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November 26, 2017
Day 14 [Sun 11/26/17] - Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca to Puerto Arista, Oaxaca
Update: I am alive and well and resting peacefully in the Hotel El Dulcito on the shores of the Pacific Ocean in the seaside village of Puerto Arista, Chiapas, Mexico.
Starting Odometer: 8,345
Ending Odometer: 8,663
Distance Traveled Today: 318 miles
Distance Traveled This Trip: 4,060 miles [8,663 - 4,603]
0........Puerto Escondido (0)
157....Salina Cruz (157)
165....Puerto Arista (322)
Today my ride today looked something like this.
I'm lying here in bed at the Hotel El Dulcito, drinking Pinafiel fresa, eating fresh sliced mangoes from a street vendor. I bought Cruce del leche ($10 p) and Palanqueta de cagauate from a beach vendor here just now. Earlier today, I stopped for a coco fria (drinking the milk from a cold coconut hacked open with a machete by a street vendor). This morning, I bought something from a woman off the beach... a cup of warm milk (leche) con coco...sort of had like a sweet warm oatmeal at the bottom. It was the best.
So, all of this, is what I sort of do every day. I just dive in head first, eating and tasting everything around me, because we just don't get this in the United States. Or if we do, I'm not clear where.
And you should have seen me the first time I ever crossed the border into Mexico. i was so scared that I'd be killed there aren't words. The media had me so consumed with fear. But now, I'm all in. Like....deal the cards. i'm all in.
Today's ride was 100x better than the last two days. Today, I decided to do things differently, in a few ways. 1) I set my alarm clock for a lot sooner. I set my alarm for 6:00 a.m. because, if I'm going to have to ride all day, I may as well do it while the sun is up. And obviously, I was wasting a lot of daylight hours lying in bed in the mornings. 2) I rode inland instead of following the coast, and the roads inland were much faster.
So, this morning, I got up earlier, and I rode my bike down to the beach wearing pretty much nothing but my bathing suit. No helmet. No boots. No riding gear. Just barefoot, no helmet, riding the bike down to the beach. Park it, and see that the sun has just come up. And, big surprise, if you're into photography, the sunrise is just as good as the sunet.
All of these boats are on the beach, and there's a bazaar of sorts going on, where locals walk from boat to boat, checking out their catch. Apparently, they were out fishing all night, or very early this morning. And they pull their boats onto the beach, and the locals are walking around, buying fish from the fishermen.
And of course, I'm in the middle of it, walking around, shooting like a lunatic.
Like...why have I been missing this? How long have I been asleep?
I buy this warm milk drink from a woman on the beach. I'm not clear what it is. But it's like warm milk with coconut meat in it, and it's sort of like a warm sweet oatmeal at the bottom of the drink. Insanely good.
So I shoot some, eat some snacks from the vendor, and then wade back to the beach across a small lagoon of sorts.
Then ride back to the hotel. Everything looks different in the daylight, and I have a little concern that I won't be able to find my way back to my hotel, but I manage to drive back to it no problem.
I get all packed up, and finish up on tracking my daily expenses. A few things like this. And then I roll out of town, stopping at a Pemex and fill up the bike. When I gas up the bike, it is 9:26 a.m. I'm pretty sure that's a record for me on this trip.
Get up. Get out of bed. Get moving early. I'm going to have to do this if I'm going to have a chance of making Ushuaia.
In the morning, as I'm riding through the jungle, the air is very cool. And it makes me realize how stupid I've been to keep starting every day so late, that I've missed the best time to be riding...in the cool morning air. I could kick myself. It's so nice out this morning.
Now, for whatever reason, today the Waze app on my iPhone 6S Plus is as useless as tits on a bull. It won't give me directions to Puerto Arista. It says "oops something went wrong."
Waze...you fucking morons. Could you be a little more vague? "Something went wrong?"' I'm an adult. I can take it. Tell me what the fuck went wrong. I'm in a 3rd world country here with no maps. Fucking idiots.
Fortunately, I have my Garmin Montana 600, and he's solid. So, when the Waze app is useless, I follow the Garmin Montana, and he's steering me inland today.
So, I follow the route which doesn't really follow the coast today, at all really. Basically, I go inland, and then turn and run roughly south and east all day. The nice thing is that I'm now on a road where I can actually ride faster than 34 mph all day. So now, I just open the throttle and run at pretty good speeds all day...60-80 mph.
I try to get in my 100 miles before noon, but miss it by just a few minutes. So, this sort of pushes me back to not getting lunch until I've gone 150 miles. It's just some silly rules that I made up, but it does help me to get more miles in the day.
My first fillup after leaving Puerto Escondido is at the town of Salina Cruz. So I gas up, but decide to just keep riding, as I'm making good time, and I'm supposed to ride over 300 miles today, and I really don't want to finish in the dark again. I hate that everyone starts flashing their bright lights at me. Bastards.
Today, as we went inland, the winds picked up dramatically. The winds were blowing so hard that it nearly blew me off the road, and I'd have to duck down as low as I could get on the bike, with my chin nearly on the gas tank, just so I wouldn't get blown off the road. At times, I thought it might be too dangerous to continue, but of course I rode on.
At one point, I ride through this massive windmill farm. The largest I've ever seen in my life. And there are signs everywhere showing the winds blowing an 18 wheeler off the road, or tipping it over, warning the truckers of high winds.
I go through one town, at some point, and the guy is selling Coco Frios (Cold coconuts), and I'm like...."yeah...ok...let's try this".
And he chops it open with a machete, and hands me a straw and a coconut. I think it was 15 pesos. And I drank the cold coconut milk. And, I mean, it's good. It's not quite as amazing as I'd hoped it would be. I certainly finished it all, but it's not like I'd died and gone to heaven or anything.
I was riding somewhere, this afternoon, and something either bit me, or stung me, on the back of my neck. I thought i was going to die. The closest thing I can think of owuld be if a wasp stung you on the back of your neck. Very painful, but I survived the encounter.
I look at all of the road signs, and I wonder what the mean. I take photos of a bunch of them, intending to document them in a separate post, and hopefully learn their intended message.
The Waze app never did really clue into what was going on. Not clear what was the issue with him. But the Garmin app was sold, and gave me good directions all day long. At some point, late in the day, we turned and headed back out to the coast, through the mountains, twisting unconscionably through the hills. But at least, all day, I was able to run at a good pace, instead of doing 30 mph all day like yesterday.
Also, by starting earlier, I was able to get to my destination before dark. So that was a HUGE plus.
I roll into the little seaside town of Puerto Arista and park at the first hotel I see.
I ask if he has a room for the night, but when I tell him it's for only one person, he says that he only has rooms for 2 people available. I sort of look around for my ghost to help out.
"Quanto es?" I ask him.
The double room is $400 pesos. So, that's about $20 USD.
"Done. I'll take it."
Now, I walk down to the beach.
Now, it goes without saying that no one you know has ever even heard of this beach. People that l talked to along the way have never even heard of it. But it's a nice, remote beach, and I walk down to the shore. There are kids playing. Eating dinner. Boats racing around. This is the Mexico that you're supposed to be afraid of.
And, of course, I'm just walking around, shooting like a lunatic. Shooting the setting sun. Today, I timed my ride perfectly. Much better ride than it has been the last few days.
So I guess the trick is to get up earlier. But that means I'm going to have to go to sleep sooner also, because otherwise, I'm going to fall asleep riding the bike and die.
"Where should I park my bike?" I ask him.
"Just pull it in here..." he offers.
So I just ride my bike into the hotel lobby like I own the place. No joke. I fucking love this country. If you rode your bike into a hotel lobby in the USA you'd be incarceraged. But here, it's just a friendly gesture.
"No hay problema, amigo?"
"No hay problema."
Finally, I'll also point out one of my observations on how locals greet each other down here. Normally, you would say "buenos dias" (good morning), or "buenos tardes" (good afternoon), or "buenos noches" (good evening). But I hear a lot of people down here just saying "bueno", an abbreviated version of "hello". And I've also heard people saying "bueno bueno". The nice thing about these abbreviated greetings is that you can say the same greeting all day long...it doesn't change with morning, afternoon, or night.
I think I'll start using this.
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 26, 2017 at 7:37 AM
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