Woke up to sunny skies so I jumped on the bike and went off in search of some monkeys. I struck out there but I did have a nice time riding around Volcan Concepcion. The volcano has been pretty quiet since late 2005 but it’s still classified as active so I was alert for any signs of life.

The northern loop road was pretty rough but easily passable on any kind of bike and certainly in a 2WD car. This rough section lasted about 10 miles until the village of Altagracia. Next to the church are some ancient statues tucked away under some grass shelters. Some rtard decided to park his motorcycle right in front of the biggest ones so any chance for a good pic was shot. Some of the petroglyphs are thought to have been carved between 800 and1200 years ago and there are over 1700 on the island.

After Altagracia the road was paved all the way back so I cruised along passing by a couple small villages. A guy selling ice cream from a cart at the side of the road provided a welcome treat because it is really hot here. The other volcano, Volcan Maderas, wasn’t visible except for the cloudless base just before Altagracia and again a few miles after it. Monkey-less trees blocked out the lake from the road so there wasn’t much of a view of that either. The whole trip was 26 miles and took just under 3 hours.

The hotel I’m at is the Hotelito Aly. It’s not too bad but I had to string up my mosquito net over the bed because they are brutal here. The cold shower is just a PVC pipe so it’s kind of like standing under a waterfall. Felt great.

No rain for 3 days now. I think that’s some kind of record.

Tomorrow Costa Rica.

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02/14 I’ve never been a big fan of Valentine’s Day (or any other commercialized holiday) but now I like it a lot less. Little background first… in Mexico it’s taboo to hook up with your significant other before marriage. Since that’s completely unrealistic there are all these motels that cater to guys and girls looking for a place to get it on. So here I am riding my bike in the dark on the disaster that is the Mexico City road system trying to find a place and the few normal hotels I could find were full. I’ve been avoiding the sex motels but everything was full tonight so I got stuck in one.

I guess it’s not too bad. The motel room is like a normal room except for the mirrored headboard and full length mirror on the wall. There’s even room service available. Since it took me until 8pm to find a place I needed a beer (or 3). I opted to pay for a full night instead of the four, eight or twelve hour options they have available. There’s even a curtained off garage to park your car for some additional privacy. There’s no check-in desk either. You just pull up to a glass window that you can’t see into and conduct everything through (very loud) speakers and a slide out drawer like at a bank drive through. That made communication even harder for me because being able to see the person makes it a lot easier. There’s no hot water either which was the one thing I was hoping for more than anythig.

Mexico City sits smack dab in the middle of the 3rd largest metropolitan area in the world so you can imagine the traffic. I rode around for about 4 hours and it was like rush hour on every road. My GPS track tells the story I’m sure. And let me tell you about road conditions. The highway I rode into the city on (Mex-85) and virtually every other road was in the worst shape of anything I’ve seen in all of Mexico. There are massive potholes on every road, broken glass is very common, there are unmarked speedbumps everywhere, people park on the sidewalks or double-park, the sidewalks are in horrible shape and people drive like freaking maniacs.

The fact that I’m even alive is a miracle. I was used to people cruising through stop signs after a cursory slowdown but here they burn right through red lights. Lanes are almost meaningless. There’s also garbage all over the place which is also something I usually only see on the outskirts of towns.

I didn’t get to see the ruins at Teotihuacan and now the cab ride there is going to cost a fair bit since I had to ride so far. I’ll have to find a new motel (with intenet) and then try to go see it tomorrow or maybe Tuesday. What a pain. I can’t wait to get out of this city.

Update: I think I found part of my problem. For some reason I’d manually entered wrong coordinates for the ruins into my GPS. Oops. First time for everything I guess. I’m still about 35 miles away. I’ll head over tomorrow. I feel a little better at least now that I know where I’m going.

GPX Track