Junior Mountaineer

These past days with out a camera have been the most scenic so far, so you´ll just have to be long winded with the blog.
First there was the Emerald Coast, it´s great for biking but not so great for vacationing, it´s 20km of low quality beach hotels. The beach is about 20 yards wide and the water is the color of mud. BUT, if you come on an off season and stay in a hotel between the pueblos, it would be worth it. This same day, my first day on the road, I lost my flags, the top half of the pole fell off or was taken sometime during the ride, I returned 10k looking for them to no avail. What does one do then... Being an Eagle Scout, I found a 1 foot section of bamboo (light and strong) and 2 feet of cord (side of the road) and lashed it to the remaining part of the pole. I then took a big red flag off a heap of asphalt, warm but not hot, and taped it to the bamboo, now I´m truly sporting a Mexcian flag. I roll into a pueblo on the coast called Las Casitas (The little houses), where I happen upon an abandoned hotel on 1 acre of palm infested beach front property. I pull up, talk to the people trying to restore it, and they allow me to camp amongst the palms. I would of liked a picture of this place, I´ll give you the description from my journal...

It is a half acre square, extending from the highway to the beach. Full of palm trees, may be some 40 trees, 75% which are farily old.The older ones line the dirt drive to the hotel, 100 yards long. The hotel is one story, rectangular in form, and propped up on a dirt hill. The building has 4 rooms on the right, the middle is bathrooms and showers, and another 4 rooms to the left filled with bunk beds. The back is a covered patio with a brick walk out to the beach, the sand arrives right up to the hotel. At the end of the walk are the famous palapas which run the length of the hotel. The hotel is set against the left side of the terrain, to the right is a pond and a 2 small bungalows. I´m camped between the pond and the entrance under a pair of 30 ft coco trees.

...
I did 50k that day and felt great. I decided to change my plans and head inland a bit to visit Jalapa, it sounds like a place I would like. What I didn´t know was to head inland means to take on the Sierra Madre, which I did. Leaving Casitas at 6 in the morning during sunrise was beautiful, another exceprt from the journal...

Antoher kilometer down the road and I´m on a bridge overlooking some 15 fisherman on their small boats leaving the pueblo out through the mouth of the river, the sun is centimeters off the water, and an old white light house guards the northern point, it was beautiful. As I take the turnoff I´m surrounded by banana plantations, banana trees everywhere for miles, the bananas are wrapped in plastic, so I was confused what the plant was at first, but its leaf is unmistakable, it's the same one that wraps up my favorite tamal, tamales oaxaquenos with chicken and green salsa, mmmmmm. For some reason I remember that one of them was called ¨The Romance¨, what a great name for a banana plantation.

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The first big pueblo I hit was San Rafeal, a French founded pueblo that is worth stopping in for its quantness. here I was stopped by a bike enthusiasts that showed me a route to Misantla that wasn´t on my map, it went through more plantations and had less traffic, but I had to do a river crossing, it is manned by an old señor in a boat that charges 2 pesos a person, bikes are free and fit quite comfortably. The bike enthusiast, Victor took some shots from his camera and said he´d email them to me, so some pics might come out of this. I stopped in the next peublo in front of the poorest school I had ever seen to tune my rear gear changer, journal excerpt...

Right after the hen showed up a small muchacho shows, he said he saw me from the school. I replied,¨What school?¨and he points to a pink wooden shack with a Mexican flag on it. (Time Warp) As a child growing up in the hamlet of Alice, Tx., we had a metal shack in our backyard to store things, mostly lawn equipment. It was on cinderblocks, pops gave it wooden steps, it had 2 windows, a good roof and a solid door. Our lawn mower shack would of been paradise for these kids. The pink wooden shack (20x20) had no windows, half a roof, and you couldsee right through it. I was mixed in emotions, ticked off at a government that would build such a school and depressed for the students we HAD to go to it.

On to Misantla, I ate some tamales in a pueblo, La Primavera (The Spring, the season), and made friends with Everyone there in the process through simple chit chat. They didn´t charge me for the food and warned me that the road ahead is long and steep. They were right, this was miles of up hill and curves, I was passed by a bicycle, it was pulled by a dirt bike, they had it right.
Due to the extremity of my first mountain climb I decided to stay in Misantla, a nice pueblo in the mist of the mountains, worth stopping at. I stayed in the center of town for 11 bones, and had a meal for 3. Nobody believed that I just rode my bike to Misantla, then they would tell me that it´s worse to Jalapa. So I bought a bus ticket for the next day. I had the bus stop half way for me, we had cleared the dense fog and we were starting down hill after an hour of up hill. The pueblo I got off at, Naulinco, is really neat, sitting at the top of a hill the view was spectacular, even better, it´s a town of cobblers, all the houses on mainstreet have shoe stores on their first floor. The entrance to the center has a giant copper cobbler on a pedastol, would of been a cool pic. After miles of down hill I hit an uphill twice as long as the day before, it nearly killed me. I was in the lowest gear for an hour, climbing, I stopped twice nearly collapsing from the heat and fatigue. When I was ready to set up camp and call it quits, I saw a restaurant, pigged out on meatballs, and chatted up the clientel. I was 5k from Jalapa and they were all down hill, I ran to the bike and headed in town.
Spelled Jalapa outside of the US, Xalapa to Mexico, sounds the same (soft J), This is a cool town, it has an artsy, university, cosmopalitan feel with all its parks, museums and colonial architecture. I would compare it to Austin in the states, Grenada in Spain, or Guanajuato in central Mexico, all these cities have a good vibe to them, and are amongst hills. I bought a camera there and I have pics, enjoy...

(X)Jalapa

New Rules of the Road
1. If it´s Wet don´t pack it
I did this with clothes and my tent one day, after one hour, everything smelled like a longshoreman. It's also heavy water you're carrying that you can't drink.

2. Ask people continuously about the route. I do this at every stop and it has saved me misery and possibly death. AND there are a lot of roads not on the map that are hidden gems.

3.Eat and drink all the time.

4. Take your time. I still don´t do this, "I´m in a hurry and I don´t know why", and it has almost doomed my trip. I ran out of the hotel to catch a bus and left behind my helmet and handle bar bag, I was buying the ticket when I realized it. The same bus left every hour from that terminal and I knew it, there was no need to rush, but the American side of me wanted to maximize my time, I have 4 months of time, it was a bad decision. This leads to the next rule.

5. Double check everything
My stuff and the bike. I´m nutorious for losing stuff, so double checking everytime I leave a room and when I stand up is keeping me whole (this was not applied when camera was stolen, I was in the same room but I stood up from the table and it was 10 yards from me). Must check the bike constantly, these roads here don´t only rattle my teeth loose, but screws as well, I almost lost my bike seat in Jalapa lunch hour traffic and a back tire in San Rafeal in front of a political rally.

6. Don´t take extra water.
Strange Rule_ Water is damn heavy, and taking extra liters killed me in the mountains. In the most remote roads, mountains and jungles of Mexico, in my 3 years of traveling here I haven´t gone 5 miles without hitting a pueblo, and where there are people there are always 2 things, Coca-Cola and Bimbo products.

Regrets
One of my 2 shirts is white, I´m washing it constantly, I suck at washing clothes by hand so it´s never clean.
Only have done 145 km, I´ll fix that tomorrow, on to Veracruz.