the freaking dead animals (thanks speeders) the ride today was awesome– hilly, but awesome. The canyon I mentioned before was beautiful. The road ran alongside a huge dry river bed that must look incredible during rainy season. Lots of big and small lizards running around too. I did have to avoid a lot of broken glass (litter/leftover from accidents) but for the most part the roads were in good shape.

The town I’m in is kind of rougher than the other ones of this size I’ve been in but it’s not too bad. What possessed me to stay in a motel right across the street from a church is beyond me. This one even plays little melodies every so often in addition to ringing every 15 minutes.

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02/27 Found a nice spot to pitch the tent tonight down along a huge dry river bed. Apparently the land is used for grazing given the large amount of dung, the donkey that I can hear but can’t see and the flock of sheep that are grazing on the other side of the river. The clanging bells should let me know if the come by my tent tonight.

Lucked out twice today. The second time was when I lost the liter of water I’d bought so I’d have enough for the night. Fortunately it fell off when I pulled off the highway so I just had to walk back a little ways to get it. It kind of sucked that it fell off right next to a rotting donkey carcass though. I guessed it fell there because I swerved hard to get upwind.

The first lucky thing happened when I found a bike shop the same day that I noticed a 1 inch gash in my front tire. The same front tire that lasted almost 12,000 miles. It was time to part with it though. The guy at the bike shop spoke a little English and I found out he was from Fort Myers. He was pretty impressed that I rode all this way so he’s going to hang the tire up on his wall. I bought a US $10 replacement with a sweet red pin stripe on it. The make is Winsor (never heard of it). I was going to have him adjust my derailleur but he scared me a little when he started talking about popping links off the chain. I declined that fix for now.

Update: OK make that 3 things. The sheep were being herded by Alfredo. I saw him walking up the creek bed so I went over and asked if I could camp here for the night. He was cool with it after a little reassurance. I don’t think he would have seen me but he had a rather large machete and I didn’t want to surprise him. He said something about policia like maybe he thought I was one. Somehow I think drugs were a concern of his because he made some kind of motion like he was injecting something into his arm. I could see this area being pretty good for growing cocoa (did I spell that right?) so maybe the police have raided this place before? The craziest part was we actually had some semblance of a conversation. He didn’t understand when I tried to say acampar (camp) and when I showed him the word in a phrase book he still didn’t understand but I think he might not be able to read.

Had a great ride on Mex-95 today. There was one little climb but a couple wicked downhills that had me hugging the curves. A headwind kept me from breaking any speed records though. Nice shoulder the whole way. Hope it lasts. The scenery was gorgeous. Riding down canyons with huge hills on both sides can’t bee beat.

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