Jeremy's Bike Blog

I leave Bosque Village and grab some food from a stall in the nearby town of Erongacuario, then continue on another 20km to Patzcuaro, stopping in to check out the Temple of Santa Muerte.

It’s been a relatively short ride, but I’m feeling pretty low energy and strongly considering calling it a day when it occurs to me that I haven’t had any coffee today, or in over 48 hours for that matter.  So after strolling about the town’s multiple plazas for a bit, I settle on a cafe and get double latte and then a second and a cookie as the first one starts to do its magic.  Now, despite the drizzle, imminent threat of storm implied by distant rumble of thunder, and that it’s 3pm, I’m inclined to go another 60km to Morelia, the capitol of Michoacan.  There are two highways that go there, a free one and a toll one.  There are signs clearly indicating that bicycles are not allowed on the toll roads in these parts, but it’s common knowledge that the toll roads are far better for cycling, with their wide shoulders and light (albeit fast) traffic compared to the free roads with heavy traffic and often no shoulder.  The toll road route is a gradual, rolling incline.  Several state and federal cop cars whiz by, and another cyclist and I pass one another, and I get increasingly comfortable with ignoring the occasional circle-slash bicycles prohibeted sign.
As I roll into Morelia the sun comes out.   It’s rush hour, and everybody is cutting everybody else off.  Even though I’m in better spirits owing to the coffee, I’m getting irate at drivers and voicing my grievances audibly for my first time in mexico.  I’m going 40km/h down a busy city highway, pinned into my line by busses on my left, when I see a cab turning right (from my right) from a side street directly into my path.  My options are to either slam on my brakes and hope to stop before running into him, or swerve around him hopefully while there’s still room to do so before being pinched between him and a bus.  I go with the latter, and shout “Oye!” when I’m about 10 feet away, which has the desired effect of making him brake and leave an opening wide enough for me to get through.  He shouts “Oye” back as I pass, and then a few seconds later gestures something with his hand which could mean anything from “sorry I almost killed you” to “fuck you you stupid cyclist”.  I’m beyond caring, and almost enjoying the adreniline rush of fighting my way through traffic, when I’m brought back to reality by a truck passing me with less than 6 inches to spare.  So I start taking lanes, giving drivers no option but to run over me or not pass me.  I get honked at occasionally, to which I shrug my shoulders.

When I get to town center, clouds have rolled back in causing the sun to cast gold light on the massive cathedrals and gothic structures against a backdrop of a purple sky.  There are lots of young cyclists in this part of town, and I’m happy to see them riding very assertively, staking claims to lanes when they want them, and splitting lanes in stand-still traffic.  I follow suit, tailing one, until he squeezes through a gap that’s too narrow for me with my saddle bags.

I arrive at a hostel staffed by an older, very kind and soft-spoken gentleman.  I seem to be the only guest for the night, and I’m happy to have the place to myself.  I shower and then ask where is a good place to get food.  He directs me to a line of food stalls under the awning across the street from the state capitol building about 10 blocks away, so I grab my now unloaded bike and rejoice is zipping and weaving through traffic unencumbered.  I find the stalls and ask what the specialties are, and then order and devour both.

I wander around the cathedrals, walking my bike in a light rain, watching a street performer and guys setting off rockets next to the main cathedral under the supervision of a cop, and buying churros and things to put in my face from random vendors.

Back at the hostel, I’ve brushed and am about to turn in for the night when a triple of young boys have been dropped off with the proprietor, who I assume is their grandfather.  They conscript me in an ongoing sort of hide-and-seek, where they try to sneak up, spying on me until I bellow “BOO” and they scurry while laughing histerically, then start over.  I think it’s perhaps my relatively large, almost bobbly, head but I’m lucky that babies, kids, and animals invariably take an immediate liking to me.  I go out into the common area and read for a bit while the kids crawl under and climb over the couch, sneaking up.  I don’t boo them away, so they start poking me, nearly exploding with giddiness over their own audacity until I feign an “Aye”, which makes them giggle histerically, but now they stay put.   Soon they sidle up next to me, happy to hang out leaning on me.  They’re very cute kids, and showing such a sweet yet casual affection that I can’t help but take a selfie (sadly the smallest one is out of frame).  They crowd around, climbing over me to point and ooh/ahh at the picture on my phone, and then they’re ready to move on and leave me to my reading, which I do for a few minutes and then slip off into my dorm room to go to sleep.

The next morning, I’m determined to continue resuming my momentum, but I also want to make sure I’ve seen at least some of the sights of the almost overwhelmingly beautiful city of Morelia.   Thankfully, along the ones that I was able to take in the night before, the aqueduct and the Sanctuary of Guadalupe are the most notable, and also on my way out of town.  There’s an outdoor zumba class happening in the plaza across the street from the sanctuary.  Juxtaposition, etc and so on.
It’s a fairly ambitious 100km with ~3K feet of elevation gain to Ciudad Hidgaldo where I’m to be hosted by a family with whom Luz and Sylvain, the cyclists I met outside of Zamora, have put me in touch.  But I’ve coffeed and caloried up amply, with both a complimentary breakfast from the hostel, and a second breakfast purchased at a nearby cafe.  About 20km into the day, I miss a turn and there’s a short cut to rejoin the route, but it’s incredibly steep.  I have to do small switchbacks across the road, in my lowest gear, in order to maintain enough speed to stay on my bike, and even this requires a non-sustainable amount of effort.  Cars I pass, that are descending in the opposite direction, are in many cases stopped, presumably to give their brakes a chance to cool down.  Fortunately, it only lasts a couple km and then the grade returns to mortal as I return to the prescribed route.

I get to Pueblo Neuvo and one guy from a group sitting around drinking beers speaks pretty good english and asks me the standard questions, translates for his friends, then comments “that’s fucking bad ass dude”. We do the customary palm brush/fist bump a couple of times in the process, and I have to willfully not hesitate as I realize his hands are caked in what looks like motor oil.  It’s well worth the confidence and ego boost.
From there, the road winds through pine forest, and it seems I’m making better time than I predicted, so I take an extended break after hiking my bike a short ways up a well maintained path that’s evidentially used by the people that set up pinesap harvesting vessels attached to all the trees.

There’s one more steep push for the day, and when I reach the top, it occurs to me that this is a not uncommon pattern.  Larger towns are often in valleys, so a typical cycling day when town hopping, as I’ve been doing for most of my time in Mexico, is a morning and early afternoon of climbing and then a late afternoon or early evening of descent, covering 30-50% of the total distance in 1/3-1/6 the amount of time.  So, the nature of the game is that much more time is spent going uphill than downhill.  While this could be considered unfortunate, just as the saying goes “there’s no such thing as bad weather, just bad gear”, so it could be said “there’s no such thing as a bad ascent, just bad gearing”.  I often find myself slipping into too slow a cadence with too much torque on my pistons.  Remembering that I’m not in a race, downshifting, shifting back in my saddle, sitting upright and settling into a lighter torque, more rapid cadence and enjoying the scenery is nearly as satisfying as getting to the top of the climb.

After I do get to the top of the final major climb of the day, and I’m on my descent into Ciudad Hidalgo, I notice a motorcyclist that has pulled over and is flagging me down. I stop and he wants to know where I’m staying for the night.  I show him the google maps location to which he says “Oh good, that’s my dad’s place”.   I show him the WhatsApp dialog that I’d had with his dad that morning, for which I used Google Translate and ask him to please read it.  He does, and then for some reason calls his dad and has an extended conversation.  He gives me some advice about how to locate the place, and after about 10 minutes, goes on his way and lets me continue on mine.  The phone call and additional directions seem like they were completely superfluous, but I appreciate his eagerness to help me connect with his dad.

I roll into town, find the address, but am having a hard time finding the sister/daughter that is supposed to be there to meet me.  After showing a couple of people the WhatsApp conversation on my phone, I meet someone who takes me though a narrow gap between a couple of potable water tank trucks, which seems to be one of the family’s businesses, and to a room with three beds packed in it fairly tightly.  He shows me where I can park my bike and then the sister comes down to greet me with her daughter, a friend of her daughter’s and a baby.   We’re getting by with my fledgling Spanish and I explain that I’d like to go see the town (a little over a kilometer back the way from which I came), and that I should be back in about an hour.  They seem to understand, and so I thank them again for the bed and unload my bike and take off.

I wander around town for a bit, asking a cop for advice on where to get tacos.  I’m noticing that one complication of communicating is that when I have a question or statement in mind, I can convey it pretty well, but this gives the impression that I can comprehend the response with the same speed and ease, which I can’t.  The cop rattles off about 4 sentences with me nodding and saying “si, creo entiendo” [yes, i think i understand?] when he stops, realizing I haven’t really understood anything he’s said.  He flags down a passerby that he seems to know, and asks if he knows any English.  He doesn’t.  At this point, I want to just abort the attempt, but he insists on trying again and again to convey his recommendation.  Eventually I extricate myself, and start wandering again, with only the most vague idea of what his directions might have been.

I walk through a narrow, tarp covered corridor lined by stalls, and a kid that’s spent several years in Tennessee calls out and we chat for a bit in English.  I get some food advice and then head to the plaza where I eat a couple of dishes at a restaurant run by a very friendly and patient family. 

After dinner I wander around some more, and into a small market with no particular purpose or goal, when a man sitting behind a glass display case of communion wafers barks out “Hey, you, where are you from?!” in English.  His name is Porfirio and in no time he is clapping me on the shoulder, asking me about my trip, and telling him about himself.

“Come, let’s go get a coffee” he commands, as he strides out of the store.  He’s at least 6 inches taller than me, even though he’s shortened with age.  He tells me then reminds me several times that he’s 68 over the course of our interactions.  We get coffee and I learn about his travels, and the travel of his two sons, which he had with a French Canadian woman.  He’s well read, well traveled, and a dual citizen of Mexico and Canada, as are his sons.  He hitchiked around South America and was in Chile when Castro was visiting Allende.  Owing to his height and complexion (and I’d venture to bet, his gregariousness), he was mistaken as part of the Cuban delegation and met Allende as a result.  Later in life he served as a cook for the Canadian military until he was released on disability (of what kind I can’t discern and he doesn’t specify), since which he’s been receiving a stipend.  His son Diego lives on some nearby land that he had obtained 30 years ago in exchange for a car, and which he split up and sold a piece of to Diego a couple of years ago.  Diego has built a small cabin in which he’s been living for the last few weeks since returning from his last travels.  We make plans to meet the following morning and to go up there and see it, and to perhaps spend the day.  I propose we go see it, but that I bring my bike and continue on from there, as there’s a route for which the visit would be on the way.  He likes this idea, then starts to tell me about the place he stays in town when he exclaims “Oh SHIT, the goats!”.

In exchange for paying a water bill of $6 /month, he has use of a vacant plot, owned by a friend of his, about 3 blocks away.  It has a gate on one side and is surrounded on the other 3 sides by buildings.  Inside, he keeps two goats, two turkeys, two geese and a few chickens.  The goats are tethered in a nearby field during the day.  It’s dark by the time we get to them and they’re correspondingly vocally irate.  I help him untangle the male, and then hold its tether while he untangles the female.  We take them back to the lot, where he puts the male on a short leash under a shelter, and the female on a longer tether so that she can join the male if she chooses.  He describes his daily routine of milking the female with the resulting liter of raw milk taken with coffee being the entirety of his daily pre-dinner diet.

I wish him good night and confirm our plan to meet him either at his yard (where he sleeps under an awning) between 8 and 8:30am, or 9am at the coffee shop on the plaza where we had coffee earlier that evening.  I’m curious to try a raw goat-milk latte, so I plan on going with the first option.

Back at the host place, the daughter comes down to check on me as I’m finishing getting ready for be and I explain as best I can what happened and my plans for the following morning.

The next morning, she asks if I’d like coffee and I say yes.  She brings me a breakfast of bread, sweet potato, papaya, and coffee.  My plan to meet Porfirio at his place isn’t going to pan out…I can’t be an ungrateful guest.  When I do get underway, it seems that a group of them want to accompany me to the plaza.  I’m not sure why, but who am I to refuse?  They follow me by slowly driving their car behind me as I bike back into town, and it’s pretty confusing and difficult to find a place to park the car on a Sunday morning just as church is letting out, but we manage to get to the corner.  Porfirio rolls up on a bike and shouts “Hola!”  I don’t recognize him at first, on a bike, in a jeans jacket, and wearing a baseball cap that obscures his eyes.  When I realize it’s him, I introduce him and the host family.  He talks with them rapidly in Spanish, saying something I don’t follow.  I ask him to take our picture, which he does seeming a bit impatient and then shouts “Ok, let’s go!”.

We had discussed the option of him riding his bike with me up in to the hills to his and his son’s land, but then thought better of it, as his bike is something of an old beater.  Apparently he’s changed his mind.  I say the most heartfelt thanks I can muster to my host family and then go to catch up with Porfirino who has already taken off into the sunrise.  We stop at a service station to use their pump to put some air in his tires, then continue on.  He asks me more about my life back home, and when I explain how I took a personal leave from Amazon to do my first long bike tour, then came back to find my heart was no longer in it, he retorts with “Yes, you discovered freedom and couldn’t go back”, and then “working…” followed by what it something of a catch phrase of his “I DON’T GIVE A SHIIIIIIT!!!”  He bellows this so loud that it reverberates off the surrounding hills in the tranquil countryside, cracking me up so much it’s hard to keep up with him pedalling for lack of breath.  It’s part of an ongoing celebration of freedom from doing anything that he doesn’t feel like doing.  He doesn’t have much, materially, but he has a few pieces of nice land, some animals that he keeps in what I’ve described as his “city farm”.  He adopts this term enthusiastically, and repeats to his several family members we meet throughout that day.

We’re walking our bikes when we get to the second to last town before the dirt road to the land plots, and he’s going to take a combi (mini-van taxi) while I ride.  He’s explaining the directions as I’m pulling out my phone asking him to just find on it the spot he’d like me to meet him, to which he bellows “Jeremy, will you just LISTEN TO ME… FOR ONCE” which has me in stitches as he’s been talking nearly non-stop for the last hour.  Consequently the woman already waiting at the bus station, and keeper of the shop which serves as the bus stop break out in laughter while Porfirio continues his performance of feigned exacerbation.

I try to follow his directions of “taking the main road”, which to my mind are quite ambiguous as the road forks almost immediately into two roads that seem equally likely candidates.  I’ve made the wrong choice, but fortunately the combi is not far behind and they honk, get my attention and wait for me to come to them so I can witness Porfirio’s continued performance to the amusement of the mini-van full of people.  I keep up with the minivan for a while, and then it’s off in the distance.  The “main” road is pretty clear from there on, for the next 5km.  Even so, when I see Porfirio again, he’s cycling back towards me (the combi let him take his bike with him as it’s Sunday, and ridership is low), just for good measure.

He shows me his land and a small trailer, and then says to watch how he’ll call his son *without* using a phone.  He turns to a hill on the other side of a ravine and bellows “DIEGO”.  About 10 seconds later, we hear “SI” shouted back.  “I HAVE A VISITOR FOR YOU”.  “WHO IS IT?” he answers in English.  I shout “HI, I’M JEREMY” not really able to match volume.  Porfirio follows with “WE’RE COMING OVER”, and we set off.

It’s about a 10 minute walk, and I’m pushing my bike.  We go down a narrow trail and it gets to a point where it’s simply too steep for pushing my loaded bike, so I park it and continue on.  Diego and his two dogs meet us on the trail, and lead us back to his cabin.  It’s a small structure that he’s built almost entirely on his own.  It has a patio with an amazing view across the ravine and a valley at the far end of it, with speckles of cows.  He shows us some mushrooms he found the day before, and offers us some, but we decline.  Porfirio lights up a joint.  We chat for a while and then take a stroll down to another building site that he’s recently cleared.  It too has an amazing view.  We go back to the cabin and he gives us each a mango after washing it carefully in filtered, recaptured rainwater.  I follow Porfirio’s technique of peeling the skin and feeding it to the larger of the two dogs who happily sucks it down.  I ask about what he does for a toilet, out of curiosity, and he shows me the privy pit, with a lattice of logs for a seat out of which a couple of beautiful flowering fungi have started growing.  There’s no smell whatsoever.

Porfirio proposes that we go back to his land to look at the cabin Diego has built him there, his next proposed building site, and a cave for which he has some designs.   Following that, we’ll visit his brother’s land, which is a “hollywood style” ranch, and then we’ll part ways, with me continuing on East, and them heading back into Hidalgo.
We look at the cabin, which has suffered some damage from a recent storm that has yet to be repaired, the building site, where Diego tells me about the World Organization of Organic Farmers and 4 volunteers that he had working with him on planting trees not long ago.  They talk about their son/brother who is not a fan of physical labor and who made due with a plastic tarp for shelter the last time he came out to visit and stay on the land.

As we’re walking to check out the cave, and Porfirio’s talking about his plans to clean out the garbage that’s been dumped into it and then turn it into an underground dwelling, Diego points out that it’s not actually on his land, to which Porfirio replies with his characteristic “I DON’T GIVE A SHIIIIIIT!!!” driving home the point that he really, really, REALLY does not give a shit.

When we head back to the road, Porfirio rides ahead leaving Diego and I to chat as we ride.  He laments the fact that our increased connectivity has decreased our humanity, which I counter with the observation that I probably wouldn’t be doing this bike tour, and definitely wouldn’t be doing it as easily, if I didn’t have my phone to assist in navigation and finding accommodations, and instead I had to struggle through a language barrier to get information from locals.  He says that this struggle is how we grow and improve as people, and while I know that he’s not judging me for taking an easier path that involves less human interaction, it sinks in that what I’m doing is a far cry from bike touring as it was done even a few years ago, when navigation had to rely upon vastly lower resolution paper maps and a lot of local interaction.

It’s an unfortunate fact that most people on the planet don’t have the privilege and fortune to pull themselves out of a gravitational well of poverty.  Nonetheless, millions of people either do have, or are lucky enough to be born free of it.  People like Porfirio and Diego make clear, by example, that the vast majority of these non-impovershed people live relatively slavish lives devoted to getting further and further away from poverty without ever stopping to ask how far is far enough?  For Porfirio, a couple of pieces of land (which as he explains, serve as a sort of insurance) and a vacant lot in town for him and his animals to bed down is as far as he needs to be from broke in order to be happy, so why spend his time earning money he doesn’t need?  For Diego, he works on commercial shipping boats when and as needed for money, then alternates between living simply on his land and traveling.  They don’t feel a need to earn money and consume things with it for it’s own sake.  And consequently, their net contribution to the demise of our planet is among the smallest of anyone (that is not stuck in the gravity well of poverty) that I’ve ever met.  This is something that Diego thinks about a lot.  Porfirio, I’m guessing, doesn’t give a shit.

We get to the hollywood style ranch, and it’s as promised.  Manicured lawns and gardens and tight, pretty structures.  I meet Porfirio’s brother whose place it is, a visiting sister, her son, his wife, and their two kids.  All of them are extremely nice, welcoming, and excited to meet me and learn a bit about my trip.  We mill about for a while, chatting.  I recount my and Porfirio’s time in town together, and based on the number of people that greeted him as we went from place to place, describe him as a “local celebrity”, which he takes an immediate liking to, repeating it a few times for emphasis.

It’s 2pm and time for me to get going if I’m going to make it to Toluca the night after this, as I’ve decided I want to.  We walk back to the road where they wait for the bus back into town, and I head up into the small town of Aporo up the road.  The hope had been that we’d get to the hollywood ranch in time for a shared meal, but we were too late.  Other than a mango, I haven’t eaten since the breakfast my Hidalgo hosts provided early that morning.  Diego says that I can probably find food in the town if I ask around, with a good natured, chuckling nod to our conversation earlier.

I pedal up a small hill into the town and there’s a guy with a propane fired pizza oven, and some folks milling about eating the small pizzas he sells.  I buy one, and chat with a guy named Francisco, using his smattering of English and my smattering of Spanish.  Honestly, after the last 8 waking hours of near constant interaction, a far cry from my recent norm of solitude, I’m eager to be back on my own for a while.  But squelching the unbridled excitement of someone from a small rural mountain town like Aporo, at meeting a foreign visitor would be cruel, so I do my best to match his enthusiasm while I eat.  I pay and say my goodbyes to Francisco, his girlfriend, the pizza maker, and a few other spectators, and then make my leave.

I’m back on the road and it soon becomes unpaved.  There’s flashes of lightening followed by long rumbles of thunder in the distance, but I’ve gotten accustomed to these and learned that they commonly do not entail any rain actually falling on me.  I get a bit lost, and then back on track, and the scenery is just divine.  I pass close to a monarch butterfly sanctuary where masses of them spend November to May of each year as part of their ongoing migration, but by now they’re in Canada somewhere, so I forgo a detor to see it.

I get to Ocampo and the pavement returns.  I decide that I’ll get to the large town of ZItacuaro and find a room to spend the night there.  Much like my arrival into Higaldo, as I’m riding into town, passing motocycles and cars slow down to say hello and cheer me on.  It’s common enough that cars that pull over just ahead of me are doing so in order to flag me down and chat, that I’ve learned to keep an eye out for it.

In town, there’s lots of hotels, but all of the inexpensive looking ones are shuttered with metal gates, perhaps because it’s Sunday.  I end up taking a room in a fancier one, paying 450 pesos (about 23 USD) just out of exhaustion and having grown tired of cruising around looking for possibilities.  I unload, wash up, and hit the town.  There’s a band in the plaza doing covers of Santana and other American classic rock songs.  The evening light is pink and purple, with drizzle and storm clouds opposite the sunset.  The people are very friendly, and having gotten a few hours of downtime, I’m happy giving away smiles in response to all the double-takes I’m getting.  I sit at a counter in front of a carnitas cart and watch a pair of lovely, older women work in perfect tandem, assembling sets of tacos and quesadillas on the grill for a constant stream of customers as I eat a set of my own.

In the morning, I have a very lackluster hotel breakfast of cold/stale toast, a tiny bowl of fruit, and coffee.  I make my way out of town and grab some additional calories and coffee from an Oxxo on the edge.  It’s going to be another sizable climb and descent day and from the outset I’m tracking to get in no sooner than 6pm even with a 10am start and only minimal rest stops.  This also banks on being able to take the toll roads once they start and diverge from their free counterparts.  This is going fine until midway through a long, isolated stretch of toll road I’m flagged down with a fairly assertive gesture by a couple of police on the other side of the highway.  I smile as if I’m looking forward to our interaction as I stop and wait until it’s safe to cross.  Predictably, they tell me that bicycles are prohibited on this road, to which I respond that the toll road is much safer and the free road is much more dangerous for bicycles.  They don’t seem sold on the argument, but they switch gears, asking the standard questions.  This is a good sign…they’re mostly just bored.  One of them taps a front saddlebag with his foot, and I think asks what’s inside.  I point to each of the 4 bags, saying “camping, clothes, tools, food” which is roughly accurate.  The other one asks if I’m carrying any marijuana, which I brush off with a casual no.  This question makes me uneasy, and I’m starting to suspect this is a shakedown.  I pull out my cracked, shitty looking phone, opening my handlebar bag in a demonstration that I have nothing to hide, or offer, and open up Google Maps.  I’m asking them where they would have me go if not continue along the toll road, and they say something that I don’t understand, and I say as much.  After a few more awkward exchanges, I ask if it’s possible for me to continue on, and the wave me off on my way.

I get about 30km further, to a junction of the toll road with the free road, and I’m nearly to the toll booth when another cop flags me down.  This time, he seems friendlier, and as we’re in presence of witnesses, albeit at a distance, a shakedown is not in the cards.  We have an exchange that I don’t really understand, and I think he’s telling me I can continue on after I go on the other side of a barrier that I was planning to anyways, but when I do, he halts me again with his whistle and makes clear that he’s insructing me to go up the shoulder of the on-ramp I’m at, against traffic, and then … I have no idea.   As I’m doing so I encounter more cops at a toll booth that want to know why I’m doing that and as I try to explain that one of their colleagues just instructed me to, the first cop seems to get them on their radio and provide sufficient explanation as I’m allowed to proceed.  When I get to the start of the on-ramp, I find that I’m at the overpass of the free road.  Consulting my map, it seems that the free and toll road are about equivalent in distance.  This particular free road has a wide shoulder, at least for the time being.  So I proceed down it.

As I approach Toluca, it’s again rush hour, and this time I’m on full alert as I’m now in (or at least near) the greater Mexico City metropolitan area.  There are a lot more cars, but the roads are substantially wider and better maintained.  There are even dedicated bike lanes in the median between the express lanes and local access lanes.  On a long, flat, straight stretch of road where there are traffic lights at each intersection, I notice the lights are timed so that they turn red in a sort of wave, so that the next time I have a green, I sort of surf it, tailing the last car in the wave, going through intersections as the light flashes green (which they do here before going yellow then red), and as pedestrians start spilling into the street.  It’s pretty great fun, and I don’t think it’s technically illegal to enter the intersection on the flashing green, yet is on the yellow, though who knows.  So, the ride into Toluca is much less harried than the ride into Morelia a few days prior.  Additionally, the host that Luz, the Chilean, has put me in contact with and who I’ve arranged to board with, has given me a google maps pin via WhatsApp, so it’s a very simple matter to navigate myself there and then message him when I’m out front.

As I’m waiting out front for him to meet me, I see a waist-long dread-locked woman pass by and enter the gate of what’s probably the same place.   Guillermo comes out and greets me.  He and his wife are very practiced in hosting travellers, and immediately I feel completely comfortable and unconcerned that I’m imposing.  I’m also feeling particularly social for some reason, and I plant myself in a living room chair and talk non-stop with Guillermo, his wife, Janelle, and Julietta, the woman who walked by just as I had arrived, and is indeed another guest.  She’s been staying with them, sleeping in her VW mini-bus that’s parked in their walled property, for the last month.

While I was en route earlier that day, Guillermo had mentioned that he and a friend would be hiking up a volcano two days later and asked if I would like to join.  I’d said that I would probably only want to stay the one night and continue on to Mexico City the next day, but as I got into Toluca and realized how large a town it is, it occurred to me that I could probably get my bike tuned up there just as easily as I could in Mexico City, which I’ve decided would only be prudent.  My crank is clicking badly, my chain is stretched, I’m sporting a $5 rear tire, and my shifting is fully functional, but only just.  So, if they know of a good mechanic in town, I could have my bike tuned while I stay a couple of days, and then, as a bonus, also do the volcano hike.  I ask if they can recommend a mechanic nearby, and they haven’t biked much since their tour a few years ago (pre-kids) but Balthazar, the father of a student of Janelle’s knows a mechanic, and he’ll come by around 10 the next morning to take me and my bike there if I’d like.  I would, and we settle on this and me staying 3 nights to give the mechanic time to do his thing and me time to hike the volcano.

Janelle cooks a dinner that’s served around 10pm, which turns out to be the regular schedule in the house.  Dinner is served after the kids are put down.  Re: the kids, their names escape me, sadly, (Ana and Meemo?) but they’re both quite sweet and friendly.  Dinner is delicious, and I have several helpings, and then crash on a guest bed that’s off in an office space adjoining the upstairs kitchen where dinner is served.  Come morning, it’s 12:30 when Balthazar comes by to take me to the mechanic.  His english isn’t much better than my spanish, so conversation on the way to the shop is a bit difficult, as is describing the work that I want done.  The shop is tiny on a partially flooded, sod road a fair ways out of town, but I’m committed at this point.  Balthazar drives me back, relays what the mechanic told him to Guillermo who translates it to me (they’ll do a full tune and it should be ready later that day).  The rest of the day I read, nap, eat.  I get a notebook for some spanish writing exercises, kinda inspired by the language lessons I hear Jenelle giving her kids and students.  I visit the same bakery multiple times, getting a wry smile by the the pastry wrapper on my second visit.  In Mexico, pastries are vended such that the customer takes a tray and tongs and assembles the selection on the tray, then takes the tray to the pastry wrapper, who wraps donuts and frosted things in their own light plastic sheets with deft aplomb, then places all the things in a paper bag, sealed with a sticker that has the price hand-written and signed.  It’s a lovely-ly quaint, if egregiously inefficient system that can result in lines for said pastry wrapper.

Guillermo is delightfully generous with his time, working on lesson on-line courses with and for colleagues, and always totally happy to call the mechanic and get the latest update.

The next day, Guillermo’s friend since childhood, Rafa, picks us up and drives us up to the head of a trail into the crater of the aforementioned volcano.  The three of us jog up the incline to the lip of the crater, which is socked in by fog.  But as we’re walking around the small lakes within the crater, the fog lifts a bit, revealing the stunning scenery.  Back at the entry to the park, there’s a row of food vendors, one of which is open.  We stop in and share a large pot of soup that contains among a variety of things, zucchini flower, which is new to me.  Rafa and Guillermo have translated the entire menu for my benefit, and despite the fact that I was until fairly recently quite averse to mushrooms of any variety, my curiosity is piqued by dishes based on a fungus that grows on ears of corn, and we order a quesadilla made with it.  It’s not bad, though like a lot of mushrooms, doesn’t really have much of a taste at all, just a spongy texture.

On our way back into town we check in via phone with the mechanic.  We have a bike rack in the car, but he says it will be a few more hours until it’s ready, and we should call back then.  When we do, it’s ready, but Janelle is out with the car.  She’s back at 7:30, giving us just enough time to get to the shop before they close at 8pm.

There, I learn that I’ve gotten a new chain and rear cassette, but no new rear tire.  The bike is immaculately clean for the first time ever, and even the handlebar tape has been reapplied.  All of this for 950 pesos (about $50).  I take it for a quick test ride and all feels well, so we load the bike up on the rack and take it back to the house.  There, I have one last night of dinner with the family before slinking off to the guest bed a few feet away, making sure to get a rough idea of Guillermo and Janelle’s morning schedules so that I’ll get a chance to say my goodbyes.

I only have one climb and 70km to go to Mexico City, so I take my time getting ready in the morning, then another 30 minutes doing my stretches and exercises on their rooftop terrace that had until then escaped my notice.  Back on the road, I’m asserting my right, real or perhaps just perceived, to occupy a full lane among speeding trucks and busses.  I’m also no longer meekly accepting honks without protest, and as I catch up and pass a truck who had a few seconds earlier laid on his horn at me, I shout “WAAAAHHHH” at him through his open window.  It’s a childish gesture, but also very useful catharsis.

I stop for a coffee and when I pull out, I realize my front tire is flat.  Taking it apart, I find the valve has been sheared.  The rim has a valve hole that’s the diameter of a shrader valve.  I use tubes with narrower presta valves.  I’m 90% sure that I had not managed to lose a small rubber gasket that holds the narrower valve centered through the hole, but this is no longer there.  On the one hand, if the mechanic had removed the tire to true the front wheel, that’s great.  On the other, if he managed to lose the gasket and reattach the wheel in such a way to ruin the tube, that’s really un-great.  I’m hoping this likely/apparent low level of attention to detail isn’t a precursor to greater problems down the road resulting from my Toluca tune-up.

Fortunately, I have a spare tube.  I pull the valve off the ruined tube and cut out the section that had housed the valve, and slip this over the valve of the new tube.  I also wrap a bit of the old tube around the valve stem, and push this up into the rim as best I can to avoid future shearing and act as a surrogate for the missing gasket.

As I get to the top of the climb that precedes a drop into the valley in which Mexico City (aka District Federale (DF), aka Central District Mexico (CdMX)), a heavy rain starts, which I wait out.  As it eases up into a trickle, I start the harrowing plunge into the mega-metropolis.  I’m quickly presented with equally unattractive options: ride my brakes to remain behind slow moving busses in the right-most lane, or compete with the other faster vehicles for passing lanes.  The roads aren’t terrible, but they’re not without their share of potholes that would definitely send me flying.  I’m looking over my right shoulder to make sure an on-ramp is clear, going about 45km/hour when I hit a round but shallow hole housing a manhole cover and very nearly lose my balance.  I consider this fair warning and ease back a bit on keeping pace with traffic, and instead suffer the indignant honks of drivers that are forced to spend a few precious, extra seconds to spare my life.

When I get from the outskirts into the city itself, the situation changes entirely.  It’s rush hour, but there are bike lanes cordoned off by barriers throughout, and they’re well used by flocks of bicycle commuters.  Pedestrians and the occasional motorbike misuse these lanes, and the situation with cars turning and crossing these lanes is anything but orderly, but I get the clear sense that bicycles are meant to have first class treatment in the city.  Moreover, many of the cyclists are riding so-called ‘ecobici’s, smaller wheeled 3-speed bicycles checked out from and returned to kiosks that can be spotted everywhere.

I get to my chosen hostel and wash up.  I get the standard and always appreciated level of interest and excitement from the staff and other guests over seeing the bike and hearing how I’m travelling.  I eat an obscene amount of food at an all you can eat chinese food buffet for 93 pesos ($5), owing in part to the torrential downpour, lightening and hail that keeps me there an extra hour, then return to the hostel and have a few beers with some of the other guests, then call it an early-ish night.

The next morning, I meet Sava from Puerto Vallarta.  She’s both Mexican and Canadian (like Porfirio and family), and heading to a free walking tour and happy to take whoever else might be interested.   Tom, Bez and I take her up on this.  Bez and I chat about our lives back home.  He’s 24, from London, also with a math(s) background, and a banker that was recently made redundant, but has a job lined up for a few months later managing a hedge fund.  The tour is great, with a guide whose English is strong enough to understand, but also adorable in its idiosyncrasies.  Mexico City, it turns out, is built on a lake, and the ground is so soft that it’s not hard at all to see buildings (and rather large ones at that) sitting askew.  After the tour, we go out to lunch, and then I head off to meet Felli, the woman I befriended in Guadalajara.  We stroll an artisan market and chat while she purchases souvenirs for her imminent return to Buenos Aires.

Back at the hostel, I take a nap and barely manage to rally for a group trip to see Lucha Libre (Mexican wrestling).  There’s about 15 of us, including Bez and Sava, who are quickly becoming my favorite new friends in DF.  Bez and I sit next to each other and he has me in stitches with his ring-side commentary delivered straight with characteristic English wryness.  The group makes its way back to the hostel where we drink and party amongst ourselves.  Eventually a bunch of them head out to a club, but I’ve hit my limit and head off to sleep.

The next morning, Bez and I rent ecobici bikes and ride down to the Frida Khalo museum.  The day before, Felli had given me the excellent tip of buying the tickets online using, say, your phone, rather than waiting on the long physical line to purchase the tickets in person.  So I do this as we walk from the ecobici station to the museum and we skip the line entirely.  Sava catches up with us there a couple of hours later, and after having coffee with her inside the compound/museum, we leave her and her crew to take in the museum and go to meet a Tinder date that Bez has arranged, with plans to meet up with Sava later.  I tag along on Bez’s date for a few minutes to help break the ice, and enlist her help in locating a chincharron prensado taco, per a solicited suggestion of a Mexican friend back home, and then leave them to enjoy their date without a third wheel.  I walk around the surrounding Coyoacan neighborhood which is positively beautiful on a sunny, Saturday afternoon.  About an hour later, Sava and her friend (whose name escapes me) message and we meet up.  I buy a traditional-ish white shirt at an artisan market and we go out for dinner at a vegan restaurant (Sava is vegan), making use of uber to get around.  I check out Sava and her friend’s hostel, which is OK though not as nice as the one I’m at (we all agree) but which is fully booked.  I make another early night of it.

The next day I make my way to a bike shop and get the replacement tire that I’d intended to get in Toluca.  The folks at the shop are great, and do the swap for me while I stroll around town and get some coffee.  Felli messages that she’s made a vegetable pie and invites me over to where she’s staying to join her in eating it, which is in the upscale neighborhood of  Hipodromo.  I ask if I can invite Bez and she says yes, of course.  We meet and eat and then stroll around the neighborhood after catching the final minutes of the eurocup final.  Back at her place, we chat with a few of the dozen or so young travellers living in Felli’s building, and when the discussion drifts to Wuthering Heights, I have one of those moments when I realize that I have a couple decades on everyone in my company when I bring up the Kate Bush song from the 80s of the same name.  Bez and Felli are both headed to the Yucatan next, and I’m delighted to have introduced them as they make tentative plans to meet up there.

Bez and I ride back to our hostel and as it’s my last night in town, I’m pretty committed to keeping up with the younger folks and going out for at least one night, proper, albeit a Sunday.  Sava messages me about a reggae night in a nearby club, that other folks in my hostel are already planning to go to.  I want to go earlier with Sava, so I borrow Bez’s code for the ecobici (I’d gotten a 1 day rental, whereas he’d gotten a 3 day rental, and I don’t want to take my own bike for a night out) and meet at her hostel.  Having gone out the previous nights, Bez is down for the count on this one.  One of the staff from my hostel joins us as we get to the club and shows me around, helping me navigate the fairly strict/intrusive security regiment at the front door, and introducing me to some of his mates. Giant plastic cups of beer are going for 50 pesos ($2.50) and there are two stages and an outdoor area that are each absolutely fantastic and the scene is incredibly chill yet grooving, in the way that a reggae scene can be.

Several hours later, it’s time to leave.  I and an Australian guy named Lyall (from my hostel) decide to each take a beer for the road.  There’s a couple of cops standing outside the club that spot us doing so, and, well, arrest us.  I guess.  I mean, honestly, my recollection is a bit blurry, and maybe I got a little belligerent, but we get taken for a ride in the cop car to some place a few miles away from the club (which was only a few blocks away from Sava’s hostel), and relieved of the pesos in our possession, which was something like 500 ($25) for each of us.  Eventually, the cops drive off, leaving us on some street corner.  Lyall is in the process of hailing an uber to get us back to the hostel when another cop car pulls up and asks us what we’re doing.  They have their cop car lights going, and one of them is standing over us with an assault rifle, while we explain to them in some exasperation that we’ve already been robbed by their colleagues so there’s not much point in them shaking us down.  We’re pretty sure that we spot the uber driver that Lyall had hailed on his phone driving by, deciding he would rather not stop for us while we’re being interrogated and/or robbed (again) by a pair of cops with assault rifles, and share a laugh over this.  Perhaps it’s the laugh that Lyall and I are sharing, of being so hopelessly fucked that we’re nearly beyond caring, that makes this pair of cops decide to take pity on us.  They ask us where we’re staying, and I show them on my phone.  They put us in the car, and we’re relieved to see that they seem to be taking us back there.  Meanwhile, they’re on the radio, recounting my name to dispatch, for some reason or another that never becomes clear.  When we get to the hostel and they let us out, I try to give them the 40 euros that I’ve been carrying around with me for no reason in particular, to which they insist that they’re not interested in our money.  Seems that these were good cops.

Back in the hostel, we’re somewhat famous.  Our companions that saw us get apprehended are freaking out on our behalf, and quite relieved to hear that we were only robbed/extrajudicially fined and taken for a ride.  Apparently I subconsciously decide that my night hasn’t had enough negative consequences, and leave my primary phone out in the rain when I turn in for the night.  The next morning, when recovered from the front desk where it’s been turned in, my phone is seemingly totally wrecked.  But I have a back up phone, and a great replacement protection plan for the primary in case the bag of rice trick doesn’t work.

I’m in Puebla now, about 120km away, regaining my bicycling momentum, but I’ll end this long in the coming blost here, now.

Thanks for reading!