Journal Entries: Waiting For My Wheel To Get Rebuilt

Today I’m spending my morning sitting in front of Delta Bisiklet waiting for my front wheel to get rebuilt with a new rim (my old rim is too thin). They’ve got the 2012 London Olympics playing on the TV inside. I’m sitting outside guarding the bikes, but I can still watch from my vantage point out near the sidewalk. I think I just finished watching some swimming qualifying rounds. Michael Phelps just won his heat or maybe just won gold—I don’t really know. Now they’re showing a women’s field hockey game between Japan and Netherlands. Boring! I turn to people watching instead.

Delta Bisiklet is situated between GYM Fitness Club and a Tea Salon. Sitting in front of the fitness gym is trainer smoking a cigarette patiently waiting for fellow fitness enthusiast to arrive. No enthusiasts yet.

Over on the other side the tea shop is doing better business. Seven groups of men are drinking tea or snacking outside on the patio. No women. Several of the groups are either playing cards or a board game, reading a newspaper, or rubbing their prayer beads and staring aimlessly out towards the traffic. Occasionally the owner comes out balancing a tray topped with small glasses of tea and a cigarette dangling from his mouth. Slowly he winds his way through the tables handing out shot glasses of tea.

Out on the road a garbage man (is that what he is?) is talking on his cellphone while picking up random trash he finds strewn along the street. His findings are thrown into the massive white tarp bag dragging behind a trolley he hand pulls around.

A cleaning lady is scrubbing the windows of an apartment three stories above.

Below two trainers at the fitness gym have joined the owner out front where they sit and chat while still waiting for fitness enthusiasts to arrive.

At Delta Bisiklet one of the sales guys (the one that, according to Kevin, wasn’t friendly) attempts to make a sale. He’s brought out several bikes and makes hand gestures over them. The customer listens to the sales pitch while sipping some tea he’s been given.

Up above the cleaning lady is now cleaning the outside windows by hanging out with one foot precariously balancing on a narrow ledge.

From with the fitness club appears the receptionist. She wanders off down the street.

Out on the street the garbage man is long gone. He’s been replaced by an old guy who has parked his little turquoise hatchback in front of the tea shop. He flips open the trunk and fires up a meat cooker he has stashed back there. Immediately he slaps on some burger patties and disappears down the street. Every now and then he returns to flip the patties and prepare the vegetables and bread.

The cleaning lady is now working on the windows on the balcony. She too has a cigarette hanging from her mouth.

The fitness club receptionist returns carrying two bags full of groceries. She goes inside leaving the two guys outside chatting and nibbling on pastries.

Out from the bicycle shop the customer, finished with his tea, emerges leaving the sales guy to restock the bicycles. No sale today.

Two more guys arrive at the gym. Rather than go inside and use the facilities they light up cigarettes and join the ongoing conversation occurring out front. One does go inside briefly only to emerge again with more pastries for snacking.

The sales guy at the bicycle shop comes out and calls the burger guy inside for a short conversation. He quickly returns, though, to resume flipping the patties.

Next door, just after one of the fitness guys returns from yet another trip to the grocery store, a water delivery man arrives with a flat tired trolley stacked with water bottles. The muscular trainers move well out of the way to give this scrawny delivery man room to unload the heavy packs of water bottles. After a short conversation and with paperwork and cash in hand the delivery man leaves. The trainers promptly reclaim their seats and continue chatting around the newly formed stack of water bottles.

A little girl hovers around the burger guy. Once and a while some of the men come out from the tea shop to look over the burger guy’s shoulder and inspect their order. Not ready yet they go back and take their seats again at the tea shop.

Kevin returns from scouting out another bicycle shop where we’ll go later to get chains and a replacement tire.

Journal Entries - September 3rd, 2011 - Adiós Mexico, Bienvenidos Guatemala

We have been travelling through Mexico for 30 days and it’s time for a change. Today we crossed into Guatemala. Border crossings are exciting and daunting at the same time. It means you need to learn and experience new things: how to cross the border, the customs of the people, a new currency, how to find a place to stay at night, the expected cost of food, how to treat people (are they withdrawn or social), how to deal with traffic, the road conditions, the weather, the terrain, etc… Getting to the border was easy enough. We choose the southern border so we would avoid the highlands in Guatemala which have 3000 meter mountain climbs. The Pacific Coastal region only has 800 meter climbs (though Antigua will take us to 1600 meters). Looking to the east we can see the huge mountains off in the distance. The border crossing went smoothly. We had to pay 1 Peso each to exit Mexico, we didn’t even need to get stamped out on our passport. The visa stamp on the Guatemala side was 10 Quetzals each. Immediately I noticed a difference from Mexico. The border town seemed more lively than its counterpart on the Mexican side. It seems like there’s just more stuff here and more stuff going on and the people just seem happier. So far there aren’t huge distances between towns, and even between towns there’s stuff. Hopefully that’ll continue and we won’t be short on food like we were in Mexico where you could go 50km – 80km and see nothing. As we headed off to the next town (40km down the road) it started to rain (all through Mexico we only experienced rain two or three times while cycling). It seems like the rain always starts around 4pm in Guatemala whereas in Mexico it starts around 8pm. Weird how that change occurred as soon as we crossed the border. Halfway to the town we stopped at a market to pick up dinner. Kevin noticed that the prices in Guatemala were a little higher than in Mexico (which in turn was higher than in the USA). The quality of the produce is lower than in Mexico. The roads are potholed, much like they were in Mexico (though that improved as we headed further south), but the roads are much wider than they were in Mexico. The people seem more social. Two vehicles cruised alongside Kevin talking to him about where we were headed (that only happened twice all throughout Mexico). Within the first 40km of Guatemala we saw the aftermath of three accidents whereas in Mexico we’d see an accident every 600km. Toyota seems to be the vehicle of choice here whereas in Mexico it was Nissan. We also climbed to 500 meters during that first 40km. The grade was very gradual though so we didn’t really notice we were going up to 500 meters. In Mexico the grades were much steeper so you’d know when you were climbing to 500 meters. Hopefully that won’t change but I doubt we’ll be that lucky. The hotel at the end of the day was of the same quality we found in Mexico.

Overall I’m just feeling better in Guatemala than I did in Mexico.

PS: Kevin went to the supermarket in the evening and was really pleased to find a 1 gallon jug of milk reduced from 36.60 Quetzals (~$5.50 US) to 9.65 (~$1.50 US) Quetzals. That made Kevin’s day.

Journal Entries – September 1st, 2011 – A Recap: Mexico, The Last Days

Nothing much has happened since our experience in Acapulco until today. Ever since leaving the USA the stomach pains never returned until today. And return they did: with a vengeance. He experienced his worst case of them. After drinking almost a litre of orange juice and eating three buns he didn’t feel good and went off to the washroom. After returned he didn’t look well and was basically immobilized. He complained of a fever, excessive sweating and feeling like he was about to faint. He didn’t even have the energy to dig inside his bags to find the Pepto Bismol. He took the Pepto Bismol and two Tums before he lay down on the ground using my sleeping bag as a pillow. We were in a park and school just let out so a lot of kids were walking past Kevin as he rested on the ground. None of them really paid any attention though as they seemed more focused on their social lives. I just sat on the bench and waited. After 45 minutes or so Kevin eventually rose from his stupor and sat down. Five minutes later he was good as new. He licked the remainder of the Pepto Bismol, cleaned the cup, packed it away and off we went.

In other news I also lost my water bottle a couple of days ago. I think it got knocked out of its holder when my rear tire fell into a grating. I’m not sure as I didn’t notice it was missing until we found our hotel at the end of the day. It was my 750ml water bottle and my favorite water bottle. Sucks, I really liked that water bottle. It had the squirty nozzle and everything.

Other than those two events nothing much else has happened. I guess I’ll just mention that many of the people we see on the road (road workers, people walking/cycling, people in stores on the side of the road, people riding in the back of pickup trucks) just stare at us with a dumbfounded look on their faces. When I get that look I usually give a wave and then they often break out of their blank stares and start hooting, hollering and waving back at us. Sometimes people will initiate the waves, hoots and hollers. One guy in a passing car puckered his lips at me. Not sure how to respond to that one. I just waved back. For the most part though I’d say Mexicans are a little on the shy side. A fifth of the people initiate waves, hoots and hollers; another two fifths give us a dumbfounded look until we wave to them; with the remainder not caring at all about the two cyclists on the road.

Journal Entries - August 24th, 2011 - Bad Things Come in Threes

After experiencing two bad days in a row why not make it a third? The day started well; the rain decided to take the day off and the sun was out. My kind of weather. And my cold was on the mend. Finally we should get a decent day under our belts. Our first stop was just 5km down the road from our hotel. We stopped to have a bite to eat for breakfast. Before sitting down to eat we argued for a couple of minutes about where to place the bikes. Nothing out of the ordinary. Well actually that’s not quite true, upon entering the town I did notice a couple of guys in a black truck pulled out onto the road just as we entered the town and they just sat in the middle of the road for a couple of minutes watching us (or at least that’s what it felt like). They eventually drove on but not before giving us a good stare down. That made me feel a little uneasy given the story the French Canadian told us the day before about the motorcyclists getting robbed. Also the town had a military garrison stationed across the street from where we parked ourselves for breakfast. Not the kind of place I’d like to get stuck repairing the bicycle. The only positive vibe I got was from a jolly Mexican across the street yelling at everyone who passed by to come and have some of tacos he was selling. We declined and instead chose to go to the mini-market to get Froot Loops and some bananas. Most of the locals took up his offer and went over to eat his tacos. Even a bunch of the military guys did too.

After breakfast we head onward. As usual the town was littered with speed bumps. After going over the third or fourth speed bump my rear tire feels a little mushy. I look back and, yup, I’ve got myself a flat tire. Why, of all the towns, did it have to happen in this one? We back track and find a place to repair the flat. I unpack everything and tear apart the tire only to find nothing. The patches are fine, there’s no puncture that I can see; the tube seems fine. I suspect a valve leak and pump up the tire to see what happens down the road. Off we go again. As we ride I’m constantly looking for that black pickup truck I saw in town as I’m paranoid thinking they’re waiting for us down the road, just waiting to rob us or something like that. Somewhere between 20 and 30km down the road, as we crest a hill, we do see a black pickup trunk ahead. Seconds later it hits a telephone pole and the hood pops off. Two other trucks stop to see if the occupants are all right. As we approach two guys get out of the black truck and look to be unharmed. The driver shrugs his shoulders and then begins speaking to who pulled over to help out. We slow down but continue on. Kevin saw it unfold better than I did and says he saw a delivery truck pass the black trunk which forced it off the road into the telephone pole. That’s one thing we’ve noticed, Mexicans pass all the time. It doesn’t matter if there’s a dotted yellow line, a solid yellow line, a double yellow line, a hill, a curve, or someone already coming in the other direction; they’ll pass. So this type of accident isn’t really that surprising. A little later at a point where Kevin stops to take a picture of some vultures I see the black pickup speed by with its hood back on. I’m not sure but that could have been the same pickup I was afraid of in that first town. Nothing to worry about, just some crazy Mexican drivers that’s all.

What I should have been worrying about was my tube. Shortly after it gave out again. As we were only 5 or 10km outside of another town I just pumped it up again. As I was pretty sure it was the tube’s valve failing I would replace the tube while we snacked in town. We reach the town and sit down in a park. I get to work on the tube while Kevin goes in search of food. I unload the bike, tear apart the tire, pull out the replacement tube, put the replacement tube in the tire and try to feed the valve into the rim. Only to find that the replacement tube’s valve doesn’t fit through the valve hole in the tire rim. This is a problem, a rather serious problem. The tubes that are currently installed on the bikes are Presta tubes. All the spare tubes I’ve brought are Schrader tubes. Schrader tube valves are wider than Presta tube valves. The tire rim on the bikes only have enough space to fit the Presta tubes. This sucks. And here I thought that the rim would fit both valve types. Okay so now what? I can try filing the valve hole in the rim to make it bigger and fit a Schrader tube or I can continue pumping up the tube every 5km or so until we reach a town with Presta tubes. I chose the latter since I worry that filing the rim will structurally weaken it and make it fail sooner. So I put the Presta tube back in and pump it up. The next town, Playa Azula, is around 50km down the road so I’m going to be doing a lot of pumping.

3km down the road, after a stretch of speed bumps and potholes, the tube goes flat again. Off I get and pump it up once again. 5km down the road the tube goes flat again. Off I get and pump it up. Let me tell you that pumping up tires in the tropical humidity with the sun blaring down on you is sweaty work. The sweat was pouring off of me. So I go for a drink of water. I’m all out. Kevin gives me what remains of his water: 250ml. I down it and off we go again. 6km down the road the tube goes flat. Again I pump it up, but this time without water. This goes on and on until we make it 5km from Playa Azula. The tube goes flat again and again I get off and pump it up. However, this time, after I remove the pump, I notice that something is missing. The tube’s valve lock (the piece that keeps the air from escaping and allows air to get in when you pump it up) is missing. Fortunately it’s in the locked position but I don’t think I’ll be able to pump it up again the next time it goes flat. We’re only 5km from town so if the roads don’t get any worse than they’ve been we should be okay assuming the town has a bike shop with a Presta tube.

We make it Playa Azula, but my tube is on its last legs and probably can’t go any further. There had better be something here. Kevin asks someone and they say Playa Azula doesn’t have a bike shop but the next town 3km down the road does. I look at the road leading to the town and it doesn’t look pretty. The road is riddled with potholes, hills and speed bumps. I attempt it anyway but am only able to make it 1.5km before the tube goes completely flat. Kevin goes on ahead while I walk.

Walking wasn’t fun so I decide to try pumping the tube one more time and ended up being successful at getting some air in the tube, enough to get me down the hill into town where I find Kevin who says the bike shop is just 2 blocks ahead. We cycle to the bike shop only to find that it is literally a hole in the wall. As soon as I see the shop I know there’s no way this place is going to have a Presta tube. It doesn’t even look like a bicycle shop. Sure it has three beater bikes sitting in front, but so does the mini-mart situated next to it. Other than that I don’t see anything that even resembles a bicycle part. We’d probably have more luck getting the tube at the mini-mart than we will at this so called bicycles shop. We give it a shot anyway. Two guys sitting on the stoop out front try to help (one guy can speak a little English). We show them the tube that needs replacing and the owner doesn’t give us a very optimistic look. However, he goes off in search of the tube. Not at the bike shop though. He heads off down the road in search of the tube. Uhmmm… Hold on a second. If we’re standing in front of the bike shop why is he going somewhere else to get bicycle parts? Isn’t that what the bicycle shop is for? Where’s he going off to? The mini-mart? Anyway, he returns with, as I predicted, another Schrader tube and it’s even the wrong size. Well this isn’t going to work. Kevin asks where then next bike shop is. They say it’s in the next town which is 17km down the road. I don’t think my bike can make that distance. I’ll be pumping up the tire every kilometer. At this point we’re hungry so we decide to have a snack while we think about our predicament.

We cross the street, park our bikes and while Kevin again searches for food I pump up the tire. I find that I can completely pump up the tire after tightening the pump’s head. This is good news; maybe I can make it the 17km to the next town. Kevin comes back with only drinks as the mini-mart didn’t have pastries. We’re still hungry so we cycle a couple of blocks and stop in front of another mini-mart confident that my tube can make it to the next town. We park the bikes and Kevin searches for food. He tries several mini-marts before settling on the first one he had entered (none of them really had the best selection). He emerges and we finally eat.

After replenishing ourselves we get up to leave only to find that my rear tire has deflated yet again. No matter I go ahead and pump it up again. I remove the pump from the valve and… Pop! Phhssssssszzzzzz! What remained of the Presta valve is no more. The piece that was holding in the air blew out. I hate Presta tubes (this isn’t the first time this has happened to me)! I uselessly try to pump up the tube several more times. Maybe if I’m quick enough I can get the cap on before the tire completely deflates. That doesn’t work as half the air escapes before I can screw the cap on, and even if I were quick enough the cap would blow off after I hit some potholes. What to do? Get a hotel here and bus into the next town? Or find someone with a file so I can make the valve hole bigger? I even played with the idea of taping the keeping the pump attached to the valve (so the air doesn’t escape) and then taping the pump to the spokes of the wheel. I dropped that idea as it was just stupid.

Kevin remembers he has a swiss army knife which should have a file. It doesn’t. I end up using the small knife and carve the hole bigger. This takes me a good 45 minutes but finally I make the hole big enough to fit a Schrader tube. The Presta tube goes into the trash where it belongs. However, I’m worried the filing I’ve done to the rim will cause the rim to fail prematurely (something I’ll need to research the next time we find some WiFi—I’ve just checked and it looks like it’s safe to do). In either case I now have a rim which can take Schrader tubes. That makes life a whole lot easier because not very many bike shops in the countries we’re headed to probably won’t have Presta tubes either.

All sorted we tackle the remaining 17km to our final destination. The 17km road was riddled with potholes and upon entering the town there were speed bumps galore. There’s no way the Presta would have survived that. As it was approaching 6:30pm we decided to skip looking for the supposed bicycle shop. There should be one in Zihuatanejo which is only 100km down the road (I hope I don’t eat those words tomorrow). Instead we look for food and a hotel. There was a Walmart but it was still under construction so we settled on a Bodega Aurrera. As usual I waited outside guarding the bikes while Kevin went inside.

This supermarket was pretty busy. Out front a bunch of taxi drivers were trying to drum up some business, some Walmart spies were conducting a survey (actually Kevin tells me Bodega Aurrera is associated with Walmart), and a guy who sells useless car accessories (window wipers, car wax) was trying to make some sales. The guy ends up selling a pair of window wipers to one of the taxi drivers. He then goes on to demonstrate his car wax to some lady before she enters supermarket. After his demonstration the lady heads towards the supermarket entrance with a shopping cart. A shopping cart that won’t fit past the bikes. So I start moving them. The guy who sells the car accessories sees me doing this and to show his potential customer he’s a good guy he helps me move the bikes. But he does so in a rush and bumps Kevin’s bike into mine. Not a big deal but Kevin wouldn’t have been pleased had it known. The lady passes but the guy stays as now he’s interested in the bikes. He starts talking to me in Spanish, none of which I understand. So I respond with, “No hablo español.” Then he comes back with, “Ahh. Inglés.” And after a pause continues with, “Cuanto.” And points at Kevin’s bike. Crap, the dreaded question: how much are the bikes. This is a question that you always want to avoid as you don’t want to give potential thieves an idea of how much money you have. So I umm and ahh and play stupid (which isn’t too hard). Eventually he gives up and goes in search of someone who can speak English. It seems like one of the taxi guys could speak a little English but was too embarrassed to try his English on me. Good. Unable to find an English translator he resumes trying to find potential buyers of his wares.

Kevin returns after what took ages. The supermarket was really, really busy. We head off in search of a hotel. We happen upon our cheapest hotel to date in Mexico. Only 120 pesos ($11 US). And for that price it’s much better than that 250 peso box we found ourselves in the night before. By the time we get in it’s 7:30pm and we only accomplished 116km on the day. Yet another pathetic showing.

As they say, bad things come in threes. So tomorrow things should finally turn themselves around.

Journal Entries – August 23rd, 2011 – Trevor vs The Rain

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.

Journal Entries - August 22nd, 2011 - My Butt Hurts Again

Not much to say today except that my butt hurts again. After making fun of Kevin yesterday, because he was having a bad day on account of the unrelenting hills and he was feeling a little under the weather, the tables have turned and it’s my turn. Towards the end of yesterday I was feeling the effects of some chafing in my neither regions. Nothing I couldn’t handle but definitely something I should have dealt with that night. I was lazy (too busy eating and sleeping I guess) and today I paid the price. This morning, minutes after hopping on my bicycle, I can feel the effects of chafing. No matter how I repositioned my butt it got worse and worse. Usually I’m able to keep up with Kevin with ease. Today he was constantly waiting for me. The chafing was unbearable. To make matters worse it started raining at the end of the day (the first time it’s done that while in Mexico while we’ve actually been on our bikes). At first the rain helped sooth the chafing. Not for long though, minutes later it made it a whole lot worse (water creates a lot of friction).

We only ended up doing 114km on the day. A pretty pathetic showing. I’m not making that mistake again. Tonight I’m moisturizing. Chafing be gone!

To top the day off I’m also developing a cold (arggh… the first time I’ve been sick in a year and a half). Yesterday it was at the sore throat stage and today it progressed into the sniffles. Tomorrow it should progress into the sniffles and coughing. That should make for another crappy day tomorrow too.

Journal Entries - August 19th, 2011 - There's a Storm a Brewin'

Okay, before I get started with today’s journal entry I need to recap yesterday afternoon and evening. We intentionally planned a short day yesterday (August 18^th) as we didn’t want to get as far as Puerto Vallarta just yet (we didn’t anticipate cheap accommodations there). So we planned to only cycle 121km to Sayulita (from San Blas). On the whole the cycle was okay. We cycled through a lot of empty road, rolling hills and lush jungle. We saw lots of banana trees and jack fruit trees. Unfortunately they were all behind fences and the bananas were far from ripe so I couldn’t pick any. I’m keeping my eyes open for wild fruits, but they’re hard to come by since vines cover all the trees and it’s hard to see what’s growing underneath them. Anyway we eventually make it to Sayulita later than we would’ve hoped. For some reason the short days seem to always just as long to accomplish as do the long days, go figure. Well actually I guess I do know the reason it took so long, I got two flat tires that I had to fix. Neither were the tire’s fault, rather both were due to the crappy patches we’ve been using. They leak. I had a puncture two days before (I think, or on the day we left Mazatlan) and patched it with one of these self-sticking patches. It leaked and so I removed it and patched it with another self-sticking patch. It leaked a little later in the day after I hit a big pothole. I’m never using self-sticking patches again. We’ve had 6 flats between the two of us (including the two I just mentioned) up until this point and 3 of those have been due to these leaking patches coming off. I think they can’t handle the humidity or something. This time I used to glue based patches we just got in Mazatlan (the ones I’ve used before and I trust). Anyway, fixing those flats was the highlight of the day on our way to Sayulita.

The town seemed pretty touristy as we’re greeted by tourists saying welcome and have a great stay. Just over the bridge were tourists galore, several of whom were interested in where we were cycling. One girl was even from Vancouver and had done a cycle tour of Europe back in 2008. Small world. We stock up and go find the camp site which to Kevin’s dismay costs as much as a hotel (160 pesos). We stay anyway as we’re there and there’s not much else we can do. We chose to setup camp on the grass. The night before we were on the beach and we’re still getting the sand out of our gear, so we weren’t doing that again. We made sure we didn’t setup underneath the coconut trees as we didn’t want those falling on us. And we setup well enough away from the sea so as to avoid getting sprayed by the ocean sea water. Just like the night before it looked like a storm was coming. The night before we went through a massive rain storm complete with crackling thunder and bright lightning. It’s monsoon season after all. I came out of that unscathed while Kevin suffered some minor water logging and one of his tent zippers got stuck (probably due to the sand). Nothing major though and the tents held strong. We expected no different tonight.

I awoke in the middle of the night (probably around 1am) to loud thunder. Then a bright flash of lightning. I start counting the seconds to determine its distance. On… Bang! Crackle! Boom! Hmmm… that was pretty close. It must be right on top of us. No big deal, the lightning show the night before was that close too. I open my tent fly a little to see if I can see the lightning in the sky. Can’t see it through the tiny opening but I leave it open to get some air flowing through the tent because I’m roasting and the sweat is pouring off of me. I try falling back to sleep. What must have been a short while later I am awoken again to the sound of heavy rain. Really heavy. I close my tent fly and go back to sleep. Again I’m awoken to the feeling of floating. Hmmm… it must have really rained because my tent is trying its darnedest to float away. I staked out my tent pretty well so I’m confident it’s staying put, especially since I’m in it. I look at the water sloshing around outside my tent. No big deal. The tent has a waterproof rating of 1200mm and the water is only halfway up the tent’s waterproof barrier. I go back to sleep. I’m awoken again, this time to the feeling of water under my feet and dripping from the ceiling. I look over and the water level has risen to ¾ the height of the waterproof barrier. Ah, no big deal. My tent is still holding strong. The water inside must just be my own sweat and condensation is just dripping from the ceiling. I don’t hear rain outside so the storm has passed and the water level outside will start subsiding. I go back to sleep. Yet again I’m awoken. This time to the sound of howling wind and some people yelling outside. No big deal. The tent can withstand hurricane force winds. However, I’m not so sure about the tarp that we’ve put over the bicycles outside. It is getting whipped around pretty good outside. But I’m not about to put on my shorts and go outside and check it out. I don’t want to work up a major sweat doing so. I’ll probably just find the tarp stuck in a tree in the morning. No big deal. As for the people yelling, they’re probably some of the other car campers watching the show. Not something I should concern myself with. I go back to sleep. I’m awoken a short time later to find the bags I had brought in the tent with me are now floating around me. And what’s this I’m also floating on my inflatable sleeping pad. This is a big deal. I grab my bags and pull them onto the sleeping pad with me. So there I am straddling my sleeping pad with a bag in each arm floating in the middle of my tent wondering how am I going to sleep in this. And just as I’m about to go for a swim I hear Kevin calling to me with alarm, “Trevor, let’s go! We gotta get out of here now!” Now that’s an idea. Why didn’t I think of that? I splash into action. I unzip my tent and… hold on a second I don’t want to be running around out there naked. I let go of my bags letting them float while I feel around for my shorts. Upon finding them I slosh about trying to get them on. Now dressed I grab my two bags and jump out into knee deep water. I grab some of my other bags and follow Kevin to a covered area where we both throw our bags up on to. We both go back through the massive lake that’s formed over what once was a campground and grab our remaining bags. I grab one of my rear bags. Hmmm… that’s quite a bit heavier than I remember it being. No time to think about that now. I lug it to the covered area and throw it up. Next we go back for the bikes which have fallen over and are now submerged. We pick them up and carry them over to higher ground. Next we go back for our tents. This takes some work as they are heavy with all the water that’s in them so we tackle one tent at a time. First we tip it up to dump all the water out and then carry it to our area of refuge. While we save our tents Kevin yells to me to say his tent is fudged. It is completely trashed. We’ll deal with that later and get the tents to higher ground. As we’re hauling our tents I notice another tent in the pool of water that wasn’t there last night. Kevin tells me they were other campers who came later and were the ones I had heard yelling earlier as they escaped there tent and fled for their car. We don’t have the luxury of a car so we’ve fled to the porch of the house belonging to the owners of the campground. As we now each haul our bikes up to the porch I find one more surprise waiting for me. My rear tire is flat again! Doesn’t that just put icing on the cake? We’ll I’ll deal with that later. First I need to try and dry out all my wet gear. I lay everything out. Then I take a look at the damage done to my bags. Only one suffered water damage (because I didn’t really tie it up properly and left it sitting upside down overnight). It’s the bag that felt a little heavier than usual. I open it up to find it completely filled with water. What did I store in this bag I wonder? Hopefully none of my electronics. After unpacking it I find that it didn’t hold anything of much importance, much of which I was meaning to throw out anyway. So I go ahead and create a garbage pile with all that junk. Now with my bags and tent sorted I set about fixing my bicycle’s flat tire. So at five o’clock in the morning I flip the bike and set to work fixing the flat. It turns out that the new patch was still holding strong, rather it was the other self-sticking patch that failed. I rip it off and glue on one of the new patches. I do all this while Kevin sleeps in a chair not far from me. Lucky him. Well actually not so lucky as his tent broke. The zippers to the tent broke so he can’t close his tent and keep all the bugs out. He’ll need a new tent.

At around 6 o’clock the owner comes out to find us on her porch. She doesn’t seem to mind and heads back into watch the news. We start packing all our soggy belongings up. As we do the husband appears but says nothing. I get the feeling he’s not too pleased we’re on his porch. Whatever. We continue packing and by 7 o’clock we head out. As we wheel our bikes out to the street we find the front of the camp ground fared no better than the back. All the cars are sitting in knee deep water too. We wade by with our bikes to the road and find that the road is hidden under a river of water pouring down the hill. So we slosh through that too before making it to solid ground. We head into town for a morning breakfast where we find a repair crew already at work filling in the road with sand to keep it from washing away. They get there work done in short order. We pass them by and grab breakfast: a bag of Froot Loops and some milk. As we finish the sun appears and starts sucking up all the water for what’ll probably be yet another deluge tonight.

Journal Entries - August 17th, 2011 - Mexican Road Builders Must Be Comedians

After a 160km day yesterday (even after a late 10am start) on nice roads with little traffic we were hoping for the same again today. No such luck. It seems Nayarit, the state below Sinaloa which houses Mazatlan, doesn’t maintain its roads as well. All the way the roads were cracked and bumpy. Not horrible but not good either. I tend to use the road conditions to gauge the relative wealth of a state or country. So it seems Nayarit is poorer than its neighbor to the north. This makes sense since Sinaloa has some popular tourist spots (i.e. Mazatlan) and Nayarit has squat. So as soon as I saw the road conditions deteriorate I started expecting to see poor towns all lacking large supermarkets. We rely on those supermarkets to power ourselves up for big kilometer days.

We started the day in a town called Acaponeta which is just south of the border between Sinaloa and Nayarit. This town did have a decent sized supermarket so we were able to power ourselves up for the 50km span of little to nothing between Acaponeta and the next town called Rosamorada. It took us almost 3 ½ of extensive sweating to get there. – Whoa! A bug of some kind of bug with two neon green glowing eyes just landed on my foot. Hmmmm… It seems its eyes light up if you aggravate it. It’s just chilling in the sand below me now. Should be okay. By the way I’m writing this on the beach with a storm headed our way. – Anyway, this Rosamorada town isn’t much to speak of. Its roads sucked. The entrance road from the main highway was made of gravel. It had a church off in the distance (the tallest building around, every other building is only one story tall). We made it to the center of town before turning back as there didn’t seem to be any hope of finding a supermarket. We went back to a mini-mart we saw a couple of blocks earlier. We parked ourselves in front of the store beside the mini-mart which sold a bunch of miscellaneous stuff, had a kid crying at the counter and three small dogs that came out to investigate. Beside this shop, opposite the mini-mart, was a little shop that sold cellphones. That’s the thing about towns in developing countries; they always have lots of mechanic shops and lots of cellphone shop. Eventually Kevin comes out with food and we sit down on a stoop under the shade of a tree. The food was okay but the pastries weren’t that great as they were pretty bland. The three dogs seemed to like them as they cleaned up all the crumbs we dropped.

Somewhat powered up again we head onwards in search of a big supermarket. It’s during this leg that I get a flat tire. I just had one the day before so we’re guessing that this flat is due to yesterday’s patch failing. On the side of the road I unload the bicycle, flip it over and take a look. I find that we’ve guessed correctly, the patch from yesterday is leaking. We’ve been using self-sticking patches and every time they fail. It usually takes two patches before the finally stick. We’ve only had 3 flats due to actual tire punctures yet this is the sixth flat (3 punctures + 3 failed patches). When we were in Mazatlan we got ourselves another patch kit which uses glue but I haven’t started using them yet. In the blistering hot sun I apply another of these failing self-sticking patches (got to use them up), pump up the tire and reload the bike. After a big drink of water we’re off again. Shortly we reach a gas station and take a break. I have a 2L bottle of Squirt (I’ve been wanting to try this drink as we had met its inventor back in Baja—I’ll be writing a post about this guy sometime in the future) while Kevin smartly has a 1L carton of milk. Usually I can chug anything. However, ever since that 3L pop I had in La Paz my powers have been fading. I have a lot of trouble downing this Squirt drink. Quite possibly because it isn’t very good (I guess it’s not one of his best inventions). After vowing never to drink Squirt again we head off.

Up until this point we’ve been following highway MEX-15. As I said earlier it has been pretty good though it did take a turn for the worse once we entered the state of Nayarit. We now leave the MEX-15 and make our way towards the MEX-200. We’re taking state roads now. The good part about this is that the traffic eases up noticeably; the bad part is that the roads get a little more cracked and a little bumpier. Nothing we can’t handle though as we’ve been through worse in Baja. That is until we reach the next town when the Mexican road builders start having some fun. In the town of Santiago Ixcuintla all the roads are made of brick which has not been laid evenly at all. We spend a lot of time bouncing around on these roads in search of a market. All the while I’m sure the guys who built the road are having a good laugh at our expense. After having a bite to eat we try to find the town’s exit which is not were the GPS says it should be. It seems the bridge moved so we bounce around some more but this time on road built from rounded stones that are all placed willy-nilly. These stones make for some major bouncing and the bicycle tires keep slipping on the things as those stones are smoothed. So we bounce around until we find the bridge and we return to some proper asphalt. Unfortunately it’s short-lived and we come to a road built by the biggest joker of all. He’s got a real sense of humor as not only does he build the road from those rounded stones, he doesn’t even bother placing them evenly at all. There are dips and bumps everywhere. And to top it all off, as if anyone travelling isn’t already doing so at a snail’s pace, he has the bright idea of sticking a massive speed bump smack in the middle of the road. A speed bump made of those rounded stones. I mean really. Is that really necessary? Who in their right mind is speeding on this road in the first place? Nobody, that’s who. It’s impossible on such a thing unless you like pounding your head on the ceiling of your car. After taking an ass whooping we finally make it back to somewhat flat road. A road though that isn’t without its fair share of speed bumps. Speed bumps of all shapes and sizes, some you don’t even see coming as they blend right in with the road. Are that many speed bumps really that necessary? Granted most are placed before and after towns. But some are out in the middle of nowhere where you’d least expect them. You turn a corner and then bang a speed bump followed by 19 more speed bumps, then a gap, then 20 more speed bumps. At one point someone was trying to be somewhat helpful by putting up a “speed bumps ahead” sign. However, they missed the mark because, as my butt will tell you, I had just gone over 3 nasty speed bumps before reaching this sign. So thanks for letting me know that there are several more to come.

We finally make it over all the speed bumps to the day’s final destination of San Blas. As you’d expect by now it too has nasty roads all made of uneven brick. By this time my rear end is completely pulverized. It’s nice to get off the bikes and setup camp on the beach. But not before Kevin goes on a wild goose chase for a supermarket. Really? A town like this is going to have supermarket. I think not. He asks around and is told that there’s one over yonder. We make it close to over yonder and find farmland but no supermarket. We turn back for more butt pounding. Great. We circle around a little more before finally giving up (the things Kevin does in the hopes of finding a supermarket). We eventually settle on two mini-markets: one for a little pastry snack and the other to get the ingredients for tonight’s tortillas. Now we finally head to the camp site on the beach. It turns out that there are some other foreigners staying there already (they’re travelling around the world by car). After chatting with them for a little bit we setup camp and have our dinner before turning in for the night.

PS: You know I think I’ve figured out the scheme these Mexican road builders have hatched. Step #1: They build these crappy roads and place speed bumps all over the place. Step #2: They all setup all these mechanic shops I see everywhere. Step #3: They all watch the money roll in from all the vehicles they fix that break down due to the rollercoasters they call roads they’ve built. Those sneaky Mexican road builders. Quite a sense of humor they have.

Journal Entries - August 15th, 2011 – Mazatlan

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.

Journal Entries - August 14th, 2011 - Here Comes La Paz, There Goes La Paz

We get up at our usual time of 5:30am PST (we haven’t yet switched over to Mountain Time since entering Baja California Sur). It’s a cool morning and only 32km to the Walmart in La Paz. We eventually set of and find that the hills are in our favor. Looks like it’s pretty much downhill from here. About half way I spy a snake chilling on the road. It was a fair sized snake and still alive. Up until now all the snakes we’ve seen on the road have been dead. I yell ahead to Kevin as I’m sure he’ll want to stop and take a photo (if he takes photos of dead snakes on the road he’ll surely take a photo of a live snake). He stops, u-turns and heads back to check out the snake. As he approaches the snake a car comes along and runs right over the snake. Half crushed, the snake is still alive (barely) and is now trying to wriggle its way off the road. It doesn’t make it as a semi-trailer trunk comes and finishes the snake off. It’s dead now. I ask if Kevin still wants to take a picture. Dumb question, of course he does. I hand him the camera and he takes his photo.

Leaving the lifeless snake to cook on the road we head onwards to La Paz. As we get closer small markets start appearing in amongst a lot of abandoned buildings. The wind starts to pick up trying to keep us away from Walmart but we’re having none of that. We press on. Walmart appears in the distance, only 1km left. Good times ahead. We reach Walmart, but before we sample the goodness inside Kevin poses for a photo out front (this is a Walmart to remember). After the photo we park our bikes and I head in first to select my 3L drink. It takes me a little while to find the drinks and unfortunately most of the pop drinks are not in a refrigerator. The cold drink selection is lacking. I narrow it down to two: a strawberry Fanta or an apple drink I’ve never tried. Both are 18pesos or thereabouts. I head out and give Kevin my order and let him decide between the two for me when he gets inside. He heads in and I take my seat outside watching the bikes.

He comes out a little while later empty handed and says he’s rather disappointed with this Walmart. They don’t have a cold chocolate milk (in Mexico, where chocolate milk was invented!) and, as I had observed, most of the pop drinks aren’t cold either. He heads back in saying he’s going to get some drinks and a couple of pastries. I wait some more. Sometime later he comes out with three bags full of food. He first hands me my 3L drink of a carbonated apple drink. Disappointingly I find that the drink is unchilled. He says the unchilled apple drink was 10 pesos, so he got that instead of the 18 peso chilled drink. No matter as it was still early morning and I wasn’t really hot yet. He also pulls out a 1L milk for himself, an orange for me, a banana for him, two pastries (one maple glazed donut [I love those]), a pudding each (the same pudding I found in the garbage a week or so earlier), and a plain bun. We dig in. When we finish eating I still half 1.5L of the apple drink left. Kevin heads back into Walmart for seconds. I wait slowly sipping away at my drink.

He comes out again, this time with two bags full of food. A 2L container of apple juice for himself, another maple glazed donut each, another pudding each, and a large slice of cake. We dig in again and this time I finish my 3L drink (it was kind of disappointing since the carbonation wasn’t strong). I ask about filling up our empty water bottles, but Kevin decides that we won’t stock up on water here since there will be plenty of places to get water near the hotel we’ll eventually find.

Before finding a hotel we head to the ferries office. We need to figure out how and when we’re getting to Mazatlan. We’re guessing (from what we’ve read) that the next ferry leaves on Tuesday (it’s currently Sunday). 6km away we make it to the ferry office. Since this is Sunday it’s closed. No matter, that was to be expected. On to plan B, find a hotel or tourist office to inform us of the schedule. That’s no problem; a tourist office is just a short distance away on the waterfront. Kevin susses out the situation and we’re told that a ferry leaves on Sunday at 5:00pm. That’s today and it’s currently 12pm so we still have plenty of time to cycle the 17km to the ferry terminal. Kevin says we can take it slow, no need to rush there. We can stop and get food along the way. Having checked the GPS maps while he was inside I inform him that I don’t really see much of anything in the direction of the ferry terminal, everything is south of us. He’s confident we’ll find something, there’s got to be at least and OXXO (the local convenience store) along the way. Okay, fine. Before we head off we find an ATM and reload our cash reserves. Off we go to the ferry. It’s easy enough to find. Take the one road and follow the coast. Food: not so easy. The GPS was right, there’s nothing. Something has to be at the ferry terminal though.

As we reach the halfway point that 3L apple drink I consumed earlier in the day strikes back. I need to take a leak and I need to do it right now. I yell ahead to Kevin, who sounds annoyed with my request. He stops by a post on the road and expects me to prop my bike up against it. I don’t have time to lift my bike over the curb and balance it against this post. I tell him to just hold my bike for all of 30 seconds. No, he proceeds to prop his bike up against the post while I wait trying my best to keep from pissing my shorts. He finally comes over to hold my bike and I run over to the edge and relieve myself. He tells me to hurry up. Why the rush all of a sudden, I thought we had all day to get there? Oh, that’s right, mister smarty pants is upset there’s no food in site (like the GPS said) and he chose not to stock up at Walmart. We head onwards.

Eventually we reach the terminal and Kevin heads past it looking for food. Now I get upset because our priority should be making sure we can get on the ferry. We can figure out the food situation later, it’s not like we’ll be doing anything for a while since it is only 1:00pm. We head into the shipping yard and are called over by a guard who tells us to stop. We must first press this button (similar to the button you’d push to signal to cross the street) she’s pointing to. So Kevin goes ahead and presses it. Then she looks in my direction and asks if we are family. Kevin answers, “Si.” I don’t need to push the button. She waves us onward. I didn’t understand this at all. What is so special about this button? Why didn’t she just push it for us? It’s not like it’s reading Kevin’s fingerprint or anything. She seemed very adamant that Kevin push the button. It’s the second time I’ve seen this type of button; the first was at the Mexican border crossing where some people pushed it and others didn’t. What’s the point? Seemingly useless things like that bother me. I asked Kevin about it and he didn’t care.

Sorry, got off on a little rant there. Back to the story. We get our tickets (double the price we expected, we were charged around $200US for the both of us and our bikes) and are told there are showers and electrical outlets onboard (good a place to finally charge up our stuff). We find a place to wait. Kevin finds an outlet and I whip out the laptop to get some writing done while he goes off in search of food. Sometime later he returns with a 2L orange drink for us to share. I’m a little disappointed as I don’t expect we’ll be getting any food on the ferry (it’ll be too expensive for our budget). He says the guy at the lone mini-mart is an asshole and we won’t be shopping there anymore. So I guess this drink plus the ¼ full bag of cornflakes we’ve saved will have to sustain us until we reach Mazatlan tomorrow. Oh joy. We make short order of the cornflakes and the drink. Now we’re left with nothing (we don’t even have much water). No matter, it’s not like we’ll be working up a sweat cycling all day so we should be okay.

At 3:00pm we head for the ferry. As we get up another white guy walks by carrying a backpack loaded with camping gear and motorcycle helmet. A fellow traveler! Only our third one thus far in Mexico. He tells us that he’s riding his motorcycle to Argentina and he’s also on this ferry. We part ways saying we’ll meet up again once on the ferry.

On the ferry we unload our bikes and put them in a little storage room and are told to take anything we need with us as there will be no access to the cargo decks once the ship leaves. Kevin takes his two small bags. I on the other hand take a lot of stuff since I don’t know what to expect on the boat. I end up taking my two small bags (one with my change of clothes and the other with the electronics that I’ll be charging), a large one (the one with the laptop), and the handlebar bag. We’re on the lowest desk and need to climb up a 4 floors using a narrow and steep staircase. With only his two little bags and all his strength he wizzes up the stairs with ease. After the first set of stairs he’s long gone. I trail far behind, alone with my scrawny arms carrying all my baggage and using feet clad in cycling shoes. Shoes which are good for cycling but not so good at climbing a metal staircase in as they have no grip. I need to be extra careful not to lose my balance, slip and fall backwards down these stairs. Ages later, after banging into walls and tripping on the stairs several times, I make it to a door. A door which poses another problem: I can’t turn the handle because my hands are full. I stick out my elbow and give the handle a good whack while pushing against the door. No luck, this being a ship the door is one of those heavy doors that takes a big push to open so that it’ll keep from opening due the boats rocking motion while at sea. Luckily a lady on the other side, whose job it seems is to just open this door for people, opens the door for me. I clamor through with Kevin waiting on the other side. Other crew members are also waiting behind a desk waiting for me to present them with our tickets. I pull them out from one of my bags and after some discussion we’re directed to our seats.

The seats are similar to those you’d find on an airplane but with more leg space. We plunk ourselves down and position our bags. On the wall in front of us are several wide screen TVs all showing some movie with what’s-her-name staring in it. You know the actress I don’t really like, her. Unfortunately, being in Mexico, it’s dubbed in Spanish. No matter, I didn’t care for the movie anyway. We also notice that there are no electrical plugs near our seats. It seems the ship does have electrical outlets like we’d been told, but they’re used to power those TVs that are currently playing crap. That means two of the four bags I brought are now rendered useless. Nice! Kevin goes out in search of the other luxury we were promised: showers. He comes back shortly, having found the showers, to get his shower gear. I wait. And while I wait I notice there is no air-conditioning and it is really getting hot. I’m working up a sweat just sitting here. I decide another one of my bags shall be rendered useless since I won’t bother changing into fresh clothing. As I’ll likely be sweating in this sauna all night there’s no need to dirty my clean clothes. I’ll still take a shower but I’ll jump right back into my filthy, and I’m quite sure stinky clothes—having lived in them for weeks on end it’s hard to tell since I’ve gotten used to whatever smell is now emanating from them. I figure all the other passengers will be sweating like pigs tonight, working on concocting their own smells. I’m just one step ahead of them. Kevin returns from his shower. He’s chosen to change his shirt but retain his cycling shorts minus the padded underwear. I head for the showers. Because I’m such a nice guy I do everyone the favor taking off my shoes and socks, and pack them away in my bag wear the smell can’t escape. If even I can smell the stench from my socks then it must be really bad. Ahh, it’s nice to walk around barefoot again (I haven’t been able to do that in Mexico as you never know what lurks beneath the sand). I return to my seat to work on generating sweat.

The remainder of the day is pretty much uneventful. Kevin goes for a walkabout on the decks outside, takes photos, eats cream and sugar he’s found in the café (our version of desert), uses his netbook, and tries to get to sleep in the heat. Eventually he gives up trying to sleep in the chair and joins some of the other passengers who’ve resorted to using the floor as their bed. I go for desert too and then take a walkabout on deck, stopping to watch several satellites pass overhead. I also notice that several groups of people have setup camp on the decks outside where it is much cooler. It seems that all the benches and chairs have been claimed by truckers. One even brought his own hammock which he’s strung up. Lesson learned, always do as the truckers do; they’re the smart ones. I return to roast in my seat and watch some more movies. Until 1:00pm or so (at least that’s when I fall asleep) movies play (really loudly). We are treated with Hangover, that movie with the guy from Hangover and Robert Downey Jr., The Family Man (which is surprisingly in English and only subtitled in Spanish), and Rango (this one was pirated since you could hear an audience laughing—at who knows what—in the audio track, and the video quality wasn’t BlueRay grade). I eventually fall asleep watching Rango. It’s such a boring movie that it has the power to put you to sleep even while you sit uncomfortably in a pool of your own sweat.