November 4th, 2015

What happened…

Andrew writes: I really enjoyed breakfast this morning at El Grill. We met Blanca there, who used to teach English. She was terrific at reminding us about some of our Spanish, which we’re trying to brush up on again now that we are here in Mexico. Cycling out of San Jose del Cabo wasn’t hard, though it proved a little hard on the nerves.

After climbing up and out of the city, we were treated to fantastic views of the ocean, and of course, the many hotels which line this stretch of highway. I found myself surprised at the amount of construction there is, building and re-building all of the resorts; except then I recall that there was a really bad hurricane here (Odile) last year. Reaching Cabo San Lucas, we popped in to a Home Depot looking for camping fuel, or at least something to use to prime the stove. They had nothing. Then we stopped in at Walmart for some groceries.

I connected with our new Couchsurfing host, Fiko, gave me directions to his house. Using Google Maps to find an address takes a bit of getting used to. The address I was looking for “El Llano manzana 32” should be entered simply as “32 El Llano”. Manzana apparently is just something that Mexicans put into addresses to make things spicy. Then again, maybe there is an “Apple Lane” somewhere. We managed to get to Fiko’s house by 1400hrs. His sister, Luzma, let us in and gave us the lay of the land. Then she went to school. School is run in shifts here, one class in the mornings, and another in the afternoons until late in the night. So that left Amanda and I alone until 2100hrs when Fiko got home from work. Amanda had a headache, so I talked to Fiko for a bit before going to sleep. The heat may have gotten to me a little bit and I was pretty tired, even though it’s early. Then again, 2100hrs for most cycle tourists is like midnight.

Amanda writes: I was tired! I woke up feeling like I could sleep for hours. I suppose it was the long travel day before. While I don’t like to admit it, traveling by plane stresses me out. Just trying to get all of our goods packed up in the dimensions prescribed by the airlines and keeping it underweight is a chore. Add to that giving the airlines our bikes that take us around the world and hoping they don’t break them. Being tired in terms of not getting enough sleep doesn’t compute with me anymore. Since we’ve been travelling we get to set our own hours and get a minimum 8 hours each night and normally closer to 10. So yesterday going to bed around 11pm and being up at 4:30 to head to the airport took it’s toll.

After Andrew managed to drag me out of bed we packed our final items up. I got annoyed quite easily at the last minute packing that I’ve become accustomed to. Yes there are irritating aspects when two people are trying to pack but I usually keep my temper in check. Well not today. I blew up at Andrew and quickly realized the source of my frustration.

Over the last week when we were planning our next phase of our trip I was leaning toward riding it out. We are after all cycling around the world, aren’t we? I told Andrew on numerous occasions that my preference was to continue our trip in the USA – perhaps not right from Denver but at least still within the States. I mapped out 3 different routes for him. Three because the first one had flaws he pointed out, then when I did the second one I tried to rectify those flaws. Then I looked at bus, train and air options for going to Utah somewhere to get over the snow passes. It was at this point we came across that flight special. I suppose I didn’t realize how much Andrew was set on taking advantage of that … because we suck ass at communicating! Our friends will confirm this for you that if I want to find out what Andrew is planning I can ask anyone but Andrew to find out. Maybe I should have emailed Megan to ask her what Andrew was thinking.

So now I’m on my third route of planning. Andrew suggested we go South through New Mexico to get to a warmer climate and then head East to go over the rockies. I mapped that out and even painted a little picture of arrival dates and meeting friends in Tucson for USA Thanksgiving. I thought I had him then; nope. His way of telling me he didn’t want to ride was to set everything up online on the airline’s website to the point where you press pay now and then call the airline to ask questions so that I could over hear the conversation and then turn back and look over his shoulder and say “so am I booking this?”. And that is our communication method. What was I supposed to say?

Anyone that knows me knows I’m a planner. If there is something to consider I like to look at the pros and cons and map it out. I like to consider energy spent, time spent, dollars spent and basically put together a flow chart. Yes it can be annoying at times but at least I can make a decision I’m comfortable with. Andrew is the polar opposite. I like to think that over the year we’ve travelled I’ve loosened up a bit but I don’t feel like Andrew has changed at all. Maybe I’m not giving him credit, but today I’m frustrated.

I find now that I can’t hold my head high and say “I’m cycling around the world”. Now I can only say well I’m traveling, sometimes I fly, sometimes I catch a ride and when I’m being a pansy I fly. Doesn’t have the same ring to it and I find myself less proud of this journey. And with that I ask myself; why am I doing this?

Today’s Photographs