“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’!”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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…
When Addison found me on the side of I-35 with my bicycle (Tuesday, Dec. 23rd) I was grinning from ear to ear.
“Wow,” he said me when we sat down together at the gas station picnic table. “You seem so happy. And your face is so tan — I can tell you’ve been riding in the sun for a few days.”
“Yeah,” I told him, sipping on a soda with ice (a tooth-destroying activity that brings me much joy on cycle tours). “I don’t feel stuck anymore. Like I know what I’m supposed to be doing right now, even if I don’t know where I’m sleeping tomorrow or where I’ll be in three days. I feel in alignment with my purpose.”
He nodded, smiling.
Addison has been very sad to see me go, but we both know I’ll be happier finally doing this trip, rather than trying to stay in Austin and avoid the inevitable. And without me around telling him everyday about how much I want to ride my bicycle to Brazil, he’ll be happier too! 😀
“I don’t know why I feel the need to do this ride,” I said. “But I’ve been happier in the past four days since I left Austin than I have been in a long time. I was thrilled to sleep in an empty building under construction–next to that church! I was so happy lying in my tent in that empty room. It’s almost weird.”
“That’s awesome.”
“I do know I won’t be happy the whole time I’m on this trip. I know sometimes I’ll be terrified, lonely, sad, or just craving a hot shower and a soft bed. I know I’ll find myself missing you, and our home in Austin… But that just doesn’t seem like a good enough reason not to go.”
Our next move that evening was to find a place to sleep before crossing the border in the morning. We had an offer to stay with a friend of a friend in Laredo, but Addison felt the need to be with me alone during my last evening in the U.S.
I thought it was probably a good idea. That way we could talk and blubber uninterrupted for as long as we needed to that night.
We ended up getting a room at ‘The Lonesome Dove’. An old hotel off of the highway, owned by an abuelo and his wife. We met them down in the bar…“Cowboys: scrape shit from boots before entering.”
…and then they showed us our room. It wasn’t much to look at, and the shower water wasn’t exactly warm, but it was private.
I realized that night that there was nothing I could say or do, nor Addison, to make us both feel good about separating. It was just a difficult experience we would have to go through, and it was inevitable.
The next morning I had a call with a seer/shaman/medium named Elena. My dad had offered to set me up with a session with her, to gain some clarity around my trip. She is from South America, and, as I soon discovered, is pretty perceptive for someone who just met me on the telephone for the first time.
“What do you wish to get out of your journey?” she asked me.
I hesitated. For me, just doing the journey is enough. I know I will derive many experiences and lessons as I travel, and it will change my life. So I tried to explain this to her.
She told me about a past life experience that is still affecting me now.
“You are trying to prove something to yourself even now,” she said. “You want to prove to yourself that the world is safe, although you don’t really believe it is. So you are challenging yourself and the world by going on this journey, because you want to know that you are safe in this world.”
I can dig that.
“But,” she continued, “I want to make sure that you know something important: you don’t have to make this journey in order to learn the things you need to learn. You don’t have to do it. Only if you want to.”
It felt nice to hear someone tell me I don’t have to go on this crazy adventure.
“Ok, I think I understand,” I replied. “But I feel that I must make this trip. I don’t think I could ever be at peace with myself if I don’t do it. Or at least try.”
As we continued our session, she talked to me about self love. “You have never actually fallen in love,” she told me. “You may love your partner, but you have not let yourself fall in love, because you are not able to really receive love in return.”
I was surprised to hear this, but not surprised at the same time.
“You will fall in love sometime over the next year,” she told me, “but you will have to learn to love yourself first. You cannot fall in love with anyone until you fall in love with yourself.”
When I finished my session, I felt more clear about my intention for the next year:
Falling in love with myself.
That sounds more difficult to me than riding a bicycle to Brazil!!
But I’m up for the challenge.
After we packed up and left the hotel (and after Addison had written me a message in my journal while weeping and splattering the pages with his tears), we headed for the border in Laredo.
But first we had to stop and figure out how to activate the international plan on my phone.
And I had to buy us some gas station coffee. As I was filling our cups and searching for lids, creamer, etc., I realized I was just as confused as to where everything was as the two Mexican immigrants who had arrived by bus just then. They asked me to help them, and to show them were things were, and I gestured helplessly.
“I’m just as confused as you are!” I told them, laughing.
But I asked for help at the check-out and they found me lids so that I didn’t have to navigate with two lidless coffees through the crowds of Mexicanos that were piling out of the buses.
I was so nervous as we pulled up to the border, especially because google maps sent us to the wrong one at first! (apparently it was only for semi-trucks, and the attendants were very distraught at the sight of our little blue subaru coming through the lanes)
We drove through the border into Mexico.
Nothing happened.
Except that instead of a shiny office on the side of the border lanes with someone in a booth asking me for my passport, there was just a crusty old hobo with a tin begging cup standing next to some police officers with huge guns on their backs.
The hobo threw his cup down and ran to our window.
“You need visas? Tourist visas? Permits??”
“Uh…” I was in the driver’s seat, looking at him in confusion. “Si… pero…”
“I take you!” he cried excitedly. “You follow me in my car!”
He gestured wildly to an old, beat up car with its windshield smashed and taped together, and the front fender hanging on by a few ties.
I laughed. I thought he was joking.
That is, until I realized he wasn’t.
He leapt into his old beater with his “amigo”, and tried to get us to follow him.
Instead, we pulled into a currency exchange office and changed some dollars to pesos and asked them where the hell we should go to get visas and permits.
They tried to explain it to us, but we ended up driving in a circle back to where the hobo had returned and was holding his tin cup again.
When he saw us he threw the cup down again and raced to my window once more.
“I tell you to follow me, you no follow me!” he cried. “I take you to where you get visas and permits!”
A truck filled with policemen in bullet proof vests and army boots pulled up. The officer driving said something in spanish, and the hobo ran to his window and explained the situation.
He nodded to us and gestured to the hobo. Yes, you can follow him to get your visas and permits. He won’t lead you down an alleyway into a nest of narcos. That was my interpretation of his gesticulations.
So we followed the car that looked like it shouldn’t be able to drive even one mile without breaking down. It led us to what looked like an official building for permits and visas. A miracle.
The hobo stopped his car in the middle of the road, blocking traffic. He came to Addison’s window.
“Okay, you go in here,” he told us. “You get visas and permits.”
“Gracias,” I said.
“Now you give me ten dollars,” he commanded. “Give me ten dollars.”
I gave him 200 pesos and bid him adieu, as the cars that were stuck behind us began to blow their horns in impatience.
All the signs inside the building were in spanish, so it took us almost an hour to figure out which line to wait in, and by the time we figured that out, we also realized that we had to wait in every single line that we saw in the building, one after the other.
None of the attendants spoke english.
I kept opening google translate and typing in questions, or tried to translate the signs that hung over the lines.
One of us would run outside or poke our head out a window every 20 minutes, to see if my bicycle was still on the back of the car. It was locked to the bike rack, but the bike rack can be taken off.
By the time we got back into the car with our paperwork squared away, it was almost 2 pm. We sighed in relief.
Next stop, General Zuazua where my friend, Ismael lives.
I was very tense as we drove our first miles in Mexico.
I’ve been in many other countries, but never driven a car anywhere but the U.S.
We arrived at la casa de Ismael a few hours later. Ismael was not home, but his housemate, Mario, was there.
Mario did not speak any english either.
We followed him inside and the three of us sat in relative silence, smiling politely and playing with their two little chihuahuas (Kookie and Kookien). After a while I asked Mario if I could bring my bicycle into the backyard, and where we could put our ‘cosas’ (things).
Ismael had said I could stay as long as I wanted at his house, because he had ‘an extra room’.
What he meant was that he was going to sleep in Mario’s room and give me his room!
We piled all of our stuff in there and then Addison played us some songs while we waited for Ismael to get home from his work at the ‘cookie factory’.
Ismael is a manager at a big factory in Monterrey where they make Oreos, Chips Ahoy, Fig Newtons and Ritz crackers.
When Ismael arrived, I hugged him 2-3 times, as I had not seen him in 4 years or so.
We ate dinner, and then he showed us his artifacts collection that he brought from Chical (the tiny village he’s from that’s located south of Monterrey about 800 km).
That night I was afraid.
Okay, I thought. Now I’m in Mexico. Now what? I don’t feel any more confident about cycling here than I did before.
Dogs were barking from every cement yard in the little town, and mariachi music blasted throughout the streets.
Addison left the next morning.
I thought if I just stayed at Ismael’s for a few days, than I would work up the courage to get on my bicycle and ride out of there.
Here’s some pictures of the next few days…
Amigos de IsmaelIsmael rolling up newspaper to make a sombrero with!
Ismael took me fishing…
And we accidentally caught a tortuga!
Mexican pizza = a lot of jalepenos!
Painting on the left is Ismael’s and mine is on the right (the plant grows in his village and is called ‘Corona de Cristo’)
Finally it was time for me to try riding my bicycle in Mexico…
So on the morning of Dec. 27th I packed it all up, while Mario and Ismael watched in amazement.
And I rode into the city of Monterrey…
I was terrified.
For reasons mostly in my own head.
But I made it to my host’s house in under 3 hours.
His name is Max (or ‘Cejas’, which means ‘eyebrows’).
He is a physicist, a writer, a coder… and he is very curious and fun.
He lives with more dogs, cats, guinea pigs and rabbits than I could count.
Oh, and his girlfriend Maria, and his sister.
That night we played Cuban Dominoes (first time for me) over much joking and shouting in spanish.
Somehow I managed to win (I never win games!)…
The next day I was supposed to ride to Ramos Arizpe, a town about 75 km Southwest of Monterrey.
Maria squeezed me fresh orange juice and bid me farewell.
The next four hours scared the living daylights out of me.
I could not find my way out of the city. The only options seemed to be massive interstates with no shoulders and lots of traffic.
There is no bicycle option in Google Maps, so when I would load a route for walking, it would send me up one way streets going the wrong way, and when I realized what was happening I usually had to do some crazy maneuvering to get out of harm’s way.
When I upload a route for a car in Google Maps, it sends me onto huge interstates where no cyclist should ever set tires down.
The sidewalks do not have ‘ramps’, so to speak, so in order to get up onto or off of a sidewalk (which is usually very narrow, broken up, and will have random trees, posts or blockages in the middle of them without any warning ), I have to lift my 80 lbs of bicycle up onto it, and then lower it down again when the sidewalk suddenly ends or gets too narrow.
I kept breaking down crying, which annoyed the crap out of me.
I felt so alone and confused, especially not knowing how to speak the language, and everyone stared at me like I was a space alien.
After stopping at a Krispy Kreme and charging my phone (and nearly weeping all over the donut attendee), I kept going.
When I found myself dodging enormous potholes and treacherous chunks of cement that were posing as some kind of sidewalk, while semi-trucks and buses screamed within inches past me at 70 miles per hour, I gave up.
I pulled into a gas station.
I can’t dothis, I thought. I’ll never make it to Ramos, what to speak of Brazil. How is this trip going to be enjoyable if I’m terrified the whole time?
I’m not brave. But I wanted to become brave by doing this trip.
I thought I would feel more brave after a day or two of riding in Mexico, but maybe Monterrey was a bad place to start…
I sent a whatsapp message to my host in Ramos, Julian.
He offered to pick me up.
I cried some more and accepted his offer.
While I waited for him to come with a car, a lady sat near me, watching me curiously.
“Cansado?” she asked me. Meaning, ‘are you tired?’
“Ah no… Estoy esparando a un amigo con un carro.” I pointed to the highway swarming with traffic. “Esta camino es muy malo para el bicicleto.”
She nodded in agreement.
I somehow was able to explain to her that I was headed to Brazil, at which she was duly impressed. However, I wasn’t so sure this was accurate information anymore..,
Than I offered her an orange, which she happily accepted.
When Julian arrived with a bike rack on his car, I hugged him and thanked him repeatedly.
He said, “It’s no problem. This road is very bad even for a car. I understand.”
Julian rode his bicycle from Ramos to New York City about 9 months ago, and then flew to Europe and cycled around there. He knows that cycling in a city in Mexico is much more hazardous than cycling somewhere like Manhattan, where it is a common activity and there are bike lanes and alot of awareness around cycling.
As we drove along the highway to Julian’s home, I stared in horror at the last 40 miles I would have had to cycle.
If I had tried to ride this highway, I think I would have died, I thought.
We passed a semi-truck that had hurtled off of the road into a ravine and was dangling there like a giant, metallic carcass.
On either side of the highway are mountains that literally touch the sky, and at their feet spreads out the desert, with cacti that are 10-15 ft. high.
Julian’s family received me with incredible hospitality, and stuffed me full of pasta, salad and tortas.
Than I crawled into bed around 6 pm, still shaking, and cried myself to sleep.
I wonder when I will be brave?
I don’t really want to ride alone anymore, so I’m praying to the universe to send me a traveling companion, at least until I feel more at home on the road and in Mexico.
To be a part of my journey and help me get all the way to Brazil, please visit Patreon.com/jahnavi
P.S. I’m not writing all of this to complain, but simply to be honest with every part of my experience. It takes a lot of courage for me to admit to being terrified and crying all over the place, so please suspend your judgement if you can! 🙂 Thank you!!
On December 20th, 2015 I left Cibolo, TX and made my way to Rohn’s house (a friend of a friend of a friend) who lives near San Antonio.
When I showed up at his door, we hung out by his pool-converted-into-a-fish-pond and talked about life, death, birds and cats.
Then I took a nap to give my concussed brain a rest.
That night we spent some time with Jocelyn (she’s the friend of a friend who found me Rohn to stay with) and her family.
Then we hit the town on bicycle, to see the beautiful lights along the San Antonio River Walk, and narrowly avoid running over oblivious pedestrians as they stared at their phones (or the beautiful scenery around them).
The next day I had to decide whether I was letting Addison drive me over the border in Laredo, or whether I would just cycle the whole thing.
On one hand I didn’t really want to cross the border alone with a big pile of gear and then ride the semi-truck infested toll-road from Laredo to Monterrey, with naught but cactuses and muffler exhaust for company for 3-4 days…
But on the other hand, I didn’t want Addison to have to bring our car through the border and then have to drive back from Monterrey alone.
What if the Narcos got him??
After meditating with Rohn and his tiny cat…
I packed up and we headed downtown to a coffeeshop.
During coffee and breakfast, Rohn told me about the video project he wants to embark on (I’m hoping he’ll set up his own Patreon account so I can support him!) about the history of San Antonio beginning 20,000 years ago.
I bid Rohn adieu…
…and pointed my bicycle in a southerly direction (I hear that’s where Brazil is!).
For some time I was trapped on the river walk because after I had gotten myself deep into the heart of the city and the river walk, stairs appeared in all directions and I couldn’t find a way out.
A kindly young lady (who worked for the park) gave me directions, and I told her and a mom and her son what I was doing and they all gaped appreciatively. If there’s any reward for what I’m doing, at least seeing people’s expressions when they find out where I’m headed is rewarding enough! 😀
By the end of the day I found myself on I-35 Frontage Road, watching the sun begin to set. I knew I should find a place to sleep, but I was really enjoying riding and wanted to keep going!
(coincidentally, it was the shortest day of the year, so it definitely felt like daylight had run out too quickly!)
Just then I noticed a man in a black leather jacket standing on the side of the highway with his motorcycle. I smiled and waved, at which he began to yell and wave his arms and run towards me.
It turns out his motorcycle had run out of fuel and he needed to use a phone to call his girlfriend.
Once he’d made the call and I told him what I was up to, he shook his head in disbelief but then said, “I want to come with you!”
“You can!” I laughed. “I’d love some company getting over the border.”
“Yeah, but I’d be riding that,” he pointed at his motorcycle.
I nodded. “You’d be going quite a bit faster than me, that’s for sure.”
When he asked where I was sleeping that night and I said, “I don’t know yet”, he told me the road I was headed to next didn’t have much of anything on it.
So after saying good bye to him, I turned back to the last town I’d seen and rolled up to the first church I could find…
‘La Iglesia de los Hechos’.
I knocked on some doors but no one came out.
I called the number on their sign and a woman answered.
“Hola,” she said.
“Hola,” I replied. “Habla ingles?”
“No… Pero hay una mujer aqui que habla ingles. Solo un minuto…”
After a second, another woman picked up the phone.
“Hello?” She had a thick Spanish accent.
“Hi!” I said cheerfully. “My name is Jahnavi and I am on a bicycle tour right now. I’m riding from Austin to Brazil and I am outside of your church right now. I was wondering if I could set up my tent next to the church to sleep tonight. I don’t need anything else, just want to have a safe place to sleep.”
I could tell she was still trying to grasp what I was saying to her when she said, “You… want to sleep at the church?”
“Just outside, in the grass,” I said.
“The house where we have guests is full. A family from Mexico is living there. They have nowhere to go.”
“I don’t need a house, I have a tent.”
Finally she called the Pastor, who was inside the church at the time.
He came out to meet me and stared at me and my bicycle.
“Como se llama?” I asked after telling him that I just needed a spot to set up my tent.
“Salvador [and then a long string of names I can’t remember] Pastor.”
We shook hands.
He showed me into a building that was under construction. There was plaster dust and boards everywhere, but it had a door that locked, and windows that opened.
I was thrilled.
“Muchas gracias!” I told him. “Es perfecto!”
Salavador Pastor looked at me then with what seemed to be a mix of horror and pity. The fact that I was traveling alone and was so thrilled to be pitching my tent in his empty construction area, seemed to baffle him.
When he left me there, I found a room without boards and tools in it and set my tent up there.
I also plugged in my devices to charge along the wall, before heading over to a Subway that was around the corner.
Vegetables are hard to come by on bicycle tours, so even though they were Subway vegetables on a foot-long sub, I was delighted. They were colorful and crunchy, and I even got to have some guacamole on my sandwich.
While I was eating, I noticed a brand new pick-up truck pull in. It was done up to the nines: lifted, shiny rims, guard-rail, etc.
I thought, Wow, that is such a big, fancy truck… If I was a native person who hadn’t seen cars before, I would assume that some kind of god would step out of it.
When the door opened, a small, portly man in baggy clothes plopped out. He looked haggard and stooped, and his health appeared to be anything but good. He spat out a watery glob as he headed into Subway with his two overweight children.
I stared at him and then at his his truck.
For a moment I had this feeling that the truck had stolen his soul… He must work so hard to maintain that truck and keep up with payments, I thought. What if he chose to just invest all that time and money into healthy food, exercising and taking a vacation out in nature once in a while?
I pondered this as I headed back to my empty building.
I didn’t sleep so well, because apparently, in this tiny Texas town, it is a ritual to hit the gas when you’re driving through a certain intersection, spin out your wheels, and gun it all the way to the highway… only between 2-4 AM.
Around 4:30 AM I drifted to sleep.
At about 8:30 AM, Salvador Pastor opened the door to the building and called in.
“Hello? Hello!!!”
“H-hi…! Hello!” I responded blearily.
“Are you okay?” he yelled.
“Yes, yes! I’ll stop by the church when I’m up,” I told him.
“I just wanted to know you’re okay,” he said, and then shut the door.
After I had been up for a while, a Mexican man appeared at the door.
“Hola, buenos dias,” he said.
We were able to communicate by gesturing wildly and inserting random english or spanish words into sentences.
His wife had come by when I had been at Subway, to invite me to sleep in their house and eat dinner with them, but I wasn’t there.
He wanted me to come to the house and drink coffee, use the bathroom, and stay for another day if I wanted to.
I did use the bathroom and drink coffee with him. He showed me pictures of his four sons, all strapping young men who depicted themselves shirtless and flexing, lifting weights or posing in a backwards baseball cap.
He was so sweet and kind, that I wanted to give him our album (The Love Sprockets: Nobody Wants to Die) and my contact, and to figure out how in the heck to say ‘tent’ in spanish.
(google translate was telling the man that I had slept inside my ‘cottage’ that night, so it was cool)
I called my friend Negro/Felipe who speaks fluent spanish and asked him to be our translator via speaker phone.
I brought the album to the man and held the phone up, feeling relieved as Negro babbled in spanish to him and helped me explain what I was doing and what the album was.
It was Dec. 22nd. The sun was warm and pleasant as I continued riding south around 11 am.
Addison was coming to get me from Austin that day, and I wanted to ride as far as I could before he caught up with me.
I listened to music and to my spanish lesson, pedaling along cheerfully. I stopped in the shade of a bank to eat food and greet the people who pulled into the parking lot to do their banking.
I rode on mostly back roads, listening to birds and bugs and rattling along on the uneven pavement.
By 5:30 pm I had managed to go almost 40 miles and I was ready to stop. I knew Addison was close by, so I pulled into a gas station and waited.
When you are supposed to leave on a 5,000+ mile journey by bicycle, and your launching point is your comfortable, safe Austin apartment where your fiance and your cat and your dog live… it becomes very tempting to keep pushing the departure date off.
I delayed my inevitable exit for a few days, but finally, Friday the 18th of December, I got my butt out the door.
When my bicycle was all packed and waiting down the stairs and in the parking lot, I went back inside and announced to Addison that it was time. He stared at me from the couch where he was lying in semi-shock, a mix of disbelief, surrender and sadness written on his face.
We made our way out to my 80 lbs of stuff-strapped-to-a-bicycle rig, and took some pictures in commemoration of the day I left Austin, on a bicycle, in hopes that one day I would arrive in the land of Brazil:
Here it is! My trusty steed…“Wuv… twu wuv…”The whole family… Shiva the cat is like, “What the heck are they doing to me and why isn’t anyone feeding me??”
When I saw Addison’s eyes fill with tears, I had to find a strong place in me that would enable me to keep smiling and keep moving, rather than pulling him back inside and cradling him in my arms whilst we both wept copiously.
And luckily he had a harmonica lesson he was biking to, so he hopped on his ride and I heaved, hobbled and gingerly mounted mine. I rode with him to his lesson, where we had one more good bye, and then I turned to face the sun and started pedaling.
First stop: Alice’s house!
She was on my way out and I needed to return her Spanish book anyways… 😀
Boy was she surprised to see me at her door in my alien cyclist outfit!
Baby Josephine took my bike for a test ride, and sanctioned that it was indeed fit for the upcoming adventure
I was in good spirits as I rolled away, waving to Alice and baby Josephine standing in the bright sun. The temperature was 70 at the most, and the sky was clear and bright blue.
It was really nice having google maps guiding me through back roads, neighborhoods and small sections of bike trails (unlike my last bike trip where we had to stop every few miles to check and see if we’d gone the wrong way on the map).
(I was on my way to my friend Morgan’s house, in Cibolo, TX — 60ish miles away)
But I quickly discovered that my phone cannot hold its charge. I dropped it in the toilet a month ago (in preparation for this trip, ya know–ha!) and its battery just hasn’t been the same. I know I would most likely be traumatized if someone dropped ME in the toilet. 😀
Luckily I have this nifty charger pack with me, so I was able to keep the phone on… for a while.
At one point google maps sent me through the backside of a highschool to cut over to another road. Siiri must have not taken into account that there would be over ten school buses lined up along the whole length of the connecting street, and hundreds of highschool students swarming in throngs in and around the street.
After trying to navigate through crowds of humans who seem to only be able to see the nose in front of their face and not much else, I gave up and just started walking my bike through.
Considering how I was dressed, my overloaded bicycle and the gopro mounted to the top of my helmet, the few students who did actually look at me, gaped in a mix of interest and horror.
I heard muttered remarks of, “What the hell?” and “Woah!” and then finally an older man standing at a corner asks me, “Where ya headed? Alaska?” with a laugh.
I smiled pleasantly and told him, “No, Brazil! The opposite direction.”
He was chewing over that bit of fantastical information as I straddled my rig once more and creaked away, pedaling up some momentum to get me down the road. A highschool student sitting in a parked car saw me pass and yelled, “What are you doing??”
I only smiled and kept going.
But that did set the tone for the next hour of my ride as I mulled it over.
What AM I doing? I pondered. And yes, ‘what the hell?’ is right!
Eventually I stopped to eat lunch in the sunshine.
By 5 pm I had only gone 30 miles and my phone and charger pack had both died completely.
I pulled up next to a University stadium gift shop (which was closed) and found a power outlet on the side of the building. I hunkered down and began charging things. I knew I had a place I could stay just 4 miles away, but that would mean not getting to Morgan’s house that night.
Morgan lived another 33 miles south, and she had been very excited to see me because she is also getting into bicycles and touring.
When I called her to say maybe I should stay with the closer host and see her the next day, she continued to be optimistic that I could reach her house at a reasonable hour, and the rest of the ride was on one road, so I wouldn’t need my phone for navigation as much. She was so upbeat and seemed to be really looking forward to seeing me, so I ignored the little voices crying out for mercy in my head and decided to keep going.
I watched the traffic flowing and stopping in the light of setting sun, while my phone charged a little longer.
5:30 pm, I thought, and 33 miles yet to go. It’s going to be dark in half an hour… and cold. Why am I doing this to myself?
I am a sucker for ‘stupid adventures’ (as me, my sister and her husband so fondly call all of the mishap adventures we’ve been on together), and I’ve never ridden a bicycle loaded down with 80 lbs of gear through the dark night on a busy road. A new experience, right? Ha ha.
After packing everything back up, I hit the road and joined the traffic onto I-35 Frontage road.
It was scary.
Big, small and enormous vehicles rushed by me in the dark, some of them slowing down, others speeding up as they saw me. Some people changed lanes to give me room, others shaved by me at close quarters.
It is not my time to go, I reminded myself. This is only the beginning of the journey.
After another ten miles, I had gotten so cold and distraught that I felt I surely must give up.
Instead, I stopped at a traveler’s rest stop and got a big, hot, cup of steamy coffee. I stood in the breezeway with my bicycle and charging phone, as people pushed past me. Some of them looked at me and my gear with curiosity, others just shoved by as quickly as they could without knocking me over.
One guy talked to me at checkout, smiling in amazement when I told him what I was doing.
A friendly Mexican man stopped several times to talk to me about my bicycle, how far I’d come, where I was going, and eventually he offered to buy me food. I was touched by his offer, and reminded that all of us humans are one big family, and even though I am separated from Addison and the rest of my blood family, I’m still not really alone.
I thanked him, but told him I had food and a nice hot coffee. I would have loved to just stop my ride right there and it a big pile of food with him, but I knew I still had another 18 miles to go.
I would definitely take someone up on a ride right now… I thought, as people walked by.
At that moment, a disheveled, sad looking black man approached me.
“You ridin’ that bicycle?” he asked.
“Yes,” I replied.
“Alone?”
Hmmm… probably shouldn’t say I’m alone… But what the hay, he seems pretty harmless.
“For the moment. I’m actually about to call my friend who is meeting me on the road.”
He pondered this for a moment.
Then asked, “Where ya headed?”
“Cibolo,” I said. “It’s about 18 miles south of here.”
“You need a ride?” he asked. “I can give you a ride. And I won’t bother you.” He stared at me. “I would love to bother you… but I won’t!”
I smiled. How touching. “That’s okay, my friend is meeting me so I’ll just ride.”
He insisted I take his number, which I did, knowing I would never call it.
When I got Morgan on Facetime, she was all dressed in her cycling gear and even had earrings that lit up and blinked brightly so drivers could see her.
She offered to just start riding towards me so that we could meet up halfway and then ride to her house together.
Even though this wasn’t someone offering me a ride in the car, it heartened me all the same. Misery loves company! 😀
So I put on a hundred more layers of clothes and gloves and then precariously maneuvered my bicycle back outside.
It was 8:00 pm-ish.
After another hour or so, Morgan and I eventually found eachother at a McDonald’s and embraced like long-lost friends, talking excitedly.
And then we rode side by side for the next hour chatting and groaning as we encountered more and more hills.
By the time we reached the intersection that led to her house, I thought I might die. We took a break in the parking lot of a bank and looked at the stars. I could have slept on that sidewalk for all I cared, I was so tired.
We reached her warm, inviting house at 10:30 pm-ish. I was so happy to see her home that I could have hugged every single Christmas reindeer decoration in her yard.
I could have wept over the steaming bowl of pasta she and her family presented to me.
And I could have wept into my hot, epsom salt bath for joy.
I didn’t weep until I was lying in bed, drifting to sleep.
Here are some pictures of the next day. Now I gotta hit the road and keep riding! 😉
Diane, Morgan’s momthe shopping area where The Bread Box is that Diane and Morgan work atMorganThe dough mixerMorgan and Co. in the kitchen
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.
