PowerCycle

Even though delivery on my tires ended getting pushed back until Tuesday UPS came through and got them to me today. Tomorrow I’ll pop new tires on and head out of here on Sunday morning. I was going to get a tune up on my bike but the guy at the bike shop (Zona Bici) once again was as helpful as a bad case of saddle sores. He couldn’t do any work on the bike because 4 of his 6 mechanics were sick or didn’t show up and it would have been too much of an effort for him to recommend another shop so I didn’t ask.

The biggest and best news is that I have a new camera! I’m now the proud owner of a Canon Powershot SX20 IS. It’s pretty sweet. And what a zoom range! 28mm – 560mm (20x). (I have it sitting in my handlebar bag since I don’t have a waterproof case for it. The pictures from today were on the Olympus so stay tuned for better shots (hopefully). Getting it was a stroke of luck. Marten, Karin and I were walking around last night and I happened to peek in a store called Contino on Independencia and saw some DSLR cameras sitting there. They didn’t have the one I wanted but they were happy to order it even though its not something they stock (see how that works Zona Bici?). It came in this afternoon.

As usual VISA’s top-notch anti-fraud team caused me more gray hair today. They let the charge for the camera go through yesterday but decided to decline the charge the next day from the same store (SD card). I had to sit on the phone with my bank for 30 minutes using Skype while they explained how a problem that had nothing to do with me caused my charge to get declined. That is one screwed up system they have there.

I also have some antimalarial pills now (Aralen). I have to take 2 per week until I get to Panama where I’ll have to switch to a different kind. Fun. I hate taking pills.

It’s very hot here now. It got up to over 90 F this afternoon when we were walking around Mount Alban. That was an amazing place. It’s a large pre-Columbian archaeological site that dates back to 500 BC. We took a bus up a very narrow, winding road and wandered around the huge site for a couple hours. I’d say this place was my favorite so far even though there were a lot of tourists and vendors.

03/05 Tequila! The manager of the motel hooked me up with a (substantial) shot which I couldn’t say no to because its rude. He and his buddies hanging out in the lobby had a great time ribbing me about staying in the motel (it’s a sex motel but it was only US $9). They thought for sure I had a woman stowed away in my panniers and kept telling the manager to charge me by the hour.

It’s confirmed. There’s definitely something up with teenage girls here. I rode into town and wanted to find a bank so I asked this girl walking on the sidewalk where one was. My ability to ask this question in Spanish has proven successful in the past. She completely ignored me and kept walking. I suspected there was a cultural thing going on at this point so I tried an experiment. I found another girl by a bunch of taxi cabs and asked her where the bank was (even though I could see it a few blocks further down). This one was a little younger and even though she ignored me too she cracked a little smile like she wanted to say something but couldn’t. To complete the experiment I asked an older woman (40′s) where a motel was. She stopped and helped me out without batting an eye. The couple guys I asked when I was trying to find a laundrymat helped out too. I ended up finding it but it was closed which sucks because the heat is causing some ripeness in my clothes.

This town is messing with my pretty good sense of direction because there are two big dried up river beds that people actually use for roads. Even when I was given directions to the laundrymat the guy said follow the river up and turn left. It was a little weird.

Great ride today. I actually rode on reasonably flat land for a while. It was so nice. Hit a military checkpoint and rode through without a problem. Had a great Hawaiian hamburger for lunch which worked out well because of the climbing after that.

And the coolest thing of the day happened after I’d left the town of Xochihuehuetlan (try saying that 3x fast). A guy on a motorcycle rode past me and motioned for me to stop. He handed over a cold bottle of Gatoraide and wished me luck on my trip. How nice was that?

I noticed a couple days ago that the Tekkon external battery I use to charge my laptop/batteries is on its last legs. It won’t hold a charge at all but luckily I can still use it when it’s plugged into an AC outlet to charge my laptop. This sucks because its what my solar panel charged so now that’s useless too. I’ll hang onto it until I can find an AC adapter that my laptop can use and then send my solar panel to my Dad (head’s up Dad ).

GPX Track

The weather took a little turn for the worse so I decided to hang out here for another day. Maybe two. It gave me a chance to wander around town in the rain which was a nice break from riding. A bike shop caught my eye so I picked up some new handlebar tape since the cork was falling apart and no amount of duct tape was keeping it together. I ended up breaking the small blade on my Swiss army knife trying to get one of the old bar ends out though. Knives and I don’t seem to do well together.

I also found the camera I want to get. I just can’t stand not being able to take clear, sharp pictures of things like I used to be able to do. Anyway, here’s the beauty that I’m going to keep my eye out for: Canon PowerShot SX20 IS. The lens is fast (F2.8), it has a great zoom range (28- 560 mm) and it has shutter/aperture priority modes. I’m not crazy about the AA batteries but then again maybe they’ll be better in South America. Replacing a Li-Ion battery might be tricky. It’s smaller and lighter than the DSLR I had which also has its advantages.

I was also catching up on the news and it got me thinking about something. Without getting too deep I was wondering what other people think the root cause of society’s problems are? There are a lot of symptoms like poverty, crime, wars, environmental problems, corruption, racism, etc. But is there one thing that drives all this? Is it greed? Over population? Selfishness? Apathy? Hippies? Lack of morals (religion)? Fear? This bike trip has given me some new insight into how different regions/countries see things but it’s hard to put a finger on any one thing if there even is just one thing. The Contact form up top can send email anonymously–just make up an email address.

My brain hurts. Why does everything have to be masculine or feminine? How would I know a street is feminine? I think they are loud and bumpy. Not how I like my ladies. Day 1 of Spanish class went pretty well. I think I mentioned that it’s 2 hours in the morning and 2 in the afternoon? I have separate teachers for each class and the classes are split up into beginner, advanced and virtually fluent. My skills are so awesome that I’m in a class by myself. Really. In both classes it’s just me and the teacher.

This morning was the alphabet and the afternoon numbers. I have managed to remember translations for 95% of the numbers between 1 and 100 which is good I suppose. Who came up with quince is what I want to know. Of course when I went to buy some snacks a while ago she said the total so fast I couldn’t understand her.

Since I only have 2 shirts suitable for wearing around town I also went and bought 2 nice sweatshirts and a t-shirt for US $14. What a deal.