After a night of sleeping uncomfortably in a pool of my own sweat and listening to a lady several seats over snore I got up and went to the ferry’s cafeteria where it was much cooler and a movie was playing. (That’s what I should have done: hang out in the cafeteria all night instead of in the passenger cabin.) The movie playing was really bad so I did some people watching instead. They were all watching the movie or grabbing a bite to eat, so nothing much of interest there either. Eventually there was an announcement over the loudspeaker, none of which I could understand, but in response to it everyone who could understand it hurried to the cafeteria and started getting, what looked to me like, free food. Is there a complimentary breakfast included? That would be a nice surprise after a night of eating nothing. I watched a little more, yes indeed it did look like a free breakfast if you show them your ticket. I went and got Kevin and we sat down to have our breakfast of I-can’t-remember-what (I think we missed a complimentary dinner the night before). As we were finishing up the guy that we met before boarding the ferry, the guy on the motorcycle, came in and sat down to have breakfast with us. Unfortunately he left his ticket with his motorbike and they wouldn’t let him back on the car deck to retrieve it (he said they were pretty adamant not letting him down there). However, he, like most smart travelers, brought his own food (unlike us). Over breakfast he told us that he started in San Francisco (or was it San Diego—he’s from San Diego, that’s for sure) and is travelling by motorcycle all the way to Argentina too (but he’s going through Brazil unlike us). He also mentioned that dogs like chasing motorcycles too (which was news to me, I thought it was just cyclists they liked chasing) and that it reached 42 degrees Celsius while we were in Baja. He also planned to skip Mazatlan and go straight to the next town as he’s heard people in Mazatlan rip you off if they get a chance. We were staying the night since we needed to find the bike shop.
After disembarking the ferry we head for the bicycle shop which is 8km north. We arrive, can’t find it, ask around, are told it has moved (this always happens), and it closes at 2:00pm. It is currently 1:20pm. 40 minutes to go 10km to some place that isn’t on my GPS map. We start getting a move on. We turn down this road and find that it doesn’t look right. We head back. We turn down that road and go way too far. We back track. Kevin asks someone who points us over there. We go over there. The bike shop is nowhere to be found. Kevin asks another person. They point us over there. The bike shop is nowhere to be found. Kevin asks yet another person and he says the shop is over on the next street. It turns out the first street we turned down was actually the right street; we just needed to go a little further and take a right. We finally make it to the shop at a little past 2:00pm. Their doors are closed but they’re still there (the hotel Kevin asked for directions at had called ahead to let the shop know we were coming). We stock up on parts (most importantly replacement chains as ours were long overdue for a replacement). With that mission complete we head back into downtown Mazatlan in search of a cheap hotel. It doesn’t take us long to find a cheap hotel (200 pesos [or a little under $20 US] for the both of us). It has free WiFi and it’s near a supermarket so we’re happy.
Now that we’re in the tropics the humidity is intense (what a difference a degree makes). I’m really reluctant to work on chaining the chains as I don’t want to work up a huge sweat before I try to go to sleep. However I find that in addition to the fan in the room we also have an air conditioner. I flip it on. Ahh, cold air. I hadn’t felt that in a really long time (okay we’ll not since I walked into the Ley supermarket 10 minutes before) and get to work on the chains. Being an avid cyclist you’d think that I’d know how to change a chain. However this was my first time changing a change ever. I like to learn things on the spot as I need them rather than come prepared with experience. Live life dangerously I always say J. Turns out it isn’t that hard to change a chain. I got mine changed in 10-20 minutes and Kevin’s in just 5 minutes. Much quicker than I had anticipated which gives me more time on the internet. Hooray! However I think the chains needed to be changed a little earlier since the chains “stretched” a little too much. We’ll see how it goes and if we need to replace the whole drive train sooner than later then so be it. It doesn’t matter now. We have new chains on our bikes, and are about to have the best night’s sleep we’ve had in quite some time.
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