Buena Vista translates to Great Pueblo

So much has happened over the last couple of days, I'll start first with bike stuff.
Veracruz City to Buena Vista
90 km, 56 miles
A really awesome ride, the boardwalk is 10 km long and at 6 in the morning with a beautiful sunrise with beautiful people for company passes the time quickly.


The highway has just been redone and a shoulder of 6 feet paves the way for the bicyclest.

Buena Vista - Santiago Tuxtla
60 km, 38 miles
This was tough. I left at 7 because of the long good bye from the pueblo. I did well the first 30km, so well I thought I could make some unplanned stops that are off the highway, and on a 'terrazeria'. Lets examine that word like I do when I hear a new spanish word. It sounds like 'terrain' in English, and 'ia' on the end of Spanish words mean 'a place of', a place of terrain, this is what it exactly was. This bike is not made for unpaved roads, I suffered here, I fell for the first time since I was 10 on the bicycle, not once but twice. The bike doesn't grip well here, and with the trailer it is unstable. These 5km of dirt took a lot of energy, my front brakes and my cell phone, all right before I hit the hills of Santiago. I hit these hills at 12, and was burned by the sun. I made it to the town, stopped in the first hotel, and crashed. I've spent the best part of today fixing and cleaning the bike up and the front brake is still sticking to the tire, there is a lot of dirt in the handle bar brake grip that doesn´t let it retract.

Evil Terraceria

The Pueblo of Buena Vista

I'm riding through the port city of Alvarado, I can't find a place to camp, the beach is small and full of traffic, not good conditions for a gringo biker camper guy. A kind woman on the beach told me that the next pueblo is 10k away and that I might have better luck there. The first pueblo I saw leaving Alvarado was Buena Vista. Passing the first share of houses I hear a bunch of people rooting me on from their front porches, so I decide to give my fans a personal appearance and turn around. After the hellos and presentations, I asked them if they knew of a place to camp, the bigger guy says, "A tent would go perfect right here" and points to the same porch they were on. All 4 of them got up and cleaned the patio, sooooo now I was in a position where I can´t refuse and I accepted the offer. After an hour of chatting with them, more people had gathered, we were up to 10, and it was getting to be quite the spectacle. The house belonged to the family Montes de Oca, which translates to Fields of Oak, a little house of 3 rooms and a bathroom that is placed at the end of what you would call their main street, but in a pueblo of 400 it's is the only street, their pueblo is sandwhiched between the river and the highway. The Señora of the house, they called her 'jueda', which is a nice way of saying whitey, invited me to eat with them, and after 2 pan fried fish and 4 enchiladas I was offered a bed in the house and a shower, and once again, I humbily accepted.

Water in the pueblo

There is no running water in the pueblos. Options are dig a well, bring buckets up from the river or buckets from a community faucet. Some houses pump or place the water to a tank on top of the house to have water pressure for showers and toilet, but MOST of them don't. You do your thing in the toilet and toss a bucket of water on it, you shower (usually freezing water, unless they are really nice and make a fire and heat water) with a bucket, wash clothes, wash dishes..... everything is with a bucket and the farther the water source the more accurate and skilled you are with that bucket. It's surprising how little water you can survive on, I wouldn´t doubt that in one day an American probably flushes more water than the family in a pueblo uses.

After the shower we walked to the plaza. It was amazing, it's 8 at night and everyone is out on the patio, we either get a 'good night', a whistle, wave, or an invintation to stop and chat, we spent 2 hours just walking down their little street. I was there a maximum of 4 hours and I had met half the pueblo.

They convinced me to stay an extra day, then another, and then one more.

I spent those 3 days fishing, riding in boats, talking with people, eating, catching iguanas, and playing a little soccer. They were some of the best 3 days of my life, this sleepy fishing pueblo adopted a complete stranger without a single condition and gave me a home away from home.

Here are my pics of my querido pueblo Buena Vista.

Buena Vista

Problems in the Pueblo
Like so many other pueblos, the young men of Buena Vista are absent. 10 years before I arrived a sugar processing plant moved in down the river and the fish numbers were cut to a small percentage of what they used to be, they say it's common knowledge that the acid that the plant uses to clean the machines are dumped in the river which in turn kills the fish and that the local Profepa agents are paid off to overlook it (sound like a case for Erin Brokavich). They barely pull enough fish to feed themselves let alone to sell. Options are work in the city of Alvarado and earn 40 dollars a week (not including bus fare, back and forth 4 times a day), or go to Mexico City to work as a street peddler. AAA, but there is another option for the family, and it is prosperous, dangerous, and sure one; send their sons to the US to work and send money back. All the kids in those pictures are on their way out, most of them in April, not one of them want to go and not one of their families want to send them, but the world need for sugar overrides the need for fishing pueblos. So it's off to the USA for them, where they will receive the same welcome I did, right?

I've spent the last 2 days recovering from the travesties of my last bike stretch in the pueblito of Santiago Tuxtla, a typical picturesque pueblo nestled in the hills and fog of Veracruz.

Santiago Tuxtla

So now I roll on to the lake city of Catemaco, with the additional prayers of the pueblo Buena Vista and a couple of extra pounds on my rear.

Have a great Semana Santa.