Today was a day of almost all climbing. This area of Central Mexico
is quite mountainous and we have had to pick our way from one town to
the next. By going to Valle de Bravo, which turned out to be a
beautiful place, we had two choices that would eventually lead us to
the road to Oaxaca and points south. This morning we decided to go
around the large city of Toluca, with its half a million inhabitants
we thought that it would be a bit much. After riding all day, much of
it light to ocassional heavy rain, we ended up asking a woman at a
roadside restaurant how far it was to Toluca and were shocked when she
told us twenty minutes on a bike. She was right and we were in our
hotel room in the center city within the hour. For such a large city
it was relatively easy to get around. Since leaving Valle de Bravo
this morning we climbed continually. We had one descent but went
right back up again. I would say that we climbed several thousand
meters over the eighty kilometers we rode. Of those eighty kms it
seemed like about fifty were steeply (first or second gear) up. Much
of the time we were in very thick pine and spruce forests covered with
spanish moss type stuff. At one point we stopped for lunch at a
roadside stand with three women coooking on an iron slab on a fire.
We were chilled so we put on our fleece jackets and continued to ride
with them after we ate. The good news is that we are largely
waterproof. I'm completely watertight in all of my five bags but Ted
leaked a little bit. Our rain pants and jackets seem to be working
well also, although rain does go down our necks since we aren't using
the hoods. Ted is voting for a rest day tomorrow but I don't
particularly want to stay here as it isn't all that appealing.
Cuernavaca is down the road a day's ride from here and I think that
might be a nicer place. I'll get up tomorrow morning and explore some
more and also will find a place to post this. In the meantime I'm
happy to be in a dry bed instead of a dripping pine forest as I was
figuring we might be doing before we found out how close Toluca was.
Today we rest in Toluca.
is quite mountainous and we have had to pick our way from one town to
the next. By going to Valle de Bravo, which turned out to be a
beautiful place, we had two choices that would eventually lead us to
the road to Oaxaca and points south. This morning we decided to go
around the large city of Toluca, with its half a million inhabitants
we thought that it would be a bit much. After riding all day, much of
it light to ocassional heavy rain, we ended up asking a woman at a
roadside restaurant how far it was to Toluca and were shocked when she
told us twenty minutes on a bike. She was right and we were in our
hotel room in the center city within the hour. For such a large city
it was relatively easy to get around. Since leaving Valle de Bravo
this morning we climbed continually. We had one descent but went
right back up again. I would say that we climbed several thousand
meters over the eighty kilometers we rode. Of those eighty kms it
seemed like about fifty were steeply (first or second gear) up. Much
of the time we were in very thick pine and spruce forests covered with
spanish moss type stuff. At one point we stopped for lunch at a
roadside stand with three women coooking on an iron slab on a fire.
We were chilled so we put on our fleece jackets and continued to ride
with them after we ate. The good news is that we are largely
waterproof. I'm completely watertight in all of my five bags but Ted
leaked a little bit. Our rain pants and jackets seem to be working
well also, although rain does go down our necks since we aren't using
the hoods. Ted is voting for a rest day tomorrow but I don't
particularly want to stay here as it isn't all that appealing.
Cuernavaca is down the road a day's ride from here and I think that
might be a nicer place. I'll get up tomorrow morning and explore some
more and also will find a place to post this. In the meantime I'm
happy to be in a dry bed instead of a dripping pine forest as I was
figuring we might be doing before we found out how close Toluca was.
Today we rest in Toluca.
Total distance today: 81km
Riding time: 6 hours
2 comments:
You are probably cooler than we are. 98F the past 3 days. Take care. Dad
aw you guys sound like drowned rats im sorry you should bring the rain back here with you
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