PowerCycle

02/05 I almost wish I could take a mulligan on today. When I left Uruapan there were two choices as far as roads, Mex-14 and Mex-14D. I like the wide shoulders on the toll roads (14D) but there’s never anywhere to stop and eat. Mex-14 it was. That’s when the fun started. The free roads are never straight and flat like the toll roads so I wasn’t surprised when I started climbing. I was surprised when this went on for 20 miles. It was all good though.

The views were nice back down into the valleys but none of the pictures really turned out. The only real excitement happened when I ran into a huge traffic jam in the middle of nowhere. Turns out a delivery truck had run off the road. It took 3 tow trucks to pull it back out because of the angle it was at. I was hoping the police would let me ride by but no luck. Had to stand in the sun for half an hour.

Patzcuaro is pretty interesting. It sits along the very large Lake Patzcuaro. The entire town has a very traditional look to it. The houses are made of adobe and/or wood and the roofs are tiled. The streets are mostly cobblestone. The UN even named it one of the 100 Historic World Treasure Cities. I did a little reading and would have skipped the fish I ate had I known that up until 2007 the towns along the lake used to dump their sewage directly into it. Maybe it came from somewhere else.

GPX Track

12/27 Another painful day. I’m going to switch seats tonight and see how the narrower one does. I can’t take too much more of this. Riding is hard enough on this road without having to shift around in my seat all day.

Beautiful scenery along the highway pretty much all day. The free road ran more or less parallel to the toll road but it wasn’t as flat which worked out perfectly because the views were better. There was one stretch where they joined together and I got to enjoy a luxury that I haven’t had since I left Mazatlan–a wide shoulder. It was kind of funny in a couple spots where they had rumble strips set up to slow traffic down. There would be a dozen street vendors lining the road with booth set up to sell what mostly appeared to be shrimp. Some of them even tried sell me some.

Staying at a motel in Acaponeta tonight. It’s a pretty big building and I thought it might be too expensive. It was only US $12 though. When I walked inside I looked up and was surprised to see that there’s no roof. It must get a little wet in here during rainy season. Walked around the town square for a bit checking out the sights. The central cathedral is huge. First town I’ve seen with a fountain in the town square too. There were lots of vendors sells pretty much everything on the outside edge of it. I bought a big chunk of what I think was honeycomb. Also got a big bag of dried fruit. Hopefully none of this makes me sick because all the food is out in the open and there were lots of bees enjoying the honey. No flies though so I should be OK.

GPX Track