"Your hair goes to the sky", Mexico City, and a realization about this place

I could be sleeping with an elephant in here if I wanted

I am in Mexico city! Simply saying that to myself brings me a zip of excitement and disbelief. The largest Spanish speaking city in the world! 

I am staying in El Centro, the downtown, and it feels like 4th Ave in Seattle, like Michigan Ave in Chicago, the buildings of impressive classic styles, the streets of brick, trendy frozen yogurt and Chinese food buffets, tourists and locals intent on their passage in this urbane area.

I have felt my throat sore from the air quality here and my eyes feel weary and itchy after time on the streets. (Dear fingerlakes, I can't wait to breath near you)

I am splurging on myself and booked a single room for my last two nights here, in this beautiful country, in this humungous city. I wanted a break from having to answer 57 questions about my bicycle and it's box everytime I was in my room (example: my delightful Oaxaca city hostel) and didn't necessarily want to be sharing a room with three men (also, the delightful Oaxaca city hostel: which included two incredibly gracious men from Colombia--confirming my experience of last year that Colombians DO sing in happiness a lot and are incredibly courteous, calling me "senorita" every time they addressed me--and one irritatingly assumptive and rambly old guy from Texas). 

This room is pink and gigantic, in an echoey hostel with bizarrely high ceilings, as if the architect doubled all vertical dimensions just for kicks. 

I woke at 4am the first night (which gives me some time to write), thanks to some vivacious drunken singing echoing through all that vertical space. 

Metropolitan Cathedral of Mexico City

I scraped my jaw off the floor after gaping at this Baroque beauty (Spanish built, updated electric action)

The hostel is within walking distance of the Zocalo--all Mexican cities have a city center of this nature, with a church and a square, making them formulaic and happy to navigate--and I padded over through the crowds of urbane and distinctive people and gaped at the cathedral. Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral: it's what shows up when you google-image search this city. 

I went inside, and found my eyes getting misty to witness a Catholic service being chanted along in that immense space. Whatever the religion, there is something about witnessing a space that is intentional, built for human peace and reverence, that gets to me. 

And I looked up, and there was a pipe organ. 

Oh my goodness. I have encountered none here until this moment, and that it was BEING PLAYED right then gave me shivers of delight. In fact, there were two pipe organs, exactly the same, as if one wasn't grand enough. They are played simultaneously by two people in concert, the instruments echoing and supporting each other. An older man with a big camera, dressed in photographer beige, was standing nearby and I asked him about it. His English was very helpful, and Senior Jorge shared he sometimes worked as a tour guide, and he seemed absolutely delighted to be telling me all he could about the church and the nearby sights.

"You must go to the Museo de Anthropology!" "And that building there, that is the palace!" He genuinely was pleased to be sharing about this place, and kept repeating that if I was "bored of" him, I could go. But I let myself be adopted by this gem of a helpful human, and he led me out to various buildings on the square. He had a policeman give me a map, took me to the art museum to check the hours, explained the subway system, told me to stay out of particular places in the city, and said he wanted to learn more words in English and didn't want any money for his time. He gave me his card and number, "if you have any doubts of this place, just please call me!" and we parted ways. 

How fortunate am I to encounter people like this! 

 

Ignoring Senior Jorge's advice to stay strictly in the touristy areas, I took only a little money, left my phone in my room, and strode out into the bustle of the other Mexico city. If someone bothered me they would be rewarded by nothing. At the beginning of this trip I may not have ventured out, but after a month here of feeling ignored and safe, I trusted I would be fine. 

Shopping! Street food! I love looking into the shops packed densely against each other and regarding the items for sale; shopping for daily life here is so different than in the states. In the states you'd go to one or two huge stores that have an aisle for each thing you want, with a giant stretch of parking lot outside. In Mexico city, there are streets that seem like aisles themselves. And no space for parking lots. I walked down Calle Bolivar which was music stuff aisle, speakers blasting cacophony and CDs on display. Avenida Doctor Rio de la Rosa (no words minced around here for road names) was fancy dresses aisle, which eventually was a gradient into underwear aisle. I find it so hilarious to find shop after shop selling the exact same things. And then, once you leave paper goods street, good luck finding paper anywhere else! 

I saw a store selling only loofahs. Countless stores for tortillas. I smelled a delicious waft of sweet bread and followed it to a cavernous bakery, complete with policemen holding rifles inside. Must be an important place!

Bikes street, books street, fabric street, naked angels and Jesus candles street, bright plastic junk ave. I was looking for Calle de las Bolsas so I could purchase a bag to carry home my egregious load of chocolate, mescal, coffee, and wool goods. I found one in unabashed pink for $3. I also couldn't resist a pair of striped socks on socks street for 5 pesos (25 cents). 

I ate fried plantains with dulce de leche, a carrot-guava-orange juice made fresh while I watched, and a giant elliptic corn tortilla topped with mushrooms and cheese (un huarache). The vendors are kind to point out that their salsa is picante, and I always eat it anyway. Yesterday I ate part of a grilled pepper--seemingly benevolent because it was big, green, and fleshy--that was so hot my ears rang. (and later, my intestines rang)

La Opera Restaurant

La Opera, fun with mirrors

I took myself out Monday night, the iconic La Opera restaurant in El Centro, which is all red carpeting, waiters in white with platters above their heads, intricate dark woodwork, and mirrors inset everywhere to feel lost in it all. The place is old, from the Revolution time, and coming there felt like participating in something timeless and larger than life. 


I perched at the bar, munching chips and "tanned onions" (English translation, thanks Google) and enjoying a slow mescal margarita, luxuriating in writing in my journal and being alone in this community of others. Three leathered men with faces touched by time and feeling strummed guitars and sang in the cancion ranchera style in the corner.  


Then something magical happened. 


A man with spectacles at the end of the bar caught my eye, folded his hands together and bowed ever so slightly. "Please? A song for you? Thank you thank you!" I wasn't exactly sure what this would entail, but before I could clarify, the three singing men approached me, encircling my bar perch, and began strumming their guitars. The three of them sang directly for me, looking into my face. I blushed the color of my ever-present red shirt and beamed back at them. They were singing about beautiful eyes, in that Mexican folk songy way, timeless and passionate, croony and leisurely. They put their heads back for the long-held higher notes, and picked an intricate melody for the bridge. 


Receiving that amount of energy and attention is powerful, let me tell you. I felt like I was taking in all the grace, talent, and beauty of the entire country of Mexico. May I be able to hold onto this for the following many months back in that United States. 


Then Senior Spectacles caught my eye again. "Thank you thank you", he said, as if by listening I was somehow worth thanking. Then he motioned if he might sit next to me. "Claro!" 


He said he had seen me writing, "I wonder to myself, what is that girl thinking about this place? What is she writing about?" And he said he was a writer too. "Three things are important in my life. One: my life, two: my family, and three: writing and reading." 


He said he had noticed my eyes, and that he would remember them forever, that this writing girl was sitting there thinking and seeing with those beautiful eyes, and writing. Thus he had asked the singing men to sing to me about eyes. 


"Your hair goes to the sky," he then observed. I thought that was just the best. I'd never thought of it that way, but it does indeed point to the sky. What if somehow my hair could be a representation of how I want to be in life? Looking up, up towards the sky and hope and things larger than ourselves?


He was unabashedly poetic, and romantic in the way of the romance of words and eyes and paintings, but not in the least of a sexual advance. Romance can also be a quality of mystery, excitement, and remoteness from everyday life, says Google's second definition.   


He was one of the least intrusive and gracious admirers I have encountered. We talked about the magic of words, and he then he excused himself, that he didn't want to bother me any longer. I share this interaction because it was striking to me, and I want to dispel the notion that all men in Latin America who talk to women traveling alone have intentiones malos. Interactions like this one are on a purely human to human level, and I left smiling. 

Mexico city buildings, night admiring, draw out thoughts and a realization

I've been trying to get my finger on it for weeks. What is the pulse of Mexico, what makes it unique here? What have I been in for the past 30 days?


And walking back through the lit streets of El Centro, after being sung to with such fervor, and sharing a conversation about words and receiving such respectful attention, I figured it out. 


It is the spirit here. The unabashed spirit of the people, artists who throw their all into their work, singers who put their whole hearts into three minutes of song. Unbridled. Unquestioning. Honest and vulnerable in this way, but vulnerable meaning open and strong, with self-belief. Unapologetic in how one lives one's life. "This is what we make, the work we do, and we are proud of it." 


I speak only from my own experience, obviously, and making generalizations about an entire nation from 30 days here is unrepresentative. But I share now what I felt and observed, at least. 


To hear Snr Spectacles share his ideas about writing, and how he had noticed me writing and wondered if I felt the same about words, and his philosophies, and have it all done with the utmost respect "may I sit by you?", I think helped me realize this. To reach out to someone like this takes a spirit of self-belief, i think, just like Snr Jorge earlier, and everyone else I've encountered who is excited and proud of what they do and what they can share. 


And the street art I've seen. An outpouring of expression on the streets. And the music I've heard, the songs that are completely unselfconscious. Maybe that's it. Unselfconscious. Less putting on of airs. More embracing of a situation. Perhaps more willing to bare a soul and not think of being judged. 


This spirit has been a beautiful thing to witness for the past 30 days.  

Godmother of the Hummingbirds

(written: Sunday, location: Oaxaca city)


Today is my last day with my bicycle not in a box. A last day to be relished, oh how I will miss the climbing and the flying and the dust and the churning and the sweating. I made almost 1,000 kilometers here. Zero flat tires and zero accidents. Oh how fortunate am I. 


(I am back in Oaxaca city, via a night bus; I came here to collect my box stores by Avid Alex and then to travel on to Mexico city before my last flight home) 


I saw the mountains behind Oaxaca city and I wanted to bicycle up there for my Final Ride. What is this call to climb things? To be above, to see, to view the sights of this city I have come to love so much, all laid out before me? 


I could barely leave for the ride, however, for talking with people and consuming delicious things. At the coffee shop it was two gentlemen from Minnesota, a Lance and a Larry; we raved about Oaxaca, the music life, the arts, the food. Lance bid me good journeys, said he was happy to see a young person traveling in this way, and that he liked my [overgrown helmety vertical] hair style. 


Finally on the road. Oopa! Look: a market. Must get more snacks. I was locking my bike on the rack, and a young man with a bicycle swooped his hand to offer me a space. "Hola!" he looked into my face, "warmshowers?" And, somehow, he had remembered me. He was one of the Oaxacans I had messaged to ask about storing my bicycle box here. Avid Alex answered first, but this Juan Pablo was super enthusiastic to meet me in this moment, even though I never connected with him besides that first message. What an awesome connection he made; I was totally impressed. We realized we were wearing the same style of earrings and had to take a celebratory selfie. He spoke English well, and we communicated together like we'd known each other for weeks. 


I am constantly touched by the interactions I am having, in Oaxaca especially. Even if it's just passing someone on the street from my bike, catching their eye, and sharing a smile. I have felt in other touristy towns I've visited in Mexico (like a community that exists pretty much around the sole purpose of tourists visiting a beach) a certain resentment, boredness, curtness towards tourists. And I can understand that, to a certain degree. In contrast, in rural areas, people are unaccustomed to tourists and I feel I am quite a novelty. I like how I am dealt with best in Oaxaca, because it is neither of these extremes.  


I finally got out of the city and began the climb into the mountains. My goal was to get high enough to see the change from small scrubby trees to the pines and oaks ecosystem. I also had the whimsical task of choosing from the thousands of options, a pine cone for a tree-lover friend. 


As I slowly pedaled my way up, I heard the Doppler shift of a speedy cyclist zooming past me, in a bright jersey, cycle shoes, and a shiny bike. Hey! I'm not the only one with this idea of climbing the mountains. Then two more cyclists. "Adios!" we said as they zipped by. Then I realized I was in a flock of these hummingbird cyclists, all of them with numbers on their jerseys. 


Unbeknownst to me, I was part of a bicycle race.


Except, if these guys were hummingbirds, I was Big Bird. Huge and floppy and not zooming. Totally illegitimate because I had a kickstand and my bike itself probably weighed as much as anyone one of those men. 


They cheered me on, tho, and I them. It was a beautiful day to be riding. 


At the top of one of the curves, I came across all of them at a tent, drinking water and sitting in the shade and looking generally pleased with themselves. Their race was done, and I continued on towards those pines as they thumbs-upped me. 


And that could have been that.  


But I still wondered what it was that was going on. I decided to brave my insufferable Spanish and turned around to go talk to them. "Que pasa, hoy?" I asked. 


Through various combinations of forgiving Spanish and English they communicated that it was indeed a race, and there were various heats. They'd been riding for about two hours already, and the finish line was here, part way into the mountains. 


They were impossibly excited to find this oddball cotton-wearing heavy-bike-pushing gringa amongst them. There was so much activity, everyone talking at once, all us among bikes, cheering on the final finishers. 


"Sondra! Cervesa!" announced a particularly wiry one with the most English. "Come celebrate!" and I was ushered, with all these dudes, into a rural dusty tienda where a round of Coronas was jubilantly opened for all. "Salud!" Everyone wanted to know where I was from, what was I doing, how did I like Mexico? One of the guys had lived in NY for a spot, and Senior Wiry called out in glee, "You roommates! In the same state!" They lifted my bicycle and we all laughed at how heavy it was and I lifted one of their's and exclaimed how light it was. Beers were clinked, "to Sondra! Our madrina!" 


They had decided I was the godmother of their race, their madrina.  ! 


The beers done, it was time for the awards. "Madrina! Special guest! You must present the first prize to the champion!" 


Gah! What an absolutely hilarious and fabulous turn of events. I gave up all preconceived notions and decided to be buoyed along with their playful inclusion. 


Cameras snapped as I shook the hand of the champion. "Felicitaciones!" I said. "Un beso! Un beso!" they called. Thus, somewhere on social media, I exist hamming it up with a bunch of top Mexican cyclists, kissing cheeks and all of us grinning. 


Mr Wiry gave me a hat that said "Turbo" on it, something about premier Mexican bicycling. What a souvenir! 


Now it was time to continue my ride towards the pines. They would have none of that, however, this gringa riding off alone?! (they had no idea what I'd been doing the past 30 days!) A companion was chosen for me, and I had to bring forth my most persistent Spanish: "You are very tired! I am like a tortuga! Please no! I like being solo." And finally my persistence won and I climbed off alone, a huge grin on my face. I kept grinning for a long way up, what an experience of serendipitous, beautiful, and amazing connections! 


I'm so glad I turned around to say hi.  

The bicycle race poster

Up successfully past the line of pines. After bicycling 1000 meters up, i turned around and flew back.

The view down into Oaxaca City. I love looking down and marveling, "that's where I came from!"

Other Forms of Transport, and Palenque ruins

(written Friday night, location: night-bus to Oaxaca) 

Friday's experience was to pad slack-jawed around the Mayan temples and palaces of the famed and glorious and expansive Palenque. I got there as early as I could, and walked to the back of the complex, diving into the rainforest where the temples are not perfectly restored, but instead growing with strangler figs and vines. The beauty of an ancient fallen city overtaken by plant life. It was shaded, and free of packs of French tourists, and I had silent reverent moments to myself, with the shafts of sun slanting through the layers of leaves and thickening the latent mist into visibility. 

Palenque temples and trees 

I'll spare you the names of what king ruled when and how many years it took to build such and such temple and that the palace is near the ball court. I did have a guide for a short while, jumping into a premade tour group and giving them some pesos, but Mr Guide was fully convinced that the Egyptians and Chinese had built the place, not the Mayans, and that all the facts on the interpretive signs were garbage. "See this glyph? This is the same that is on the Egyptian 100 coin. Mayans? Garbage!"  I believe he was absolutely wackadoo, but I enjoyed hearing his theories for a while. That similar structures and motifs exist in Asia and Egypt and in Mexico I think just illustrates convergent evolution, as it were; that there's something deep in the ancient human traditions to inspire similar shapes of significance around the world. 

The bike tour portion is finished; Kathy and I have parted ways. I'm going back to Oaxaca to collect that bicycle box and, being retired, she's going to hang out and enjoy Chiapas for longer. Kathy and I were a success: basically strangers on a blind date for a month as travel buddies. We made it! We didn't have to break up! Because of her, I was able to take this trip, and for that I am completely grateful. We split rooms and shared some meals, but for most of the time I rode alone and explored alone. This was an ideal situation for me, because I love being in solitude and moving on my own whims, but also having someone to catch up with at the end of the day. 

Thus begins schlepping bicycle via various forms of non-bicycling transport. Sometimes this trip has felt less like a bicycle tour and more like a vacation where I happened to pack my favorite possession. Still, I went almost 1000 kilometers (I have yet to calculate the total elevation climbed, but most of the riding was mountainous) and experienced glorious moments of flying down a slope, knowing I had everything I needed in my little paniers behind me. 

I caught a Collectivo van from Palenque to Villahermosa this afternoon. A collectivo goes from town to town, in an unscheduled way, leaving when there are enough full seats. Much of Mexico travels this way. But I was wary of how this would work: how would I find from where the vans left? Would one leave in time? How much would it cost? Would they fit my bicycle? The collection of collectivos was at the edge of town, and thus easy to locate. I rolled in and announced where I wanted to go, and was immediately and graciously ushered to a van going to Villahermosa. "Cuando salir?" I asked in my terrible Spanish ("when to exit?"--if you don't know how to say a thing, put forward whatever words you can), a man held out five fingers, "five minutes." Perfect timing! 

I've learned that in Mexico "five minutes" means, "we're really hopeful about this" and it will be longer than five minutes. "20 minutes" means "we are not ready and please come back later."  "Ahorita" (literally, "little now") is actually the American equivalent of "five minutes." "Ratito" (literally, "a little while") is completely malleable but will be longer than five minutes. 

The 2-hour ride cost me $4 and included a stupidly violent movie from a rickety TV in the front of the van (what IS it with stupidly violent movies playing everywhere always? I am a porous sensitive soul and detest them), and also three browned traveling men from Greece. I'd noticed these blokes having a smoke and a drink at Agua Azul, and then I saw them at Palenque, and now we were all in the same van. I suppose there is a logistical order to the charming sites of Chiapas, and we were all following it. 

After the collectivo to Villahermosa I am now folded into a large shiney night-bus for a 98 hour (approximately) ride to Oaxaca city (with another stupidly violent movie playing for all of us while we'd prefer to sleep). I sat in the florescent bus station with my bicycle, dusty and weary and completely alone, watching people tightly hug each other around backpacks, saying goodbye. I felt completely the traveler, without a proper bed until tomorrow, wearied and dusty and unable to understand much language. 

I saw that my bicycle got safely underneath and climbed up the stairs into the bus; and there through the window were my Greek men, waving and calling out, "goodbye Sandra!"  My heart warmed hugely to have a sendoff from them, a moment of connection in the otherwise withering world of bus stations and wearied travel. Human connection, no matter how brief, is what can make this life bright. 

Likewise, although Villahermosa was a gritty bustling stinky garbagy city with too much traffic and yelling men, and I found no beauty in being there. However, Mr Juice Place, Mrs Restaurant, and Miss Chat Me Up Bicycle took good care of me. Letting me fill my water bottle, being gentle and patient with my poor Spanish, and chatting about the importance of bicycle lights and complimenting my green paint ("es mi padre!" I replied with pride). 

Bloqueos!

(something from the archives, sorry for the lack of order, but it's an interesting experience) 

Was it Tuesday? It feels so long ago, and in those days I was too wearied at night, or without a staunch wifi connection, to be able to write properly.  

Tuesday we had hoped to ride to Ocosinco from San Cristobal, but were foiled by a blockade outside the town of Huixtan. I rode down a hill into the town, wondering why there were so many taxis and collectivos parked there. Then I saw three or four people lying in the road, and men sitting on the sidelines telling me I could not pass, and there was a clothe flapping over the road with requests written on it. I got out my phone to translate some words, and the men hissed at me not to take photos. 

Kathy and I learned later that the people of the town, mostly poor indigenous farmers, thought the government was charging them too much for electricity and gasoline, and they were protesting. For the blockade, they were holding up all traffic (and it was the main road from San Cristobal to Ocosinco) until 3pm. The idea was that this would disrupt transportation enough so that the officials would notice. Many local people, especially drivers, disagree with this type of protest, because it is inconvenient. 

It was indeed inconvenient for us. Because we had come quite far and couldn't just moulder around until 3pm--and a blockade was new to me, and I was a little nervous about being around potential unrest of this nature. 

When the plans fall apart is when the adventure begins. We decided to catch a collectivo towards another road that went towards our destination. We soon flagged down a van, and positioned ourselves with our bikes inside. Something fuzzy and incomprehensible was playing on the radio, in a language that wasn't even Spanish, something indigenous, but it sounded like a hymn in a way, barely recognizable from the grottos of my other life. 

"Our God Our Help In Ages Past." Verse after verse in a gravelly, soupy way. What a completely bizarre thing to hear, this hymn from my organ playing life, but in this van in Mexico with my bike in my lap. I imagine it was a rendition, in an indigenous makeover, playing on their equivalent of the Christian radio station. 

The next day, leaving Ocosinco, we encountered another blockade. We asked around before approaching it, and the locals said we'd be able to pass through with our bikes. Here's hoping. It was like a tremendous traffic jam, all these cars and trucks on the leaving side facing all the vehicles on the coming side. We wove through the mess--oh to be a small vehicle!--and finally came to the blockade itself. Some planks laid in the middle of the road, huge nails poking up from them. We made a moment of eye contact with a man in the middle, and he waved us through. I finally breathed a sigh of relief when we emerged from the throng of parked cars on the other side onto empty road. 

It's hard not to think how the acts of the USA have repurcussions here; the opening or closing of a trade agreement with Mexico, for instance, would influence the prices of everything here, including energy, and what poorer farmers are able to pay to have lights in their homes. Traveling in Mexico has opened my eyes so much to the glory of this country, and the pride and the beauty and the hopes of the people here, and it breaks my heart to hear Trump talk about Mexico in his dismissive and offending ways. 

Riding up out of town, up up up into the rainforest mountains. A huge climb to start the day. A man in a pickup truck smiled and waved at us from the side of the road. Would we like a ride? Indeed, yes! Just up the steepest part, save the knees a little bit, and riding in the open air of a pickup with the road rolling out behind me is indeed a joy.  I was sitting in the back of the truck on some scattered coffee beans! Mr Nice Truck Pablo was all smiles and impressed with our bicycles and our riding. We offered him money, and he protested no, no, esta bien! We basically had to push our pesos in through his window as he kept protesting. What a sweetheart he was, what a kind act to offer a ride for us, and I was so happy for the ride and the interaction. 

Bicycle ride, with coffee

Teal waters, a green drink, and peeing with a chicken

(written Thursday. Apologies for backlog, and for the appalling formatting in this entry. Having trouble with wifi connections.)

More calcium and magnesium rich waters, another site and sight to visit, this one a river and waterfalls bright teal: called Agua Azul. 

The waters are impossibly teal, the teal that comes to mind when one closes her eyes to imagine a dreamy vacation in a tropical place. The color froths over the calcified cascades, in places gushing far, in others splashing only a short distance, such variety of grottos and pools created. A smooth bright pool invites you to swim, the rocks of the falls invite you to climb, then scamper up to another level of pools. The selection of pools and falls is expansive. I stared entranced into the waters and the sounds of water movement lulled me into stillness. I went adventuring, climbing around the cascades, likely marring the photos of the many tourists on the lookout. 

Agua Azul 

I left Agua Azul early the next morning, Thursday, wanting to beat as much heat as I for those map-heads). The first 5k was climbing, crawling and sweating up a steep grade. There was no breeze in the still morning and the sun made slants through the giant leaves. There was a choir of birds singing, "for-real for-real?", "drink-your-tea-drink-your-tea!", "doooo-wop? doooo-wop?"  Few cars, so many plants. This was the jungle and the jungle is noisy with these bird choirs in the morning. This serenade and luscious morning plant gazing, even while creeping up a mountain, was a beautiful way to be in a morning. 

Then after the climbing came the flying. Still on car-less jungle roads. What a life! And then a valley--what was weird about this? what felt strange about my movement?--and I realized I was riding somewhere flat, for once going at a decent clip, under my own power. I've only gone up or down, for weeks. I have had two speeds: 5k/hr or 35 k/hr. 

The ascent, descent, and flatness were through rural empty jungleness, which was glorious. Until I started to get hungry. I had eaten as many bananas as were sensible first thing in the morning, but they had been applied directly to that first climb. There were occasionally a few tiendas--selling soft drinks and dusty packets of preservative-packed junk food--but no comedors ("eateries"). 

Do the local farmers (growing corn, occasionally studded with banana trees, or cattle ranching) here not eat out? Was this a glorified food desert? Or does everyone just get by with snacks and cook at home? 

So I opened my packet of Desperation Peanuts, from one of those dusty tiendas, and was beginning to eat the preserved buggers when I passed an empty porch that said "Comedor". I rolled over and poked my head in. There was a man, weathered face and with a limp, who greeted me. "Tiene huevos?" I asked. He paused, as if it weren't actually a Comedor after all. But then, "si." 

I sat at the single empty table outside and waited, hearing noises of a gas stove being lit. Three little boys (his grandchildren?) in plastic sandals hid behind a pole, staring at me and laughing and goading each other to get closer. I was a decided novelty: I was off the tourist trail with its ever-present food and people who ignore me. I asked for the baño and ducked my way through a couple of low ceilinged rooms and into a back courtyard. The baño was a shed in the back, as is typical to have a bathroom unattached to the main quarters here in the rural places. Inside I found the seatless sullied toilet, the usual 5-gallon bucket for toilet paper (not to be flushed, ever), and two more 5-gallon buckets. One bucket housed a nesting chicken, and the other, a duck. 

Foul baño with fowel 

It wasn't on my bucket (heh) list, but I have now used the facilities in the company of these fine feathered fowl. They looked complete content in there and I left the door ajar for them, like I'd found it. 

There was a hose situation for hand washing and I returned to my little plastic table. Senior brought out the eggs, with a little stack of tortillas. There was not even salsa or napkins but I fed hungrily (sorry Holly, couldn't resist!) on scrambled eggs. No cheese, no tomato, no black pepper. Just eggs, oil, salt. Hot hot hot. 

They may have been the best scrambled eggs I have ever had in my life. Oh my gosh protein tastes so good when you need it. 

The heat became incredible a few hours into the morning. (The difference between 900 feet elevation and 7,000 feet elevation is palpable in temperature!) I was coated in sweat and could feel the droplets coalescing into a pool adhered to my chin. For 30 seconds there was shade, a cloud, AND a weak breeze. Oh, what relief! And it didn't last long. The road was under construction, which did me no favors, so I jittered over dusty gravel, a rock skittering out behind my tire as I climbed laboriously over them. 

Mango time. Good thing I'd been hauling some, as soon as I'd found a tienda with fruit. I parked the bike, sat on a rock, and pocketknifed my way through a luscious yellow fruit. There is nothing like a mango to improve ones situation. Now I was sweaty, dusty AND sticky. 

What felt like 100 miles back a sign had said "Palenque 20 k." I was making discouragingly slow progress. A properly grueling ride. I went through a liter of Powerade (desperate times call for desperate measures, and it tasted like paint), a liter of tamarind juice (much better), and a liter of water. 

It was one of those periods where time moves very slow, where you spend most of your thought process registering "here lies suffering." And I passed people walking on the road carrying huge loads of wood on their backs, a strap across their foreheads for support. And here I am doing this for fun. For which I am so incredibly fortunate.  

At last: the descent! It felt like ice cream, like a good shower, like the best Christmas present. A man in a red dump truck blew a kiss at me. 

Once I got into town I ate an icecream cone. And then I rolled off to another place and drank a Chamoyada, a thing that I didn't know what it was. But it was cold. After consuming it, I learned a chamoyada is a drink blendered with fruit and ice (mine was green, and had piña and leaves of some sort: something like spinach?) and seasoned with "chamoy", which is a style of sauce that is made from pickled fruit and chili's. 

After THAT drink I was satiated and could manage happily the next tasks of ATMing, water buying, and snack restocking. (I may be on "vacation", but the daily faffing tasks still must be attended to.)

A Chamoyada

Kathy and I met at our agreed spot, like we arrange for when we ride at different speeds, and we are staying inside the rainforest near the Mayan ruins of Palenque, in a charming and tidy little room. Heliconias and bananas line the path, past which is thick with jungle and trees. Howler monkeys roar their gutteral cry occasionally, and I saw a hummingbird rest on a branch and zip it's tongue out. 

Next week this time I will be back in the north, so these jungle moments are particularly rich. 

Jungle vista. The air sweats here. 

In Which Burps are Evil Spirits Leaving the Body

(this was Monday. a bit backlogged these days)

What I experienced today, staying in the city of San Cristobal, was so amazing and fulfilling, that it was nearly almost kinda worth the price of being sick and not setting out with bicycles and paniers. 

Importantly, today I felt well. Feeling well felt glorious! I ate and ate and ate and relished the hunger. The whole day was frosted with this extra little glow of gratitude for well-being, which made everything extra special. (Is there a way to live like this everyday without having to be sick first?) 

In the morning I joined a walking tour--in English!--where we padded around the city in a group, by the end feeling quite a bit of solidarity amongst ourselves and so grateful to our knowledgeable guide, and learned about the churches, coffee varieties, religions, local art, local cuisine. After living in unquenched curiosity in this city for a number of days, I was ecstatic to have question after question answered, and to learn details I didn't even know were significant.

Atop this good climb of stairs sits the Church of Guadalupe, built in 1834. According to our guide, the Catholics "created a brown-skinned saint", The Saint of Guadalupe, in order to make the local people more interested in Catholicism. 

They let us climb up into the bell tower of the church, a passageway so narrow and short that I had to fold myself in half. Here Kathy and I climb the crimped spiral staircase. 

There's something special to me about a church bell, all the significant events it has been struck for, all the ears that have heard it over the many years.

On our tour we also visited an artist's gallery and cooperative. All the red items here, murals or quotidian, caught my eye. 

Tasting Tezcalate, a classic Chiapas drink made from corn (as is everything), chocolate, canela (unprocessed sugar), and achiote (that impossibly red seed which is a little furry looking and used for natural dies). Like all drinks here, it was incredibly sweet, but it matched my shirt. 

As if a fabulous walking tour wasn't enough goodness for a day, in the afternoon we pedaled out to the neighboring town, Chamula, an indigenous village (descended from the Mayans) that was having Carnival for the 4 days before Ash Wednesday. 

The road to Chamula was a short adventure unto itself. We climbed a 16% grade (thank you Kathy's bike computer) straight out of the city. I breathed like a bellows and tacked my way up the wall. I thought with amazement: I could not have done this yesterday. (Yesterday I was in bed, wearied from a tumultuous gut and with the motivation of a piece of lint.)

The advantage of bicycles was made manifest when we found the calle was blocked by a number of road blocks (why?), huge stones, piles of dirt, finally a number of downed trees--a horizontal forest to climb through. A Chamulan woman got out of a taxi on one side of the trees, and she stepped over the logs in the most graceful way, without even lifting her skirts. She smiled at us. I lifted my steel green monster to my shoulder and walked across the logs as if I had a shoulder bag. 

Bicycle shoulder bag through trees roadblock

The Chamulans practice a symbiosis of Catholicism blended with their ancient traditional religion, which is based on astrology and nature. This would seemingly be a contradiction, blending Christianity with what Christianity would spurn as "paganism", but the two coexist in a natural and fulfilling way for the Chamulans. 

Their church, for instance, is Catholic in shape and intention, but is decorated with Mayan crosses (crosses which include circles to represent the circle of life) and has no single priest, but instead rotating roles of "Mayodormos", each a caretaker of one of the many saint statues inside. The floor is often covered in pine needles. 

It is against the Chamulan belief to be photographed, or to photograph inside their church, so I can only describe with words. You must believe me then, this incredible view I saw.  

I walked into the church of Chamula and encountered an experience so bizarre and so powerful, so otherworldly. 

I was among the religious rituals of an indigenous culture, one of those deeply ancient human ways, which in so many parts of the world is being lost to cell phones and sky scrapers. There are things in this life that stand out, heightened above all other experiences, and witnessing the intense rituals and fervent ways of these people in that church space, was one of those moments. 

The church had an open ceiling and no pews, but around the perimeter of the inside where images and sculptures of saints. A thousand--at least--candles glittered with jumping flames on tables and adhered, melted, to the floor. The light was like sun reflected like wavelets on a pond, the light moving but stationary. The immense sparkle from those candles was breathtaking. About 10 groups of people were clustered kneeling on the floor, lines of candles in front of them. The air was thick with fragrant smoke. Fireworks blasted outside. Bottles of coca cola and sprite rested on the floor among those praying and I saw a little boy chugging one, to induce the burps, which are evil spirits leaving the body. A man kneeled and chanted, while another passed a plastic bag of eggs over his head and neck. A tiny baby scooted next to her mum and ate cookies on the floor of the church. The whine of accordions and the beat of drums could be heard from outside. A man went from sculpture of saint to saint, holding an immense goblet of incense, chanting. 

I don't know if it was the smoke, but I could feel the strength of people's devotion inside there, the mystic powerful energy, and it made me feel hot and a little light headed. I moved to the side to regard it all. My soul filled, even as I felt considerably out of my element, and barely understood half of all the activity in there, and my eyes welled up. 

Outside, groups of colorfully costumed and noise-making men came down from a cross street, and yet another group dressed in black and white fleecy garments came down a little hill. The town square and surrounding streets were packed with groups of be-jazzed people like this and tents and stalls. 

These men and boys were dressed hat to shoes in colorful layered garments, with masks and rainbow steamers and fuzzy vests. They thwacked drums, looped accordions back and forth, flapped at guitars. There was no music created from this, just noise. Everyone seemed so intent and jubilant. They skipped in circles around boxes of beer and coca cola. Everywhere it was stacks of beer. Warm beer. And we were offered some as soon as we stepped into the square, basically, "Join our party!" Those who had had too much beer (maybe they'd started when it was cold?) were slumped against the church or asleep beside the fountain. 

You could buy popcorn and mangos on sticks and countless burpy drinks and colorful scarves. "Cake!" a woman with one tooth called out to us; she knew just the right amount of English. Her face was adorable and she laughed delightedly at us. I bought of a piece of the Tres Leches cake, served on half a styrofoam rectangle. I couldn't stomach the insipid frosting, though the cake itself was moist and not too sweet. I went to put styrofoam and frosting in the trash (I wasn't about to add it to one of the trash piles on the ground, though that seemed the custom), when a small dirty faced boy reached for it instead. I usually would give my unwanted frosting to my Mum, but this little kid got it this time. 

What an amazing experience to witness the devotion in the church and the colorful mess of party outside it. May these people be able to continue in their traditions undisturbed for years to come. 

Musings on metrics, acceptance, and the digestive tract

I wanted to be riding 91 kilometers and climbing over 1,000 meters (!! Translates to 0.6 of a mile of direct vertical) elevation right now. 

But I am sitting still, here in San Cristobal, eating a grateful breakfast while writing this. Staying here was not by design, although this city is beautiful and with door-to-door excuisite eateries and reverent coffee shops. (Writing about not having enough stomachs for all the beautiful salads, moles, soups, and tamales, is a different story) 

Not only a beautiful breakfast just now, but a beautiful location, off the beaten path in San Cristobal and undisturbed by the many people trying to sell me a bracelet or a scarf

Two nights ago I was once again lunging for the ivory thrown. There is nothing both as horrifying and relieving as a good chunder, but let me tell you, the nose is no place for stomach acid. The digestive system is so integral to a body, and the next day I felt the murmuring aftershocks of a fever, aching legs, weariness. 

If you know me, I live in a high-octane way, with so much energy and eagerness for life. Go!, see!, do!, be! When I do get sick, however, I am just astounded by how completely unmotivated and zestless I become. Who IS this person, anymore?  Feeling this is both frightening--I will indeed encounter more illnesses and complications as I grow older--and inducing of compassion--some people suffer with feeling ill and zestless every single day. 

Yesterday I slept the sleep of a petrified rock, and read on my palmtop. There is so much to LEARN here: about amber and copal (the resins of trees used as jewelry or as incense in ancient Mayan ceremonies), about the pine forests which are native and all over Chiapas, about the Tren de la Muerte (the cargo lines that immigrants from Guatamala and Honduras ride on top of to the border and the terrible injustices they suffer), about the neighboring indigenous villages and their customs (catholicism mixed unquestioningly with ancient religions), about the cultural significance of the stirring sticks used to make chocolate (did you know that hot chocolate has been a reverent drink for thousands of years in the Latin American cultures, but only recently has been eaten?), that for the Chamulan peoples drinking Coca cola is part of their ceremonies now (because the soft drinks initiate burping, which is really evil spirits exiting the body), about the ideologies of the Zapatistas and the 1994 uprising (indigenous land rights that were wiped out after the 1994 signing of the NAFTA agreement and the talks between the government and the Zapatistas, initiated by the Catholic Church to try to regain peace). 

Yesterday, in my weary and pathetic state, the high was eating food--a hot tamal with green mole, a papaya yogurt smoothie, little round corn disks topped with fresh beet and carrot--and having it all stay within me where it belonged. The high of most days in Southern Mexico is indeed eating food. But for me, yesterday, it was the only high. 

Senior Tamales serves me one, hot and steaming, from his doorway

I could slip into a dark and grumpy place: that I have come all this way, and have such little time here, and there is so much to see, so much to EXPERIENCE, and here I am tamped down by something stupid in my digestive system?! But really: feeling that negativity is pointless. I could be sick AND grumpy, or I could be sick and accepting. The latter is lighter and easier. 

Kathy, this wise woman exactly twice my age, my travel companion (with whom my mother was once appalled to hear I would be traveling, a stranger!; but I know my mother would now adore this woman for how she has, well, been the wise mother for me, when needed, on this journey), this morning suggested that we not push today to ride out (towards our next distant destination of Ocosinco on the way to Palenque), that we stay one more day in San Cristobal to let my system reacclimate, and do a walking tour, ride to a nearby indigenous village, eat some more incredible food. 

Which is better?  a) Believing oneself to be invincible and setting out to test that and perhaps failing halfway out (and up) and flagging down a truck--or finishing successfully with a triumphant ego boost? Or, b) protecting oneself from the possible drastic highs or lows and resting and "playing it safe"? 

I would tell a friend who I loved, if she were in my condition: "rest, wait!, get 110% well, then go." Why don't I tell this to my own self? 

Am I assessing the quality of my trip by some arbitrary metric of how many kilometers I rode? Is that like measuring the success of a love relationship by how long it lasted? Might it be better to measure the success of something by how I FEEL and what I EXPERIENCE along the way and what I LEARN, no matter how long or short? 

(If I used the metric of 'Number of Beautifully Handcrafted Earrings Bought for $2', this trip would be exceptional. And they're not all for me! Girlfriends: you're gonna get lucky when I get back.)

In the positive light, my knees are under my command again. I knew this, because about a week ago I was chased by two terrible dogs, snarling, flat out for my spinning ankles. I rammed on the pedals and roared back at them and threw the rocks I'd prepared on my handlebar bag. It took a tremendous sprint to outrun those buggers, but I did, and my knees held true. 

I _hate_ being chased by dogs. I carry pepper spray but that day I'd forgotten it. 

Prepared for dogs on the day I forgot my pepper spray in the hotel

Yesterday, after my dinner of rich hydrating soup, I received a little bar of chocolate from my restaurant. On the wrapper it said, in English: "May we be happy. May we be healthy. May we be light today." 

May I be light today. What more important message to receive at this point. 

Chiapas Chapter. And bike riding into a National Geographic issue

Half way through my trip (mas o menos) and now begins The Chiapas Chapter.

Chiapas is the southern-most state of Mexico bordering Guatamala, about the size of South Carolina. Chiapas has an extraordinarily diverse set of ecosystems, including the Lacandon rainforest, which hosts everything from jaguars to bromeliads, and of course is rapidly shrinking due to human use. Chiapas also grows 60% of Mexico's coffee and coffee is the most important agricultural output. Chiapas is also the center of the ancient Mayan cultures, and twelve (I think?) different indigenous groups live here (I often hear languages even more unrecognizable than Spanish in the market). The indigenous people are indeed distinctive; often they are quite short (coming up to my waste sometimes) and some wear these black furry skirts and intricately stitched blouses.  I have so much more to learn about this place and I can hardly choose between the activities of learning, seeing, eating, bicycling. (Next time I'm unemployed I may very well just live on my bicycle in Mexico) 

San Cristobal, one of the many cathedral plazas

The golden evening hour, and the birds redistribute around the plaza

San Cristobal is a classic colonial city, built by the Spanish conquistadors when they bullied their way in here back in the day. This city drips with colonial style, the narrow streets with sidewalks you must step off when encountering a wide person, the house walls coming right against the sidewalk. The streets are of jostling cobble stone and countless imposing cathedrals and expansive plazas. Mountains hug and frame every side of the city.

It seems that most of the tourists in San Cristobal are from other places in South America or Europe; I hear much more Spanish spoken than I have in other touristy areas. I feel exceptionally uncool with my helmet hair and non-existent wardrobe among these chic travelers. I miss the soft pink Canadians I was meeting during other times of this trip. It is incredibly humbling to be a complete idiot with my poor communication. 

Yesterday was spent rejoicing that I was no longer on a night bus, shopping at the market (my favorite was a hunk of peanut something candy something blondie-esque creation), marveling at the architecture, and taking a rest from the bicycle.  

These stonecrop plants at the orchid garden made me smile with their big juicy heads on brown stalks 

And today was not unlike a normal day off I would have in the states: I drank coffee in the sun and read leisurely (trying eagerly to LEARN so much about this place!), then I went and spent time with plants (an orchid garden), and then a bicycle ride. 

The bicycle facilitated me in not spending my entire day inquisitively eating food from the market and guiltily buying beautiful earrings. 

Ziplines, caves, bus tours, horse back rides.... I thought about those options, but what I really wanted was just to be under my own power, carving around on two wheels, and just seeing Mexico day to day. 

I wanted to ride my bike. Good thing I'd packed it. 

So I looked at the map, picked a direction (up!). I rode out and up through the barrios of the city, houses becoming farther dispersed, and then into the pine forests. Trucks passed by towering with logs, I could hear the wine of planers, yards were stacked with tall Jenga piles of wood. I was in logging land. Entire hillsides were bare. Here is made manifest the impossible balance of humans living in ecosystems and needing to utilize them.

Denuded hillside in forground, pine forests on mountains surrounding San Cristobal 

After the climbing it became a little flatter, and the wind pushed me through a highland place. I rode with huge eyes through a completely different world. I was in some sort of small indigenous subsistence farming community. No house was taller than one story, these low houses, absolutely tiny places. Each had a few pigs or chickens or these funny loud black sheep nearby. Smoke twisted upwards from fires. Little fields of corn were interspersed among the wood buildings, dotted with squash plants. I rode past a field of cilantro--cilantro!--and I could smell it on the wind and I wanted to so badly to roll in it.

This is a field of cilantro. The low little houses in the background, the remaining pine forests behind them

What is missing in a place can be as telling as what is actually there. There was no name for here on my google maps, and no central church square (as in every Mexican city that is organized the same). I was passed by no cars and saw few people. 

In a dirt front yard a little girl in an orange shirt sat in an orange wheelbarrow tipping back and forth and smiled at me as I passed. Cut trees were everywhere, and all the tiny houses were wood. It was windy and desolate feeling and the few standing trees whistled in the wind. Those few tall remaining pines made me feel like I was pedaling through The Lorax. A group of children on bicycles coaxed some of those loud black sheep through a field of cilantro. 

Then I rode into the forest again, leaving the highland farming place behind. I descended for a blitheringly long time (had I climbed that high?!) and merged back into the city life of San Cristobal.

I've had little opportunity to ride in thick traffic yet here (I have distinct memories of Bangkok, Medellin, Seattle traffic), but coming back into San Cristobal from my ride, I had that opportunity to participate in the intense crush of a place, which is it's traffic. I love the instant-by-instant reaction this takes, no time to pre-meditate any movement, but moving instantaneously with the plasma. In this way, it is like a partner dance, following the lead of something, in this case many somethings. Dodging taxis, men in the street yelling about their taxis, school children, a lame dog. Potholes, speed bumps, a tourist with a big camera. A man on a yellow bike crossed an empty intersection on a red light and I followed suit. But soon I was out of it, and I had a quiet narrow stony street to myself and I jangled along on the colonial cobblestones. 

A garden in one of the many courtyards in this city. Those are poinsettias, how they are really. All tall and leggy and happy. 

Suffering Two Ways: Hot and Cold

Gorgeous beach of Zipolite, sunrise, naked people not shown.

Yesterday I rode east from Zipolite to the town of Hualtuco. (Kathy took a van part of the way, uninterested in riding in blistering heat and endless hills; I love riding alone though) I woke at 6am to leave early so as to ride less in the gory heat. By 6:30, a gentle glow from the sun had illuminated the ocean and the sky. I rode through the little beach towns before any shops had opened. Children were dotted along the road, waiting for school buses, I assumed. Or school taxis, as I'll see these little white and maroon taxis drive by, packed with children in matching uniforms. A woman walks along, a plastic bowl of tortilla dough on her head. A man rides a bicycle barefoot, carrying a machete. Most people return my greeting of "buenas" with a nod or an "hola". Unlike Southeast Asia, where I was stared at ceaselessly and with zero decorum, the people of Mexico only give me a little look as I pass on my bicycle. Very occasionally a wave.

It's stupid hot here on the coast. 

I rode as far as I could in the softer morning light, and then got hungry. Comedors (simple roadside eateries) sit in bunches: you'll go miles with nothing, and then see five at once. I stopped at the first one (does she get more business?, or less, because of her situation?). I had a very classic breakfast, beans, scrambled eggs, tortillas, salsa. I must have been hungry, because I ate almost the entire stack of tortillas. 

Tortillas are usually made at every establishment, while you wait. Somehow these ones here, by the stout expressionless woman, were the best I'd ever had. They were stretchy, and emanated the hot dry heat still from the fire on which they were cooked. I pulled off strips, enjoying the stretchiness of them. 

Hueves revueltos, homemade beans, bouncy tortillas

I mustered my Spanish, this goofy looking gringa who-looks-like-two-boys, and told her, "su tortillas son mejor del mundo." (Your tortillas are the best in the world) Then a wonderful thing happened: she cracked a smile, her hands covered in corn flour, and she took my 45 pesos ($2.25 USD). 

Unlike Colombians--who greeted me at their shops and restaurants with outpouring of warmth, "what would you like my love?", "how are you chica?", "Can I help you, mi corazon?"--Mexicans I've found to be very reserved, but polite. It is a no-frills "good day", or simply "diga mi" (tell me [what you'd like]). But helpful and generous, often unwilling to take the money I offer in exchange for a water bottle filling. 

It is uninteresting to write of the times I had at the beach town Zipolite; pure pleasure does not make for good stories. Eating roasted shrimps, bouncing like a child in the waves, people-watching the many European tourists, walking along the sand and meditating about the waves of pleasure and suffering coming and going. 

The only point of interest is that Zipolite is Mexico's single nude beach, which I did not register until, while gazing upon the teal waters, a fat naked man crossed through my view. 

Zipolite was packed with uber-tanned tourists, the sort of browned hale men with grey ponytails you imagine come every year to this beach from Italy or Spain. We also met many Canadians. In tourist areas, the locals see us as purely business, and seem more curt or pushy than in the off-the-path villages. But touristy places are touristy for a reason: they are indeed beautiful and have good Italian seafood, also.

I had my last warm night for months, for we left beautiful beach land and packed ourselves into a night bus the distance to the neighboring province of Chiapas, the high elevated town of San Cristobal. I wish I could move everywhere with my own quads, but there is simply not enough time if I want to retain my dear job at Cornell. 

Ready to board the shiny bus at the shiny station

My only possessions here. Everyone has been exclaiming how light I pack. I saw this fact when I disrobed my bicycle for its bus loading, my bags laid before me. 

The bus was large and bright, with seats that reclined, and they loaded our bikes underneath for no extra cost. It left smartly at 9:20pm, like our tickets said. A bus leaving on time in Latin America, what?! We had seats right in the front, and the driver's cumbia music filtered through my earplugs. It was a blizzard of air-conditioning and I was wearing all my clothes, with my scarf draped over me as an insufficient blanket. Stretching out meant too much surface area exposed for cold, so I curled into a tight ball. My left calf became numb against the armrest; my body threatened to slip off the seat, so I tried to prop myself by my foot. I woke up to roll over to the right; I woke up to hear the cumbia music; I woke up to feel the bus climbing up the crimped pasta-like roads. I was so cold. The best position was facing backwards against my seat, packed into a knot. 

I woke properly, finally, to encounter the sunrise over a stretch of misty mountains and we were soon deposited in the city of San Cristobal. 

The blizzard of the bus was comparative warmth to the bleak sharply cold morning climate of San Cristobal. Kathy and I shivered our way through town, hands numb, looking for a coffee shop that was open. It was so cold my coiling bicycle lock was stiff and recalcitrant. Who wants to be out at 8am when it's 40 degrees? Not this town. We finally found a coffee shop, with the ambience of a paper bag, wifi not working and silent (I actually miss the constant music of Colombia, playing at every opportunity). A few grey lights illuminated the stretch of empty tables, a solo barista tapped at her phone, but the bathroom had soap. I watched a man and a woman leaning towards each other over coffees, hushed voices, he was talking in a pleading way. A secret morning rendezvous? It is not at all uncommon for men to have a wife and a girlfriend. 

I had a latte. Then I had a hot chocolate. I cradled both and relished the feeling returning to my hands. 

Cold and pathetic me, with Hot Drink #1.

Hot Drink #2 and my customary energy is returning.

"Gah! I should have brought ALL my outwear!" I exclaimed to Kathy (tho it wouldnt fit on my bike). This lovely new friend of mine from southern California looked at me bemusedly. "What's outwear?" she asked, and we both laughed at our extremely different lives on the ends of the USA. 

After about 9:30am the sun graced San Cristobal and Kathy and I gloried in it.