A typical day

Every day we ride is different, but there are some generalities that may paint a mental picture of our routine. Most days we wake up in some kind of camp, a restaurant, beach or field of some sort and we dry the dew off our sleeping bags. Sometimes we make a small cookfire for coffee and oatmeal or we eat a cold breakfast of granola and fruit. By 9am we are usually all packed up and ready to hit the road. A stretch and safety break and we are off. We probably weren’t far from the road we were to travel on, so we get on the way quickly. After riding for an hour or so we find some shade and stop the bikes, put on some tunes and snack a bit. Usually we eat fruit (bananas - so many kinds of them too!) and peanuts with chili powder and salt. We refill our water bottles, maybe stretch more, then get back on the road. When we ride by people they whistle, wave, sometimes cheer and go wild. We sound our horns at them and wave. We ride for another hour or more then take our lunch - a longer break with a slightly more elaborate meal - avocado, tomato and tortillas. Also, more spicy peanuts. Often we will spend a few hours climbing crazy mountains, sometimes gaining 600m in elevation in an hour or so. That is a bit slower going, like 15 km/h, then on the flats, but the reward of making a high speed technical decent makes every grunt worthwhile. We will ride until a half hour or hour before sundown, taking short hourly breaks, and then find a new camp. If we eat at a restaurant we may ask if we can stay there overnight (This usually works well, this week we stayed in a restaurant owned by a coyote who knew the US better than I. He worked helping 3000-4000 Mexicans a year across the border into the USA). Otherwise, we’ll find a good camp, collect firewood and make a cook fire. We have one of two meals that we usually have for dinner: either pasta with a sauce of tomato, onion, garlic, chilies, corn or whatever we happen to have and canned beans with avocado, salsa similar to the pasta sauce and some avocado. That’s a pretty good description of a typical day, omitting some kind of wonderful randomness that happens each day. Surprises abound and I can’t describe the happiness I feel lately. Pxl and I are in Manzanillo and Andy is back in Puerto Vallarta, he’ll be catching up to us soon. We’re off to Colima next to visit an active volcano. ¡Hasta Luego!