April 7, 2016
Cycling Stats
Start Point: Yethay, Hidalgo, Mexico
Destination: Zimapan, Hidalgo, Mexico
30.2 km trip, 2:52 time, 48.1 km/h maximum speed, 10.5 km/h average speed
Route Description:
The entire day is punchy climbs up and down. It is a windy scenic road with nice views. There are no towns until you travel 20 kilometres and then there is only a place to buy food and no restaurants. There are many hotels, restaurants and stores in Zimapan.
Accommodations:
In Zimapan there are many hotels, restaurants and stores. We found a hotel for 380 pesos for four people or 280 for a room for two people. Hotels were as high as 300 pesos for 2 people or 700 for four people.
What happened…
Andrew writes: I’m so grateful that we survived “the storm” last night. It seemed to go on for hours, but thankfully we were safe and sound under the palapa of the restaurant that we had relocated to. I felt a little bit of pressure to be up and away before the owners showed up at 0830, so Amanda had set the alarm. The picnic area where we had eaten and setup camp last night was looking a little the worse for wear, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying a hot cup of coffee and watching the sun come up over the mountains, all pink and glowing. It made a beautiful reflection on the waters of the resevoir/lake.
Sure enough, with all of the descending we had done yesterday, especially in the tunnel itself, it was time to start climbing out. I rode with Jean and Gareth for a bit, until I stopped to take photos of Amanda and noticed some debris lodged in my tire. By the time I had removed it, Amanda had caught up and the Days of High Adventure were nowhere to be found. It’s kind of hypocritical of me to write yesterday about all of the breaks that the two of them take, when Amanda and I are a) slower and b) stop to take a lot of photos. Case in point, Gareth and Jean were stretched out on the side of the highway at the top of one of the big hills. So as far as compatibility goes, it all works out in the end because Amanda and I can just ride our regular speed/pace and by the time we get to the top of the hills, the other two should be well rested.
While it’s been fun the last few months cycling along the coast, it really is something special to be in the mountains again; around every corner is something wonderful to behold. Even rolling into Zimapan, you could see the ancient cathedral from so far away. It was built in the 16th century, and has funny slanted windows. Gareth and I left the girls talking to strangers in the city park while we struck off to find a hotel for the four of us. Everywhere was booked, except for Hotel Central. Fortunately, we were able to get a room for the four of us for $380MX, although Jean was worried that it would be too cramped…in hindsight, since I’m typing this a few days later, I’ll agree and say it was quite cramped, but we made it work.
I’m not sure that I can really describe the wonderful experience that I had today at a local papeleria/copy shop. I had gone there originally to find WiFi, and while I was there I remembered that Amanda was trying to find stickers to put onto our bikes for central/south America. We have some stickers now on our fenders, but they’ve taken a lot of sun damage over the last 20 months. Anyhow, I ask one of the girls there to help and she must’ve spent 2 hours of her time getting the flag stickers all downloaded, laid out on her computer, and then she tells me that someone has to drive them over from a nearby city and to come back in the morning. Total cost = 30 pesos, or about $2.50CDN. In Canada, this would’ve been a $50 job easy. Yet that’s the way it seems to be here, everyone works so hard and with such passion, and then it ends up being so much cheaper than one would expect.
The four of us ended up having a meal in a small roasted chicken restaurant, and afterwards they asked us to sign their wall. They said it was OK to put it in English, so I wrote something neat. Check it out in the photo below. There wasn’t a lot else going on in Zimapan, and I spent most of the evening reading a new book (“Way of Kings” – Brandon Sanderson) that I just can’t seem to put down. Amanda read beside me while the “Bugs” watched Sopranos on their laptop in the bed beside us.
Amanda writes: Cycling out of the canyon was nice. The road was paved and while it was a climb, it was manageable. I’m really enjoying riding with Jean and Gareth. While our speeds are not exactly the same it all works out at the end of the day. Not only do we go at a similar pace, our mindsets seem to be very similar. We just go with the flow and take it as it comes. If that means we don’t get to where we had planned (not that we’re really planning) then so be it. Add to it that we’re on a very similar budget and it makes choices like food and accommodation all the easier. We’re really lucky to be traveling with other people now. Good peeps.