My chafing problems from yesterday have been solved but as predicted my cold has progressed into the sniffles and coughs. Nothing I can’t handle. So we set of to tackle what we know will be a day of rolling hills on cliffs by the ocean. We’re also expecting some rain as a couple of days earlier I had looked at the cloud patterns in Google Earth and saw that the entire Michoacán state is covered by cloud. I’m expecting a day of rain but the morning was cloudy, without rain and the sun was making an effort to peek through. So at our first stop not 10km away from where we set off that morning I went ahead and performed a long overdue oiling of the chains. Hopefully the rain won’t wash away my work.
As I’m working on the bikes Kevin meets Michel Beaudoin (you can read about his travels here: http://beaudoinavelo.wordpress.com/) who’s from Quebec. He started in Alaska and is going to the tip of South America too. He told Kevin that the current state we’re cycling through, Michoacán, and the next, Guerrero, are in the Red Zone. Meaning that they are known for having aggressive bandits, either bandits disguised as police or the police are the bandits themselves. He said that 3 months ago four motorcyclists from England doing a tour from Alaska to South America were stopped on the road by 16 or so guys with machine guns. The bandits took everything from two of the motorcyclists—passports, everything. The other two motorcyclists were able to speed off before the bandits got to them. This would explain why we’ve been seeing lots of military jeeps/trucks driving up and down this road. All of them loaded with guys in fatigues with their assault rifles ready. When I see the trucks go by I’m not sure what I prefer: them heading in our direction or in the opposite direction. Anyway, all the more reason to stay at hotels (as we have been doing as of late) rather than camp out.
Red Zone or not we head onwards. And just minutes after we leave town it starts to rain. Great, all my work on the chains all for not. It’s not even the type of rain I’m expecting. It’s not that tropical downpour that comes out of the sky in buckets. It’s not even really that warm. Rather it is kind of like the rain that I’m accustomed to back home in Vancouver Canada. That dreary unrelenting rain. This sucks. All day it rain never letting up. Sometimes it drizzles, sometimes it showers, sometimes it rains, sometimes it pours, but it never stops.
Well if it’s going to rain then so be it. I’m from Vancouver, dammit, I can take it. This rain isn’t going to get the better me. I’m not going to take cover, I’ll outlast it. Completely soak me for all I care, after all I can’t get any wetter than I already am. As I battled with the rain I tried to distract my mind by paying a little more attention than usual to my surroundings. For instance did you know that there are a lot of vultures down here in Mexico. Big black ones. And they usually hang out in groups of 20 or more. And they usually are hiding around a corner which is freaky because they just appear as you round the turn. All of them just turn their heads and just stare at you with their beady little eyes from behind their masks. Wishing that you’d turn in to road kill so they can feast. It’s freaky I tell you.
Speaking of road kill, did you know there’s a lot of it down here in Mexico? Today we saw a large python dead on the road. We see a lot of dead snakes, possums, dogs, armadillos (Which surprisingly can’t piece themselves back together again like they can in the movie Rango. I guess you really can’t believe everything you see in the movies.), vultures, other unnamed birds, cows, pigs, large grasshoppers, large crickets, lizards, butterflies, and even crabs. I even saw a live crab (quite large) on the road and we were over a kilometer away from the ocean. What’s a crab doing way out here? From the ocean to the road it would have had to travel through a lot of dense jungle. However it got here it was just as stupid as dogs are when it comes to bikes and tried to attack me. It started running towards me with both claws on the ready. Hah! Stupid crab you’re no match for my Schwalbe Marathon tires. Don’t worry I didn’t run it over, but I’m pretty sure the car behind me did. That’s what happens to anything that ventures on the road it turns into road kill in minutes. When are these critters going to learn you don’t mess with vehicles?
That reminds me. A couple of days ago we saw our first tarantula. A medium sized hairy brown one. Unfortunately it ventured onto the road so you know what happened next right? Upon seeing it crossing the road (I nearly ran over it myself) I yelled ahead to Kevin knowing he’d want to take a picture. He stopped and took the camera to take a shot. As he approached the tarantula three cars passed. They all missed the tarantula. Kevin gets ready to take a picture. A fourth car wizzes by and splat! No more tarantula. It’s now an unrecognizable pancake on the road. Kevin retuned to the bike pictureless.
Having spent the day distracted by the things you find on the road we eventually reached the hotel we were told about. The rain was really coming down now (on the verge of torrential rain). Kevin went in to get the hotel situation sorted. I on the other hand, not wanting to lose to the rain, stood with my bicycle in the pouring rain. Kevin returns frustrated because this will be our most expensive hotel thus far: 250 pesos (or ~$23 US). But they’ve got us by the balls. There’s no other hotel for miles and we’re not camping in the Red Zone. Kevin needs more money to pay the owners. So I finally give up my battle with the rain and move under a covered area so I can open up my bag to get some money. Looks like this round goes to The Rain. At least it didn’t score a K.O like it did in our last battle. I’ll be back for a third round, Rain. I won’t let you go that easily, you can count on that.
Frustrated we head down to our room and find that it is a little square room. Our most expensive room to date and also our worst room to date. Great! To make matters worse a large spider crawls up the wall as Kevin is parking his bicycle. I hate spiders so I jump into the washroom while Kevin coaxes it into the trashcan and throws it over the balcony.
No comments:
Post a Comment