Adventures of a Sun Seeker: Day 1: Perhaps the Oklahoma Panhandle

After arrival into the tiny airport of Tampico (the smallest customs affair I've ever been processed thru), I was graciously brought to the home of Ellie's Dad's sister-in-laws' friends place (got that?), and was fed a shrimp empanada and given my own room for me and my bike in their sweet small house. Reuniting with Ellie there and staying with these kind people was so incredibly soul-warming. The next morning there was coffee brewed with cinnamon (delicioso!), eggs, beans, and avocado together with nopal cactus. We all sat and talked about roads and food and laughed about my bad Spanish and then their house keeper noticed the biscuit man driving his wares past and went into the street and came back with fresh tender biscuits for us. More breakfast! Delicious biscuits and enjoying good company made for a late start for our first day, but it was lovely to bask in it for a bit.

Today we rode 62 kilometers from Tampico (or: Tampon, if you're me and overheated and sun-punchy) to Ebano (or: Ebola). Leaving the city was all industrial grunge, cement yards and trash and refineries and dust. But pedaled forward and this faded into low shrubby land, ranches, lagoons and rivers. The terrain was flat, range-land mostly, and the area comes recommended on no tourist websites. We were the only foreigners, and definitely the only short-haired biking girls. I had a sense we were traveling through the Oklahoma Panhandle of Mexico perhaps, oil and cattle and poverty and closed non-functional bathrooms and heat and flatness.

So it's 1pm, the heat of the day, and the road is pinched narrow and flooded with traffic. Scrubby bushes leaned in at us as we kept a look out for trucks. Then: Pssssssssss. That terribly triggering sound of anxiety for bicyclists. Ellie's rear wheel. There probably could be no worse place to get a flat tire, on this monorail with no pull-offs. But there was a culvert with a cement roof over it, decked out with rebar, and we lugged the changing operation up there. Putting the rear wheel back in it's socket: "getting the back in is always the hardest", Ellie said. "Let's see if this worked", and she gave the wheel a spin. A glob of brushy grasses lodged themselves in the spokes. "Or not," said Ellie, almost laughing at the absurdity and continued inconvenience of the situation. Then I fell thigh-deep into a hole hidden in the big grasses and marveled at how positive we had both managed to stay through this. I love Ellie's approach, one of appreciating the absurdity of something, staying light and positive.

The highway crossed with another highway and at this cross roads we took a 3pm rest break. The place was a couple of clapped-together shops, a trash pile, and a covered bus stop. Utterly unremarkable, but felt somehow a timeless scene. People going about their days with no apparent rush or bother. Buses came and went, women in low heels carried grocery bags across the dust and pavement, teenage girls sat and waited for buses staring into their cell phone worlds. A little girl was bought an ice cream cone. Little boys charged up and down the sidewalk. A bony dog gnawed on a surprisingly hefty find of garbage, and a one-eyed cat with a striped tail wistfully watched the little girl with the ice cream cone. We two gringos sat on the edge of the ice cream shop floor in a line of shade and ate ice cream and frozen chocolate coated bananas, and were entirely ignored.

Here in the Oklahoma Panhandle we are staying in Ébano (named from ebony, the tropical tree), and who's municipal welcome sign noted it was the origin of Mexico's petroleum. It also boasts many beer shops, lots of truck traffic, and a hotel for us with a pool, potted plants, and rooms for $16. Nobody else is at this hotel, and there is drinking water and good wifi, and all is well.

Tomorrow we are both eager to head towards the Sierra Gorda range. I can't wait to have something rise out of the flatness, the challenging and compelling mountains, us rolling toward them with infinitesimal and steady gains.