I will eventually have my piece about the trip, but this is a highly-impressive- accurate daily account of a very rare, and epic journey-ass busting-blood & tear shedding-diarrhea filled-fixed gear one-speed intensification.
Hope you enjoy reading....maybe someday I will be able to have enough motivation to write down all the accounts of an epic journey. Thank goodness for El Esqueleto de la Montaña.
Cheers
D
*end side note*
Double Vegan Shot of Latin Fixie Expresso
Partitipants: Deanna "Donna Quixote" Adams, Adrian "El Esqueleto de la Montaña" Stingaciu
INTRO:
This year I had one month to use for a personal adventure, and I could think of no better way to spend it than by riding my bike. After crossing the US twice by bicycle the natural inclination to travel internationally by bike followed. Of all the places I could ride in the world, I chose Latin America, not only because it was the closest to me and cheapest, but it required no visas to go thru 8 countries. Despite Mexico being a border country, I had never really seen it except for Baja California by motorcycle. I loved travelling in Baja, loved the people and food, and wanted to see more of Mexico. But somehow I’ve always been scared to go to mainland Mexico. Everyone and their mother, who had never been to Mexico, warned me how dangerous it was and told me not to go. I decided to go anyway, even if I couldn't find anyone crazy enough to join me. I asked all my crazy adventurous friends to join me in racing from US to Panama as a continuation of the currently unmapped Great Divide Mountain Bike Route in Central America, and I got one "maybe", one "maybe, if I don't have a girlfriend by then", and one "you're crazy, it's too dangerous, 20 people a day are killed in Juarez alone!" Then I got an unexpected response from a 21 year old girl with epilepsy, unexpected not because she is a girl, since she has more balls than any guy I know, unexpected because she decided to put off her barefoot Appalachian Trail thru-hike to join me on this trip. No other responses were received, and since Deanna Adams is the only person to have ever completed the Tour Divide (2750 miles on the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route) on a fixie, it seemed only fitting to ride this tour on a single speed fixed gear bicycle. After all she inspired me to ride a fixie to work every day, and I was curious to see how bike touring must have been like before 1902 when the freewheel was invented. Back then everyone rode a fixed gear bicycle, and people did bike tours on fixies, even around the world. After tossing ideas around for 6 months, we decided on a route thru Central America, the shortest route that would go thru all 8 countries, which involved a few dirt roads, but one that would not follow the Continental Divide due to it's remoteness, lack of dirt roads or trails near the Divide, and the monsoon season which would make dirt roads impassable. Also, since we only had 2 interested racers who would ride a non-official route, it became pointless to establish a record or timed event on a route which would likely not stick in the future. Also, it looked unlikely that we could do a dirt route, even if one was mapped out for us, in the 30 days I had available. So we chose to do the shortest route through all 8 countries in Latin America, until the end of the road in Yaviza, Panama. This route was just under 4000 miles long and it seemed possible for us to pedal it in one month at 130 miles per day. In fact it seemed too easy to pedal it on a geared bike, so we chose to pedal it like the first bike-packers more than 100 years ago, on single speed fixed gear bikes. Both of us are vegan so we called our fast bike tour the Double Vegan Shot of Latin Fixie Expresso. In addition, I wanted to further experiment with raw vegan food on a bike tour after failing to use only raw vegan food in the 2008 Tour Divide, I wanted to further refine my raw food methods and will power. The famous raw vegan Harley Johnstone (a.k.a. Durian Rider) in Australia had shown that it was possible to do a bike tour on a raw vegan diet by crossing Australia in 30 days with a bicycle and trailer full of fruit. Like Reinhold Messner, who was the 1st to climb Mt. Everest without oxygen, and Harley Johnstone, I had my own unknown summit to climb. I wanted to show it was possible to ride a bike, fixed gear no less, thru Central America while eating only raw vegan food with no bike trailer, panniers or backpack -- unencumbered and in ultralight fashion and self-supported. I would have to carry the bulk my food in my jersey pockets and in my stomach between towns. What followed was an adventure of sorts, in pedaling our fixed gear bicycles through unknown places and in finding raw vegan food for myself while speaking only a tiny bit of Spanish (one semester's worth). If we had a film crew to follow us, it would have been a worthwhile and extremely funny documentary, which followed the crooked path of two vegans, one which was hell-bent on doing everything possible to not eat cooked food while the other ate cooked vegan food from roadside stands, restaurants and gas stations.
Bike Tour STATS:
Number of nights camped: 27
Number of nights in motels: 2
Cost of camping: $0
Cost of motels: Deanna $32, Adrian $0.
Number of flats: Deanna 4, Adrian 5
Distance covered on Toll roads: 750 miles (for free)
Amount of climbing on the route: 83,600 feet
Number of bad experiences: 0
Number of countries rode through: 7
Number of countries visited: 8
Distance pedaled on dirt roads: ~ 50 miles
Total distance pedaled: 3267 miles (actually about 80 to 100 more)
Total time of the bike tour: 29 1/4 days
Jul 29:
I took an all-nighter Grey Hound bus from Anaheim, California to Wilcox, Arizona, which was to get me there at 11 am the next day. The cost of the bus ticket was $74. The cost of the bike travelling in an oversized bike box was $25. My friend Carl dropped me off at the bus station. The bus arrived at 9:30 pm as scheduled and with ticket in hand I almost missed the bus while waiting for everyone to get on the bus while I was talking to Carl. There was a few people near the door I thought were still waiting to board the bus, but when the bus doors closed I started banging on the doors to let me in. This was to be a recurring theme with this bus trip to Arizona. In 45 minutes we arrived at Los Angeles Grey Hound bus terminal where I had to board another bus heading east on I-10 to Arizona. Due to the protests of the anti-Mexican illegal immigration law that was recently passed in Arizona, the bus station in Los Angeles was still very busy near midnight. When I told a worker at the bus station that I needed to go on the bus to Wilcox, Arizona, he said "yeah, you and everyone else!" The line formed long before the bus to Arizona got there, and having travelled on Grey Hound before, I stayed seated as I knew there would be a second bus. There is always a second bus that they bring out in case the first one fills up. I stayed seated until the end of the line passed my bench, then I got in line...
Jul 30:
The first bus filled up, and so did the second bus. I was 3 people away from getting on the second bus, so we had to wait another 3 hours for a another bus to Arizona, which was not a direct bus to Wilcox, AZ so I would have to change buses in Phoenix, AZ. I met another cyclist on the Greyhound who had just finished doing a 3000 mile bike tour across the country. We had fun talking about bikes while admiring the Mojave desert sunrise thru the expansive large windows of the Greyhound bus while everyone else was sleeping. It was surreal to see that view, it felt like we were watching it on a super big screen at IMAX theatre. The only thing better, we agreed, would be being outside and riding our bikes at that moment. In Phoenix, I waited another 8 hours at the bus stop for a connecting bus to Wilcox. I was tempted to get on my bike and ride to Wilcox, AZ myself but it was about 250 miles away, so I stayed put, slept next to my bike box, and read about the Central American countries I would be passing thru. I arrived in Wilcox, AZ at 10:30 pm and Deanna and her dad picked me up and took me to their home in Safford, AZ. Despite the super late hour I arrived, the whole family waited for me with a banner and lots of tasty raw vegan treats which I fully enjoyed before I tore into my bike box and reassembled my bike, before falling asleep on a comfortable bed. This was to be my last night sleeping in a bed for the next 30 days.
“Throw out your cares and fly
Wanna go for a ride?”
- Smashing Pumpkins, Zero
“What Are You Superstitious?”
July 31: Antelope Wells, New Mexico to 16 miles past Nuevo Casas Grandes, Mexico
96.7 miles, 12.9 average, 7.5 hours pedaling
A few hours later we woke up at 5 am, and after breakfast and fiddling with gear at the last minute we left Safford, AZ at 8 am in the rain and headed to Antelope Wells, New Mexico with Deanna's mom at the helm of her van. The desert was so beautiful and green this lovely day at the end of July. I never recall driving thru the desert in the summer and seeing anything so green and so beautiful. Three hours later were standing at the border of US and Mexico, in Antelope Wells, New Mexico, the same place where we both finished the Tour Divide. Now we were here for a different reason, to continue on into Mexico and see what adventures life would hold for us in a non-English speaking country. After some pictures and good-byes to Deanna's mom, we entered Mexico and presented ourselves at the immigration post to get a proper Tourist Card for entry into the heart of Mexico. The guard was very nice and even gave us free bottled water from their own supply. The tourist card was $24 US to be paid for in person at the 1st open bank in Mexico. Deanna got her Tourist Card before the bike trip by going across the border and asking for one at the Mexican border post in Nogales, Arizona. I never had to show those papers or stamps again, even though I paid the fee at a Mexican bank in the first city we went thru while the banks were open. But to be on the safe side, and to help the Mexican economy, I wouldn't recommend going without it, despite not even being stopped when we exited Mexico 19 days later.
We started our ride at the Mexican border at 11 am on a beautiful day. With every pedal stroke the desert seemed to be getting greener. Our first 8 miles were on a dirt road dotted with wildflowers, an incredibly beautiful and unexpected sight in late July. The smell of spring was in the air in the middle of summer. A few passing cars and trucks along the dirt road send plumes of dust into the air. A few miles south of the US border we surprised about 8 to 10 Latinos with kids who were waiting on the side of the road with no car or water in sight. They seemed out of place and seemed scared at seeing their first gringos in Mexico. Had we not been equally scared we would have stopped and offered water, but we only had enough to get us to the next town of Janos, about 45 miles away. So we kept on going, not taking any pictures or long looks. The border at Antelope Wells, NM has no fence so I suppose it would be really easy to cross at night on foot when the border post is closed and gated. Still they will have to keep out of sight of the highway which is patrolled by US Border Patrol for the next 60 miles until Interstate 10, no easy feat with children and no water. We prayed for their safety and wished them best of luck on their journey El Norte to the land of plenty.
After the initial 8 miles of dirt road we reached paved Highway 2 and turned left towards Janos. The roads for the rest of the day were mostly flat with favorable winds and good pavement but no shoulder. Still the drivers were very courteous, changing lane when passing us on this 2 lane highway, and slowing down to wait behind us when they couldn’t change lanes due cars going the opposite direction. After a few miles we stopped at what was our first restaurant, elated to see and experience a piece of Mexico, like tourists taking pictures with the first Mexican restaurant sign. Deanna stopped to get a Coca-Cola, which became two, and I stayed outside with the bikes. A minute later she came back out with a worried look on her face. She didn’t understand the lady behind the counter. I go in with her to see what was the matter, and I didn't understand what the lady is saying as my Spanish is not much better than Deanna's, but I surmise that the problem is due to the bottles. You can't take the glass bottles with you when you buy them, same as in Romania, you have to drink it there and leave the bottles for recycling. So Deanna's dumps her Coca-Cola into her plastic bike water bottles and everyone is happy. Passing our first religious shrine on the side of the road, I signal to Deanna to stop as I want to pray even though I'm not Catholic or religious. “What are you superstitious?” Deanna asks me. She agrees it's a good idea even though she tells me she is Atheist. We have no idea what lies ahead for us and the uncertainty is building a little tension and anxiety that is somewhat relieved by this stop. By the end of the day, with every person we meet, we feel more and more relaxed until we come to realize that we feel safer riding in Mexico than we do in the US.
We stopped in the town of Janos to refill on water, then again in Nuevo Casas Grandes before sunset. The store owner in the last town we stopped let us fill up our water bottles from his personal bottled water supply. When I asked if the water from the sink was drinkable, he said it was not. I took his word for it, as I did whenever I would ask locals about the local water supply. I did not believe the fear-mongering, low-immunity, junk-food-eating Americans when they warned me not to drink the water in Mexico. I figured if it is good enough for a Mexican, then it is good enough for me. For the time being I too am a Mexican travelling with a US passport.
We passed thru the town of Nuevo Casas Grandes around sunset and noticed that despite the name of the town, there was nothing new or big about it, other than it's size. The houses and stores were sadly old and dilapidated, and none of the houses seemed big as the name implied, though at some point in history I suppose they were considered so. We were warned not to ride into the night, as it was too dangerous, but we did so anyways, as we had bright dynamo powered lights and bright red lights for the rear. Deanna’s rear light was also powered by her dynamo hub, my rear light was a battery flashing red light that was super bright. Whenever I rode in front of Deanna I had to remember to take it off the flashing mode because it was very tiring for Deanna’s eyes, and also because flashing lights can cause her to have a seizure. But when I rode behind Deanna at night I would leave it in flashing mode to save batteries and to be more visible to drivers. The section of highway leaving Nuevo Casas Grandes weaved its way through beautiful open space and hills, with a nice wide shoulder to ride on. Despite being only on day one of the tour and taking it pretty easy on myself, I still had some sore knees even though I purposefully chose a smaller gear (42x17) than Deanna did (46x17). Her bigger gear seemed to be a tad slower than mine on flats and hills today, though off the start she was riding much faster than I was on the initial 8 miles of dirt. Today I began to think that Deanna is not human since after a whole day of riding, she stopped to pee only once.
We started looking for a stealth camp to sleep in when we became too sleepy to continue on. Generally we would look for a dirt road, either gated or not, and make our way off the highway to the safely of dirt. As we were looking for a place to camp, Deanna called out to stop as her crank was feeling loose. Upon inspection she discovered that her crank arm bolt had loosened and fell off from the vibration of the road. Her left side crank arm was still hanging on loosely when we stopped. Luckily she brought one spare crank arm bolt, purposely brought along for such an occasion. We tightened up her bolts, checked and tightened mine as well, then continued on into the night. Traffic was getting lighter and lighter as we continued on and around 10 pm we pulled off the road and headed to a gated dirt road, waited until no car lights were coming from either direction, then jumped the fence and walked about 1/4 mile on the dirt road which was paralleling the highway, and set up our sleeping pads and bivy sacks in the smoothest piece of dirt we could find. Neither of us brought sleeping bags. We slept our 1st night pretty close to the highway, but out of sight and out of mind to the passing cars and truck. We admired a few meteorites shoot across the starlit sky and chatted a bit before we fell asleep to the sound of the highway nearby.
“There is no nation of you, there is no nation of me.”
Franz Ferdinand, Lucid Dreams
“Hot Like Mexico”
Aug 1: 16 miles past Nuevo Casas Grandes, Mexico to 30 miles short of Chihuahua, Mexico
128.2 miles, 12.1 average, 10.5 hours pedaling, 32.2 mph max speed in 42x17 gear (165 rpm)
We woke up at 5 am, local time (Mountain Time Zone) and left by 5:45 am. We both got a crappy night of sleep last night on account of the dirt road we chose paralleling too close to the highway, and loud trucks downshifting on the descent. We could have chosen a better road to turn off on, or at least hike over the 1st hill, but so it goes. We plugged on and rode via two toll roads today we used as short cuts. Before reaching the town of Ricardo Flores Magon we spotted what appeared to be a large black animal, between the size of a coyote and a mountain lion. I was about 1/4 mile away when the mysterious animal crossed the highway. Deanna was in front of me, about 1/2 way closer to it that I was. Due to the animal being backlit, I couldn't tell if it was a coyote, dog or mountain lion. When I caught up to Deanna she said it was definitely black in color with a J tail like a mountain lion. Could this have been a Jaguar we just saw? Possibly so. I thought it was way too far from town for a stray dog to be roaming around with no visible sources of water. When I passed the point where I thought the animal crossed the road, I looked but could see no trace of it despite being in a desert with sparse vegetation.
Before reaching the town of Ricardo Flores Magon it looked like a house or car was on fire. As we got closer we realized that it was just the local dump site. In town we stopped for lunch. I bought a large avocado and garlic and 5 bananas. We ate on the sidewalk in the shade on a very hot day. A lady across the street walked over to ask us where we were going. I went back in the store to throw away my trash and ask if they have a recycling bin. The clerk smiled and laughed while taking my trash and empty plastic bottle and putting them in the same box. I thought it's cool that they do the sorting later at the plant, but then I realized that he was laughing because the dump site and recycling center are probably one and the same.
We rode through beautiful desert accentuated by mesas and buttes, nothing for miles but a tiny strip of road that we rode on. I spotted a millipede on the road and stopped to take a picture. I took a lot more pictures on this trip than Deanna, as her gear was much harder than mine, and I naturally would climb faster and easier so at the top of each climb I had time to take my camera out for a few more shots. At a rest stop on the toll road we refilled my water bottles from a water hose that said, "Agua para auto" after I asked a local if the water was potable. He said it was, and it actually tasted pretty good.
In the afternoon we rode found ourselves on a long gradual climb with a thunder storm in the mountains to our right. We admired the lightning flashes as we rode then decided to take a break at a covered bus stop for better viewing. The lighting strikes very frequent and had a strobe like effect, so that for every strike there were a few after-strikes immediately after and maybe a few hundred milliseconds apart spanning the good part of a whole second. We watched and admired this show for a good half hour and even taking pictures of a lighting bolt with a hand-held point and shoot camera, which wasn't too difficult with the strobe-like lighting flashes we were seeing. But after a half an hour we noticed that the storm was coming straight for us, and since we were under a covered bus stop we decided to wait it out. The temperature plummeted very quickly from a very hot and humid to a cold and near freezing, and then hail falling in a matter of minutes. I put on my rain gear to stay warm and continued watching the show. It was amazing to watch the downpour and lightning flashes. As the storm moved closer so did the lightning strikes. One came really close as the roar of super loud thunder came only a split second after the flash of lightning. A few minutes later the storm moved on and we continued down the road, re-energized by this experience.
Towards evening we connected to highway 45D which leads down to Chihuahua. This road had a lot of traffic on it with very little shoulder to ride on. Luckily it had 2 lanes each way and we rode on this about one hour into the night before we pulled off around 10 pm, about 30 miles before the city of Chihuahua on a dirt road leading towards the mountains and a national park. This time we made sure to camp well away from the loud and busy highway so we hiked with out bikes about 1/4 mile or more perpendicular it. Getting off the road undetected was impossible with all the traffic, and we had to figure out a way to cover Deanna's front and rear dynamo powered lights which had a forced stand-by mode. Later she discovered that she could turn off the rear light, but the front light we always had to cover with a hat or something as it continued to provided a good light in stand-by mode even without the bike moving or with the wires unplugged. There was no other way around it, as the built in capacitor in the light provided enough energy to power it up for 8 minutes after the bicycle's dynamo hub stopped spinning. Part of the dirt road we travelled on was flooded with standing water which led us to hike while carrying our bikes through the brush temporarily, but we found a really nice spot off the dirt road that we called home for the night. We fell asleep under the Milky Way and slept really well.
“You know that I love you boy
Hot like Mexico
Rejoice
At this point I've gotta choose
Nothing to lose”
- Lady Gaga, Alejandro
The TV Interview
Aug 2: 30 miles short of Chihuahua, Mexico to just past Ciudad Camargo, Mexico
144.4 miles, 11.9 average, 12 hours pedaling, max speed 34.9 mph (177 rpm in 42x17 gear)
We woke up at 4 am after a good night sleep and were riding by 5:30 am. Deanna had a bloody nose in the morning as we started out in the dark. We climbed up into really scenic hills before descending into Chihuahua, the first big city on our route. On the descent I caught 34.9 mph, the fastest I've ever gone on a fixie with a 42x17 gear, which translates into 177 rpm, my fastest spinning ever to date. Riding through a big city like Chihuahua was very exhilarating and exciting. There was a lot going on, lots of traffic, lots of things to take in while negotiating the road at a good speed around potholes, speed-bumps, cars, buses, pedestrians, mopeds, and motorcycles, without getting lost while looking out for a grocery store and a bank. At a red stop light a local young man asked me where we were riding to. I told him Panama. He looked incredulously at me told me in Spanish that I was joking. I told him I was serious and his eyes got very big and wide. The light turned green and we squeezed through between cars and buses for some more technical city riding. A couple times we had to stop and ask directions to make our way out of the city. At one point a young Mexican guy dressed like he was straight out of an East L.A. gang, walked down the sidewalk towards us as we checked our map and Deanna’s GPS. Recognizing us as gringos, in perfect English he said to us, "hey, what's up?" Deanna and I looked at each other in disbelief. That was the first English we heard since crossing into Mexico. He walked on without stopping and we smiled and shook our heads, then continued on. It never occurred to me that while a lot of Latinos find their way into the US legally or otherwise, some actually find their way back home for one reason or another, i.e. not all of them like their stay in the US better than at home. Later on we met many other people who lived in the US for many years before returning to their home towns in Mexico and Central America.
In Chihuahua, we stopped in at the first bank we found and paid my proper Mexican Tourist Card fee of $24 and got some supplies from a supermarket. We parked our bikes in front of the supermarket, in the shade, and took turns going in to buy what we needed. The local kids all gathered around and asked us a ton of questions. I tried to respond as best I could in my broken Spanish. They asked if Deanna was my wife, and I told them that she was my friend. The word for friend that I used is "amiga" which also translates more commonly to girlfriend, so when they asked about the picture on my bike frame and I told them about my wife and kids, their eyed me suspiciously and shook their heads so I had to explain. More people gathered around and a local Mexican man warned us that it's very dangerous to be riding through Chihuahua since “12 people were killed here just yesterday.” I asked if they were killed in front of the supermarket where we happened to be standing. He said “no, they were killed just across the street.” I told him that we should be safe at the supermarket and that we are not staying the night, but riding through.
Near the edge of the city, while riding past a supermarket, a small car pulled alongside me, the driver manually rolled down the passenger window and started asking me all sorts of questions in Spanish, very excited like. I realized he wanted to film us, that he was from the "Canal 9" TV station in Chihuahua. I told him that we are not doing anything special, that we are just riding our bicycles, not telling him where. But he insisted, and after seeing that he is in an official TV car, I agreed that he can film us. What are the chances of that happening? We pulled over in the grocery store parking lot, did an interview with questions in Spanish and our answers in English (later to be translated into Spanish), and then got a bite to eat at the grocery store. The camera man wanted to film us some more a few miles later and told us that he would wait for us later on down the road. It was a very hot day and after our lunch at the supermarket we continued on and then stopped for a rest break and to fill up on water at a gas station. While waiting in the shade, the camera man showed up again in his car to check up on us, and told us he would wait for us further down the highway to film us, but we never saw him again, probably due to a miscommunication on our part as to what route we would actually take, we stayed on the toll road and chose not to go into Ciudad Delicias as we had told him, because we had enough supplies. The toll roads were generally much safer and smoother to travel on with wide shoulders and rest stops with restrooms, shade, water, and coke machines. If we had the option for a toll road or a regular highway, we always chose the toll road even though it had much fewer towns that it went thru. We generally felt safer on them because they had a very wide and smooth pavement, as well as offering us a shorter route. We never paid any toll charges for riding on the toll roads since there is no specific toll for bicycles, they didn't know what to charge us, so we just waved and they waved back. So far we calculated that we cut about 70 miles off our route by using toll roads.
We have found the people of Mexico to be very friendly towards us, on and off the road. The drivers are very courteous and change lanes when passing us, and most will slow down and wait until they can pass safely. My only regret is not speaking better Spanish as much of our conversations deals with food, directions, and small talk. Anything else they asked us was usually over my head and I would just shrug my shoulders and say "no comprende." Outside of the towns and cities, we don't even feel like we are in Mexico as the roads are good and free of potholes and the cars and trucks passing us as just as good and new as those in the US. For the most part, Mexicans seem to enjoy a comfort of living similar to that of the US.
We had our biggest mileage day today and rode well into the night on the toll road with very little traffic while chatting about sorts of things and admiring the multitude of stars above us. We got on the subject of religion and despite Deanna being an affirmed Atheist, we had a very good and long conversation on the subject of spirituality and what we think God is. Before we knew it, it was after midnight and we were still not sleepy. We started to look for a place to turn off and sleep but there were no dirt roads intersecting the toll road. Soon we exited the toll road and took a rest break at the toll exit bathrooms. The security guard thought we looked suspicious so the came over with his machine gun to ask a few questions. He realized that we were harmless and crazy for riding this late at night and I asked him where we could camp. He said there is no place to camp, and that it was too dangerous, and recommended we get a hotel room before he returned to his post.
We left the toll rest stop and descended to the town of Ciudad Camargo, actually a city, but felt more like a town. The streets were empty of pedestrian or car traffic and very quiet. We didn't look for a hotel but just rode through and continued on the highway. Upon exiting the town we rode for a few more miles before we decided and camp in an orchard on the side of the highway. We waited until all cars passed and walked with and carried our bikes into the large and dark orchard. When we decided that we found a good enough place far enough away from the highway and the nearest house, we heard a dog barking. Soon after we saw the blue and red lights of a police car stopped on the highway. It also had its spotlight turned on and it seemed to be pointing into the orchard. We got really scared that we would be arrested for trespassing. This was the first time I saw Deanna visibly scared of anything. Still she was smart enough to come up with a plan right away. "Let's just go back to the highway", she said, "and tell the police we had to poop." This would have worked but by the time we walked out of the orchard, the police was gone.
We continued on for a few more miles before we spotted an un-gated dirt road going next to an orchard. By this time we were far enough from town that it was very quiet. We stopped and walked on the dirt road. The absence of barking dogs told us we were far enough from any house so this seemed like a good find. We looked at camping in this orchard but the wet muddy ground and the lack of stealth in the sparsely planted trees made us consider camping in the bushes on the other side of the dirt road where we found flat and dry ground with good cover from the road in case anyone should pass that way in the morning. We went to bed around 1:30 am.
“Chloe: You don't scare me anymore!
Diablo: Then why are you shaking?
Chloe: Cause I am a Chihuahua!”
- Beverly Hills Chihuahua (2008)
White As A Ghost
Aug 3: just past Ciudad Camargo, Mexico to near Ceballos, Mexico
109.3 miles, 11.3 average, 9.5 hours pedaling
I woke up before sunrise as the first light was starting to brighten the morning sky. We had a quiet and good night sleep as we were about 1/4 mile from the highway. I woke up Deanna and started packing up. Shortly thereafter I heard a truck drive by and had to duck to avoid being spotted by local farm workers heading to the fields. About 20 to 30 people were standing in the back of large open delivery truck going to work on the farm. We packed up extra fast, as by now we could see a farm house about 1/4 mile away from where we were camping. We pedaled out quickly on the dirt road to avoid being spotted and got back on the highway.
Today we rode through Ciudad Jimenez which was rather small in size. We rode through searching for a grocery store but didn't find one on the route. There were lots of taco stands lining the road but nowhere we could buy some fruit or fresh produce. One of the stands was selling nuts and I stopped to see what kind. The only ones that were not roasted were pine nuts so I bought a bag despite them being in the hot sun in plastic bags. Later I tried them and they were still in their hard shell which was almost impossible to break open without breaking my teeth. I carried them with me anyway for emergency food, but I would never felt compelled to eat them again until I got home.
We had a lot of cat calls today from men and women in Jimenez, which I thought unusual, but very interesting. Deanna thought they were all for me since I had spandex shorts, semi-shaved legs and a sleeveless jersey unzipped all the way down showing my hairy chest and belly. We stopped at a roadside mini-mart for water and supplies and rested a bit in the shade. The heat was unbearable in the sun, and only slight tolerable in the shade. In camp last night I lost my organic chap stick and asked Deanna if I could borrow hers as my lips were starting to crack. She had a Vegan chap stick from Whole Foods that I was very envious of. She said, "sure you can use it but I just used it on my butt," to avoid chaffing, that is. I was caught off guard and just stood there dumb-founded and shaking my head. I was repulsed at the idea of borrowing someone else's chap stick after they used it on their bang hole, but I was so tired and dehydrated and not thinking straight, part of me still thought it was ok since it probably had extra vitamin B-12. Demoralized, I said no thanks, and used my 20% zinc oxide cream on my face and lips, which made me look as white as a ghost. For the next couple of weeks that's how I rode, and people didn't know whether to laugh or scream when they saw me with white lips.
Around noon we loaded up on water and headed out of town. To ease the unbearable heat, nature provided us with headwinds today to cool us down, but this greatly impeded our progress to the next store. We didn't know until later that we would go 60 miles between water sources in triple digit temperatures. The map showed other towns closer but they were not on the toll road. Sometimes they were a few miles or more off the route so we didn't bother with them. Every time we took a rest break on this stretch it was in the shade of an overpass. The heat was messing with my ability to correctly rationalize, as I felt like I should ride naked to cool off, but even then I would be too hot. Deanna took the other extreme and covered every inch of her body except her hands, face and feet. I thought she would bake into a tortilla in this heat but she managed to keep cool. Every overpass we went under I called for a break and took off my jersey to feel the wind cool my sweaty skin, and to feel the coolness of concrete on my back. Later, at the shade of an overpass, we spotted a tow truck and I joked with Deanna, as I always joked when saw a car pulled off the road up ahead, "hey, there is our crew vehicle stopped to give us food and water." But this time the tow truck driver got out and invited us to fill up our water bottles from his cooler. We were nearly empty and we would not see another town for another 20 miles or so. I drank my fill and topped off my 3 bottles to give me another 2.1 liters for the hot and windy road ahead.
Despite the fact that Deanna chose to ride a bigger gear than I did, she rode a 46x17 while I chose an easier 42x17, I almost always got behind her to draft. Sometimes we would trade off being in front for 1 mile before switching off again. The miles would roll by very slowly despite our best efforts to draft off each other. Since I had the smaller gear, sometimes drafting didn't always work as I would leave Deanna behind. Other times, I would get frustrated with matching her pace and trying to lead that I would take off ahead and ride at my own pace, tucked into my aero bars but a few miles later she would always catch up to me as my lower back would give out and start hurting, or my knees would get sore, so I would wind up right where I started, behind a much stronger rider to protect myself from the wind and save my knees and back for another day of riding. During much of these long days I would get a Lady Gaga song going through my head. When that wasn't enough of an entertainment, I would contribute to the song and start singing out loud "RAW RAW FIXIE LADY, WORK IT WITH THAT PEDAL … BABY!" on the long climbs as I would pass Deanna, the rhythm of my pedals in perfect time with the music.
The desert scenery was beautiful despite the hot weather. We saw fields of flowers and wild burros. Near the town of Ceballos we found a store and gas station where we took a rest break and nap then woke up to watch the sunset. We looked at the map and we saw no other opportunities up ahead for stealth camping other than sleeping right next to the toll road with loud semi trucks driving past all night. But next to us we discovered was a dirt road leading up to Zona de Silencio, a desert wilderness preserve I suppose. In the last twilight of day, we turned our bikes towards this road that led uphill into the desert mountains. About 1/4 mile later we turned off our lights and walked off the dirt road into the desert where the dirt road split. We chose a spot that looked impossible to find at night, but in reality it was only 25 to 30 yards from the dirt road. After settling in for the night Deanna whispers to me that she heard footsteps. I didn't hear it, but I can't blame myself. I'm a man, and a man will sleep through anything. I wasn't asleep but I was busy with the tons of mosquitoes that were trying to eat us alive. I got up and looked around but there was no one. Later she told me that she heard two men talking when a car or truck drove by and stopped momentarily so maybe he got picked up and got a ride.
The phenomenon of mosquitoes in the desert is something really new to us, and while it was fascinating, it was still just as irksome, perhaps even more so with the fact that it was still very hot out even when the stars were out. It was hot enough that it would have been ideal to sleep out in my shorts and sleeveless jersey but I couldn't. I put on my rain pants and rain jacket while setting up camp and then got into my bivy sack when that wasn't enough and put on my cap and mosquito head net. That system was about 99% mosquito proof but it was 100% sauna. Eventually I removed my rain gear inside the bivy which seemed to help things and the mosquitoes took a break and let us get a good night sleep.
“Mosquito, mosquito, buzzing around
Landing on my knee
How can I truly be angry with you?
All you want is to be part of me”
- Ingrid Michaelson, Mosquito
Jesus Adrian
Aug 4: near Ceballos, Mexico to Matamoro, Mexico
99 miles, 11.9 average, 8 hours pedaling
We woke up at 5:30 am local time. After looking around I could see why Deanna heard footsteps last night. Across the dirt road on the other side were cows grazing. Looking around where we camped I found a large stick insect the size of a ball point pen and took its picture. Soon enough the mosquitoes found us again, and we packed up in a hurry and got back on the toll road.
Deanna started off the day again with a bloody nose. I felt compelled to take a picture of her riding with a wad of tissue stuck up her nose if for nothing else than perhaps to better document our adventures on this trip. But I thought it was pretty funny too. The road today took us toward Bermejillo, and on the way there we rode past a dead rattlesnake, a few dropped loads of jalapeno peppers on the shoulder, and an accident involving a semi truck carrying beer bottles that spilled out onto the highway blocking all passage on the opposite side . People stopped to help clean up the mess and for their hard work were rewarded with some cold cervesas. We also saw a mass migration of grass hoppers or locusts as they crossed the highway. There were many on the road, lots of dead and dying, and wounded. I couldn't help but compare this carnage in my mind to some battlefield in the Civil War that I have only visited 150 years after the fact. I tried my hardest to go around the locusts and not participate in their slaughter, so I weaved in and out of the shoulder, onto the highway when I could see in my mirror that it was clear, always searching for a route through to avoid running any more over than were already killed and injured. As I'm doing this I look over at Deanna and she is riding in a straight line on the shoulder. I tell her to watch be careful and not run over the locusts but she says she can't see that good, and that they should move out of the way. I was rather surprised with that response from a vegan but if you can't see that well, the best you can do is keep straight to avoid joining the carnage yourself.
We stopped for lunch in Bermejillo, a small town about 2 miles off the highway. I got avocadoes, tomatoes, bananas and mangoes from the grocery store in town. We ate on the sidewalk in the shade of the small store. The town was very authentically Mexican and we both liked it, especially since this is the first place where we saw 3 wheeled cargo bikes selling food on the street. I asked one of the local vendors with such a bike if he could let Deanna sit on one for a picture and he agreed. She must have liked it a lot because she got on the bike and proceeded to ride away with it. I motioned her to stop and took a picture of her on the bike, then she bought some rice chips with hot sauce from the street vendor. Across the street was a new 3 wheeled cargo bike for sale, just like the vendor had, for $400 USD made by Mercurio.mx.com.
By this time I was starting to crave some fats, but it had been so hot that most of the last 5 days I spent drinking water and eating very little. My legs had by this time lost some fat as I could see veins in my quads, something I normally don't see very often. Early on I decided to try out all the local hot peppers that Mexico had to offer but the hot days made me stop craving any hot food. Instead I started craving cold food and watermelons to help me hydrate.
At this rest stop, I witnessed Deanna swat and kill an insect on her leg. I asked her about it and why she had to kill it, and she responded like anyone else in our society who has been brainwashed to think that humans are the supreme species on earth, that it was just an insect. I expected more higher standards from a vegan but even vegans are human. It reminded me of a time I threw some noodles in the trash at work and came back the next day to find the whole place swarming with ants. I was so embarrassed at my mistake that I must have killed hundreds of ants. Had I not over-reacted I could have done it differently without killing a single one, but hindsight is 20-20, so they say. I felt really bad after the incident with the insect, as if it destroyed our good karma and some unstoppable calamity was now looming over us. I hoped that all the good we did would outweigh this one incident.
The air was still and the streets were quiet now. Even the café next to the grocery store closed its doors. Everyone seemed to be enjoying their siesta around 1 pm. The same busy street where chaos reigned was now enveloped in solitude and serenity. We bought some phone cards and called home. The phone cards in Mexico are very nicely decorated with saints so we set out to collect them. After we used one up, we would put it between our spokes, to protect us on the road.
We left Bermejillo in the heat of the day and we were glad to be back on our bikes, where a nice breeze is always blowing even when the wind is still. We encountered some more headwinds today and did our best to continue slowly along. A few miles before entering Torreon we passed a Tyson factory farm. Even before we could see the factory farm we could smell it from miles away. The stench coming from those walls was unbearable to us on the highway 1/4 mile away as we rode past it. The workers leaving the factory were still wearing masks to cover their faces. Inside the factory farm I could imagine the thousands and thousands of chickens crammed together into cages, with beaks cut off and no room to move, sick with cancers and tumors. The massive suffering these feathered people were enduring was a direct result of a heinous crime they committed, that of being tasty to humans when cooked. This day would live in infamy in our memories as the lowest point of our trip.
Things began to cheer up for us when we saw a graffiti painted on a wall that said "JESUS ADRIAN" and we laughed at the absurdity and serendipity of life. Before entering Gomez Palacio we veered off and continued on the road towards Torreon in what was to be the most intense city riding we had seen thus far. The highway blended in with streets and split dozens of times continuing to cross through the city on bridges. This left us in a vulnerable position as we were now basically riding on the freeway of one of the biggest and busiest cities in Mexico. Soon enough I figured out that we can stay on the streets and ride on the right side parallel to the freeway instead of wasting our energy humping over bridges and crossing thru high-speed traffic. We continued through the city and navigated without maps by way of signs along the highway towards different towns and cities. Deanna had the route programmed on her GPS so I one point we stopped to check if we were still on the route. A man in a pick up truck stopped to ask us in perfect English if we needed a place to stay. I thanked him but refused the offer as it was before sunset and I didn't feel secure sleeping in someone's house in such a big city. About an hour later at sunset, Deanna and I were debating what we should do, as directly ahead of us we could see a huge thunder storm with curtains of dark rain clouds almost touching the horizon. It started sprinkling and we saw the same guy, this time with his girlfriend and a mountain bike in the bed of his small pick-up truck. He stopped and he offered us a place to stay. The rain started to come down now and as we tried to decide what we should do, Deanna noticed her rear tire is flat. She looked at me, smiled and said, "I think this is a sign." I laugh, and said, "what are you superstitious?" We put out bikes in the truck, Deanna gets in the front cabin and I stay in the back, admiring the traffic, cars, people, buildings, houses, the potholes, and life in Matamoros, Mexico from the rear of a pick-up truck, unable to wipe this silly smile off my face.
Andy and his girlfriend Lucia take us to their house so we could each take a shower. While I take my shower, Lucia is washing our clothes, and Deanna is talking to Andy about our crazy and insanely beautiful adventure. I finished my shower and wore my rain gear but it wass so hot outside at night that I soon took my silnylon jacket off and wore only the pants. After Deanna finished her shower, they drove us and our wet but clean clothes to their bakery where Andy proceeded to fix Deanna's flats (he found 3 of them in the same tube by soaking it in a bowl of water) while Lucia was busy hanging up our clothes to dry. We decided to eat out at a restaurant that's still open at 10 pm, but despite my successful efforts in coaxing them to give me a salad made up of only side dishes that are normally used for tacos, we had to leave since their beans are made with lard and Deanna can't really get anything vegan to eat there. We decide to eat at their bakery instead after Andy takes us on scenic ride through Matamoros looking for salad for me, eventually coming back the same restaurant and buying a pound of chopped lettuce from them to use for my salad. Back at their bakery they made tortillas and refried vegetarian beans and rice for Deanna, while I made a salad with tomatoes, chilies, nuts, and avocados which I proudly call my creation Ensalada de Matamoro. Around 10:30 pm we went to sleep in the courtyard of their bakery, Deanna on an extra bed mattress and myself on top of my 2 mm thick sleeping pad looking up at the stars.
“the kingdom of God is within you”
- Jesus of Nazareth, Luke 17:21
"We are going too fast Captain !!!"
Aug 5: Matamoro, Mexico to 13 miles before General Cepeda, Mexico
120.5 miles, 10.6 average, 11.25 hours pedaling
We woke up before sunrise at 6:30 am local time with the sound of roosters crowing for day. We and packed up, ate the rest of our unfinished dinner for breakfast and got ready to go, refreshed from the experience of spending the night with Andy and Lucia in their bakery. I notice a copy of a magazine in the bathroom and on the cover was a photo of cars exploding and a gun battle between the mafia and the police. It looked like a Hollywood movie scene, but this is sometimes real life in Mexico. Andy, who lived in the US for a long time and graduated from a high school in Texas, tells us that things are not very good right now in Mexico. Lucia, who is very quiet and shy, seems to bear a lot of hurt and sorrow. We learn that her brother and father-in-law both disappeared a year ago, mostly likely kidnapped by the mafia and killed for refusing to pay ransom or pay the fee of protection. Andy teld us that he would like to buy a new truck, and fix up the bakery but decided it's best to leave it as is in its current dilapidated state because any renovation would send a signal to the mafia that he has money. I ask him if it's so bad, why don't they leave and move to the US? He said he hopes things will improve soon. I can see why he doesn't want to leave. He has lived there for years and has a beautiful Mexican girlfriend who visibly loves him. I've been there for 5 days, and I'm already falling in love with the country, its beautiful people, history and culture, not to mention the tasty food. In some ways it's a shame that I'm not experiencing any of its cooked culinary treasures, that I'm sticking only to a raw food diet through this trip, but I want to see if I can do it.
Andy drives us back to the exact same spot he picked us up the night before and after filling up our bottles he gave us a toy to take along in memory of him and Matamoros. The toy is from Star Trek and upon pushing a button it says, "Vamos a todo velocidad Capitan !!!" which translates into "We are going too fast Captain !!!" We find this very funny and fitting to our journey and agree to take along. I put the toy in my small binocular case next to the zinc oxide tube. We start rolling at 8 am and Andy escorts us our of town, following behind us with his flashers on for a few miles. My eyes start to tear at the though of actually seeing an angel on Earth. I pedal on and every time I hit a bump at high speed the toy goes off on it's own, saying "Vamos a todo velocidad Capitan !!!"
Today we rode through a lot of desert doted with mountains and beautiful scenery. After a few hours of riding we see a white van pulled off the road about a 1/4 mile up ahead and park in the dirt. I jokingly tell Deanna "hey, there is our support crew." She laughs and says, "yeah, really, huh." Three people get out of the van and they smile. I stop to talk to them and tell Deanna to stop as well. Come to find out they actually stopped because they thought they recognized us from the news last night on TV. I confirm to them that we are the two crazy Americans riding their fixed gear bicycles to Panama. They ask us if we need anything and I shamelessly asked them if they have any fruit and water. They give us water and a few peaches and apples. Before we leave I ask to take a picture of us together with them, and they agree.
In the morning we had some nice easy riding without winds and put in 75 miles before lunch. We stopped in Paila for lunch at a restaurant and was pleasantly surprised to see they had fruits and vegetables for sale as well, so I got some avocados, garlic and Serrano peppers, one Chile Gordon, and celery and with that I made a huge bowl of raw vegan guacamole from 4 large avocados. On the way out I bought 5 bananas as well to have later in the day. The rest of the day we had very strong headwinds and some prolonged climbing on top of that which made it a very tough day. We continued on into the night and stopped about 10 pm when we started getting sleepy. Across from a tall antenna with a blinking red light, we turned off an un-gated dirt road about 20 km before General Cepeda to see if we could find a stealth camp. After scoping the bushes and finding a place far away enough from the highway, we settled on a flat spot behind the bushes near the dirt road but out of view of passing cars or people. Beyond that was what appeared to be a farm field. We drifted off to sleep under a beautiful and starry sky.
“What you want is irrelevant, what you have chosen is at hand.”
- Captain Spock, Star Trek
The Ghost of Pancho Villa
Aug 6: 13 miles before General Cepeda to 20 miles short of San Roberto, Mexico
102.9 miles, 10.3 average, 9 hours 52 minutes pedaling
I wake up to the sound of Deanna's whisper as she says, "Adrian, I hear a horse". Amazingly I heard everything she said even though I was sound asleep and as I opened my eyes, I saw what appeared to be a Mexican on horseback, the ghost of Pancho Villa, and I expect that he will shoot us for trespassing, but he slowly rides past us as if in a dream. We are perfectly still but even in the darkness I am sure that the horseman saw us. I looked at my watch and it said 4:30 am. It's still on California time. We actually crossed over into Central Time zone yesterday so it is 6:30 am local time. We start to pack up in a hurry and then we hear and see another caballero riding towards us. We freeze and remain motionless in hopes that we will pass off as rocks, but the donkey gets spooked and snorts. The rider controls the donkey and continues on. I shake my head and realize I'm not dreaming. We finish packing and by the time we leave we see a third rider going by us on a donkey. This time there is enough light out and I wave and say "hola". I realize that we are camped in the middle of a horse trail that the farm workers use between the fields and their village. We finished packing up in a record 15 minutes after waking up and ride away on the highway going east towards Saltillo.
Late morning we arrive in Saltillo greeted by a fruit stand where we bought Leeches and Dragon Fruit. The city of Saltillo is very big. We found a small supermarket where I bought avocados, bananas, garlic, tomatoes, and more avocados. By this time I was craving avocados and I was eating them every change I got. Also tomatoes with Deanna's sea salt was a welcome treat and tasted really good to us. After lunch we bought some earplugs at a pharmacy and tried to make our way out of the city but got lost twice while trying to find the highway leading to Monterrey. Andy had warned us to go through Monterrey due to massive flooding as the city sits in a basin surrounded by mountains and they had heavy rains there the week before. The locals in Saltillo said that the road to Monterrey was open and clear but trying to find it was another matter. I asked for directions and followed all the signs that were labeled Monterrey only to go on a wild goose chase through the city on a route that was undergoing massive construction, and 2 hours later we were standing at the same corner we were at when we arrived in the city. I must admit that Saltillo had the most confusing road signs, probably due to all the construction going on. After two hours of chasing down the highway to Monterrey, I have up out of frustration and decided to take another way out of town by going south on the 57. The climb out of Saltillo was steep and long on a hot day but by 4 pm we were at the top of the climb and enjoying a beautiful down hill thru pine tree and Joshua trees further down. My knees were sore from all the climbing and I rubbed them with Tiger Balm, a Chinese herbal remedy made with Menthol. I also carried a homeopathic pain reliever called Traumeel but it didn't work as well. The rest of the afternoon and evening was spent riding through beautiful mountain valleys and green pastures before ending up for the night on the side of highway 57 next to a densely green desert. That night I used my earplugs and slept really well despite semi trucks passing by about 20 feet away. The dense foliage on the side of the road gave us great cover in the darkness as well.
“Don’t let it end like this. Tell them I said something.”
- Pancho Villa, his last words
Crossing the Sierra Madre Occidental
Aug 7: 20 miles short of San Roberto, Mexico to 40 miles short of Victoria, Mexico
131.4 miles, 11.8 average, 11 hours pedaling
The temperature before sunrise (6:30 am) when we woke up was 50F. That was the coldest night I've even spent without a sleeping bag, but with a bivy sack and cold weather riding clothes, it was bearable and still let me get plenty of sleep. I didn’t bring a space bag, but I did end up using my silnylon poncho tarp to wrap around me for extra warmth, especially my legs and feet. This was the coldest night we encountered on our trip.
In San Roberto, the junction of highways 57 and 58, we stopped to get water and supplies. They didn't have any fruits or vegetable to sell, but I did get a green apple from a kid cashier who had one in his hand. I asked him how much for the apple and he said "nada" and then handed it to me. Upon turning onto highway 58 we climbed slowly through beautiful Joshua Trees and Yuccas and eventually all the way up into the Sierra Madre Occidental mountains which run north to south along the east side of Mexico. Crossing the Sierra Madre Occidental was one of the best highlights on this trip. The climbing was gradual and fun, the scenery spectacular, the towns so quaint and inviting, and the people friendly and courteous. The town of Iturbide was very small and pleasant, we stopped to take a rest break there before descending. We also got to see wild burros crossing the road, and saw the aftermath of a flash flood that took destroyed bridges and the highway we were riding on. Within days the road was open again for travel through a short dirt road detour, progress which we cannot match even in the United States where it takes 1/2 a year or more to clear up a mudslide in the mountains. As I’m writing this the Angeles Crest Highway in Southern California is still closed more than a year after the Station Fire. The descent thru the Sierra Madre Occidental was so beautiful and scenic that I think we spent more time taking pictures than riding, and who could ride in a beautiful place such as this where the sight of giant rock monoliths next to the road like those in the Sierra Nevada mountains would take your breath away. This was also the first time I had seen Spanish Moss growing anywhere else other than the deep southern US states and was pleasantly delighted to see it growing here in the mountains. The weather was so pleasant up in the mountains that we weren't in any hurry to get down. But dark clouds starting forming and soon we continued on down the green and windy mountain road to the city of Linares with its beautiful houses, nestled on the east side of Sierra Madre Occidental. We both loved the beautiful scenery of these mountains. Passing a quaint farmhouse on the side of the road, I told Deanna, “who knows what the future holds for you. You might fall in love with a caballero here and settle down at the base of the Sierra Madre Occidental. Then you could ride up and down these mountains you love all day long.” I myself would love to retire here for the rest of my life, but the bicycle has a stronger attraction for me, pulling me to ride it all over the world instead.
Back at the low elevations we received such a shock to our lungs in the form of triple digit temperatures and high humidity that it left us feeling like we were drowning on land and gasping for breath. Such a drastic change from the cool and pleasant temperatures in the mountains. We stopped at the supermarket in Linares and I bought some bananas, tomatoes, Chile Morron, 1/2 large watermelon, avocados and garlic. I filled up my stomach with the watermelon to hydrate and took the rest to go, stuffing the food in my pockets and stuff sack I carried on the aero bars. After lunch at the supermarket, we left the hot and muggy city of Linares and rolled south to Victoria.
At night we stopped to have dinner in a small wooden shack with black plastic for walls. There we were treated like royalty and ate our fill for $4, Deanna filling up on vegan rice, beans, tortillas, chips & salsa, and me filling up on a salad of greens and tomatoes, topped with my avocados. We then continued on, riding into the night for another couple of hours before sleep overtook and forced us to find shelter for the night. After bushwhacking through 10 ft tall reeds and not finding a place flat of dry enough to even lay down, we continued a little further and I found a faint dirt road leading up the hill next to the highway that was probably used as an emergency run-away truck ramp. Next to this faint dirt road I found another that branched off into the jungle foliage and despite the old trash we found on it, we laid down with the mosquitoes and slept right through the hot and muggy night.
“And I wonder
If everything could ever feel this real forever
If anything could ever be this good again”
- Dave Grohl, Everlong
Crossing the Tropic of Cancer
Aug 8: 40 miles short of Victoria, Mexico to 70 miles short of Tampico, Mexico
111.8 miles, 10.1 average, 10 hours 55 minutes pedaling
We woke up at 4:45 PST and not surprisingly it was bright as day out since it was 6:45 am local time. The morning was overcast but still hot and muggy an hour later when we started pedaling. We rode 40 miles to Victoria and stopped at the supermarket to have lunch. We parked our bikes in the shade next to the supermarket, but we promptly got kicked out of the shade for vagrancy, not because we looked like a couple of homeless gringos, which we did, but because they have higher standards and they didn't consider it proper. We got our food and ate under the shade of a palm tree at the far end of the parking lot. I got 3 types of avocados, bananas, tomatoes, 1/2 large watermelon.
Today we had head winds the whole day which was very demoralizing. Deanna led in the afternoon and did a great job pedaling, keeping herself entertained by singing the Sound of Music. I pulled by lower back leading solo earlier but within a 1/2 hour she caught up to me and passed me. I got behind her and drafted the rest of the day. We crossed the Tropic of Cancer which means we are officially in the tropics now. We camped about 20 miles after the 81/83 junction, or 70 miles short of Tampico. Our campsite was on the side of the highway on a bluff overlooking the highway from about 10 feet up, right next to a huge ant hill. Actually I think it was because of the ants that we enjoyed such a nice and flat campsite devoid of vegetation. I wonder if they were leaf cutter ants. We made sure not to bother them and in return they were nice to us and didn't disturb us at all the whole night. Today I took a total of 2 pictures which is sad, but there was not much new to document in our adventure.
“Doe, a deer, a female deer
Ray, a drop of golden sun
Me, a name I call myself
Far, a long, long way to run”
- The Sound of Music, Do-Re-Mi
Random Acts of Kindness
Aug 9: 70 miles short of Tampico, Mexico to just past Ozuluama, Mexico
127.6 miles, 11.2 average, 11 hours 13 minutes pedaling
We woke up at 5 am PST, 7 am local time when a guy in a pick-up truck stopped on the side of the highway adjacent to where we were sleeping on the bluff next to the road. Perhaps he saw us in the morning light and wanted to stop and check if we were ok, and not dumped bodies that the mafia left on the side of the road. In any event, Deanna yelled out my name, and despite my earplugs, I woke up to hear the rest of the story from Deanna. She didn't like to wear her earplugs for some reason, but still managed to get good sleep on the side of the road, that's how tired we were. She must have been even more tired than me since she used a bigger gear and all those hills and headwinds were surely taking their toll on us and sapping all our energy by the end of the day. Deanna got stung by a stinging nettle on her morning squat. I don’t even want to know where. Funny and tragic at the same time. Luckily the sting from a stinging nettle doesn't last more than about one or two hours.
We stopped at the gas station in Gonzales for water and a rest break. While having a bite to eat I noticed an ant on the shady cement. It was larger than any ant I have ever seen before so I took a picture of it next to a Mexican coin. The Ant measured just as big as the coin. A janitor from the gas station took me to the side of the building where he had his old BMX bike parked in the shade. On the handlebars was a white plastic bag from which he took out a yellow reflective vest and gave it to me, explaining that it's too dangerous to ride without one. I was really touched by his gesture. It must have cost him about a weeks worth of work to be able to buy one of those reflective vests, and he wanted to give it to me. I was literally almost brought to tears by his caring and generosity, but I refused, explaining to him in detail that I have reflective ankle straps, a very bright strobe light in the rear, and a very bright dynamo powered LED light in the front. Another gas station worker came over a few minutes later and handed me a white plastic bag with only a nod while looking me in the eyes. I thanked him and he left. As I opened the bad I saw there was 4 sandwiches inside, which he had just purchased from inside the gas station. I could not keep these either as they were not vegan, and not wanting the food to go waste I found him and explained that both of us are strict vegetarians, returned the sandwiches to him and thanked him again for his kind gesture. These were the kind of people that we met in Mexico, who I have the highest gratitude and respect for. For all the well meaning people back home who are too fearful to go to Mexico, and who warned us of all the violence there that they saw with their own eyes on TV, I can only feel deep sorrow for their childish fears and hope that one day they will open up their hearts and see the love that exists in the world, as well as the suffering on account of our own wastefulness & lavish living in the US.
Today we reached the Gulf of Mexico in Tampico and stopped for lunch there. We stopped at the supermarket for lunch where a local man asked about our trip and gave us directions out of town. I also got 2 mangos and a cup of fruit today from a fruit stand. Having left the desert behind us, I can get raw vegan food from fruit stands also, not just the supermarkets in town. Tonight we slept on the side of the road a few miles past Ozuluama, Mexico.
“When your suffering is a little greater than my suffering I feel that I am a little cruel.”
~Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin
Exotic Eyes
Aug 10: just past Ozuluama, Mexico to just past Tuxpan, Mexico
106.9 miles, 10.5 average, 10 hours 10 minutes pedaling
We woke up at 5 am PST which is actually 7 am local time. We started riding by 7:40 am stopping in the town of Naranjas (which translates into Oranges) to buy some oranges and plantains. They didn't seem to have bananas in this town, so I got some very ripe plantains and ate them but I prefer the bananas much more. Despite the town's name these were by far the worst green oranges I ever bought. Still I'm ever grateful for having something to eat as we were out of pesos and this far south very few people accept American dollars. The one that agreed to accept our American dollars did so at a rate of 10 pesos instead of the current 12 which was done by most people until now. We ended up paying $3 for some oranges and plantains, what should have cost 1/2 the price, but we were happy to have something to eat after riding much of the morning with very little food. We went in the town center and I exchanged some dollars to pesos while Deanna waited with the bicycles outside in the 101F shade, while I enjoyed sitting in line at the bank with A/C blasting and Mexican TV showing music videos. The bank only accepted some of the American money we had, those that were written on, dirty, worn at the fold, or stamped in any way, were rejected. So I had to go back out and get more US dollars from Deanna, who didn’t heed my warning to get new bills before we started the trip, and kept her money in variety of different places on the bike, some super-folded, some crinkled like a piece of paper ready for the trash can. The faded and crinkled bills were almost impossible to exchange in banks and supermarkets but eventually we found somebody who was willing to take them. In southern Mexico about the only place that accepted our American dollars were supermarkets, if the bills were clean and new. We preferred this way of buying things as we didn't want to change all of our money to Pesos, then change them again in each country we went thru, each time losing a little bit in value in changing them due to commission rates. It took about 45 minutes to finish our business with the bank. After we got Pesos from the bank, we went to the grocery store where I bought 8 avocados of 2 different varieties, and a bag of tomatoes to have with Deanna's sea salt, then we ate lunch in the shade of a park overlooking the river.
Today was very hot with no wind, 101F with high humidity. On top of that we had some crazy hill climbing to do in our fixed gear bikes. To help me rehydrate I bought 4 coconut waters and one coconut from fruit stands on the side of the highway. At a gas station by the junction to Tuxpan a young girl with beautiful exotic eyes offered us anything we needed. Being that she was in a SUV I joked around and asked her for a ride to Panama. I couldn't get over how pretty her eyes looked, they had me in a trance. I had never seen anything like it. Deanna laughed and said those are contacts. I refused to believe it and went back to the girl to complement her on her beautiful eyes. She said, "oh, there are contacts," and laughed. In Tuxpan, I passed by a guy on a mountain bike while leaving the city. He asked me where I was going, seeing my bedroll and large seat bag and overstuffed jersey pockets. Upon hearing me say "Panama" he smiled really big, and yelled out "FUCK YEAH !!!"
We only put in about 75 miles by sunset today. Amazingly, we have less sunlight each day the further south we go. The sunrise is late and the sunset is early compared to Southern California. Summertime in the tropics there is only about 12 hours of daylight each day, compared to 15 hours for California. Today I noticed that I have developed a rash on my legs, under my lycra bike shorts. They look like really small pimples with white heads. This is despite taking a shower 5 days ago in Matamoros and getting laundry done at Andy and Lucia's house. Oh well, I'm not worried about it. Eventually it will go away on it's own.
We continued pedaling on into the night, riding another 3 hours on the toll road before we pulled over and slept on a hill bluff overlooking the toll road.
“The eyes have one language everywhere.”
- George Herbert
“Ance”
Aug 11: just past Tuxpan, Mexico to 45 miles short of Veracruz, Mexico
105.8 miles, 11.1 average, 9 hours 30 minutes pedaling
We were up at 6:40 am and pedaling by 7:20 am. It seems like kind of a late start but sunrise was about 7:05 am local time, looking back now. Riding in the morning was really nice and cool. We thought we had camped far away from towns and people but in the morning we saw lots of locals going to work in the fields. They used the toll road as well, walking or riding bicycles, with machetes. Today was the first time we saw the Gulf of Mexico a few miles past Gutierrez Zamora where we had stopped to refresh ourselves with some cold coconut milk. We saw a sign for beach access, but were told to go 1 mile further as the highway goes right next to the beach. In the next small town, not even named on the map, we rode by and pulled off on the first dirt road leading to the Gulf of Mexico 25 yards away. This was a pivotal moment for us, as after 12 days of riding we finally arrived at a worthwhile destination. The place was called Costa Esmeralda or the Emerald Coast. The water was indeed emerald color and beautiful, but we stopped very close to the river so for the first 1/4 mile or so it was mostly black silt color. That didn't matter to us really, we were much dirtier ourselves and could use a good free cleaning. The beach was really beautiful with palm trees, a wooden boat where we parked our bikes up against, a hut selling snacks, and miles of sand in either direction. The sand was super hot as by now the mid-day heat became unbearable that we ran into the water, swam and did laundry all at the same time, and air dried our clothes on the bike in about 10 minutes as we rode on. A little further on we stopped at a pizza restaurant so Deanna could get a pizza. We took our bikes inside and we both fell asleep on their couches while waiting for the pizza. That was one nice nap. By this time we were both feeling the effects that riding all day and into the night was having on our bodies and every bit of sleep was welcomed.
From noon to 2 pm the temperature is really hot and the humidity only makes it feel worse. It would zap our energy, suck it right out of us. We would keep riding of course, but every fruit stand with shade and cold coconuts became an oasis that we were riding towards. Sometimes the fruit stands were plentiful, other times they were sparse. In one town the locals were selling fruit while standing in the middle of the road at a speed bump, so I bought some. I had no idea what it was they were selling, but I bought a bag of it. I have never tasted any fruit that I didn't like. The fruit I bought was called "ance" by the locals. It looked like really small apples about the size of cherries. I tasted some and aside from their slightly bitter taste, it left my mouth feeling like a cotton ball, same as a quince. Besides that they also had large seeds so calorically they were almost worthless. I ate a few and then threw the rest out on the side of the road, as they were not freshly picked either and were starting to ferment in the hot sun.
Around sunset we stopped to take pictures of a 4-wheel bicycle. The owner was selling ice cream, some of it vegan so Deanna bought some. He was nice and let us take pictures inside his bike. It even had a steering wheel, lights and a roof for shade. That was the first time I had ever seen a bike like that. Deanna wanted to pedal away with it. I offered to exchange our fixed gear bicycles for the 4-wheel cycle. We imagined how it would be to ride the rest of the way to Panama on such a bike. How awesome that would be!
We have about 2200 miles left to go and 20 days left, so we will likely drop the last segment to Yaviza as it's pretty had to put in our required 125 miles per day that we were hoping to do, thus shortening the trip by some 350 miles, to stop at Panama City, Panama.
We continued our ride on our own bikes and put in a few more hours after sunset, stopping at one point to get some fruit and produce from a roadside store. The girl there was nice enough to cut a papaya for us and make a smoothie of it with bananas, while Deanna got some vegan rice and beans from the restaurant next door.
We made it to about 45 miles short of Veracruz, Mexico and stopped a few miles after passing the Laguna Verde Nuclear Power Station. There was a police roadblock near the nuclear power station and we passed through ok. We stopped for the night off a windy road with no shoulder when we saw a faint dirt road leading to a locked gate beyond which was as close to a jungle as we had ever seen. The gate led into a mass of foliage, so overgrown that we couldn't get more than a few feet past the gate. We flattened out the wet grass and leaves to sleep with the mosquitoes. Twenty yards away semi trucks were passing in the darkness. I put in my earplugs in and went to sleep, giving a little blood to the local mosquitoes in the process.
“I want to fly like an eagle
To the sea
Fly like an eagle
Let my spirit carry me”
Steve Miller Band, Fly Like An Eagle
Four Shots of Espresso
Aug 12: 45 miles short of Veracruz, Mexico to Tenaja, Mexico
82.6 miles, 9.8 average, 8 hours 19 minutes pedaling
I woke up at 6:40 am today. Above us was a large spider about the size of a baby's fist. It was very colorful and beautiful, with black & yellow legs, and a green, white and red long body. I finished the papaya & banana smoothie for breakfast but it felt like it didn't go down right. It felt like my stomach was not getting settled and I felt bloated. At the first rest stop, Deanna said I looked calorie deficient. I felt like it too. I ate an apple with filberts and one orange but I didn't feel better until we hit a supermarket and I bought 1/2 a large watermelon, about 10 lbs worth. I ate about 1/2 of it and felt good after I pooped two times, almost diarrhea. The hot weather was making me crave watermelon at every supermarket now.
Deanna started feeling very tired, sluggish, overheated and sleepy when we got into Veracruz around noon. Perhaps this was from dehydration or from the hot and humid weather, or perhaps it was from the papaya smoothie she shared with me last night. We resupplied in Veracruz at a supermarket and left the city via the toll road, choosing to go inland on the toll road with good shoulder instead of following the old and windy coastal highway without much shoulder. Deanna was feeling very sluggish, pedaling less than 10 mph on flats. She wanted to lay down and stopped to do so on the side of the highway but there were too many mosquitoes. We continued on and made it to a gas station and a new Italian Coffee House called Red Cup. She felt her sleepy condition would improve after some coffee so she ordered one with ice and two shots of espresso, drank it up and ordered another ice coffee, this time a large one with two more shots of espresso in it. She drank that right up as well. I asked her if she had ever done that before and she said yes. Feeling like the 2 coffees and 4 shots of espresso didn't do enough to wake her up, she finally decided to take a nap, so we left the cold air conditioned coffee house and went outside next to our bikes where she went to sleep on the tile floor in the shade, telling me to wake her up in 15 minutes, just like the ultra-cyclist Deanna would do at the Furnace Creek 508. In 15 minutes I woke her up and seeing that she wasn't feeling any better she asked me if she could sleep another 15 minutes. It was now 7 pm. I felt her forehead and she was burning up. I suggested she might want to take an Advil or Tynenol if she had one. She did so and went to sleep again. By this time, I was starting to make plans in my head about what to do with her, because I didn't think she would get better anytime soon. Luckily we weren't too far from Veracruz, which was a major city, so if she didn't improve we could take a taxi to Veracruz and have her fly home. I caught up in my journal and looked the map over and over, and calculated if we could still make it to Panama. It would be close either way. After another 15 minutes I woke up Deanna. She looked and felt pretty bad still. “This is going to sound pretty weird but can we hold hands?” she asked me, her voice shaking. “Sure,” I said, resisting the temptation to say anything funny or stupid, like ‘what are you superstitious?’ I knew that Deanna is an Atheist and doesn’t believe in prayer, but I sensed that she needed some spiritual support. Her hands were small and calloused and almost shaking, still a little hot from her fever. I closed my eyes and tried to telepathically send her all my positive energy. After a minute she said she needed to go to the bathroom. Ten minutes later she came out, saying that she threw up and had diarrhea. She suggested we keep riding. I asked if she was feeling up to it and she said yes.
Unbelievably, she led us for the rest of the night, first into a light tropical drizzle that tricked us into riding without raingear, then into a moderate rain storm for 3 hours. We hoped to make it to the first town up ahead as stopping to camp in the rain didn't sound very appealing at all. The next town of Piedras Negras was about 30 miles from the coffee house so we pushed on, hoping we would find a roof to sleep under. I stopped to put on my rain gear at a truck stop, more to keep warm than to keep dry. Deanna was soaked as well but was warmer with long sleeves and long Capiline pants so she didn't put on her rain gear. She was hoping we would find a motel to rest for the night. I suggested against it, but didn't offer any better solution. When we got to the first town, Tenaja, we found a restaurant that served food after 10 pm and pointed us to the motel, a drive in motel with covered parking underneath the room. I helped Deanna get a room in my broken Spanish, which cost her $20 USD. I wanted to camp out, as sleeping in a hotel room during an adventure bike tour is not really acceptable in my book, aside from the fact that it doesn't look good for a married man, but when Deanna said I could take the tile floor for free instead of going back out in the rain, I was more than grateful to have a dry place to sleep. The hotel owner, a short stocky man with a barrel for a belly, was really nice. He helped us dry Deanna's clothes on a clothes line after putting them in the centrifuge to wring them out first. My silnylon jacket and Gore-tex pants dried off really quickly by the time we finished dinner. I had a salad with tomatoes, avocadoes, jalapenos and almonds, which was too hot to finish for dinner. Deanna had the usual vegan rice and beans with corn tortillas. Back at the hotel I borrowed Deanna's thick sleeping pad and slept on the floor next to the bikes, the A/C blasting the whole night.
“Hunger is the best sauce in the world.”
- Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Cow Trails
Aug 13: Tenaja, Mexico to 40 miles short of Minatitlan, Mexico
100.8 miles, 10.2 average, 9 hours 48 minutes pedaling
In the morning I was the first to wake up at 4 am PST, which meant 6 am local time. I had diarrhea really bad. Apparently my spicy salad last night didn't do anything to settle my stomach, nor did I expect it to, but that was the only raw vegan thing I could get at such a late hour. The motel room didn't have a door to the bathroom door or a toilet seat, so Deanna's wake-up call was my loud diarrhea. But she was so tired, I think she slept through the whole thing. I took a shower and went back to sleep on the floor and later about 8 am woke up again to finish the rest of my spicy salad. After a few more visits to the toilet, we were ready to roll. Just before leaving the room Deanna went one more time, diarrhea thunder echoing throughout the room. Before leaving town we went to the market 1 mile off the route to stock up on bananas, toasted bread for Deanna, apples, peanuts and raisins. We left the town of Tenaja at 8 am PST, which means 10 am local time. A late start to be sure but at least we were well rested.
Around noon I had two more bouts of diarrhea. Deanna seems to be cured. Today she ate a good amount of beans, pico de gallo salsa, guacamole, chips. I got a pineapple juice from a house earlier but that didn't go well. I had some of Deanna's guacamole and salsa at the restaurant where we stopped for lunch, but it didn't stay down. I visited the bathroom a few times, each time the bathroom attendant saying "hola" and asking me more about our trip. He was so excited for us and enamored with the idea of our adventure. He was telling another worker about this real adventurer he met, while I was feeling like crap in the stall, emptying the contents of my stomach and just feeling really bad. After lunch we set off into the intense humid heat while the bathroom attendant waved us off.
We had harsh headwinds for the rest of the afternoon. We wanted to stop in Cosameloapan but it was 10 km off the route. We needed to find a bank to exchange more US dollars into Mexican pesos, but decided to push on and try in the next town, 60 miles away. By 6 pm we had only pedaled 55 miles in the intense headwinds. The welds on my lower water bottle holder snapped off so I carried it on my aero bars with a strap until the next rest stop where I was able to borrow a screwdriver from a guy selling ice cream off a small motorcycle. I removed the water bottle holder and put the metal hose clamps directly through it without the piece that normally screws into the frame.
Today was a very slow day, but we continued to ride on into the night, stopping briefly on the side of the highway admiring three separate thunderstorms in the distant night sky. We were surrounded by t-storms yet it was so safe and peaceful. The lightning flashes were so beautiful I made Deanna stop as I wanted to watch them and film a bit. These electric storms were so intense that lightning flashes happened up to 5 and sometimes 10 times per second for each separate storm. I had never seen anything like it. At night the weather was comfortably cool, no longer the intense heat and humidity of the day. It was a pleasure to ride into the night.
I got a slow leak flat at night and after inspection I decided to ride on it after putting in more air instead of changing the tube. While I was doing this a good size tarantula with a red body walked through but he was good enough to let me take his picture before walking off into the night. Tonight we stopped about 40 miles short of Minatitlan when it became clear to us that we were too sleepy to continue. I looked for a dirt road but couldn't find one, so at long last I stopped at a bridge and bushwhacked my way up to the top of it where a dirt road crossed the toll road. On the other side I found a connecting dirt road that led back to the highway, jumped the gate and went back to Deanna who was waiting with the bikes on the side of the road. We went back to the gate, and Deanna jumped over first while I handed each bike over to her. We went in a ways and decided to camp off the dirt road on cow trails so we wouldn't be so visible in the morning. Mosquitoes were plentiful, but luckily they didn't bother us all night. The ear plugs helped me sleep good the whole night despite the traffic of the toll road 50 yards away.
“Cows are amongst the gentlest of breathing creatures; none show more passionate tenderness to their young when deprived of them; and, in short, I am not ashamed to profess a deep love for these quiet creatures.”
- Thomas de Quincey
Out Of Pesos And Water
Aug 14: 40 miles short of Minatitlan, Mexico to 50 miles shy of Villahermosa, Mexico
110.0 miles, 10.6 average, 10 hours 15 minutes pedaling
We were up at 6:30 am today and shortly thereafter the mosquitoes forced us to pack up in record time and we started riding by 6:45 am just as a beautiful red sunrise was coming up over the horizon. In the daylight I could see my helmet was covered with spider webs from last night's bushwhacking. The spider webs are very strong and similar to our black widows back home.
Today we ran out of pesos and out of water. In southern Mexico merchants don't accept dollars like they do up north, closer to the US border. So I asked a Mexican if he could change an American dollar to pesos for us so we could buy bottled water, the only kind available at the small rest stop store. He agreed and handed me a 50 pesos note, worth 5 US dollars. I got 5 dollar bills from Deanna to give to him but he refused to accept it. I was almost brought to tears by his random act of kindness. I wonder how many Americans would do a similar kind deed for a non-English speaking Mexican in need in the US? I know that there are many, despite what the news shows us. He asked me questions about our trip and I answered him as best I could. Finally I took out the AAA map of Mexico which had our route highlighted. He liked that very much and showed it to his family and then we took a picture together holding the map open.
We made it to Minatitlan today where we were able to change $40 USD to pesos at the Soriana supermarket. That is still the only place we found that accepts US dollars but they have to be in very good condition, almost new. I tried changing more by going back to buy something else, but they refused the second time, saying I already changed $40. I bought 1/2 a large watermelon to hydrate with. I also found some white vegan rice for Deanna to eat with salsa and guacamole, both which were super spicy. I tried some of the salsa with avocado and it was intense. When I asked if it was spicy, they said "un poco" which means a little, but a little spicy to a Mexican means super spicy to Americans. I got some bananas and apples as well from the grocery store. I noticed today that the pound of walnuts I carried from home are probably starting to spoil as water has got in to them from the rain. We had a good ride into town this morning. The first 50 miles are always nice, but the rest is a slog in the mid-day heat and humidity.
Leaving Minatitlan we crossed the river over a scenic bridge with a beautiful scenic hut on the shore. Tonight we camped 50 miles shy of Villahermosa, right next to the highway but out of sight over the guardrail. Semi trucks passed by us all night 5 feet away, but we slept soundly with earplugs.
“Life is mostly froth and bubble;
Two things stand like stone:
Kindness in another’s trouble,
Courage in your own.”
- Adam Lindsay Gordon (1833-70)
Drunk
Aug 15: 50 miles shy of Villahermosa, Mexico to 50 miles past Villahermosa, Mexico
106.3 miles, 11.3 average, 9 hours 23 minutes pedaling
Today we woke up at 6:30 am local time. Before we left I changed 3 flats. I had a flat yesterday at night that I changed out this morning, and one flat the day before on the 13th. The front had 2 holes that I patched, the rear had one. One of the slow leak flats I had since Matamoros on day 5, so for the last 10 days I just put more air into the tire about once or twice a day. I chose to swap out the tires as well as we are about 1/2 through our trip and the rear tire is wearing down faster than the front. We started pedaling today at 8 am local time. At one of the rest stops we saw a Policia Municipal truck with 3 police officers in the back armed with machine guns. I got to talking with one of them and asked him if I could take a picture. First he said no, than he changed his mind and said yes, inviting me into the truck bed for a picture together. Even with all the violence they must be faced with every day I liked how human and trusting they still were to grant a gringo's wish by posing for a photograph.
My bike computers went haywire today while riding under some electric wire overhead. Their magnetic field was strong enough to mess up with my bike computers. I didn't figure this out at first and thought the bike computers were malfunctioning due to the batteries or weak contact points, but both of them were wireless. I tried putting in new batteries but still they behaved the same, indicating massive spikes in speed. Deanna advised to try resetting the bike computer. I reset my primary bike computer to see if that would help and it did not. The secondary bike computer didn't have a automatic start so the mileage on that was always less than the primary computer, due to me forgetting to start it after every rest stop. Unfortunately, resetting my primary bike computer also reset my overall trip meter. The difference in measurement between the primary and the secondary was a few miles each day. I didn't know which one to trust so I went with the lower number (secondary computer) to be on the safe side. Later I learned that the secondary computer was measuring incorrect as somehow it got switched to the second smaller wheel size, so I changed it back and after that they both measured pretty much almost the same. The secondary bike computer was on the wrong wheel size for about a week and during this time the two computers had a difference of 80 to 100 miles between them for total mileage. Since I reset my primary computer I will never know the exact mileage we did but I can say for sure that what I wrote down each day is not overinflated, rather underinflated, so more accurately, we rode about 100 miles more than the total figure states.
We made it to Villahermosa by 11 am with nice tail winds and Deanna leading. Most of the time I would lead in the morning but today Deanna was flying. In Villahermosa I bought bananas, apples, pears, 1/2 watermelon and pecans from Chedraui supermarket who accepted $20 USD from us and gave us change back in pesos. Villahermosa was one of the nicest cities we had ridden through. We passed a park where lots of vendors were selling things to tourists. I got 2 young coconuts for $1, cut fresh with a machete in front of me. After drinking the contents of the coconut milk the vendor scooped out the coconut meat and gave it to me to eat in a plastic baggie which I did so while riding out of the city, since rain clouds were starting to build up in the sky. The storm eventually caught up to us a few miles later and we stopped at a covered bus stop in a small town.
A few minutes later two young drunk Mexican guys riding together on a horse also came in to the bus stop to seek shelter from the rain. They were in good spirits and I asked them if I can take a picture of them, and after striking a pose flexing their muscles they agreed. They offered me a beer and I thanked them but refused. No one else was at the bus stop or around but cars were still driving by on the highway. The guy in the back of the horse got off to come and ask me something up close, way too close. He asked me if Deanna was my girlfriend or wife and I said no, and after I said it I realized how stupid it was of me to tell the truth in this case. He was eyeing Deanna and was obviously love struck. He was way to close for comfort, just a few inches from my face. I could smell the alcohol on his breath. The other guy on the horse wanted to exchange pesos for $1 USD, but I saw through that and I said I only had a few pesos left and no US dollars. He didn't seems to understand this and after asking a few more times, he gave up the idea of changing pesos to dollars and asked instead to give him a peso. I gave him a 2 peso coin and he replied in Spanish that it wasn't enough to buy a beer with, and motioned for me to give him more. Upon seeing this shift in our conversation I became more worried. I told them that the rain stopped enough for us to start riding again, and called out to Deanna that we gotta go. I gave the guy on the horse the few coins I had in my jersey pocket, which included a peso a penny and one nickel. While he was eyeing the nickel mysteriously we made our escape before things could get too interesting. As we left the guy on the ground called out to Deanna, "goodbye my love" in the little English he knew.
Outside on the road, the rain hadn't stopped. It was actually still pouring rain but we left before I could even put on my rain gear, so at the next break in the foliage about 100 yards later, I pulled over and put on my poncho and rain gear, which frankly was completely worthless since the silnylon and goretex were shamelessly used up on other adventures, but at least it kept me warm enough to keep riding happily. About an hour later it got dark but we continued to ride on into the night. We stopped for dinner at a roadside taco stand restaurant made with bamboo stalks for walls. Deanna got 6 burritos with beans and rice and guacamole and I got a salad. All this came out to 40 pesos, or the equivalent of 3 dollars and 33 cents. I noticed some movement on the bamboo wall and spotted a very small lizard. I took a picture of it and realized later that I had just caught it catching its dinner, a spider.
After dinner we continued to ride into the night. The rain let up temporarily and when we got too tired to stay awake we stopped at a bus stop to rest but decided to sleep there the for the rest of the night. This was the first time we attempted this and it worked out quite well as the bus stop also had side walls which kept us somewhat hidden from passing cars and trucks. Bus stops are located at the junction to every small town on the highway and the towns are so small, that even when there are houses near the bus stop, we felt safe, as no foot traffic every happened after dark. For the rest of our time in Mexico, bus stops become the preferred way to sleep when it rained or when we couldn't find good dirt road with a locked gate to jump over.
“I taste a liquor never brewed --
From Tankards scooped in Pearl --
Not all the Vats upon the Rhine
Yield such an Alcohol!
Inebriate of Air -- am I --
And Debauchee of Dew --
Reeling -- thro endless summer days --
From inns of Molten Blue --
When "Landlords" turn the drunken Bee
Out of the Foxglove's door --
When Butterflies -- renounce their "drams" --
I shall but drink the more!”
- Emily Dickinson
The Tortilla Factory
Aug 16: 50 miles past Villahermosa, Mexico to 15 miles short of Escarcega, Mexico
124.2 miles, 10.2 average, 11 hours 52 minutes pedaling
We woke up at 6:45 am and were out riding into the rain by 7 am. The nice thing about camping at a bus stop is that you can sleep without really setting up camp. Tearing down camp is much easier and faster too. By mid-morning the rain stopped and at the junction with Palenque ruins we veered off route to go into the town of Catazaja to get some bananas, mangoes, tomatoes, green onions, avocadoes and grapes. We skipped going to Palenque Ruins cause it was too far off route, about 10 miles, but in hindsight we should have gone as it's one of the most beautiful Mayan ruins in Mexico. I used up my last 100 pesos in town. The bank in Catazaja was very small and could not change US dollars to pesos or allow withdrawals from a credit card or debit card. We asked around where we could get some free drinking water and we were told there is a spout behind the bank. We looked but couldn't find it and asked again at a small one room tortilla factory with open front. The lady there told us where it was at but invited us to fill up our 5 bottles from her 5 gallon bottle instead. We took the offer with much gratitude. Inside the tortilla factory was very hot. They had an noisy oven that took in the raw product on one side and spit out hot tortillas in 30 seconds on the other side. It smelled so good inside. Fresh hot tortillas. Only two ingredients in the whole place, corn flower and water. I asked the lady how much a hot tortilla costs. She looked at me funny and smiled then gave me one for free, which I gave to Deanna. The look on Deanna’s face said everything. The lady told us that they normally sell tortillas by the kilogram (i.e. 2.2 lbs worth for 12 pesos or $1 USD). So Deanna and I pooled all our Mexican money together and we counted 6 pesos. "How many hot tortillas could we buy with 6 pesos?" I asked the lady in Spanish. She smiled and gave us almost a kilo, which is to say about a stack as high as wide as my fist. She wrapped them nicely for us and wished us good luck on our journey to Panama. I took a small piece from Deanna so my taste buds wouldn't die of curiosity but after chewing it for a bit and relishing its hot, delicious taste in my mouth, I spit it out. I was attempting this adventure on 100% raw vegan food and I wasn't about to ruin it with one cooked tortilla. The only misgiving that I have about doing this bike tour as a raw vegan is not tasting any authentic vegan Mexican food. The smells of food are everywhere and very titillating. It's even worse by the fact that my riding partner is vegan and eats up a storm every night when we stop at a restaurant or taco stand.
The distance betweens cities or towns is getting larger, about 100 miles from Catazaja to Escarcega with only a gas station or two in between where we replenished on water. There is hardly anything here for miles and miles, but the scenery is so beautiful. We passed through marshlands and swampy forests today with some pink Spoonbills. Part of the route today was on dirt road for a few miles as they were doing construction. I spotted a large 3 foot iguana there on the dirt road, but sadly it had become a casualty of our civilization as someone had just run over it. The sunset tonight was really amazing, clouds lit up in red hues like a painting in the sky.
Tonight we rode into the wee hours of the morning. I had a rear flat tonight that I patched. We tried to camp beyond a locked gate in a field but we spooked some cows or horses. Whatever animal it was, it let us know that it wasn’t happy with us by snorting loudly. I would have slept in a swamp, I was so tired, but Deanna wanted to leave immediately. Her voice sounded scared, one of two times I have actually witnessed her be scared of anything. But perhaps she had a gut feeling about this place that I didn't, so we jumped over the fence again and rode another hour into the night. We stopped at the first bus stop and slept there for the night.
“a house and a tortilla
are one
a man a woman and a tortilla
are one”
- Aaron Abeyta
Garlic
Aug 17: 15 miles short of Escarcega, Mexico to 30 miles short of Xpujil, Mexico
78.8 miles, 9.3 average, 8 hours 20 minutes pedaling
We woke ups at 5:30 am local time after only 2 hours of sleep, when a couple of local bicyclists whistled as they rode by. Somehow it is daylight already, and way too soon. We started pedaling by 6 am. I’m still losing some air slowly on the rear tire but it's slow enough of a leak that putting air into the tire once a day is enough. Maybe I had two flats on the rear but only patched one last night. It's faster to put in air at a rest stop than to change or fix the flat.
In Escarcega we changed money at the bank. Oddly enough this bank wanted to see a passport as well, so this took twice as long as it needed to. But next to the bank we rested in the shade of the grocery store where we got food. I bought bananas, frozen corn, frozen mango, avocado, raisins, almonds, and two 1/4 watermelons, once of which I gave back to the store cause I could only eat one. The funny thing is they charged me for the watermelon as if it was one piece, by weighing both of them at the same time, so when I went to return it they said I needed both pieces in order to get a refund. I asked them to take it back anyways as it was unopened and I didn't want to throw it away. It only cost $1 but in retrospect I should have given it to someone poor on the street. Funny thing is, I couldn't find anyone poor on the streets of Escarcega. I was the poorest person by far and I'm not sure anyone would take a watermelon from someone looking like me. By now I was dirty enough that I would get stares from people wherever I went, but especially at banks and supermarkets. Escarcega had lots of cargo tricycle taxis in the city. This is by far the most beautiful invention we have seen.
My left pedal started making weird clicking noises today. The bearings are probably shot, but just after I started to hear this we passed a sign that notified us of a bicycle/car/motorcycle mechanic, so we stopped and had them take a look. They tightened the bolts on the axle of the pedal and lubed it with old engine oil then put the cap back on. It worked good as new. They also had bicycle pedals for sale, a pair for $10, but they were flat pedals and not clipless. I thought about buying them for spares in case my pedal breaks completely but I didn't, as they were too heavy and I had no place to carry them. I trusted my intuition and my ability to ride even on the axle itself if the pedal should break completely.
At sunset we stopped on the side of the highway in a turnout and ate avocados, garlic and tomatoes. Deanna liked to eat avocados with garlic but maybe not as much as I did. One time while riding behind me about 10 yards back she asked if I had garlic and avocadoes for lunch. I said, "yes." She replied, "I though so. I smelled the garlic burp way back here." After the sun went down we stopped racing to maximize our hours of daylight, and when it got dark completely we stopped to eat at a roadside restaurant in the first town. Deanna had 3 plates of beans and rice, too much she said. We continued riding into the night after dinner and stopped 30 miles short of Xpujil.
"What garlic is to salad, insanity is to art."
- Augustus Saint-Gaudens, 'Reminiscences'
Homeless in Belize
Aug 18: 30 miles short of Xpujil, Mexico to just past Corozal, Belize
120.5 miles, 9.1 average, 12 hours 16 minutes pedaling
We got up at 5 am and started pedaling by 5:30 am. We are about 100 miles from Belize and really excited, despite the headwinds this morning. I can tell that this is going to be a very slow and long day already. We had headwinds most of the day and Deanna magnificently led all of it. Hopefully, this will change when we veer south to Belize. We skipped going to see the ruins of Xpujil as we are now racing against the clock to make it to Panama City in time for our flights. We stopped for bananas, mangoes, avocados, tomatoes and more bananas, then stopped for 2 coconut waters. I feel so stuffed with food. I pooped on the side of the road in a swamp. I had to go really bad.
At 8 pm we crossed over into Belize in the dark. There was no immigration checkpoint for leaving Mexico, or at least none that we saw. In Belize we went through the immigration building to be processed, then continued riding at night eventually making our way by surprise to an ocean park in Corozal. We had planned to take the main highway which doesn't go along the coast but a wrong turn led us to the town instead where we relished seeing the ocean again and feeling the cool breeze under palm trees. The best part was resting on the grass without mosquitoes. It was windy and warm, and the sound of the ocean waves against the wall lulled us to sleep on the grass. Not much later a thunder storm arrived which send us scurrying for cover. I found a bus stop next to the park that kept us dry. The winds were bring in the rain and luckily the bus stop had a rear wall as well as a roof protecting us from the onslaught of the wind and rain coming in from the ocean. We waited for the rain to stop, and after a while it let up momentarily only to send us running for cover back to the bus stop. We were so tired that we both fell asleep at the bus stop facing the highway in the middle of town. Neither of us wanted to put in any more miles today. Once we stopped riding late at night, even if it was just for a 5 minute break, we would usually fall asleep on the bench.
Close to midnight I woke up to see a black guy watching us from across the street. He looked like a homeless guy, much like ourselves. I went back to sleep and woke up about 1/2 hour later. He was still there, this time smoking a cigarette and sitting on a plastic bucket, still watching us. Then at one point he got tired of watching us and started to cross the street directly towards us. I woke up immediately, and called out to Deanna, saying, "Hey D, wake up, we gotta go." Deanna was in the darkness that the bus stop afforded us from the street lights. When the black guy walked over both of us were sitting up wide awake. I don't think he could tell she was a girl at night in the dark. He came over to talk to us and I stood up to greet him. In a black Caribbean accent he spoke in perfect English, "eh, man, how's it going? You guys enjoying your vacation?" Despite sleeping like hobos at the bus stop, we had rich gringos written all over us. I was scared shitless. I said we were, not taking my eyes off of him. Then he asked me, "you know Demon?" I didn't understand, so he repeated himself, this time more clearly, "you know Damon, you know the white guy over there," pointing to some guys at a park table a few yards away from us, "are you friends of his?" I took my eyes off of him and looked in the direction where he pointed, partly relieved that there were other people around, and even a white guy. I told him that we didn't know him. "Ok, enjoy your vacation" then he left, carrying his empty plastic bucket down the road. I was relieved that things didn't take a wrong turn. I'm not sure what would have happened had I not seen him walk across the street towards us. I didn't feel good about this midnight meeting so I suggested we ride out of town. An hour later we finally left the town and it's houses behind us. I found a dirt road that veered off into a field, which was hidden with tall grasses. The field itself we discovered was newly planted with sugar cane, about two feet high, but with lots of room to sleep in one of the rows. We rolled our bikes into the field to avoid being seen should anyone happen to drive down the dirt road in the early morning. At about 1am we went to sleep on damp ground, in hot and humid weather. We were in mosquito heaven.
"And homeless near a thousand homes I stood,
And near a thousand tables pined and wanted food."
- William Wordsworth
Peanut Butter Mud
Aug 19: just past Corozal, Belize to 21 miles short of San Ignacio, Belize
108.8 miles, 10.2 average, 10 hours 30 minutes pedaling
At 4 am I was woken up by rain falling on my face. A new thunder storm came in and soon we were pelted with rain. Deanna only had a bivy sack with a draw string closure for rain protection, so I suggested getting underneath my poncho tarp, with her holding on to two corners and me doing the same. This seemed like the best possible way to avoid getting soaked but the tarp was really small and the rain lasted long enough that I got soaked anyway. Perhaps it would have been better if we sat back to back while holding the corners with our hands and arms outstretched. Instead we tucked in the ends under us and grabbed only our knees like in an earthquake drill. By the time the rain stopped my back was soaked despite the silnylon tarp covering it, and wearing a silnylon jacket. Perhaps silnylon works well as a tarp or when it's new, but after a few years of use, my silnylon jacket and poncho tarp were pretty useless in the rain.
After the rain stopped we wrung out the water from our gear, packed up and started riding in the dark at 4:40 am. An hour later we were greeted by the sunrise. Mud also greeted us this morning, lots of mud. This old alternate highway we found out has a 6 mile section of dirt, which after the rain, it turned into a soft peanut butter type of mud. It took us 3 hours to negotiate this stretch, stopping every few yards to remove the mud from our wheels and brakes when they became to entrenched in mud that they could no longer roll. Eventually I borrowed Deanna's Allen wrench and removed both of my caliper brakes because with them on the tires would freeze up faster, and it was much harder to remove the mud. I rode like that until we got to the pavement, our bikes and ourselves looking like we had just finished a cyclo-cross mud-fest race. We stopped at a store to buy water and food but what we needed most was a hose. A customer took notice how painfully we were trying to clean our bikes with our water bottles and told us we can use the spigot on the side of this house a couple doors down. We were there and for a good hour cleaning our bikes and ourselves until they were both squeaky clean and lubricated.
Back on the road, we felt rejuvenated riding clean shiny bikes. We stopped in the town of San Jose to get some breakfast. I bought some bananas, one old coconut and a small watermelon which we shared. Before leaving we noticed that next to the restroom a banana tree and a coconut tree were growing side by side. If you like bananas and coconuts like I do, it looks like you could get most of your food for free here. We stopped again in the heat of the day to get some supplies from a very small store, and I enjoyed a short nap on a bench in the shade. Deanna was happy to see so many young girls riding bicycles, some as young as 8-years-old riding adult bikes.
We got more bananas from at a roadside store in Biscayne Village. We chatted with the owner of the store, Racquel Borland, a kind black lady with a big heart. She wanted to take a picture of us to start a bike touring wall in her store but didn't have a camera. I offered to take a picture with my camera and send it to her when we finished, which I did. The official language in Belize is English, so after 19 days of riding thru Mexico and trying to get by only on my measly Spanish, we felt spoiled to be able to communicate fully with the locals in Belize. Most of the people we saw were descendants of the Caribbean slave trade. As a country, it looked very poor. Mexico was a rich developed country in comparison. But we were happy to see that people in Belize rode bicycles both for fun and transportation. We saw a black cyclist hauling ass going the opposite direction we were going, and later a few more. Racquel told us they are training for a big bike race happening in Belize the next weekend. She also told us that most stores will be closed today, in protest. She told us that a week ago a 14-year-old Chinese girl was killed in front of her mother who owned a grocery store. Some black men came in and robbed the store and when they left with everything they wanted they turned around and shot the girl dead. Most grocery stores in Belize are owned by Chinese families and it seems that the native blacks do not like foreigners to live there and own stores. Last night while riding thru Corozal we saw a lot of Asian restaurants and stores which was sort of a novelty since we didn't see many in Mexico. We didn't see any Asians or black people in Mexico. So it was a little bit of a culture shock when we crossed over in Belize. We went for almost 3 weeks without seeing a single black person which was really odd. But in Belize white people are a very small minority despite everyone speaking English here. Mestizos or Latinos are also rare here. Despite all this we felt really welcomed into the country and all the locals we talked to were very friendly and helpful.
Belize is a lot flatter than I imagined, but very green and more beautiful. We passed C. Ray ranch, it had a wrought iron fence built around a bicycle. I liked it so much I stopped to take a picture. I think my friend Carl Ray would get a kick out of that. Then we passed a prison with a sign that said "Prison Gift Shop" next to the highway. Despite the gravity of the situation on the other side of the fence, for some reason I found this very comical. Later we stopped at a gas station to see if we could buy phone cards. The nice plastic phone cards of Mexico decorated with Saints were long behind us now, but we were able to get two of them on receipt paper. A black guy at the gas station with long dreads asked me where we were going. I told him Panama. He replied in a loud Caribbean accent, with a big smile on his face, while shaking his head in disbelief, "Maderfaker!!!" . That is classic.
In the town of Burrell Boom at the junction to the highway towards Guatemala we stopped again for bananas. There a lady at a fruit stand gave me 3 coconuts for free, cut up and scooped out the meat after I finished drinking up the contents. Chickens and turkeys were out and about freely without fences but they never went onto the road and always stayed on the grass or dirt. Her grand-daughter was holding a small yellow baby chick which I got to pet and take a picture of. We ate as much bananas and coconuts as we could and took the rest to go just after sunset. The lady told us where we could find a payphone nearby where we called home while dancing around to avoid mosquitoes.
The rest of our ride today was in the dark, but most of it with tailwinds through nice rolling hills, a real pleasure. The skies cleared enough to let us enjoy the stars while pedaling. The foliage was too dense and wet to sleep in and the mosquitoes to bothersome so we rode on well into the night. At one point I stopped to take a poop and walked into the forest, stepping in puddles of water and walking into a barbed wire fence despite navigating with my red LED rear light. Around midnight we stopped at a gas station, store and motel about 21 miles short of San Ignacio and 29 miles from the Guatemala border. I asked if they would allow us to camp in the back, and we were permitted to do so for free. For some reason there were no mosquitoes either. They must have gone to sleep already. We slept on the cement sidewalk in the back. A couple of dogs barked a few minutes but we were to tired to care. They stopped after they saw that we were there to sleep.
“It ain't no joke when a mama's handkerchief is soaked
With her tears because her baby's life has been revoked”
- Smashmouth, Walkin' On The Sun
Guatemalan Highlands
Aug 20: 21 miles short of San Ignacio, Belize to an old mountain cabin past Santa Ana, Guatemala
120.9 miles, 9.5 average, 12 hours 42 minutes pedaling
We were up at 5 am today in a dense fog and got rolling by the time it got light enough outside. I calculated that we need 118 miles per day average for the next 12 days to make our flights out of Panama City on September 1st. That seems doable with long days in the saddle, like 12 hours a day of pedaling. We are hoping for some tailwinds on the Pan-American Hwy which we will hit at the exit of Guatemala in a few days. Yesterday we had a mixture of crosswinds and headwinds until we reached the highway to Guatemala, a few miles away from Belize City which we skipped on. We are 29 miles from the Guatemala border this morning.
I rode and drafted off of two cyclists this morning, a guy and a girl, who were riding side by side despite the lack of shoulder. In Belize drivers don't seem to be very considerate of cyclists, but despite this, there are many cyclists on the road. I don't know if it's the bicycles that cause irritated drivers or if they were that way to begin with. Seems like a great idea for a study. But Belize is really mellow compared to riding in Phoenix where drivers seem to go out of their way to pass you within a foot. I asked the two cyclists from Belize why people in their country drive so mean. They said that the roads are old and not built for sharing with bicycles, but that doesn't stop anyone from riding. Just then a car passed by him really close. "Now that guy there, that guy is an asshole," he said. Despite that he continued to ride two abreast or side by side with his riding partner. I had found that sometimes taking more of the road than you need is enough of a hint to get drivers to change lanes when passing. If that doesn't work at least you have lots of room to get out of the way when someone decides to play chicken. But in 20 years of riding I've never met a driver who wanted to run over a cyclist, but I have seen quite a few that will either ignorantly pass too close, or sometimes purposefully. Because of that I ride with a mirror so that close calls and accidents can be avoided.
We stopped in San Ignacio to eat from a taco stand where big lady with her catcalls bid us to turn around and eat. Deanna got some rice and bean tacos with fresh tortillas. I tried to buy a bananas of a homeless guy there but he wouldn't sell it. He wanted money just the same but I wasn't willing to part with any of my money for nothing in return. Leaving San Ignacio the road climbs really steeply for 1/4 mile, so steep that we just shook our heads in disbelief and got off the bikes for the first time to walk them up the hill. At the last place we could spend our Belize money we pulled over at a small store which had a sign that read Quality Poultry Products, "Dis da fi wi chiken' " sold here. It think they meant to say that their chicken was so good it was like Wi-Fi but ended up saying it backwards. I didn't find anything worth buying so I kept the extra change from Belize to give away to friends. Their dollar coins are worth 50 cents in the US but they are worth much more to me because they are not round, they are octagonal and two-tone silver and gold. Near the border we also saw a white gentleman riding in a horse and carriage. I had to do a double take because he looked just like a Quaker. Later I was to find out that the Quakers of the US are moving to all parts of the globe, because it's too expensive in the US and because of overpopulation in the Quaker community.
The road before the border goes along a river in Belize. We passed by women who were washing clothes at the rivers edge. This is commonly done in poor countries but this is the first time I had ever seen this live, despite growing up in Romania. We got to the border of Guatemala at 10 am. It took us about 1 hour to be processed at the border in very intense heat and humidity. The exit fee was $19 to for Belize and $2.50 to enter Guatemala. We rolled across the border and were greeted by lots of vendors selling stuff on the side of the road, and Bob Marley singing loudly, "No Woman No Cry." Shortly after we were greeted by a nice rain shower to cool us off.
Guatemala is such a beautiful country, so far the most beautiful I have seen on this trip. Even after going through the other countries in Central America, Guatemala is still my favorite. The vibes are good here, and while poverty reigns supreme, people seem happy and friendly. The view of mountains, meadows and streams is so picturesque with horses and rural life. All the kids greet us on the side of the road, saying "gringo, gringo" or "bye-bye". English is not taught in the schools here in the small towns and villages, and "bye-bye" is all they know how to say in English, probably from movies. The Belize to Tikal road is not finished, there are still a few sections of dirt, about 15 miles total. The road was built by a donation from the United States it turns out. Another section of pavement was donated by Japan. It's almost funny to have 30 or 40 miles of brand new super nice asphalt leading to a dirt road and followed by another section of new pavement, but that's the way it was for us. Maybe someday they can pave the rest, if another country is willing to donate the money. The ruins at Tikal National Park are such a tourist attraction, it's amazing that they haven't taken some of the profits and put it in roads. The entry fee for Tikal was $40 entry fee for foreigners as of 2008, so we skipped it because we didn't have any time to spend sightseeing off the route on this bike trip. Tidal is about 20 to 25 miles from the highway and it is so big, they say you need 3 days to see it all. It is one of the best preserved Mayan ruins with incredible beautiful pyramids. The last section of dirt on this highway we hit in a rain shower. By the time we got to the pavement, we and our bikes were totally caked with mud. We laughed it off, it was too funny. Deanna had a flat on one of the first dirt sections. Had it not been for that we might have finished the dirt riding before the rain shower came, but it wasn't meant to be. We rode to the next town, situated next to a beautiful lake. A dirt road, one of the many alleys in town, led to down to the lake about 1/4 mile away. I talked Deanna into stopping at the lake to wash up. She didn't want to at first but I'm glad we did. Next to the lake was a horse grazing. On the shore a dug out canoe carved our from a tree trunk and a few wooden docks with straw roofs. What an idyllic place to stop at. We washed the mud and sand off ourselves and the bikes. The water was so warm, it felt like 90 to 95F. Deanna went all the way in the shallow water washing the dirt and sweat off her clothes and did the same to her bike by dunking it in the lake. I was more selective with my bike and didn't think it would be a good thing for the bearings, even if they were sealed. Both our bikes are steel, so later when we got home Deanna spend a week cleaning off the rust from her bike. I also didn't want to dunk myself in the water as we only had about 2 or 3 more hours of daylight left in which to dry our clothes while riding our bikes. After that it would become borderline miserable to ride in wet clothes in the Guatemalan highlands.
After washing our bikes we went back up to the road and I hoped and prayed to God that we wouldn't see any more rain and dirt together. Luckily that was the last bit of dirt we encountered as summer is monsoon season in Central America. We were almost dry by the time sunset came and we continued to ride into the night. We stopped in Santa Ana for dinner when it was fully dark. I got a salad with cucumber, onion and tomato and guacamole, lemon and coconut oil. Riding off into the night we continued to climb into the mountains. Around midnight we started looking for a place to sleep. I suggested jumping over a gate onto private property, as we had done so many times before, but Deanna didn't like the idea. Next I suggested sleeping in a corn field but it was wet and kind of muddy so we passed on that. The shoulder was very rocky on this stretch and didn't look very inviting so we kept going, climbing up into the low clouds. An hour later I noticed a dirt road to my right and called for Deanna to stop. "What?" she yelled out kind of mad. By now she must have been getting tired my "expert" stealth camping abilities. I was getting irritated myself that every option for stealth camping I would find tonight, she would say no. I showed her the faint dirt road without a gate. We walked our bikes in and looked around. We were in a very nice pasture or meadow, right next to the road. Farther in as we walked we could see the outlines of a cabin. Deanna wanted to leave, thinking that it was occupied, but it didn't look occupied to me. For one thing there were no tire tracks on the wet dirt. We got closer and saw that the cabin had barbed wire fence around it but no gate for entry. I understood this to mean that it was being preserved and on display for people to see. It probably had historical value or significance. We went over the barbed wire fence with our bikes and found the 2 room cabin more like a shack that a sheepherder would use. It had dirt floors. I took a tarp from one of the rooms and laid it on the ground outside and we both slept under the overhang. That was enough to keep us dry from the fog and dew. No barking dogs anywhere nearby so I don't think this was occupied anymore.
“Of which I'll share with you
My fear is my only courage
So I've got to push on thru
Oh, while I'm gone
No woman no cry”
- Bob Marley
Gas Station Camping
Aug 21: Mountain cabin past Santa Ana, Guatemala to the Texaco gas station at the 9/13 junction, Guatemala
107.5 miles, 9.7 average, 10 hours 59 minutes pedaling
We were up at 4:45 am in thick mountain fog with the crowing of a rooster. Maybe there is a farm nearby after all. We didn't stick around to find out, but packed up and headed out by 5:20 am local time. It was still dark out when we left. We both tried to take a picture of the cabin with flash but both failed miserably. The morning ride through the hills was so beautiful with scenic mountain views in broken fog.
We stopped in Delores at 7 am to eat breakfast, where 3-wheeled motorcycle covered taxis were lined up along the street. I bought bananas, a whole watermelon and 9 local apples. I ate the watermelon there and took the bananas and apples to go, stuffing them in my jersey pockets and under my lycra shorts. The apples I put in my stuff sack on the aero bars and some in the seat bag. Deanna bought 2 bags of white rolls (something like bread I think), peanut butter, jelly, 2 bags of chips, 2 salty bags of peanuts, and 2 Liters of Coke. I told Deanna that she should eat healthier than all the junk-food she was eating and she rightfully snapped at me, “I don’t tell you what to eat Adrian, so don’t tell me what I should eat!” She ate most of the food she bought and the rest she carried in her backpack.
The watermelon forced me to seek a bathroom really bad in town. Luckily they had one at the town center park, under the auspicious name of Sanitarios. Thus began my second bout with diarrhea. Further down the road we stopped so that I could rehydrate at a coconut stand. The old lady in charge handed me a machete and let me cut the coconuts by myself. This was great fun, but time consuming as I'm no expert with a machete. This was in fact the first time I had ever cut open a coconut with a machete. About 1/2 hour later I was done with two coconuts and Deanna was asleep. I paid for the coconuts and did not get back change, so I talked the lady into giving me two cucumbers for the price of my change.
Later we stopped for another coconut water and coconut meat. By this time I was craving coconuts to replenish the fat and muscle I was losing every day. I also bought 2 large avocados for 3 Quetzal, which is about 19 cents each. We had dinner in the first town after Lago Itzal, a beautiful huge lake that we got to see just after sunset from a large bridge. I had a salad of cucumber, tomato, onion, lime, olive oil and avocados. Of course it gave me diarrhea but it was good. The only thing I could keep down was bananas just when I thought I was feeling better, I would try something else to see if it would stay down. It didn't. The lady who owned the restaurant was very nice. She invited us to stay the night at the restaurant but we turned it down to pedal more miles into the darkness.
At the junction with highway 9 and highway 13 we stopped to find a place to sleep. There were two motel in this small junction town, one was not answering the door, the other I had to wake up at 11:30 pm local time. The owner first wanted 55 Quetzal ($7 USD), then 100 Quetzal ($12.50 USD) after she saw I was a gringo. I went back to the street to talk to Deanna who only had 80 Quetzal to her name. The motel wouldn't take US dollars or credit card. Deanna sent me back to negotiate. I went back and told the lady at the motel that 100 Quetzal was too expensive, and asked her if she could please take 80 Quetzal. She refused and told us the room was not 100 Quetzal but 150 Quetzal, that I misunderstood. Indeed the words for 55, 100 and 150 are very similar but I don't think I heard or understood incorrectly despite the late hour and long day on the bike. 55, 100 and 150 are Cinquenta cinco, Ciento, and Ciento cinquenta respectively. Outside the motel I talked to some police officers and they helped us get a place to camp at the Texaco gas station across the street who agreed to let us camp there, saying it was very safe and they had a armed guard on duty all night. We got a place in the back of the parking lot and went to sleep. A short time later it started raining so we moved our camp under the canopy next to the store where it provided shade for tables during the day, but awesome dry camping at night. This was our first time ever camping at a gas station, but we loved it so much it because our first choice for free campsites for the rest of the trip as the jungle is too thick and too wet.
“I ran my mouth off a bit too much oh what did I say
Well you just laughed it off it was all ok
And we'll all float on ok”
- Modest Mouse, Float On
Quirgua Ruins
Aug 22: Texaco gas station at the 9/13 hwy junction, Guatemala to Gas Station in Chiquihula, Guatemala
97.5 miles, 9.2 average, 10 hours 30 minutes pedaling
We woke up at 4:50 am local time and were pedaling by 5:30 am. I had diarrhea all day yesterday until this morning. El Salvador is 140 miles away but I don't think we'll make it unless we get some good tailwinds. Guatemala has the most climbing on the whole route and the climbs are steep and long. But we need 121 miles to make up for yesterday. We stopped at Quirgua Ruins which was 3 miles off route. I felt I needed to see some ruins and this was one of the closest to the highway we were on. The entrance fee to the Quirgua Ruins was 20 Quetzal for Guatemalans and 80 Quetzal for foreigners, which is $10 USD. We paid $10 USD each to enter and were told there are pyramids to see here. There were ruins to be sure, but the pyramid looked like it was 1/4 built up before they ran our of materials. We felt frustrated that we were ripped off . It was definitely not worth the $10 USD each to see these ruins. The pyramid was crappy and in ruins (pun intended). It was almost a complete waste of time and money. Only 2 other white tourists were at the ruins, and as they came in when we left. Despite my feelings towards these ruins, they are one of the country's most celebrated, even commemorated on one of Guatemala's coins. The ruins at Tikal National Park would have been a much better choice but it was 20 miles off our route and cost $40 USD (as of 2008).
In Los Anates we stopped for 12 bananas, 4 apples and 1 watermelon. I ate the watermelon and took the apples and bananas to go. The market in Los Anates was crazy with people, they had both an indoor and outdoor market in the hot sun. I went to the bank in Los Anates and took out 100 Quetzal. I was sort of amazed that my debit card actually worked here. I should have got more money out as 100 Quetzal is only $12. I figured that was enough to last me until I got to El Salvador but the ATM fee for this international transaction is about $5 USD.
Shortly before 5 pm the rain started. Around 9 pm we stopped for a break at the gas station in Chiquihula to get out of the rain. We stayed at the plastic tables under the canopy. I ate some bananas and raw peanuts for dinner. We each took a separate table so that we would have space to put our head down and rest for a few minutes until the rain stopped. We both fell asleep and at 11 pm the gas station workers and security woke us up and told us to go as they were closing up for the night. I asked them if it was ok if we stayed a little longer to wait out the rain storm. They told us it would rain all night so I asked them if we could camp there. They agreed provided that we left by first light. I told them we would wake up by 5 am and they were ok with it. I went back to sleep resting my head on the table while sitting on a plastic chair. Deanna did the same. We were way to tired and sleepy to attempt setting up camp. The weather was warm and comfortable even at night during a rain storm. I went to sleep with my helmet on. It was more comfortable to sleep with it on while resting the side of my head on the table. Deanna took off her helmet while she slept with her head on a different table, her back turned towards me.
“Cats sleep anywhere, any table, any chair.”
- Eleanor Farjeon
Grand Mal
Aug 23: Gas Station in Chiquihula, Guatemala to Texaco gas station near San Cristobal Frontera, El Salvador
66.5 miles, 7.9 average, 8 hours 30 minutes pedaling
In the middle of the night I woke up to very loud and piercing scream. It was the scariest thing I have ever heard. My hear stood up on the back of my neck and head. It sounded like a barking Chihuahua, a pig being slaughtered, and a cow being branded with a red hot iron, all at the same time. Deanna was sitting up in her chair pushing the table away. She seemed to be looking under the table. In my tired and sleepy state, I thought it was a small dog barking and chewing on her pant leg. I asked her if she was ok but got no response. I asked again and still no response. Deanna kept pushing the table away and then turned stiff all of a sudden and fell sideways from her chair, her head hitting the gravel on the ground and ending up face down in violent spasms like a fish out of water. Only then did I see that she was having a grand mal seizure. I cursed myself for not realizing it sooner as I knew of her uncontrolled epilepsy despite the anti-seizure medication she was taking. I got up and rushed to her aid, holding her head in my hands to protect her face from hitting the rocks on the ground. I looked at my watch and saw it was 12:05 am PST, so 2:05 am local time. Her whole body contracted like one giant muscle, arching her back, neck and head up into the air while struggling to breathe, then relaxing, over and over again. I didn't try to hold her, but kept sheltering her face from hitting the ground. The armed guard from the gas station came over with his guard dog to see what was the matter and I explained to him that she was having a seizure. He left us alone and I continued protecting her face so she wouldn't slam it against the ground between muscle spasms. I got the weirdest feeling that I wasn't holding the face of a beautiful young girl in my hands, but the head of an injured cow or similar animal writhing in pain. It's almost as if she was no longer human, but an injured animal on the road or in the slaughterhouse. Ten minutes later the seizure stopped and after a few seconds of calm I told Deanna "It's ok, you just had a seizure." She arched her back up and with really huge white eyes, like a cow being tortured and slaughtered, looked at me and said "what?" than relaxed her back and fell to the ground. I told her again that she had a seizure and again she arched her back up and looked at me with those huge eyes, where the whites were more prominent than the pupil, and asked "WHAT?" This repeated a couple more times before I got it through my thick head that the seizure wasn't over. So I shut up and said not another word, while the seizure and muscle spasms continued for another 1/2 hour. When it stopped I let her head rest on the ground while I grabbed her sleeping pad, and with her help put it under her for some cushion and she went to sleep. She woke up an hour later, got up and walked over to her bike to get something. I told her that she had a seizure, and she matter-of-factly replied in a tired voice, "yeah, I know." We went back to sleep until 5 am then woke up and packed up. I didn't expect to do any riding today, but Deanna said she felt a lot better after this seizure than she normally did after one of similar length and she was ready to ride. I on the other hand was not ready to ride yet, and made 3 or 4 trips to the bathroom to completely empty the contents of my stomach out with diarrhea. Deanna says she feels good. Me, I feel so, so. I had 2 bananas for breakfast and nothing else. Combos are not good now. Only bananas keep me on the road and off the toilet. Hopefully they stay down.
We headed out by 6 am local time. I asked directions before we left and realized that we unknowingly stopped at the gas station just past the junction to Ipala, which we intended to take instead of going straight to Esquipulas as we originally thought. The climbing in Guatemala is crazy. Leaving the gas station we climbed up into the mountains towards Ipala. By 9:30 am we were still climbing. Deanna, as expected was low on energy due to the seizure, and walked a good portion of it. I waited at the top for her for about 15 minutes. The views were incredible from up there and so green. The clouds were only a few hundred feet above us now. After Deanna caught up to me we took a short rest break. She had dried blood on her mouth from biting her tongue and lips during the seizure.
I confided in Deanna that maybe we should have chosen smaller gears for the incredibly steep climbs of Guatemala or maybe a geared bike. “No way Adrian! Geared bikes are for old people,” she said. “And just what exactly is old?” I asked her. “Over 40,” she replied. “Well, I think you will come to change your mind when you are 40,” I said. “I don’t think I will make it to 40,” she said. I was reminded of the brutal fact and uncertainty that is reality for Deanna. I hope that will never happen so soon, but regardless of what the future holds, I think Deanna will make a positive mark on the world long before then. In my mind she already has. Whether one lives a long life or healthy life, that is irrelevant compared to the good they do for the world.
We continued on and joked about how we should change the name of our tour from "Double Vegan Shot of Latin Fixie Expresso" to "Ball Busting & Ass Wasting Away Tour". We stopped at a fruit stand to buy some local fruit. We got some Anona (called Cherimoya in the US) and they were so yummy with pink flesh, 2 for $1. They were really sweet and delicious with a really nice fragrance. Even the bees loved them. In the US they sell for $4 each, they are very rare and most people have never even heard of them. At the fruit stand they also sold Tzunsas, a type of fruit that tasted like pumpkin pie. I bought one for just as cheap as the cherimoya. The bees loves this fruit as well and didn’t bother us. They were round about the same size as an orange, but with brown skin and a large round seed that left only about 1/4 inch of fruit flesh between it and the skin.
In Agua Blanca we stopped to get something to drink for Deanna but the store wouldn't take US dollars. I went into town about a mile and changed some money at the bank while Deanna stayed to take a nap. The town was really beautiful, with cobblestone streets and white, twin-towered Catholic church. I got back to where I left Deanna and she bought a Monster energy drink to keep her awake. As expected on a raw food diet I didn’t need caffeine to stay awake during the day, even with the minimal sleep we were getting at night, but I usually was first to call it quits late at night. Deanna on the other hand needed at least 2 to 3 Coca Colas or a Monster drink each day to stay awake. Even though she knew caffeine may trigger a seizures for someone with Epilepsy, they were also great for curing the depression she felt from her anti-seizure medications. I can understand her refusal to live a sheltered and safe, yet boring life because among the list of things that may trigger seizures is also lack of sleep and extreme fatigue from endurance events -- there very things we were doing on this adventure day in and day out.
Later we stopped at another large fruit stand and I bought Leeches, 12 for $1, and a large cup of fresh squeeze sugar cane juice for 5 Quetzals (63 cents), squeezed in front of us with a mechanical press and nothing else added. It was so sweet and delicious. It's too bad we are leaving Guatemala soon, it is so beautiful here. We stopped to buy a phone card but in Guatemala nobody uses them for pay phones, they all have cell phones. The pay phones don't use calling cards here and they are very rare. The gas station let us use their personal cell phone and charged us 63 cents for 4 minutes to the US. We were very grateful. Both of us called home. The people here are so nice. I vowed to come back with a car or motorcycle and spend more time among the people and ruins, but if I have time I would prefer to come back on a bicycle.
Today was a slow day with a lot of climbing. Near the border with El Salvador a beautiful lake appeared with fishermen in dugout canoes and green mountains for a backdrop. Before crossing the border we both had a big dinner at a taco stand in Guatemala. Deanna was stuffed with 3 plates vegan beanless tacos and I had a huge salad made of vegan side dishes and avocados. At 6:30 pm we crossed over into El Salvador in the dark at San Cristobal Frontera on the Pan-American Hwy. In the first town we stopped at a restaurant, near a street sign that read Pan-American Highway, the smell of pupusas grilling next to the street was too much for my curiosity. It turns out they are like corn tortillas only thicker and smaller and filled with either meat and cheese or with beans if you are vegan, and grilled. They smelled so good, I bought one for 35 US cents but Deanna was too stuffed to eat it. I tasted a little piece out of curiosity and then spit it out saving the rest for Deanna, but she didn't want to eat it cold later. We stopped at the first gas station in El Salvador and camped for the night after the shortest mileage day of the tour with the most climbing.
“Hello
I've waited here for you
Everlong
Tonight
I throw myself into
And out of the red, out of her head she sang
Come down
And waste away with me”
- Dave Grohl, Everlong
Lost and Saved in El Salvador
Aug 24: Texaco gas station at San Cristobal Frontera, El Salvador to Texaco gas station in Usulutan, El Salvador
126.0 miles, 11.0 average, 11 hours 19 minutes pedaling
We woke up at 5 am local time. I changed a rear flat with a new tube and we were on the road by 6:15 am. Deanna didn't want the pupusa from last night so I threw it away, I couldn't eat it since it was cooked. I had bananas, one Anona and one avocado for breakfast. That morning I also ate a Marañon Japonesa (Japanese Apple) from a fruit stand. These red apples are small like a roma tomato, with a texture between that of an apple and a pear, and a taste that is rich in fragrance like a rose, a little tart but delicious. Later we stopped to get some coconuts for 60 cents each. El Salvador uses only US money so we never ran out of local currency. We think it's funny that people here don't speak English but they use only US money. Nevertheless, we got alone fine on my measly Spanish and everyone was very friendly with us.
We stopped for a rest break when we saw a sign for Organic, but it turned out the only thing organic was a store that sold cosmetics. I couldn't find anything to eat there so I had some of my apples with peanuts. Deanna found some vegan sherbet ice cream and got two of them. I found some canned Iguana Meat and took a picture because I didn't think anyone would believe me. In the capital of Sal Salvador to waited out a thunder storm at the supermarket where we took a lunch break. The teller inside wanted to give me free detergent samples. I tried to tell him that I'm riding my bike thru Central America and even though I look like I could use a wash, I can't use it unless there is a Laundromat nearby. He didn't understand and reminded me again that they were "gratis" or free. I laughed and gave up. I tried calling home but the pay phone didn't work with coins. They don't have calling cards for pay phones in El Salvador either. Everyone is on cell phones. We are the only ones poor enough or cheap enough to use pay phones. I talked to a local by the name of Freddy Lopez outside the supermarket who was curious about our ride. I asked him where I could get some El Salvador Colones since they only use US money. He told me that maybe I would find some at the bank, but not being satisfied with his own answer he went inside every shop until he got me a 5 cent Colones to have as a souvenir from El Salvador. Then he helped me out with the phone seeing that I couldn't call home. He let me borrow his cell phone after buying a phone card for his cell phone for $1 and said that should be worth 10 minutes. The $1 phone card for his cell phone was not really a phone card but a credit which he received via infrared waves transmitted through a device from a cell phone stand that sold pre-paid cell phones and cards. I thought this was very neat and green. So for 10 minutes I used Freddy's phone to call home to my wife while paying only $1. How neat is that? Freddy gave me his phone number and asked me to look him up the next time I'm in San Salvador. Than he gave me directions on how to leave the capital city and continue on our journey. The Pan-American Hwy is not signed in the city so we just kept heading towards cities and towns that it goes through. I asked twice for directions to stay on the Pan-American Hwy and we headed in the direction of the airport where the Pan-American Hwy goes by. About 2 hours later we found ourselves in the front of the airport and thought that was strange as a highway would never go directly to an airport. I asked directions again and found out we had veered about 20 miles off course, and we were now near the coast of Sal Salvador at Las Flores. It turns out that there is an airport right off the Pan-American Hwy, but only a very small one, and the signs we saw directing us towards the airport was for the Aeropuerto Internacional de El Salvador at Las Flores. From there we were only about 5 miles away from the coast and we were tempted to stop riding and just relax at the beach. But we went back to the highway and took the coastal route through El Salvador, via Hwy 2, stopping for the night at the Texaco gas station in Usulutan at 11 pm local time. The security guard there let us camp in the gas station garage. He even went to far as to sweep the floor for us with a broom which was very touching. Such random acts of kindness I will never forget.
"See to do good, and you will find that happiness will run after you."
- Helen Keller
Cat Calls
Aug 25: Texaco gas station in Usulutan, El Salvador to Texaco gas station just before Choluteca, Honduras
122.0 miles, 10.4 average, 11 hours 40 minutes pedaling
We woke up at 4:30 am local time. The security guard came to see us off. He brought his bicycle to show us. It was a beautiful green mountain bike with fenders, which I could tell he was very proud of. I took a picture of him with his bicycle and the shotgun he wore with a shoulder strap, making sure the shotgun was visible in the picture. We started pedaling by 5 am just as it was starting to getting light outside. We are shooting for Honduras today after intersecting the Pan-American highway again. Deanna's rear tire is starting to wear into the thread. Her hands are full of calluses and torn skin as she doesn't use gloves or padded handlebar tape. She uses medical tape to wrap her handlebars and most of that is coming off from the intense friction of riding.
I ate breakfast today for 50 cents by buying 5 bananas. I also ate some apples and raw peanuts. Deanna and I filled up on pupusas and coconuts respectively from food vendors on the side of the highway near the border with Honduras. They didn't have vegan beans, except for one small package which they used for solely for Deanna. When she wanted more they told her they are out of vegan beans, so she ordered plain pupusas with nothing in them. The cook thought this was very funny and thought we were joking because she didn't start making them until I went back to check, then saying that those are not pupusas, they are "tortillas" while laughing. I filled up on 2 coconut waters, about one liter worth, and the meat from 3 coconuts.
At the border with Honduras we paid a $3 entry fee. While waiting in line we met the film crew of a documentary. They were filming the adventures of a $400,000 electric car's journey from Alaska to Argentina. The car gets 300 mile range and is fully electric. It looks like a Formula 1 race car because in fact it was Formula 1 race car that they bought for $20,000 and then retrofitted it with electric motor and batteries. The team is made up of university students from England, and the car and everything in it was donated. The batteries are from China and they cost $60,000. They spent about 3 months on the road to get to Honduras so it looks like they are slower than us. Though they were in front of us at the border we passed them as they stopped to film on the bridge. They passed us later that night in San Lorenzo. In that town we saw our first bike path that was separate from the road but we continued to ride on the highway as it was less bumpy. Also, bike riders in Central America don’t use lights, and even with our bright dynamo powered lights we still had some close calls with pedestrians walking at night on the shoulder or bicyclists riding at night in the opposite direction but using the same shoulder of the road we did.
The literature on Central America warned us about the cat calls in Mexico. Similarly in Honduras the local boys and teenagers are very vocal. Most of the kids would call out gringo or "bye bye". This made us feel unwanted but later I found out from a guy in the US who is from Honduras that the kids say that because that's the only English they know. We figured that we could hide better our gringo identities under cover of darkness, but our bright dynamo lights gave us away. The local bicycle riders had no such expensive equipment on their bike and rode at night without lights. So we still got cat calls and gringo even at night from kids on the side off the highway. One was brave or drunk enough to even yell out "socke my deeke" as we rode by. His English was really advanced.
At a gas station we stopped to buy water that night and a pair of young boys greeted us. They were still working at night, washing car windows at the gas station. They were brothers and about 5 and 7 years old. When we left Deanna gave them some of her snacks and they thanked her with big bright smiles.
We stopped for the night at 9 pm local time and camped at a Texaco gas station just before Choluteca, Honduras and about 33 miles from Nicaragua. That is 3 nights in a row camping at a Texaco gas station. There was no canopy at this gas station but they let us camp on the side of the building on the sidewalk that looked like it also doubled as the latrine.
It doesn't matter what I wear
Cause I can be a complete mess
and Honk, honk….'you FINE'
- Amalia Ortiz, Cat Calls
Iguana
Aug 26: Texaco gas station just before Choluteca, Honduras to La Paz, Nicaragua
130.4 miles, 10.0 average, 12 hours 53 minutes pedaling
I felt a slight sprinkle during the night but no rain. At 4 am local time I was woken up by a guy peeing next to me. He laughed and told me he was surprised to see that no one robbed us yet. I had to take a dump really bad, and by the time I made it behind the building, down a treacherous slope I almost pooped my pants. In reality as I found out later, I actually did, but didn’t know it then as it was too dark. So after a I pooped and washed properly with soap and water, I put on my cycling shorts and unknowingly sat in poop for the rest of the day and developed quite a rash. We started riding at 4:45 am today and crossed into Nicaragua at 9 am. It took about 1 hour for the border processing and $12 USD for entry into Nicaragua. I was starving for food. Inside Nicaragua I found only some small mangos. They were so small I thought they were apricots at first. I bought some and ate what little fruit they contained as most of it was seed. I ate it skin and all. I got 5 small mangos and 2 green guavas. That lasted me enough to get to the first town where I bought a watermelon which I ate there and 5 bananas to go. Later I stopped and got another watermelon from a fruit stand to hydrate. It was very hot today, easily over 100F. In the middle of nowhere, far from any town, we passed a guy on a cargo tricycle selling crushed ice with syrup poured on top. We stopped him and Deanna got one. That was nice.
Later we stopped at a gas station to buy bottled water but I was told that I couldn't go inside by the security guard. I laughed and though he was joking. He laughed too but he was serious. I asked him why and he said I need pants. It was incredibly hot. I wasn't about to put on pants to go inside a Catholic gas station mini mart even if it had a/c. I sent Deanna inside and asked her to buy us some water since she always wore Capiline pants underneath her shorts. I guess it's true about the pants. The farther south you go on a bicycle the more conservative the people are. I had heard stories of this before but didn't think much about them. Another time I was told to zip up my jersey to go into the immigration office at the border post. I was dripping with sweat but I complied, I needed the stamp. I normally rode with my jersey fully unzipped to let the air cool me off as I rode, but in stores I would always zip up, just the look of me with dirt, grime and sweat was enough to make people do a double take.
There are plenty of local cyclists here. They ride old mountain bikes but have no problem showing off and passing us. Even small kids that haven't even hit their teens can easily pass us. I can only imagine how strong and fast they would be on a road bike. I passed a small boy who was standing on the side of the road with a large iguana on the ground. I stopped to take a picture and noticed that its legs and mouth was tied with rope. I asked if it was for food and he said yes. Deanna rode by earlier ahead of me and said the same boy held it up for her to buy. I didn't think of it at the time but I should have bought it, not to eat, but to release it back into the wild. I have many regrets about this now.
We made it to La Paz, which is past Leon, but the last two hours of it was in a rain storm. All my gear was wet and I was soaked to the bone as my rain gear is practically useless in a long downpour. I would have been better off with an umbrella. Deanna got a rear flat in the rain at night and changed to a new tire as well. She also changed the front tire out in the first town in Nicaragua today. We got to La Paz after midnight local time in pouring rain. The gas station was closed and didn’t have a security guard. It was a very small town and we had some rain shelter there but we decided to see if there was anything else where we could sleep as we didn't feel too secure sleeping next to the road. They also had loud music playing from the open but barred window inside which was very weird as the place was deserted. We asked at a bar if there was another gas station in town and they said no. We asked if there was a motel and they gave us directions to it. Still pouring rain we rode another 1/4 mile until we found the motel sign in front of a house, hidden by trees. We knocked and were greeted by two large barking dogs at the gate to the courtyard. The proprietor came out and invited us in after he locked up the dogs and showed us the "matrimonial" room as they call it here, with one bed. The room was $12 which Deanna happily paid so she took the bed and I took the floor after I took a shower. I am low on food and only have one apple, raisins and almonds left. The almonds soaked and sprouted in the rain for 2 hours which was very nice. But I need to find a grocery store. I'm losing too much weight I fear. Deanna was already asleep by the time I got out of the shower.
“Primitive, watchful, unmoving,
the iguana has no self
truer than itself.
It is its own metaphor.
And its glittering scales
attract my eye
even as you press my palm
and whisper good bye.”
- Bradley Steffens
Vegan Cupcakes
Aug 27: La Paz, Nicaragua to Rivas, Nicaragua
105.9 miles, 10.3 average, 10 hours 42 minutes pedaling
I got up at 5 am and woke Deanna up. She looked like she could easily sleep much more but we had places to go. We left the motel at 6 am and were told that we could find a market in the first town on our route since nothing was open in La Paz this early. We stopped in the first town which was called Nagarote around 7 am. I wanted some fruit and nuts. I found only bananas, one dragon fruit and two very young coconuts with no meat inside. We waited for the Pali grocery store to open at 8 am. When they did, I went inside but didn't find any raw nuts so I didn't get anything except water. I noticed their receipt was made by Wal-Mart. It turns out they are owned by Wal-Mart.
In the next small town we passed I found another dragon fruit to eat but nothing else. We rode by Lake Nicaragua and skirted the capital city of Managua where we stopped to eat at Subway of all places when we got too hungry and couldn't find a grocery store on the route. It turns out the grocery store was another 1/4 mile up ahead. At Subway I ate a salad with veggies, pickles and olive oil and vinegar for dressing. After lunch at Subway we rode up to the grocery store, crossed the busy road and I bought a watermelon, 3 coconuts and bananas. Later Deanna reluctantly told me that my salad back at Subway was not raw. It included processed salt in the pickles, which is cooked to thousands of degrees. To be honest, I was kind of disappointed that she caught that and didn’t say anything at the time. I don’t need politically correct friends. I need honest and real friends, to keep me honest and real. If Deanna was unaware that a certain food was not vegan, I would certainly tell her so, no matter how hungry or emaciated she looked. I was so hungry and tired, I neglected to think clearly about the salt in pickles, though in the back of my mind I knew it was there. I consciously opted out of the canned cooked veggies like olives and corn on my salad. I also refused any added salt to the salad, choosing only pepper instead. I was so upset with myself that I vowed to do my next tour without salt as well, not even raw sea salt or Himalayan rock salt.
A couple other times I made similar mistakes while buying peanuts in the supermarket. I specifically looked and avoided all nuts that were “tostada” or roasted. Raw nuts were a difficult thing to find in general, even in supermarkets. I tasted bulk peanuts to see if they were raw, and two peanuts were actually ingested before my brain processed that indeed they were roasted, but I never bought anything that was cooked simply because I had nothing else to eat. Even as a raw vegan who travelled ultra light without even a backpack, I found plenty of things to eat that were raw vegan. Likewise Deanna found more than enough to eat as a vegan.
The climb out of Managua was long and steep. We didn't have maps after Guatemala, so we tried to stay on the Pan-American highway at all cost, even if there was a shorter or less steeper way. We were told about an alternate route out of Managua but didn't even try to find it for fear of getting lost or getting too far off route. In El Salvador I got a map from a gas station of their country, but even with a map we still got off route in El Salvador. Maps were very hard to find in general. Stores and gas stations didn't carry them, and told us to go to a "libreria" or book store. On the climb out of Managua we got caught in a thunder storm. I pulled over to the side of the road next to the ruins of a house that looked like they would offer minimal cover from the rain, but instead I chose to stay close to the road under a large tree where I put on my rain gear and waited for Deanna. A few minutes later Deanna rode by in pouring rain by not wearing any rain gear and I called out to her and waved her over to join me. She didn't think that was such a good idea and seemed angry with me. "What the hell, are you crazy? Nobody stops in a thunderstorm under a tree! Come on, let’s go!” " she yelled at me from across the road while still riding. I debated whether to join her or wait out the storm under the tree. After a few minutes of pondering my predicament and hers, I started riding in the rain after Deanna, while the thunder from lightning strikes echoed across the mountains. I thought this was by far the craziest thing I had ever done on a bicycle and lived to tell about it. Being that I was on a steel frame bicycle, I didn't know how much longer my luck was going to hold out in this thunderstorm. About a 1/2 hour later I came up on a covered cement bus stop where lots of people were trying to stay dry. Deanna was on the other side of the road under her own personal bus stop. Soaked to the bone, I chose to stop at the one closest to me, but after a while I joined her on the other side. "Thank you for not stopping back there," I said to her. "Now I'm fully soaked too." She was obviously not in a good mood, and started yelling at me "what the hell do you care, it's not like you are wearing cotton in a rain storm." She was wearing cotton shorts over her capiline long pants. I didn't feel like arguing anymore but waited out the storm. Both of us proceeded to wring out our socks, pants, shirts and jackets as best we could. The lightning and thunder kept us under the bus stop for another hour or so. One bolt of lightning got so close that it sent shockwaves through my body. Pretty scary stuff. I'm glad that we found a place to stay out of the rain.
At the top of the 860 meter pass we were greeted with cold fog. I bought some plastic bags from a roadside fruit stand for the cold descent. Deanna rode without gloves. At the bottom of the descent we stopped in the town of Diriamba and I tried to figure out exactly how many miles we have left to Panama City at an internet café, while Deanna got 2 plates of beans and rice from a roadside taco stand. I ate some coconut for dinner at the Internet Café. I found that it would be impossible for us to make our flight on Sept 1st. We had done only 60 miles by sunset so far today, and even if we were to put in another 45 miles after dark, we only had 4 days left to ride and put in 645 miles to Panama City or an average of 161 miles per day. We had a hard time putting in 125 miles per day on fixed gear bikes, let alone 161 miles. And the rain was more and more intense the further we rode south. Still, a glimmer of hope remained. We decided to try and ride to the border of Panama in 3 days, which was only about 400 miles away. We felt we might be able to do this in 3 days at 133 miles per day and leave the last day to travel by bus thru Panama. Deanna had talked to her father who had some inside knowledge about the buses in Central America and he recommended for us to take a bus from the capital of Peru to Panama City since it was a non-stop bus. The buses in small towns rarely go farther than the next city, so we would have to hop from bus to bus in each city.
That night we rode another 45 miles to the city of Rivas which was alive with traffic, people and music at 10:30 pm on a Friday night. We passed on camping at the gas station with so much noise and people around and kept riding. On the outskirts of the city in a quiet and dark neighborhood we passed a restaurant that had the gates of its courtyard still open at 11 pm. We walked in and asked if we could camp in their beautiful courtyard. Sergio showed us where we could camp out of the rain. His sister brought us delicious vegan cupcakes to eat and hot cocoa. I gave Deanna mine. We camped under the roof overhang of the restaurant to stay out of the rain. It rained all night.
“A bolt of fear went through him as they thundered through the sky
For he saw the Riders coming hard and he heard their mournful cry”
- Johnny Cash, Ghost Riders In The Sky
Bike Crash
Aug 28: Rivas, Nicaragua to Bajages, Costa Rica
90.1 miles, 10.0 average, 8 hours 59 minutes pedaling
We woke up at 5:15 am. It was still dark out. I woke up Sergio who promised he would wake up at the same time to unlock the bathrooms for us. The first thing a vegan does in the morning is to run to the bathroom to take a dump. He only has about 2 minutes before he can no longer hold it. A raw vegan has less than a minute before he soils his underpants. Sergio showed us the way to the bathroom which he unlocked. I noticed he unlocked the ladies restroom first, so I asked him where the men's restroom was. He told me in Spanish that it's ok, that there were two stalls in the women's bathroom. I didn't have time to explain that Deanna and I were not a couple, so I ran into the women's bathroom at the same time with Deanna and got into the adjacent stall. What followed for the next few minutes was the most ridiculous sound of human thunder ever produced in co-ed stereo. I walked out of there feeling like that was one of the most awkward moments I have ever experienced.
We left the restaurant at 6 am and started riding in the rain. We passed a house that had a cute spotted piglet in the front yard. As usual, they were not chained or tethered to a tree or post. Living next to the highway, they had the common sense not to venture onto the pavement. I stopped and took some pictures of the piglet and his mama. We entered Costa Rica at 9:30 am local time. The border greeted us with liquid mud but at least it stopped raining for the time being. Nicaragua exit fee was $2 and a long line. There was also a separate police exit fee for Nicaragua of $1. Costa Rica had no entrance fee and no lines. I converted Nicaraguan cordobas to Costa Rican colones at the bank located at the border. I changed $6 of Nicaraguan paper money and also $1 of Nicaraguan coins. Deanna changed money with the money changers for about he same rate as the bank. The only difference I could see is that the money changers don’t accept coins as it becomes to heavy to carry after a while. At the border I got 2 fresh squeezed Orange Juice, sold in plastic bags with a straw, for $1. Later we stopped in La Cruz to go to the grocery store. My first impression is that Costa Rica is expensive. Even if I look past the prices that are in the thousands since $1 is about 500 Costa Rican colones. I bought 13 bananas, one coconut and one bag of 6 to 9 apples. Deanna asked me to get her the cheapest white bread from the store. The cheapest was actually whole wheat bread which I though it was hilarious, but when I went to pay for it the price didn't correspond and they refused to honor the cheapest price tag (which actually described the whole wheat bread) of 625 colones that I saw under the bread. So they gave me their cheapest white bread instead which still rang up for 100 colones more than the cheapest price tag for bread said. The manager ended up paying me the difference out of his own pocket which I thought was funny.
The rain started again about 10 am and continued on into the night. This was by far the wettest day of our trip and also the most dangerous. The roads in Costa Rica are very narrow with only about 1 foot of shoulder beyond the white line. The shoulder has an extra foot of pavement beyond this but it's about an inch or two lower than the rest of the highway. Did they not have money or asphalt to cover the whole road at the same height? This by itself is not dangerous, but the drivers in Costa Rica hardly ever move over when passing a cyclist. Even the semi trucks pass by at 55 mph a couple feet away most times even when there is no one coming from the opposite direction. At least they honk before they pass you. Like in most countries we passed through, honking is a courteous way to let a bicyclist know that a car is going to pass. But unlike most other countries, the drivers in Costa Rica do not change lanes after they honk, so in Costa Rica the honk can be translated as "get out of my way or get run over." I tried taking 1/4 of the highway lane and even riding in the dead center, it would make no difference, they would still not change lanes completely. At one point even rode like a drunk, all over the whole lane. It didn't matter, I would get passed within 2 feet most times. So I moved over to the right and hoped for the best. Even Deanna, who for the most part didn’t mind cars passing by close to her as long as they didn’t hit her, felt that the drivers in Costa Rica were obnoxiously rude and dangerous. She noticed that the semi trucks that were not from Costa Rica always changed lanes and gave us lots of space when passing, while the semi truck drivers and car drivers that had Costa Rican license plates would never move over, and drive by like we weren’t there.
At one point while riding in front of Deanna in this rain I heard a semi honk behind us. I moved over to the far right just to the right of the white line. Somehow my front tire fell down on the lower asphalt and while trying to get it back up on the higher level of the highway it slipped on the lip of the wet shoulder in the rain and BANG!!! I fell over on my left side onto the highway as the semi truck passed by. I jumped up instantly and got off the highway. Deanna was all shaken up. "Adrian," she said, "your head was two feet away from the semi truck tires." She added, "I've never seen anybody hit the ground so hard and get up so fast." I didn't know what was coming up behind the semi truck and seeing that he didn't run me over, I didn't want a car behind him to do so, because it would be just as deadly. My left hip was very sore and bruised and my left elbow was scraped and painful. Deanna had been riding a few yards behind me and pushed her brake so hard that when she released it the cable had stretched so much that the cable nipple came out of the brake handle. She only had a rear brake on her bike, and the cable was so frayed that I was about to sever completely. At a rest stop we were able to fix her brake and continued on.
This incident was really scary, probably more so for Deanna than for me who didn’t see anything though I experienced it. The fact that my head was only two feet away from a rolling semi truck at highway speeds is enough to make me stop and reconsider things. But I realized that I’m ok, and that while it was a very close call, I have experienced even closer calls with cars and semi trucks. In fact, on any given day on my bike commute in Southern California, I am two feet away from death. I thought about this as I got back on my bike and started riding some more into the rain.
We continued to ride into the night, but after dark riding in wet clothes wasn’t much fun. We stopped in the town of Bajages and asked if we could camp for the night at the gas station. They welcomed us and told us we would be safe there since they had a 24 hour security guard. As always it was free. They also told us there are Cabinas (something like cheap motel rooms) less than a mile away and the thought of a hot shower lead us in that directions. In pouring rain we navigated through the town and after asking a couple of people we found the Cabinas. Just as I was about to ride slowly up the driveway, my tire got stuck on a rock under the water and being clipped into my pedals I fell over, to the right this time. I tried to break my fall by trying to catch onto the rock wall next to the sidewalk but the slippery sharp rock did nothing to break my fall and left my hand cut up and bleeding. I cursed all sorts of obscenities and kicked off my bike after unclipping. "Boy, you are really having a bad day Adrian!" says Deanna. All I can think of is somewhere I must have done somebody wrong. I got up and we went inside the courtyard in the dark and after a few minutes we located the owner in a covered garage. He told me the room is the equivalent of $24 USD. I asked him if it has 2 beds or 1 and he responded that there are two beds. I then asked him if it was any cheaper for one bed. He takes a good long look at me and says in shock and disgust, "one bed?" Then he takes a double take at Deanna and realizes that she is a girl. "Oh, si" he says smiling now, he also has rooms with one bed. I ask if he has hot water and he says yes, but all the while I'm thinking that I don't want to stay here. I understand that my crashing in front of the Cabinas is a bad omen. I turn to Deanna and ask her if she wants to split the cost of the room. Indignant, she tells me that she paid for the last two motel room herself. I ask her if she thinks she needs a motel room tonight to stay warm and sleep, or if she could get dry and warm at the gas station campground for free. She said she doesn't need a motel room to stay warm or to get good sleep, so we rode back to the gas station in the pouring rain and camped next to old spare tires and a huge air compressor. The gas station attendant told us that they close at 10 pm so after that there would be no more noise from the air compressor. We thanked him as well as the armed security guard who would watch over us the whole night. I changed into my silnylon poncho-tarp, the only piece of gear I had that was still dry. I hung up the rest of my clothes to dry. Then I got into my bivy sack and ate some apples and nuts for dinner. Today was a short day on account of the rain, and we hoped to get at least to San Jose (108 miles away) tomorrow so that the day after we could ride the rest of the way (165 miles) to the border of Panama.
“Interchanging mind control,
Come let the revolution take it's toll,
If you could flick a switch and open your third eye,
You'd see that
We should never be afraid to die”
Muse, Uprising
The End
Aug 29: Bajages, Costa Rica to 10 miles short of San Ramon, Costa Rica
74.9 miles, 9.6 average, 7 hours 42 minutes pedaling
It rained until 2 am this morning, but I was so tired that I decided to sleep in until morning. I woke up at 6 am. Diarrhea greeted me again this morning, for the 3rd time this trip, and the rest of the day. The plan was to make it to the Panama border if we could do it by tomorrow night. We started riding in the dark, stopping to take a picture of a sign that said "Precaucion Monos" with a drawing of a monkey on it. Later we stopped at a supermarket and I got some bananas, a whole watermelon, leeches, 20 oz bag of walnuts for breakfast. For lunch we stopped at a small restaurant where Deanna got beans, rice, salad, and fries. I got a salad with salsa and Limón (orange). For this food we paid $2. I added to my salad some coconut oil from Deanna. I also ate apples with walnuts that I had with me.
The rain started again today at 3:30 pm local time about 1/2 way into a long 20 mile climb. We waited a half an hour at a bus stop until it stopped and started riding again. A couple of miles later it started raining again, pouring cats and dogs. I pulled over at the Traiquilla Iguana rest stop and souvenir store but it was closed. I needed to take a dump really bad and didn't want Deanna to pass me up while I was off the road, like she did earlier today when I pulled over at a restaurant to use their restroom. She was a few minutes behind me on this climb so I left my bike on the side of the highway so she would see it, then ran across the road and jumped over the metal rail sliding down a steep slope in the pouring rain, and managing to pull my pants down just in time before the diarrhea flood gates opened. I realized that I didn't even bring my water bottle and soap bottle to wash and I carried no toilet paper. I wiped with my hands then looked around and grabbed some leaves off some plants, hopefully not poisonous, and wiped as well as I could. By the time I was done I had removed all the leaves from the plants within reach. When I pulled up my bicycling shorts and pants a flood water poured down my legs and onto the ground. This much water accumulated in the few minutes I was there. I walked back up the steep hill to the highway just as Deanna rode up. We went under the roof of the souvenir store and waited out the rain. A waterfall was pouring down the roof. About an hour later the rain subsided and we started climbing up the mountain again. Within a couple of miles it started pouring again, just as we passed a souvenir shop selling hammocks, where two Costa Rican police officers on motorcycles were waiting out the rain. We turned around and joined them under the roof of the shop. An hour later it was still pouring rain and now it was dark. The police officers told us there would be a bus at 6 pm but in the bus never made its intended stop in this pouring rain. We felt it was too dangerous to continue on bikes at night after the close call I had in the rain yesterday during the day, so we asked the officers if they could help us get a taxi that would take two bicycles and two soaked riders. We took a photo together and decided to end our tour early, then and there, rather then risk further accidents. Besides, there was no way we could ride another 55 to 60 miles (actually it was only 35 miles) to San Jose tonight in this intense rain. We still had about 10 miles or 2 hours of climbing to get to San Ramon and we were tired, hungry and cold.
In many ways I’m sad that this trip is over so soon, but happy that that I shared this bike tour with my vegan friend, Deanna Adams. We endured through many days of blood, sweat and tears together on this ass-wasting adventure. And I would happily do it again.
But what I endured is nothing compared to what Deanna endured on this adventure and what she endures daily living with Epilepsy. She rode a much bigger gear than I did, 46x17 compared to my 42x17, preferring to suffer on each climb while barely being able to pedal with Chaco Sandals on her flat BMX pedals than to take the easy way out. She is the type of person that likes to suffer for suffering’s sake. Likewise she opted out of double or triple wrapping her handlebars with cork tape for comfort. Instead she used medical tape on her handlebars to help her hands avoid slipping. She is a great inspiration to me for attempting such enormous feats of chivalry that will likely never be duplicated, and for inspiring others to live genuinely and truly despite any disabilities they may have.
“When the fantasy has ended
And all the children are gone
Something good inside me,
Helps me to carry on!
I ate some bugs,
I ate some grass,
I used my hand,
To wipe my tears”
- Nacho Libre, Encarnacion
POST BIKE TOUR
Taxi to San Ramon and Bus to San Jose, Costa Rica
The police officers made a few calls and within an hour we had a taxi van that agreed to take us and our bikes to San Ramon, about 10 miles away for $24 USD. In the van it was almost impossible to see the road while our driver negotiated turn after turn in the night. Finally we arrived in San Ramon where we got dropped off at the bus station. We waited about 15 minutes there and took a bus to San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica for $1 each, plus $1 each for our bikes which were put in the bus luggage storage area without putting them in boxes. The bus ride to San Jose took one hour and it dropped us off at around 10 pm at the bus depot across the street from a cheap restaurant. By now I had very little food left. With the bike tour finished, I decided to finish my raw vegan experiment as well, and went into the restaurant with Deanna to get something vegan to eat since nothing else would be open this time of the night. Unfortunately, this decision cost me dearly and later it spiraled almost out of control. After asking which items were vegan, we each got a full plate of beans, rice, veggie stew, fried yucca root, bread, and salsa for $3 a plate. Neither of us filled up with one plate so we both ordered another just like it. Deanna finished about 1/2 of her 2nd plate. I ate my 2nd plate and the rest of hers before I was full. Before we left the restaurant I visited the bathroom 3 times to pay homage to the diarrhea gods. The toilet had no water so I had to flush with a bucket filled up from the sink, just like Romania.
After I emptied my stomach out completely, we walked over to the nearest motel and got a room for $16. I paid since Deanna kindly paid for the first two motels. Somehow I didn't mind staying in motels anymore, nor did it make any sense to sleep on the streets, even though we looked no cleaner than the homeless person I bumped into sleeping on the sidewalk. Tonight I even got to sleep in a bed for the first time this month.
I do regret eating all that cooked food but it tasted so good, and I think I was a bit in need of some extra calories. I think in the last 29 days I probably lost up to a pound of weight per day at the most. I don't know how much weight I lost entirely but I'm estimating that I lost no more than 29 pounds in the 29 days. It was probably less, most likely between 20 and 29 lbs lost, but I was definitely in the 120s as I have never seen my body this thin with no many veins on my legs visible, which I attribute to fat loss. Even when I fasted on fruit and vegetable juices for 40 days in 2007-2008 and dropped down to 128 lbs, I could not see so many veins in my legs and calves. Sure my legs worked more this time and built more muscles, so the increased visibility of the veins in my legs was not just from fat loss, but my upper body was pretty thin. I don't recall counting my ribs in my back while wearing clothes when I was down to 128 lbs, like I saw this time in pictures Deanna took of me while riding. My regrets stem from not being able to completely document my raw food bike tour with numbers like how much weight was lost, and also there is regret for not staying on raw food after the bike tour. This is the goal of my next tour next summer and I hope to succeed in this aspect.
Aug 30: San Jose, Costa Rica to Panama City, Panama by bus
I woke up in the morning and ran to the toilet for another dose of diarrhea, then took a shower. I realized how much weight I had lost. I literally had no ass left and my legs had gotten so skinny that my bike shorts were starting to feel loose on me. The second half of the trip I didn't wear my glasses as it was too hard to keep them clean, and they were completely useless when it rained. Luckily my eyesight is good enough without them so I tucked them underneath my lycra bike shorts, but a few days ago they actually fell out while I was riding, my legs were that skinny. I thought it was funny at the time.
I woke up Deanna and told her I was going to get some breakfast. She joined me. We went back to the same restaurant after seeing the one next to it had almost no vegan options. We ate another plate each for breakfast and walked around the city a bit, stopping at the bank for Deanna to get money for the bus ride to Panama. Then we went back to the hotel to wait for the Panama bus at noon. Deanna slept some more while I went across the street to get some clean clothes to wear on the plane. I found a Thrift Store in a warehouse where I bought shorts, a t-shirt, flip-flops and underwear for less than $4 USD. Right before noon I ate again at the restaurant, another plate of the same, while Deanna abstained. At noon we hopped on the bus, very nice even by American standards, same as the one yesterday from San Ramon. Today's bus trip cost us $35 each for 13 hours and 450 miles. We got to see the second half of Costa Rica from the bus, very beautiful and green, with lots of mountains and climbing. Note to self: don't plan another fixie bike trip for Costa Rica with more than 100 miles per day. Our bikes travelled for free in the bus luggage area underneath us. We stopped at the Panama border and a couple more times for rest stops and food breaks. At the rest stop I got a plate of beans and rice for $5. That's 5 plates of beans and rice in the last 24 hours. In Panama they use American money only, just like in El Salvador. Some of their coins are Panamanian, but they are the same size as in the US and used interchangeably in Panama. Bills are only in US currency however. At the Panama border we paid $1 for the Panama entry fee. My legs are swelling up, probably from too much processed food thick in salt and not drinking enough water. I've been very thirsty today. It was a very beautiful bus ride through Costa Rica. We got to the Panama border at night and we had a 2 hour layover until they searched everyone's bags and we all got our passports stamped. Our bikes and the luggage on our bikes they did not want to search however, and left them on the bus.
Aug 31: Panama City, Panama
We couldn't see anything of Panama until we arrived in the Panama City bus depot at 4 am local time, one hour ahead of Costa Rica, two hours ahead of northern Mexico and three hours ahead of California. While waiting for the stores to open up Deanna entertained herself filming and photographing the Panama City buses which were really nicely painted gangster style. All of them were repainted school buses from the US, airbrushed to individual perfection. The drivers and owners of the buses drove them like they were race car drivers, and despite their huge size, they were very fast and loud. Almost all of them had the exhaust pipes pointing up like semi trucks.
After the stores at the bus station opened up, I got breakfast of 2 baguettes for 50 cents from the bakery and olive oil I still had. The security guard didn't allow us to bring our bikes inside and promised to watch them while we got breakfast inside the bus station mall. We locked them together anyways. By the time we came back out the security guard was no where in sight, but luckily our bikes were still there. We rode to see the Panama Canal at Mira Flores Locks for $5 each then rode back to the bus depot to see if we could find a bike shop at the Albrook Mall across the street. The security there told us to park in the parking lot with the cars. After I pleaded with them to let us park in the shade next to the building they agreed as long as it was out of sight and not anywhere near the entry doors. Deanna stayed outside with the bikes while I went into a nicely air conditioned mall. The only bike shop in the mall was mostly for dirt road motorbikes and they couldn't help us with a bike box but helped us find a bike shop that had 2 bike boxes near downtown Panama City. After lunch at the bus depot we rode to RALI bike shop on Via España in a thunder storm. After a couple rest stops to avoid the worst of the rain and for me to take a nap, we rode towards the old part of town but were advised not to as the route would pass through a bad part of town where people get shot every day, namely El Chorillo. I brushed this off and thought nothing of it until I saw it for myself. It looked more like a war zone, with old dilapidated buildings, unpainted and cement style apartment buildings, the scariest ghetto I have ever seen. The poorest part of Panama City, the barrio of El Chorillo was hardest hit by US bombs and gunfire in 1989 during the US invasion of Panama. Today, the mess we left behind is still an ugly reminder of our recent involvement there. Despite El Chorillo, the rest of Panama City seems to be blooming with new developments and the locals were very nice to us. One police officer sincerely asked us how we liked his country as we rode down the beach bike path. Aside from El Chorillo, it was beautiful. Even though I wanted to ride to the old town along the beach, Deanna convinced me to ride to the bike shop and secure our bike boxes first. The rest of the ride was intense in big city traffic, so that by the time we got to the bike shop around 4 pm, Deanna was done with riding in Panama. We asked inside for 2 bike boxes and they took two new mountain bikes out of the box just so we could have something to put our bikes in for the flight back home. They also helped Deanna with tools, because after a month of riding in rain, our bikes were starting to rust. My seat post was frozen to the frame and required quite a bit of force to remove it.
After putting our bikes in their respective boxes, we went to eat dinner at the cheapest place in town so we could save the rest of what money we had for a 1 hour taxi ride to the airport. The restaurant had only white rice and French fries that we could eat. Deanna passed on such a fare, while I ate her share as well, then going back for another plate of white rice that was 60 cents. I topped it off with free ketchup and mustard.
Back at the bike shop we met a French Canadian rider that was doing a tour of North and South America, from Quebec to northern Alaska, to the tip of South America and back up to Quebec, planning on riding through all the countries on the route and putting in 42,000 miles in 365 days for a world record. He is still riding now as I write this, having seen the tip of South America in Tierra del Fuego and now heading up on the east coast of South America. He was averaging 130 miles per day when we met him, despite his heavy load of 120 lbs sometimes with front and rear panniers, something he actually weighed himself at a truck stop. He had ridden 13,000 miles in the last 100 days when we met him.
After the bike shop closed up for the night, the French Canadian rider, Remi LaFreniere, persuaded a customer to give him a ride to his hostel, while I tried flagging a taxi in the rain at night, with thunder echoing from the sky. I finally found a taxi driver that agreed to take the two of us and our 2 bicycles to the airport for $25 USD split two ways. The taxi driver was driving a Toyota Corolla sedan. Being resourceful and in need of money, he fit both of us in the front seat and both our bike boxes in the rear seat but only after removing the seat bench and squishing the boxes so that the doors would close. The ride to the airport was seemed very long, and in pouring rain with lots of traffic. We found it funny that we arrived in one piece, seeing that our driver and several others followed an ambulance at high speeds through gridlock traffic.
At the airport we settled in for the night in the freezer section. It was really cold inside. Several times we went outside to warm up, for despite it being the middle of the night, it was still warm and tropical even in the pouring rain. Finally we found the upstairs section a little warmer and slept there some time as well. We met a man from Mississippi who was there on a trip to see if he could retire in Panama or somewhere in Central America, like many US citizens are doing as it's increasingly more expensive to retire in the US. He planned to be there for a month but ended his trip short after driving only one day through Panama, seeing that nice houses were cheap but came with super tall iron fences. So after a day of realizing that he could never live there or force his wife to, neither of them speaking Spanish, he turned his rental car in and flew back to Panama City to take the next flight home.
Sep 1: Panama City, Panama to LAX
Deanna's flight was at 7 am and mine was a couple hours later. She flew through Miami, FL back home to Arizona, while I went thru Mexico City for a few hours layover. My legs continued to swell dramatically, from sitting down too much and from eating too much salty food without drinking enough water.
In Mexico City I went to sleep for a few hours with my legs up on a chair. This seemed to help some. I also drank about 2 liters of water from the bathroom sink at the airport hoping it would flush out the salt but my legs got worse. I had to request ice bags in the airplane to help take down the swelling and by the time I got home my legs had swelled up like the Michelin man all the way to my groin. I resolved that I would see a doctor if they didn't start to go down by themselves.
PROLOGUE
I slept with my feet up for the next couple of weeks, and within a day I could see that the swelling was on it's way down. A couple weeks later my legs were back to normal and I resumed riding to work daily on my fixie. I wonder if my legs would have swollen up as they did if I had stayed off of cooked food and the salt that comes with it.
SELF-SUPPORTED RAW VEGAN BIKE TOUR
The idea of a self-supported raw vegan bike tour came to me before participating in the 2008 Tour Divide while reading about Harley Johnstone’s (aka Durian Rider) adventures of crossing Australia on a bicycle while eating only fresh (never cooked) raw food. He crossed Australia while eating fresh fruits like mangos that he carried in a bike trailer. I started to wonder if the healthy idea of raw foods could be used in a cross-country mountain bike race like the Tour Divide. The answer is, yes, of course, though in that setting, it is much easier to do it by shipping sun-dried fruits and raw nuts to yourself than using a heavy trailer, if of course you live in the US. If you live outside of the US, it gets too expensive to do that, so you would have to go on the fly, like Harley did and use a trailer or carry a backpack. I thought the idea of a trailer or backpack would be to encumbering and too easy in some ways, so I set out to see what it would take to do a raw bike tour without a backpack, trailer or panniers.
Next year my experiment with raw foods while bike touring will continue with a self-supported tour of Eastern Europe, just as unencumbered and ultralight, without a backpack, panniers, or trailer. It is not impossible to do, and it is not a matter of how much I can suffer before giving up or giving in. It’s about doing something on my terms, not on society’s terms. I look forward to eating fresh fruits and vegetables where they are available and talking with the local farmers and inspiring others to live a healthier lifestyle and ride their bike for transportation. My goal next year is not only to complete a raw vegan bike tour but to continue eating raw well after the bike tour is over and see if the swelling in my legs this year was from salt intake or from stopping abruptly for a few days.
I like the idea of riding my bike across a country while carrying only what I need to keep me happy while still camping out and eating raw. All it takes is just a little planning, so that you have enough food and water to last you between towns. You can always get fresh produce from grocery stores in the towns you pass through. There is no reason to feel like you have to eat junk food, or go against your principles because you are on a bike tour. It’s all to easy to eat junk food from fast food restaurants and gas stations while on a bike tour, and all to popular nowadays even with the famous and often quoted Kent Peterson claiming “I’m not a nutritional role model” but it seems to me that the good we have done to our health by exercising is being rolled back by the junk food we are eating. So I just want to remind people that eating healthy is possible and fun, even while on multi-week bike tour. Even if Kent Peterson claims that he is not a nutritional role model, the truth is his kids and other people look up to him and follow in his footsteps. And even if you are not Kent Peterson, your friends and kids look up to you. I cannot expect to inspire anyone to eat healthier if I treat my body like a trash dump and a graveyard. My body is my temple and riding is my religion.
TIPS FOR DOING A RAW VEGAN BIKE TOUR
- carry more than enough raw nuts (supermarkets don’t always stock them)
- eat a variety of local fresh fruits
- eat what you crave as long as it’s raw
- carry a backpack (even if it’s a compact 3 ounce silnylon pack that you can take out when needed)
- eat raw vegan at least 6 months before the start of the tour (to ensure a smooth transition into and out of the tour)
- eat frequently, every 15 to 30 minutes, even when not hungry as exercise delays the feeling of hunger
- cut your own fruit and prepare your own meals (to avoid contamination)
- wash or rinse hands after contact with other people
- Carry at least 3 lbs of emergency raw food supply, like sun-dried fruits and raw nuts
- Carry a bottle of Agave Nectar (even without any raw food, you can keep your blood sugar stable for days by adding it to water with lemon juice if available)
- Avoid cooked food at all times as one cooked meal can easily snowball into a feeding junk-food frenzy
Further non-harming ideas to self and the others:
- carry a mosquito head net and wind pants/jacket instead of DEET
- use clothing for sun-block or zinc-oxide cream
ROUTE ELEVATION PROFILE (MapMyRide.com):
Antelope Wells to Bermejillo, Mexico 542 miles + 9957 feet - 10978 feet
to Allende, Mexico 257 miles + 5659 feet - 7844 feet
to Veracruz, Mexico 539 miles + 11184 feet - 12703 feet
to Chetumal, Mexico 624 miles + 10676 feet - 10686 feet
to Tikal, Guatemala 219 miles + 3976 feet - 3150 feet
to Liberia, Costa Rica 772 miles + 37976 feet - 38369 feet
to Yaviza, Panama 714 miles + 31762 feet - 31516 feet
to Panama City International Airport 170 miles + 2444 feet - 2129 feet
Total miles = 3837 miles (not exact) but pretty close to the bing.com estimate of 3931 miles.
Total Elevation gain = 113,634 feet (about 4000 feet per day)
Total Elevation loss = 117,375 feet
We only rode 3300 miles to a place in the mountains about 10 miles short of San Ramon, Costa Rica so I estimate we had about 83,600 feet of climbing.
DEANNA'S GEAR LIST (roughly)
First Aid:
3x5 card with medical info in Spanish (name, address, phone numbers, identifying
numbers, next of kin, list of illnesses, and meds. In RED list any allergies. I
have no known allergies)
Bug spray w/DEET (@ dealing with a nasty episode in Wyoming of very aggressive
swarm mosquitoes…I’m not going to put up with those pests. Also keeps ticks
away. YEA!
Hemp Chap stick W/SPF 18 (great for using for lips, face, ears, hands, bum, any
thing that needs a boost in moisture, and sun protection)
Dr. Bronner's Soap Tea Tree (washing body, or clothes. Tea Tree properties so
good use for antiseptic, antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral, lice, toxic to
blood feeding insects…although not sure what percentage of the tea tree needs to
be applied 5%?)
AED (anti-epileptic drug) Keppra
Lorazepam (in case of unfortunate seizure. To use after.)
Super glue (good for fixing glasses, sealing up lacerations, bicycle issues,
water bottle leak, tube/tire problems, fixing torn up clothes, popping
blisters & sealing them, endless ideas.)
Hand Sanitizer (clean infections, clean hands, clean glasses, clean
fruit & veggies (w/o causing an OD)…clean whatever, use as fuel starter)
Maxi-pads/tampons (SUPER absorbent for body wounds, get shot (hopefully not)
bloody noses, or female disadvantages)
2-REI cloth straps (unforeseen circumstances)
Aquatabs (when unsure about water, or getting water from a ghetto unsanitary city
area or bottle water is not an option)
Backaid (effective pain relieve. Helps with swelling)
Activated Charcoal (uses are extremely beneficial for international travel. Helps
with poisonings, diarrhea, indigestion, use to clean wounds, spider bites/or any
other unfortunate bites, etc).
Toothbrush
Toothpaste (not really keen with putting Dr. Bronner's in my mouth)
Electrolyte pills or maybe some Emergen-c packs? Not 100% about this.
Coconut oil (emergency food, chain oil?, moisturizer, fungal infections,
sunscreen, digestive problems (maybe the most common problem to deal with)
Shot of Rum (uses: drink, rub on joints, wounds, fire fuel, clean fruits & veggies,
rub some on face & inhale helps with nausea, ideas seem endless)
Clothes:
Chaco Sandals
Patagonia Capilene 1 bottoms
Patagonia Capilene 1 long sleeve top
508 bicycle jersey (I’m not wearing my Prescott, AZ bike shop one…I think that
would be an uncool idea. I don’t think I want to flaunt that I’m from
Arizona…during this time…)
Messenger Capris 100% cotton w/my epic punk belt
Marmot Nano Jacket Gore-Tex Rain Jacket
Marmot PreCip Full Zip Rain Pant
Bandana
Poly based pair of socks
Sport bra for swimming, or riding topless by beach areas
Glasses
Glove liners
Plastic disposable gloves
Camping:
Therm-a-rest 3/4 177g
Equinox bivy 176g
Mosquito Head Net
Poncho 53g (use as extra shelter, ground sheet, extra protection due to
unfavorable rainy weather)
Light My Fire spork/knife
Dental Floss (for rope, fixing broken crap, floss teeth, weapon usage, hanging
food, etc.)
Duct Tape (medical uses, fixing stuff, make stuff, etc)
Electric Tape
Lighter or matches (have not decided) (start fire, sterilizing, if I want to
smoke (just kidding)
Zipties (weighs like nothing, and has the potential to save your ass in unknown
ways)
Safety pins (Crap that might break, clothes that might fall apart weighs like
nothing, patch yourself together if super glue cannot help)
Spyderco Ladybug knife (wicked little thing not to be underestimated) 18g
4-store garbage bags for my feet/store food in/trash/other endless idea item
Bicycle stuff:
Phoenix (beloved fixed gear ratio 46-17)
Carousel Designs Frame pack
Carousel Designs Bar bag
ADRIAN'S GEAR LIST
Documents Weight
Phone card 0.16 oz
ID 0.16 oz
Credit Card 0.16 oz
Cash 0.8 oz
Passport and return flight itinerary 1.44 oz
Special Items
Maps & directions 8 oz
digital camera (in ziplock bag) w/2 AA batteries Canon A470 7.04 oz
digital camera carrying case (small binocular bag) zip-tied to frame 1.12 oz
journal (2 pages of 8.5x11 blank paper plus back of itinerary paper) 0.48 oz
pen 0.16 oz
knife (kitchen paring knife) 0.32 oz
glasses 0.64 oz
watch 1.44 oz
Spot Satellite Messenger (transmitter) - size 4.38 x 2.75 x 1.5 in 7.36 oz
Bike stuff
Windsor Clockwork Fixed Gear 42 x 17 with aero bars and dynamo hub 23.9 lbs
bike computer (speedometer, odometer, etc) 0.8 oz
secondary bike computer (speedometer, odometer, etc) 0.96 oz
LED light w/new batteries (tail) 1.92 oz
LED light with mounting bracket for dynamo hub (front) 3.84 oz
lock (combination) with 2 ft cable to lock bike 1.76 oz
Topeak Micro Rocket CB (carbon ) pump (55 g) 2.24 oz
rear view mirror (helmet mounted) 0.64 oz
3 large water bottles (0.7L each) 8.48 oz
3 water bottle holders mounted to frame 5.28 oz
4 small Allen wrenches (size 3, 4, 5, 6) 2.08 oz
15 mm wrench 4.32 oz
patch kit (in seat pouch) 1.28 oz
tire lever (1) (in seat pouch) 0.48 oz
inner tube (5) (in seat pouch) 14.4 oz
chain oil/lubricant 0.96 oz
duct tape (wrapped around frame) 0.16 oz
Schrader to presta converter (on valve stem) 0.16 oz
Zinc Oxide cream (anti-chaffing lotion) 2.24 oz
4 hose clamps 2.56 oz
Clothing
Specialized BG Expert MTB shoes w/cleats 28.8 oz
Pearl Izumi bike shorts (1) with chammy padding 5.44 oz
Helmet (Specialized) 10.56oz
REI Really Cool cap 1.44 oz
bike jersey with 3 back pockets (no sleeve) (1) 4.64 oz
Arm warmers 2.4 oz
GoLite Helios rain/wind jacket (silnylon) 3.84 oz
Long lycra bike pants 5.44 oz
GoLite Reed rain pants (single layer GoreTex) 3.84 oz
mosquito head net 1.12 oz
socks (1) - short, polyester 0.96 oz
Camping
ground sheet -- Gossamer Gear Polycryo Ground Cloth (32"x96") (in stuff sack #2) 1.44 oz
Montbell Breeze Dry-Tec Sleeping Bag Cover (with stuff sack) 6.88 oz
Bozeman Mountain Works SpinPoncho LITE 6.08 oz
Gossamer Gear ThinLight Insulation Pad (strapped to aero bars) 2.56 oz
2.4L platypus collapsible water bottle (desert insurance & inflatable mattress) 1.28 oz
Misc. Personal
Burt's Bees chap stick w/ SPF 15 0.32 oz
Badger sunscreen SPF 30 3.84 oz
dental floss 0.32 oz
toothpaste (Dr. Bronner's peppermint soap, one drop doubles as toothpaste) 1.44 oz
toothbrush (cut in half and drilled) 0.16 oz
plastic baby spoon 0.16 oz
Short Stuff Sack (5.5 x 13.5 in) for food 4 lbs worth 0.4 oz
stuff sack # 2 (green) - for spare tubes 0.32 oz
Carousel Designs medium seat bag 8.8 oz
Straps (3) 1.6 oz
LED light with lanyard 0.48 oz
stuff sack #3 (for clothes) 0.32 oz
stuff sack #4 (for tools) 0.64 oz
8 mm Allen wrench (for crank bolt) 2.08 oz
spokes (3) 0.8 oz
spoke wrench 1.44 oz
extra chain link 0.16 oz
mini chain tool 2.72 oz
ankle straps (reflective) 0.32 oz
Novara snack bag (strapped to frame) 1.28 oz
spare 700x23 folding tire ~ 8 oz
tiger balm (menthol) homeopathic pain cream 2.24 oz
Traumeel (homeopathic pain reliever) 1.92 oz
2 safety pins 0.18 oz
tire boot 0.32 oz
olive oil 0.8 oz
clip for map 0.16 oz
coconut oil ~0.5 oz
Total 13.27 lbs (gear) + 23.89 lbs (bike) = 37.16 lbs
ROUTE AND DIRECTIONS WE USED:
AW to Veracruz (1396.7 miles) - walking option (we actually used toll roads and highways)
Veracruz to Chetumal, Mexico (694.1 miles)
Mexico/Belize border to Beliza/Guatemala border (142.4 miles)
Belize/guatemala border to Tikal, Guatemala (61.0 miles)
1688.4 miles from Tikal to Santa Ana, El Salvador, to Yaviza, Panama to Panama City (Tocumen Internacional airport). Note: we ended the tour near San Jose, Costa Rica (ran out of time)
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