06/04 Other than passing through a bunch of quiet, rural towns there wasn’t a lot to break up the long stretches of road that cuts through the rain forest. The sun stayed behind clouds most of the day so I didn’t have to stop and rest as often but the heat still wore me out. It’ll be nice to get back into some more temperate areas but I don’t think that’s going to be for a while.

The last town didn’t have a motel but one of the guys on the street said this town did. It doesn’t. I was beat so I rode over to the policia and asked if I could camp next to the church. No problemo. The only thing that made me a little nervous was a Friday night baseball game going on in the nearby field. A homerun down the 1st base line would have had a good chance of smacking my tent. Fortunately nothing flew my way.

I did turn out to be a bit of a curiosity for the people who saw me setting up camp. Moms actually walked their kids over to the fence between the church and the baseball field so they could watch me. Some kids were short so they were lifted up so they could see too. I finished my camp stuff, bought some water and sat down to watch the game with them.

WARNING: there’s a picture of a big, dead snake below.

GPX Track

03/08 Two things of great importance to me died today. The first to go was the water immersion heater I picked up in Guadalajara. I’d heard they can have a short lifespan so I wasn’t too surprised. Fortunately I have another one. That thing saved me a fortune.

The second thing was my rear tire. It’s not dead yet but there is a tear on the side wall where it presses up against the the rim. The tube isn’t exposed yet but it won’t be long. It lasted 6000 miles. I have a spare Schwalbe Marathon Plus tire and can pop that on if need be. I need to find a way to get 2 new Schwalbe’s now. The Schwalbe Marathon Extremes seem like they’ll be the best ones for me. Oaxaca is the next big city so I might end up having to stay there a few days. I should get there tomorrow. Getting a bike shop to order me a couple will be fun.

Long day today. Big climbs but very little sun so I was happy.

GPX Track

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

Weather in Mexico City when posted:

Temperature: 20 °C, Humidity: 13%, Wind Speed: 6km/hr, Cloud Cover: few clouds

01/31 After a quick 10 minute walk through town I arrived at the trail head to the Paricutin volcano. It winds down a pretty steep hillside for a mile and a half before it dumps you out into the (cooled) lava field. At first I thought about walking but my knees are still sore from yesterday so I gave a guy US $9 for a round trip guided tour on horseback. I’ve been itching to go horseback riding forever so this was perfect.

I sort of expected that I’d be riding with a guide down the hill so I felt a little bit silly when the guy handed the tether over to a kid that couldn’t have been older than 8 or 9. Instead of riding his own horse (or pony), he took the tether and started walking down the hill with the horse and I in tow. No child labor laws here. I got over the oddity of the situation once we started going down the hill and I realized that I wouldn’t have to climb back up.

Now I would have walked if the story I’d heard about the horses had been true. Someone wrote on a web site that they were malnourished but these ones looked pretty healthy. There were quite a few other people getting guided tours so maybe business has been picking up and they can take better care of the horses?

The ride down the rocky trail went OK; only one minor slip. After getting through the trees we rode along a trail that had been cut into the lava field. Nature has made a pretty good comeback and there were lots of cacti, trees and plants growing up out of the rocks. We reached the base area where vendors had set up a half-dozen tents selling everything from crafts to food. After hopping off my ride I was told to come back whenever I was ready to leave.

There’s a “trail” leading to the base that takes you up and over some rocks for a few hundred feet. Good hiking shoes are definitely recommended. The ruins of the old church looked amazing. The lava flowed from almost a mile away and destroyed everything but the front facade and what I think was the rear wall. You are pretty much free to go anywhere so I jumped from rock to rock checking out the area.

On the way out I stopped for a couple tacos that were made using some kind of green flour. They tasted great. Then it was over to where the horses were waiting. The same kid that walked me down the trail brought my horse over and once mounted up I followed along behind as he climbed back up the hill. That 8 year old must be in great shape.

Everything past here is just me bitching.

I have to rant about the thing I hate more than anything else on Earth– loud noise. I understand that the Mexican culture embraces music, especially loud music, but for the life of me I can’t figure why any sane person would tolerate having to listen to the other crap that goes on here. For example, right next door to me kids(?) are shooting off rockets (not fireworks) that do nothing except explode with a bang that’s as loud as a thunder crack. They set one off every 20 seconds or so. They’ve been doing this for almost 2 hours now. Yet no one will do anything. Not quite true though. The block parties have been going on all day and I noticed that when the rocket frequency increased the loudspeaker-driven music volume increased exponentially. The closest party is 5 blocks away and I can easily hear it over my iTouch cranked up to 90% max volume. I gave that up at the risk of going deaf.

It’s not just the music and the amateur space cadets next door either. Dogs are allowed to bark incessantly all day and night, trucks with massive speakers mounted on the back drive up and down the streets blaring out tape recorded advertisements all day, car alarms go off for hours and freaking roosters run around town making noise day and night (mostly night). In this town the roads are bad so instead of trucks with speakers some enterprising chap mounted loudspeakers on top of at least 2 houses. These pump out advertisements from 8am until 8pm or so. Enjoying things that symbolize your culture is one thing but don’t people get annoyed at some point???