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.
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