I think the only reason I decided to stay through the weekend was because it’s a holiday and San Cristóbal has some of the biggest celebrations in all of Mexico. It ended up being worth it.

This morning Karin, Marten and I took a collectivo for a 20 minute ride (for US $0.71!) to the busy market town of Chamula. It was very cool. The church is the main tourist attraction so we headed over after paying the 20 peso admission fee. Being a religious holiday there was a lot of activity both outside and inside the church. It was pretty surreal inside. The first thing that hits you is the smoke. The entire building is filled with it. Women wearing blue dresses carry these burning torch-like urns to the statues of all the saints where they bless them by waving the urn at them and saying a prayer. I saw a chicken inside and thought it was going to be a goner but they just used it to bless someone.

There is a compete lack of seating of any kind–people just kneel down on the floor that is covered in pine needles. Groups of mostly women and children sat in clusters in front of the various saints praying. Hundreds of candles were also stuck with wax right to floor so you have to be pretty careful where you stand.

Throngs of Mayan descendants dressed in ceremonial costumes took turns entering the church while playing all sorts of musical instruments. Once inside they headed up to the front of the church where I lost sight of them. No pictures are allowed inside and they are pretty adamant about this. They don’t even want it out–I had to stick mine inside a bag.

We left Chamula and took the collectivo back to the city (a collectivo is a VW van used as a taxi). There was a huge crowd in the central square so we waited a few minutes to see what was going on. It wasn’t long before a huge Easter Day parade made its way up the street. One thing I found rather amazing was the absence of any barriers to keep the huge crowd back off the street to the parade could move through. The one police officer I saw just stood on the side with everyone else and only once motioned for people to move back a little. The parade was cool. Lot’s of people dressed up in costumes ranging from Shrek to Spiderman. Quite a few beauty pageant winners too. That part was good.

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

01/01 Lot’s more hill climbing to start the New Year off. After the first huge climb I had a nice long decent down into a valley followed by a nice long climb back out of it again. Great views dropping down into the valley. Saw a fox munching on something down next to the road. Being sans camera no pictures.

I was hoping Magdalena would have a camera shop but I think I might have to wait one more day. I walked around for while but a lot of places are closed for the holiday and it would be hard for me to tell if place sold cameras without being able to see in the store. Since I’ll be in Guadalajara for a few weeks I’ll have some time to look around there for one. Or have one shipped if need be. I don’t stay with my Mexican hosts until Sunday night so I’ll have to find a place for tomorrow night.

Met a guy named Manny while I was sitting outside an ice cream place. He just rode right up on his bike, hopped off and then sat down and started talking. He gave me his card and it looks like he owns a store that sells opals and various other gems. Really friendly guy. It was too bad I couldn’t understand him.

The wind and long uphills helped me break what I think is my lowest average speed for the day, 8.9 mph.

GPX Track