March 14th, 2016
We ventured off the beaten path to a tiny beach town called El Paraiso, and surfed until sunset. Sounds like we’re living the dream, right? Well, here’s how the day unfolded…you tell us what you think.
Cycling Stats
Start Point: Playa Miramar, Colima, Mexico
Destination: El Paraiso, Colima, Mexico
59.1 km trip, 3:55 time, 45.1 km/h maximum speed, 15 km/h average speed
Route Description:
Navigating through Manzanillo was a little tricky as there are several overpasses and exits. Just stick to following signs to “Colima” and you’ll be OK.When you leave the city you climb up and out of it and they we stayed on the cuota which was pretty flat. You come across a few towns through the day. We opted to head right into El Pariso which is a dead end. You could also turn left at the intersection and turn right instead.
Accommodations:
We found at least three hotels in El Paraiso but ended up choosing “La Quinta Hotel” as it was cheapest at only $200MX. The ones right on the beach wanted $500MX and really…being a block away with a gorgeous rooftop view we were OK spending less and being the only ones at the hotel too! Nacho the owner is super friendly, and loves to talk about all of the photos he has on the wall downstairs. If you turned left instead as outlined in the route description, there are many hotels only 5 kilometers further down the road which I talk about in the next days details.
What happened…
Andrew writes: So TelCel offers this great new plan, for as little as $50MX ($4.25CDN) we get unlimited calls to Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. I’ve taken to calling friends and family over the last few days to really get my money’s worth. Today, I call my friend Tim. I’m sitting there talking to him and he says to me, “Well it definitely sounds like you’re living the dream!”. Living the dream? I dunno, let me describe the day with a little detail and then you can be the judge.
So when I was on the phone with Tim, I said to him, “Tim, does the dream include sitting in a Walmart parking lot next to some homeless woman?”. Amanda and I were on a quest to find tampons that would eventually take 90 minutes, and three different large chain grocery stores to find. Then we continued to try and navigate our way out of Manzanillo, but got confused by the signage around the port what with all of the trucks and whatnot spewing toxic fumes into our faces. So after turning around and cycling up a long, hot, hill with more trucks we’re faced with choosing between the “libre” or the “cuota”. The cuota has a sign saying “No Bikes Allowed”, well except it’s in Spanish, so we think that’s what it said, but we’re always ready to just play the gringo card with the police. So we take it anyways, because we know that the libre is death waiting to happen. Right-o, so we ride down this hill and Amanda gets a flat tire; our first one since August 2015. There’s a hole in the sidewall. Crap. Ok, we get it fixed and 25 minutes later we’re back in business.
“Hey, there isn’t as much garbage in this shady spot as in the other ones, let’s stop here for lunch”, I suggest to Amanda. It’s already after 1300hrs and I’m starting to think about calling it a day in the next town. We roll past it and onto a libre, and as we turn a corner there’s a dead cow in the grass (not uncommon), and beside it, a dead horse. WTF!? Let’s get out of here before someone decides to add dead cyclists to that list! We finally reach El Paraiso and find a spot to sit in the shade and enjoy a beer, only to be rousted by the bar owner because we aren’t drinking his expensive bottles. That’s ok, we take our drinks elsewhere and start looking for a place to sleep. I find a wonderful little hotel run by a man and his wife. He shows me a room for $300MX, but I plead with him and we get a smaller room for $200MX. Then after a swim in the ocean with Amanda, we come back and find the room and surrounding area infested with large, jumping, ants. The sun goes down and we’ve killed about a billion ants, but now the mosquitoes are vying for our blood. So we retire inside where there is a ceiling fan chugging, literally chugging, along at about 9000RPM. Amanda just had a wasp attack her in the bathroom while she was showering. Oh, I forgot to mention that we had pancakes and jam for breakfast so fuck yeah I’m living the dream, good night!
Amanda writes:
Okay so you’ve probably why we had to spend so much time to find tampons. Apparently in Mexico women more commonly use pads. That combined with the fact that I was shopping in a gringo community where women don’t have to deal with this anymore. Our tampon-hunt was a bit annoying but we finally found what we were looking for and set out. It certainly reminded me that I’d really like to learn to master the diva-cup that I bought last year based on a recommendation from a cyclist friend of mine Nici. Until then, I’ll be sure to buy them when I see them. So off we go after almost two hours of shopping. While we were finding stores we came across a bike shop and added air to our tires. We were so excited because we learned that our pressure was down to 30 and they’re supposed to be 60-65 so we felt like we were set up to ride faster. That was until I got a flat. And not just any flat. The side wall of my tire blew a pretty big hole. I must say that I’m not that impressed with it as our last set of tires lasted so long and this hole in the sidewall could prove to be troublesome in the coming year. Hopefully it doesn’t but we will need to do some more repairs to it.
So now we’re spent upwards of two hours on tampons and tires and off we go. So much for my 60 psi tire. Oh well, we continued onward and it was interesting. We were clearly in a different area of Mexico as there was a far greater presence of military and naval personnel. Trucks would drive by regularly with about 6 men in the back holding their rifles in the ready format. And while it’s not uncommon in Mexico, it’s certainly becoming more often.