10/14 Took a left off the PanAm and finally had a little relief from the traffic. Pretty quiet after that. Rolled past some small villages and got lot’s of raised eyebrows. At first people seem a bit tense but once I say hi to get them to stop staring they come out of their shell and are very friendly.

For the first time, possibly in my life, I rode on the back of a motorcycle. The motel is outside town and the sun is blazing so when a motor-taxi guy pulled up and offered a lift I hopped on. My destination was a bank back in the center but they only have services for Bank of Colombia customers. Hopefully I find an ATM soon because my peso supply is getting low.

Looking forward to getting to the town of Mompos tomorrow. It sits on the banks of the Río Magdalena and is supposed to have a unique “Mississippi” vibe to it.

Didn’t ride too far today. I kind of feel like I’m dragging a bit but I think I just need a few days to get used to the heat and hills. The gears on my bike need a serious adjustment and something keeps rattling and it’s driving me nuts because I can’t figure out what it is.

[osm_map lat="8.004" long="-74.291" zoom="6" width="400" height="250" gpx_file="http://www.powercycle.net/maps/leg3/101410.gpx"]

Fast ride for my first day on the road in almost a month. Had a nice tailwind and riding on Mex-23 and Mex-35 was a dream. Both highways had fair-sized shoulders which made for a more relaxing ride. There was a lot of broken glass and tire debris on the road and at one point I dug a piece of wire out of my front tire, fortunately before it dug in and caused a flat.

Ocotlan, considered the furniture capital of Mexico, has been interesting so far. On the way into the city center a guy pulls up in a pickup and asks in English if I can stop and talk. Why not. I pulled up behind where he’d stopped. He just wanted to know about my trip and I was happy to tell him all about it since he was the only person I’d spoken to all day. He seemed very surprised that I came to Mexico given the drug problems and associated criminal activity. Not much I could say to that other than you only live once and a bunch of drug lords aren’t going to stop me. We talked for a few minutes and then I took off.

The only thing that seems different about this city compared to the other ones are the half dozen police officers standing around with fully automatic weapons and bullet proof vests. I took a picture of one of them standing outside a motel. I did ask first but he didn’t say yes or no so I took one. He didn’t seem too thrilled and I half expected to get arrested or at least yelled at.

I checked Google to see if there is a higher crime problem here but nothing popped up. The police chief and two officers were killed today in Morelia which is about 100 miles away so maybe security is a little higher because of that? Or maybe they were guarding the the alter in the church which is dipped in gold?

GPX Track