What happened…

Andrew writes: Remember that bit about not putting the fly on last night so that we could read by the light of the moon? Well, everything was wet this morning from dewfall. Fortunately it dries pretty quickly in the warm, dry air around us. We broke camp as a group and headed towards Venados, where the road we are on meets a busier highway. There is something magical about cycling through flat, fresh-smelling farmland in the early morning. Reaching our first destination though, Gareth and Jean elected to play it safe and hop in the back of a truck, while Amanda and I decided to test our luck on the busy highway. It couldn’t possibly be as bad as the libremiento near Mazatlan could it!?

Perhaps because of the time of day it just wasn’t very busy. It did end up being uphill for 25km however, at a manageable grade, but still very persistent. We climbed about 1000m in elevation over that distance, and once again the views did not disappointed. Instead of being surrounded by mountains on all sides, the valley we had been in continued to one side, forming a canyon. We could see our destination, Atotonilco, many miles ahead, and as we got closer the road widened to four-lanes. Traffic also got busier, especially in areas where the road was under construction. All in all, I’d say that the ride was pleasurable, except for the bit where Amanda slowed to a snails pace for some unknown reason. I ended up just tucking in behind her and listened to “a movie for my mind”, an audio book (Elantris by Brandon Sanderson) on the iPhone. It’s like a regular audio book except with more sound effects.

Jean was waiting for us in the town square and gave us the lowdown on the food and hotel situation. We ended up renting a room at the hotel across the street for a very reasonable $150MX ($12CDN), and spent the rest of the day exploring. Atotonilco is another municipal centre, like Nicolas Flores was, except much larger. There is a huge municipal market and foods and delicacies of all sorts available to buy. This includes replenishing our peanut butter and Nutella; t’s like we’re in a real town! Sadly, we couldn’t find Kraft Dinner anywhere.

Gareth came in to our room after dinner to talk to us about one of our blog posts that he didn’t like, the day that he and Jean stayed in San Pablo. For a guy that likes to pooh-pooh the Internet, he really seems to put a lot of store into what I wrote. He thought that I was trying to contrast the two of them, with the two of us, and about how I thought how Amanda and I are more “hardcore” because we grind out every inch. I hadn’t considered that perspective, as generally I just write whatever is on my mind at the time. I’m glad though that Gareth felt comfortable enough to come and talk to us about how he felt, and that we were able to share with him how much we enjoy cycling with the pair of them, and that doesn’t always make it into the blog posts, but it should.

The following day was spent resting, visiting the market, and mending fences with Gareth. He seems to have lost his trust in me, and has said that he is really self conscious about what I’ll write about him next. I just promised him it wouldn’t be anything too terrible, but at the same time, it’s only from my perspective, and my opinion hasn’t been wrong yet! I hope that he’ll get over it.

Amanda writes: The ride was so rewarding today. And the more we travel with Jean and Gareth I think the more all of us are comfortable with making choices that suit each individual group. So when Jean and Gareth decided to hitch into town we didn’t think about it twice. I love riding bikes and was looking forward to a nice morning of spinning my wheels. As we continued to climb I was a bit concerned about how long they would be waiting for us, but they seem pretty patient. It was great to see Jean when we arrived and shortly after a freshly shaven and barbered Gareth with his fancy new haircut. We chose a hotel and then went exploring. We found an Internet hub and Andrew, Jean and I went to get our fix on while Gareth relaxed in the room. He seemed to be having an allergic reaction to something on his knee and seemed pretty content just chilling.

So we found an Internet cafe and Jean, Andrew and I went down to get our online fix. While we were there we introduced Jean to the website www.crazyguyonabike.com. It’s a great website that includes tens of thousands of blogs and valuable information about touring. We visit it every time we get online. We showed her where our blog was and she started reading it. At first I think she was a bit shocked about the transparency of our writing. We’re not ashamed of our honesty of our writing and use it as an outlet. If we were concerned about her reading it we wouldn’t have shown it to her. As she read it I could see she was shocked and perhaps a bit put out. Andrew and I chatted with her about it for a bit and tried to put her mind at ease. Jean mentioned she was feeling like they were holding us back especially after reading that we felt we were making compromises. I tried to tell her that yes we were making compromises by our own free will. And that if we didn’t want to make compromises that we would keep riding. We reiterated how much we enjoy their company and how they have reminded us how great it is to travel slowly. We finished up and I felt like things were a-okay.

So we finish up at the cafe and return to the hotel and Jean shares with Gareth our blog posts, well I can’t be sure if she showed him all of them; but at least one that seemed to rub him the wrong way. While I respect his ability to tackle things head on, sometimes the approach can be a bit strong. As we’ve mentioned Gareth has been doing this cycle touring gig longer than we ever even knew it existed. With that experience comes pride and Gareth expressed some concerns about his interpretation of Andrew’s words about compromise and reference to his riding shorter distances. It appears his interpretation is that we are speaking of his willingness to hitch a ride or ride shorter distances as a negative thing. Or that he feels like others will think that is what we are saying. What I want to say is we can’t control what other people think and it doesn’t matter what we write; we write what is in our mind. When we talk about them taking a ride or cycling a shorter distance, it’s with envy. It’s unfortunate that he doesn’t read it that way and that he’s convinced others will see it the way he sees it. Each person has their own views and it’s impossible to predict what others will think. For a man that claims to not be concerned with other blogs or information on the Internet, I’m surprised he’s so concerned with our blog and for that matter what others think. We have our views and we share them with our readers and they make of it what they will.

Anyways, as Gareth continued to express his feelings on our posts he was sure to finish by saying he’d like Andrew to revisit his post. Andrew is his own person and will do whatever he thinks is appropriate but I certainly hope he doesn’t change the words about what he was feeling during that last couple of weeks. His words are genuine and simply because one person is interpreting it differently doesn’t mean you should change it. Don’t get me wrong; now that we know how Gareth feels about our transparent writing it would be in our best interest to allow him to read it before publishing. I will not however change the words about how I’m feeling about my trip around the world. Gareth and Jean are good friends and I’m counting on our friendship holding strong and perhaps some compromise is in order here. We can share with him our posts before we publish him and well I’m not sure what his compromise would be but I’m sure we’ll figure it out. In the meantime I hope that his feelings towards our writing don’t tarnish our friendship.

Today’s Photographs