Guanajuato

We just ate lunch and are sitting back on the bus feeling much better.
As usual food does the trick. Eating here, at this point is
challenging because we don't know the customs. For instance we just
pulled up to this big meat restaurant with big grills and huge frying
vats outside of a large semi-open dining room. Of course we are
clueless so we wait intil we see how it is done. Eventually I just
ask to to start and they point me in the right direction. Before I
left on this trip I decided that I would not try too hard to be a
vegetarian because of situations like this -- there are not too many
options sometimes. Besides the grilled chicken was really tasty!

Moving back chronologically we left ABQ yesterday at about 11:30 am
and went to El Paso. Once we got to EP we hopped bus lines and took a
bus across the border to the large bus station in Juarez. This
entailed unloading and loading the bikes four times. The fifth time we
loaded the bikes was simple because the compartment underneath was big
enough that we just rolled the packed bikes on upright. Before then
we had to take off the bags and slide them in sideways. We got an 8pm
bus out of Juarez and have been on it since. We are due in Leon in an
hour or so. From there it is about half an hour on another bus to
Guanajuato, where we will stay for the night and ride south from. As
busses go it would be hard to beat this one in its comfort. I slept
fairly well through the night on the reclining seats. Still, it's
time to stop for a while.

Ted: The suspension is soft, but the driving is hard. This bus
traveling is almost preferable to flying on an airplane, due to the
quietness, and the ease of boarding. Nobody has asked about the
gasoline we're carrying on dad's bike, nor the knives in my glovebox.
However airlines are still faster. Overall, though I think busses are
a nice way to travel. Our bikes are loaded upright fully assembled
with bags, and the people we travel with are nice. I wish we had a
little more reading material, as I've finished brave new world 1.5
times, and now have only the cheesy dramas they put on the screen to
entertain me. But hey, they're funny enough (though perhaps not in the
ways the directors intended).

Ted, 5 hours later: We have entered mexico, and are in Guanajuato. The
ride into the city was...adrenalizing. We rode fast, and close to the
cars over painful cobblestone streets, and through throngs of kids
being let out of school. Quite an experience. I went to put in my
contacts this morning, and discovered that somehow I only had one
contact in the case. I suppose I must have lost the other one doing
something daring , like taking them out in a moving bus with no light.
This city is something else. It's got huge tunnels, and tall buildings
on either side of the roads. It's like San Francisco but different.
It's built on inclines closer to cliffs than hills. Every building
has more than one story, always, and some of the hills are beyond
reason.