02/24 Back in my tent for the first time in a long time. I missed it. Had it not been for the (Spanish speaking) bicycle tourists I met here at the ruins I’d be in a motel. After a pretty decent climb to the site here at Xochicalo I pulled up the place where you buy tickets and saw 2 fully loaded touring bikes leaning against the wall. Mazatlan was the last time I saw another touring rider so I was kind of excited. I paid the $51 pesos to get in and went to check out the ruins and see if I could find the bike riders.

I spotted them after a couple minutes. They are Marten and Karin from the Netherlands. They are on their way from Alaska to Bolivia. I knew they’d been in Alaska because they have a big old thing of bear spray attached to one of their bikes. They had already gotten an OK to camp up here right next to the museum so I went off to explore the ruins since they’d be here for the night.

What an amazing place. Basically the entire top of the (huge) hill was leveled and a city built on top of it. The area where the ruins are is much larger than I thought it would be. I grabbed some pics and then headed back to the museum.

I didn’t want to impose so I was going to head back downhill to a motel but Marten/Karin were cool with me camping up here too so I stayed. The people that run the site let us pitch our tents in the parking lot on a grassy section so that’s where we are–camped next to some old Mayan ruins.

GPX Track

02/12 What a perfect day. I have to give myself a little credit for picking a pretty sweet route. Once the curbs ended not too far outside town the road turned into a nice, quiet rural road that wound through the hills. The only thing I had to watch out for were marauding goats.

The weather was great although riding at 8000+ feet makes for so cold wind on the downhills. Lots of sunny sky to warm me back up though.

The best part about the day was getting into the city of Tula and trying to find the thing I came here to see– the 16 foot tall basalt statues sitting atop the Pyramid of Tlahuizcalpantechuli. Well the road I was on happened to drop me off right next to the entrance to the site. It was only US $3 to get into the site which was a lot less than I thought it would be. I was allowed to leave my bike right next to the museum guard which was nice because it was about a 1/2 mile walk to the statues. I guess they weren’t really statutes either. They were columns that supported a roof back in the day.

GPX Track

Took a stroll around town after class. One of the places I went into was El Refugio. When it was built in 1865 it was one of the largest buildings in the world. Now it’s a cultural center and museum. The museum was free and it was pretty remarkable. The first thing that struck me was just how many items were just sitting on display tables unprotected by glass barriers. Some of the things looked very fragile. It was work from all over Mexico and a lot of it was extremely vibrant and detailed. I would have liked to have taken some pics but they had lots of signs saying no photography.

Finally got around to ordering this gadget from eBay that another touring rider introduced me to. It’s call an immersion heater and all you do with it is plug into the wall, drop it in your water-filled cup and wait for it to boil. It’ll save me a lot of aggravation in the mornings where normally I’d be struggling to find a place to get coffee and some food. Now I can make my own right in the motel room. Should help save some cash too.

Tomorrow I’m taking a trip out of town to a place called Los Guachimontones. It’s a pre-Columbian archaeological site near the town of Teuchitlan. There are some pyramids along with some other building complexes. Should be fun. It’s through the school so I’ll even have a guide.