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)!
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.
“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).
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. 
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!
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).
I was rather nervous.
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!
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.
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!)
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.
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.
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
Hey friends, I put together this video montage of arriving in Real de Catorce at 1 in the morning (thanks to a crazy couchsurfer who wanted some peeps to mountain bike with the next day) and then riding up to the top of one of the bigger mountains in the Sierra de Catorce range.
I combined this with some footage of live animals who live in this region, who I was lucky enough to see at the Museo de Desierto in Saltillo.
Enjoy!
https://www.facebook.com/jahnavi.newsom/videos/vb.577051557/10153684796826558/?type=2&theater¬if_t=video_processed
On January 5th, 2016 I wrote:
We are at a Couchsurfer’s house named Sarmach, in Allende. As usual he (and his sister), are
ridiculously kind and generous. They brought us to a restaurant immediately after we arrived at their house. They took us to a store so we could get some warmer supplies [we’ve been pretty darn cold these past few days!]. They let Dagan buy a blanket, but insisted on giving me a sweater from their house, as well as a ‘tuk’ [a warm hat] for Dagan.
The houses and restaurants were all cold (again, no central heating), so by the late afternoon I was cold through and through. But I finally warmed up once we took a nap in the evening, under piles of thick, warm covers.
Jan. 6th:
I dreamt I looked into my own eyes. I was afraid to hold eye contact with myself, but I finally did. Than I embraced myself. I felt what it was like to hug me. The “other” me started crying. I could feel my back move as I cried. And I realized I was crying too.
I look to this dream as some progress on my path of self love.
I am in Rayones today. The sun is shining brightly on the faces of the enormous mountains that surround me on all sides. Tufted titmouses are singing in their Southern, mountain accents. The fronts of their little mohawks are black, and around the base of their beaks is white. [Different than Austin titmouses]
Yesterday Sarmach and Co. drove us up the long, winding mountain road to this town. They brought us to a small restaurant, which also turned out to have two rooms, one of which we stayed in last night.
When we were driving here, just at the base of the first mountain, a new road had been put in. But you couldn’t drive on it yet. There was a big pile of dirt blocking the entrance, with construction signs perched on top. But the side dirt road that would take you around was blocked by a huge semi truck that got stuck in the mud.
Cars and pick ups were turning around at various points on the dirt road, or they had just given up and parked somewhere. We turned around as well, and parked in front of the dirt pile.
Without hesitation, Sarmach got out and grabbed his archaeological pick [he likes to dig for dinosaur bones, of which there are many to be found in these mountains, he told us]. He began to attack the dirt pile with his small pick. This spurred the other Mexican guys who had been standing around into action. They seized the constructions signs and wielded them like alien shovels. The girls (and me and Dagan) grabbed at random stones or clumps and tossed them aside.
When enough dirt had been cleared, we got back into Sarmach’s Explorer and drove through, creating a path for the smaller cars.
There was another dirt blockade on the other end of the section of new pavement, but Sarmach dropped down the side of it and around.
I hope the semi-truck will be gone when they return, because I wasn’t sure how they would climb back up onto the road on their way back, without having to dig through another dirt pile.
Jan. 7th
Last night, while I was journaling in my tent with my light on, I heard the sound of a car coming up the mountain road.
“Do you hear that?” Dagan asked.
It was the only car we’d heard since the one pick up that passed us at the beginning of our ride from Rayones to Galeana.
“Yeah,” I said, quickly switching off my light. “I turned my light off.”
We’d left Rayones around 1:30 pm that day, knowing that maybe we couldn’t make it all the way to Galeana before dark, but that camping would be an option.
The only road between Rayones and Galeana cuts through the mountains, and is rutted dirt. Some places large boulders lay across the path, other parts there are steep drop offs along one side, and then there’s even the occasional cow. We didn’t see any houses once we left Rayones. Just mountains, some distant caves, and enormous cactuses of many varieties.
At around 3:30, my back rack started making funny noises. I kept stopping to investigate, when I finally discovered the bolt holding my rack on the frame (and, consequently, all my sh**) had snapped in half. One side of the rack was dangling, so to speak.
Dagan had pulled over to wait for me, and was feeding us oranges.
“My bolt broke,” I told him. “And I don’t have another one.” I swore. “Watson, the bass player for our band, is also a cycle tourist, and he told me I should have a bag of extra bolts, screws, etc. But I didn’t have any bolts at my house, so I just brought screws.”
“I’m eating another orange,” Dagan replied. “You want one?”
“I’ll eat one after I fix this.”
I dug into my panniers and found my bag with lube, screws and a spoke wrench.
“I guess I’ll just have to use a screw to hold this on,” I announced.
Dagan didn’t say anything, so I drew the conclusion that this meant he had no bolts as well.
He held my rack up while I lined up the fender attachments with the rack opening. I turned the screw in, and watched tiny shards of metal fall from the hole.
“Well,” I said, “it’s a screw, but I think it will hold.”
As if awakening from a dream, Dagan peered down at what I was doing and then said, “I have a bolt you could have used.”
“What??” I stared at him, laughing. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t know you needed one.”
“I said 2 or 3 times I needed one!” I told him. “I took your lack of response to mean you didn’t have any either.”
We laughed and I swore some more. When he did produce a bolt for me, I discovered it wouldn’t work in the hole anymore.
“I think I stripped out the opening with the screw.”
Afterwards, when I tried to put the screw back in, it didn’t really work as well either. Eventually I ended up holding it all together with zipties.
“Great, just great,” I sighed, feeling how wobbly the rack was. “I ruined my bolt hole.” Where the rack attaches to my bicycle is a part of the actual frame, so it’s not just a piece I can replace.
It was an hour later when we decided we should find a place to camp before it got dark.
After some exploration of a relatively flat area, I insisted we push our bicycles up an old horse track (at least it appeared to be a path beaten down by horse hooves), where we would be out of sight of the road.
“Is this really necessary?” Dagan had asked. “It’s not like any cars have driven passed us all day.”
“Even if one car drives up through here tonight,” I said, “if we’re camped right next to the road where they can see us, I’ll feel really paranoid and probably won’t be able to sleep. I’d rather be out of sight and have the upper hand on any situation that might come up.”
Well, lying in my tent right then, listening to a truck driving up the road and then stopping at a spot that sounded like it was just below us, had definitely gotten my adrenaline pumping.
I held absolutely still.
Dagan, on the other hand, rustled around on his sleeping pad (which, for some reason, sounds like a herd of gastronomically challenged giraffes when he moves around on it), unzipped his tent, and looked out.
“I don’t see anything,” he told me.
“I heard an engine die just a minute ago,” I whispered. “And now I hear voices.”
We both fell silent. So did the two men’s voices I had heard.
“I don’t hear voices,” Dagan said.
Just then, I heard them again, and the car door open and slam. The vehicle began to drive again. The way the sound carried, it seemed like they had turned onto the dirt track and were driving up to our site.
They must have seen my light, I thought, adrenaline squirting into my blood stream at a rapid rate. Why are they trying to find us?
The car drove past. I lay still, shaking.
“Good call on choosing a camp spot on higher ground.” Dagan rustled around some more.
“I think they were looking for us,” I said weakly.
“I don’t think so,” Dagan insisted. “I saw where the car had stopped. It wasn’t anywhere near where we’re camped. We’re in the mountains, so sound carries really far.”
It took a while for me to calm down, especially when I heard a car coming back the other way. It also sounded as though it were up to our camp spot, but it eventually passed us by.
Trembling, I went out and got my pepper spray and gave Dagan his dog mace. We lay in our tents, discussing the possibility–or lack thereof–of our likely demise.
“I don’t feel any fear, whatsoever,” Dagan assured me.
I was relieved to hear this. It’s easier for me to calm down when my adventure partner is calm.
“I don’t believe in random acts of evil,” he said. “If someone was desperate enough to find us and steal our stuff, they probably could really use the money.”
“I’m not afraid of my stuff being stolen,” I told him. “It’s just the thought of unknown people rolling up here while I”m exposed and vulnerable. Not knowing who they are and what their intentions are.”
And I don’t relish the idea of being raped, I added silently.
I thought about what the shaman/seer/medium, Elena, had said to me.
“You have an intrinsic belief that the world is not a safe place, because of a past life experience.”
The world is a safe place, I told myself. I am safe.
I eventually drifted to sleep, only awakening occasionally when Dagan’s herd-of-gastronomically-challenged-giraffes-sleeping-mat sounded.
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On Dec. 31st I wrote in my journal:
It’s the last day of 2015.
I feel in alignment with the movements of my soul. It’s hard sometimes, but then I remember to trust that following the directives of my soul will always point me in a good direction.
I’ve been at Ceci and Julian’s [in Ramos Arizpe] for 3 days and I feel calm and happy.
Dagan [a Canadian cyclist who is riding from Houston down to the bottom of Mexico] contacted me on Warmshowers and, as I had assumed and hoped, he is someone traveling the same route as me and seeking companionship.
He just finished a Vipassana meditation retreat in Houston, so combined with that and the fact that he’s riding his bicycle across Mexico, I think he’s probably a pretty swell dude.
Things move slowly here, but I like it.
Lingering at the breakfast table, talking, visiting with in-laws, squeezing babies…
It makes me hope that one day I can stay at home gardening and making crafts, writing and squeezing my own babies.
And on Jan. 3rd I wrote:
I spent New Years Eve with Julian’s extended family, and New Years day with Ceci’s. It was nice. Awesome grandpas, lots of tamales, and some serenading with the mandolin on my part. 😉
Dagan is leaving Monterrey on Sunday, and I can either find my way back into the city to join him, or I can meet him further down the road.
Coordinating at a mountain pass will be a little tricky, but the idea of going back in Monterrey after finally having escaped it is not appealing to me. 😛
Julian, Julian and Ceci became my family away from home.
Julian Jr. was like my little brother.
We teased eachother, tried to steal one another’s food, and Julian never let a day go by without quoting a Shia La Bouef youtube video (“Just do it!!”).
The whole family would squeeze on the couch together at night and watch Jurassic Park, or Forrest Gump (in Spanish!… until I complained about the sacrilege of watching Forrest Gump dubbed, at which they obliging changed it to English…).
On Jan. 5th I wrote:
Today I left the comfort and family fun of Julian and Ceci’s home. They brought me to Villa Santiago [in the mountains just South of Monterrey] to meet up with Dagan.
But first we walked around Monterrey, visited a museum (reminded me of when we would walk around Paris with my grandfather as kids), and they took me to an all-you-can-eat-buffet.
They could quite possibly be the nicest people I know.
We arrived in Villa Santiago around 4:30 pm that evening. 
Once we had located Dagan (which was easy to do, since his was the only bicycle loaded down with gear, including a large, Gerber knife strapped to the frame), I assembled my bags onto my bicycle and hugged everyone good-bye.
Ceci was crying, and I knew I had to leave before I started crying too!
Dagan and I rolled out of the crowded, downtown plaza of Santiago around 4:30 pm. The sun sets at 6:00 pm these days. He had found a couchsurfer for us to stay with in Allende, which is where we were headed.
By the time it was dark, I realized he hadn’t gotten an actual address for the host. But before I could really worry about that, a white van pulled over on the side of the highway in front of us. A Mexican dad got out and waved us down.
He explained in Spanish that it was very dangerous for us to be riding on that road at night. He wanted to follow us until we got off the highway, and bring us to his house to stay for the night.
After some consideration (and after meeting his tri-athlete son), we accepted.
He followed us in the van along the highway, then pulled ahead for us to follow him through the neighborhoods.
When we arrived at his house, he stepped out of the van and his entire family appeared from inside of it as well.
His name is Miguel, his son’s name is Miguel, his wife is Nancy, and his daughter’s name is Natti.
Miguel teaches swimming lessons during the spring, summer and fall.
He and his family set us up in a little room that was next to his enormous swimming pool. We each had our own cot, blankets, water, orange juice, and hot showers.
When we told them Dagan and I had just met that day, they quickly separated our cots and placed a plastic table between them. 🙂
Miguel, Miguel and Natti took us out to eat pizza, which we gratefully accepted.
After hearing more of our stories, Miguel said (in Spanish), “I am so glad to know people like you. It is so amazing what you are doing.
When I saw you riding on the side of the highway at night, I thought ‘cyclists? at night? that’s very dangerous!’
I want my children to learn about being kind to other people. When I told them I was going to turn around and ask you two if you wanted to stay at our house, they said, ‘What?? Why?’
Now they get to meet you and see how amazing you are, and see that it is good to be kind to people, even if you’ve never met them before.”
We told him that we were very happy to have met him and his family as well.
That night it was a bit chilly (there are no central heating systems in Mexico that I am aware of), but after tossing and turning in my sleeping bag for a while, the ice cubes that were pretending to be my feet eventually melted.
The next day it was grey and chilly.
We ate breakfast upstairs in Miguell and Nancy’s house.
They piled our plates with eggs, avocado, tortillas, pan dulce, papaya and apples, and poured us a steady stream of ‘cafe con leche’.
Their generosity towards complete strangers astounded me.
Later, when Dagan and I decided we would find the couchsurfer in Allende to wait out the cold weather, Nancy brought us each a neatly packed sandwich with 2 cocao puff bars each. She insisted we take down her number so we could call them if we needed help or wanted to come back and stay there longer.
I will never forget them!
P.S. You can be a part of my adventure at Patreon.com/jahnavi
Hello dear friends and family,
Just a quick update:
Many people have been concerned because the last post I did ended at a scary moment for me.
I am safe and happy now, spending a week here in Ramos with my wonderful hosts Julian and Ceci.
In a couple of days I head south towards Real de Catorce, and I will be meeting up with a Canadian cyclist, Dagan, who also happens to be going a similar route as I.
So it would seem the universe has shifted to meet my needs, and sent this traveler to be my companion for some unknown period of time!
Also, there are no more massive Mexican cities on my travel horizon. Monterrey is the second biggest city in Mexico.
So it’s all good in the hood.
Don’t worry, be happy! 😉
P.S. This is my current, projected route for the next couple of months…
