April 17, 2016
A rest day in Atotonilco el Grande, and an opportunity to reflect on the past couple of weeks.
Cycling Stats
Rest day off the bike
Interesting Facts about el Pedalero
Gareth has over two decades of extensive cycling in Mexico, Central and South America and the Caribbean, he has crossed deserts, jungles, mountains, savannas, salt flats, littorals, shantytowns, and megacities, and has encountered every kind of animal, plant, and person. Gareth has a very informative website at http://elpedalero.com.
The Four Agreements Wisdom
Over the past year Amanda has read “The Four Agreements” book by Don Miguel Ruiz. It is a book that I hope to share with our friends Gareth and Jean as I believe there is such wisdom in the book such as … “Don’t Take Anything Personally. Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering…”
What happened…
Amanda writes:
Today we decided to take a rest day and do some laundry, relaxing and re-organizing. Jean and Gareth affectionately calls these opportunities “re-ups”. We started the day popping by their room to see what their plan was. Gareth wouldn’t even so much as make eye contact. Jean seemed a bit more approachable. Clearly Gareth was stewing a bit about the whole blogging thing. Andrew and I went to the internet cafe to update some of our blogs and website and tried to get the Yankees game. And yes much to my chagrin Andrew updated his blog posts to appease Gareth and Jean. And while I’m opposed to it, that’s what friends are for. When we returned we checked in again with Jean and Gareth and still Gareth wouldn’t even lift his head. Andrew asked him what he was working on and he said he was creating a profile for himself for Crazy Guy on a Bike website. Jean walked with us to get a bite to eat for lunch and I asked her if Gareth was okay. She confirmed he was still pretty hurt about his interpretation of our blog posts.
After we chatted with Jean a bit and cleared the air, Andrew decided to head back to the hotel and speak with Gareth; man to man. Andrew sometimes amazes me with his maturity and ability to talk to others when it is important to him. For any of our friends reading this you know that Andrew says it like it is and will very rarely do or say something to appease someone. That being said if Andrew is taking a step to speak to someone, he means it. Jean and I arrived at the room after a bit and Gareth and Andrew were still discussing things. It appears that Andrew agreed to remove his blog posts because Gareth was feeling embarrassed and hurt by them. While I disagree with Andrew removing his blog posts, they are just that; Andrew’s blog posts. So if the last two weeks of blog posts don’t make any sense as I refer to something Andrew said; now you know why.
Here’s why I disagree. Andrew and I have been blogging honestly, transparently and from the heart for over two years. Why should we change the way we write simply because someone doesn’t like our opinion? That’s what opinions are; aren’t they? That’s what makes the world go round … people with different ideas, view points and perspectives. Simply because two people don’t agree on something or see something differently doesn’t mean either person is wrong or right. Having said all that I respect Andrew more today than ever because I know how important his writing is to him. It’s his way of sharing our journey and his humour and thoughts with whoever chooses to read them. For him to agree to remove one of his greatest passions from the internet shows me how much he values our friendship with Jean and Gareth. And while I share the same value of our friendship with them, I still disagree with Andrew removing his blog posts. Let’s just hope simply because I disagree there are no hard feelings. And at the very least, it’s great to see that we may have inspired Gareth to join the Crazy Guy on a bike blog world. It’s such a great resource with so many visitors and Gareth has so much experience to share, it will be great to see his two bits on there with the rest of us.
In the meantime we are heading to bed and I hope that Jean and Gareth will decide to ride with us tomorrow. We popped by their room tonight to play cards and Gareth was pretty deep into his photo editing so it was hard to tell if he was still upset or just focused on his work. It would be a darned shame if he wasn’t able to get past his hurt of this situation and we part on these terms. I really hope to not only continue to ride with them now, but maybe later in the year further South.