Final thoughts -- Andy

We have been home almost two days now and I feel ready to wrap this blog up. We arrived on the full bus from El Paso into Albuquerque about 9:45 and, by the time we got our baggage, loaded up and headed home in the dark with our headlamps and blinky red lights it was a little after 10 pm. It was very nice to be home and Laura and Tristan welcomed us with a little party in the kitchen. Like Ted said, it is easy to be home, there are more things to keep track of and but also less uncertainty. I am finding myself making small adjustments in my thinking of the last few weeks but haven't fallen into the ruts of everyday life yet. For example, I know where the typing keys are for : and ? without looking, I understand everything that is spoken to me with no effort, the streets are very wide and quiet, the money is all the same size and color, I have to choose what clothes to wear, I can drink the water that comes out of the tap without filtering it, small inconveniences are not a problem -- for example I can't get the map of our trip to orient the way I want it to!

Here are my somewhat unorganized thoughts about riding in Mexico.

• It's not for everyone. Many roads are narrow sometimes and there is a lot of stinky traffic. The trick to avoiding this is to stay on small roads.
  
• Get very good maps before you go there, I would suggest the Guia Roji maps (see photo, including the creepy picture of the blindfolded man) from Mexico City. Get them through Amazon before you leave because they are very hard to find in Mexico. If you do need to find them you will find them in the Papelerias (paper/stationary stores). We wandered needlessly for two days because of bad maps during the first week of our trip.
  
• Do your research, there is a wealth of information through the internet from people who have made similar trips.
  
• Don't plan on going very far each day. We had very large climbs every day that made it difficult to go more than 100 km in a day. During the summer stay high. Once we got below 1000 meters it was very hot and would have been difficult to ride short of very early in the morning.
  
• Ask a lot of directions from a number of different sources from people who drive places. Taxi drivers were the best sources of info we could find since they had the time of day to give us and the knowledge to offer.
  
• Use a guidebook like the Lonely Planet guide. Although it will only cover a small part of where you end up it is helpful in cities for a filter on hotels, restaurants and local attractions. It is also a helpful general background guide for different regions. I kept the book on a thumb drive and on my palm pilot. I found that it would have been worth my while to lug around that big fat paper book instead of having to find a computer or navigate around on my small screen.
• Take your time. We wish we had 6 months on our hands to really do this trip well but we don't have that kind of time away from home at this point in our lives.
  
• Wear normal looking clothes. My most used pair of shorts was a baggy pair with a lycra padded liner. As comfortable as a pair of regular lycra tights are they just don't fit in. We looked wierd enough already and didn't need the funny looking clothes. Ted often wore his regular shorts over his tights. While the bright biking shirts are visible and convenient I would use more normal looking shirts the next time around.
  
• Wear a helmet. Although almost nobody else did, except the 3 serious riders we saw in lycra, helmetless riding is not an option. Medical attention is often far away and you should never ride without one unless you are riding a few blocks to the bus station. Bring rear view mirrors that attach to the helmets, bring spares since they are so invaluable and cheap.
  
• Have a comprehensive took kit and spare parts. For instance we could have saved a lot of trouble if we had extra chains. We did have extra brake shoes that saved my butt on the rainy descent to the ocean. Don't even think about making this trip if you can't fix your own bike.
• Use really good tires. We had zero flats despite running over a lot of glass and other sharp debris. They also gave us great peace of mind during long fast wet descents. We used Shwalbe Marathon Plus 700x32 tires that cost about $32 each online. They were worth every penny.
  
• The only safety concern we had was the guy waiting in his pickup truck in the taxi zone who offered a ride to the next bus station in Mexico City for a very low price. We also chose not to ride through Juarez. If we heard stories from travelers about dangerous situations we would have heeded them as well. Everywhere else we felt very safe.
• I will add to this list with time.
  

final thoughts

Ted: The trip is over, we're home once again, and glad to be so. I think that riding Mexico makes us officially hardcore with all the mountains and such. The ride was fantastic, and I'd do it again in a second. Just not this second. It feels strange to be finished, nice not to have to think about where I am when I wake up. I still have to do some adjusting to living where shorts are acceptable, and it's okay to put toilet paper in the toilet. It takes adjusting. But I like being able to do nothing. Absolutely nothing, for as long as I want. I like having easy food every morning, I like speaking the same language as everybody else, and overall, I like being home.

San Cristobal de LC, Chiapas to El Paso, Texas

We have covered a few miles since I last wrote on Sunday afternoon.
Actually, we have traveled practically the whole length of the Mexico.
Here's a synopsis.

We were set to leave on the 6:40 pm night bus to Mexico City (DF) but
there was only one seat so we waited until the 8 pm bus and headed out
into the darkness from SC later than we planned. I really can't say
much about the dark part of our route except that we headed towards
the Carribean coast and then headed north. As the sun was coming up I
noticed that we were climbing a lot and looked over to see the
perfectly clear and snow capped mountain of Volcan Orizaba. It was perfectly cone shaped and had a
ton of snow on it. I believe that, at 5700 meters (18,700 ft), it is the highest
in Mexico. Shortly afterwards I saw more snow on the horizon as
Popocapetl and its neighbor, Ixtacihuactl, loomed on
the horizon. Popo actully had a lot of smoke coming out of the top
of its perfect cone. One of my wishes was to see a smoking
volcano and it came true!

We soon descended a very big hill into DF and ended up in the bus
station only to find out that we couldn't connect at that one and
needed to go to another station. The bus company man was helpful and
said that we could just ride the eight km ourselves following his
directions. We did that and found the riding to be fine despite the
reputation of DF. I didn't find it to be very different than the
other cities we rode through. We had the taxi lanes to ourselves and
there were so many lanes that we always had room. Forty-five minutes
after we got to the norte station we were gone on a bus to Juarez.
There's really not much to say about that trip except the drivers
were quite nice. We arrived in Juarez at around 11 am, after a 23
hour trip. Crossing the border was a non-event after taking the
bus shuttle 10 km from the Juarez station to the border crossing.
We arrived at the Albuquerque bus in time to buy the last two
tickets for the 5pm bus. By the time we get home tonight we will
have been traveling for 50 hours. It sounds much worse than
it really is. I feel rested and only a little restless. I will
update more toomorrow and post pictures as well.

El Paso, by the way, has free wifi downtown so we are partaking.
Thank you El Paso!

Today was an interesting day. In the morning, we woke up, ground our teeth on some granola, and headed out with Dan to the ruins of Tonina, where the ruins are for the most part intact. You're free to roam around almost all of the site, and there are even tunnels you can climb into. there are a few areas that are roped off, due to danger, or lack of full excavation. T'was cool. There were a few areas which left me feeling like I could of gone further, like a narrow tunnel ending in a chamber with a wall blocking the way down. That was disappointing but overall the whole place was really cool.

Andy: yes, today was quite a treat. Tonina is east of here towards Palenque at an elevation of only 900 meters so the vegetation was much more tropical than the piney woods here. Tonina was also practically deserted so we had the place to ourselves. We'll try to post a few pictures. One surreal event that happened today was that we came across a big military road checkpoint just out of the park. We had all 10 of our bike bags in the back of Dan's truck and the young armed soldier started checking us very thoroughly. After looking under the hood (?!) he asked us to remove and open up all of the bags. After the second bag he suddenly asked in Spanish, "How do you say, 'have a nice trip?'" The rest of the search looked good from his commander's point of view but for us was an English lesson. We ended up writing the phrase down on a piece of paper, which sufficed for a glove box search. The kid turned from menacing soldier to innocent teenager in about 2 minutes. He had a hard time with the tr in trip. It was a wonderful interaction.

We leave in a little while for home. We'll be home Tuesday.

More photos

I have a smattering of photos from the last day that I wanted to post.

San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas

(Andy)

Since yesterday morning we have been in the city of San Cristabol de las Casas in the southernmost state of Chiapas. SC is situated pretty high in the mountains and it is cool and pleasant here. It is the rainy season so it has been raining in the afternoons as well (but not today). Yesterday, after riding all night in a surprisingly easy 11 hour bus ride from the beach, we met up with Dan Cummings of Bosque School fame. Dan has been a great guide and showed us around the city yesterday, including catching a music act in the evening. This is a seems a different place from the north -- very liberal and artistic. The music last night, for instance included and accordian, drums, guitar and bass playing a wandering but very tight gypsy style of music. The vocalist somehow incorporated throat singing, Louis Armstrong style scat and many other types of wild vocal improvisations. It brought a smile to our faces through their whole set. I describe the music in a way to describe the town -- you never know what your are going to come across.

Today we dropped off Dan´s wife Kristen in the town where she was doing her Anthropology work and we headed off to a Zapatista village. A very short background... indigenous people in southern Mexico have been on the fringes of society for a very, very long time. In 1994 a movement led indiginous leaders and University intellectuals took over this city in a coordinated and well publicized movement the day that NAFTA was enacted. They had general support from the population here. Since then they have succeeded in many ways towards self-governence, land reform and general public awareness. In many ways it is a community based movement that makes perfect sense. The Zapatista army, EZLN, is still alive more in spirit than actuality. Zapatistas still adopt the black ski-mask look and are alive and well in a number of areas in the highlands here. We came to the gate of the town, our ID´s were checked, we were signed in and then we headed to the Council for Good Governance where we met with 2 or 3 members of the council and we had the opportunity to ask eachother questions. After that we were allowed in the town. We checked out the clinic and school and took photos of all of the murals on the side of the building. It was a good place.

The next stop was a church in Chomula unlike any church I have every seen. It was a fully Catholic church but there were no pews, just about 50,000 candles on the table and floor, pine needles all over the concrete floor, boxes for about 50 saint, groups of traditionally dressed folks praying with candles, bottles of soda and alcohol, incense, etc. Outside, as the groups left, they would set off big skyrockets and huge explosions that you felt in your chest. It was a happening place.

Following that Ted and I went shopping and got a few gifts, some great honey and some food for tommorrow.

Tomorrow we leave early with Dan for the ruins at Tonala. Following that we hop a night bus for Mexico City, where we will take a bus to Cd. Juarez, cross the border and take another bus from El Paso to Albuquerque. Since we are practically in Guatamala that will be a long trip of about 2 days. A gallon of jungle honey and a machete will follow us home next month with Dan and Kristin.

Ted: We´ve been busy since we arrived here. Doing things which are cool, touristy, geeky, or just weird. we´ve seen great live music, eaten great sandwiches, seen wild markets; the definition of foreign. We´ve walked around the city, traveled to villages governed by masked men, and had great coffee. Life is really great down here. Well paced, and calm. I like it, but I do kind of miss home. I´m tired, and cannot explain all that we´ve seen and done in these past few days.

Ted: We're here in SC del casas, and it's a pretty cool town. Here on Dan Cummings' computer, we finally have the hardware to upload some photos, so without further ado:

San Jose del Pacifico to Puerto Angel

Ted:
from Sj del P, the ride really was lagely downhill, and would´ve been the best descent we´ve ever been on had it not been for the rain. During the whole afternoon, it was a warm rain keeping us from really going the speed we wanted to. The rain wasn´t altogether unpleasent, just limiting. My speedometer broke, keeping me from knowing just how fast I was going. We made it to Pto Angel by the evening, and found a place to stay. Afterwards, we had a bit of a time looking for a resturant called Beto´s that was suposed to have great food. We found it, and it did have great food. It it smotheringly hot here, like awful, horrible humid sticky heat, yet another reason why we´re taking the bus from here to Sc de las Casas. I kind of wish we didn´t have to, but we don´t have the time, nor the sweat wicking technology to ride there. It´s just too darn hot.

Andy:
Another epic day today... We left our lovely hotel at about ten am and
promptly found an internet place down the hill where we could post the
day's post. We couldn't get the pictures to go thru though so those
will be coming. It seemed like we would have one huge downhill but
that turned out not to be the case. We continued climbing after a
short downhill teaser. Very soon we were hungry again and we ate once
along the road and another time in a restaurant perched on the side of
a cliff. During lunch number two the thunder started booming and the
raindrops fell hard on the metal roof of the building we were in. We
suited up in pants and jackets and, shortly afterwards, in fleece
jackets too. We also descended seriously for hours afterwards with
occassional climbs that were just as steep. We went from cold and
rainy in pine trees to warm and rainy in thick tropical foliage --
bananas, big leafy houseplant like things, epiphytes growing in trees,
vines, etc, etc. No soil was to be seen short of the immediate ditch.
We also saw a crowd along the side of a road looking down at a truck
that fell off of the edge. It didn't look good, especially since we
saw the ambulance coming about fourty five minutes later. It was a
helpless feeling knowing that there was nothing that we could do
except watch so we went on our way. Eventually we reached the ocean
after a long long while. We are in a huesped now and I can hear the
waves in the little bay we are in. It's also quite hot and the
mosquitoes are biting. I am ready to head to bed under my mosquito
net. By the time we reached the sea it stopped raining...

distance today: 115 km
Riding time: 6.5 hours
Total distance: 1129 km

Oaxaca to San Jose del Pacifico, Oax.

Andy: We finally made it out on the road at a sensible hour.
Following our rest day in Oaxaca we were fresh and ready to get up
early. We managed to roll out of our hostel at about 7:20 am and
spent the next 45 minutes not getting lost as we headed out of town.
While we were on busy 4 lane highways they had wide and fairly good
shoulders without too many busses and taxis bllocking the way as they
stopped along the roadside. Soon we were on relatively untrafficked
roads as we headed down a valley for about 60 miles. We knew we had a
big climb coming and had figured that we would stay the night in a
town before the climb but we got there so early that we thought that
we would just see how far we could get. We figured that if we were in
the mountains the camping would be easy if nothing else came
available. We had also just eaten a great bbq chicken lunch and one
of the other customers said that there was a nice hotel in the
mountains that was reasonably priced so we figured that we might find
it. We started our climb at about 4 pm and it continued for a long
time for probably over one-thousand meters. Early on in the climb we
came upon a long string of traffic backed up behind a roadblock so,
having bikes, we just rode to the front. We asked what was going on
and were told that the local indigenous people were blocking the road
until somebody came to talk to them about their demands. There was a
big crowd of folks at the roadblock and big rocks in the road. I
asked very politely if we could pass and the man smiled and waved us
by. Out of respect we walked our bikes over the hundred yards between
the two roadblocks (in each direction) then we simply rode on. The
good part about it is that we had practically no traffic coming behind
us since the road was blocked to all except locals. We climbed from
scrubby desert up into piney forests over th course of 6 or 7 miles.
When we got the the top there were many small communities of craftsmen
and exceptionally clean roadsides. Many people cheered us on or gave
us big thumbs up. As a sidenote you may have noticed a lot of trash in
the pictures we have taken on the road. Usually the worst places have
signs that say, "Don't throw trash." We saw new levels of that,
complete with lots of slogans and pictures of pigs. It didn't seem to
make any difference in the beginning but, by the time we reached the
top, things were exceptionally clean. As we reached the top we saw
clouds pouring over the crest. Soon we were in the clouds and we rode
in and out of them for a while. Eventually, as we were pretty tired
but totally jazzed about the beauty and serenity of the misty
mountains, we came upon a sign for the hotel the man at lunch told us
about. The place was beautiful and offered quite reasonable cabins
and food (http://www.sanjosedelpacifico.com). It is still extremely
foggy outside but we are dry and comfortable in our little wooden (not
concrete!) room. Our neigbors are a pair of young lawyers on their
way back to Oaxaca from the beach. They waited at the roadblock and
eventually turned around and came back here to spend the night. Our
elevation here, it turns out, is 2700 meters (8850 feet) above seal
level. We should have a nice go of it tomorrow on our way to the
ocean. No chain or derailleur problems today.

distance today: 132 km
total: 1014 km

Rest Day in Oaxaca

(Andy)

We are in the biggest city in Southern Mexico (pop approx 700,000). This is a town of artists, activists and bright colors. We are staying in a funky hostel near the downtown. The place is comfortable, has free wifi that doesn´t work today, a lovely roof and a variety of colorful travelers from around the world. Ted and I bracket the group in terms of age. I feel like I´m a little old for the place but we were tired when we arrived at 7:30 last night and didn´t feel like looking elsewhere and at this point it doesn´t make any sense to switch places since we are settled in. Ted confided to me that he doesn´t feel like he fits in either. Really though, it´s okay that neither of us join some of the other guests for nighttime revelry so I suppose it isn´t such a bad thing!

We found Ted a new front derailleur and it works like a charm. With a new chain he should be good for another few thousand miles. My new chain works much better too. The 35 peso chain always took a while to switch gears and at times didn´t or just fell off. It worked great as long as I didn´t change gears. I also went two blocks down the street and finally met Noel Chilton, a friend of Bosque School teacher Lisa O´Grady. I first contacted Noel about five years ago when I thought I was going to make a trip to Oaxaca. In conversation we realized that her dad and I very likely have been passing each other while biking to work for years.

It´s hot outside and may rain this afternoon, as it has been during most afternoons and evenings. I just looked outside and saw a very short traditionally dressed woman walking by with a bucket on her head as I type on my computer. What a world.

I feel rested and ready to go from here down towards the Pacific Ocean. It appears that in order to get to Chiapas and be home in 7 or 8 days we are going to have to do some more busing. That´s fine though. I find that when I am in the city I am ready to leave and ride through the countryside. About now would be nice but I should wait until the morning. Oaxaca has a lot of famous sights to see -- big trees, big old ruins, museums but I don´t feel really moved to go there now. Just sitting in the Zocolo watching the world pass by is enough.

Ted: I don't have too much time, as I don't want to pay too much, but Oaxaca is a new city. Different, too. It seems to have a large population of pretty radical graffiti artists, drawing things like a peace sign and an anarchy sign holding hands, and writings telling somebody to step out of power, and to take down the imperialist police chief. Its a different city. Huge central square. Hopping place it is. Gonna go check out the rest of the town. Peace.

Huajuapan to Tamazulapan to (via bus) Oaxaca, Oaxaca

We are killing about half an hour until we can catch the bus to Oaxaca. Ted´s chain has been giving him problems and today it ate the front derailleur twice, really wrecking it the second time (in this town) so we walked across the street and have paid 8 dollars for two tickets to Oaxaca on the bus. There was another great bike shop here and they gave us the name of a place there that would have what we need in the big city. Didn´t want to take the bus, oh well. Serious hills today. Beautiful terrain. We met a very kind biker (lycra, helmet and all) who brought us to the bike shop here. He´s the third rider we´ve seen here. We´ll be in Oaxaca in 140 km or in about 3 hours.

Distance today: 41 km

Time: 3 hr 10 min

Total distance: 882 km

Ted: If beaking chains was like smoking, my bike just switched to crack. It totally bent out the derailluer. The picture really doesn´t capture how gristly the scene is. Swallowed pride taking bus to Oxaca.

Nuevo Horizontes, Puebla to Huajuapan de Leon, Oaxaca

Andy:



After getting a good start this morning and stocking up (and posting) in Acatlan do Osorio. We headed down the road -- or rather up(hill) the road. There is little that is level here. The landscape tends to be scubby, with an interesting mixture of giant cactuses like saguaros (or cardon)and senitas, palmettos, giant agave, mesquite and big trees. Geologically we passed today from largely volcanic ash deposits to a lot of metamorphic schist to simple limestone. The climbs weren´t more than a few kilometers but they took a long time. The road is in good condition and the traffic is reasonably light. For the main road in this area it is a great deal for us. Towards the afternoon we began to get relief from the hot sun when the clouds started to get thicker. As we came down a huge descent into this town thunderstorms began crashing around us. We stopped in a bike shop because my 35 peso chain was becoming difficult to shift. We found the first decent bike shop of the trip and promptly replaced my cheap chain with a good quality Shimano chain and bought a backup thin 9-speed chain for Ted as a backup. Since he started using mine he has had one break and I don´t trust his bike to not break more. My chain probably has 2500 miles on it already. The prices were right and it´s great to have the insurance against further problems. The people at the shop were great and even brought a repair stand out so I could change the chain in the shop.

This town surprises me. We really are in the middle of nowhere here, it seems, but this is a hopping place teeming with shops of all sorts, narrow streets and an active night life. It is still raining so that tones things down a bit but we had a nice time walking around taking in the town. I like it here. As you can see from the pictures we are now in the state of Oaxaca, home of the Abraham Lincoln of Mexico -- Benito Juarez. I have been trying one way or another to get here for years so I´m glad that I finally made it. The riding is quite pleasant but it seems like we´ll be going for about one and a half to 2 more days until we get to the city of Oaxaca.

Ted: Not too much to talk about today. Lots of climbing. Lots of rocks. Lots of sun and sweat, and other things. Lizards, too. I find myself thinking in spanglish, saying in english the words I don´t know. We´ve got a nice hotel. I´m happy.

distance today: 83 km
riding time: roughly 5 or 6 hours
total distance: over 700 km

Izucar de Matamoros to Nuevas Horizantes, Puebla

Ted: Today we began our descent into southern Mexico. We finally got to the road we were aiming for, which leads without a doubt to Oaxaca. That means no more tricky navigating and debating which route to take. After about two hours of mucking about in a town looking for a decent internet cafe, we finally got on the road. And what a road it was. We rode through scenic mountains with wild shrubbery all day. Nearing the end, I was getting tired, and hoping for a place to camp. We had deducted that we´d probably be camping , as there were no town big enough to have a hotel along the way. My bike seems to have developed an appetite for chains. It broke its chain again today, and haven´t the foggiest idea of why. Anyway, we were fixing our chain and an older looking campesino comes walking along, and began talking to us, after a while of conversing, we told him what we were doing, and when we mentioned we were going to camp, he offered his yard to us. Coincidentally, his yard is full of dogs and goats, and donkeys and the like, so now we´re staying in what I believe is his son (or daughter)´s room. all his children moved out long ago, with two in Maryland, and two in Tijuana. He lives with his wife in a house made of cinder block and concrete. The shower comes in the form of a brick structure off the side of a tool shed with a bucket of water and a coffee can for pouring. it was one of the finest showers Ive ever had, if perhaps a little bracing. For the rest of the night, we ate our respective dinners, and realized just how little spanish dad and I knew. We are now in a room sleeping on the floor, and I´m overflowing with gratitude to the man, and his wife. Now, these mosquitoes are bugging me. Bed time.

Andy: now we are in the thriving town of Acatalan de Osorio, almost to the state of Oaxaco. After leaving the area around Mexico City things have become much more tranquil and beautiful. There is even less trash by the roadsides. I too am grateful for our hosts last night.

distance yesterday: 82 km
riding time: 5 hr 13 min
total distance: 758 km

Cuernavaca, Morelos to Izucar de Matamoras, Puebla

Cuernavaca, Morelos to near Izucar de Matamoras, Puebla

After a leisurely departure from Cuernavaca we promptly got lost trying to find our way out of the city. I had been looking at the route between there and Cuatla and thinking that it might be a good time to take a bus since we were right near the station and the route looked busy. Basically it turned out that way. Our recommendation for anyone riding a bike between those two cities is to take the bus. The road had four lanes and often had a shoulder but there was too much traffic. We did pull into a town trying to find a bus but we couldn't figure it out since all of the transport was in the form of little vans. It wasn't particularly dangerous but just loud and stinky with exhaust. Once we cleared Cuatla it rained, so we waited out some of the storm under the overhanging roof of a closed shop. Eventually, afar the toll road to Puebla we had the road to ourselves. We descended and climbed through scrubby rich green emptiness cut with deep canyons with water running at the bottoms. We were aiming for Izucar de Matamoras but knew it was a stretch if we hit more big ups than downs. As we got closer the land got richer with sugar cane and corn. Ancient ruins appeared along the road and, even if we were running late, we explored. Finally, as we were nearing our destination a bright apricot colored hotel appeared along the road. It advertised spacious rooms, hot water and bathrooms. We checked it out and, for two-hundred pesos we have got a great place to stay. I think we may be the only guests. Everything is particularly sparkling clean and the black tiled stairway certainly makes an impression. After showers we walked down the road to a roadside stand with trucks parked alongside (always a good sign) and ate very well for sixty pesos, drinks included. We are tired, stairs are a chore, our stomachs are full, we're happy and it's time for bed!

Ted: Those ruins along the side of the road dad mentioned; they were awesome. The ruins we checked out were of a fortified mission, we think. There were a couple of big structures that were I think the church, and the dining hall, and a number of smaller rooms which I assume were living quarters. I explored much more than dad did, due to a small cut on his ankle, and discovered a good deal. The ruins seemed to be 1600-1700 -ish and were clearly fortified. It was built on top of a hill, and had large walls surrounding it (now just lines of stones piled up). I discovered a room which while intact, was buried and didn't appear too structurally sound; the rear wall had collapsed inwards, and I didn't trust the three remaining walls to hold up their payload of stone and mortar. Needless to say, I didn't venture further in. Inspecting the rest of the ruins yielded pleasing results, such as an enormous auditorium which I believe was the mess hall, filled with banana trees, and a wall with a fichus tree that looked like it had oozed over the edge. There was more to explore and the photos I took only manage to portray a fraction of the once colossal structure. There were also a number of things I couldn't take pictures of, due to time constraints, like a great wall holding back tons of dirt, creating a cliff overlooking fields of corn and sugar cane. Yeah, today was great except for the cities, and the busy highways. The place we're spending the night is a hotel in it's infancy painted a beautiful kumquat shade. We're spending the night here for a steal. The room is spacious, and spotless and the bikes are stowed safe and sound. I need to sleep. Peace.

Note: we are heading south towards Oaxaca into an areas without many towns with internet access (only 1). We may be out of touch for a few days... Oh, and the chain is working ok for now. Also, thank you all for your comments. We appreciate hearing from you.

Distance today: 110 km
Riding time: 5 hr 30 min
Total trip distance: 680 km

Toluca, Edo. Mexico to Cuernavaca, Morelos

Andy:
Leaving the big city this morning was fairly effortless but busy at the industrious hour of 7:45 am. The low clouds looked foreboding even at that hour but never lived up to their promise. Leaving the big three lane road out of town we entered a number of small but busy pueblos in a very rich farming area. The names bear mentioning because they are such a mouthful: Mexicaltzingo, Tianguistensco and Xalatlaco were three of the memorable ones. Shortly afterwards we began climbing again in earnest. Somehow we just took it all in stride even though we probably were on some of the steepest pavement yet. The scenery just kept getting more and more beautiful with very tall moss covered pines, big rocks, cliffs and a lake all mixed in with misty clouds but no rain. We don't really know how high up we were but we would guess ten to eleven thousand feet. We were breathing hard but not overly so. Coming into Cuernavaca rates as the best ever descent for either of us. The payback for all of that climbing came in a very long and sinuous descent right into ther very heart of Cuernavaca. We had a place picked out to stay only to find out that it no longer existed so we found another rather lovely place to say. Cuernavaca is a very old city dating way back. Montezuma II's (of Hernan Cortez fame) grandmother came from here and Cortez built his HQ here in the 1520's. You can still see his midieval place in the middle of town. This is a hopping city that hosts a lot of tourists and students very clearly. On another note Ted's chain broke for the second and third time today. The first time was as we left the bus station in Guanajuato last week, literally on his first pedal stroke. With two breaks today I figured it was a pretty clear sign to replace it. The trouble is that, with his nine-speed rear cassette, his chain has to be pretty narrow so I didn't think we would be in luck. I hunted around for a bike shop (usually they are everywhere) and could only find one in the municipal market, cramped low and narrow. The old woman running the shop has two types of chains -- wide and narrow, so I took a narrow one and paid 35 pesos for it. It almost fit Ted's bike but was giving a few problems. I felt particularly brilliant when I realized that the new chain would do fine on my 7-speed freewheel and my chain would do well on Ted's bike. Time will tell if the 35 peso chain is up to the job so stay tuned.

Ted: Today was pretty cool. I must have finally gained enough muscle to keep up with dad on the hills. I've noticed a lot of shoe stores around in all the larger towns and cities. In Toluca, almost every third store was a shoe store, and I mean that quite literally. The interesting bit is that we probably couldn't buy new biking shoes anywhere short of Mexico City, or Guadalajara. We did see another biker today, dressed for riding, and pedaling something besides a rusted single speed. The sight of another guy in lycra and a helmet makes me feel slightly more normal, however with our blue eyes, 1.25 beards, and 6ft statures, I think we'll stick out no matter what we're wearing. The ride today was scenic, and super awesome. We broke records, and wishes became fact. By that I mean that we shattered our previous to p speed of 64.3km/h (?) with a brand new top speed of 82.4 km/h. It was awesome. However, at the end of that beautiful fast straight steep stretch was a terrifying corner, after which we thanked whatever god is up there that we had good brakes. Prior to this wild acceleration and deceleration was a different kind of downhill. We hung on to our slight metal frames, down a demented series of corners which would have satisfied the most knee dragging motorcyclists. We each tested the new tires on our bikes to their limits around corners which, had we been going just a little faster would have thrown us to the pavement. A few corners were taken too fast for comfort, and others were taken excruciatingly slowly, stuck behind a pickup truck creeeping along with its cargo of cement all in all, a most excellent day.

(editors note: we will be very careful in future descents, we really were not out of control as much as Ted says we were on the edge of it)

Distance today: 94 Km
Riding time: 5 hrs 18 min
Total trip dist. : 568 Km