Travelogue: "A race... and YOU'RE losing!"

Nov. 16 2002
by Basil

While on tour, Joel and I like to take turns leading and taking up the rear. When we're in the back, we obviously need to ride slower than we're capable of, sometimes at a painfully leisurely pace.

Well. In machismo drenched Mexico, if you're on a bike, you're in a race. And of course if you're in the back, well, you're losing! It's fun to watch people in the back of passing pickup trucks cheering us on and trying to motivate us to "dig deep" and go for the gold.

Of course, we're touring, not racing, and while bike touring people treat you extra nice for some reason. People are already nice enough here, but when the hotel owner in Barra de Navidad asked us to help ourselves to the papayas in a bucket in the corner... well, I never thought it possible, but I had papaya breath for a couple of days. MMMmmm! Besides papayas, you can really tell that it's lime season, people are literally begging us to take them.

Yesterday Joel and I exlored a bit of the maze of houses, alley-ways and stairways that make up the side of a Rio-de-Janeiro-like hill (but much smaller) in Manzanillo. At the top there was a lookout where you could see the ocean, the mountains that we had just weaved our way through, the harbour, city and lagoons. We spent an active half hour taking in the view from every which direction while swatting sandflies on every which body part.

Tomorrow we head into the state of Michoacan, and the most spectacular coastline that I know. Heavily flora laiden foothills stab at the Pacific ocean, and our bike will carry us up and down the dizzy road that winds in and out and up and down. Awe inspiring views of the Pacific and dozens of beaches await us. I'm not sure though, is it beautiful simply because it is, or because we'll be so intoxicated by the effort that has brought us there?

One way or another, I can't wait.