January 18, 2016

What happened…

Amanda writes:After last nights dinner I put our bag of garbage near a cactus about 10 feet from our tent. We’re in Mexico now and there are no bears or other predators that I know of yet that are hunting for food and garbage. That and we didn’t really have anything good in there. A bag from our tortillas and a beer can. As I was drifting off to sleep I’d hear the occasional car drive by but felt comfortable because we were well hidden. I was just about to drift off when I heard some big fierce growl. While I was half asleep I could have sworn it sounded like a lion. You know the kind of noise it makes at the beginning of a movie made by MGM?! Clearly I’m becoming more comfortable with animals because I was able to try sleeping again knowing it didn’t want to eat us. Maybe it was munching on a little animal or something nearby.

I went back to drifting off hearing coyotes howling in the distance. Coyotes are pretty common in the desert and I’m not phased by them at all. At least not until I woke up with the coyotes on all sides! Coyotes usually travel in packs and when one howls, they all howl. Well they were on three sides of our tent and is was a little unnerving, particularly when I could hear them getting into that garbage bag I left near the tent. Knowing how close they were and gauging their numbers based on the numerous howls I didn’t sleep too well after that. Note to self, put the garbage away from the tent … no matter what.

After our gringo priced breakfast we were off (we must remember to ask the price before we order). I found the ride very hard today. It was just climb after climb and seemed like every corner we rounded there was another hill. The only saving grace was very few cars. The big elevation loss of over 600 meters over 10 kilometres at the end of the day was great, however I was so exhausted by then I likely didn’t appreciate it as much as I could have. In any event, we covered a lot of meters today. However being on the heels of two days with a high average speed and covering so many miles, it felt really tough physically and mentally. We’re still covering the distance we need to and are on track to make it to San Carlos in time for our dog sit and that is great news.

Andrew writes: Faced with eating cold flour tortillas for breakfast, it wasn’t hard for me to convince Amanda to cycle into Moctuzuma with me for breakfast. Once there, we found a place to wash up at the Pemex. Many washrooms in Mexico have an attendant outside, and there is a fee to use them. In this case it was 4 pesos ($0.30CDN) each. I think it was worth it considering the beautiful clean space provided. One just has to remember their own toilet paper, or you pay a premium for it from the attendant.

Next up we found a small taqueria and enjoyed some eggs with cachaca and beans for breakfast. The meal was really good! Amanda asked me what I would pay for such a fine feast, and I expected to pay about 50 pesos for each of us. Amanda went outside to do I don’t know what, and the woman who ran the taqueria came to me and said the bill would be 120 pesos. I paid, not really thinking anything of it. Amanda came in just then and started giving me shit. She had overheard the woman outside talking in Spanish with a guy about how much we should be charged, and he said 75 total. So when I asked for the bill, I paid a 45 pesos gringo tax! That’s about 4 dollars (CDN). Not a great way to start the day, and it sucks having dollar signs on our foreheads; in this case especially since they thought that we didn’t speak Spanish, so we could hear the scam in progress.

As the the bike riding, yeah, a tough slog today. I think somehow I thought that it would be more downhill. Don’t get me wrong, the downhill at the end of the day was incredible, and especially scenic, but I wasn’t expecting so much uphill after lunch. The road just seemed to keep climbing up and up and up. And you can see by the time in the saddle and the average speed that it just dragged on and on. I want to say that it was worth it though, especially for the downhill into Mazocahui which was absolutely spectacular!

When we got into Mazocahui, Amanda was inside the Pemex using the washroom, when I heard a yelp from the roadway. There I was witness to three large, pitbull/doberman pinscher type dogs playing “Make a Wish” with a small terrier. Each of the larger dogs held the smaller one by a leg and they were pulling in every which direction. It was hard to watch. There were several other locals standing around watching also, but no one stepped in to try and break up the fight. It’s Mexico; things are just different here. I’m glad that Amanda didn’t see it happen. By the time she returned, the fight had broken up and the terrier had scampered off to wherever.

I saw a hotel across the road and we went over to take a look. Being mindful of our breakfast experience, I was able to negotiate a lower price than originally asked, from $350MX down to $300MX (about $30CDN). Then we went to look at the room, which was OK, but since it had been cloudy for most of the afternoon, there was no guarantee of hot water…or of internet. I really wanted a hot shower to wash all of the grime off but in the end I just shrugged, and we decided to continue on down the road and find a place to wild camp.

The sun was below the horizon by the time we found a gate that wasn’t locked that looked promising. Our chosen site was some sort of old mine or maybe a power plant. It was conveniently located just down the road from a slaughter-house, which offered up the soothing sound of cow-killing every few minutes. We drowned out much of this by playing a podcast called “Serial”. It’s basically a lawyer’s account of re-opening an old crime of someone who may have been wrongfully convicted 20 years ago. The jury is still out on whether we’ll continue listening to this one.

Today’s Photographs