Patzcuaro to Taxco, Mexico 2-11-08 thru 2-28-08

We left Patzcuaro and rolled on to Morelia (mostly downhill!) a city with a beautiful central core full of 3 story colonial buildings.  It had a somewhat European feel.  We found a fabulous restaurant-bakery near the cathedral and central plaza, which we visited a few times, mainly because they had brewed coffee with free refills (most places charge $1 per cup and $1 for refills - of instant NESCAFE´coffee!!)  and were open by 8:00 AM (another shock, almost unheard of by Mexican standards).  We wandered the city for several days, taking in the beautiful architecture and eating at restaurants that served international cuisine (have we mentioned that we´re sick of beans and tortillas?)  We also took in an art exhibit of French impressionist artists!! 

From Morelia we rode the Mil Cumbres road ( means 1000 hills!) to the east.   What an incredible road –narrow lightly travelled, winding thru Ponderosa forests, ever upward until we topped out at Mil Cumbres Pass.  What an incredible view!!!  After camping the night, we dropped down into the valley farmland and lo and behold, ran into Oscar, our Columbian friend whom we met at Lake Louise, Canada in mid-August!  He is bicycling his way to Columbia.  It was quite magical and pretty much unbelievable to cross paths with him after 6 months (and we hadn´t even been keeping in touch! )

After talking with Oscar at the side of the road, catching up on his trip and he ours, we pedaled to Angangueo, the home of the Monarch Mariposa (butterflies!) sanctuaries, where zillions of monarchs migrate each year.  They were so thick on the trees that at first glance we thought the trees were dead and brown from beetle kill – but the brown was all butterflies with their wings closed waiting for the sun to warm them up!  So we tiptoed thru the forest and flowers with Mariposa´s fluttering all around us, (what a site!).  They will start their migration North to the Great Lakes Region by the end of March!

The next day we once again headed east on beautiful, quiet back-roads winding first thru Ponderosa and fir forests, then dropping into farmland where people raised corn, cattle, trout (yes – trout farms abound in Mexico!)  There are tons of small farms of 2 to 10 acres – people plowing with horses and hand-harvesting corn.  They then pile the corn on their flat concrete house roofs to dry.  The area also had many small creeks running thru it, with more women doing laundry at their banks than we have ever seen!  It was very colorful!!  At the end of the day we were able to stay at a brand new hotel – big, super clean rooms for only $19 (a nice switch from the ghetto-type hotel we had to stay in Angangueo for $30.)

We pedalled to the ruins at Calixtaluaca the next day, then on to Tuluca, where we stopped to ask a Policeman directions.   He asked where we were from, and it turns out he lived in Carbondale, Colorado for 5 years and we were neighbors with his best friend (SMALL WORLD, ISN´T IT ¿¡?¿). 

  The highlight of Toluca was the botanical gardens – an enclosed area about the size of a football field with fantastically brilliantly colored stained glass artwork all around the perimeter in a continuous flowing mural 15 feet tall!  Another mural 25´X 75 ´encloses both entrances and a 20´X 300´mural along the ceiling!  It is by far the most beautiful stained glass work we have ever seen!

From Toluca we climbed up our first Volcano, up to 14,000´(yes – 14,000 – a new record for us) to the Nevado de Toluca Volcano.  What a spectacular panorama!  It was there we met a couple, Julie and John, who have been travelling in their van all over Mexico and mountain biking the trails in each area!  They appear to be about as crazy as us, so hopefully our paths will cross again (and run parallel for a while).  We also met a group of mountain bikers from Mexico City that do bike trips every weekend.  They were a wealth of info and inspiration!   

After camping there a couple of nights (pretty chilly – water bottles froze – but luckily we didn´t!)  we skirted the volcano (60 miles to get to the other side!) thru beautiful forests on quiet, winding roads.  We eventually ended up at Malinalco, a nice, quiet little town beneath towering cliffs – one of which has the ruins of an Aztec temple carved out of it´s side!  We met a couple of young ladies there who had biked from Vancouver and now are working with two other ladies on an organic farm nearby.  We also met a couple that are living in Malinalco while he completes a book he is writing about his travels.  He has travelled extensively in Asia, India, the Mideast and Europe!  That´s one of the great things about this trip – there is always somebody that you run into that you can envy! 

From there we rode another very windy, steeply climbing road into Cuernavaca, a city of about 2 million people (not our favorite place!)  The road to Cuernavaca was amazingly vacant of vehicles and upon arriving, we stopped at a very busy corner to find our directions and ended up helping a blind man around the corner and away from all the traffic!  We found a great bike shop  and left Ralph´s front wheel to be repaired, so we took the opportunity to hop on a bus and go to Taxco (home of silver jewelry) SHOPPING ! 

We plan to leave Taxco today and get to Cuernavaca, then head east and north to see some steaming volcanoes!

Hope this finds you all inspired to keep on riding your bikes whenever you can!  Until next time, we keep on a bikin´!  Ralph & Pat

Villa Corona to Patzcuaro, Mexico 2-3-08 thru 2-10-08

We spent a few days with Chess and Allison (whom we met a Silver City, NM at a campground in November) at a campground-water park in Villa Corona (a small town about 60 miles SW of Guadalajara).  We soaked in the big warm pools and got massaged by the huge 10¨ outlet pipe -perfect for sore muscles.  There were a lot of RV campers from all over the US and Canada and also a couple from Germany, that we spent a lot of time talking with ( they all truly seemed like a lot of our relatives back home, which Pat needed right then cause she was pretty homesick the last couple of days! One of them reminded me so much of my Aunt Annette, she had to be a relative, but we found no connections except she lives just across the ND border in Canada! )  Many of them were seasoned travellers and some of them have been travelling for 15 -20 years – their license plates are their addresses!  While in Villa Corona, we took a day trip by bus to Guadalajara, where we saw the huge Mercado (with everything for sale from piles of fresh fruit to Nike tennis shoes to fresh skinned goats heads – horns and eyeballs still in tact- GOATS HEAD SOUP ANYONE¿)  and a number of beautiful old colonial buildings and cathedrals in and near the central plaza.  It was a busy place – glad we did not ride our bikes there! 

After answering lots of questions about our gear and trip as we packed up (our mode of travel is way different than everyone else’s at the RV park!) and posing for pictures, and regretting saying our goodbyes, we headed east along huge Lake Chapala passing thru vast fields of artichokes and strawberries, then climbed south into the hills and eventually dropped into a valley full of sugarcane fields.  At one town we stayed, I talked with a local that told me 80% of the working men of the town are in California working.  They work there a few months, then come home a few, then back again (we have found this to be true of most people we talk to in Mexico, most have been to Colorado at some point and lived and worked!) 

We passed thru miles of agricultural land where the main crops were strawberries and avocados, then climbed up into the hills, thru miles of big old avocado trees that at first looked just like a natural forest, but upon closer inspection, rows could be detected that went on for miles and miles!  As we climbed higher they gave way to big ponderosa pines. 

We stayed for several days in the high country at Angahuan, a native Indian village near the Parucatin Volcano.  We remembered reading in our geography books in grade school about how Parucatin suddenly started growing out of a farmers cornfield in 1943, erupted for the next 9 years, forcing the nearby village (no fatalities!) to move a few miles away and buried the village church up to the roof-line in volcanic rock!  The twin steeples and a little of the entry and alter are all that are visible.  The women of the village wore colorful skirts, aprons, blouses and scarves, similar to the Tayamara Indian women at Copper Canyon.  The village itself was hideously filthy!  The fine volcanic dust was everywhere on the streets, shacks, stores and plaza benches.  It was also one of the noisiest towns we have been in!  They were also having a celebration where they sporadically would light off 3 foot bottle rocket bombs (they each had 1/2 stick of dynamite strapped to them!) and the first ones were at 6 AM!!!!!   We would nearly jump out of our skin when they exploded, while babies sleeping on the plaza wouldn´t even wake up – they are use to all the noise!  At about 6 AM the women of the village starting chanting continually in their Indian language over really loud and really blown loudspeakers all day and part of the night, to make it even more pleasant, Ralph got sick early in the morning, thinking it was the Tequila he had ¨sampled¨the night we arrived, but soon realized it was the flu!   I guess it will be hard to forget Angahuan, with the eruptions past and present!!

After partial recovery, we pedaled to the nearby city of Uruapan, where Pat got the flu and spent all day in bed.  I bet right about now some of you are wondering, ¨Why didn´t I jump at the chance to do this trip – sounds like so much fun!

We finally made it to Patzcuaro – Pat in a Taxi – me on a bike – barely.  Patzcuaro is one of the coolest towns we have been to in Mexico so far.  It has lots of old mansions around it´s 2 gorgeous green plazas that have been converted into picture-perfect hotels with great restaurants and into shops of pretty, colorful dresses, local crafts and absolutely gorgeous colonial furniture (too bad we only have the bikes, so can´t buy stuff, Ralph had this one planned!)  The town has a number of beautiful old churches and everything is very clean by Mexican standards – with full time street sweepers (a Mexican person with a broom) in both plazas (haven´t seen that until now!) 

Another past-encounter happened here, at the RV park, we saw folks we had met in Villa Corona and also a couple we had met at Holland Lake in Montana!!!!  We left our gear at the RV park and took the bus to Guanajuato, the picturesque, colorful town smeared on the walls of a Mountain valley.  It is a very colorful town (houses painted by the government in bright pinks, oranges, purples, etc… you do not get to pick the color of your house but it is really beautiful!)  with gorgeous colonial architecture (which was fueled by a very rich silver mine) and a multitude of tiny, tiny above ground streets and subterranean tunnels where most traffic flows and below all that they have routed their river so it will not flood the town! (You can google this town and see beautiful pictures of it!)

After leaving Patzcuaro, we are heading east towards Morelia - we´ll post that section soon!

Bikin´On —Ralph & Pat

PEDLIN´ FOR THE BAND!!! Los Ayala to Villa Corona, 1-22-08 thru 1-31-08

After spending several days at April´s wonderful “Coco Loco” Bungalow in the peaceful, quiet beachtown of Los Ayala we biked to Sayulita, 30 miles south along the coast.  Sayulita is a great little surf town far enough north of Puerto Vallarta to not be crazy!! 

We ran into the travelling bike band we had met in Todo Santos who are biking on extra cycles with a drumset, guitars, a cello and an entire P.A. system thru Mexico from California!  Their bikes weigh 150 to 200 lbs!!!! OWY!!!  We also met up with Bear, Summer and David, the extra-cyclists we met in San Blas!  The band had a gig that night at a local bar, so we went to catch the show.  They power the system with generators attached to their bikes.  They have 2 bikes on stands beside the band and 2 people pedal them the entire time the band plays.  If they stop pedaling, the concert goes acoustic, or “unplugged” as Eric Clapton labeled it.  Well guess who got suckered into riding for the band!!  Don´t get me wrong — we´re perfectly fine with it — we´re comfortable, you may even say “at home” on our bikes, and God knows we need the exercise!  It was really fun, was a great way to sweat out the tequila and a perfectly fitting thing to do on this trip! 

While on the beach in Sayulita, we ran into Robbie from our valley!  He´s spending a bunch of the winter surfing here–Sayulita is known for great surfing.  It was Robbie´s birthday so we attended his birthday party at the hostel where he was staying.  We stayed at Mario and Linda´s “Duende” hotel, which Mario designed and continues to build more beautiful and unique rooms tucked into the hillside overlooking the town and beach! 

Reluctantly leaving Sayulita, we travelled along the coast, then turned east and headed for the interior.  We got to a small city, San Juan de Abajo, when we inquired about the road we wanted to take and soon found out a bridge was washed out ahead.  After trying to explain the directions to us (a guy on a motorcycle and 2 policemen ) they finally gave up and hopped in their vehicles and escorted us back thru town, thru a maize of dirt farm roads and eventually to the paved road we needed.  Without their help, we would never have found our way!  Small town Mexican police, we have slowly learned, are part cop, part delivery service (they picked up a drunk man along the way and dropped him off at his house) and part tourist info center.  (The thought also entered my mind — “Let´s help these crazy cyclists get out of our town ASAP!)

We started some serious climbing after that and near the end of the day we met up again with the extra cyclists who happened to be going the same route!  (Now there are 12 of us on bikes!) They had just met an ex-olympian runner who was truly amazed at what we were all doing.  He had just invited them to his cabin just down the hill for a fish fry and a place to stay for the night!  We tagged along.  It was a great spot, a secluded cabin that slept 20, in the forest on a crystal clear creek, and, of course, with a live band!!! We had a great evening and in the morning most of the band stayed there to get a tour of the property and have a goat roast!  We decided to pedal on!  Thank you Hector for a great time!

That day we climbed thousands of feet over the next 18 miles, I think we got to well over 7000 feet, climbing up thru small fields of beautiful blue agave plants (what tequila comes from) and corn fields and then into ponderosa forests.  It reminded me of Colorado high country only with a cactus plant here and there.  After dropping steeply over 10 miles, we biked thru a large valley full of cattle ranches, agave and corn farms to several towns at about 5000´ elevation.  One town, Mixtlan was the cleanest, quietest Mexican town we´ve come to so far on the trip.  The little church was full of huge bouquets of live flowers and was absolutely georgeous!!

After a few more rolling hills and thru more cattle, agave and now sugarcane fields, we arrived at Villa Corona, where our friend´s Chess and Allison, we had met in New Mexico, are camped.   It´s great to catch up on their travels and also to get info about the road ahead!  We are enjoying a few days here and are staying at the campground here that has numerous huge hotwater pools to enjoy.  The water comes deeep from underground at a source near the long dormant volcanoes in the area. 

We took a bus into the busy city of Guadalajara yesterday and got to enjoy the sites, sounds, smells and markets of the second largest city in Mexico!  Tomorrow we will continue east towards the lake district in central Mexico and south of Mexico city.  We are looking forward to this part of the trip, it is suppose to be the real heart of Mexico!

Until next time!  Bikin´ On, Ralph & Pat