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. 

"Puro frenos!" (only brakes!)

In the quiet pine woods to begin the day

"I'm gonna take down our lampshade, because this is the shirt I'm going to wear."


This is the first thing I said to Kathy, Sunday morning, in the cold height of the mountains, in the perching town of San Jose del Pacifico. I had positioned my orange shirt around the single bare bulb in our cold little room, to help improve the aesthetics. Middle-40s (F) for temperature in the night, and I was wearing half of all my clothing (all the warm items), such are the conditions of high elevation and packing light. 


Then, after a hot frothy mocha, and worried about my knees, I started out of town on the long arduous thread towards the coast.  


My ride began easily, however, because a ponderous truck stacked with boxes of chickens chugged along slowly on the road. As it passed me, I reached out, grasped a strap on that truck, and with some careful balancing, began bike-skiing behind it. My left arm steadied me with micro-adjustments as I gripped and zoomed along with all those birds. This glee and excitement lasted for a couple good climbs, but I had to release after a kilometer or so, to avoid being curved into the ditch. 

Wow! But what fun! 


The road stitched through thick pine forest, nearly entirely quiet from cars, and in this peace and presence I found my Sunday morning church. Growing on the side of the road was a humongous agave species, looking completely Jurassic, leaves like bending swords. I stopped to be in the presence of this awesome plant, it's grandeur, how long it took to grow (agaves are sometimes called "century plants"), and that humans in all their greed and entitlement had left undisturbed this incredible being. I got a little misty-eyed, there alone on the side of the road with it. 

This plant was like Sunday morning church

I was still concerned about my knees, but they were thus far complying. I thought of my 92 year old grandfather, who will ride his stationary bike and then tell me, "Today I went 3 miles on the bike. 2 miles with legs and 1 mile with arms." I thought about him and then transferred some of my pulling into my arms on some of the steeper spots, rocking back and forth on my bike like an idiot, but helping to bypass the knees a little bit. 


A lone man was by a bridge on the desolate forrested route, selling mayacuyas (passion fruit), his only advertising a stick propped up and hung with the yellow fruit like a catch of fish off a pole. I cut open the fruits with my ever-obliging pocket knife and sucked the sour delicious seeds from their hold inside. In tropical countries with exciting illnesses, I feel really good eating foods that are contained within a peel. 


Mr Fruit was interested in our biking, and Kathy with her excellent Spanish conversed easily with him. I'm able to catch snippets of conversation here, but I am pretty much a fetus when it comes to my Spanish abilities. But I did understand him when he said, "puro frenas!" from here onwards, "only brakes!" 


That was absolutely not the case, however; the day included some more hauling climbs. To cross all those Sierra Madres Sur, we went down, up, around so many masses of risen earth, the road looking like a ribbon of squiggly frosting on my map. 


But when we did reach areas of descent, what a thrilling glory. These truly were "only brakes", and I felt like I was downhill skiing. The curves in the road, banking left and right, smoothly connecting one curve to the next, like a skier carving out swoops of snow behind her. Descending for minutes at a time--thinking of the hours it took to get up here--i had to stop and catch up with myself, even though there was no physical output besides my roaring hand muscles, it was that intoxicating to be flying in this way.  


With our flying downwards, the ecosystem changed, as starkly as like stepping off a plane on a foreign runway and being hit with the contrast. The pines disappeared. The air felt warm, full-proof and boozy. Leaves were gigantic. Bananas, hibiscus, ferns, palms, epiphytes: I was encountering one by one my beloved tropical favorites as I zoomed past. Coconuts for sale on the side of the road. Looming strangler figs like the Swiss cheese of trees, bamboo copses emanating peace. Parrots sqwacked in flapping groups. I love the lush tropics, life growing on life there's so much of it. 


The fiesta of green that was this ecosystem did not connect against the coast, however. As we approached the ocean the forest was gone, replaced again by short dry wizened plants. 


I had a piña colada on the beach (we are two nights in the very touristy and pleasing town of Zipolite), so quintessential, relaxing on a cushion and watching the waves, to cheers myself for making it over those mountains. That drink was so righteously earned, and I bade it go to my knees. 

A fern ready to unfurl, like a little pixar creature with eye stalks

Coming down into the lush fiesta of green

Zen and the Art of Knee Maintenance

This morning we left the flatness of the valley and hefted into the climb up into the Sierra Madres, south towards the coast. 


We began with breakfast from a wheeled tamale and etole establishment, sitting on the curb while I ate and being admired by two street dogs. My tamales were filled with mole--a classic Oaxacan dark sauce made from so many ingredients it seems like a child was making a potion: fruits, seeds, chocolate, chilies, all ground together and prepared with utmost detail--and they were hot and completely delicious. I had a steaming cup of champurrado too, a viscous drink made from chocolate and corn, gently sweet and unabashedly rich. 


Breakfast cost less than what you'd tip a bartender in the states. 


Full confession: I have realized I am not invincible (and I'm right on track to learn this in my late 20's). I've kept my body moving as much as I could this winter--hot yoga, some stupid runs, hiking to work--but my knees were surprised to encounter that first climb up to Monte Alban that early day of riding. I was eager to charge up to the ruins, and clambered away. But I found a pinch of pain in those knees; they were grumpy. Not an injury, simply not being acclimated to riding, though the rest of me yearned to be. 


So this trip has turned into a practice of Acceptance and Patience, rather than an opportunity to express Bravado and Machisma. My only choice, unless I want to bounce along in the back of a helpful pickup truck to destinations, is to move as slowly as a sloth at the DMV (or my Granddaddy cutting pie) to protect the knees from stress. No ramming anywhere for me. 


It's perhaps rather Zen: I can ride, but if I push or rush, my knees complain and they shut me down. 


I was devastated at first, that I might not be getting more than a few hundred meters up the mountains. Pride is strong, the ego wants to witness the strength of the body it inhabits. But what is sad or bad can always be learned from: next winter the stationary bicycle will be my friend. 


Partner Kathy lives in southern California, and doesn't have to reacclimate to riding because she never stops. (She also has the base tan.) But she is having utmost patience and encouragement for me. 


Fortified with tamales, I gingerly began the ascent. The road opened with a gentle slant, and then curved to tack up and into the mountains. "Sube, sube! Es muy arriba!" ("climb, climb! It's very high!") the locals said of our journey. Cars tapped encouraging honks as they passed us with gracious space, a woman wished us, "that you may travel well" in Spanish from the bus stop. 


A few miles into the climb, a speedy twig of a man with jerseys and a bright bicycle passed me like I was a parked wheelbarrow. I pretended he was an Olympic cyclist and that it should not bother me.


I gently churned upwards. The road on the map looked like the small intestine, all coiled uponq itself. 


With my slowness, my knees stayed quiet and mollified, but my soul was singing. What views! I could see the valley spread behind us, the mountains rising on my sides. Traveling at this excruciatingly slow pace made any increase in height absolutely poignant. "I feel like a BIRD!" Iq sang to Kathy, at our first plentiful serving of vista. 


I was thrilled to witness the changing of the ecosystem as I gained in elevation. The stark scrubby soil and agaves morphed gradually into pine forest. The shade was delicious. To have trees draping the road was a happy novelty, having ridden for days with nothing near the road offering more shade than a dog poop. 


I also learned that the whisper of wind in the pines IS a thing. So faint, but inarguably there. I wasn't even breathing hard because I was being a sloth, and protected by the mountain sides there was no way a loud wind could come up either. I rode in silence through murmuring trees in speckled sun on smooth roads and it was delicious. Knowing now that working knees is a gift, for the first time I was actually grateful to be climbing, where in the past I've resented the placement of mountains, wanting instead to move fast. 


I love how it feels both dizzying and grounding to be up here: looking over the side of the road toq diving drops but knowing I'm standing upon a magnificent upheaval of earth. I am so lucky to be up here. Thank you, knees, and patience. 


We climbed 4,500 feet today and are currently at 8,300 feet elevation. 


We reached our destination of San Jose Del Pacifico, and we are in the clouds. This tiny town perches on the mountain and is distinctly a backpacker haven. Being not the only foreigner feels unaccustomed after the past few towns. Little buses came and went from the single intersection, depositing beautiful dusty tanned white people in layered clothing, a group of European looking men smoked abundant cigarettes and three German girls tapped messages using the only wifi in town. This place is famous for mushrooms (they grow well in this ecosystem), both hallucinagenic and medicinal, and quant mushroom art graces everything from railings and edifices, to the headboard of my bed. I did like the other backpackers and had a lazy coffee (real espresso! there is no "proper" coffee to be had in the pueblos here, it is all instant and pre-mixed with sugar to form an insipid sludge) while watching new influxes of backpackers come in. 


I felt not unlike one of the brown dogs sleeping in the road, at ease, comfortable, endlessly patient. For it was only because of Patience that I could arrive here myself. 

My face says it: I am a bird!

How to truly appreciate a cuisine

Breads, in Bread Aisle, of the Friday Market

Friday morning and I step out of our hotel into a changed world. The streets are gone, instead replaced by a microcosm of tents. It's Friday market! The first tent I encounter is all bedspreads, fleece blankets, decorated with roaring tigers and jungle scenes. Then the panties tent, scanty to grannie style, then western saddles and spurs and bridles, smelling of fresh leather. Enormous bags of chilies, in unimaginable varieties of reds, tiny dried fish, bags of peanuts. A woman walks by carrying a bag of tomatoes, a giant drooping bag of greenbeans balanced on her head. A man carries a long stack of blue and yellow 5-gallon buckets. I sit in the middle of it all, drinking hot atole (corn drink) with some dry bread for dipping. Selections of buns, little puffy ones with mottled tops, expansive ones shaped like a mountainous continent: stand after stand of these breads. All in the same place; you hit the bread aisle, you find the Plastic Junk aisle, it always amazes me that people sell their similar things all in the same place (what if the southeast corner of the market happened to have a demand for bread?). An old woman carefully unpacks a selection of heavy green clay pots. I wonder how far she had traveled for this market with these?

Street perro regards our lunch break

We rode to Miahuatlán today, which is the last town within reasonable riding conditions, before we hit the knee-masticating mountains that block us from the Pacific coast. 

Yesterday we took a complete day of rest, thanks to me needing to lunge for the toilet (then questioning which end to put over it first) in the middle of the night Wednesday. A momentary stomach flu? A spot of food poisoning?  But sleeping most of the day Thursday, sleeping as if an enormous hand was pushing me down, sleeping in this involuntary deliciously overcome way, was the best medicine. 

There is nothing quite as disappointing as having no appetite in this heaven of food culture that is Oaxaca, and there is nothing quite as jubilant as regaining it again, eating a tamale in bed, and having it be the best tamale in the world. (Bless Kathy for taking such good care of me, as tamale huntress)  Feeling well is poignantly meaningful after feeling unwell. The tamale was wrapped in a corn husk, and inside the corn mush read the striations of the husk, and the beans were just spicy enough, and there was a mysterious green tree leaf (which I still have yet to identify) gracing the whole thing in there. 

By the way, I can imagine no better place to be creating an appetite through cycling, than in Oaxaca. It is the first regional cuisine to be designated by UNESCO as a World Cultural Treasure. Mountains and Moles, mm! 

 We found a cafe, which had salads!, for dinner tonight. Funky fonts with words about coffee graced the walls, the place was tall-ceilinged and airy, and an espresso machine spissed at the counter. "This place feels so American!" Kathy remarked. "Not with THIS on the table it doesn't", I said, indicating this egregious balloon heart. Thus we posed for silly selfies. (Also the over-produced Latina soaps playing on the two TVs) 

Notes on photo problems

Footnote: I wish I could post my loads of photos on blogger, but the thing keeps choking on them.

Please see my album on Facebook, "Peeing with Cacti and Other Photos" for the recent collection. I do hope you enjoy. 

Fun With Spanish

On Drunken Hotels:
It was Finding A Hotel Time and I was viewing some rooms that Mrs Hotel had on offer. I asked her, "que habitacian esta mas borracho?", "which room is more drunk?"  She laughed and corrected me, "barata", not "borracho", which is actually what I wanted: "cheap".

On the Color Purple:
I sat one morning in the market, having a hot chocolate (in a bowl large enough to bathe a child) and an equally large bun to dip (bathe) in it, and I was listening to the music on the stereo. A singer was crooning away, "estoy en morado", and I thought: oh excellent, I get to practice my colors! "I am in purple!" I love wearing purple, but huh? After some research, I realized, "estoy enmorado" is "I am in love."

A Threesome:
One of my favorite moments, early on in coming out of my Spanish shell, was after a dinner with Avid Alex and Partner Kathy. Someone had snarkily pointed out the Orgasmo De Chocolate on the menu for dessert, even though none of us were actually willing to express an interest in consuming something rich enough to be called "Orgasmo".

But I said to the waiter, using the "would like" conjugation of "to want" in fluid Spanish and pleasing my dining companions muchly: "Please, we would like one orgasm of chocolate, but three spoons."

If you're not part of the solution you're part of the precipitate

This bicycle tour so far has been destination-based; there are so many Sites To See in this area, that we choose ones and then set out towards it, even if it's not on "our route". Other trips my partner and I start at point A and push towards a distant point B, setting blindly out often times, not as willing to leave our route to see something. But this time, I suppose, everything is on our route, because or route is designed for Seeing not for Distance. 

Yesterday our destination was Hierve el Agua (literally, "the water boils"), a true wonder: a waterfall now solid and stationary because it was made from spring water so concentrated with calcium carbonate that it precipitated out into its own form. 

It was only about 24 kilometers away, but across mountains, so we spent half the day riding and climbing a total of 3,700 feet. 

If I'd come there in a tour bus, sat for all that time, I feel there would be all this pressure for the destination itself to be worthwhile. But on a bicycle, taking half the day to arrive, the destination was occuring continuously all morning. The grinding climb, the sweeping mountain views, admiring the cacti, staring at the goats and cows and burros crossing under the highway with their wide-hatted keeper. Stopping toq eat guavas (for the price of what I usually leave in the Take A Penny Leave A Penny cup at the pharmacy), throwing my arms wide at the valley mountain vista spread out after a climbing curve. "I could be in an OFFICE right now at a COMPUTER," I crowed, as a small truck drove by and gave me strange looks. W

The last bit before Hierve el Aqua was a dusty descending track abundantly studded with hunky stones and gravel. I'm usually a road biker, so I feel especially sensitive to anything less smooth than velvet. But I gave into the gravity, even though it was like riding on Legos, and trusted in my fearless wide tires. There was no scenery gazing during that time, just concentrated focus on staying upright. The experience was so jouncy I felt my triceps flapping and I was amazed I still had any screws left in my bike

The super-saturated now stationary waterfall

The intestine-like formations near the pools

The top of the waterfall was a series of teal pools for swimming, set starkly against a steep drop into the valley. The Sierras loomed behind. Around the pools it appeared like someone's intestine, all with curved nooks and intricate cilia from the deposited, curving calcium bright against the teal water. It was surreal how beautiful it was. Like some brighter-than-life Pixar movie, set on another planet. 


I sat by the shade tree and was delighted to find a brigade of leaf cutter ants working on it. They zipped along the tree, the empty ones touching heads with the ones coming down hefting leaves, "tell me where I'm going again?" Regarding the whole scene, it was more like green shapes trundling along, the ants themselves barely visible. I felt like David Attenborough was right there with me, and I was so happy to be there. 


Along our ride there and back there were Agave crops growing roadside, for mescal yet. It is dry and dusty feeling here, like Arizona perhaps, cacti and blistered rock outcroppings. The Sierras rest in the distance, framing our passage into a desiccating wind. This place feels so foreign to me, from cold be-treed NY state. 

Beautiful Smashed Insects and Other Photos

Monday's ride began by following a totally becoming bicycle trail out of Oaxaca. It was down the center of the highway and totally charmed me.

The widest tree in the world! Arbol del Tule. It is a willow species. What an amazing creature. I love traveling by bicycle because we could get there to bask in it's awesome presence before the tour groups tumbled out of their buses.

So many scenes feel like the wild west. On our way into the town of Teotatlan de Valle, a village of weavers using only natural dyes for their craftmanship.

At the village of Teotatlan, we visited a women's cooperative weaving studio. All the dyes are from natural materials. Here she is holding a little wool bag, dyed with the color of smashed red insects in her palm. I was so taken by learning about this whole process, and it reminded me of playing incessantly in Rockville as a child, where we ground up bits of clay pot and made rock paintings.

Although I couldn't buy and carry this one on my bicycle, i gazed at the intricate delightful birds for as long as I could. Again, all these colors come from things from nature!

Cacti with mountain views. On one of the hillsides, near the ruins Yagul, we could see a petroglyph from the road.

Night aliveness

Puebla of Mitla

We are staying in the puebla of Mitla, a village near the ruins of the same name. 

The thing to do tonight is to eat snacks and hang out in the town square. I participated in this wholeheartedly, with a boiled ear of sweet corn stabbed with a hefty stick handle, spread with mayonnaise, and then dabbed thickly in flaky cheese and chili. I don't know what half these food items are called, and rarely are there menus. But I got by with some food voyeurism and then asking, "uno de eso, por favor." The corn was the most delicious corn. 

Other snacks are eaten, little cups of flan or torta sandwiches, and children run in groups or squeal in a tent of air hockey and arcade games. Two little ones are collecting dirt and stones in their shirt fronts and excitedly filling in a hole in the town square. The main event is a basketball game of various teams of teenage girls, a very enthusiastic announcer rolling his Rs and sounding to me just like an incomprehensible auctioneer.  Strings of lights hang in zigzags across the streets and little epiphytic plant puffs grasp the electric wires like spikey green pom-poms. Orange three wheeled tuk tuks with canvas roofs drive around, some playing music softly and none bothered me for a ride, bless them. A white pickup truck drives slowly by, police sitting upright in the back, automatic rifles in laps.  

This mix of seemingly anxiety-producing police presence and family fun seemed not to give anyone else a second glance. That just may be the way it is here. It could have made me feel nervous, but I have felt a general feeling of relaxation being here. Nobody has bothered me, I am mostly ignored, not stared at, and mostly the people who do interact with me are incredibly polite or encouraging.

Oaxaca city

I must also share about the night life in Oaxaca city. Nightlife while traveling has predominantly felt inaccessible to me, but there was something about Oaxaca that felt welcoming and compelling, a mix of locals and tourists. The Zocolo, the biggest town square, with a church and huge shady trees and benches, has restaurants and shops bordering it, and is the center of everything; it was such an alive place. This concept of a community space, like the Ithaca Commons, is enchanting to me, and seems to bring a simple richness to life, which comes from simply enjoying pleasures and relaxing and being human all together in the same place.

There's a Marimba band entertaining one particular restaurant but which can be enjoyed by half the square, enormous bunches of tacky balloons for sale, hawkers stretching scarves out to buy, two women dancing a sort of authentic looking dance outside the marimba band, large groups in suits or heels walking slowly and amicably. A couple on a bench completely involved with kissing, a small speed-walking boy offering beaded necklaces to the sitting relaxers, families sporting lengthy blow-up tube toys. The place feels like a fiesta, a giant party where everyone is invited, dressing up or not, with party favors of those large plastic balloon things, complete with live music, food and drink. Huge trees stand sentry over the whole experience. And a salsa brass band from across the park wafts thru to contrast with the marimba. 

A bicycle gang, ruins, and two boys

"I'll stand _near_ the shade", said Avid Alex, of our sparsely treed road with sharp sides and no other shade to be had. This was yesterday, and we had formed a bicycle gang, Avid Alex of Box Storage, my Serendipity Kathy, and Local Artist Wendy, a friend of Alex's. I felt the long-lost joy of wheels heightened by being in a group of us, pedaling along together. And with Alex as guide, we didn't have to spend time being lost. 

We started with a dusty bicycle trail (rails to trails! In Mexico!) along the highway, then through to a neighboring town, Atzompa. Having Artist Wendy along offered us a behind-the-scenes peek into a potter's workshop, one of her connections. The area is famous for green and black clay, sold in many shops along the road, and we stopped into a workshop of a Mrs Potter, with 9 children, all of whom crafted pottery also. Bowls, napkin holders, tiny intricate figurines, large surreal creatures. Somehow bicyclers and potters all got together for a huge family portrait. 

It was to be a very authentically Oaxaca day, for after the craftsmanship, we were off to the ruins of Atzompa. Which involved a huge shade-less climb, the ruins overlooking the valley, all high and extra holy in that way. 

Preparations for the Climb (with bicycle tour system commentary in parentheses):
I left my bike on the sidewalk, unsnapping from the handlebars my Crying Bag (with me at all times, containing phone, passport, money, and named thusly because if I lose it, I will cry. Also called: Executive Bag), and ducked into a shop breifly to get a cold orange drink and some Emergency Cookies (always have backup food and emergency backup food; packaged cookies purchased from a dusty uninteresting tienda are more likely to remain uneaten and thus available for when I really need them). 

"Hay agua?" I asked Mr Tienda, hopeful to fill up from the spigoted container behind him. "ah no, es mescal!" he said and we both laughed. THAT could have been the most surreal and sickening hill climb ever, ha. 

Then I came out to discover my bicycle gone. 

But turning the corner, I found Avid Alex about to load it into the back of a taxi. "Thought we might get a lift up and save us the time and heat of the day", he said. 

Absolutely no way was I going to cooperate with that.  

I explained: "It's been three days of nothing but enjoyment and pleasure! And now it's time for some suffering and earning." They could taxi up but I was going to ride. Everyone decided to ride anyway. 

So my first riding, after months of being off the bike, was heading 1000 feet up in a sun oven, at the elevation of Denver Colorado. Needless to say, I sounded like the bellows on an old pipe organ and got loopy on endorphins. I played in Spanish with Alex: "I'd like to eat patacones in Patagonia with peacones (pedestrians)!" 

At the top we took photos and gloried in ourselves and the views. I felt fabulous. I was so high on endorphins and the effort and the heat. I learned the words for climb (sube), optimistically small climb (subito), sweat (el sudor), and "I encourage you!" ("Animo!"). 

The ruins were basically deserted, just the sky, dry dusty ground, the unhampered wind, the ancient stones, and us. I got chills regarding the structures, especially having the place to myself. I sat alone for a while on a rock, gazing out over the valley view and watching the grass weeds on the ruins wave in the wind. Just meditating on the mind-boggling age of this place, and the tenacity of the people who built it up here. 

Lunch was at a little roadside place: a hot grill, a parrot, and a large loud television. The cook there grabbed a wad of corn dough from a block and smashed it in a press into a flat round tortilla. Then she took pumpkin blossoms, stringy squeaky cheese famous in Oaxaca, mushrooms, and beans and put them inside and folded it. A real empanada. 

Lunch cost $4. For three of us. Plus hibiscus drinks. Wow. So delicious and healthy and original-to-this-place feeling. 

After flying down from the ruins, served as bliss concentrate with a side of thrill, we climbed another 1,200 feet to another ruins, Monte Alban. Why not? When in Oaxaca, climb ruins, enjoy views of the valley, and then eat so well afterwards. 

For dinner we had vegetable mole, and Mrs Mole, patient for a while to answer our many questions about the many miles, ended up bringing us a plate with individual splots of all the different ones to try. Ones made with chocolate and chilies, some with chilies and sesame seeds, fruits and chilies...herbs. The variety of flavors continues to amaze me here. (A culture based off so much more than just different types of meat, like some of the places I've traveled before) We exclaim that each meal IS the best meal and that we just cannot wait to be hungry again. 

How is this much enjoyment and pleasure and experience even possible? I think Oaxaca may be evidence that heaven does exist. It's on earth though, here in southern Mexico. (I haven't even raved about the nightlife and live music and community commons space yet either!) 

 
This one made me laugh: 

I overheard one of the other hostel dwellers, an older gentleman who is an inspiration that one can still be out being adventurous at 70, ask Kathy:  "Are you traveling with two boys?" 

I heard Kathy respond, "No. But I am traveling with one woman. She has very short hair." 


Great. I've been mistaken for a lot in the past, but never before have I been two boys. I kinda like that.

We're a bicycle gang!

At the pottery studio, of black and green clay. This is the kiln.

Figurines, intricate and bizarre.

Regarding the weeds in the wind at the Aztompa temple, completely alone.

Hand-smashed corn hunk to make an empanada with squash blossoms in it. The string cheese pleases me hugely.

Endorphins and sun on the climb.

The massive jaw-slacking stretch of ruin complex that is Monte Alban.

Splats of tasting mole, a taste painters palette

Two Tornadoes: Oaxaca city

I woke up this morning and laughed; it was basically a one-night stand. We had just met and then slept in the same bed. 

After emails, phone calls, planning, and a lot of anticipation, my bicycling partner Kathy Retired Math Teacher from California and I united yesterday, at our pre-chosen meet spot of Hostel Pochon (sleeping arrangements in hostels are such that two beds are pushed together to make one large one, thus the sharing of sleeping space).

Amazingly, February 9th 2016 was the day we had randomly met in Colombia (meaningful only later, when she figured out this random girl on the warmshowers network was actually indeed the traveler she had chatted up in Colombia) and today is February 9th 2017. Exactly a year later.  

How was your journey?! When did you get here?! Can I see your bike? I can't wait to show you the town! I love your bag! You travel so light! I can't wait to go out for food! It's so beautiful here! It's so great to meet you! 

All these and more exploded out the moment we saw each other, and we didn't stop exclaiming and enthusing and eagerly interupting each other until we were both slack jawed upon seeing the full moon over the cathedral. 

S: (in a moment of observing)"We are like two tornados!"  
K: "I know! I get so excited! But you are more calm."
A: "But I am not, really. Which says something about YOU." 

Kathy is unapologetically outgoing, with expressive playful salt-n-pepper hair, wired with muscle. We're both incredibly excited to be in Oaxaca, in a blender of beautiful input from this place and enthusiastic output to each other: blender speed Liquidate, we're talking so fast. 

I simply don't have the words to describe the charm that is Oaxaca. Famous for its hot chocolate, mole, mescal, and architecture, I felt like I was in a national geographic upon seeing the full moon in the clear sky above the intricate cathedral last night. 5,000 feet above sea-level, mountains are visible stretched above the narrow brick streets, brightly painted orange and blue and pink houses are studded with wrought-ironq balconies. Parks and cathedrals are plentiful, lending itself to congregations of relaxing or busy humanity. The place is spotlessly clean and feels impeccably safe, locals and tourists padding about. The town was alive with music and lit streets last night; nightlife usually feels inaccessible to me when I travel, but I felt I couldq participate here. I sat on a wee cushy chair and had mescal and enjoyed a live bluesy-jazzy gig, Ms Blond Gloria Yoga Teacher introduced herself to me and shared tips about the town, she's been here 11 years. 

A crowd gathered in the dark around the cathedral: a drum-ful beatsy soundtrack played filling the park and echoing off the buildings as colored lights were projected in patterns on the stone edifice of the church. A humongous skull was traced, as if in the antiquated Paint on PC computers, then colored in with red, pink, blue. I gaped through the agave plants at this exhibit: never have I experienced art in this way, so central, on a church, edgy like Frida Kahlo, slightly macabre but not threatening, compelling because of the driving drums. 

Nighttime art on the cathedral, drum soundtrack fills the air as this skull is traced on the edifice

Accessible nightlife, beautiful humanity congregating in the plaza

Oaxaca is famous for its food: Kathy and i ate in this restaurant last night. I arbitrarily chose something from the Ensalada section and was served a tender bed of kale (Fred!) topped with grilled pina triangles individually wrapped in a local herb. And there were figs. Heaven.

The lights inset into the bricks indicate a bike lane

Assembled ikea-style from its box

I am finally no longer carting around a humongous wheely box. I'd arranged with a warmshowers host in Oaxaca to store it for the next 30 days for me. From the airport I caught a publico taxi to his house, dragged my box onto the front porch, and set about unpacking and reassembling as Avid Alex avidly talked to me during the entire process. Handlebars reconnected to front fork, seat slid back in, wheels coaxed into place and aligned, brakes adjusted, rack screwed into place.

How bizarre to mount and pedal and ride a mechanism that had just been in a pile. I hooked on my paniers and rode into town (like a fledgling bird, astounded at itself in first flight) to find my hostel and meet Kathy, box happily left behind.

I am so grateful the bike had traveled well and that the assembly was straightforward and that Avid Alex would store my box and that I am in this excuisite town.

Mexico City, both expansive and smashed

A day spent exploring Mexico City. 

From the sidewalk I smelled the coiling beckoning waft of hot baked wheat. With practically no volition of my own I stepped into a tiny bakery. I wound around the woman hefting a massive wooden spatula into an oven, and regarded the shelves of buns. No prices, no labels, no instructions. But I found a tray and some tongs and chose a flakey log. She wrapped it deftly in a square of plastic, swinging it in the air to twist the ends, and asked for seis pesos. 

Which is 30 cents. I'd need ten times that for a small flakey log in Ithaca. 

Good thing I'll be biking so much or else I might turn into a flakey flubby log myself. 

I set out for the metro, to ride into the Roma/Condeza neighborhoods, across the city from where I was staying by the airport. My ticket cost my 5 pesos, which is 25 cents. (you can tell I am enjoying the price points of things here)

The metro slapped and swayed along the track while a woman stroked mascara on her lashes. I was a head taller than all and afforded superb people watching. But I am also constantly poking thru the clouds of my experience to realize, oh my goodness I am in Mexico City. Riding the metro. When I was a child, I slid out the heavy M volume of our encyclopedia and read about Mexico City in awe and disgust. The most populous city area in the world. This fascinated me at 10. I never, ever, ever, envisioned myself going there, though. Which makes me all the more thrilled to be here now. 

Spider Plants, much?

I think this is someone's garbage collection system, on wheels, believe it or not.

The Roma neighborhood felt expansive and unhurried, totally unlike what most of us imagine Mexico City to feel like.

The color and decorations around this city, just for the sake of expression, makes me happy

A taco from a covered wheeled taco stand, the businessmen in nice shoes congregating around, a stack of flimsy paper napkins suspended in a hanging dispense system. A selection of toppings--from glistening fried onions to guacamole to blackened jalapenos--were arrayed in little covered pans to go with. I ordered something that I didn't know what it was, Nopal Con Queso, and was served what looked like flaccid canned greenbeans. But tasted tangy and beguiling. My next guess was roasted green pepper? No matter: tasty, filling, 75 cents, with bottomless quacamole for my own helping.

I had eaten cactus for lunch, I learned later.

I sat there on a stool on the sidewalk, sucking air through my over-spiced mouth (the guacamole here is CALIENTE), blowing my nose into one of the flimsy napkins, and feeling utterly present and alive and so happy to be in my situation. I was also completely ignored by all the men, which I hugely appreciated, except for being asked if I wanted something to drink. I did not, but I watched every single one of the others choose a glass bottle of cold colored sugar water to go with their tacos. They popped the caps onto the sidewalk and wiped the rim with one of those napkins.

There are systems here like this, this sugar water ritual, wholly simple and unnoticed, but to me I am fascinated.

I bought a tangerine from a stall, eager frugivore that i am, and the stallkeeper gave me my change and said as I left, "De nada. Yes. Hello!"

Dogs are hugely popular in the Roma neighborhood; this man's pack was especially varied.

Poopy hair. For my cowlick days.

The golden oldies

Smash hour selfie

I knowingly rode the metro at rush hour, which is unadvised by the guide books because that is smash hour. It was like stepping into a wall of bodies. The door slid closed upon me, and there were still bums and elbows sticking out; this was enough activation energy to get me into the interstitial spaces of the smash however. Handles were not accessible but I didn't really need one. The press of bodies was enough to keep me afloat. Plus, I could reach up and steady myself by pressing against the ceiling, which no one does.

I had a lovely conversation in that pile, with a Hispanic man from Seattle. What a small world, even in that tight world.