This is how we imagined the trip!

Current Location: San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico
Distance Cycled to Date: 8467 km
Flat tires to date: 13 (Keenan - 6, Jeff - 7)
Number of times blown off road by insanely strong winds in one 20 km stretch: 14 (Keenan - 6, Jeff - 8)

It's been a great week. Or at least the last few days have been fantastic; the beginning of the week was a little rough. We started off climbing more hills out of Hualtulco - up and down, up and down. Finally the hills started to spread out, with long flat valleys in between. We thought this would be a nice break from the hills, but it was in all these flat sections we began to be reintroduced to our old foe from Oregon - a massive headwind. Everytime we would reach flat ground, it seemed the wind was determined to send us backwards. Slowly we made progress, travelling at 10 km/h along stretches that should have seen us going more than twice that speed. For a number of days, we would go to bed hoping that in the morning the wind would subside, but every morning we would awake to our tent flapping wildly, indicating the kind of day we would be having. Apparantly the Ithsmus of Tehuantepec is the place where all sorts of winds from the Pacific do battle against winds coming in from the Carribean. We found ourselves in the middle of these war grounds, and fared quite poorly. Luckily they had the good sense to put a shoulder on this highway, or it would have been impassible. Back and forth , from the ditch to the lane, we struggled mightily against the crosswind, using every muscle we had to keep ourselves on the road. It was painfully slow, both having to pull ourselves out of the ditch time after time, but we both made it safely through, and back to our more favoured challange - the mountains.

We entered the state of Chiapas, our last in Mexico, and faced a decision. We had seen on a map at a gas station a week or so before a new toll highway from Arriaga to Tuxtla Guiterrez. This road wasn't on our map at all, and would require a detour of an extra 44 km - however, every toll highway we've been on has been a joy to cycle. They give you a shoulder as big as the lane! So, we decided to gamble on it, and made our way past what would have been a more direct route to Tuxtla, to the city of Arriaga. We didn't see a single sign indicating the toll highway anywhere - but we asked at a gas station and they told us it did exist, and following their directions (and not a single road sign) we found the entrance. A nice wide shoulder welcomed us as we started our climb from sea level into the mountains of Chiapas.

After camping behind the roadside bathroom facility, we started the serious climbing the next morning, and the wide shoulder made the climb to 750 metres stress-free. However, at the top, only 17 km into the toll highway, we found it merging with the old, shoulderless highway, and no amount of willpower could make the toll highway reappear. Apparently it doesn't go all the way quite yet. And so we still don't know if the extra 44 km were worth it or not - but at least we had a shoulder for a little while.

The shoulderless highway became more and more busy, and we found ourselves on our least favourite highway yet. Buses and semis flew by us without waiting to pass as they always had in other parts of Mexico, and we had our first experience being run off the road. Of course, it wasn't that serious - just a little annoying having to climb back out of the ditch, wait for a break in traffic, and start cycling again. We had no idea where we would camp that night, but we met a couple from Quebec at a gas station who told us about an orphanage in the city of Ocozocouatla that had free camping available. We only had 2 hours of daylight left to make the 35 km, which is normally quite doable for us, so we set off after taking down the directions with a clear goal in mind. We cycled hard, but found that we had to cross another small mountain range before getting to the city. This time with no shoulder and traffic whizzing by, the sun getting lower and lower, we climbed and road without speaking or stopping for breaks, just counting down the kilometres to Ocozocoautla.

We pulled into Hogar Infantil just as the last of the light disappeared from the sky, and found ourselves in a small cafeteria to ask if we could set up our tent there for the night. Apparently most people just set up their RVs in the space down by the road - but we were welcomed with steaming plates of scrambled eggs, refried beans and homemade corn tortillas, which was a perfect end to the day of cycling. We realized as we pulled into the orphanage that for the first time this trip we didn't actually have any food to cook for supper. We reluctantly accepted the food after we were assured that there was plenty for everybody. We quickly devoured the plateful, and were then offered a second helping which we consumed just as fast as the first. Soon the dinner bell rang and the cafeteria was full of children, ranging from 7 or 8 right up to 20 or so. We sat with the two German volunteers who seemed to be the only ones working in the complex. We learned a lot about the facility and the children that were there, and after dinner we were invited to take part in a game of kickball with a group of the kids. It seemed to be quite serious with some heated debates about whether I was safe or out, and Jeff seemed to break some unexplained rule when he ran all the way to 2nd base on his good kick - but all in all it was a great experience and a whole lot of fun. By the end a large group of spectators had gathered around the makeshift diamond (with 5 bases), and we were cheered on by everybody.

None of the kids wanted us to leave the next day, and by this point we really didn't want to either, so we decided to take a rest day and spend the Saturday at the orphanage. It turned out to be a great decision as we spent the day making more friends, playing soccer, showing pictures and just being called this way and that as all the young boys wanted to show us all sorts of tricks. Climbing on the roof and sliding down water pipes, swinging sticks at each other and climbing up on top of the basketball hoops seemed to be a great way to get our attention. We ate all of our meals that day with the kids, starting with a breakfast of fried bananas, refried beans and tortillas, a lunch of chicken, rice and tortillas, and the curious supper of corn flakes with warm milk, and tortillas. The even stranger part was that many of the kids didn't have spoons, and ate the bowl of corn flakes using the tortillas to scoop them up. (In fact, we didn't use utensils for any meal - just tortillas).

The next morning we planned on leaving early, but a couple of the boys were sent down to bring us up for one last breakfast before leaving. So we enjoyed their Sunday specialty of eggs Mexicana, refried beans, and of course, tortillas. It was very hard to say goodbye, but we thought if we didn't leave then we might never be able to. We handed out some of our website cards, trying to convince ourselves that maybe these orphan children might send us an email sometime, and got on our bikes to make the final uphill slog to San Cristobal. Our disappointment in the short toll highway from Arriaga was replaced with a very exciting surprise of a toll highway from Tuxtla to San Cristobal. We joyfully took this route, and started the climb that would last over 40 km without a single dip or flat section. After one more night camping in a ditch halfway up the 2000 metre ascent to San Cristobal, we finally came around a corner and the city came into view, more than 30 km sooner than we had expected! That toll highway was amazing.

Seeing San Cristobal in the valley below felt very similar to when we came to the Golden Gate bridge and caught our first glimpse of San Francisco. For some reason both these cities are important milestones to us, and we finally feel like we're really getting somewhere. We've been excited about this city since long before leaving, and it hasn't disappointed us at all. It's a wonderful, beautiful city - our favourite to date. We're now within 2 days of the Mayan ruins of Palenque, and only 2 more to the Guatemalan border. We're finally getting somewhere! The cool, crisp climate of San Cristobal has been a welcome change to the oppressive heat and humidity of the coast, and we just feel pretty great being here.

And so, it's been a great week. This is how we imagined the trip before leaving - full of beautiful views, great cycling, friendly and interesting people, and unique and exciting cities. Mexico is coming to a close, and we feel like we've saved the best for last.

Cycling Mexico: a Sensory Experience

Current Location: Hualtulco, Oaxaca, Mexico
Distance Cycled to Date: 7899 km
Longest Ride Time to Date: 7 hours, 11 minutes
Time spent in this coffee shop this morning: 5 hours
Time planned to spend in this coffee shop this morning: 1 hour

We wanted to bring the experience of cycling Mexico to all of you who are unable to have the joy of it yourself. It's a constant adventure to all 5 of our senses, and we thought that so many of our day-to-day encounters get forgotten. So here is a typical sensory experience.

Sight: You'd imagine that most of our days we are constantly taking in the beautiful scenery as we bike through mountains, and along a beautiful coastline. However, this usually isn't the case; most of the time riding is spent staring at the pavement, a few feet in front of you. It almost makes you dizzy as it blurs by quickly, but you need to stay focused, because you constantly are dodging objects in your way. Reflectors, broken car parts, holes in the pavement, but most of all dead animals. This is what you see all day long. I don't know how many times I've been sure I would have nightmares from the various half-decayed carcasses I've witnessed. From song birds to vultures, armadillos, possoms, raccoons, some raccoon/pig hybrid, pigs, rats, mice, bats, snakes, frogs, iguanas, lizards, chickens, goats, donkeys, cows, and horses. These are a selection of the dead animals you witness, daily. People don't bother to move them, so you've got to keep your eyes on the road.

Sometimes the animals aren't dead either - you've really got to watch out for these ones, because they're a bit more unpredictable. Chickens and turkeys wander across the road, and cows and donkeys use the road's edge for grazing. Sometimes they'll jump in front of you, and sometimes they won't - you really need to watch out for the big ones. Farmers even use the highway to herd their cattle or goats down, in which case you just need to get into the ditch. A bicycle is no match for a stampede of cattle.




The piles of garbage in the ditch seem to always appear, no matter which state we're in. Quite often they're smouldering and smoking, or else just collecting into a bigger and bigger pile. It seems that they don't use garbage dumps here - I guess, why would you when you have a ditch? Occasionally we do get to look up, and catch a nice view. If it's not in the middle of a downhill stretch, or an uphill stretch, and there's a good size pullout, we'll even stop to take a picture. Otherwise, it's just head back down to the pavement, back to the blur.

Smell: Most of the time, this is closely related to the dead animals that we see. You know that you're getting closer to a big one as the stench increases. The length of time it's been dead seems to determine the distance you can smell it from - this is one smell that you don't really get used to. It never is pleasant. However, the burning piles of garbage aren't that bad. They bring back fond memories of campfires and roasting marshmallows.

We sometimes get hit by really weird, random smells too. We'll be biking along, and then suddenly, in the middle of nowhere, one of us will call out "Mmm! Rhubarb crisp!". And sure enough, both of us can smell it. Or ichiban. Or Froot Loops. Just in the middle of nowhere. And we both smell it, and talk about it later. Those are the good smells. Better than the dead animals.

Sounds: Imagine a mix of a farmyard, and a freeway through a busy city. That's what we hear. Dogs barking, roosters crowing, buses whizzing by, horns honking, turkeys gobbling and donkeys braying. People yelling out in Spanish. That's a day cycling in Mexico. At night, the sounds all remain expect that you can add in very loud waves crashing. And add in people singing and loud music playing. Everywhere...

Touch: Numbness. After most of a day cycling neither of us can really feel our pinky fingers. They go numb. The pavement is sub-par, by Canadian standards at least, and this means that our joints are constantly being jarred as we vibrate along down the road. We also feel the sweat dripping down our backs and faces as if we were in a sauna. And very soon into every day our butts are about as sore as you would imagine after biking every day for 4 and a half months.


Taste: We go in phases: for instance, the Baja was Tortilla Phase. The Mainland has been Peanut Butter Sandwich Phase, and so every day we taste this for at least 2 meals. (Of our 4 to 5 meals a day). Other than the few 'tasty treats' that we get from time to time, our diet really is pretty bland. However, as we mentioned in our last entry - you do need to be careful with those tasty treats. It means that not every day is a holiday on this trip. We do however drink a huge amount of pop. Often up to 2 litres each a day, throughout the day; we do taste a lot of Coca-Cola.


And that is what we experience, through all 5 senses on a daily basis.

We're in Hualtulco now, which is a funny little place built just for tourists. It provided us with a nice, safe beach to camp on (filled of course with people singing and music playing), and now a coffee shop with wireless internet. We don't mind these tourist-style places at all. We've been biking for 15 days in a row now, even with the sick days we've still been able to make a bit of progress. The last few days have been record-setting in ride time, and we're looking forward to getting to the ruins of Palenque and taking a day or two off.

The Perils of Iguana Soup

Current Location: Cuajinicuilapa, Guerrero, Mexico
Distance cycled to date: 7587km
Number of times vomited on the trip to date: 5 (Keenan - 5, Jeff - 0)
Number of times we´ve correctly pronounced the name of the city we are in: 0


On a typical day Keenan and I stop several times a day in various towns or pretty much anywhere that has a bench of some sort and some shade. With most of our meals consisting of sandwiches of some combination of peanut butter, jam, honey, and nutella, we like to take in the local cuisine whenever possible. Sampling the many tasty treats found among the street stands is a great way to satisfy that need for diversity. Market areas are the best place to find those quick and delicious snacks. With people calling out, and various liquids being poured and meat in different stages of progression from live chickens to meat frying on the grill it can be quite exciting. You don´t often have the chance to sample some iguana meat, or try that free cup of soup thrust in front of you, so you must seize those opportunities. Without hesitation we are both digging in, eating whatever we find that day.

Since our last blog post we continued on the road, riding again over 100km, both feeling quite good about everything. We found another great spot in the ditch - everything was going as planned. The following day we planned on reaching the state of Oaxaca, however as Keenan stated last blog "you can never get too cocky when you´re cycle touring." That morning we were lucky enought to be able to stop and sample some chicken stew sandwiches and that iguana soup. Even with our break early in the morning we made good time and were on pace for another 100km day.

However, that all changed around noon. Our lunch break of sandwiches didn´t work for Keenan and he hardly ate anything. Several trips to the bathroom later and a long break didn´t settle much. But we started to bike again, only to make it 5km further down the highway. We hit the edge of a small village when Keenan stopped, tipped his bike over and laid down in the ditch. With sweat pouring from his face he told me he wasn´t feeling good. It was obvious we weren´t going much further. We did make it about 100 yards to a basketball court with some concrete bleachers Keenan thought would be better. So we spent the rest of the afternoon there, Keenan alternating between sleep and throwing up and me listening to music trying my best to ignore the sounds he was making. Not a very fun way to spend your day - especially for Keenan. Being in no shape to move whatsoever, we ended up camping at the top of the bleachers. Being deserted all day long we thought it would be a quiet place to spend the night.

Until about 7:00 pm that would have been true, but soon the lights were on and the balls were bouncing. More and more kids began showing up and soon we became more fascinating than their game. We´ve never felt more like animals at the zoo. As we lay in our tent with the fly off, we could see the group of faces growing as more and more came to point and laugh at us. Keenan hardly seemed to notice in his state and even managed to sleep a bit as the show continued. It was extremely hard to focus on my book as they were literally a foot away, peering in. I tried a simple "hola" but they seemed to find it more fun to call to their friends, "gringos!" and widen the circle. This awkward scene lasted for quite some time, and they even returned to their game, only to return minutes later for another look. I´m not sure when they left for the last time, as I tried to simply put my head down and ignore them, but when I awoke next it was to the sound of what must have been a very angry donkey´s "heee-haaw" and the kids were gone. The farm animal noises continued throughout the night, but were a nice change to the curious, noisy children.

Today we left that village and made it 20km to a bigger place and found ourselves a cheap hotel to spend the night. Keenan is feeling somewhat better, after sleeping most of the day. Hopefully if everything goes to plan tomorrow we will leave and make our way into Oaxaca and further down Mexico. Maybe we´ll be more careful with our selection of tasty treats?

Our legs are good now - it´s the bikes that are the problem

Current Location: San Marcos, Guerrero, Mexico
Distance cycled to date: 7442 km
Number of tarantulas spotted to date: 7
Number of times we´ve watched a snake explode on the highway: 1 (quite the pop!)

Since our "magic" rest day, we´ve started to pound out the kilometres. We feel like in the old Baja days again, just churning out 100 km days like they´re nothing. It´s a good feeling. We left Jalisco state, and entered Colima, which has the resort city of Manzanillo. After climbing the hills of Jalisco, we welcomed the flat, wide-shouldered highways of Colima. We flew through the state, spending only one night there. (Camping on a beach? Camping in the ditch? That´s all we know these days.) We entered Michoacan, which we found to be the exact opposite of Colima. As soon as we crossed the state line the road became nearly half the size, with no shoulder, and the hills began. And they kept coming. Up and down, up and down. Some incredibly steep hills that would just go and go. And then these incredibly steep downhills where you felt as if you were riding a jackhammer because the pavement was so bumpy and broken. But, we were feeling good about biking again, and things seemed alright.

However, you can never get too cocky when you´re cycle touring - on a day when we were on pace to easily cycle 120 or 130 kms, we started down a downhill and suddenly my rack started to feel funny. The balance was off, and there was a funny grinding sound. Maybe funny isn´t the right word - a bad grinding sound. It turned out that the bolt holding my rear rack in place had snapped off, leaving most of the bolt inside the bike, and leaving the rack free to fall into my rear cassette, grinding against the gears. It wasn´t a good situation. It was the first serious problem we´ve run into, and weren´t exactly sure what to do. Luckily, the day before I was leaving our lunch spot across from a military checkpoint, and I noticed a hose-clamp just sitting on the road. I quickly stopped and snatched it up, thinking that you never know when something like that could come in handy for a repair. The next day it came in handy for a repair. It held things together, somewhat, and we went back into Coleta de Campos, a small town we had just cycled through to see if maybe a mechanic could help us out.

They tried, but couldn´t do it. So, we checked to make sure the hose-clamp was holding things, and started on our way, hoping to find a bicycle shop in Lazaro Cardenas, a decent sized city about 100 km away. We got going again, with me wearing my drybag as a backpack to keep as much weight off the rack as possible, and made our way south. Not more than 10 km later, as we climbed another hill, Jeff called out to me to stop. We pulled over in a roadside pullout, and saw that his rear shifter cable had snapped. (I think he just wanted a little sympathy too). This had happened to my bike about 2000 km ago, so at least we had an idea of how to fix it. We dug through all our bags to find the neccesary tools and spare cable, and got to work. About an hour and a half later we were finally fixed and re-packed, and ready to go. Again.

The next day we luckily stumbled upon our bike shop in the city, and after the mechanic first suggested that we just keep the hose-clamp because it seemed to be holding fine, we were a little worried. The mechanic called over his dad (it was a father-son operation) and he took a look, shaking his head and muttering. Finally after much debate, they pulled out a power drill. This made us even more worried. If the threading inside the bike frame got damaged we couldn´t mount this rack, or a new one on there, no matter what hardware came with it. But, he seemed to understand that, and got to work, drilling and drilling. At first it looked like that piece of metal just wouldn´t come out of there, but our mechanic wouldn´t give up, and as he knelt there on the sidewalk in front of his shop, the piece of bolt finally came out. Yay.

It was a huge relief - it might not seem like much, but we had no idea what we would do if we couldn´t get that metal out of there. We couldn´t mount the rack, and we couldn´t carry our bags. So we were extremely happy. The fact that we were charged $3 for this repair wasn´t too bad either. Afterwards, we got some family photos with the bike shop owners and ourselves, and they wished us well on our journey. I don´t know if we could have been more thankful.

Since then we´ve been powering through the countryside, entering the state of Guerrero. We´re starting to see a lot of piles of garbage outside towns (and sometimes inside towns), often burning and with pigs grazing over the piles. There are little fires all over the place, in the ditches and peoples yards. It´s strange - we don´t quite understand why, but nobody seems too concerned. We´ve never seen one started, or put out. There just seems to be eternal fires of garbage going on here. Pigs and chickens and goats seem to run free as well. Last night we camped on an empty lot that some fisherman had their nets on during the day - we asked if we could camp there and they said sure. After getting in our tent, we could look out and see pigs and dogs rummaging around the sand digging up tiny fish left behind, and could hear the rooster from next door doing his trademark cock-a-doodle-doo. (No matter where we camp, we wake up to hear a rooster crowing. Also - they don´t just do it at sunrise. They start waaay before sunrise. Who knew that they taught us so many lies in kindergarten?)

Yesterday we went through Acapulco, which is actually a pretty cool city. It stretches for what seems like forever, up on cliffs that they make you climb. We had the steepest, longest climb out of the city, taking us nearly an hour to go a kilometre or two. It was so hot - neither of us have ever sweat that much. Whenever we stopped for a break going up the hill, our clothes were completely soaked- we could wring them out. It looked like we just went for a swim with our biking clothes on. We finally reached the top though, and then went back down to sea level in about 2 minutes, having trouble keeping our bikes under 60 km/h as we braked the whole way down.

This is our ninth day of cycling in a row, and so far we don´t feel the need to stop (or shower? So far so good). We´ll see how the next week goes as we continue through Mexico (this country seems like it will never end) and make our way closer to Chiapas, and to Guetemala. We´re still throwing around different plans for border crossings - we might end up going around on the Yucatan and down through Belize - but who knows? As for now, we´ll get back on our bikes and hopefully still be able to keep up a decent streak of 100 km days. Until next time...

Happy New Year (a little late)!

Current location: Melaque, Jalisco
Distance cycled to date: 6620 km
Number of times we could have summited Mt. Everest with the amount of elevation we've gained to date: 6
Number of times we've shaved since we left Alberta: 1

First off - a beard update. We got the results, and were a little surprised by them. Only 50% said to keep them? I would have thought all you people out there with no real stake in it at all would have voted to keep them, just for fun. The fact that so many said to shave makes me think that we must really have looked awful. With the results in, and the added (very) extreme pressure from our family to shave, we took up some razors, and tried to clean ourselves up a bit. We thought we would shave off about 50% of our hair, going with the results of the poll.



That however didn't fly very well with our family, and we didn't make it out of the hotel room. So, we are back to our clean-shaven, very dashing looking selves.

Our Christmas "holiday" from our holiday passed far too quickly. We thought it would be strange to be staying in a resort for a week after the way we've lived out the past 4 months, however it didn't take long at all to become accustomed to all-you-can-eat buffet dinners, and margaritas by the pool. In fact, when it came time to go it was very difficult- maybe even more so than when we left home. Saying our goodbyes again created a very emotional morning. It was strange to be playing cards with our family one minute, and only a few later be back on our bikes, heading south once again.

We spent New Years Eve in Puerto Vallarta, even though our family had left the day before. With the amount of drinking and driving we witness, we thought that it would be a good day to stay off the roads. We were lucky enough to be invited into the home of a Canadian expatriot who now lives in Puerto Vallarta, and as it turned out she was gone for New Years, and so she offered us her apartment to ourselves (after only meeting us for a few minutes!). We thought that we should take advantage of being in a cool city for New Years, so we went downtown to walk around and soak in the atmosphere. We walked around and lost ourselves in the crowds of people, seeing the fireworks set up and ready to be shot off at midnight, and enjoyed seeing a number of tents set up on the beach right downtown - we liked their style. However, by 9:30 we felt like we had experienced the atmosphere enough, and with our eyelids having trouble staying open, we made our way back to our apartment for the night. Jeff hadn't quite fallen asleep when the fireworks first began, and I woke up when I heard them (there were a lot - and they were loud). So we both got up and watched out the window for a few minutes before going back to bed. Happy New Year. We were both ready to get back on our bikes and start getting somewhere - it felt like we hadn't done anything for the past month.

So, January 1st, 2009, we got back on our bikes and made our way out of Puerto Vallarta, 4 months after starting our trip in Rocky. We should make a note that Puerto Vallarta is surrounded by mountains. Not just little hills, but mountains. Our first day on our bikes, after nearly 3 weeks of no riding, we had an unrelenting 750 metre climb over a mountain pass. We made 50 km, and could hardly pedal anymore. What happened to our legs? Well, it seems that 3 weeks of eating and drinking, and not exercising, and you might as well be starting the trip from scratch. It felt just like our first day leaving home, except replacing the frost with heat and humidity. It seems like the kilometres are going by so much slower than they used to, so we find ourselves stopping for lots of breaks. Along the edge of the highway there usually isn't much room to stop and sit, but sometimes you find great spots like bus stops with good benches and shade, or a jackpot spot like this gas station that wasn't open yet. A great place to stop for a nap in the shade.

We've cycled 3 days now, each day a little more than the last. We reached Melaque, a nice little town on the coast, and decided that it was time for a rest day. Back in Canada, rest days were like magic to us. You could be so exhausted, but after a rest day bike like the wind. That's how I remember it at least. So we'll try for that, and relax here on the beach or in the plaza, and tomorrow head off, past Manzanillo and make our way along the coast. From what we've read, it looks like these mountains just keep on coming - but for all the uphill that we face, we get a lot of pretty sweet downhill. Flying down the the few kilometres into Melaque, never going under 50 km/h, we both had decent sized grins on our faces.

We hope that everybody had a good holiday season - while it probably wasn't hot and on the beach like ours, hopefully it was with family or some loved ones, because that's what really made ours special. Now that we're on the road again we'll try to update this a little more frequently! Hopefully we can get back into shape soon!