May 16 to 21, 2004

May 16th, 2004

We leave this little town whose road sign was paid for by Coke early in the morning. We’ve both decided that we don’t like this State very much. The landscape is brown and dry, only changing when a black field appears, every once in a while the monotony is broken by a heap of rank burning garbage. Something is clicking like it shouldn’t in Johanne’s rear axle so we seek more mechanical help during our lunch break in Cruz Grande. It turns out to be the cassette and the mechanic isn’t equipped with the tools or the knowledge to do the job. Judging by the sound the cassette (mechanism that backspins inside the bicycle’s rear gears) needs to be re-greased at least and will bite the dust within a few kilometers if we continue. We decide to hitchhike to Pinotepa Nacional 150kms away. No luck at the gas station so we head off to find a camp-spot near sunset. A family with a good ten kids allows us to camp behind their house not far from town. We spend some time sitting around with them chatting before hitting the sack. They seem to think that all Canadians are tall, have blond hair, and sport a wonderful pair of blue eyes.

The pigs with their grunts and squeals, the dogs with their barks, the cocks with their constant crowing. This is not old McDonald had a farm but an enumeration of all the things that would easily have kept us up and certainly did due to the 500% humidity brought on by a few minutes of rain. Bleary eyed we plow our way through some mangos and nuts around 6:00am and on with an increasingly clickety cassette into Marquelia to resume yesterday’s hitching. Our luck is good and the first guy I ask agrees to take us to San Juan, which is halfway to our goal. Arturo is a salesman of agrochemicals for Monsanto and Dow chemical. His primary source of information on the world is cable TV, so it’s not surprising that he was all for the invasion of Iraq. It’s always interesting talking to a person whose world is so different from ours (if a bit sad sometimes). He decides to take us all the way to Pinotepa and we arrive in the late morning. We eat and find a mechanic named Necho who can and does fix the problem. He throws in a truing of her rear wheel and doesn’t charge us a thing. We thank him kindly and stumble upon a very nice hidden hotel in the slow process of dragging our butts out of town. We can’t say no and make ourselves a soup before flopping. It rains hard all evening.

May 19th, 2004

We sleep in, the hotel is quiet and we get a complete and much needed rest. After a big lunch we head out of town down a big hill. We are now in the State of Oaxaca. The countryside has changed dramatically from Guerrero. It is green, tropical, and interesting. Part of being interesting is not being flat. We spend a long time climbing up and up through great green mountains and it begins to rain but we’re expecting it. The rain gets serious and we avoid the buckets at a nearby house. We crouch under an overhanging roof with some locals in long awkward silences and wait for the rain to stop. We’ve noticed that the Mexicans around here seem to be less friendly or at least more introverted than those we had been meeting up till this point. The rain lets up and we move on. We stop and pick some mangos, quite illegally, for our breakfast. The field has a big sign indicating the kind of pesticide they use. We stop and camp behind an abandoned house.

We ride on through a stunningly green landscape, vibrant with life and washed clean by the rain. The terrain is flat and we pass big beautiful trees, big beautiful horses, and big beautiful rivers. We arrive in Rio Grande, the weather is mercifully temperate. It’s time to participate in a wild goose chase in search of a restaurant that can please. We finally eat and are joined by a drunk dude who’s not so cool. He is belligerent, noisy, and impossible to understand. Our lunch is troubled by his presence. We leave early in the afternoon under towering rain clouds. Our sights are set on Puerto Escondido and we push our pedals down a long straight road through scores of tiny towns. It seems that where one begins another ends. They’re all small, equipped with various topes (speed bumps) and maybe a general store or two. We get to Puerto Escondido late, as the sun is going down. Whether the 100km ride has irritated pimples growing on our backsides is none of your business. We are as exhausted as our pimpled behinds and manage to go through the motions of finding a cheap motel. The search lands us in a hole called “the Regional” where people come for sexual reasons almost exclusively. The clerk affirms that the average client hangs around for only 30 minutes or so. We really need a shower, so bad in fact that the greasy bathroom floor is bearable. The place has no towels and they keep making excuses about how they will be back from the wash in any minute, it takes us three tries before we realize that the towels do not exist. We eat and then walk through town looking to celebrate our big day. The downtown tourist strip is full of noise and life. Kids playing beach-ball baseball slam into Australians with their shirts off who are then quite indignant. All this hubbub is too much for my tired senses so we head off in search of a beer and a sidewalk. We are not denied and soon realize that eight hours of biking does wonders for the alcohol tolerance. After two beers we stagger our giddy selves off to bed.

May 21st, 2004

We are awoken by the insistent and continuous noises of our sex hotel (but it’s not what you think). Cleaners yell at each other, a Harley Davidson warms up outside our window, and someone decides to turn on some easy rock. We scoot around town till the afternoon on various missions and in Internet cafés. We move on. The road is extremely straight and somewhat hilly. We see the ocean from time to time and pass mangrove forests and silent lagoons. We’d been hoping to make it to the nice little fishing village of San Agustinillo but must stop short to enjoy the virtues of a dry riverbed beside the brown town of Lagartero.

Up and at ’em we arrive in Masunte for a second breakfast at noon. We meet a Swiss guy named Alain who has been cycling for about as long as us but in Cuba and Mexico. We chat over beans and learn that he’s been sleeping his way around those same countries in his own project called PASCI (!!) the Pan-American Sexual Cycling Initiative. We finally make it to San Agustinillo and meet up with a friend of Johanne’s, Adan. We will stay in this paradise by the beach and relax for a few days. It is stunningly beautiful here. The water is clear and clever, the waves are playful and nice. There are palm trees, palapas, and great jutting black rocks. Our little room on the beach looks upon it all and we are content. I think I shall play some reggae on the mini guitar, read a book, and relax.