Puerto Escondido, 0 miles, blue skies!
We took a well deserved day off from adventuring today to do some housekeeping, you know, laundry (everything stinks of mildew including us), banking, internet, bike maintenance, etc. The tires and chain are wearing faster than I anticipated. The roads are paved for the most part, but there are a ton of dirt/gravel patches, and with the rain, that’s kicked a lot of mud and sand onto the chain. Got a big can of WD40 at a Yamaha dealership for $5, a fair price I thought. At Yamaha the biggest bike they are selling is 250cc. All small bikes in Latin America so far, not so many scooters, just small motorcycles. Today we say a family of four on a 125cc. Mom and dad on the seat, with TWO toddlers sitting on the gas tank. Wish I got a photo of that! Anyway, cleaned, lubed and adjusted the chain, checked the brakes—wearing quick too, I curse you topes!
Chores were done around 1pm and we went to the beach. Felt so good to be in the sun. We might have rain again tomorrow. Our hotel is nice, clean, comfortable and has AC. Its about 90 and humid outside and 70 and icy inside. Its like opening the door to a refrigerator. Its worth the $30/night.
My Spanish is pretty good all things considered. I enjoy talking with the local folk. It seems if they know English pretty well, it annoys them to hear someone speak Spanish with bad pronunciation and/or grammar. But, if they know no English, they love that I try. I was really looking forward to getting better with two weeks of schooling in Guatemala, but it looks like we might only have time for one.
Puerto Escondido is a good place. Definitely gringo-centric parts, but with a solid city center that is the real thing. Good food, big waves (though we’ve done no surfing yet) and friendly folk. I would like to come back here someday. The state of Oaxaca is also nice. We noticed a difference right after crossing the border from Gurerro; people are poor in both states, no question, but the Oaxaca folk are coping better. The people here are much more mayan than mestizo, and with that are probably better suited to living off the land? Just a theory….
Adam is here with us, his clutch cable snapped yesterday, lucky for him he was carrying one! Unlucky for him, he broke the mount trying to get the old cable off. We let him do his thing, while we did ours. We’re on the road at 7am tomorrow hopefully. His response to that was, ok, wake me up when you’re ready. I told the salty dog to get himself an alarm clock!
The local dish I enjoyed tonight is called Tlaxaco (or something?) and it was awesome. Its like a giant quesadilla, but made with a rustic corn tortilla and stuffed with chorizo, queso, and some type of brown spicy sauce. It was cooked on the street in front of us over a wood burning bbq-ish thing. Low temp was just the grill. High temp was achieved by the chef’s son fanning the coals. I could stay another day just to have that dish again! Amie ordered a “quesadilla con pollo” apparently in Oaxaca that’s a chicen taquito with cheese and lettuce on top.
Amie and I are having a blast. The tough times are tough, and stressful, but that soon passes and they turn immediately into great memories. We are in our 3rd week now and have adapted pretty well to life on the road. We haven’t had 3 weeks off work in at least 5 years, and it feels great. We’ve seen and done so much, its amazing to think we’ve got 9/10ths of the trip ahead of us. We are living a dream.
Tomorrow is our most ambitious day: 400 miles. Since the area we are in now is “limited risk” malaria territory and tomorrow we cross into “high risk” we want to zoom. Plus, we’ve spent more time than we anticipated in Mexico already. We are headed for San Cristobal de las Casas. Supposedly an awesome colonial town at nearly 2500m elevation (read no mosquitoes). We are averaging about 30-35miles an hour, so if we leave at 7am, we should be there by 7pm. I doubt we’ll make it, but that’s what we’re shooting for. So much depends on the road and the topes.
Mike T. signing off
Chores were done around 1pm and we went to the beach. Felt so good to be in the sun. We might have rain again tomorrow. Our hotel is nice, clean, comfortable and has AC. Its about 90 and humid outside and 70 and icy inside. Its like opening the door to a refrigerator. Its worth the $30/night.
My Spanish is pretty good all things considered. I enjoy talking with the local folk. It seems if they know English pretty well, it annoys them to hear someone speak Spanish with bad pronunciation and/or grammar. But, if they know no English, they love that I try. I was really looking forward to getting better with two weeks of schooling in Guatemala, but it looks like we might only have time for one.
Puerto Escondido is a good place. Definitely gringo-centric parts, but with a solid city center that is the real thing. Good food, big waves (though we’ve done no surfing yet) and friendly folk. I would like to come back here someday. The state of Oaxaca is also nice. We noticed a difference right after crossing the border from Gurerro; people are poor in both states, no question, but the Oaxaca folk are coping better. The people here are much more mayan than mestizo, and with that are probably better suited to living off the land? Just a theory….
Adam is here with us, his clutch cable snapped yesterday, lucky for him he was carrying one! Unlucky for him, he broke the mount trying to get the old cable off. We let him do his thing, while we did ours. We’re on the road at 7am tomorrow hopefully. His response to that was, ok, wake me up when you’re ready. I told the salty dog to get himself an alarm clock!
The local dish I enjoyed tonight is called Tlaxaco (or something?) and it was awesome. Its like a giant quesadilla, but made with a rustic corn tortilla and stuffed with chorizo, queso, and some type of brown spicy sauce. It was cooked on the street in front of us over a wood burning bbq-ish thing. Low temp was just the grill. High temp was achieved by the chef’s son fanning the coals. I could stay another day just to have that dish again! Amie ordered a “quesadilla con pollo” apparently in Oaxaca that’s a chicen taquito with cheese and lettuce on top.
Amie and I are having a blast. The tough times are tough, and stressful, but that soon passes and they turn immediately into great memories. We are in our 3rd week now and have adapted pretty well to life on the road. We haven’t had 3 weeks off work in at least 5 years, and it feels great. We’ve seen and done so much, its amazing to think we’ve got 9/10ths of the trip ahead of us. We are living a dream.
Tomorrow is our most ambitious day: 400 miles. Since the area we are in now is “limited risk” malaria territory and tomorrow we cross into “high risk” we want to zoom. Plus, we’ve spent more time than we anticipated in Mexico already. We are headed for San Cristobal de las Casas. Supposedly an awesome colonial town at nearly 2500m elevation (read no mosquitoes). We are averaging about 30-35miles an hour, so if we leave at 7am, we should be there by 7pm. I doubt we’ll make it, but that’s what we’re shooting for. So much depends on the road and the topes.
Mike T. signing off
Nice Beard!
El Perro de Puerto Escondido
Yeah - Sunshine!
Scary Hand
posted by Pedro and Maria at 3:28 PM
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