May 15, 2016
We side-trip to surf, run out of water, watch some baseball, meet a cycle-touring family, and sleep under a bridge.
Cycling Stats
Start Point: Barra Copalita, Oaxaca, Mexico
Destination: Wild Camp near Santiago Astata, Oaxaca, Mexico
62.5 km trip, 5:00 time, 49.9 km/h maximum speed, 12.5 km/h average speed
Route Description:
This day again is on the single lane highway with no shoulder. Undulating hills of no more than 200 meters and again you climb nearly 1000 meters and drop 1000 meters. We took a side trip totaling about 10 km to a beach. The beach was great for surfing and boogie boarding. They tried to charge us a 50 peso per person entrance fee and we convinced them otherwise. It was a nice break from the heat and there was a restaurant on the beach. There is a spattering of small stores and towns later in the day to buy food and water if you need to. There are restaurants and places to buy food here in Santiago Astata which is close to where we wild camped.
Accommodations:
One of the last towns was Santiago Astata and we found a hospedeje for 200 pesos. The woman also ran a restaurant and was too busy to show us a room so we left and wild camped just past the town under the bridge.
What happened…
Andrew writes: Ernie came up while we were making breakfast and chatted me up. He really wants to improve his English so that he can get ahead in the tourist-laden area around Copalita. His eagerness, excitement and energy were infectious and thus that was the mood we left his humble posada in. After awhile, we saw a sign for Barra de la Cruz, which had been recommended to me as a good surf spot by Robert, back in Puerto Escondido. The sign said it was only 3km away, so away we went. Oh man, if I had known the amount of elevation we would lose, and that it was actually twice as far as the sign said, I’m not sure we would have left the highway. Then again, the surf itself was amazing, as it was a point-break that I was able to ride in for 300m at a time and then just paddle back out and catch another. There were maybe half a dozen of us in the water, and another few scattered along the beach. Amanda kept chatting up English-speakers who were curious about our bikes and our travels, and she was just as curious about their travels too; hopefully she picked up some good spots to check out further south!
It was in the hot, hot heat that we set out from Barra de la Cruz and continued to roll around, up, and down, the highway. There didn’t seem to be a lot of options for food or drink, and thus with our water tanks running on empty we hit up a large tienda in the town of ???. There we bought a 20L bottle of water and set to splitting it up amongst ourselves. We ended up snacking on some junk food, and just sitting and enjoying the shade too; it was nice. It was still quite a distance to the next town, El Cielo, where we stopped and watched some grown-ups playing baseball in a nearby field. This was the first Mexican beisbol I can remember seeing in all of our time here. It was fun to watch, and there were lots of runs being scored. I went into a local internet cafe so that I could buy the bus tickets to Chiapas, they were half-price if we bought them a day in advance. And since there wasn’t anywhere to stay in the town, we kept going, and going, finally reaching Santiago Astata.
As Amanda was checking out the prices of a hotel in the town, I struck up a conversation with a Swiss family who had just finished cycling from South America to Mexico. I can’t believe that their 8 and 10 year old sons had just spent two years crossing some incredible spaces on bike! We sat at a table at a cafe, drinking Coca-Cola and sharing stories. Right now they are spending a month driving around Mexico before they return to Switzerland for their kids to take school exams, and so with the sun going down we bid them adieu. It’s always great to meet other cyclists, even if they are in a car! The hotel room across the street didn’t pan out, so we ended up just riding out of town in the dusk and setting up camp in a field under a bridge. Not quite trolls tonight, and it’s far enough away from the highway that the trucks shouldn’t keep us up.
Amanda writes: We had intended on leaving bright and early to try and handle the heat, however Andrew ended up chatting to Ernie for quite some time. We’re grown so much since we began our journey almost two years ago. We’re now at a point where we would never rush a conversation or friendship unless absolutely necessary, so while it wasn’t planned; it was nice. The day ended the same way; we were looking for a place to stay because the sun was going down but chatting with the family was just so nice that we enjoyed the conversation for much longer than planned. They have an interesting website at www.pedalardevagar.com. Aside from this trip with their kids, they’ve done so much cycle touring and were a wealth of information. As they travel the contact local agencies and newspapers to try and get things for reduced prices or free. They have a book of pictures and stories (we took a picture) that they present to potential sponsors. It’s an interesting approach and it works well for them, although I don’t know if Andrew and I have the guts or inclination to do that. We frankly don’t think we’re that special and the trip is our choice, so we should pay for it. Certainly got me thinking about it.