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Part II of The End of the Mexican Road

Throughout the past 6 months, things have been happening in my life and with Addison that I find myself hesitant to talk about in this blog. It just seems so gory and personal. I imagine that I will write with full honesty for my book, and then once it’s published and released to the world, I can only hope that my visceral story details will bring insight, smiles, relief, understanding and perhaps a feeling of ‘not being alone in this crazy world’ to my readers.

But perhaps I will never get so real with the faceless crowd. Perhaps it’s better to keep some semblance of a wall up.

All of that being said, my inability to write completely honestly makes it hard to write about what happened next after my arrival to Playa del Carmen.

I left off with the story of Watson and I in a bar, just after I had taken my pregnancy test and thought surely the double lines were really a single line with a very faint second line…

Addison would be arriving to visit me in Playa del Carmen, in just two days. He would stay in town with me for 4 days and then I would continue south into Belize and the rest of Central of America.

“It is HOT TODAY…” I exclaimed, as Watson and I walked out to a cafe for breakfast the next day.

“Jeez, it’s only spring,” Watson commented. “Wait’ll it hits summer here!”

“Thanks but no thanks. This is bad enough for me.”

The sounds of our footsteps scuffing on the pavement and the occasional scooter passing us filled the muggy air. I had been feeling incredibly sensitive to the heat, and my nausea was increasing. I felt slightly ill all day every day.

I didn’t like the sound of hearing myself complain about the heat constantly, but it just seemed truly unbearable to me. By 10 am, the best I could do was hide in Watson’s room, his fan oscillating in a lonely manner above my head.

I felt a growing sense of dread at Addison’s arrival. I hoped being face to face would clear up some of the inexplicable feelings of panic I was having about our relationship. But at the same time it didn’t really matter. We would be together for a few days, and then once I again I would hit the road and we wouldn’t see eachother for a couple more months.

“Addison’s coming soon,” Watson said. “You excited?”

I sighed. “Yeah…”

He snorted. “You don’t sound very excited!”

“I am excited,” I allowed. “But also kind of dreading it. I’m going to have to live with the things he’s decided he needs to do while I’m away, and I’m just not handling it very gracefully.”

It was so strange to be eating breakfast side by side with other white people. Australian, English, American, French.

Why in the world would anyone want to come here for vacation? I caught myself thinking, as I looked around at all of the tourists. It’s hot, crowded, smells weird…

I stopped my thoughts.

Jeez, what is wrong with me? Why am I getting so down on Mexico?

I had begun to dread the thought of continuing my cycle tour in Central America. Cycle touring in Mexico had not been nearly as enjoyable as my cycle tour across the U.S., and I had no illusions that Central American roads and cities would be much better–or at all cooler. If anything, it was just going to get more and more hot the further south I went.

I was fantasizing about mountains, cool spring breezes drifting through pine needles, chickadees singing, their voices carrying through the forest dreamily.

“So when do you head to Alaska?” I asked Watson. He was leaving Playa del Carmen soon, and going to work on a fishing boat in some incredibly tiny town in Alaska.

“I gave the guys at the brewery my 2 months notice almost a month ago,” Watson said. He had moved down to Playa to help start a brewery with a couple of Argentinian guys who were friends with the owner of the Thirsty Planet Brewery in Austin where Watson had been working before. “But they still haven’t gotten my replacement down here to start training. I told ’em they’d better get their shit together, ’cause come the end of this month I am outta here!” He cut through the air with his hand, indicating a swift exit.

Watson was as keen to get out of Mexico as I was, except he was headed North and I was headed… South.

I sighed. “I feel ya.”

He shook his head, grinning humorlessly. “Yeah I SAY that… but really, if they do need me to stay longer, I probably will. I couldn’t leave them high and dry like that.” He sucked in some smoothie noisily and banged the cup down. “But goddamit guys, get your shit together!” He laughed.

Before I knew it, Friday March 18th had arrived, and I was clinging to Watson for dear life on the back of his motorcycle as we whipped through the sunny, Playa del Carmen traffic on our way to the Cancun airport.

Along the way, we stopped to see Pescadores, the brewery where Watson worked.

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Boxes of Pescadores beer
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Watson being photogenic

Once we arrived at the airport, Watson dropped me off and headed back to get some work done. I wandered around the airport, trying to figure out where to wait for arrivals.

I waited for what felt like a long time, watching white tourist after white tourist emerge from the arrivals area, looking dazed, confused, excited, or all of the above. I was nervous in a weird, not-very-fun way.

I’m not sure if this is a Mexican thing, but the screens that would have told me when the various flights were arriving, were inside the set of sliding, double doors that passengers were constantly exiting out of, but through which I was not supposed to go through.

I stood as close as I could to the doors to try and catch sight of Addison’s flight number on the screen inside, but finally I gave up and asked a guard if I could go in to look at the screen. He went to look at the computer for me and came back, telling me the flight number was not listed on the arrival screen.

“It does not mean that flight is not arriving,” he told me, “it’s just not on the screen.”

I nodded in confusion. How am I supposed to know if Addison’s flight is arriving at all then? I wondered, feeling irked.

But then, as I was being led to a desk to try and find out more, a tall, bearded, viking looking man emerged from the crowd.

“There you are!” I cried, before I buried my face in Addison’s big chest.

We made our way out to the bus area, paying an extravagant amount for a tiny bottle of water (I had forgotten to bring any sustenance with me). It was nice to see Addison, but also kind of awkward. I felt like there was a big, hairy gorilla standing between us, with a bad case of flatulence. I tried to pretend the gorilla wasn’t there, and smiled at Addison, who smiled back.

We took a bus back to Playa del Carmen, and the whole time I tried not to talk about the things that were disturbing me so deeply. They were the sort of things that I could easily convince myself I was making up.

We were staying at an air bnb apartment near downtown Playa.

I feel such an overwhelming sense of nausea and a retchfulness (no, that is not a word–yes, I made it up) when I remember that apartment and the bathroom…

It’s a big reason why I’ve procrastinated on writing this bit of the story, because it happens at this retchful apartment…

I’m going to get through this section really fast, before I throw up, so bear with me… (also, I will not reread to spell check certain sections, so I apologize in advance for grammatical errors)

As in many toilets in Mexico, we were asked not to flush the toilet paper. So imagine a hot, not-well-ventilated bathroom with a trash can full of poopy and peepee covered toilet paper. Add the distinct aroma of the blue chemical water that filled the toilet itself, and evil smelling chemical deodorizers hanging off the toilet, and voila…! You have the perfect recipe for never wanting to go into the bathroom.

If I absolutely had to get in there, I would pull my pants down before entering, and then plug my nose throughout the transaction. Afterwards I would hurl myself out of the bathroom, wheezing and gagging and jamming my face out of a window.

Addison was only going to be in Playa del Carmen for 4 days. So during this time we had to connect (since we wouldn’t be seeing eachother for another 2 months while I cycled across Central America), work out the status of our relationship, process, and also try to enjoy ourselves.

We visited the ocean everyday, ate at restaurants and ice cream shops, played music with Watson out on the beach, I took Addison to drink his first fresh coconut from a street vendor and scoop the sweet, juicy meat out after they split it in two for him, we spent hours crying and processing in our apartment and then, the day before Addison’s flight back to Austin, we also decided I should take another pregnancy test.

Watson was visiting, noodling around on Addison’s guitar, while I walked down the street to buy another pregnancy test. This time I knew what it was called, and did not have much difficultly in procuring one.

When I got back to to the apartment I looked at the two men, who were looking back at me.

“It’s a moment of truth guys,” I told them.

Addison looked anxious.

I unpacked the pregnancy test, plugged my nose, and ducked into the fumes-of-hell bathroom.

When I emerged, it was with feelings I had not expected…

I felt guilty.

I felt like maybe I had ruined Addison life.

I thought maybe he would resent me forever, and our relationship would crumble because of it.

“It’s positive,” I told the guys, who had both stopped what they were doing to stare at me.

I think Watson crowed.

But I was looking at Addison’s face. He had something like horror written across it.

I handed him the test stick with the two lines on it.

“I read the first pregnancy test wrong,” I told them.

Watson stared at me. “You read the first one WRONG?? How do you even do that??”

“I don’t know!” I cried. “I’ve never taken a pregnancy test before! I just assumed it was cheap, faulty, didn’t work well… I thought the ‘second line’ wasn’t really a line!”

Addison was gazing down at the test stick in silence. Than he started googling images for “a positive results pregnancy test”.

“I purposely bought a different brand of test this time,” I told them both. “And seeing a different one do exactly the same thing made me realize that I just got the first one wrong.”

I went and sat down on the couch with Watson. “Watson!” I yelled. “I’m pregnant! What are we going to do??”

He gaped at me. “Why are you coming over to me?? You should go to Addison! I’m getting out of here.”

I looked at Addison. “I’m giving Addison space. He’s in shock. And I feel bad for him.”

“YOU feel bad for ADDISON??” Watson gawped.

“He’s younger than me,” I said simply. “I’m more ready for the idea of being pregnant than he is.”

During all of this, Addison was occasionally grunting, agreeing or disagreeing with something that was being said, but I don’t really remember much else coming out of him.

Watson packed up and headed for the door. “You should name the kid Marcelles,” he said definitively, before walking out.

Addison chuckled dryly. “We’ll consider it. See ya later dude.”

We looked at eachother in the silence that followed. “Holy shit.”2016-03-17 07.51.24

I’m sorry to say, but there’ll have to be a Part III… maybe a Part IV??

Learning to Live with Myself

I am sitting in an air bnb apartment on Avenida 15 Nte. in Playa del Carmen. Outside our balcony window is Avenida 15, a busy street with tortillerias and cheap Mexican food. The ocean is a 10 minute walk away. Inside this one room apartment there are towels,clothing and musical instruments strewn around.

I am slathered in sunblock–a morning and afternoon ritual I have been adhering to since I arrived–and my skin is salty from swimming in the ocean today.

Addison is sitting on the couch trying to get his work done on the computer, though he’s really just fighting the urge to go take another nap.

I have ridden my bicycle across Mexico (and taken rides in a few buses and cars), and now I sit back to contemplate the last two weeks.

During these last 14 or so days, I’ve ridden my bicycle almost everyday, spent the majority of my hours alone, slept in random hotels or at couchsurfer/warmshowers hosts’ houses, and have eaten everything from cold tortillas stuffed with refried beans from a bag in my hotel room to huevos rancheros floating in red sauce at a fine restaurant in Champoton. I’ve consumed roadside coconuts, oranges that are peeled and sliced in half and sold for 10 pesos a bag, and the stray coca-cola when I’ve still got 30 km to my final destination and I feel like I just can’t take it anymore.

With my chapter of alone time coming to a close for this trip (at least for the moment), I feel truly grateful for this rite of passage, and also relieved that nothing ever stays the same.

My friend Watson (also former upright bass player for my band, The Love Sprockets) lives in Playa del Carmen and had been expecting me to show up any day. He had also mentioned if shit really hit the fan, he’d be open to borrowing a truck from the brewery he works at to come and save me.

Traveling from Villahermosa to Merida I had been heading due east along the Gulf Coast. Then from Merida (about 300 km from Playa–so basically 4-5 days of riding) I was turning due south for the last leg of my ride. While leaving Merida, I was hit with such an incredibly strong headwind, that it felt like my purpose in pedaling was mostly to avoid being blown backwards. It was also intensely hot all of a sudden.

In addition, my iPod had died, never to return to the land of the living, during the fateful rainstorm I wrote about in my last blog post. This meant long hours of lonely silence, only broken up by the passing of trucks and cars, and the occasional Mexican man who decided to yell or whistle at me.

I felt a wave of complete and utter discouragement, and suddenly didn’t care about finishing the final 321 km by bicycle. I wanted out. I wanted Watson to come and get me, and to just lay around Playa until Addison arrived on the 18th. I didn’t want to be fighting a headwind for the next 4-5 days, staying in hotels, eating shitty food from roadside restaurants, and being out in the full sun day in and day out, with no shade to speak of.

But when I tried to make the emergency rescue call, Watson was not available. He had work/the truck wasn’t available. Eventually, over the next couple of days, I tried to convince him to just ride his motorcycle out to see me, and I could take the day off, hang out with a friend and go swim at a cenote in good company.

However, his lady friend was visiting, and he didn’t want to drag her out on the motorcycle for a 4 hour ride to come and meet me.

So I found myself pushing through a wall that I had really hoped to just walk around and avoid altogether.

Yes, there was quite of bit of crying involved and a tad too much sun exposure, but nothing that was going to kill me. At the urging of Radha (my sister), I began to make my rides a bit shorter, tackling 60 km a day rather than 80-100 km as I had been doing for the first half of my trip. This certainly helped my moral.

This seems like a good time to talk about the wildlife I’ve seen, most of which has been roadkill, but some of which has been the real, living animals themselves.

Here is some of the Mexican roadkill I can recall (I’ve researched photos of the real thing online so you can get a visual of the magnificent, though sadly dead, creature):

Coatis

Coati

Gray foxes

Gray fox

Ocelots

Ocelot

An oriole

Oriole

Beautiful blue and green birds (maybe the blue-crowned motmot?)

blue crowned motmot

Small, brown bats

bat

Black Vultures

BlackVulturesML

Dogs

Butterflies

Cleopatra butterfly

Snakes of all sizes

patchnose snake rat snake

Parrots

parrot

Some of the live animals I’ve seen have been:

-a gray fox who crossed the road in front of me so close that I had to stop so I didn’t run into her

-lots of bats at the cenotes here in the Yucatan

-many varieties of birds including herons, orioles, parrots, doves, grackles, warblers, woodpeckers, hawks, eagles, pelicans and ones whose names I do not know.

Motmot Great Kiskadee Couchs Kingbird Blue Heron

-I was able to hang out with a bush-full of coatis one day, much to my (and their) surprise.

-I never pass up the chance to watch one of the enormous, cat-sized lizards sunbathing or doing it’s strange ‘push-up’ dance, where it bobs up and down and sometimes arches its head back rhythmically. Oddly, I feel no desire to try and catch one and hold it, like I used to with the little fence lizards in California. Dinosaurs are best observed at a small distance in my opinion. 🙂

Iguana

Here in Playa del Carmen I saw a giant rodent like creature rummaging around the trash near the beach… an agouti seems to be what I saw:

Agouti

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Here’s a picture of the agouti’s tracks that I took on the beach here in Playa del Carmen (I added my credit card in the photo so you can get a sense of their size)

I was able to camp one of the days I was on the road near a cenote, in a small Mayan village town called Yokdznot (please don’t ask me how to pronounce that). I was psyched to see an official campground in Mexico.

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Yes, I was the only person camping, and the Mexicans who passed by my camp spot seemed to be highly perplexed as to what exactly I was doing…

I didn’t sleep all that well in my little tent–what with the village dogs raising the alarm every hour or so when a leaf rustled in the distance–but I was so happy to hear the wind in the trees and to be awoken by birdsong that it was fine.

Actually, in the middle of the night at that campground, I had to go to the bathroom, and had a cool little experience.

The bathroom was a good distance away, so I followed the path that led to it, stomping my feet every now and then to scare off snakes. I saw a strange, white beast off to the side under a tree. It seemed to stock still, gazing at me with mute concentration. I stopped, feeling a little uneasy, and had to look at it for a while before I could discern that it was a goat. And no, it wasn’t staring at me with it’s head erect–that was, in fact, it’s butthole and it’s little tail sticking up in the air. It’s back was turned to me and I suppose it was just sleeping standing up or something.

When I reached the bathrooms, I saw two men sleeping in hammocks hanging from the trees nearby.

There was something so fascinating about seeing them dangling there, like two overgrown babies, snoring softly. No blankets, sheets, pillows or mosquito netting. Just a hammock swaying beneath the trees in the breeze.

I was truly impressed by this scene.

I snuck by quietly so as not to awaken them.

All of this alone time has given me plenty of space for meditation and just ‘being’ with myself.

Sometimes I don’t really want to hang out with myself.

Sometimes I’d MUCH rather hang out with anyone else but me.

But that’s usually when I’m feeling some kind of pain–fear, loneliness, despair–and I don’t want to feel bad anymore.

So I’ve simply taken the time to hang out with these unpleasant feelings, and it’s amazing how much quicker they seem to dissipate when I give them all of my attention.

It gets tiresome when these unhappy feelings arise every morning, or every 5 minutes. Especially when I need to pack up all my gear and hit the road in a timely manner, and need to have the strength of mind to cycle 7-8 hours everyday and find a place to sleep at night before it gets dark.

But now I’m beginning to regard these painful  feelings simply as little crying babies with poopy diapers. As long as I’m willing to hold them, let them cry, and even change their diapers occasionally, they can’t carry on forever. They finally seem to be satisfied at some point, and give me a break.

It’s during these respites that I regain my sense of humor, and actually want to talk to other people, even if it’s only in spanish. I feel a resurgence of inspiration around my trip. I feel space inside of me, and can take some easy breaths, maybe even smile.

What I like about being alone is that I get to decide exactly what I do when. I can leave the hotel in the morning as early (or as late) as I feel like, I can go to sleep when I decide it’s time to turn off the light, and I don’t have consult anyone about any decision I’m trying to make.

That being said, sometimes I choose to consult other people. Like Watson, for instance–when I’m getting ready to ride 100 km with a broken spoke and my wheel is rubbing the brakes off to one side even thought they’re released.

Or I’ll call Radha and Erik (my sister and her husband), when I’ve had a rough start to my morning and my insides feeling all junky and sad. I just chat with them for a few minutes to hear how their day went (they’re getting ready for bed when I’m waking up, because they’re in Thailand), and Radha will patiently remind me that feeling sad does not mean the end of the world.

I made it to the small town of Chemuyil (near Tulum) on Monday, and spent two nights at a friend of Rohn Baye’s (Rohn is one of my Patreon backers who I met in San Antonio on my way through to Brazil). His name is Pepe, and on Tuesday we spent some time walking around Tulum while he got his car repaired at the mechanics, and then he drove me to his friend’s place out in the jungle where I was taken through a series of underground caverns and swam in an underground cenote. Truly amazing.2016-03-15 17.26.192016-03-15 17.16.12 2016-03-15 17.15.56

On Wednesday I awoke at 5:30 am, so that I could rolling out to Playa del Carmen by 7 am, and be able to beat the heat. I arrived at Watson’s apartment complex around 10:45 am.

“Watson,” I said, after he’d stepped outside to meet me and was marveling at my loaded bicycle. “I rode my bicycle across Mexico. Now I never have to do it again, ever.”

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Me and Watson

Tabasco and Campeche

“God is the love that moves the sun and the other stars.”

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I sit at a table on a restaurant patio overlooking the ocean this morning.

I have been dreaming about eggs for days now, imagining them gliding around deliciously in a handmade tortilla, dripping with salsa.

And now, here they are with me, huevos rancheros, gazing solemnly up from my plate in their warm bath of red salsa and fresh, crumbled cheese.FullSizeRender (3)

The tortillas that my waiter presents me in a basket wrapped in cloth are, indeed, handmade and very hot.

Before diving into my breakfast, I sip my cafe ollo (coffee brewed with cinnamon) and look out at the three cormorants (badass birds that can swim underwater) who have set themselves up on the three available wooden posts that stick out above the ocean tide.

These three birds are facing the sun, which rose about an hour earlier, and are sitting silent and still, in worshipful reverence of the source of warmth and light for the entire Earth.

I stare at them, appreciation swelling in my heart.

Without water, I would die, I think, looking out at the vast body of lapping waves in front of me, and so would these three birds.

Without the sun, I would die, I continue in my head, looking at their peaceful, beaked faces pointed at the sun, and so would these three birds.

I feel my connection to the water, the sun, the birds and… without food, I would die. I gaze down at my breakfast.

I imagine the man or woman inside the kitchen who has carefully prepared my tortillas and huevos rancheros for me.

I feel gratitude filling my chest for this stranger who is making sure I have a delicious meal to give me energy for my day.

And I think about the chicken who has laid the eggs I am about to eat, and wonder where she is right now. Most likely she is scratching around in the dirt next door, chasing bugs with that vacant look in her eye that all chickens seem to have.

I take a sip of the freshly squeezed orange juice waiting in a tall glass in front of me, and imagine the orange tree reaching towards the sun, drinking in his rays and fattening up her crop of bright, sweet orbs of fruit.

After these contemplations, I promptly begin eating.

The waiter approaches a little while later, smiling at me good naturedly with his haggard teeth, and I thank him as he takes away my used napkins.

“Donde vienes?” he asks me (meaning, ‘where do you come from?’).

“Austin,” I reply.

“Austria?”

“Austin Texas,” I clarify, silencing the ‘x’ in Texas so he can be sure where it is I’m talking about. “Voy a Brazil con mi bici,” I explain with a smile.

His eyes widen. “Con su bici?”

“Si.”

He wanders away, clearly needing some time to digest this information before his next question.

I have been traveling from Austin, TX by bicycle, bus and car for 2 months now, and in the last week it has now been solely by bicycle.

When I left Austin, headed for Mexico, I didn’t really have a way to prepare myself for the endless highways running through the endless desert, broken up only by cities that are barely navigable by bicycle.

I soon found that my comfort level allowed me only some short stints by bicycle, and then many more by bus and car.

The waiter returned, this time with a new question:

“No tienes miedo a viajar sola?” (‘aren’t you afraid to travel alone?’)

It took me a minute to decipher this question, because I wasn’t familiar with the word ‘miedo’ (‘fear’). But after repeating the unknown word aloud a few times, I understood.

I shrugged. “Un poco. Pero, esta bien.” (‘a little, but it’s okay’)

He laughed and walked away again.

I have come to know Fear over these past 2 months, more intimately than I had ever hoped.

Rarely have I actually been in any ‘real danger’. The fear I have been experiencing is mostly hand-made. 😉

After arriving in Mexico City in the car of a friend, I met Mestre Acordeon for the first time, practiced capoeira with Profesor Nao Veio, spent 5 days with Addison who came to visit me, got a new tattoo, and then finally got on a bus to a town in Tabasco called Villahermosa.

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View from inside the bus. 10 minutes after we pulled out of the station in Mexico City, someone decided to drive right in front of the bus and get their fender nearly bent off.

In Villahermosa I spent my first night sleeping in a hammock, something I’ve never done before. It was very hot and muggy, but after being bitten by mosquitoes I eventually pulled out my sleeping bag and somehow managed to wrap it around myself while not falling sideways out of the hammock.

I was at a Warmshowers host’s house. His name is Juan, and he was expecting two more cyclists the next day.

My first morning in Villahermosa I was awoken at 7:30 am by the sound of someone bashing a wall in across the street with a sledgehammer. I shifted around in my hammock, and then eventually sat up to greet my host and his friend.

They both left to work for the day, and I greeted my fear, who was waiting for my undivided attention. I meditated, journaled, cried, called friends, and cried some more.

During my walking meditation, I saw a little statue of Jesus Christ in Juan’s hallway. And I began to say to myself, over and over, “The Kingdom of Heaven is inside of me.”

Finally, I heard a knock during mid-afternoon and opened the door for the two cyclists Juan had been expecting.

Their names are Charles and Denise, and they are retired french canadians who have been cycling in South and Central America now for a year. They started in Peru, cycled down to the tip of South America (Chile), than back up into Peru where they spent four months, after which they continued north and eventually ended up at Juan’s house with me, in Villahermosa.

I was glad for their company, and Denise and I walked together to a nearby supermarket to buy food. I had a strange sense of feeling like a child again, wanting her to be my mommy, not wanting to lose her in the huge supermarket.

This kind of fear I experience is the strongest when I am transitioning into a new, unknown situation. This time it was the transition from Mexico City to now actually cycle touring again, and not knowing what it would be like to spend days on my own, sleeping at hotels in towns I knew nothing about.

But at the moment, I was safe, and I had a wonderful couple to spend the evening with. They made a pasta dinner for all of us, and drew me a route through the Yucatan on my map of Mexico, since they had just come from the area I was headed. This brought me some relief, as the unknown began to feel less ‘un’ and more ‘known’.

That night we pulled the hammock out of the way, and the three of us lined up on the tile floor and slept side by side with our sleeping bags and earplugs.

Sleeping with strangers has never felt so comforting.

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Me, Charles, Denise and Juan

The next morning we all packed up and made our procession out to the sidewalk. Juan was chatting with us amiably and helping us out the door.

Charles, Denise and I navigated through the city, and then, after a few blocks of riding together, they turned left and I went straight.

I took a deep breath. Here I go… I thought, watching the highway take shape out in front of me. I would be on Highway 180 for the next week or so.

After sitting and gazing out over the ocean some more, the waiter arrived to take my plate away. I was left with my coffee and orange juice (probably not the best combo for my digestion, but who cares), which I took as long as I wanted to sip and savor.

In Mexico they NEVER rush you in a restaurant. You can sit at your table for hours, maybe even days, and they’ll just smile and offer you more coffee.

But eventually I did raise my hand for the waiter. “La cuenta por favor.”

He bustled away to count up my order.

I’m doing it, I thought, watching a large, blue-black grackle making a ruckus in the tree next to me. I’m enjoying being alone.

It’s so hard for me to go to a nice restaurant, or hang out in a beautiful place and not be filled with the desire to share it with someone.

It’s not that I don’t feel like I deserve it, but I love sharing the world with other people. And maybe I’m afraid it’s as if none of this actually happened, if there wasn’t someone to witness it.

‘If Jahnavi hangs out in a fancy hotel and meditates by the gurgling pool in the garden out back and no one else witnesses it, did it really happen?’ 😛

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I say good bye to the waiter, who wishes me luck and ‘cuidado’ (‘be careful’), and make my way back to my hotel room.

I’m taking a day off at this hotel, because since I left Villahermosa that morning with the french cyclists, I have been pulling 7-8 hour days, fighting a headwind as I travel alongside the Gulf of Mexico. My body wants a bicycle, wind and sun free day.

My first day back on the bicycle, from Villahermosa to Frontera, was 82 km and so easy, I was confused. It only took me 4 ½ hours, and there I was, in Frontera, booking a room at a cheap hotel at 2 pm.

I figured the next day, 99 km, shouldn’t be so bad.

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There’s a whole lot more water in Tabasco and Yucatan compared to the deserts I’ve been traveling through for the past 2 months!

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FullSizeRender (10)
Taking a break from the rain

But that’s when I hit the waterfront, and was reminded about the joys of a nice, healthy, headwind. At first I was more focused on the fact that I was being rained on pretty thoroughly for a couple of hours, but once that cleared, I began to feel concerned.

I was traveling so SLOWLY.

After 5 hours, I had only gotten halfway to Cidudad del Carmen, the town I was intent on reaching, where a Couchsurfer named Victor Hugo was awaiting my arrival.

It was like moving in slow motion for 9 hours straight.

When I finally reached the city–after crossing a mile long bridge and weeping copiously as my speed slowed to a crawl due to the even greater wind exposure–I had to cross through the entire city to the other end, where Hugo lives.

At one point I pulled over to look at my cellphone map, and a very excited, older Mexican man approached me, eager to practice his english and find out what in the hell I was up to.

I was so tired I could barely conjure up my good manners, though I appreciated his interest in my trip. Most people just regard me as an alien here in Mexico, so when someone actually treats me like a human being and asks me about my life I feel glad.

After chatting with him and explaining that I was riding my bicycle to Brazil and yes, I am crazy, I continued on to Hugo’s apartment.

Hugo was amazed to see me and my bicycle pull up to his place, and helped me inside.

The beer I drank before we ate dinner was like an elixir of life, and we talked about travel, my sister and her husband’s 6 month excursion across half the world, my mom and my brother living in India, and his part in his family’s business.

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My second night with Hugo. I made him ‘sandwiches like in the USA’. He loved them, especially the hummus which he was trying for the first time.

I had been planning on continuing on to the next place in the morning, but I had already arrived at Hugo’s much later than expected and was feeling rather knackered.

I awoke early the next morning, looked at some maps, and finally decided I would take the day off.

After a morning meditation session with Addison over the phone, I wrote this down from Thich Nhat Hanh’s book called ‘Fear’:

“If you are capable of living deeply one moment of your life, you can learn to live the same way all the other moments of your life.” -Thay

Sometimes I do need to live life moment to moment–any more than that can feel overwhelming when I am in a certain state of mind. And now I can just consider it a meditation practice, this one moment where I choose to live deeply.

“If you can dwell in one moment, you will discover eternity.” -Rene Char

Hugo took me to Walmart so I could buy supplies for my trip (and where, coincidentally, they were blasting capoeira music), and then we ate lunch under an oceanside tent restaurant.

We discussed jealousy (something Hugo struggles with, as do I and most people) and he asked me how I deal with it.

“Meditation!” I said. “It’s the only way!” I laughed.

He was intrigued, so we talked more about meditation and discussed the best way for him to get started on his own, since he’d never done it before.

That evening, my right hip and leg began to hurt so badly, that I was having trouble walking. I tried to brush it away, assuming I would feel fine in the morning and be able to ride.

I stretched, massaged the area, slathered myself with biofreeze (thanks again Diane!), drank a glass of water with arnica drops in it, drank magnesium, and then finally lay myself out to sleep. It took a while to fall asleep, because the only comfortable position for my leg was straight, so that didn’t give me many options for how I could lay down (and boy do I like to shift positions every 5 minutes).

I awoke at 6:30 am, eager to find out if my leg had magically healed overnight.

But when I stood up to walk to the bathroom, I was filled with dismay. It hurt just as badly… maybe worse.

I called Radha and Erik (who are in Thailand) and discussed the situation with them.

Finally, I decided I would have to take the day off. Even if I could manage to get on my bicycle and ride 80 km that day, getting off to walk around was agony, and probably not the safest situation to put myself in considering I’d be traveling out in the middle of nowhere, alone.

So I stayed, and spend some quality time with Fear.

I’ve been meditating so much on this trip that I told Addison, “I’m beginning to feel like a monk, like I’m in a monastery… but I’m on an epic journey at the same time… so it’s like I’m a warrior monk.”

The day off didn’t kill me, and I even got some practical things done, including making music with my mandolin.

“Art is the essence of life, and the substance of art is mindfulness.” -Thay

The following two days would be a blur of oceanside cycling, granola bars, sunburn, Harry Potter audiobook, hotels, limping around, whistling Mexican men, semi trucks, gray foxes, coatis, iguanas the size of cats, swamps, mangroves, beaches, albatrosses, eagles, hawks, fish, exhaustion, alone-ness, and more meditation. 

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Looking out from my hotel room in Sabancuy
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A bush full of coatis. How many can you see?
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A lizard the size of a cat
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Miles of swamps
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Lunch at the only (rather fancy) restaurant between Sabancuy and Champoton
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Mid-day photoshoot break (anything’s better than getting back on that bicycle seat!)
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The long and winding road over more swamplands

Having spent so much time gazing at the ocean, I gleaned this thought from my reflections: “The ocean is not afraid of change. She never stops moving, never stops shifting, and changing the sands at her edges and the ocean floor beneath her.”

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At another point, as I was riding past miles of mangroves and swamps and listening to Danny Malone’s album, ‘Balloons’, this question he asks stuck with me:

“They say the way to know yourself, is by yourself

But what if you’re someone you don’t really wanna know…?”

When I pulled into Champoton yesterday and saw the Hotel Posada la Regia on my right side, I didn’t care if it was cheap, expensive, new, old, had internet, or hot water… I just wanted to stop, and sleep.

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My fully loaded bicycle looks a little out of place in this setting, but she doesn’t mind

But after being shown to my room and realizing it’s actually a nice place and a reasonably nice town, and taking consideration of my very unhappy right leg, I decided I was staying an extra night and that was that.

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My companion for the night

“The past is not me. I am not limited by the past.

The present is not me. I am not limited by the present.

The future is not me. I am not limited by the future.”

My goal right now is to rest, write, read, and (yes, you guessed it) meditate. Than it’s another three days to Merida, where a warmshowers host is awaiting my arrival on Saturday.

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A side neighborhood here in Champoton

I’m learning to relish this alone-ness, to let it sink into my skin.

Because once I get to Playa del Carmen, I may be traveling with a whole lotta people, and potentially looking back on this sweet, quiet time wistfully–and then turning back to my large group of humans and reveling in their company all the same.

If You Don’t Like What You’re Seeing… Turn Off the TV and Go Outside!

“The greatest suffering can be overcome through the simplest of actions…” -Me 

In the past couple of weeks I have cried more and slept less for the longest stretch of time I can remember.

And whenever I would have a moment’s rest from the onslaught of pain, I would wonder… “How can I stay here? I don’t want to go back down. I need to stay above water!”

My sister brilliantly reminded me that I could listen to Thich Nhat Hanh on YouTube or podcasts whenever I wanted.

My own mind was struggling with creating and maintaining a positive thought stream, and I found it almost impossible to stay in the present moment.

So I turned to Thich Nhat Hanh to fill my head with the good stuff. 😉

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It took a couple of days of listening to him, but finally, one of my bigger questions was answered and I had a tool I could use to make changes in the recesses of my consciousness.

Thay said, “If you are listening to a CD and you don’t like the music that is playing, why keep listening to it? Just change the CD.”

Simple, yet brilliant.

“If your thoughts are causing you to suffer, why continue to listen to them? You can make a change, right now. You can choose to stop your suffering, right now.

There are seeds in your unconscious. Seeds of love, of anger, of joy, of hate. If you water the seeds of hate, anger or despair, they will take root and grow strong. You need to sing them a lullaby, and put them to sleep. You need to water the seeds of joy, of hope, of love, and they will grow strong in your mind.”

So thank you for being part of my practice of watering the seeds of gratitude and love in my consciousness. I am going to share with you everything I have been grateful for and appreciated over the last couple of weeks here in Mexico.

This is my lullaby, sending the seeds of despair and fear to sleep. 🙂

The first thing that I think of when I feel this swell of appreciation in my heart are the people I have met in the past few weeks:

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Julian, Ceci and Julian Jr. hosted me twice and became my home away from home. They helped me more than I can say and continue to check on me and support me.
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Gaby took me in and helped me in every way she could until the last minute when I walked out her door.
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Pancho took me on a ride in San Luis Potosi with his cycling group and spent a long time going over maps for my route with me
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Erick picked me up outside of Queretaro so I didn’t have to ride through the city and also spent a lot of map time with me, suggesting routes
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Marcego (on the right) welcomed me to his city, his capoeira group and his home and gave me much needed pep talks about my trip
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I’m thankful for all of the beautiful Mexican women I’ve met, especially Monyca and Aurora who let me fall apart on them and gave me love
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Adriana and Nao Veio took me in at the last minute here in Mexico City and are so beautiful and kind, sharing their home and capoeira with me

And there’s more and more…

I’m thankful for the sunsets here…

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I’m thankful for the beautiful city of Queretaro…

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I’m thankful for cute dogs… 😀

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I’m thankful for the beautiful art of basketry…

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I’m thankful for the mandolin and the ability to play music and heal…

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I’m thankful for my noble steed, my amazing bicycle who carries all of my stuff and goes with me everywhere…

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I’m thankful for capoeira, my saving grace, and Professor Marcego for saying, “If I check on you in a couple of months and I see that you’ve quit and gone back to the U.S., than you’re not my friend anymore.” 😀

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I’m thankful for delicious Mexican food…

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I’m thankful for walking meditation…

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I’m thankful for handstands…

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I’m thankful for finding random, inspiring quotes on the walls of a restaurant:

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“Never ever give up on hope. Never doubt, never tire and ever become discouraged. Be not afraid.”

I’m thankful for Mexico City for welcoming me into it’s awe inspiring massiveness…

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I’m thankful that Addison Rice, the love of my life is coming to see me here in Mexico City in just three days…12246865_932069153513073_4459700671473640900_n

And I am thankful to you, dear friend, for reading this whole post and giving me the gift of your attention today. 🙂

Love,

-Jahnavi

Cycling from San Luis Potosi to Queretaro

Hey guys, I’m sorry I didn’t get this up sooner, but here’s a fun little video of my ride from SLP to Queretaro:

I am currently still in Queretaro, training with Capoeira Longe Do Mar and waiting for Addison to get to Mexico City where I will be with him for almost a week.

I’m still figuring out my next move after this, but I’ll keep you posted (no pun intended)!

When failure is a temptation… but not an option!

Sometimes, when you have writer’s block, the best solution is just to set out to ride your bicycle 250 km across a desert landscape through towns where no-one speaks English.

Works every time.

I haven’t felt like writing much these past two weeks, but day 2 on the road, and inspiration has kicked in!

For the past couple of weeks I have been struggling with ups and downs, sadness, depression, what-have-you.

Most days, at some point, I would decide I couldn’t do it anymore. ‘I can’t do it,’ I’d tell myself, ‘I’m not riding my bicycle to Brazil. And now I have to go back to Austin and face all of the people who have been rooting me on.’

I failed… this is what failure feels like, I would think to myself. I thought I could be like those cool, brave, girls in the travel blogs, or the ones who wrote books and had movies made about them.

But maybe all I want to do is plant a garden and bounce a baby on my knee… and do capoeira everyday… and ride my bicycle. Maybe I don’t have to be special or brave or amazing. Maybe it’s okay to just be ordinary.

Honestly, it was kind of cool to experience what if would feel like to give up on a dream I’ve had for so long.

It’s crazy… it felt like… like suddenly I had no idea who I was anymore, and there was just all of this open space.

But then I would remember that I can’t actually go back to Austin.

Addison is having a blast with me gone, going to bed early, waking up early, skyrocketing his career, working out to his heart’s content, having lots of ‘bro time’ with affluent-entrepreneur-copy-writer-types.

He’s rearranged our entire apartment, and his creativity has exploded within.

“The apartment feels too small for both of us now,” he told me.

Even if Addison had welcomed me home, I knew I couldn’t give it up. I want to so often, but I just can’t.

I have to try a little longer, I would tell myself. Just ride to the next town. If it’s awful, you don’t have to do it anymore. But maybe you’ll have a breakthrough.

I hadn’t actually traveled by bicycle in two weeks by this point, because of getting the ride back to Saltillo and then taking a bus to San Luis.

I suspected part of my hesitation was simply the lack of momentum, and my fear of cycling alone in Mexico.

I’ve been staying in San Luis Potosi with Gaby and co., and then I traveled to Chical. I got back to San Luis last weekend.

As I made plans to cycle to Queretaro, Gaby begged me to just take a bus or get a ride.

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Pancho, Gaby and me

“It’s so dangerous!” she would wail, her mascara heavy lashes fluttering in consternation. “It’s a big highway, so many… how you say… semi-trucks!”

But Pancho, a cyclist who took me on a day ride with his group in San Luis Potosi, said, “Hey, do what you have to do. It’s not a bad road, just a lot of traffic. It’s okay. Anything could happen to you anywhere. And you need to ride your bicycle, so do it.”

It’s about 250 km from San Luis to Queretaro, so I knew I needed three days at least.

I mapped out my route, making sure I would end up in some kind of town each night that would hopefully have a hotel, or a church, or a ‘bombero’ (fire-station).

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The night before I was planning to leave, Alejandra and her son Daniel came over, and Alejandra asked me:

“Did you look at the weather for tomorrow?”

It had been sunny and between 60-70 degrees everyday I’d been in San Luis, so no, I had not thought to.

When I admitted this, she said, “Well, it’s supposed to be very cold and raining for the next two days.. and maybe even snow!”

I quickly looked at the weather app on my phone and discovered she was correct.

What?? I thought. I’m already having trouble motivating myself, why this?

Gaby smiled happily. “It’s okay, you stay here, we go to the movies… you can live here if you want!”

Alejandra and I made plans for the next day, but it was hard for me to hide my disappointment.

It’s not that I wouldn’t love to spend more time with Gaby and Alejandra, but I was stuck and I needed to unstick myself, and the way I could see how to do that was to ride my bicycle to Queretaro.

Well the next morning when I opened my sleepy eyes, I saw immediately that the sky was a little cloudy, but the sun was peeking through. And when I stepped outside, although the temperature had indeed dropped, it was as dry as a desert ought to be.

I gathered up my bags and began to do the final stages of packing where I had left off of yesterday.

Gaby came home from her morning spin class and observed that I was leaving after all.

Being the good sport that she is, instead of trying to stop me, she began making phone calls to her friends.

What blows my mind here in Mexico, is that friends seem to be available to eachother at the drop of a hat, anytime, any day.

People would come by to visit Gaby and spend hours at her house, with little more than a half hour of heads up.

Or we would go to a restaurant and slowly, over 4-5 hours, a whole retinue of friends would cycle in and out, sitting at the table together and talking talking talking.

The communality of Mexicans is amazing to me. I would like to see more of this in the States, at my own home and with my friends.

All of that is to say that Juan Ramone appeared at the door with his pick-up truck 15 minutes after Gaby called him.

“Leaving San Luis, 57 (the highway I was planning on taking) is very very dangerous,” Gaby explained. “Juan Ramone is going to drive you just outside of the city. It’s not so good even after this, but it’s better.”

Juan Ramone is in his late 40s and is very deliberate and thoughtful. He can’t speak much english, but I could understood most of what he said because he actually spoke nice and slowly.

We transferred my gear and bicycle into his truck, and then I said good-bye to Gaby. 2016-01-28 14.29.27

Gaby has a busy, full life, and even so she took the time to make sure I was safe and that I had a good route planned out, and made me feel welcome to stay as long as I needed. I appreciate her so much!2016-01-28 14.29.35

I’m looking forward to seeing her in Austin when she visits, or to taking vacations with her in Alejandra to the beaches of Mexico.

Juan Ramone (well, his full name is actually Juan Ramone Grande Primero, he instructed me, when I was adding him to my contacts) drove me 20 km out of San Luis.

Indeed, Gaby’s concerns had been legit.

The highway leaving the city was god awful.

I was so grateful for the ride.

We stopped 30 km away from Santa Maria del Rio (the town I was planning on cycling to first) and I assembled my gear onto my bicycle while the semi-trucks and other traffic screamed past (and while Juan Ramone reminded me repeatedly to not step in the dog shit that was lying just near my front wheel).

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I said good-bye to Juan Ramone and then heaved myself onto my bicycle and wobbled away.

I’m doing this, goddammit, I thought to myself. I’m doing this!

A village named Chical

I caught a ride from San Luis Potosi to Tanchachin in La Huasteca so I could visit Ismael’s family (they live near to Tanchachin in a small village called Chical). I met them 5 years ago when my dad was living in Tanchachin, and I had loved the area so much that I had to go back!

I left my bicycle in San Luis, and that is where I will be traveling from next. The road from San Luis to Tanchachin is terrifying from the perspective of a cyclist, unfortunately, so that’s why I decided to take a different way.

What happens in-between

On Jan. 18th, 2016 I wrote in my journal:

“I was in San Luis Saturday night, Sunday (staying with a friend of my friend Fernando–her name is Gaby) and then on Monday I discovered that Alejandra’s friend (Alejandra is a friend of Gaby’s here in San Luis), Oliverio, was driving to Ciudad Valles on Tuesday morning.

(talk about a friend of a friend of a friend once removed!)12472233_1164282843602322_3193825219873049588_n

I had been warned against cycling directly to Chical, and advised, instead to go a different route that would take me through Queretaro.

With that in mind, I figured it was time to go visit Ismael’s family in Chical and then I could return to San Luis and cycle from there via a different road.

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As I write, I notice how a myriad of new, spanish words are trying to creep in to replace some of my english words. If I let this happen, my next sentence in the story might look like this…

Entonces, en la manana de martes, Oliverio picked me up a la casa de Gaby en el carro de el.

Monday night I stayed up past midnight trying to get some last minute writing done for my client. Whatever I could finish, Addison would have to cover for me, as I would be gone until Friday and wouldn’t have much or anything in the way of internet.

I finally went to bed around 12:30 am with my alarm set for 6 am.

I hadn’t put my phone on airplane mode because I wanted Oliverio to be able to reach me early in the AM if necessary.

So when Addison sent me a voice message at 4:30 am, I picked up my phone almost on auto-pilot and listened to it.

Addison wakes up every morning around 4 am to get the bulk of his writing done in the early hours of the day, than he usually takes a nap around 10 am.

In his voice message, he told me that around 4 am he had heard noises outside our apartment door, where his bicycle was locked up.

He went out to the living room and peeked through the peephole in our door and saw someone walking down the stairs from the landing. Since we share a landing with another apartment, he figured it was just the neighbor walking down there.

But when he heard noises again, and looked through the peephole, this time he could see that there was a guy out there, clearly cutting through his bike lock with bolt cutters.

Addison was ass naked, but did swing the door open and yell, ‘yo!’

Without turning to look at Addison, the guy quickly walked down the stairs and left the premises silently.A's bike lock

Given his lack of clothes and the impressively large bolt cutters in the guy’s hands, Addison did not pursue him.

All of this information coming to me in my sleepy state creeped me out. There’s something about bicycle thievery that seems almost evil to me. And the thought of some guy eye-balling our apt. for who-knows-how-long made me concerned for Addison’s safety.

Apparently our dog (Zoso) is not doing his job.

Maybe Addison should get a chihuahua. They make great alarm systems here in Mexico. 😉

Anyways, all of that is to say that I had trouble falling back to sleep again. When 6 am rolled around I was very tired but excited to hit the road.

Gaby’s housekeeper, Rosa, helped me navigate breakfast, and when Oliverio arrived I popped outside with my borrowed, pink backpack, my mandolin and a bottle of water.

Oliverio does not speak any english, nor did his two companions who joined us for the 3 hour drive.

Add that to the equation that none of Ismael’s family in Chical speak english, or anyone else in Chical for that matter, and you get ‘Jahnavi’s Spanish Immersion Week 101’!”

🙂

You can sponsor this adventure for as little as $1 a month at www.patreon.com/jahnavi