02/23 Today was perfect. Great weather, nice roads and beautiful scenery. I’m fighting off a saddle sore so I kept the miles down a little. Lowering the seat back down helped but now I’ll have to watch my knees because they get sore when the seat is too low. It’s not easy.

When I arrived in Cuautla is was about 3pm so I found a motel and took a taxi over to the Walmart. I was hoping they’d have a better selection of cameras. They did but the one I wanted wasn’t there. There was an Office Depot next door but they didn’t have very many cameras. I need a Best Buy but I don’t think there’ll be one until Oaxaca, if there’s even one there.

Across the street there’s a restaurant called California Buffet so I headed over for dinner. For US $10 you get the dinner/salad/dessert buffet and all the beer (Corona) you can handle. What a deal.

I decided to stick to my original plans and skip dropping down to Acapulco. It’s a lot warmer now and once I get past Oaxaca I’ll be in lower elevations anyway.

GPX Track

01/03 I can’t believe my first day of class is tomorrow. I hope I manage to stay out of trouble unlike every other time I’ve been in school. Sleep better come quick tonight because I was up until 5am writing back to some guy on reddit.com who annoyed me. People are so narrow-minded sometimes.

Tlaquepaque is a city right next to Guadalajara so it was a short ride today. The first thing I checked for when I woke up was the sun. It was out. So long rain. Guadalajara has lots of sights to see being the 2nd biggest city in Mexico (3 million people). Riding around wasn’t bad at all but I think it being Sunday had a lot to do with it. There were a lot of people walking around the central cathedral district. Can’t say I blame them because it turned out to be a beautiful day and there was so much to see and do.

Turns out I make a good tourist attraction too. 2 police officers on bicycles rode up to where I was taking a picture and started asking all kinds of questions about my gear. They were just curious though–it wasn’t a shakedown or anything. The racks drew the most questions. They didn’t have any and I bet they thought have bags mounted right on the bike was pretty sweet. While they were still standing there more and more people kept coming over to ask questions. Next thing you know there are 20 people standing around me in the plaza. It was pretty cool. The family in the picture below gave me their number and invited me to stay at their place in Mexico City if I get down that way.

Next stop was to track down my Mexican hosts for the next three weeks. It was only a 3 mile ride from Guadalajara so I took my time riding over. Off one of the side streets I saw a bicycle shop so I headed over. Ever since the rain day yesterday one of the gear shift cables has felt really tight. The dad runs the place with his wife/kids so he had them get my bike on a stand and bring him some tools. He spent the next 45 minutes cleaning the cables, the chain and the derailleurs like they’ve never been cleaned before. Then when I went to pay him he wouldn’t take any money! Wow. I’ll stop back over when I find something cool I can bring them.

Next stop was the plaza and market streets in Tlaquepaque. Took lots more pictures and then left. I’ll be spending a lot of time there because it’s only 2 blocks from where I’m staying. Met a gorgeous girl outside one of the stores. I think I’m keeping her.

I’m liking the Olympus camera. It tends to wash out parts of the picture if the lighting is bad but the Pentax did that too. The shutter lag and start up time, things some other people complained about, didn’t bother me at all. I kept the box just in case but its looking good so far. This morning I taxied over to Best Buy and exchanged the SD card. Left my hotel room key in the hotel room and couldn’t remember the name of it so I walked back. Glad it was only a mile (and a $2 cab ride).

The house I’m staying in is very luxurious. It’s not just one house; it’s kind of like a mini compound because there are 2 separate houses sharing the same fenced-in property. The private 3 car underground garage and only entrance, is protected by a wrought iron gate so my bike should be safe and sound outside. I stuck the rain cover on it and it’s out of sight from the street. The mom, Grace and her 2 sons and daughter live here. The daughter lives in the 2nd house. Both places are used to house people going to the Spanish school. The room is the one complaint I have. The bed is short and isn’t up against a wall at the head or foot so parts of me are going to be hanging off the end. The worst part is that it sits on the 2nd floor right over a fairly busy street and the window lets a lot of noise through. There’s either bar or a party a couple doors down too. I can almost see having to move to another place if sleep becomes an issue.

GPX Track

01/02 Lot’s to write about today but I’ll try not to make this too long of a post. It rained all day but it was warm enough to wear shorts. Had to bust out my yellow rain jacket though. It was about 53 F. Riding on the highway was horrible especially once I got into the city because the roads are in rough shape and the puddles of water made it hard to tell what I was riding through. The drainage system here is definitely not very efficient. My front panniers, both of which have big tears in them, didn’t let too much water in but it wasn’t pouring out either.

Passed through the famous city of Tequila, Mexico but it was raining pretty hard at the time so I didn’t stop. The Spanish school has outings every other day after class and one of them is to Tequila so I might jump on one of those. There were so many stores lining the highway selling mini and not-so-mini barrels of the potent drink. I don’t know how so many of them manage to stay in business from all the competition.

Rode past a Best Buy in what looked like a mall so I checked into a nearby motel and took a taxi back over to do some camera shopping. Cab rides are a bit different here because there are no fare meters so you negotiate the price beforehand (well, if you speak Spanish you negotiate–if not you get in and hope for the best).

The name of the mall was Galerías and I was floored by how modern it was. It was easily as nice if not nicer than any mall back in South Florida. Not only did they have a Best Buy but there was an Outback, a Hooters, Sears and a million other “Western” outlet stores. All 3 floors were just jammed with people. Dinner was at the Outback but it was a little disappointing. I should have went to Hooters. Outback had no Foster’s to start with. They did have Budweiser so I felt kind of like I was at home. Had the prime rib but I had to send it back for another round of grilling because the version of medium here is more like rare.

I’m very happy to have a new camera again! I spent at least 2 hours walking around the different stores looking at cameras until finally I went with the one I should get; not necessarily the one I want. My new toy is the Olympic Stylus Tough 6000. It’s an upgrade from the Pentax Optio I lost in terms of zoom (3.6x) but it doesn’t have manual shutter/aperture settings like I really wanted. I just couldn’t find a small enough DSLR-like camera I liked and that would fit in my handlebar bag. The selection of good Canon point & shoots was also poor (no SX200 Jason and trust me I looked). The Olympus is shock/water/freeze proof and the biggest complaint I could find online was the fact that it doesn’t do well submerged. I’d only use it in the rain occasionally so that’s not concern for me. We’ll see how it does with actual picture taking. The microSD card I bought isn’t compatible so I have to head back over tomorrow and exchange it. Stupid Visa got declined again after I just used it to pay for the motel. I hate them. Thank God my Amex always works when I need it.

My bike seat is finally in a spot that didn’t produce feelings comparable to sitting on a hot iron all day. Still not perfect but a lot better than it was.

GPX Track

Weather in Guadalajara when posted:

Temperature: 12 °C, Humidity: 93%, Wind Speed: 4km/hr, Cloud Cover: broken clouds